Slashdot Mirror
Forecasting Doomsday
Boccaccio writes "James Lovelock, the planetary scientist famous for his Gaia Theory, writes in today's Independent of his belief that it is already too late to divert an environmental catastrophe which will see much of human civilisation destroyed. Fearing it too late to be green, he instead suggests communities plan for survival in a Mad Max type world with limited resources ruled by violent warlords. "We have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise how little time is left to act, and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can." He suggests we should be writing a practical guidebook printed on long lasting paper containing "the basic accumulated scientific knowledge of humanity.""
First off, the "climate centres" around the world aren't the equivalent to a pathology lab. This is a bad analogy. Pathology is a science that is fairly solid. There is a pathogen or there isn't, we may miss it but we sure are good at diagnosing it if you have it. More importantly, pathologists can agree with each other.
With the status of the environment, no one agrees with anyone else. The world is ending on one end while the U.S. government isn't too concerned with it at the time. James Lovelock is certain we're doomed while Michael Chrichton is giving speeches detailing environmentalism as a religion.
Who do we believe? The physician or the author? I don't think either are adequately qualified to make the call.
I can understand articles urging us to cut back on emissions or asking everyone to support the Kyoto Treaty. What I don't understand is how this article can be constructive. I read it and it tells me to drive to Wal-Mart as fast as possible and buy a gun and five shells so that I can rob said Wal-Mart of all guns and shells for my basement armory.
I'm not sure whether to read this as honest opinion or a hilarious satire reminiscent of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
Can anyone please tell me what Mr. Lovelock hoped to gain from this article other than creating hysteria among his fans and receiving "nut job" status from those who disagree with him? Oh, I'm sure that will be a fair and unbiased scientific look at the state of the environment that everyone will love. Why must people make such polarizing comments? Can't they see how many people they alienate with one fell swoop? He could have gotten the same message across without the drama.
My work here is dung.
And people think us Christ followers are bonkers.
This Revenge of Gaia stuff is pure fiction -- but it does sell books. I've been called a doomer-and-gloomer for my opinions over the past 10 years. I'm an avid gold bug, I hate the idea of working as a salaried employee, and I believe in owning land both in urban areas as well as rural areas. You can buy 100 acres of land dirt cheap still in many parts of the U.S.
I don't believe we'll see a Mad Max style world. There is so much land available in the entire globe that I don't see how warlords can use the strength of weapons to take over. The reason we see "chaos" in Somalia is because there is an existing infrastructure that people want to utilize. In this Gaia-chaos vision, there wouldn't be. People who survive would not be anywhere near the billions we have today, and a family of 10 can easily survive even on a near-desert piece of property.
I don't believe we'll see the water of the world undrinkable, I don't believe we'll see the air of the world unbreathable. Humans are a minor part of the balance -- if we do something so bad that billions will perish, we won't be able to continue doing "harm" and the planet will recuperate itself -- quickly, too. The worst catastrophes that could happen would not necessarily be environmental ones but ones dealing with war. Anything we do slowly to the environment will be quickly absorbed and returned to normal -- the so called circle of life. It is the things we can do quickly that would be the most devastating. Nuclear wars come to mind as one possible catastrophe that we couldn't resolve in less than a century.
Even if we did collapse into an chaotic anarchy (opposite of the capitalist anarchy that I promote), weapons wouldn't last without an infrastructure to maintain them. Once all the bullets are expelled or all the maintenance fluids are used up, most weapons are useless. You can't fight a global war with knives, and you can defend yourself much easier in communities against warlords if you take the machine guns and flamethrowers out of the equation. War is one of the most inefficient ways to gain wealth -- it requires millions of people deciding to give up their wealth in exchange for no profitable gain. In fact, I believe war requires democracy.
I wish Julian Simon was still kicking. That guy would offer Lovelock a great debate (and likely win it, too). Simon showed that more people means more wealth, more innovation and long lives for everyone. Look at China. They were on the verge of overpopulation, but it wasn't the mass numbers that was killing them -- it was government and communism. The freer they get, the longer they live, the happier they live, and this lets them live long enough to get Parkinson's, cancers and other diseases that keep us from living forever. Communism offered them shortened lives with no reason to want to live -- freedom gives everyone a reason to work together to try to live longer together.
In the end, I see the only doomsday here being empire and government. Nuclear war won't happen any other way. I don't believe we'll ever get to the Mad Max scenario unless we allow ourselves to continue to arm the elite with weapons of mass destruction. We should work at arming our own households, investing in bountiful properties, creating communities of people who love one another but are no adverse to profit or personal gain.
The environment continues to fix itself -- yesterday's doomsdayers are silent because they were wrong. Today's will be silent tomorrow -- they'll be wrong, too.
He suggests we should be writing a practical guidebook printed on long lasting paper...
Won't creating more paper just hasten the coming apocalypse? Hopefully it's at least post-consumer chlorine-free recycled paper printed with soy-based ink.
Bradley Holt
I can't wait! (Omits comment re: warlord overlords)
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
> Mad Max type world with limited resources ruled by violent warlords.
Check.
Bin laden trains guys to smash planes into buildings, killing 3000 of civilians.
Bush raises the ante by dropping bombs onto Iraq (a country with no relation to Bin laden, but plenty of oil), killing 30,000 -> 100,000 civilians!
What'll happen next? Keep tuned!
Fearing it too late to be green, he instead suggests communities plan for survival in a Mad Max type world with limited resources ruled by violent warlords.
I agree, the Mad Max contains too much meat. By violent warlords, do you mean the restaurant manager?
People have been predicting the end of the world due to environment destruction for years. What gets me is that most 'intellectuals' will scoff at christians but listen seriously to these people.
My blog
I realize it's Monday, but it must be one hell of a slow news day...
It's really too bad that James Lovelock is perceived as a bit of a nutball in the scientific community...global climate change is a real and accelerating problem (the duplicitious yammerings of the naysayers and industrial apologists notwithstanding), and it needs to have more serious attention focused upon it. I fear that all Lovelock's doomsaying will accomplish is the opposite.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Thanks to Hollywood, I now know that the end result of "nature getting pissed" will be 3 gigantic ice hurricanes which move entirely independent of the earths rotation, freezing anything underneath instantly, and the only way to avoid these are to flee down south.
Of course, movies fail to show what actually ever happens in Canada (where I'm from), thus it is my belief in this scenario we would only notice but a small drop in temperature and continue going about our merry ways in our much more winter-adapted persona's.
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
After doomsday strikes, who do you want to be?
- Water pirates ****
- Mad Max ***********
- The kids beyond Thunderdome *
- CowboyNeal ***
Firsat it will require the collapse of governments first. Or an all out nuclear war.
personally i love the idea of welding plates all over a full size van and outfitting it with turrets and rocket launchers, but then I drive on 696 every morning and am sure that the morons in the BMW's and lexuses and pickups really do need to die.
Billions of years ago, when the day was 23 hours long, there was no oxygen in the air and hence no ozone. The surface of the earth would have killed any land based animals pretty quickly.
Over time, life transformed the atmosphere and soon after plants and animals started to come out of the sea and started to prosper on land. Billions of years past and today we're sat here with laptop's contemplating what to do about climate change. I personally think that a large chunk of climate change has been caused by humans. I also agree with the scientist that we've already past the point of no return - so the question is not how we can stop climate change but how we can cope with it.
Personally, I think the climate disaster will be very bad for bio-diversity but have a negligable effect on humanity. I often go to Florida on my holiday from the foggy and cold waste lands of the UK :). The heat in Florida is at times unbearable but it
matters not because air conditioning is in nearly every building. If I get too hot, I just go inside.
As the oceans expand and the sea level rises, people will simply move further up the shore. When islands disappear, people will be unhappy but they quickly build new lives in new countries. When crops fail to grow in some countries they will replace the crops with others that grow in those climates. If they've really got money to burn they'll genetically engineer plants that are resistant to the heat. When oil prices start their long climb to unaffordability other technologies will take up the batton. Suddenly the economy will start to allocate resources to bypass the damage that the price-hike induces. Life will go on as normal.
I think we're heading for a mass extinction event - of that I am certain - but is highly unlikely we will feel the pinch. These are interesting times to be alive.
Simon
world with limited resources ruled by violent warlords.
We're already there...
Trolling is a art,
communities plan for survival in a Mad Max type world with limited resources ruled by violent warlords.
We're already pwned by violent warlords!-
One Bush President
- Two Bush Governors
- A Governator
Ack!He suggests we should be writing a practical guidebook printed on long lasting paper containing "the basic accumulated scientific knowledge of humanity."
So he means like my physics, math, and biology textbooks?
My books will last forever...
They are extremely heavy, have never / wont ever get used. They practically re-sealed themselves after I purchesed them from the bookstore!
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
The write-up neglects to mention all this breathless hyperbole is associated with a book release.
I think the success of Day After Tomorrow is spawning a revival of enviro disaster fiction and non-fiction. Sort of a liberal version of Left Behind.
He suggests we should be writing a practical guidebook printed on long lasting paper containing "the basic accumulated scientific knowledge of humanity
Why don't we stamp it into something a bit tougher like tungsten or titanum....or the back of Dubya's head
Calling for printing out a few dozen pages from Wikipedia, some medical history book, and a lifetime's amount of porn? (It'd make good bartering fodder for the Thunderdome wannabes!
And they said zombies weren't real!
I think we're all blind to the massive changes that have occured and the vast momentum that exists; the massive danger is of activating entirely unforeseen new climatic mechanisms which will terribly exacerbate the consequences of our actions.
An example of this is the shutting down of the Gulf Stream, which in due course, will render Europe as cold as North America. The consequences of this are beyond imagination and it is but one of many potential known unknowns.
I think we're screwed; the political structures we have in place are suitable for maintaining the status quo and only respond to external crisis' when they are so desperately pressing that they *will* destroy the status quo unless dealt with.
Such a response is of course fundamentally broken when the crisis has no pressing effects until far, far past the time when action can be taken to avert the disaster.
welcome our new road warriors overlords...
But the thing that kills me about these theories is that they make human existance seem like some anamolous event that all in all was just plain bad news for the rest of the planet. I feel like they make us out to be the 'virus' that Agent Smith describes humanity as in The Matrix.
Anybody else feel that way when the tree hugging hippies come out to talk?
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
Fear is the most powerful human motivator. It invokes our desire to preserve our own life. God only knows how many times I have been nearly crushed by the fear of the bad thing happening only to find that the bad thing was not nearly as painful as the fear.
Fearmongers have long known this and exploited it in order to gain power, money, and attention. This wicked priest is no different than other wicked priests of other superstitious faiths who have tried to emotionally rape you for their own personal benefit. Resist him as you do all others. Use your power of observation and your rational mind in order to make good choices for the future.
And yes, this clown is, in fact, preaching a religion. "Gaia" is the "goddess earth". It is nothing more than blatant superstitious garbage with an enviro-friendly sheen. If you want to stand up for the environment, then go knock yourself out. It doesn't justify giving this fool anything except ascerbic mockery, and it certainly doesn't justify attempting to inspire fear in other people.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
He suggests we should be writing a practical guidebook printed on long lasting paper containing "the basic accumulated scientific knowledge of humanity."
Send a bunch of scientists off to a deserted island and have them write the Encyclopedia Tera?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Our country really is balanced on a delicate edge. Since we have recently completely lost any semblance of morals (witness the implicit approval of torture in Gitmo and Iraq, as well as the use of nuclear weapons against other countries; have you heard anyone on the news saying nukes are definitely never going to be used? look back a decade or two and the tone is completely different). I feel that many people in our country have become so demonic that if they were given the opportunity they would run wild.
Another thing: war and combat does not require projectile weapons. Baseball bats and knives are just as effective against defenseless targets. Sure, maybe you have a handgun or two, but what good is that going to do against 50 armed hoodlums?
All I'm asking for is that it ends before tomorrow's deadline.
Or do you subscribe to Heinlein and his survivor stories like Farnham's Freehold?
With the various governments' movements to ban guns and such I'm beginning to smell a conspiracy theory here somewhere :)
Me? I'll probably be one of the first ones to die when I can't get the drugs that keep me alive - of course Darwin is at work there too. "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and "go lemmings!" are my two favourite catch-phrases.
Been there, done that, paid for the T-shirt
and didn't get it
Does this mean we're all going to turn into Mel Gibson and Tina Turner lookalikes?
God bless antipodean post-apocalyptic sci-fi: Mad Max, The Quiet Earth, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert...
"Who are you gonna believe? Me, or your lying eyes?"
Just getting off a week of +5-10C weather, in January, in Toronto. (40-50F for the Americans.) That is really, really atypical.
So is the 28 days of rain the west coast just received.
So is the 13 feet of snow in Japan.
Its unsettling.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
You know the anthropic universe principle? That the universe seems fine tuned for life? Well I have another theory that is that yes, the universe is fine-tuned for life, but its also fine-tuned so that life has a remote chance of making it off the planet and colonising the universe as seen in science fiction. The universe is in fact fine tuned just so that it can create sentient life that can consider its mortality, dream of conquering the cosmos, but then not being able to because fundamental physics just gets in the way...
I call this the misanthropic universe principle...
world with limited resources ruled by violent warlords
Oil & Bush & Co. anyone?
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Well gloom and doom nonwithstanding. I would recommend more independence between humans, and society in general anyway.
While I'm here I would also recommend reading:
Rx for survival, why we must rise to the global health challenge by Philip Hilts.
An angle on Globalization most ignore.
"Oh, I'm sure that will be a fair and unbiased scientific look at the state of the environment that everyone will love. Why must people make such polarizing comments? Can't they see how many people they alienate with one fell swoop? He could have gotten the same message across without the drama."
It's OK when slashdotters do it, but not OK when an author does it.
As always, by the time it gets even one tenth as bad as the dark prophet preaches, bigger minds than I will be panicky enough to do something about it. I do enough for the environment today for one consciencious person, and gently urge others to do likewise, but that's all that needs doing.
Sounds like an interesting project to me. How long would the section on, uh, ecological issues be? If it were any longer than the section on religion, I wouldn't read it :p I mean come on, the article talks about humans being the central nervous system of Gaia. "Not that I want to start a flamewar here," but let's call a duck, a duck, and move on. This guy's a quack, moving on...
Well the shock factor is amusing, it sounds to me like he's watching too many movies. We're going to be living in a Mad Max world, and we should make a guidebook ala Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Take the advice of the latter. Don't Panic.
On a side note, I think it would have been a more interesting read if he'd mixed in the plots of Army of Darkness and Debbie Does Dallas.
Lighten up. Its only a post.
...uh...nevermind...I forgot where I was going with this joke anyways
A goal is a dream with a deadline
So, basically, I should hoard a bunch of gas and build a bad-ass gas-hog car with a super charger and a nitrous intake. got it. I'll get right on that.
This is interesting:
"It was ill luck that we started polluting at a time when the sun is too hot for comfort. We have given Gaia a fever and soon her condition will worsen to a state like a coma."
So he's saying that the output of the sun is one part of the global warming phenomenon, and that human-caused pollution is another. I partially agree with this, though I think the sun has a bigger part of it than he might.
But then he says:
"By failing to see that the Earth regulates its climate and composition, we have blundered into trying to do it ourselves, acting as if we were in charge. By doing this, we condemn ourselves to the worst form of slavery. If we chose to be the stewards of the Earth, then we are responsible for keeping the atmosphere, the ocean and the land surface right for life. A task we would soon find impossible - and something before we treated Gaia so badly, she had freely done for us." (emphasis added)
Wait, if it's "impossible" for us to regulate the environment, doesn't it logically follow it is equally impossible for us to change it?? He seems to be saying "We've destroyed it, but we don't have the power to fix it." That's completely inconsistent.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
This so-called scientist is meerly promoting his own ideas and book. His "theory" that the earth is a living being is humorous.
If the man had "published" on slashdot, he would be marked a TROLL, marginalized, and maligned.
Help end the use of Sigs. Tomorrow
The religion prosletizing of the "Global Warming" cult has failed to curtail economic freedom and development, slow scientific innovation and halt human progress.
Knowing no other approach, these forces are taking it up another notch.
Methinks we witness the birth of a new religion: "Global Death".
Don't worry, "doomsday" is actually just another word for the technological singularity.
Take a look at this. There's still plenty of human birthing to take place - it's just the world as we know it which will end Friday, November 13, 2026. And good riddance says I!
well, good riddance to some of it. I like the majority of how the world is right now - there's just a couple little problems like war, famine and the like that I would like to strike off the issue board.
Are you totally ignorant? Humans rely on biodiversity. You can't get rid of the system of which we are part, and expect it not to have a savage impact.
International terrorism, global warming, peak oil, massive debt, nuclear proliferation, US president as eternal Commander-in-Chief.
No problem! Pass the popcorn...
Be heard || Be herd
It seems to me that humanity has a tendency to fall into two intellectual traps:
I do believe both attitudes are just wrong. The future holds a lot of promises, but also a lot of challenges. There are international mechanisms in place to deal with global warming, for instance: that's what the Kyoto Protocol is all about.
Peak Oil may be very bad -- I do expect a lot of economic suffering ahead -- but it may also be our best chance to get rid of polluting hydrocarbons, and turn to ultra-efficiency and renewable energies. These, in turn, will have the added effect of lowering global warming and overall pollution.
Another example of this is nuclear war and MAD: it did not happen, probably because intelligent people on both sides understood the terrifying consequences. That also means we are stuck with thousands and thousands of nukes that need to be decommissioned and possibilities of proliferation, but that, too, can be taken care of.
So: ignoring problems is just as bad as putting your head in the sand and pretending everything is A-OK. What Winston Churchill used to say about Americans really apply to the whole human race: "They will always choose the right solution... but only after trying every other one". We may suffer in the short run, but the nimbleness, adaptability and intelligence of human beings mean they will come out all right in the end. Our problem is that we always take the short view and the easy solution first, instead of the long-term view and making the necessary sacrifices right now, instead of tomorrow.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Day One - The War With Iran
By Douglas Herman
The war began as planned. The Israeli pilots took off well before dawn
and streaked across Lebanon and northern Iraq, high above Kirkuk. Flying
US-made F-15 and F-16s, the Israelis separated over the mountains of
western Iran, the pilots gesturing a last minute show of confidence in
their mission, maintaining radio silence.
Just before the sun rose over Tehran, moments before the Muslim call to
prayer, the missiles struck their targets. While US Air Force AWACS
planes circled overhead--listening, watching, recording--heavy US
bombers followed minutes later. Bunker-busters and mini-nukes fell on
dozens of targets while Iranian anti-aircraft missiles sped skyward.
The ironically named Bushehr nuclear power plant crumbled to dust.
Russian technicians and foreign nationals scurried for safety. Most did
not make it.
Targets in Saghand and Yazd, all of them carefully chosen many months
before by Pentagon planners, were destroyed. The uranium enrichment
facility in Natanz; a heavy water plant and radioisotope facility in
Arak; the Ardekan Nuclear Fuel Unit; the Uranium Conversion Facility and
Nuclear Technology Center in Isfahan; were struck simultaneously by USAF
and Israeli bomber groups.
