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The Spread of Ignorance (bbc.com)
New submitter Eric Eikrem writes: BBC Future has just published an interesting article on Robert Proctor, a science historian from Stanford University, who studies how people or companies with vested interests spread ignorance and obfuscate knowledge. The spread of ignorance follows certain patterns, whether it is about tobacco or climate change. 'Proctor found that ignorance spreads when firstly, many people do not understand a concept or fact and secondly, when special interest groups -- like a commercial firm or a political group – then work hard to create confusion about an issue. In the case of ignorance about tobacco and climate change, a scientifically illiterate society will probably be more susceptible to the tactics used by those wishing to confuse and cloud the truth.'
This has been going on for 6,000 years.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
see how easy?
Always comes back to climate change. Take a hard look at the field. Is it not the most politically tainted field of science since the Copernican model of the universe? Climate change is a socialist political movement. Their hysterical predictions never come to pass. It isn't ignorance that causes the masses to reject it, it is the lack of credibility of the field. Rationalize this any way you want.
an ill wind that blows no good
Good to know.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
They'll be first against the wall when the revolution comes.
I think that it also helps that there's fertile ground for denial.
For example with climate change, there's a large number of Americans who see hard-core environmentalists as a bunch of hippies who are constantly yelling that the sky is falling and want government intervention in everything. (To be fair, there are vocal environmentalists that fit this mold, and they're very vocal.) So, it doesn't take much to cause a knee-jerk reaction against the claims of environmentalists because of negative perceptions of environmentalists in general. In fact, it might happen even without the prodding of people who want to peddle ignorance. Here's an interesting example of what I'm talking about: an otherwise thoughtful person who automatically rejected climate change ideas simply because of the source but has since reevaluated his beliefs.
Smoking also had fertile ground for ignorance. Since there was a push for government involvement, anti-nanny-staters were likely to automatically push back. Tobacco companies pedaling ignorance had fertile ground