The Tehran Nuclear Research Center, the Tehran Molybdenum, Iodine and
Xenon Radioisotope Production Facility, the Tehran Jabr Ibn Hayan
Multipurpose Laboratories, the Kalaye Electric Company in the Tehran
suburbs were destroyed.
Iranian fighter jets rose in scattered groups. At least those Iranian
fighter planes that had not been destroyed on the ground by swift and
systematic air strikes from US and Israeli missiles. A few Iranian
fighters even launched missiles, downing the occasional attacker, but
American top guns quickly prevailed in the ensuing dogfights.
The Iranian air force, like the Iranian navy, never really knew what hit
them. Like the slumbering US sailors at Pearl Harbor, the pre-dawn,
pre-emptive attack wiped out fully half the Iranian defense forces in a
matter of hours.
By mid-morning, the second and third wave of US/Israeli raiders screamed
over the secondary targets. The only problem now, the surprising
effectiveness of the Iranian missile defenses. The element of surprise
lost, US and Israeli warplanes began to fall from the skies in
considerable numbers to anti-aircraft fire.
At 7:35 AM, Tehran time, the first Iranian anti-ship missile destroyed a
Panamanian oil tanker, departing from Kuwait and bound for Houston.
Launched from an Iranian fighter plane, the Exocet split the ship in
half and set the ship ablaze in the Strait of Hormuz. A second and third
tanker followed, black smoke billowing from the broken ships before they
blew up and sank. By 8:15 AM, all ship traffic on the Persian Gulf had
ceased.
US Navy ships, ordered earlier into the relative safety of the Indian
Ocean, south of their base in Bahrain, launched counter strikes. Waves
of US fighter planes circled the burning wrecks in the bottleneck of
Hormuz but the Iranian fighters had fled.
At 9 AM, Eastern Standard Time, many hours into the war, CNN reported a
squadron of suicide Iranian fighter jets attacking the US Navy fleet
south of Bahrain. Embedded reporters aboard the ships--sending live
feeds directly to a rapt audience of Americans just awakening--reported
all of the Iranian jets destroyed, but not before the enemy planes
launched dozens of Exocet and Sunburn anti-ship missiles. A US aircraft
carrier, cruiser and two destroyers suffered direct hits. The cruiser
blew up and sank, killing 600 men. The aircraft carrier sank an hour later.
By mid-morning, every military base in Iran was partially or wholly
destroyed. Sirens blared and fires blazed from hundreds of fires.
Explosions rocked Tehran and the electrical power failed. The Al
Jazeerah news station in Tehran took a direct hit
It's amazing how frequently these types of papers are released and how wrong they always are. Rene Jules Dubos, an environmentalist at SUNY, once, in a book (one of many) documenting the environmental damage Man had wreaked wrote "Wherever human beings are involved, trend is never destiny because life starts anew for them, with each new sunrise."
The point that Dubos made, repeatedly over decades, is that there have been doomsday predictions for hundreds of years in the Western world, from when the Black Forest was gutted, to when Jamaica Bay was more polluted than the Cuyahoga, to predictions regarding the environmental consequences of population growth made by several since-discredited economists. Yet in each and every circumstance, as technology advances and our knowlege, understanding, and wisdom of how the Earth operates has improved, Mankind has not only stopped the madness, but reversed the damage as well.
In fact, following the law of unintended consequences, many times after Man has botched things up, nature, storing in her litle finger more power to impose her will than Man could inflict in ten thousand lifetimes, has taken care of the problem herself.
The fact that we don't understand, and can't calculate the healing power of Mom Na isn't her fault. However, making this sort of idiotic statement just proves that we're too ignorant to have the right to make them.
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
Never forget: 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
Is a 73 Ford Falcon, then a sawed off shotgun, and a leather outfit ... hmmm
Then I should be all set for Doomsday!
I think Jared Diamond's Collapse offers an informative look on how the enviroment and our impact on the same plays a role in the success and potential collapse of civilizations. It is still bleak in areas, but not outright hopeless.
What bothers me about this article is that it closes with the following: "So let us be brave and cease thinking of human needs and rights alone." (bold my emphasis). Perhaps this is a poor choice of words and I've misread them. But, I don't believe that the pursuit of our basic needs and the preservation of our rights has as much to do with harming the enviroment as does sating our every want, whatever form it takes. Or, it could be the quasi-religious zeal with which he paints Gaia's wrath. Or, maybe it was that I read half-way through the article before hitting the part about the author's new book, and realized this was an advertisement.
I need to get my leather chaps, spiked codpiece and chain mail before doomsday hits and everyone runs out to the market to buy them.
Too bad there's not much growth in fear mongering now. Y2K really killed the cottage industry of predicting the end of the world - not much room for growth until a generation or two comes along who did not experience the monumental hype-up for, and the consequent ABSOLUTELY NOTHING of Y2K. I can't even remember any interesting doomsday theories since Y2K, although I guess a few people have predicted stuff just to keep their hand in it for when an opportunity comes along. Most of the stuff is penny-ante after the nuclear age and Y2K. Hard to come up with something scary enough to motivate people into action (which is usually emptying their pockets!). So dump any stock you own in fear mongering enterprises... I can't predict, but there will probably be a round of cult growth before we get back to fear mongering. I've noticed the TM people taking out ads for "peace palaces" in the NY Times.
1 man leave
Two men enter, one man leaves.
History (all of it) ahows us that things usually don't happen all at once. A huricane here, a melting glacier there, a rise in sea levels and a little less ozone and viola! Global Disaster(tm). We're more than few decades here, like two hundred or so, not a sudden lasting change. Peddle your mini-series somewhere else!
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
Glad I kept all my Y2k preps! Bring on the Mad-Max scenario! Bring on the purple spikey-haired mutants! You'll all be drinking dog urine out of rusty hubcaps soon enough!
I'd go with an older Kawasaki instead, it would be cheaper to get running, rquire less fuel, and be far cooler!
I've got my Kz400 all set for the wastelands!
He suggests we should be writing a practical guidebook printed on long lasting paper containing "the basic accumulated scientific knowledge of humanity."
So, he's saying we need to set up a Foundation to start work on the Encyclopedia Galactica?
Perhaps he's a psychohistorian. Perhaps just an historical psycho.
Either way, he reads too much Clarke.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
I tihnk he's about 3 years too late, 20 if you count the planning stages. What do you think Iraqi Freedom is, a field trip?
Like it or not, US cannot maintain even a semblence of her current economy without cheap oil. Even our food production is heavily oil based--from fertilization, mechanized harvesting, to transportation.
One way to prevent a Mad Max type situation is to guarantee oil supplies from a foreign source, backed by military force and strong border security (a la a big FENCE).
Another way is to invest in alternative energy, and reduce consumption (a la change "our way of life").
Which is better? That depends on who was/is/will be our President.
In Soviet Russia, articles before post read *you*!
years ago there was a series of books called the FoxFire series.
although they could use some refining they have a wealth of practical how to's.
i've always thought they should be expanded to cover more current and modern applications.
He may be probably right, but that article is a book ad and virtually says nothing.
Your comments are, for the most part, spot-on.
"Gaia" is the "goddess earth". It is nothing more than blatant superstitious garbage with an enviro-friendly sheen.
The term "Gaia" was borrowed from the ancient Greek gods, but no more so than Pluto or Mars. The concept is, that as cells make up an organism, and many organisms an ecosystem, many ecosystems make up a still larger system. "Gaia" sounds all new-agey, but in reality, it is nothing more than the extent of all life on earth.
It's not superstitious garbage; it is quite valid to think that destroying the rain forest in Southeast Alaska will have profound effects on New York City, or Moscow for that matter. Then to imagine that the total biosphere can heal itself after a catastrophe is also valid. That is, the environment affects not only the evolution of species, but evolution of species also affects the environment.
Gaia was, perhaps, a poor choice of terms. But "superecosystem" sounds stupid, and isn't as catchy, and doesn't intimate the self-regulating nature of the total biosphere.
The thought that all life on earth is a single organism with conscious thought is a little silly. Not many people truly believe that, though. In my experience, most people believe in some weaker form of the Gaia hypothesis-- that even if we humans fuck up so badly we destroy our environment and kill off tens of thousands of species (including humanity), the earth will go on, heal itself, and new species will crop up to replace the old ones.
Other than that: yeah, I think Sir Lovelock is being a bit extremist in his fears. It's kind of like during the five years leading up to 2000; too damned many people thought civilisation was going to collapse, when most of us in the IT trenches knew everything was going to be fine. The didn't stop Edward Yourdon from shooting off his mouth and selling some books, but there will always be people who expect the worst.
The people who scare me, though, are those who want the worst to happen.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Jeez I'm old.
I remember this same meme being around in the early 60's --- it was nuclear war then --- and in the mid-70's, with The Limits to Growth. Oh, and don't forget The Population Bomb. The expected date is always in the potential lifetime of younger readers, but comfortably in the future for older ones, and so far (note that you're reading this) it always fails to happen.
Oh, and one other thing: the person pushing the theory is always selling something. A book, money for "further research," something.
Hands on your wallets, kids.
Damn.
Whos turn is it to be Jesus ?
Can we use our writers this time ?
I think you'll all agree that King James screwed too many things up last time.
If we can't use our writers, at least keep his ass away from the alcohol, we don't need any burning bushes getting the kids hooked on mushrooms this time.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
The pentagon commissioned this study entitled An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security
Sounds like what he's done is created a simple faraday cage..
BTM
Eventually the changes will be big enough that even W-like people will get a clue and start to do something about it. Perhaps a giant space-based sun shield may be built. Sure it would cost something like 5 trillion dollars, but if each nation chips in it can be done. The Iraq war is probably gonna cost us 1 trillion, so 5 trillion is not a huge leap.
Table-ized A.I.
Space probe causes dead to walk in Utah
That was actually done in the 1950s, as part of the US fallout shelter program. A large, useful collection of technical and historical knowledge was put on microfilm. Thousands of copies were made, boxed up with simple readers, and distributed to fallout shelters. They're really hard to find now.
Check out the DVD series "The Future is Wild". Each disc features a different point in the future - 5 million years, 100 million years, 200 million years. Those millions of years is a long time for creatures to change and evolve. The new animals (which seem a little like they came out of "Impossible Creatures" are all based on a present-day animal. The creatures are all given some rather silly names as well, such as a poggle (the last mammal), the swampas (land squid) and squibbons (tree-dwelling squid). Basically I remember them as dinural bats, underground quail, large spiders, rattle rodents, giant tortoises, and killer prairie birds.
The CGI used for the animals isn't so great and there was an attempt to tug at the viewer's heartstrings like a lot of nature shows do when something is about to be killed. Most of the series was narrated, so it was easier to pay attention to the narration instead of the visuals, but the CGI was decent enough to give people an idea. The predictive evolution was complimented by nature footage that demonstrate animal behaviour and how the future animals might use or develop these traits in the future. I thought the predictions were very creative though and it was enjoyable to watch.
Let me see if I'm getting this straight:
That rat bastard Mao made all the chinese hungry, they had been having it so good under the captialist monarchy. Their economy was so robust that they would have subjugated Japan had the U.S. not interveaned in the 1940s. But then, after the war, the gang of four came along and enslaved them all and took away Jesus. But Dick Nixon went over there in the 1970s and brought salvation to them. Now they should burn as much coal as they can beacuse it's actualy good for the environment. Unfortunately, there aren't enough Chinese people to really turn the wheels of commerce, but as soon as they vote to stop giving away condoms in the schools their population will increase and they'll all get richer. And we should all drive hummers to keep the newly free and rich Chinese from conquoring us like they did Tibet.
There is no polution, recycling and convservation are plots perputrated by pinko commies that want to destroy the bill of rights and force us into a totalitarian therocracy.
-you just keep thinking, Butch. That's what your good at.
You are probably better off writing a stub into a book with information on how to access the true contents which are digitally burned into some read only memory disk.
Why stop at science? I'm sure the monkey-people will want to know about human history and arts as well.
"but isn't he being a little melodramatic? "
No, he's beyond melodramatic well into neurosis and with a little nudge he could easily pass right into full-on crazy.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
You confirm my opinion that GW Bush (although he is probably not aware of it) is the greatest closet ecologist in the whole world. Doing what he does in the middle East and Venezuela, gas prices go up everyday, people give up their SUVs for hybrids or public transportation, and total oil demand falls more than with any direct law, in the same way that Nike brings much more money to third world countries than any direct aid from European governments.
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
Well, shit, if complete and total disaster is already a given, wouldn't it make more sense to take steps now to end up *AS* one of those violent war lords (buy nunchuks, take karate lessons, stockpile ammunition)?
I mean, better to be the guy with the mohawk driving the motorcycle than the poor bastard chained to the sissy bar behind him, no?
This, of course, presupposes the existence of a civilized society in the first place.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
the probability of global environmental dissepation occuring tomorrow is extremely small.
The reality is that a large single global event, whether it be a meteor strike, a volcano eruption or a tsunami will cause the a major loss of life on the planet earth. What is the probability of this occuring tomorrow, next week or even this year, is extremely low. The probability that this type of event will occur in the next 10,000 years, well that's probably (no pun intended) a more reasonable expectation.
Governments can't afford to stake their political livelihoods on this type of low probability outcome. The reality for them is 4 or 5 years, that's it. Slow and progressive destruction of the environment is the same sort of thing. Who knows who the be in charge of the world in 50 years, so current governments are willing to risk their current votes on the chance that in the future something might happen.
I disagree with this is part. On one hand, I agree that the likeliness of the earth being uninhabitable in 25 years is low, I do believe that if we don't incorporate sound environmental policy into our beliefs and plans for the future, the world will one day be a not so nice play to live.
1. Lots of bottled water .308 caliber rifle for hunting .308 Ammunition .223 Ammunition (for the rifle I already have.) .45 Ammunition
2. New
3.
4.
5.
6. 9mm Ammunition
7. Gas welder for modifying my car
8. 12 ga shotgun shell assortment
9. Large tank for storing gasoline
10. Mel Gibson's number on speed dial
11. Front row tickets for Thunderdome
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
"You say that so much it's lost all meaning."
If I may say so, life is a game, and there's so much to do and so few turns.
-Reiner Knizia
There is nothing "thinking" thinking about it. These are more akin to religious beliefs based on faith.
That pesky Apocalypse always seems to be, oddly, both inevitable and just around the corner, time and time and time again.
It's getting closer. It'll be here Real Soon Now. Yep, real soon. Start panicking. Here it comes. It's almost upon us. Get ready. The end is nigh. The sky is falling. Say your prayers. It's too late for us all. Nothing we can do. Wait for it. Any moment now....
This guy spouting that the world is going to end or that the people of the planet don't think it will happen.
In case you want to be one of the overlords... ;)
http://www.academieduello.com/
Hasn't the Earth destroyed it's self before. I'm pretty sure there were no humans on earth when this happened. How can we predict anything?
Wow, a poorly-written piece of lame irrelevant (to the current fiction confirms a belief of yours?
That makes me wonder who's more retarded, you or the OP?
We're not desparate yet, and we're not gonna be! We can keep that supply of foreign oil comming FOREVER! And when it runs out they'll think of something else.
Saying that people should use alternative energy source and reduce consumption is TREASON! Curb side recycling is governmental waste and will destroy the country. Bio-diesel and ethanol are terrorist plots to make us dependant on agricultural energy so that we wont be able to grow any food and to keep us from spending money with our friends, the House of Saud.
Vegetarians need to have their phones tapped.
His comments need to be taken seriously. Ignore him at your peril.
Lovelock is no witless crank, and the description in the editorial blurb, er excerpt, is so far off, it's maddening. (Hint: look up 'photomultiplier tube').
Laugh while you can. While I understand no one wants to take their medicine when yummy candy is all around, it'll be time to pay the piper soon enough.
I look forward to skinning and gutting the brainless doughboys who think he's 'an ecoterrorist' sometime in the near future. I shall decorate the bounds of my territory with your spines.
This is why we have such awesome weapons of mass destruction... When the end times come, we will happily imperialize. Man it's great to be an american.
Just ask any geologist. . . The Earth is in an Ice Age. Actually we're in an "interglacial period", which is what we call it when an ice age pauses and the ice sheets retreat for 10 or 20 thousand years, then they advance again. In the 1970s several climatologists looked at the available data -- solar cycles and records, precession of Earth's orbit, etc. -- and concluded that the interglacial period was about to end, and the ice was going to come back Real Soon Now. They started warning their governments about the need to prepare for a colder climate, shorter growing seasons, dropping ocean levels, etc.
That was before all the talk about global warming began, of course.
And yet, their data didn't lie. What some climatologists are beginning to figure out is that global warming -- from greenhouse gases emitted as a by-product of human industry -- came along just in time to hold back the ice sheets. It began with clearing forests for farmland (which released carbon), and raising livestock which produce methane. It accelerated with the industrial revolution, and all the coal that was burned. Up to that point the greenhouse gases were roughly staving off the natural cooling trend.
Then, in the 20th Century, we saw an explosion in the burning of oil and gas for power. That's when the global warming effect began to outstrip and overwhelm the natural cooling trends. Today we have a climate that is definitely growing warmer, alarmingly so. And yet. . .
If we were to cut off greenhouse gas emissions today -- either on purpose, or as a result of our industrial civilization's collapse -- it seems likely that it wouldn't take long for the current situation to reverse. It certainly ought not take 100,000 years for the global climate to recover from our CO2 emissions. Like it or not, we are still in that ice age, and we'd soon feel it.
Wouldn't plastic be better for that?
the world will be ruled by 'violent warlords'
will they be the same as now or a new bunch?
Earth getting warmer? Resources scarce? All the more reason to invade Canada now!
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
Most of europe is in population decline. When you look at the white norther europeans, it is even worse. The arabs and africans are breeding very fast. So when the weather does heat up, they are genetically ready for it. The pale skinned types are set for extinction. Humanity will survive, but it won't look like most slashdotters.
One of the hallmarks of nonsense is "scientists" publishing theories in the mainstream media rather than peer reviewed journals. I don't see any evidence or research for this theory he has about a "100,000 year fever" for the earth. I don't see any science here, all I see is political alarmism and dogma. If he has evidence to back up his claims he should present it. Otherwise he should stop claiming he's doing science and start up a religion.
It's crap like this that gives stuff like global warming a bad name. Global warming actually has real data to back up its claims. You can debate about the validity of the data, but at least we're engaging in science here.
AccountKiller
The tragedy of this debate is that there seems to be no one to voice a rational position. There are The Ostriches who's greatest desire is to believe that they are safe and scoff at anything that suggest otherwise. There are the Industrial Interest who are more than willing to tell the Ostriches what they want to hear so that they can continue business as usual. There are the Chicken Littles who run screaming "The sky is falling" every time there is an extra inch of rain. Let me suggest a different position: We live in a complex system. Rational estimates say it is Very very old relative to our own lifespans. We are only reasonably aware of the last couple of thousand years of its operation. Everything else is speculation. We are aware (those of us who don't fall into the Ostrich category) that we are able to effect some changes to the system through our activities. We really have no idea how much of an impact we have had, or will have. It might be that everything is fine. It might be that all the bizarre weather from the last year means something is seriously wrong. I don't think anyone REALLY knows. While I don't think that "It's the end of the world", It seems to me that since we have access to only one "experiment", that maybe some extra caution is warranted. The old "better safe than sorry" position may be the smartest choice for anyone with a long view.
Are we that brainwashed by Hollywood's post apocalyptic representation of future society? When things begin to slide, we all g onucking futs and brandish sawed off shot guns? Look at all the worldwide catastrophies these days, 9/11, Indonesian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina... Yeah there were some bad apples, most likely not the highest on the food chain or IQ meter, looting and crap (not so much after 9/11), but there was also a ginormous amount of reflection and handouts after these events. Doesn't that give people any fucking hope that if shit goes south we WON'T turn into a buncha non-bathing, fanged tooth creatures lookin' to give our children away for a slice of bread?
We always hear that "The revolution is coming!" from naysayers and wannabe prophets, but if they put that energy into fixing stuff, would it have to turn out that way? I'm not saying the world will instead end up like Demolition Man, where all restaurants are Taco Bell and we where togas, but I don't think we'll become cavemen again.
No sig for you!!
I... am Captain Planet!
It's going to be slightly cloudy, 76 defgrees Ferenheight, with a 30% Chance of Rain on Doomsday.
Also, I plan on being a violent warlord when the occupation becomes available... so stick with me and you'll be just fine.
What will survive of our world today in 10,000 years time?
Check out the Clock of the Long Now
Also, the Rosetta project
Anyone know of other long term projects, like long term nuclear fuel storage facilities (ie that will survive into future 'barbaric' time periods) or animal/plant genetic preservation libraries?
What about long-term human knowledge preservation projects (i.e. written on 'long-lasting paper'!)? doomsday or not, data CDs are good for a few years at best, and my 10 yr old college text books are ragged (and obsolete).
Committee for Symmetric Distribution of the Future
by paper i mean a scientific, rather than a news paper. one environmentalists opinion even if he is well respected does not turn his melodramatic spiel into fact. The earth may be warming, but there is still no hard evidence that human kind is the cause. and lets not forget that we are still in an ice age!
One thing I've learned is to listen to predictions like this. Look at the long history of disasters diverted by relying on the scientists- The Hindenburg, the Plagues, and th 60's hippie movement. I remember hearing about 9/11 months before on TV, and changing my schedule. I was so close to buying into the Enron thing, when Neil Cavuto changed my mind. And other warnings kept me from going to school naked...no, wait- that was a dream.
My point is, we *never* get warnings about the big stuff. And this is no exception. Remember the coming ice-age, and the population boom of the 1970s? No ice-age. Population has actually gone DOWN by a dangerous extent. I saw both mentioned in Barey Miller, in fact. I remember hearing how acid rain would make the finish on all cars corrode as early as 1975. And by 2000 we'd all have to live underground. This being told to me, a kid in the 5th grade. I was afraid.
Yet somehow the same people who told us the Earth would be unable to support life in the 70's, still feel that way today. I suspect money is the quarry on this hunt.
I'll admit there are temperature changes- the Earth is a dynamic system with lots of history that it changes all the time (See: the 1700s mini-ice age, for example). But to think humans are the cause of it, or have the slightest chance of changing it, is just silly.
Go to Google. Zoom in on a town, find your house. Then notice the actual SCALE of our place on this planet. Now call your local HVAC technician and tell'em you want to install an A/C for the whole planet. Just try to figure out the BTUs. Imagine changing it, if we HAD to. Terraforming is a neat idea, but actually doing it someplace is at least 100 years away.
Just relax; and remember that the Earth will never go away; it might not be like it is, but it will always be here. And so will be these predictions...
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
This posting really seems below /.'s level. This has less to do with the environmental theories as it does speculating the world that follows environmental destruction. This isn't science, it's imagination.
Incidentally, how would we prepare to survive in a "Mad Max" like world? We'd need guns and cars. Both use chemicals that supposedly destroy the environment. So it sounds like he's suggesting we should use a lot of the substances that allegedly would lead to our own destruction!
I predict DJ Doomsday will "bring the funk".
DJ Doomsday and MC Hawking:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/172475
The real "impending crisis" will be over water and oil.
Sure, the environment is crashing, and that will cause major problems, but in the next 10-20 years, the problems will really be with clean water and cheap oil.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
The fact that he still has his little tape recorder at the end is supposed to imply that.
Devastating plague, anyone?
I find that example rather amusing in this context since their version of democracy goes back roughly to Roman times (AD 930) and coincides quite nicely with a rather profound cessation of violence...well, except for that later produced by certain christian monarchies (See: Sweden, Denmark). But, really, I don't recall much mention of the Great Icelandic Wars in the last thousand years they've had a nearly continuously functioning democracy.
Weather is complicated. It has many many more inputs than you can predict or explain. Why is it that you choose to see "atypical" weather as evidence of impending catastrophe? Personally, I think you do it for the same reason that the right-wing zealots see every little thing that happens in Israel as the proof that armageddon is right around the corner. You like to spread fear as a means of garnering attention and swaying people to your point of view. Have leftist environmentalists not spit out fearful cataclysms every year for the past few decades? Have not Christian zealots done the same thing with their "the end is here!" prophecies?
Forgive me if I don't partake in your global destruction fantasies, but I'm just not manipulated by guilt or fear any more. My guess is the unsettling feeling you experience is created more by your own mind than it is by any doomsday scenario that will (not) befall us.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Parent poster has it right - doom and gloom sells, whether the apocalypse is environmental or religious in nature. How many crackpots have declared that the Rapture is coming on such-and-such a date? The author of this book is not much different, he's just worshipping a different god/ess.
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
I'm a violent warlord.
Unlike the rest of you suckers, I'm set. I've got my "long lasting paper", along with a hammer and chisel to do the writing with (you should see the size of my forearms after copying all my pr0n onto my new archival material). As for infrastructure, well, all I need is my XB Falcon, hardtop of course. Fortunately, "Black Cloud" is a suitable post-apocolyptic name.
See you on the other side, you Jolt-drinking, Snoball-eating losers!
So basicaly we should gather a lot of supplies together like water and guns to shoot our neighbors when they try to steal from us? This sounds familiar. .
And to think the girls I keep locked in my basement said I was crazier than usual when I had them start making body armor out of old tires! Muwahahahaha! World domination fast!
That's always been my favorite curse: "May you live in interesting times."
I also like, "May you nose drip like a faucet."
Disclaimer: I credit SimEarth with indtroducing me to Locklock's theories. :)
Lovelock is a very smart person, and he may in fact be correct about the fate that awaits us, but the reasons for it may not be the particular concerns he's raised. For example, the most prevalent theory that I have seen regarding climate change is that "global warming" may actually have the more immediate effect of "global cooling" in the form of interruption of the thermohaline cycle in the Atlantic Ocean. It would be really helpful if we could figure out if we need to move north (as Lovelock seems to suggest), or south in the face of a cooling trend. These theories are well born out by the archaeological record.
Second of all, it really disturbs me that so-called "greenhouse gases" still receive the majority of the blame for climate change in the first place. I am firmly of the belief that heat emissions may be just as much of a concern. It's not only CO2 and other pollutants coming out my my tailpipe...there's a whole lot of heat released in the process, and it has to go *somewhere*, and even nuclear energy leads somewhere down the chain to thermal inefficiencies.
If you take into account the theories surrounding the Peak Oil phenomenon, we begin to see a more complete picture of what the coming decades may hold. Many people seem to think that technology will somehow save us from ourselves. How then, can we continue to make such great technological innovations in the face of a scarcity of energy? The flip side of this is that as the effects of Peak Oil become more prominent, it is highly likely, if not assured, that we will see a massive reduction in both heat emissions and greenhouse gas emissions. It is only the availability of cheap and plentiful energy, primarily in forms which are relatively easy to transport, that has enabled the massive cancer-like growth of the human population and the resulting positive feedback loop of resource depletion in an environment of fixed bounds (barring interplanetary/interstellar colonization, an idea which is vanishingly unlikely, Earth is all we have).
There is also some evidence that a global increase in CO2 concentration is causing a global increase in vegetation, though much, if not all of this, is mitigated by our increasing resource depletion. It seems to me that the real question that Lovelock may not be able to yet answer is, "How quickly can the planet regulate itself, and exactly *where* are the "control points" beyond which the regulation fails?" I would submit that we cannot know this, even though we can look to the archaeological record for evidence of past self-regulation, the exact effect of human "intervention" in the climate remains unknown, even if we can be assured that it must inevitably have *some* negative effect.
As regards the "Max Max"-like society--remember that a man can only possess that which he can successfully defend. Community is a basic human need, though in the future we may find our communities much smaller than we once envisioned. It would not surprise me in the least to see the human population decrease over the next century by a factor of 1,000 (5-6 million people worldwide). Such a population could probably be easily sustained, even in the face of extreme climatic change. However, it is likely that we may revert to feudal, or even pre-feudal, societies in an attempt to preserve what remains of civilization. Of course, this is quite the pessimistic scenario--perhaps, with what we now know after a couple of hundred years, give or take, of technological innovation, that we can maximize the efficiency of pre-Industrial Revolution ways of life so that we can ensure the survival of many more. The real question here is, "How much have we forgotten?" The discontinuity of human history created by the Technology Revolution may mean that while we better understand things at the micro level, we have forgotten how to operate simpler forms of existence at the macro level. How many blacksmiths are there these days? Farmers? Sa
The reasoning is wacky, I think Gaia theory is mainly religion, a small bit of philosophy and no hard science at all.
Unfortunately that does not mean that the environmantal predictions are wrong. I think the in the last two decades a global environmental catastrophy has moved from remote possibility to definite possibility. Just because some wackos jump on the wagon and use current scientifically founded concerns does not mean we are safe. They can read the press as as well as anybody. Frankly I am worried. Not for the next 10 years, but my remaining life expectancy is a bit higher than that. At least if theg;obal climate change does not happen...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The sun is going to burn out and none of us will have to worry about all of these stupid tree huggers any more.
Are we that arrogant to believe that we are going to kill the earth.... I mean come on, The massive body structures and dietary requirements of the dinosaurs did what to the environment? Studies show that cow are a major source of methane. What do you think a 20 Ton plant eating dinosaur could do to an environment. And there were huge herds walking around, the digestive release of gases would be large on a herd scale.
Now this doesn't even take into account the tectonic activities and vulcanism that was more prevalent during this epoch. We're trying to develop a environmental model for the entire earth based on a dataset thats represents only 200 years of information, like temperature and rainfall levels. WTF. A complex system such as the environment cannot be interpreted based on this small amount of data.
The environment ebbs and flows like a living thing I agree, but I think that we need more long term data to understand our impact. Conservation is IMPORTANT. Gross misuse of resources is a huge issue. DVD's, CD's, Newspapers, et all. Most of theses things are created on a computer, are already digital, then we turn around and waste the energy and resources to convert them into an analog format for distribution. Just so someone can make money. That makes no sense to me. Then you have to have the brick and mortar store to sell such a product, and all of it's resources, plus the employees that have to drive to work, clog the roads, piss me off in rush hour, and make me pull my 7.62mm Full Metal Jacket.....
I just think that we as a GLOBAL society need to really think about what is important. I am a consumer, I buy stuff every weekend, and then monday mourning I take the garbage to the road and see the boxes and stuff. It's not even an issue about recycling, that's old news, most do. What I am talking about is the reevaluating the way we use resources. The old way of marketing and moving products is over. Just think of all the money, landfill space, fuel, mailmen sweet, and time we could of saved just with not having to deal with the AOL CD's.
What I don't understand is how this article can be constructive.
He isn't trying to be constructive, he is simply telling you that it makes no difference what you do. After people like you have put us on an irreversible path to doom, at least allow the guy to say "told you so".
Can anyone please tell me what Mr. Lovelock hoped to gain from this article other than creating hysteria among his fans and receiving "nut job" status from those who disagree with him?
It sells books and lots of it. Since his life will likely come to an end before yours and global catastrophe, that allows him to live out his final days in luxury. What you do is your own business.
There should be a religion category for this or politics.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
And yet....no records were set....uh..
Yep. No records. Now, I'm not advocating one side or the other here, but 2005 seems to have been a year of extremes, not one that didn't set any records. There will *always* be records in a given year, particularly local ones. It's the worldwide records like "highest average temp on record, despite the absence of El Nino" and "lowest arctic ice recorded" that matter. Not "Hottest July 3rd ever in Tempe, AZ."
Worst hurricane season on record.
200 Western US cities set heat records.
Hottest year ever, least arctic ice ever, most intense single hurricane ever, worst drought in decades.
Third worst year on record for extreme weather, hottest year on record despite the fact that the previous record had El Nino to drive it. (and in a contrast, very few tornados).
The TOP SCIENTISTS on this planet are owned by the various governments of the world. Black budget departments and corporations with ties to the military industrial complex own them. They can't afford not to. And they have the cash and the toys to woo, and the brute muscle and above-the-law tactics to enforce membership. It's really quite simple. --And further, the governments of the world, (or at least the shadow governments with all the power), know how to listen to their scientists.
So when these scientists using the technology us plebes don't have access to, (or even awareness of), tell their masters that, "Um, the planet is going to get hammered by comets and then ice-age whammied," their masters go, "Oh. Well that sucks. What do you recommend?"
We don't know what they recommend, but we can make some guesses. . .
-FL
Isn't it high time Playboy came on archival paper? If we are going to preserve the best that civilization has to offer shouldn't we start at the top?
Lets see...
Flat Black KZ900, prefferably a Z1 with bubble goggle helmet.
Sawed off Shotgun
Gyrocopter
Psycotic chap wearing dude with Mohwak and Chain
Courthouse for leagal name change to "The GREAT HUMONGOUS"
All set.....
It's the middle of January and I just went outside in a sweatshirt and was perfectly comfortable. I joked with the fuel delivery driver that if it gets any warmer I'm going to plant bananas.
Probably just normal temperature variation, right? Probably.
Before every disaster there was some figure making polarizing and alienating comments. If people are going to take issue with the message because they don't like the messenger, then how sorry can you feel for them? Weigh the facts, look at the science, draw your own conclusions.
So, yeah, he's a little flamboyant rattling on about Gaia but that doesn't mean there isn't a valid point buried in there somewhere. If it was just one loopy guy in the wilderness then it's easy to pass it off. But when the ice caps are melting and I'm standing outside in the midwest in a light jacket in the middle of January figuring out where to plant my rubber tree plantation, then you might at least want to consider it a little.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Assuming that the world produces a book full of all the knowledge of the world, etched on a lithograph and published all the time for anyone to use, ... then the world will still require a community of priests to interpret it for us, other wise the book would have to be impossibly long and tedious, and is not the best way to store knowledge. A better way would be for the book to be non-practical and concise, containing only theoretical knowledge...but be augmented by a community of practitioners. They would be fully versed in that book, and give its knowledge a practical shape and they would be in a position to give people answers to their questions about science.
The world has probably done something like this before.... It's a type of priesthood, living in a temple of nerds devoted to knowledge.
Because of the internet maybe you could have the priests but without the temple....and therefore without the central control over the religion.
"The world will not be destroyed... It will merely change." - Zorndyke, Blue Submarine #6
I'm familiar with him because I tried to argue his Gaia Hypothesis in a college philosophy class, and I was very easily shot down by just about anybody who argued with me, on multiple levels. It was a very hard thing to argue for.
As a side note, I think living mad-max style would be so cool. It'd give me an excuse to build an underground lair in my backyard, the wife wouldn't appreciate that much right now.
It most likely is all total BS, but regardless it is wise to be prepared for any emergency in any way reasonable. What constitutes reasonable depends on your own discretion, but as an Eagle scout, I feel comfy with some flashlights, matches, my revolver, 2 boxes ammo, my pocket knife, and some warm clothes. I have all that stuff easily accessible in my apartment, so what ever may come, stuff it in a back pack and head for the mountains.
I'm sure the day will come when there is some kind of disaster in my area, war, floods, whatever; When it does most of what we need is cool heads, and basic tools.
Everything else is just melodrama.
sometimes, i wonder if i'm the only conservative on teh intarweb. ah well, back to mah hogs and warmongerin'....
Relax. I said it was 'unsettling'. The 'fear spreading' and 'armageddon' and 'fearful cataclysms' and 'global destruction fantsies' are your words, bub. I said no such thing.
Since you are the one who is "unsettled", perhaps your advice to relax is best self-applied. I think the reason why you feel "unsettled" is because you are fearful, and the reason why you are sharing this information is because you wish to spread fear. It may be that you are wrongfully accused of global destruction fantasies, but then the difference between what you spread and the false accustion would be a difference of degree, not kind.
How many more "unsettling" things do we need to hear? Butter will kill you! AIDS will kill us all! Global warming will heat/cool/soak/dry the earth! The ozone layer is gone! We're running out of oil! Bird flu is coming! GM foods have to be stopped! Jesus is the only way! Islam will rule the world!
Fearmongering is fearmongering, and I want none of what you are selling. What I'd like to see is a few more people who will stand up to fearmongers and tell them, rather publicly and en masse, "The fear you spread is more harmful than the thing you fear!"
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
"For every 10 "the sky is falling" articles I read, I see 10 "everything is OK" articles."
Unfortunately, this is the result of equal publicity funding, not equal scientific opinion. I'm sorry I won't be providing you with a reference (but you didn't provide one either, so whatever) but I have the distinct impression that about 97% of climatologists and other scientists in related disciplines agree: we have a problem.
"I see relatively cheap gas, so I believe that gas is not running out."
This is a fundamental problem with the global economy and markets. Markets are interesting - they provide a metric for the value which *most monies* would assign to a given resource. "Most monies" refers to people weighted by their investable wealth. Unfortunately, as many past market events should demonstrate, these metrics don't necessarily have anything to do with reality. They have everything to do with perception and popular understanding, which may or may not be actually correct.
As an analogy, consider presidential/PM elections. We elect people who are visible, or want to be elected, and who have the means and support to get elected. We don't necessarily elect the best possible leader because most of us may not know who that is, and that person may be lacking the accessories with which reaching the public is highly unlikely. On a large scale, elections have very little to do with absolute achievement in personal merit, and a lot to do with publicity. Obviously everyone would prefer to choose between the people best suited for the job, but that's not how it works. There are barriers to entry that has nothing to do with merit, qualifications, skills, or talent.
"...geophysicist. He tells me they have no idea what is going on deeper than a few miles..."
So based on this statement, the most rational course of action is to assume that one day the oil will go dry. By the same conservative logic, we should also assume that climate change is a real problem (not only future, I live in Alaska and we're seeing major effects *now*). In this way we can be prepared - maybe not for the worst, but at least for some case worse than the best. Because a large proportion of experts do agree, it's important that we take the possibilities they suggest seriously. I would say this even if the climate change people were a minority opinion and I disagreed with them.
I don't understand how people claiming to be "conservative" can possibly think that doing nothing different is a rational course of action. A truly conservative viewpoint calls for considering all the possibilities and being prepared so that we are never faced with an actual crisis, but these pretenders are calling for ignoring a major [potential] problem because it's not hurting [them] badly enough [yet].
Why in the world would you stake something as important as species survival on a best-case-scenario viewpoint? That makes no sense at all. Go read "Candide" and come back when you understand it.
[|]
I can't believe the amount of ostrich head in the sand misguided optimism being shown on this thread. With dwindling resources and an amazingly fast expanding population in those areas of the world who have recently got a taste of middle class western styled existence, this outlook is more probable than not. Look,, this is a math problem. That's all it is, basic simple math. Take what energy and minerals and food resources are necessary to run the world NOW. Now extrapolate ten to twenty years in the future at present rates of expansion. Now add in the mad rush to use the best most bleeding edge tech by all large nations to build weapons systems. Does anyone actually read history any more? Have we forgotten that we as humans are no more psychologically or socially advanced than we were hundreds of years ago? Why did Japan attack pearl harbor, what did the US do first? What facilities did the allies bomb first across europe when they were able to get bomber fleets overhead with acceptable loss ratios? What kept the UK even fighting, and Russia? Where are the big wars being fought now, and what is the underlying critically important natural resource there? Are people also missing the actual evidence of huge climate change coming, regardless of causality? Does anyone even bother to read the headlines, let alone the articles?
Ya'all are either feeling real damn lucky or are just ignoring geopolitical and geophysical realities. Step away from the videogame for a moment and LOOK at current reality.
You are going to be seeing resource wars. We are in one now, a *big one*, whether you want to admit to it or not. Your inflated currencies and lifestyles are being financed by folks who want to shift emphasis to their own populations. How long do you think they are going to keep doing that? How long would YOU keep doing that, if a neighbor kept wanting you to loan him money, and all he had to pay you back was more IOUs?
We have x-amount of resources and pretty soon we are going to need 3x but it don't exist and it never will. It ain't there, it just ain't. It's not only oil and strategic minerals, but actual food, because we are running out of clean water, or even half clean. You can't grow food in a desert with no water, or in a constant flood with too much water, or in areas that frost 11 months out of the year. You can't give an extra 2-3 billion people cars and electronic gadgets and homes with central heating and air conditioning, even "good mileage" cars, even "advanced energy efficient" homes, even "clean" low powered gadgets. Not when the projected demand that is looming is so fast and so large.
There simply isn't enough "stuff" in the ground to pull this off.
C'mon, THINK, what's the most likely outcome then? Are you seeing any rational leaders appearing on the world stage, in ANY big nation? Are humans becoming less greedy? Are you seeing any large militaries all over just standing down and disbanding because no one thinks they are needed? Are you seeing any less competition for all the planets resources? And you "market can solve anything" folks. When the "market" is going to be staring at near empty shelves based on demand, what do you think the ones who don't get anything are going to think and do? You ever seen a riot, even a small one? Did you check out what a pipsqueak hurricane can do, or an earthquake, when it's very limited in region? How about when some things hit that are planet wide? Where's your "backup" civilization infrastructre, you keep it on a shelf someplace or something I sure ain't seeing it, because *it doesn't exist*. Think all these folks will just accept the fact they are "too poor"? Think any humongous nation with an extra billion poor people screaming for something from their leaders is going to just hang around and go "oh well, them's the breaks" and quietly fade away just so you can keep getting fat? Huh?
I repeat, this is a math problem, combined with plain vanilla human psychology. Parse it by past h
he instead suggests communities plan for survival in a Mad Max type world with limited resources ruled by violent warlords.
Since I was a kid being told the Russians would nuke us back to the stone age, since I grew up playing Wolfenstein3d, since I watched Red Dawn and Mad Max, I've been expecting this!
Hey, this may scare the younger generation who thought they were born in a brave new world of progress and technology, but for those of us just a few years older, who believed (I mean really believed it!) that we'd either die in a nuclear holocaust or survive to fight for oil and drinking water in the post-apocolyptic aftermath of the inevitable, this don't scare me.
Bring it on! Hell, that's what Doom and Quake and the rest were for, I thought. To prepare me for when it was time to grab a shotgun and roam the halls scavenging for medpacks.
-Tom
http://tinyurl.com/dlxjm/The Wind from Nowhere
http://tinyurl.com/9jtf3/The Drought
(or for counterpoint)
http://tinyurl.com/7pnh3/The Drowned World
http://tinyurl.com/akd8o/The Crystal World
but i just installed the game !!!
damn!!!
What ? Me, worry ?
polar bears drowning all over, huge chunks of ice the size of rhode island falling off antartica, hurricanes destroying entire cities in the leading developed country... it is like watching a movie already, only thing missing is the statue of liberty sticking out of a glacier...
..
as for us, we are screwing ourselves so fast it kind of hard not to notice it..
you can only piss and shit in your own house for so long before it becomes unbearable and you end up catching some sickness and making a total wreck of the place.. if you look, you will see the corporations coming back in zipping up their pants..
will it 'fully' happen in our lifetime? probably not, so who really cares.. plug your nose and let our kids clean up
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
If I was going to try to preserve the scientific knowledge of our history, I'd put it on something durable, like, say, laser etched titanium plates.
Titanium so durable that it's hard to shape even with modern tools, so the plates would stand a good chance of survival. Paper burns, and it falls apart if it gets wet, and it tears easily, especially when it gets old and brittle.
Using just microfilm-style techniques, we could record a *LOT* of information on a few "books" of laser etched titanium. Then we could put down the basics of glassmaking and some basic science in the full-sized versions, so that once society recovered enough to make glass, a large section of human history would be recoverable.
Add to that, say, the library of congress encoded on, say, DVDs sealed in a vault or a safe, with instructions on how to build a DVD to text viewer, and we'ld have history nicely preserved for future generations.
Or, suppose we try Richard Feynmann's famous trick, and put the entire Library of Congress on a single sheet of paper. Give a copy to every family in the world, and the odds that one will succeed would be very good, especially if the "pages" were printed on something more durable than paper. The downside is copyright law might prevent this, but perhaps we'll smarten up before the "apocolypse".
"I have a lot of faith in science"
"scientists are becoming state-funded liars"
just two interesting quotes from you. they're interesting because they demonstrate an interesting viewpoint. so what do you do, cherry-pick your scientific opinions? or do you trust the scientific process (which involves the entire community of scientists)?
Dennis's rant aside, he is right about one thing, the U.S. is not in a desperate situation, nor is it acting out of desperation in its foreign policy. What we are caught in, being a superpower, is a constant string of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenarios. Yes, the U.S. has made mistakes, it still makes them, but so does every other country as well. It's just more trendy to bash the U.S. instead of everybody trying to do their part.
War for oil: The war in Iraq is not a war for oil, that is a gross oversimplification of the last 2 decades of history there. The big mistake the U.S. made in the 80's was in believing the enemy of our enemy (Iran) was our friend. Western Europe also believed so at the time, as Iraq seemed to be emerging as a modern, secular nation. The mistake the U.S. made in the 90's was to let Sadam stay in power after Operation Desert Storm. The mistake the U.S. made this time around was in the way they waged the war, using a number of National Guard troops and Army reservists and such. If all we wanted was oil, it would have been easier and more cost effective to invade and take over Venezuela. Their government's biggest crime though is in believing that Fidel Castro is an alright kind of guy.
War on terror: Again, going back to the cold war, we have the enemy of our enemy situation. We supported rebels in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, including Bin Laden. Compounded with the Taliban taking over Afghanistan, terror flourished as a means of obtaining and keeping power over people. Clinton's response was mainly treating them like a minor nuisance, after incidents with the attack on the USS Cole and African Embassies. Then September 11th happened, and the U.S. responded.
Environment: People complain that the United States should have ratified the Kyoto protocol on curbing greenhouse gasses. What is happening though, is that emissions are merely becoming another commodity of trade for those who are a part if this agreement. The U.S. is supposedly the largest pollutor in the world, yet Kyoto doesn't cover nations like China and India which are doing far more harm to global environment, have more than 3 times our population each, and have hardly any environmental regulations compared to the U.S. Also, Brazil is an example of a nation that gets a credit under Kyoto because of the Amazon rain forests, yet the entire forest region can't even make up for carbon emissions caused by the burning of parts of the forest by farmers. Brazil is a net producer of pollution even before you take industrial emissions into account. Will the Kyoto countries find a way to barter their way to better environmental management, or will the U.S. concept of relying on newer technologies to be developed and replace older more polluting industries pay off in the end? The U.S. approach seems more promising to me.
So what is happening, is that we are constantly trying to tie up loose ends when opportunists try to gain advantages by either our actions or inactions.
"22 astronauts were born in Ohio. What is it about your state that makes people want to flee the Earth?" Stephen Colbert
If teaching Intelligent Design is ever debated by my local school board, I will propose they teach it along with Gaia Theory and Flying Spaghetti Monsterism http://www.venganza.org/
The Kyoto protocols are the equivalent of Andy Hardy and Judy Garland putting on a show to save the orphanage.
Kyoto doesn't cover 30-50% of greenhouse emissions (like coal burning by the Chinese or Indians) and provides nothing in the way of remediation for countries that honestly don't meet targets or just plain cheat. (For example, the EU is missing their target carbon emissions badly, as in not even close, and Russia is acting like Russia usually does when it comes to treaties.)
Even if countries didn't cheat and did make their targets, Kyoto is too little and too late- although it does serve as a nice focus for people who detest Bush and/or are jealous of The US' wealth and power.
The best way to sum up Lovelock and Margulis' brilliant explanatory work on climate feedback loops comes from Babylon 5: "The avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote." -Kosh, Believers
Incendiary foaming at the mouth "warnings of planetary illness" do our overall chances of mitigating the reality of human-caused global warming no good either. Extremists undercut the message for anyone more moderate, and more likely to actually effect change.
I don't have anything against him flogging his book, at least he makes it pretty obvious. Just wish I'd thought of it.
I'm also sympathetic to the view of the earth acting like a living organism, in fact you can make the same argument for the whole universe. But because it looks like that doesn't actually mean it is a living thing, although I'm not sure how you'd define it at that macro a level.
The question is whether it actually gives a shit whether or not it's hospitable to life. As a member of the Church of the Utterly Indifferent God, somehow I doubt it. It certainly will be a problem for us though.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
At the end of the Permian era, 250 million years ago, there was the biggest mass extinction the earth had ever seen. 99% of all life died out. Think about how that must have been for any one of the creatures at the time.
After the Permian came the dinosaurs, who were so successful that they ruled over the earth for 185 million years. Something bad happened at the end of the Jurassic period, some 65 million years ago, and most of the life on earth died off again, some 95% IIRC. Again, think about how extreme that must have been.
Now, some 65 million years later, a species capable of abstract thought and who known cognitive history probably extends back some 35 000 years or more or so, is worrying about extinction.
News flash, whether we live or die, as a species, does not matter. Enromous extinctions have happened in the past and they could happen again, except that it could be us the next time around, and in some 60 million years when the rats who survived will have evolved into suv driving, complaining, frightened, superstitious fools who don't accept that life is transient and that we have no special place on this earth and that god, if he exists, does not particularly favour us over, say cockroaches, or rats.
i have fought for my life in the wilds of alaska with many of our artificially cheap technological products to help me. i made it, yeah, but barely... without cheap high-tech clothing and various other tools, i wouldn't be here today. forgive me for thinking you're absolutely full of shit to think we'll all be able to do that with a huge climate event in the mix. millions of people will die, and if you think the world will be the same for the survivors you're an absolute idiot.
"irreversable": never be the same again. this is true. see any dinosaurs around?
ok, project into the scenario at hand. what is the likelyhood of seeing humans? i'd say better than dinosaurs - as a species we adapt quickly because we are good with tools - but still, on an individual basis, probabilities are not good. as organisms go, we're not the toughest of the bunch...
"Earth that was could no longer sustain our numbers, we were so many. We found a new solar system, dozens of planets and hundreds of moons. Each one terra-formed a process taking decades, to support human life, to be new earths. The Central Planets formed the Alliance. Ruled by an interplanetary parliament, the Alliance was a beacon of civilization. The savage outer planets were not so enlightened and refused Alliance control. The war was devastating, but the Alliance's victory over the Independents insured a safer universe. And now everyone can enjoy the comfort, and enlightenment of our civilization. "
O_o
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The Doomsday argument (DA) is a probabilistic argument that claims to predict the future lifetime of the human race given only an estimate of the total number of humans born so far.
It was first proposed by the astrophysicist Brandon Carter in 1983 and was subsequently championed by the philosopher John Leslie. It has since been independently discovered by J. Richard Gott and Holger Bech Nielsen. Similar theories predicting an end to the world from population statistics were proposed earlier by Heinz von Foerster, among others.
This article introduces the Doomsday argument in four ways:
* For a description of the DA without mathematics see the analogy-to-cricket section.
* For a very simplified numerical example, partially based on Korb's refutation[1] see the two-case section.
* For a general overview, with numerical examples see the next section.
* For Gott's mathematical development of the Bayesian argument (using simple calculus) see the Vague Prior section.
It sounds to me like you are saying "If this climate change stuff is true, we should be terrified, and therefore I cannot believe it is true, therefore I want to see the people saying this stuff denounced!"
Nutty ol' Lovelock proposes strong archival and dissemination of knowledge. And preparing local communities and family groups in case of disasters. This is harmful exactly how?
Lack of preparedness has obvious harmful effects. Children will learn the lifestyle and values of their ill-prepared parents, and build ill-prepared communities, and the next thing you know everybody's on the sofa watching videos instead of fixing the roof, and complaining because the government won't make it stop raining, or doesn't build tall enough levees.
What, exactly, is this "harm" you ascribe to this so-called "fear-mongering"? How is anyone harmed by preparedness?
* um... capitalism being what it is - restricted or not - companies already are looking for the cheapest way to develop enery sources. they make better margins that way, and regardless of subsidies better margins are what produce profits. as the blind capitalism fanbody you are, you've got to understand that.
congrats, you just made my foes list. what tripe you spew.
The vault dweller.
Now stop complaining about missing options and go and play some Fallout!
...they want their environmental/industrial pollution/population bomb/fossil fuel depletion/Malthusian nightmare scare stories back.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
and bad fiction at that. In it he created cardboard "environmentalists" who sought to kill off large swaths of the earth's population as part of a tempter tantrum. One of his characters does nothing after being stabbed in the arm with a needle by some strange man and then dies, and yet he was supposed to be one of the best and brightest. The ringleader of the awful plot is has a man killed in the middle of Tower Bridge (the main bridge in London) at Noon and then stands over the corpse and yet doesn't get caught.
Much has been made of his "references", and the idea that he has backed up his bad fiction. If you peruse them you will see that a) they are not exhaustive, b) they favor unjournaled papers by anti-global-warming researchers (no attempt it made to see the science only the editorializing) and c) they include odd references to books on witchcraft and papers (such as the argument that greenland was once warmer) which do not prove his case at all.
The book was commissioned, bought, and paid for by Rupert Murdoch whose FoxNews network has made much of this money denying the state of the environment. Like Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter Michael Crichton has made himself a tool of Murdoch. He has a line to sell and won't let the truth stand in his way.
If you want reasonable discussion of global warming go seek real scientists not an editorial hack. If you want a spy/crime novel go read some old Ian Flemming.
Make thy peace!
*snicker*
He is the worst kind of person. He preys on your fears for profit. The only "layer of smoke" in that article is the emotional one in which he has couched his true motive.
... I'd like to point out that me and most of my ilk do not deny the climate is changing vis-a-vis the short term historical record. I do question profoundly that the changes represent extremes or that it is human driven. I wonder:
a) at the arrogance that drives the yeah-sayers to believe humanity has such a profound impact on the environment;
b) that the yeah-sayers believe that the impact is controllable when they have scant knowledge of the processes involved (Did you hear the latest news? Plants produce methane. Who knew? I know the climatologists didn't.); and
c) that the yeah-sayers can seriously believe statistically drawn predictions based on an absolute paucity of long term and accurate historical data (Would you make a ten year investment prediction based on a patchy 30 day stock market record? Or, tell me how your 5 day stock market predictions have been working out? Or is the climate simpler than the stock market and so can be half-accurately modelled 50 years or more? Or perhaps the climate data is much more accurate and comprehensive than the recorded stock market data so that you can predict 50 years or more? Get my point?)
In short, the yeah-sayers often seem to be alarmists with:
a) an economic and/or egotistical stake in convincing people they are right (esp. for academics or politians); or
b) people with a vested interest in the status quo (esp. politicians, corporations, waterfront property owners or backwoods hermit types).
The fact is, the climate may be changing. We will have to adapt and I am sure we will get by. As for fossil fuel use, etc., efficiency can be an end in itself. It does not have to be driven by rampant paranoia.
Enough with the agendas from yeah-sayers, politicians, corporations et al. The climate will change. We don't know if its our fault or not. If there is a "solution", it's a safe bet that we haven't got a clue what it is. Time marches on; things change. Suck it up.
If you still feel a need to preach about the environment, then accept that it is a religion i.e. something you do on faith. If that makes you happy fine. But as with all religions, best to practice it privately lest you hurt someone else with it.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
"We have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise how little time is left to act, and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can." Sadly, it was too late to save the 'Z' key.
I've never seen so many posts that basically consist of - la la la la la la la la la (I can't hear you) la la la..... f*king grasshoppers !
First thing we do is smash all the secret Scientology vaults -- because after emerging from a Logan's Run type complex after hundreds of years underground, the last thing people need is a Personality Test! You can spot the vaults by their special signs in deserts and parking lots.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
"Shift" is a funny word. And you only welcome it I suspect because you believe that you will either a) not feel it, or b) be part of tyhe "rapture" that gets to go to heaven and watch the rest of us die horribly. Either way I don't welcome it. I don't want to die. I don't want my friends to die. I don't want there to be wars that consume starving diseased populations in endless battles. Jesus didn't speak about "shifts" the notions of the rapture came from wandering preachers in the last century.
In a world where some 2/3 of the population lives in a fe miles from sea level, our population is growing exponentially, much of our airable land is now unusable, and much of our weather has been growing increasingly unpredictable it is foolish, even egotistical to speak of "shifts" let alone to welcome them.
that was excellently put.
From TFA:
[Agent Smith Voice]We are not merely a disease; we are, through our intelligence and communication, the nervous system of the planet.
[/Agent Smith Voice]A disease on this planet??? - reminds me of a movie I saw a while ago:-) Maybe this is how the skynet starts?
If the Doomsday is coming and it civilizations fault,I say :They deserve it. It also would be a lesson to survivors in post-envirompent-crisis-world.
Get over it, you're human - adapt.
fool for a 'planetary physician' is not helping. Malthusians never do.
*chuckle*
The amount of heat and steam produced by society is very small compared with solar input. The water vapor will condensate out very guqickly ("half-life" much smaller than CO2). There is a local effect (heat island) near largish cities, but most of the planet is not covered by large cities. The CO2, on the other hand, migrates everwhere and traps heat again and again and again.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
try this one: i live in a rather unique spot - the first pass between the bering sea and the north pacific (traveling east-west). thirty years ago, it was not uncommon for the pass to clog with ice coming out of the bering sea. that's not even close to possible now - the southern ice edge is a lot farther north than here. not all anecdotal evidence is worthless, as sometimes it's a very clear indicator of a much larger phenomenon.
people here have a lot of physical evidence to go along with their memories of winters being colder back in the day. changing ocean currents due to ocean warming affect the fish a lot, too, and that has a direct and difficult impact on the economy. just something to think about. we may not see a direct cause, but we definitely see that the regional climate is changing... and it's a very big region from siberia through alaska east-west, and the arctic into the north pacific north-south.
Long-lasting paper will save us all. The Lovelock Plan is Pefect. Personally I would like a position among the speakers in the Second Foundation. Maybe I could make the coffee?
Normally i skip the glib dissmisive commentary route. but this poorly rendered hippy rendition of george clooney chewing ER scenery is pathetic at best. A) his science is anything but adequate to prove the point he puts forth. B) He's stealing a page from the Pat Robertson playbook, of all say something inflamitory and be famous...again. and even with the page infront of him he's not reading it right. C) He provides no real rational solutions. so at the end other than wasting 5 minutes of my day what has this essay accomplished? nothing besides making me want to bitch kick another hippy. The simple reality is if you concerned about climatic change, there are some very real and very dire groups out there that could use help. but no one in the "were all gonna die, aww lawdy lawd" groups want to hear that. they just want your attention......and you to notice their Paypal donations link. if we are entering into an excinction phase, then i hope with my fingers crossed and gun in hand. these twits are the first to go.
Just do an Art of Living-course, and smile at everything. Whatever good we start doing, will not make it any worse at least.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Rather than looking at massive doomsday scenarios, let's set our sights a little lower. I'd begin by looking at...
The lower-lying countries of the world, and see what happens to them when sea level rises a few feet. Add to that the stronger storms that seem to come along with global warming. This type of thing is what's happening now, and has been in the news. As sea level rises, look uphill and gauge the ability of both parties to make war over land.
The fisheries. Over the past week or so, I began hearing about deep-sea fish being threatened with extinction, because now they are being commercially fished, after the collapse of the Cod fisheries. The stunning thing there is that I'd never heard that the Cod fisheries had collapsed. Something that significant should have made more of a warning noise.
The insurance industries, as storms get stronger, and more marginal areas get settled because of land pressure.
It's not a "suddenly it's doomsday" scenario. Instead, we're all frogs in the pan of water, and the real question is how hot will the burner get turned up to.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I don't believe we'll see a Mad Max style world. There is so much land available in the entire globe that I don't see how warlords can use the strength of weapons to take over. The reason we see "chaos" in Somalia is because there is an existing infrastructure that people want to utilize.
Even if we did collapse into an chaotic anarchy (opposite of the capitalist anarchy that I promote), weapons wouldn't last without an infrastructure to maintain them. Once all the bullets are expelled or all the maintenance fluids are used up, most weapons are useless. You can't fight a global war with knives, and you can defend yourself much easier in communities against warlords if you take the machine guns and flamethrowers out of the equation.
Weapons sufficient for an organized group of dedicated individuals to occupy and defend a relatively large land mass (the size of an average Nation-State) are not that difficult to maintain. With organization, even at current world population densities, the most basic agricultural societies can support a warrior caste. The ability to refine metals, produce electricity, and feed distant armies is all that is necessary to wage global warfare. There is no infrastructure in Somalia that couldn't be reproduced in a few years by a small group of educated individuals.
War is one of the most inefficient ways to gain wealth -- it requires millions of people deciding to give up their wealth in exchange for no profitable gain. In fact, I believe war requires democracy.
In the world you describe, this part may be true. And it may be becoming more and more true.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
> Billions of years ago, when the day was 23 hours long, there was no oxygen in the air and hence no ozone. The surface of the earth would have killed any land based animals pretty quickly.
So, some bilions of years from now, some weird new life form will look at natural history and say
"billions of years ago, there was no radiation on earth strong enough to suport energy life. So the nature just made some bacteria thingy make it available for us".
Oh, and I wonder how the people and nations that feel that they "own" that land further up the shore will react to this migration.
When the islands disappear and the unhappy people move to other countries to build new lives, I wonder where they'll find a willing host.
I'm sure many of these disruptions could be survivable - if we reacted well to them. I'm equally sure we won't. I also tend to believe that the human population is already above the sustainable level of the Earth, though I'm not certain on that, because many of our problems are due to inequity of distribution. But then again I seriously doubt those inequities will get any less, any time soon.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Yeah, that's the bad part - he might be right!
The revolution will NOT be televised.
The guy you are accusing of fear-mongering didn't say a single thing that scared me.
He didn't scare me, either. Didn't you read where I mentioned that I'm not manipulated by guilt or fear any more? Whether or not I'm scared has nothing to do with whether or not the parent was fearmongering.
It sounds to me like you are saying "If this climate change stuff is true, we should be terrified, and therefore I cannot believe it is true, therefore I want to see the people saying this stuff denounced!"
Allow me to clarify, for I must have misspoken. I am saying that this climate change stuff is merely another manifestation of the global destruction fantasy, and the way that this fantasy is spread is through fear. We've seen this play out time and time again, from the "left" and from the "right". I've had enough of it, and I want others to stand with me in rejection of these fear games that other people play.
Nutty ol' Lovelock proposes strong archival and dissemination of knowledge. And preparing local communities and family groups in case of disasters. This is harmful exactly how?
Don't change the subject. Lovelock's odious action was the "the world is going to end!" fearmongering, not his desire to archive data.
Lack of preparedness has obvious harmful effects.
I have never decried being prepared. Are you stating that the entire human race should have prepared itself for the global destruction that was prophecized by The Population Bomb? What about for Global Cooling? Or the end of oil (all seven times we were supposed to have run out in the past)? Do you still fail to see what I'm getting at? Those "warnings" were just pointless fearmongering designed to give the fearmonger money, power, and attention.
What, exactly, is this "harm" you ascribe to this so-called "fear-mongering"?
Fear causes anxiety and anxiety is harmful to health.
How is anyone harmed by preparedness?
Remember all those "Y2K preparedness kits" that people bought? Wouldn't that money have been better spent on something else? Well, at least they were "prepared" for the Y2K global destruction, correct? And some other fearmongers made a whole bunch of money -- I guess *they* weren't exactly harmed!
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Im just going to keep a few cyanide capsules around. Unless he has some ideas about curing radiation sickness from a nuclear war, the various illnesses that will be going around after a massive natural disaster or the lack of sun for 100 years if an asteroid hits.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I think the guy is an idiot. Survival is what got us into this mess in the first place. It will only get us into more trouble again if we keep doing it.
Oh yes, junk science. I just love this stuff. Anywhere from "we are destroying the ozone with man made CFCs" to "cars are the leading producers of polution". Let's forget about the sun and volcanic eruptions. Let us not concern oursevles with natural changes in the wind paths. Don't forget about the dangerous whole in the ozone.
We have sooooooooo much evidence that all of the environmental problems are man made. We have millions of years of measured results to compare. We know so much about the world, that we are experts.
Oh, what's that? We only have a very, very small fraction of the knowledge needed to make such conclusions? I am so sorry, I just confused the scientific community with somebody that really knows what is going on.
The world is comming to an end alright, but there isn't a living soul that can tell when. There isn't anyone who even has a clue as to when anyone might even know.
Has anyone considered a meteor shower that can wipe us all out?
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
I've tried to dope out the United States meaning of the word "conservative" in recent years, and logically speaking, it just doesn't make sense. "Conservative" shares an obvious root with "conservation", yet "conservatives" are obviously not pro-"conservation". I used to think "conservative" had something to do with fiscal responsibility, but that one's out the door, too. Once upon a time, "conservative" also meant "mind your own business", but that's clearly not what a "social conservative" doest, these days.
But I think I finally understand what "conservative" really is, and what it "conserves". What is being "conserved" is the wealth, status, power, lifestyle, etc, of the "conservative". I'm not sure if the current "social conservatism", disapproving and legislating against others' behavior, is to salve their conscience or to redirect/misdirect the outrage of the ordinary.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
repost: http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=174103 &cid=14484685
try this one: i live in a rather unique spot - the first pass between the bering sea and the north pacific (traveling east-west). thirty years ago, it was not uncommon for the pass to clog with ice coming out of the bering sea. that's not even close to possible now - the southern ice edge is a lot farther north than here. not all anecdotal evidence is worthless, as sometimes it's a very clear indicator of a much larger phenomenon.
people here have a lot of physical evidence to go along with their memories of winters being colder back in the day. changing ocean currents due to ocean warming affect the fish a lot, too, and that has a direct and difficult impact on the economy. just something to think about. we may not see a direct cause, but we definitely see that the regional climate is changing... and it's a very big region from siberia through alaska east-west, and the arctic into the north pacific north-south.
I'm 'spreading' my opinion on this oversized blog. To attribute some kind of fearmongering agenda to my post is disingenuous at best. Admit you overreacted and we can continue the discussion.
It is not disingenuous at all. You perceive climate changes that make you feel unsettled. Did you expect to make people happy with this news? I'm not yet convinced that I overreacted.
I sympathize with your Outrage Overload but that is just as anecdotal as my original point.
"Anecdotal" as in "completely untrustworthy"? Do I need to rattle off the numerous, numerous failed global destruction predictions of the past few decades? Many of them were written about in books that you can purchase on amazon.com. Do I need to send you a link?
Here is what I am worried about - and try to contain yourself:
Self successfully contained.
If you think this is all just a bunch of handwringing, fair enough. I'm going to render my own judgement on this dataset, and I'm going to talk about it too - even in the face of Crying Wolf accusations.
I think it's all a bunch of handwringing, and I see your attempts to "talk about it" as blatant fearmongering. I will continue to label it as such because I see nothing that differentiates it from fearmongering in the past. I maintain: the fear you spread is more harmful than the thing you fear.
I'm not selling anything.
Bullshit. I see you as a religious zealot sending a message for people to convert to your environmental religion. You create fear in other people and you offer them the "fix" (which is to adopt your point of view). Compare this to Christians: they create fear and guilt in people by telling them that they are going to hell, then they offer the "fix" which is to believe in Jesus and be saved. Dan Barker said this about Christians: "The Christian is like a salesman who cuts you with a knife and then offers to sell you a bandage." There is some bitter truth to that statement, but I don't think it's relegated only to Christians. The guilt/fear tactic is exploited by all flavors of zealots.
Perhaps you take exception to this and will protest, "I'm not a zealot; I'm only an individual who's concerned about changed I perceive in the climate." If that's true, then how do I know you're not a zealot who's just saying that to win converts? Will you admit that there are some rabid zealots in the environmentalist movement? How do I know you're not one of them? If I were an environmentalist zealot, then I would certainly try to pass myself off as merely a "concerned scientist" or a "concerned citizen".
The message I'm relaying here, if it isn't clear enough, is I don't trust you.
If what you are saying is 'I don't want to hear about anything bad' then I would politely suggest that you are in the wrong forum.
That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is this: I don't want the fear you're trying to spread. And I maintain that there is no wrong forum for that message.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
But this season in particular, visible eletrical activity (lightning bolts) were seen with unusually high frequency. No doubt a "reasonable" non-alarmist explanation will be determined, but it is just another "something is different" tidbit.
There's another line of reasoning which I read from "The Coming Superstorm"--yes, it is considered fringe--that discusses the following sequence of events:
The ocean currents are a major source of global heat transfer and so are hurricanes. If the gulf stream is interrupted, then there is that much more heat to be dealt with by the other heat transfer systems. Hurricanes will increase in intensity to compensate.
Think of a straw swirling a soda. The faster you swirl it the higher up toward the rim goes the swirling. If you go fast enough it swirls right out of the cup. Well, if you get a hurricane going fast enough, the outer layers of air become the cup and the swirling rises higher and higher into the atmosphere. High enough, it will reach into the very cool areas of the troposphere, which causes a pipeline between the very hot warm air near the oceans and the cool air high in the atmosphere. That gives you really strong vertical flow. You've already got a ton of ionization happening, so zap, zap, zap! Lightning.
I am not claiming that all of this is factual. I would have to go dig up all the sources I've read and substantiate them, etc. But there are definite patterns here. One definite fact is that the glacial shelves have melted significantly and the major currents that bring warm water to the colder regions of the North Atlantic have been measured to have reduced in strength by as much as 30% in the past 50 years.
Many scientists are in agreement that if that flow stops, northern hemisphere temperatures will drop significantly in a single year (because the flow of warm water from the equatorial regions will not be present to balance the cold of the Winter months and the ocean is a huge temperature reservoir for the northern continents). So the second season, we potentially sink to an even lower temperature, until some other environmental balancing factor can take over the role that the ocean is no longer playing in the heat transfer process.
Rapid climate change is a historically documented fact (from core samples in regions all over the world). And it is not just because of us. It happens on Earth quite frequently. If you search the web for rapid climate change, you will find a wealth of information (not all of which is sensationalist crap like TFA, :-). Here's one I think is quite informative: http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/ abruptclimate_joyce_keigwin.html.
The bottom line here from my perspective is that we as a global population really need to get our heads out of our asses. Not because of what we are doing to the Earth, though that is a significant issue we should consider, but simply because the Earth changes quite a bit all by itself, and we are not very well prepared for it.
Witness what happened in New Orleans. That was a many billion dollar tragedy and what caused it? A single storm. That should be one Hell of a wakeup call, but honestly, it is not seen as economically expedient to plan for change. Most of the countries on this planet ha
This goes to show that with china and india comming up quickly to the same status as the developed world, we had better get off our butts quickly and stop waging these wars all the time (iraq??) and instead, use the same amount of money to star what the forsight nanotech institute has called an crash course Nanhatten projet, where we develope advanced nanotech in 5 or so years (just like we did in world-war II where we developed the atomic bomb and the atomic power reactor in 5 instead of 40 years!).
Its simple, if you do not want to lose your present position as a person living in the developed world (and I think that most slashdotter's are smart enough to see that), and you don't want a future where the really dumb bully types run the world and the only thing they care about is gold and beating people over the head and making them slaves, then we had better turf out mr bush and co. and install somebody who has the brains to understand the situation.
You can argue politics later, but soon we will be soon essentially reaching "peak oil" where the world consumption of oil is starting to run out (china is buying up all the oil rights in the world, it's car production and building boom has caused a steel and concrete shortage last year, (take a hint: what do you think is going to happen 5 or even 10 years from now, (if we don't develope working nanotech),it going to get better? I don't think so...)
If we do head into a future world that has not invested in advanced nano, then what are the baby boomers going to do? It would be ironic that that generation who pushed the high-tech computer revlolution into bing could not take advantage of it to take the IT revolution to the nanobot software revolution of computerized nanoassemblers, nanohealth robotics where we make all your cells young again (permanent fountain of youth), but noo, instead, we will get smelly warlords (and goons) beating the crap of smelly nerd slaves who can't fix those ancient computer-thingys running windoze when mr. warlord wants to play grand theft auto or resident evil?
Dreamed up by Asimov when he needed an idea for a story and his eyes happened to fall on his copy of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Fiction. Not real.
Not that this necessarily mean he is right; but we do need to take this with some amount of seriousness.
We do need to take environment problems and climate change seriously. We don't need to take some alarmist's warning of imminent doom seriously, if there is no solid scientific basis for doing so.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
One spiecies toxic waste is the next spiecies oil field.A species days are numbered when it is forced to mate for life.That indicates that the spiecies has stoped advancing and is starting to turn on themselves.Why would anyone think, that spreading human ignorance on a decay proof tablet, will help the next superspiecies.
Oh no, the sun is going to go nova in 10,000,000,000 years - gotta start planning for that...
Condensed from here:
93 - Saint Clement I declares that the end would be coming any moment.
100 - Saint Ignatius goes on at some length about the soon to be End Times.
156 - Montanus prophesizes end times around the corner.
195 - The "Sibylline Oracles" dates imminent apocalyose at 195.
210 - A Christian seer, Judas, determined that the Book of Daniel predeicted imminent apocalypse.
365 - Saint Hilary of Poitiers prophesized the soon to be end until being taunted out of town in 366.
375 - 400 - Saint Martin of Tours carries on doomsaying as a prodigy of Saint Hilary.
500 - Around 221, Sextus Julius Africanus placed Armageddon at roughly 500 CE.
751 - Scores believe end times are near when the last Merovingian king is deposed.
Between 799 - 806 - Time of the apolcalypse according to Saint Gregory of Tours.
800 - End times according to Beatus.
848 - Thiota waltzs into Mainz in 847 to announce that the next year would be the last one.
950 - Adso of Montier, writes a letter which leads to apocalyptic panic.
968 - An eclipse causes apocalyptic panic.
Friday, March 25, 970 - Lotharingian end date.
992 - Bernard of Thuringia's predicted year of end times.
1186 - In 1179, John Of Toledo squandered his money on pamphlets predicting the end year of 1186.
1260 - Joaquim of Fiore announced with great authority that 1260 would be the End. By the time his followers realized they'd been had, he'd been dead for some 58 years.
1306 - In 1147, Gerard of Poehlde predicted this year of the apocalypse.
1310 - The end according to Fra Dolcino of Novara.
1346 - The Black Death inspires the Flagellants; predicting end times, of course.
1420 - The chosen year of the Taborites.
1420 - Martinek Hausha predicted the apocalypse somewhere between February 1st and February 14th.
Late 1400s - End times according to Arnold of Vilanova.
1490 - 1500 CE - Girolamo Savonarola's prediction of end times.
And on, and on, and on... and then comes the 20th century, filled with hundreds of purported doomsdays.
There's just no end to human stupidity, I guess.
Yah, right... all the ancient civ's that we have information about wrote on _STONE_.
Just substitute "nations" for "warlords." The world is undeniably a place of limited resources (oil and potable water for instance), and nations exist to compete for those resources. I don't need to "prepare" for that reality--my fellow citizens and live I it, and make collective decisions every 2-4 years to make sure we are the biggest and baddest warlord in the world. We'll take the resources we want, by force if necessary. In case you couldn't guess by now I live in the United States.
Lovelock has a good point, but he thinks too small and too late. The world is already at war for limited resources, and the players are nations, not nickel-and-dime warlords.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
In summary Crichton shows how scientists have found that there is no good methodology for determining whether "global warming" is or is not occurring and that there is no way to determine what is causing "global warming" or "global cooling". Parts of the earth are warming up and other parts are cooling, but scientists haven't begun to fathom how or why. But they do know that global cooling/warming has happened many times before and so is nothing new, that large-scale burning of fossil fuels by human is not necessary for global warming/cooling to occur, and that there is no scientific basis for a cause-effect relationship between humans and global warming/cooling.
Crichton also documents how much money non-profit organizations who do no research and do little other than line their own pockets have invested their futures in the scare tactics of proclaiming global warming. Instead of scientists doing the science, we have lawyers and marketers pushing "global warming" so that they can get rich (via non-profits, environmental lawsuits, etc.). These folks have a vested interest in keeping the rest of us scared to death of "global warming".
In short, "global warming" supporters are all non-scientific and either naive do-gooders or unethical environmental carpetbaggers eager to empty your wallet. Quit sending them money.
From the US:
To Quote A Liberal: "It's Bush's Fault."
To Quote A Conservative: "If you want it fixed vote for the green party. In the mean time enjoy having a job, low cost utilities, and the highest standard of living on Earth."
To Quote A Hippie: "IF you don't eat sand you're killing mother earth!! Because eating animals is bad because they feel pain, and eating plants deprives mother earth of important C02 gobbling plants, and you certainly can't eat rocks as they are the very skin of our dear mother! Err. wait.... NO SAND NO SAND!"
To Quote A Scientist: "We need money, we'll say whatever they (being the people that are funding them) want us to say."
The Universe: "I don't give a shit if your planet blows up. I can always use another kupier belt there!"
Change is the only constant. Change is amoral. Mar's doesn't care if there is nuclear waste all over it, neither does the moon, neither does Earth. Only the arrogance of man would allow a population to complain about climate change. We are an oddity, not the norm. Find me one other planet that even remotly resembles earth. Quite frankly perhaps we are setting the climate to what it is supposed to be, rather then what we THINK it should be. Perhaps something between Venus' and Mars' atmosphere.
We are just as much a part of nature as any other animal and all things we do ARE NATURAL. Quite frankly I think it's man's nature to coat the planet in plastic and cement and I for one have no qualms in assisting in that endevor if that in fact is our purpose in life. Humans appear to be the only creatures that question their own actions, perhaps we should question what our definition of a proper planet should look like. So far my theory is pretty sound as we have yet to find a planet like ours....
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Within fifty years, nanotech will make all of this utterly irrelevant.
Even if it doesn't - in fact, BECAUSE it didn't, if that's what happens - destroying most of human civilization will be a positive thing.
This, of course, is exactly what Lovelock is promoting - just like Ehrlich did with his "Population Bomb" book back in the 70's. Ehrlich recommended reducing the world's several billion population back to 500 million. Then he explicitly excluded an possible solutions such as sending people into space or whatever. In other words, he was implicitly advocating the genocide of nearly two and a half billion people. Why? Because a couple hundred million might be starving by the year 2000.
What's wrong with this picture?
Lovelock is doing the same. He YEARNS for a collapsed human civilization, which is why he is advocating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Unfortunately for him, we Transhumans have our OWN self-fulfilling prophecy which is consideraly more potent than his. We will eliminate the human condition, and thus eliminate human problems, including any negative environmental effects by human technology.
By the way, the Gaia Hypothesis was so much mystical horseshit anyway.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
This is a good idea. We can't predict a pretty significant percentage of the natural disasters that could seriously fuck up civilization globally, so it may be wise to get started on this now. In the worst-case (human extinction), it could also prove useful to anyone who stumbles upon our remains in the future.
I'd probably volunteer for a few pages, myself.
At a 1% annual growth rate the population doubles every 70 years (current rate is 1.14, but lets not quibble).
The current population is approx 6Bln people and will double every 70 years at 1% growth; in 1050 years we get 1.966E+14 people (or ~1.5E+14 in 1000 years).
Curioulsy enough there is (currently) 1.5E+14 square metres (slight bigger than a square yard) of surface land area on the earth.
So in 1000 years there will be 1 person per square meter. Clearly a problem. (For those of you interested in extending your life, possibly indefinitely, this is a showstopper).
The question then becomes, do we get a grip on our current obsession with economic growth (which is entirely premised on population growth); or do we just let mother nature and/or our fellow man "bring it on"?
Whether its too late may be open to some debate, but there is definitely a problem and it will be/have-to-be addressed well before 1000 years pass.
Whether its our generation, or our children, or our childrens children, someone in the not nearly so distant future is going to pay the price for our inability to get our act together now.
Cut those trees down so we can print all of human knowledge on it so it won't be lost. Just remember many of my Republican friends and I will burn the paper the books are printed on to stay warm or to cook some food! Liberals are so funny!!! They create global warming and other BS because underneath it all they are communists who are desparately trying to tear down a system that works where as their system sucks!
then we are running the cleanest war in history by about five orders of magnitude. That is a good sign, not a bad one.
As for the bombs, I am proud we did what we did. It was more merciful than invading Kyuushuu, resulting in the deaths of millions of Japanese directly or due to starvation/disease the following winter. Also, using the bombs ended Japanese aggression throughout Asia. Thousands of innocents were dying each day in these areas.
You think the war was over? Here is a question for you. We dropped the first bomb on August 6th. How many Americans were killed on August 5th?
Well, I never..
Metamoderators, do your stuff!
Dude, I have been eagerly waiting for the most-excellently made Foundation series movies for over twenty years but it hasn't happened yet :(
My favorite science fiction ever!
I just hope they don't make a cheap/cheesy one with overly famous actors. Maybe an indy?
r
The sky is falling, the sky is falling!!!!
Will someone tell chicken little to shut up...
Thnx, bye
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
So what, exactly, are you naysayers going to do about it? Party on?
Unless the plan is to route the environmental catasrophe to some other planet or something, we should be talking about averting it, not diverting it.
When I was a kid, we dug caves in the snow mounds that lined the driveway. In recent years, I have only had to shovel snow once or twice per season. Here it is January and I shoveled once already this year. The remaining snow has melted completely. We had several days of 40-something and rain. Yes that 50 degrees was a fluke, but a week of warm weather is not just noise. I fully expect more snow. February is the worst month - not just because we're sick of winter by then, but perhaps because for the last 15 years we've been seeing a strange warming in late January that is now perhaps taking the whole month. I'll shovel snow probably one more time probably in February.
I'm not saying the change is due to humans (though I believe much of it is). I'm just saying I disagree with your framing it as a perceived change due to problems with human memory over decades. No sir, the actual temperatures and snowfall are significantly different now than they were 30 years ago. Perhaps it's just local due to the urban sprawl, but it most definitely is real.
If people are frightened by doomsayers, then let the people be frightened. Maybe they will get off their lazy asses and do something meaningful with their lives. If not, why should the rest of us be concerned about the nebulous effects of anxiety on the health of a bunch of cowards?
... seems to be lost on this guy. Only 5% of Canada is arable (that is, farmable.) There is *plenty* of room for large wind farms and other, similarly massive projects, without having to worry about depleting available farmlands. Besides, many cities are *already* sitting on top of a large percentage of viable farmland up here.
Consider the Gaia idea. The earth is a complex system with interdependant processes. An organism is a complex system with interdependant processes. On a very shallow level it is useful to draw an analogy, but shouldn't lose sight of it - it's like anthomorphising animals and then wondering why the pit bull terrier who was treated like a little human being bit little Jimmy (note: this is another analogy - the earth isn't going to bite little Jimmy) .
Consider the environmentalism as religeon idea. Some eviromentalists believe strongly about some things and hold some things as being self evident. Some religeous people believe strongly about some things and hold some things as being self evident. Once again on a shallow level the analogy holds - but stretching the point a huge distance to push an agenda is a bit much.
They are both correct - for a given value of correct. I think they are both wrong where they look at the analogy more than the reality at points where it diverges wildly. It's like saying life is like a box of chocolates and stretching that to say life weighs a quarter of a kilogram and is made in Belgium.
I think that the key is that you are not going to be able to make it alone. Even a primitive tech level requires skills that one person alone cannot master in a lifetime of trying.
So when you are setting up your society you need to accept the skill sets that will make that society strong. You must also turn away those that will make your group weak. You must be strong and turn away those that would bring down your group.
Pick one leader and fully support that leader. Anyone who disagrees, then they get the boot.
Life in a society like this is tough. Lives are short and brutal and filled with pain.
We cannot stop civilizations from collapsing, it is what they do. Usually the end is very bad. You want to avoid being around a lot of people when this is going on.
You need to have gold too, because money is going to be so much toilet paper. But just about any hard goods are valuable. Metals, food, goods, all valuable. Oh yeah, stock pile toilet paper too, cause life with no toilet paper is rough. Trade and Barter is all you have in a primitive system. No loans, no venture capital, no stocks, no bonds.
But you need support to keep those goods and gold. If you are alone a stronger individual or group will take all you have and leave you for dead.
What a fruitcake. The sky isn't falling.
Lovelock has NEVER promoted a teleological view of the biosphere or its regulation. *never*
in fact, he's spent the last few decades fighting against people who insist on twisting his words to fit a new age view, complete with love or animosity towards human life. Lovelock instead sees what is essentially an uncaring system that has no guiding principle towards or against the survival of any species.
Gaia made me an oogler of playboy bunnies and generally, I don't take that as seriously as I should. My wife is less understanding than you'd think about my job.
First of all:
... Standards and Practices !
YOU'LL NEED A CHAINSAW !!!
PenGun
Do What Now ???
Gotta love the two-headed cow.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Asimov's "Foundation".
;)
The whole beginning of the book is how someone predicting doom wanted to make an encyclopedia of all knowledge to speed up the coming of the next great civilization.
(Or so he said
First, I want to say that I don't mean just to detract from you - I largely (though not entirely) agree with a lot of your ideals, and one way or another find your posts in this thread quite interesting, so I've added you to my "friends" list, but I don't have time to respond in detail to everything you've posted in this thread. Nevertheless, I want to take issue with one small point here...
Anarchy is not "take what you want" that is chaotic nihilism. Anarchy just means no government.
Anarchy literally means "without rulers", a ruler being of course, someone who enforces rules. This is not entirely the same as being without government. What you seem to seek (and I agree with you here) is not an absence of rule entirely, but rather self-rule, autonomy or personal sovereignty; freedom from outside rule. While this concept has often been called anarchy and its adherents sometimes self-identify as "anarchists" (as opposed to those colloquial identified as "anarchists" of the violence and destruction connotation), less misleading terms have been coined to describe an anti-tyranny but still not truly anarchy position, such "minarchy" or (small-L) libertarianism
True anarchy in the literal sense of the word *IS* the praxiological equivalent of epistemological nihilism. In nihilism, there is nothing true or false, real or unreal (or at least, there is no strict method enforced, even by oneself upon oneself, to determine what makes an idea true or false) - people just think however they think for whatever reason. In anarchy, there is nothing good or evil, moral or immoral (or at least, there is no strict method enforced, even by oneself upon oneself, to determine what makes a deed good or evil) - people just act however they act for whatever reason.
Both are just as flawed as their respective opposites, dogmatism and tyranny. In both cases, a balance needs to be stricken - some core set of notions must be taken as absolute (the assumptions of rationalism and empiricism in the scientific method, in one case; and things like basic freedoms such as liberty and security in the other), which has shades of dogmatism and tyranny in itself, the notion that there are "absolute" laws regarding reality and morality. But of course, the other extremes of nihilism and anarchy bring their respective offerings to the table as well, and it's clear that for every basic assumption there is a corresponding burden of proof - with rationalism and empiricism come the burdens of skepticism and agnosticism - and likewise, for every freedom there is a corresponding responsibility. With the freedom of liberty comes the responsibility of mercy, that is, the responsibility not to infringe on others' security; and with the freedom of security comes the responsibility of leniency, or the responsibility not to infringe on others liberty.
More or less it all comes down to the Golden Rule (I prefer the negative formulation, "do not unto others what you would not have done unto you"), common across all cultures, universal to humankind. Ethics and morality are really quite simple and versatile when you see how it all comes down to this, and as law and government are nothing but the formal enforcement of some system of morals or ethics, they should reflect that as well. Complex specialized bureaucracies enforcing hundreds of years of case law and legal codes specifying the minute details of every little thing are unnecessary and in the end ultimately harmful to everyone.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
I like in Minneapolis; I moved her in 1993. In those days, the snow was three feet deep all winter long, piled up on the curbs and corners four and five feet high. Now the snow melts off before it gets more than a few inches deep. These effects are measurable, people.
>No one can agree on the environment.
This is where you're wrong. Everyone with a brain and an open mind can agree. The evidence is there, but idiots with too much money at stake are desperately spinning the truth into lies, in an effort to keep other idiots buying big SUVs and gasoline. Record profits by oil companies this year, and we're flopping over on our back for the bastards. And yeah, the pussy-ass politicians won't take a stand, won't put any money into building decent public transport, etc etc.
All of this goes back to the biblical injunction subdue the earth and (they always forget this part) renew it. Clearly we've put every living thing on this earth under our dark and grabby hand, but we need to cut off that hand and learn to live with less or we'll die and we'll deserve it. Good riddance I say. Too bad all those nice paintings and poems will go with us though.
Jon
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
You should subscribe to National Geographic and RTFAs. There's also a fair bit of info at their website. The people at NGS are scared shitless, and there's good reason for it. Anyone with any sense should be writing to his congressman about banning the personal ownership of gas-powered vehicles and massive investment in public transport. The US should immediately sign the Kyoto accords, and yeah, maybe it'd be a good idea to create a description of our own environmental trouble in pictograms and place in a vault only technology approaching ours could open.
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
I've read a few of the posts. Some are reasonable. But such negative vibes!
These ideas of doomsday are something like original sin and Catholics have the guilt thingy perfected better than most religeons. This "doomsday" crap is nothing more than another wanna be religeon because it sure isn't back up by any facts. Gia is just another word for god! Since there is no evidence to support that gia even exists this is little more than a religeon in disguise and I question why it is even in slashdot.
That being said - there is no MUCH opportunity in this world that it cannot even be measured.
Here is an example.
I watched a survival program on TV a few days ago - it was about a group of people who wanted to learn forest survival skills - how to fend for themselves. So they headed off on a 2 day trek in Northern Ontario (Canada) and lived off the land. Along the way they learned to eat leaches and frogs and so forth.
I have an interest in mushrooms and fungii so I was all keen on seeing what sort of feast they were going to have. Alas. There was one silly reference to mushrooms and it was along the line that some mushrooms can kill you. It was not mentioned that some berries can kill you as well. So can some wild animals - such as bears. There are bears in Northern Ontario.
So these people ate leaches and meanwhile the forest was chock full of gormet mushrooms - probably 100's of pounds of them. All they needed to do was to study the feild and learn which species are deadly - which will make you sick - which are good to eat - and if they really want to get down to it - which can save your life!
An uninformed person can walk through the forest and starve to death. For instance, a mycologist on the other hand can walk through the forest and see so much potential for food and medicines as to defy the imagination.
Since that forest for instance is in Northern Ontario it has a lot of hardwoods and as such the bio mass that can easily be turned into gormet foods is measured in millions of tonnes. Everytime you pick up some mushrooms from the supermarket you take advantage of the knowledge and skill of professionals who know this.
Yet - the survivalists on that TV show didn't know this. They had their clients eating leaches.
This idea of collapse of civilisation is similar to the lack of knowledge portrayed by that TV show.
The world is awash with energy. We just have to start using it. There is so much biomass that can be turned into food that we cannot even begin to estimate how much. There are huge opportunities.
At the same time there are huge problems. In North America we are at the beginning of a major energy crisis. Natural gas production (production = depletion) peaked in 2001. World conventional oil production has been reported to have peaked in 2004. Still we see stupid forecasts that suggest that oil production will climb from the 82 million barrels per day to over 130 million barrels by 2050. That is a load of crap - at least for conventional oil. However - unconventional is making headway. But the investments are massive! In Albera for instance we are looking at BILLIONS per year and it will not offset declines of conventional - by 2015 we will be lucky to ramp up to 3.3 million barrels per day from the tar sands for instance - yet world declines are likely going to exceed 3% per year which is 3% of 82 million or 2+ million per day. A 3.3 million increase in synthetic crude will be a drop in the bucket compared to the declines in conventional oil production which on a year to year basis will be in the same ball park as the best synthetic can do in a decade.
So yes - there is going to be a crunch. There may even be wars.
But I do not for an instant believe that mankind is just going to find a cave to crawl into and die when we have viable alternatives such as nuclear. Many lies have been told over the last 50 years. When people are faced with frozen pipes in their houses they will start to look
May you live in interesting times.
No good deed goes unpunished. - Avon, Blake's 7
Some guy named John Fremlin in 1964[1] said that the Earth could theoretically sustain 60 million billion people[2]. Yes. Thats 6x10^14. Now if we give each of those sardi^H^H^H^H^Hpeople a living space of 0.5 by 0.5 meters, that would mean we need abut 150 000 000 km^2. Luckily, the surface area of the earth is 148,939,063.133 km^2[3]. Hey! We'll have some left over for a Walmart!
[1] How many people can the world support, John H Fremlin, New Scientist, 24, 285-287, (29 October 1964).
[2] Guardian.co.uk: Debate heats up over Earth's population
[3] Wikipedia: Earth
Guru Meditation #6d416769.21610a21
This is very off topic, and I almost emailed you directly instead of responding here, but I thought this might perhaps spawn some interesting input from other people as well, so I'll ask this here instead.
From your messages in this thread and the few others of yours I've read, you seem to be an independent and free thinking individual. I'm judging this entirely on the fact that you hold some rather unconventional views, such that it seems unlikely your views were indoctrinated into you, and that you rather arrived at them as the result of independent thought. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but that's the impression I get.
So my question for you, assuming you are such an individual, is why you identify yourself as a "Christ follower". This is not to imply in any way that a person who agrees with the teachings of Jesus would by necessity be some sort of blind dogmatic zombie - for I myself agree with a good many of the genuine teachings of Jesus, and I feel any unbiased and sensible person would do the same. Rather, I'm genuinely curious as to why someone as (apparently) rational, naturalistic and free-thinking as yourself would (A) pick one particular historic individual as a person to identify themselves with by association, and (B) describe themselves as a "follower" of such a person, or any person for that matter. Is it just tradition, or something else?
Some background on myself, so you'll understand why I ask this... I was raised by Christian parents, one Catholic by upbringing and the other Protestant, but both of them versed in Buddhism and other eastern traditions and neither really practicing members of anything. I was raised "as a Christian", but around by 12 years old or so became highly averse to authority of any sort (either as to what "is" or what "ought"), and became... almost a nihilist and anarchist, but I realized how those weren't really tenable positions either (see my other response to you elsewhere in this thread). So most of my life I've been developing a naturalist philosophy of reality and morality, striving to strike a balance between the scientific and the mystical, the normative and the spiritual... and only recently have I gotten to a point where I can understand the statements of traditional religions as something other than nonsense. (And indeed, I now see immense beauty in many of the traditional teachings, when understood in a way that grounds them to the mundane world).
So while, in a positive sense you might be able to call me a Christian - in the same sense that Ghandi called himself a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, and so on - I wouldn't self-identify as such to the (implicit) exclusion of others, and in no way would I call myself a "follower" of any of them. We (myself and the authors of traditional religions) may walk a lot of the same paths, but I walk them because I find them the right paths to walk, not because anyone else happens to be walking them. So I'm curious, again, why you associate yourself with just the one particular person, Jesus - which seem to imply an exclusion of other figures, though I somehow doubt you meant it that way - and why you say that you "follow" him rather than simply agree with him?
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
This pseudo science babbled by 'Mr Gaia' is basically bunkum. Yeah, BUNK! See, I said it, bunk, in capital letters. Like President Putin said, if Russia warmed by 8 degrees centigrade as is implied by the statement that 'doomsday dogday afternoon' would see the temperate regions warm by "as much as 8 degrees centigrade", then it (Russia) would be better off. Indeed Russia would see winter temperatures of minus 40 degrees centigrade instead of minus fifty degrees centigrade; and would see summer temperatures of 25 degrees centigrade instead of 15 degrees centigrade. Hardly a catastrophe if the country gains a fourfold increase of its arable land. Question is: will it be able to hold on to it in the face of the Chinese hordes to the south who will look to it after digesting and ethnic cleansing Viet-Nam and the rest of southeast asia for its rice crop. Britain will reap what it sowed. By not becoming nuclear, and adamantly so, it will become like the state of Oregon in the United States. Washington welcomed nuclear power and enjoyed some of the lowest electric rates in the nation because of it. Come the seventies, neighbor Oregon was starting to run out of power and asked Washington to share its abundance at preferential rates. Governor Dixie Lee Ray cried foul and said no. The fiery ex-head of America's Atomic Energy Commission said that just like the fairy tale Chicken, Washington had built its system for Washingtonians and if somebody wanted it for free, then they would have to pay and get in line. Washingtonians were not going to freeze in the dark because profligate Oregonians wanted to live in a fools paradise and shuffle the cost of their energy profligacy onto their wiser and more industrious neighbors. While the Oregonians were eating quiche, Washingtonians build the WPPPS and would go to court to prevent its looting by the arrogant hippies to the south. The same fate awaits England in SPADES when the English under the fig leaf of the 'European Union' tries to loot neighbor France of its nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is the salvation of the world. Yeah, there might be some terrorist who might try to sabotage it. Remember that in the fifties, looters were shot on sight! Tha same will happen again. The world and its peoples are not going to be hostage to a few terrorist scum. The heirs of the hippies and other drug snorting fools of the future will be rightly dispatched. If England cannot manage itself, then others will do it.
http://free.seekon.com/NonNuclearFusionEngines/
Martin Luther King Day is about to end. Some thoughts.
Missing Sasquatch piece of the racism/racist discrimination puzzle even MLK
didn't foresee > Economic progress drove into a drum of crude oil.
Martin Luther had a dream, a dream of raising Blacks up to the level of everyone else. Did he succeed? To a large extent I like to think so. But what has really happened?! Much the same thing that happened by everyone's wife going to work... Wages lowered, benefits lowered, and the cost of health insurance went higher!
Which means the so-called "American Dream" came 3 steps closer and 2 steps back. That's my personal opinion, that we have been pulling a wagon that turned out to have SQUARE WHEELS. We work Harder it fights back harder. Apparently our economy has some built-in FAILURES that even a Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King didn't anticipate would act as a giant Jake Brake.
MLK was ahead of the starting pistol, WAY AHEAD. Willpower? We've
all got GOBS OF THAT. Willpower alone can't do it
otherwise IT WOULD HAVE ALREADY.
What is the missing piece of the puzzle? What would free up
the riches we all know this country has?!
We pay trillions out for crude oil that poisons us,
we pay trillions out for healthcare to cure us of petroleum poisoning,
we pay billions or trillions out for toxic waste cleanup & saving the environment
FROM ALL THE CRUDE OIL PRODUCTS WE PURCHASED.
The missing piece of the puzzle is to ERASE crude oil from that
Equation. After that, those trillion$ go into healthcare,
higher wages & restored job benefits, caring for the elderly & >
eliminating all taxes on seniors > The American Dream.
eliminating all taxes on seniors > The American Dream.
eliminating all taxes on seniors > The American Dream.
eliminating all taxes on seniors > The American Dream.
eliminating all taxes on seniors > The American Dream.
eliminating all taxes on seniors > The American Dream.
eliminating all taxes on seniors > The American Dream.
http://free.seekon.com/NonNuclearFusionEngines/5 p rocessexplainedindetail06062006.htm
http://www.renewamerica.us/bb/viewtopic.php?t=397
And, by the way, the SKY really is FALLING!
http://www.newpath4.com/skyisfallingendoftheworld
Reprint of Forum post made today on http://www.renewamerica.us/ as >
17. Elementary Math Man http://tinyurl.com/exp99
- Roanoke, VA - Posted on Jan 16, 2006, at 10:59:46 pm
Too bad all those nice paintings and poems will go with us though.
:P
Yeah, Dogs Playing Poker and that infamous Man from Nantucket, such a loss.
Wow. I am completely impressed by the restraint you showed in your reply, which highlights the rudeness in my own post. I must first apologize for that.
As a matter of fact, I have reviewed the specious types of documents to which you refer, and no serious Christian or secular scholars take them seriously--that's why they only appear in poorly-researched polemic works like the one you describe and not Biblical Archaeology Review. The cited passage is not from a contemporary document, it's from nearly two centuries after Christ was allegedly crucified. Tacitus was one hundred years before that, but still a century after Jesus' lifetime--well after Christianity was well-established. There's a reference from Pliny the Younger from 11 years after that. Then there are Talmudic references are even newer than the one you mention.
I would be hugely in your debt if you could send me references to some of the documents you cite. I always hated the way 'The case for Christ' was written, as much as I was excited about the ideas it contained.
And, I am officially an ass. Apologies, again.
As a math guy, I am constrained to point out that Jesus probably died around 30 A.D., which would cut the time in half. But even a couple of hundred years, in my understanding, is not a great deal of time when you're talking about the transmission of old texts. Anyway, I'm definitely not an expert.
Yeah, I totally agree -- I've been thinking the same thing lately.
Please forgive the numerous edits; I hope I kept the main point intact. I've encountered that last bit in George H. Smith's Atheism: The Case Against God . Maybe it's been around much longer -- I don't know. In any case, it's a convenient definition of faith that I think is a little too simple. Almost anything you and I believe is based to some extent on faith. Nobody can possible be an expert in every field, and so much of the information we believe about the world we believe because we trust the experts who tell us (and yes, their agreement). Trust, really is a pretty good synonym for faith, the more I think of it. And nobody would argue that trust and reason are mutually exclusive.
This is particularly important when it comes to Christianity. The kind of "makes me feel good / works for me" pseudo-faith (in nothing in particular) you describe may indeed be orthogonal to reason, but the Christian faith is a belief in something specific - "I believe that Christ rose from the dead," in the end. Even Paul admits that the whole faith is bunk if he did not.
This is called "The scandal of the particular," as I'm sure you're read. And for anyone who strives to maintin intellectual integrity, it demands reason. A man is alleged to have risen from the dead, the stakes resting on our decision
http://www.newpath4.com/skyisfallingendoftheworldp rocessexplainedindetail06062006.htm
Essentially, Boccacio is WRONG. Mostly because he doesn't know about my engines. But, that's the way it is being CAPITALISTS. Everybody wanting to get Rich off the impending Doom by writing about the Sky Falling. It won't fall as soon as my engine gets finish designed & popping off a conveyor line >
http://www.newpath4.com/millenialdawnpowerandlight secure21.htm
And the Rich?! They'll get EVEN RICHER by investing in everything but crude oil because once we get OFF CRUDE OIL all companies will increase Profits. (Sudden decrease in fuel & transportation costs.)
Agriculture is the worst mistake in the history of the human race, quoth Diamond. His opinions are to be taken very lightly.
Dog is my co-pilot.
Seconded. And don't forget Paris Hilton.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
It's not a new problem. Blue pike disappeared from the Great Lakes quite suddenly, though they had been a major portion of the commercial catch for decades.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Ah, good. So you won't mind, then, when I drain my septic tank onto your property. After all, you don't want to interfere with my livelihood.
Let's revisit what I wrote:
"(ecosystems have inherent value that the livliehood of humans must not interfere with) is repugnant to me."
I am arguing against the notion of ecosystems having inherent value; however, I would never infringe in your life, liberty, or property out of disdain for the notion of ecosystems having inherent value.
In other words, yes I would mind if you drained your septic tank into my property. In fact, I would take you to court and made sure you paid adequately for it.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
If people are frightened by doomsayers, then let the people be frightened. Maybe they will get off their lazy asses and do something meaningful with their lives.
Are you stating that it's acceptable for you scare people into action because you think they suck anyway?
why should the rest of us be concerned about the nebulous effects of anxiety on the health of a bunch of cowards?
Because we are not pompous, arrogant, condesending, or abusive?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
I do not expect people to be happy with the news, I'm trying to discuss the subject. Which is plainly beyond your faculties.
It's not beyond my faculties. Rather, beyond my interest and my tolerance. I have a very low tolerance for religious bullshit. Perhaps a supremely awesomely intelligent individual such as yourself can sympathize with that.
Why are you so threatened? Do you understand the supreme irony of you telling me that you are afraid that I am making people afraid? And lashing out at that?
"Threatened" is not the word you're looking for. Rather, I am belligerent. Furthermore, I'm not afraid of you at all. I am strident and combative. Most everyone picks a cause of good they'd like to fight for. My cause du jour happenes to be standing up against fear-spreading zealots. It just so happens that you fall into the crosshairs, and I apologize for that.
To what end? What the hell for? What would possibly be in it for me?
There are lots of things in it for you. For example: convincing people to your point of view, fighting against what you perceive as evil and ignorance, and helping a thing ("Gaia") that you care about.
You are merely occupying that famous position - frankly, one that is intellectually lazy - that points to zeal---
It's so much easier to slam your opponent as stupid than it is to actually formulate an argument, isn't it?
Answer me these questions:
1. Do there exist environmental zealots?
2. How do I know that you're not one of them?
Then I cannot help you. Enjoy the view from the sand.
I could just as easily accuse you of putting your head in the sand about any number of issues that I see as important, but I'm not pompous enough to pull it off. Somehow, I think I'll manage just fine without your awesome "help".
You shouldn't trust me out of hand. What you should trust is the data. But you can't, and that is your undoing.
How could I trust the data? Can you find me any data about "climate change", anywhere, that isn't attached to someone with some kind of political agenda? The fact is that climate change is a fiery topic, and that which you spout is merely the rhetorical leftist sheen on a bitterly divided battle.
Naturally you think that since I don't trust your data then I'm going to be "undone". If only I listened to wise men like you, I'd be perfect! Your condescending, "I'm smart and you're stupid" invective is part and parcel of what religious zealots of other flavors have used against me. Since I don't respond to guilt or fear, what made you think I'd respond to your snotty, patronizing, unintelligent personal attacks?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
It seems that anyone who points out that the planet is headed for serious [series of] catastroph[y/ies] is being 'extreme'. Extreme things happen all the time in nature and pointing them out does not make one extreme. The planet IS headed for serious [series of] catastroph[y/ies]. If you can't recognize that you do have your head up your**in the sand.
"Hey. The other room has caught on fire."
"Well.. It could happen I suppose. We were talking about getting together last week and setting up some fire drills. Probably be a good idea.."
"Yeah, but the other room is on fire. Now!"
"Mmm.. Yeah.. We should keep an extinguisher around too. Are you supposed to check the smoke alarm batteries on daylight savings? Or is it when the clocks go back? I keep forgetting."
"THE FUCKING BUILDING IS ON FIRE! GET OUT!"
"I think this grass is making you a little paranoid man. You know? You should chill with that stuff."
Now that's unpleasant!
"Eye halve a spelling chequer, It came with my pea sea, It plainly marques four my revue, Miss steaks eye kin knot sea"
If that's a critique, it's asinine. If 97% of astronomers - not the people - believe that the earth is the center of the universe, etc., well then that's a theory that bears investigation. If 3% of astronomers believe otherwise, then that too is a theory that bears investigation. The assumptions: that all these astronomers have research and clearly reasoned arguments to back their beliefs. If some of them don't, then they should be excluded from the sampling.
None of what I said is about believing the majority, and if you read it a bit more closely you'll see that. In addition, I'm talking about scientists, whom we *hope* are following the scientific method and behaving rationally. In other words, pre-scientific examples *should not apply*.
Of course, given how carefully you read my previous post, I don't expect you to read this one carefully either. Not sure why I'm bothering with a reply, except that perhaps it bothers me to see such a stupid knee-jerk pseudo-intellectual reaction to an actual reasoned argument.
[|]
I said "why should the rest of us be concerned about the nebulous effects of anxiety on the health of a bunch of cowards?" and you replied "Because we are not pompous, arrogant, condesending, or abusive?" - to which I must reply "Oh yes we are!".
Re-read our posts, starting with yours. I think you've described us both rather well... except you left out "self-rightous".
Ok, then we agree on that. I'm not arguing for proof - heck, there isn't such a thing in an empirical setting - but rather that a viewpoint based on some degree of scientific review bears consideration. This means that, for example, if a couple of scientists doing work with repeatable/verifiable results end up contradicting the understanding of the vast majority in their field then their opinions bear consideration.
The possibility of the majority being wrong is exactly the argument I'm having with that other poster in regard to market valuation of oil. And I'm suggesting that the problem is too important to leave to the probability that the market is right - we need to look at the science and the practical aspects and base our decisions on those... and I think there is a fairly clear route to take to prepare for something other than the easy-case scenario.
In the end we have to evaluate all the experiments and models and conclusions and hypotheses as best we can, throw out those that don't work (and probably try to fix their problems and try them again) and think carefully about the results of ones that do. Come up with more to try to fill in any gaps we can find. Et cetera. Just keep the process going, keep trying to learn more. And on the practical side, recognize that we don't have a proof and we don't understand everything.
In other words, I'm arguing for applying the scientific method. I apologize if my long-winded ranting is not clear enough, because I'm just trying to clarify this simple thing which so many people seem to want to misunderstand or apply selectively. I'm failing if that isn't obvious.
Thanks for the reply. I'm sorry I took your comment the wrong way.
[|]
No, I'm not saying that I am going to do anything to scare anyone. But, on the other hand, yes I am saying that I don't mind Lovelock (or you, for that matter) scaring people.
:)
So you're stating that you have no ethical problem with frightening people, but that you're too lazy to do it yourself?
And yes I do have contempt for the sort of cowardice that is endemic in America today. I am totally appalled that anyone in this country could be afraid of terrorism, for example; terrorism hardly ever kills anyone compared to things like automobiles, alcoholism, heart disease, bad hygiene, or any number of other things.
That will probably change in a few years. I think the mujahedeen are working hard to obtain a nuclear or biological weapon. Once they unleash it in a major western city it will give the Bush-haters lots of opportunity to say that "Bush ignored the signals". No, I don't like Bush. I do fear the mujahedeen, as there are 1.2 billion of them and only 1 billion Westerners, half of which are compliant and completely pussified. Cowards, if you will.
Hell, there are probably dozens of US corporations that kill more people than terrorists every year.
Probably because you simply define corporations as "evil" and take pleasure in thinking of them as mindless machiavellian monsters who would gladly grind baby bones into bone meal if it would make them money. If only you would apply the same degree of skepticism to governments' actions...
If someone living in America today is so afraid of the world ending that their health is suffering, then yes they do suck. The answer is not to denounce anything that might scare poor little precious, the answer is for society to stop coddling cowards and for precious to get a fscking grip!
Interesting. It's not okay to "coddle" fearful people but it is okay to create fearful people? It sounds like you want to do hurtful actions, and if people are hurt by your actions, then they "deserve it". Am I correct?
Re-read our posts, starting with yours. I think you've described us both rather well... except you left out "self-rightous".
I definately agree that you are a snot-nosed, arrogant little shit (not to mention abusive and possibly undeserving of living in society), but I take exception to being characterized as such. What did I say that made you think I was "self-righteous"?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
I'm going to break from the cut-and-paste model because I really like your last response and I think that you are an intelligent human who is worthy of more.
First, thank you for your wonderful compliment. Tenacity keeps my family alive.
On the subject of religion, I view extreme environmentalism (what I call "gaia worship") as a religion. Yes, it lacks churches, priests, and a Bible, but the zeal that it contains in its most rabid adherents and the universal applicability of its message are very similar to what we see in the most virulent strains of Islam and Christianity. I, too, am an atheist. Specifically, I am a negative atheist. And I am very, very wary of zealots of any religion (including gaia worship) who will try to manipulate me with any number of influence techniques.
I'm happy to see that I can describe myself in terms that match my behavior. I will always be strident and combative against what I think is evil. Since I see you as an individual who fights for what is right and eschews evil, I think that you can sympathize with that desire. I admit that I probably came down too hard on you, but, interestingly enough, I've found that folks who are smart and sturdy can handle it and we end up finding common ground in the end. I unleash holy hell on arrogant Christians on the BillOReilly.com message boards, and several of them have become friends. Weird, huh?
Given that, It is very likely that I am reading a tone that you do not intend. This medium leaves us a lot to be desired in terms of communicating our thoughts. At the same time, I am like a jack-in-the-box, ready to spring on any zealot who tries to peddle their superstitious wares, and they have many, many tactics. One would expect a zealot to be, well, zealous and overt about their evangelism, but they're smarter than that. Sometimes a single quip can be more damaging and unsettling to an political opponent than a well-reasoned tirade. That was how I perceived your original post. Short and to the point. Nothing offensive about that, right? **POUNCE!**
I retract my comment in which I stated, "Perhaps a supremely awesomely intelligent individual such as yourself can sympathize with that..." as it is, in fact, a personal attack, and I don't want to be that way. I apologize.
I take what you say about your desire not to spread fear seriously. I don't think you're trying to manipulate people. Do you agree that there are some in the environemental movement who would definately exploit fear in this regard? For example, the movie "The Day After Tomorrow". I see that film as fear-based propaganda. Do you sympathize with that point of view?
I'm pleased to see that you recognize that the field of climate change is a dangerous place -- to scientists -- that lay people like you and I (I assume your position, forgive me if I am incorrect) are largely ignorant of. There is a nasty battle going on from which we only see the runoff. The environmentalists have attracted all of the old socialists who are exploiting that position as another method to destroy the things they perceive as evil (captitalism, individualism, America), and I hate those fuckers so the whole notion of environmentalism and climate change is tainted. Likewise, someone with more leftist values will likely see the skepticism of climate change as the defense of greed and exploitation. I don't mean to pigeon-hole your beliefs, but I think it's highly unlikely for you to see eye-to-eye on the issue of climate change because any position is necessarily tied to a political position.
I do want to comment about your point about Occam's Razor. The problem I see with taking this position is that sometimes the simple solution is wrong. You have to admit that it's human nature for us to want simple solutions to problems. We don't like complex problems. We like to have a single cause to a problem so that we can "fix" it and not have to worry about trade-offs. For example, in the early 20th century there was a disease affec
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
(Re: tenacity. You are very welcome.)
I will touch on these things you've mentioned - and there's way, way, way too much to go into any real detail - but since you've been kind enough to share these thoughts, I would be remiss, were I to not reciprocate.
I take what you say about your desire not to spread fear seriously. I don't think you're trying to manipulate people. Do you agree that there are some in the environemental movement who would definately exploit fear in this regard? For example, the movie "The Day After Tomorrow". I see that film as fear-based propaganda. Do you sympathize with that point of view?
I understand your dislike of militant environmentalism; indeed, I share your rage at clueless doomsaying book-peddlars, whom I regard as dangerous noise, to be filtered and called out as they are actively working against my survival -- albeit in a very abstract way. I hasten to add, I do not really limit that group to the environmentalists, but rather any such skewed and noisy sources that aren't seeking the little-t truth. The Day After Tomorrow is ridiculous pap of course, and as far as agenda-pushing I actually think that one backfired massively if it was ever meant for that. We may differ in this regard: I would use Occam's Razor again, when speaking of that film, and say the filmmakers knew they could stir up a mild hornet's nest with the plot and used it for a little extra-juicy free publicity - and then some other opportunistic and misguided people decided to pick up that baton and run with it a bit further. That's it, that would be my guess. On the other hand, if one were to propose that the film was concocted specifically to lobby an issue, I wouldn't buy it really: you can spend a lot less money, a lot more directly, and get better results in that regard. For instance.
No apology necessary for the pouncing, frankly now that I can see your position, I think maybe you were a little too light on me... I mean, I was using anecdotes, ferchrissakes...
I'm pleased to see that you recognize that the field of climate change is a dangerous place -- to scientists -- that lay people like you and I (I assume your position, forgive me if I am incorrect) are largely ignorant of. There is a nasty battle going on from which we only see the runoff. The environmentalists have attracted all of the old socialists who are exploiting that position as another method to destroy the things they perceive as evil (captitalism, individualism, America), and I hate those fuckers so the whole notion of environmentalism and climate change is tainted. Likewise, someone with more leftist values will likely see the skepticism of climate change as the defense of greed and exploitation. I don't mean to pigeon-hole your beliefs, but I think it's highly unlikely for you to see eye-to-eye on the issue of climate change because any position is necessarily tied to a political position.
There is an interesting phenomenon that happens with clusters of beliefs -- seemingly disparate beliefs that tend to show up in people with similar core ideologies. I'll give you an example. My girlfriend likes to do yoga. She goes to a yoga class down the street. She's not a hippie by any means - she eats red meat, doesn't like folk music, etc. She complains that in going to the class, its like she has to buy into this entire mindset of beliefs - you couldn't be a pro-war, carnivorous, supercompetitive yoga enthusiast, they'd just disown you somehow. My girlfriend's class always want to go drink wheat grass juice and silly crap like that after a session, and she has to basically resist and just maintain that she simply wants the exercise.
And so it goes with environmentalism. It is tainted - all the 'ism's are tainted. People have axes to grind, although I personally find that it has more to do with personality clashes writ large than issues, ofttimes.
I am not anti-capitalist, although I do see it as highly imperfect. I do not entirely di
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Thanks for your response. It's interesting how much time and effort you and I have put into this discussion. For me, I see this as an opportunity to turn my thoughts into words and improve my debating skills. I also see it as an opportunity to learn to share mutual respect despite a difference in values. What's in it for you?
Regarding Occam's Razor: I understand your wanting to use it in the absense of data. The danger that I see here is in one of the "bugs" in the human mind: the desire for consistency. What humans often do is choose the answer that they think is right, and then stick to it come hell or high water. We humans seem to like this -- we don't like appearing inconsistent and we don't like others that appear inconsistent. Consider pellagra: scientists, after learning that pellagra may be caused by diet rather than a pathogen, viciously denounced the individual who had put for the "diet" theory behind pellagra. The scientists held on to the pathogen theory for more than a decade, even though it was completely wrong.
Regarding AIDS, yes, it's a very, very in-depth subject. If you are curious, then you can start by asking yourself some questions: There was a scientific process that was used to "discover" the AIDS virus. What, exactly, was this process, and who did it? What are the differences between "AIDS" in North America and "AIDS" in Africa?
Regarding capitalism, you make some comments that blow my mind because they appear nonsensical to me, and I attribute that to our difference in values. Yes, capitalism stinks, but it's the best thing we got. Compare it to the jury system (it stinks, but it's the best thing we got) and sceintific peer review (it stinks, but it's the best thing we got). When I say that "capitalism stinks", what I mean is that it does a poor job and giving every human a Good Life. (I regard "Good Life" as a highly-subjective and almost superstitious belief.) When I state that capitalism is moral (and I think it is), I must clarify that I regard capitalism as the action of individual humans trading value-for-value free of force or fraud and with individual property rights protected by the government. It is freedom to do what you want with what you own, provided that you aren't hurting anyone else. Notice that it encompasses the notion of charity: if I want to spend my money to help someone else, the value I receive from it is that it makes me feel good and that I know I am doing something moral. Charity is "captialistic" to me.
So, given that, I have to comment on some of your statements regarding capitalism. This is not to say, "You're wrong!" but merely to explain my position so that we better understand each other.
The market and capitalism are wholly owned subsidiaries of the environment.
I think "the market" and "capitalism" are synonymous, and they only exist with individual property rights protected and individual functioning as traders using neither force nor fraud. Given that, I would say that capitalism is owned by the practicioners, since it is they, not the environment, that make it happen.
And our markets are very interesting and complicated, and a wonderously intelligent thing when it comes to distributing wealth, at least on paper.
I really dislike the notion of wealth being "distributed". I believe that laissez-faire capitalism creates wealth, and that humans "get" (for lack of a better term) wealth by earning it, not by being on the receiving end of it being distributed. The notion of weath being "distributed" is tied to the notion that a person who has a lot of wealth necessarily did nothing to earn it. This is sometimes true (such as in the case of the children of limousine liberals), but certainly not in the case of those millionaires who worked hard and make good choices in the market and were rewarded for it. I hold those people as my heroes. I, too, want a Good Life (which to me means good food, good wine, travel to interesting locations, fun hobbies, etc.), and I intend to
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
All joking aside, if you put B1FF or john_-_winston a "foe" and browse with "foe" set to -5 in your preferences you will never see their postings again.
Man, you really need that seminar!
If we do see rapid climate change in our lifetime, consider the impact of a 50% reduction in food production capacity in the northern hemisphere. Crop failures from a 5 to 10 degree Centigrade average annual temperature drop would be very serious. And the cooling would be reinforced in successive seasons.
In combination with that, heating costs would go through the roof and the resulting economic pressure would be enormous. Political pressure centered on the Middle East would be dangerously high. A 5 year or longer depression is a distinct possibility and some Slashdot readers may have actually lived through the last one. They can tell you that alone is a serious thing, but people did not also have to deal rapid climate change during the last depression.
The real problem is that, as you said, people do not see the problem and think that everything is fine. But if you look at current events, it takes very little to cause a national disaster. A storm hits a city. A couple planes crash into a building.
We're still feeling shockwaves from 9/11. How many buildings are there in the United States? Two go down with minimal casualties. The economy takes a serious hit. Legislation is passed to erode civil liberties. People wander around in fear for several years. That is not effective recovery; it is panic and shock. Have we built ourselves a glass nation?
What I was referring to in my post is simpler than that. It is the real danger that the climate could change rapidly (in a year) and the impact of that would be undeniably severe. "I cannot afford to heat my home and I cannot afford to feed my children." You do not need that many people to be in that situation to have a national crisis. If suddenly 20% of the population were in that situation, you have a very serious problem.
I am not much for alarmism. I am a conservative investor. So when I see a risk that geological records have shown is a valid one, I think: hedge my bets. It may not happen in our lifetime, but it will happen, and there are many environmental indicators that show a definite enough pattern that it is worth addressing. When you see dark clouds stacked high up into the sky, you go out and put the top up on the convertible. When you see a 30% drop in the efficacy of a major global heat transfer mechanism (ocean currents), you think it might be wise to do what you can to protect your self, your family, and your nation.
"An unfortunate consequence is that his brand of extremism is likely to make more realistic claims and analyses less acceptable to the mainstream."
Whether or not his claims are "extreme" is entirely subjective, and since when did the immediately appearant believability of an argument have any bearing on whether or not it's actually true?
I'm not persuaded by the repeated argument that because every similar claim about environmental collapse in the past has not come to fruition within the timetable predicted, that every subsequent claim is absolutely certain to follow the same path.
And I'm pretty sure it's in the nature of the "mainstream" to ignore anything it doesn't want to hear, sugar coated to a state of immediate appearant believability or not.
For me, I see this as an opportunity to turn my thoughts into words and improve my debating skills. I also see it as an opportunity to learn to share mutual respect despite a difference in values. What's in it for you?
I suppose the thing that keeps me responding is much the same - I get the feeling that we probably don't agree on everything, but interestingly enough, your pre-emptive pouncing has seemingly nullified the possibility of flamewar. (Is that an argument for unilateral action?) So I enjoy being able to stretch, as you say, and not have it descend into Godwin terriroty or what have you. Its so hard to have an actual debate on Slashdot sometimes, even though I do think that hypertext makes for a great debate medium (with the caveat of tone and subtlety perhaps being lost).
Regarding Occam's Razor: I understand your wanting to use it in the absense of data. The danger that I see here is in one of the "bugs" in the human mind: the desire for consistency. What humans often do is choose the answer that they think is right, and then stick to it come hell or high water. We humans seem to like this -- we don't like appearing inconsistent and we don't like others that appear inconsistent.
I agree with this. I would add - and this also supports your point - that Occam's should be used very sparingly. The desire for consistency and reassuring patterns can manifest itself with or without a framework of assumption. Your pellagra example is a fascinating one, I'll need to dig a bit more about that before I can discuss it intelligently. Point well taken. Suspicion is good, skepticism is good. As long as it is thoughtfully applied.
Regarding AIDS, yes, it's a very, very in-depth subject. If you are curious, then you can start by asking yourself some questions: There was a scientific process that was used to "discover" the AIDS virus. What, exactly, was this process, and who did it? What are the differences between "AIDS" in North America and "AIDS" in Africa?
Again, I thank you for the insight, but I feel that I should withhold comment until I read some more about this. I will take your suggestion. I feel that there is certainly much more (much more) to AIDS/HIV than what is typically dispersed in the mainstream, but I am not nearly knowledgeable enough to discuss it intelligently. I have had some halting conversations with my aunt, who is a Genetic Counseller, about AIDS; she feels that there is information being stifled on the subject and comments that "it doesn't behave like you would expect."... for what that's worth.
Regarding capitalism, you make some comments that blow my mind because they appear nonsensical to me, and I attribute that to our difference in values. Yes, capitalism stinks, but it's the best thing we got. Compare it to the jury system (it stinks, but it's the best thing we got) and sceintific peer review (it stinks, but it's the best thing we got). When I say that "capitalism stinks", what I mean is that it does a poor job and giving every human a Good Life. (I regard "Good Life" as a highly-subjective and almost superstitious belief.)
Capitalism is indeed the best thing we've got; as a system it has proven more successful than those that have come before it (not that this is a long list - how many systems of self-governed trade are there, really?). My problem with capitalism is that it is imperfect, and not static. To put it another way, I don't believe that capitalism has evolved to the state of perfection that many would attribute to it. I often hear the refrain 'let the market decide'. This works on a very, very simplistic level, but 'the market' is not philanthropic; it is not moral. It simply wants growth. Smith's 'invisible hand' is made out to be some kind of guiding moral force resulting from greed: I don't buy it. Too many
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Your forgot to mention:
7) Divert as much possible wealth from the masses to the elites through cut-backs, tax-breaks and removal of all social saftey nets.
8) Exploit cheap labor for as long as possible to pay for building your private McBunker in the hinterland.
resist propaganda
I want to echo the notion that a stable system of laws is critical to commerce.
The effect that a 6 year sunset provision on all laws would have on commerce has already been pointed out.
Another problem. Those who vote for a law are, by definition, unanimously in favor of it. Therefore by your own rule those who vote for a law are bound by it regardless of how many voted against it. You think that there will be laws which apply within a particular "level of government." But in reality, each law will apply to a different subset of your populace. It will almost immediately become impossible to determine which laws apply to which people. Furthermore, each of these myriad of subsets, to whom a given law applies, will be dissolved in 6 years. Total chaos.
Sometimes they fool you by walking upright.
Well, I've got other stuff to do.
In other words, "yes". I regard you as a person who enjoys seeing others suffer.
You are now joining the doomsayers to predict nuclear holocaust? Seems contradictory to your previous condemnation of environmentalist doomsaying.
It is a fact that the mujahedeen are trying hard to acquire a nuclear weapon, and they fantasize of using it against the hated kufir. The mujahedeen have been fairly successful in their terrorist attacks. It is also a fact that environmentalists have been preaching doom for decades, and many of their astounding predictions have failed spectacularly. I suppose the difference lies in what we see as real risks, so your accusation of my doomsaying has merit depending on one's point of view (since you likely view the mujahedeen as a "nuisance" at worst).
I notice that you took no exception to my labeling of those who are too weak to stand up to Islamic fundamentalists as cowards.
Wow, I'm not sure where that came from.
It came from years upon years of mindless and moronic corporation bashing from people who axiomatically define corporations as "evil".
Perhaps you meant to ask for some material backing that particular statement about corporate misdeeds?
I notice you didn't also quote some government misdeeds, but surely you dislike them equally.
No, I'm not Ayn Rand.
Where does Ayn Rand state that you should try to harm other people? I'd like to see a specific quote. No, I'm not a Randroid, but I think your characterization of her philosophy is dishonest.
You keep trying to equate my lack of compassion for cowards with a desire to do them harm.
No, you already indicated that you were too lazy to actually do it. I think you're still quite content to see other people do it.
As for self-righteousness, if you can't see it in yourself I doubt I can point it out to you, but I'll try anyway.
What you see as "self-righteousness" in me is actually a combative desire to take pompous assholes down a notch. Despite what you may think, you are not better than me in any way. Nor am I better than you. But I am not going to stand by and let you walk all over me.
Maybe you see my deigning to disagree with you as "self-righteous".
How do you figure your opinion matters on this issue? It's because you are a self-righteous (and abusive, as amply demonstrated just now) and arrogant person.
Just because I wish to debate and have an opinion does not make me arrogant. It is the false belief that you know better and are better than other people which makes you arrogant. That is your nasty quality, not mine. And I don't see how calling a spade a spade is abusive. It certainly isn't equivalent to your cruelty and lack of compassion.
I'm convinced that my belief system is fundamentally correct, and that others would benefit from having the same beliefs.
I am willing to change my beliefs when I receive new evidence, which flies in the face of the notion that one's one shallow, limited, subjective beliefs are "fundamentally correct". I believe such peole are called "Fundamentalists" and they do horribly immoral things, regardless of the flavor of fundamentalism (Christian, Leftist, Progressive, Islamic, Environmentlist, Mormon, anything). I do not believe that others would benefit from having my beliefs because they may very well have different values and my beliefs would seem immoral to them.
It is your fundamentalism which makes you arrogant and unlikeable. I think your values suck, your beliefs are stupid, and your behavior is atrocious. I strongly dislike you.
If you're not familiar with it, Larry Wall has a famous quote on the three attributes of great programmers: laziness, impatience, and hubris. I think a similar observation could be made here; if you think your opinion matters, you've got to be self-righteous enough to think you know what needs changing and arroga
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
The poster was taking the moral high ground, hence the use of the word "repugnant."
Yes, I was making a value judgement. I take exception to your characterization of "taking the moral high ground" since it seeks to apply some degree of arrogance. I freely admit that you and I have different values, and I don't see myself of accusing you of any immoral action here.
So when I suggested I would spoil his land in pursuit of my industry, I was taking his view to a silly extreme. Indeed, it was a statement of the fallacious "garden path" variety. Interesting though, his response was that he was legally protected, suggesting that property has some special value protected from my activities (and rightfully so--property should have legal protection).
You were not "taking my view to a silly extreme" because I don't think you understand my view at all. Instead, you were seeking to mock and deride because, presumably, I stated something contrary to one of your values. I consider your quip to be thoughtless and rude.
Funny, his property deserves distinction because it exists in a legal framework. I'm not sure where this legal framework comes from. Certainly not god. Why should I adhere to it? You don't suppose it hase some intrinsic value? Otherwise, might I ignore it for all areas that it is of no use to me?
The reason you ask these questions is because you don't understand my values. I will attempt to explain, and you are free as a bird to pee all over them.
I maintain that every individual has rights to life, liberty, and property, and the primary function of government is to protect individual rights to life, liberty, and property. I believe each individual maintians these rights because they are the bare minimum that is required for every individual to find for her/himself their own version of Truth and their own path to individual happiness. The reason why this is important is because I believe that the purpose of life is to live and and be happy provided that you don't infringe on anyone else's ability to do so (specifically through denying their rights to life, liberty, or property). Thus, I maintain that it is immoral for any individual to deprive another of life, liberty, or property through force or fraud, and that those actions are the only actions which should be illegal. (In that statement I imply that there are some actions which are immoral that should not be illegal.)
So I think you put the cart before the horse when you state that I think that my "property deserves disctinction because it exists in a legal framework". No. My property deserves disctinction because I believe in individual property rights and that it is a primary function of government to protect them. As a rational, peaceful, and moral person, I would much rather sue you in court for destroying my property than have to resort to force myself for lack of a jury system. As to, "Why should I adhere to it?" the answer is because you're a moral person who doesn't want to go around destroying, looting, and pillaging others' property. I would hope that such a morality would exist in you even if the law were not there to prevent you from doing it. I don't want to live among people who would think to themselves, "I'd go on a month-long rape-a-thon if not for those pesky laws!"
This is my conclusion, which you're free to disagree with: at this stage we're just playing with semantics and I assert we can almost freely interchange, in this context, legal with moral.
I disagree wholeheartedly. We are not playing with semantics. Rather, we have a big disagreement on what my values are. Furthermore, we cannot freely interchange "legal" with "moral". I think there are things which are immoral that should not be illegal. For instance, I think Christianity is immoral, but it should not be illegal. (If someone uses Christianity as the excuse to deprive others of life, liberty, or property, then those *actions* should be illegal. I.e., one cannot violate any o
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Ok people, here's the deal. It's not pretty and it doesn't fit in with most folks candy-coated, rose-colored view of the world.
1. There have always been mass extinctions. They predate man - we know this from the fossil records. They are caused by things like volcanoes and diseases. (Black Death, anyone?)
2. Mother nature works by extinction. The old must be cleared away to make room for the new. The dinos lost and little possum-looking thing won so here we are. The rule is adapt or die. If you die off and you were useful, something else will take over that niche.
3. Climate changes happen periodically. Ice Ages come and go. Warm periods come and go. This is part of the cycle of the planet.
4. A single volcanic eruption spews way more crap into the atmosphere in the matter of minutes than every can of hairspray with hydrocarbon propellant. It spews more than every single car on the planet.
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank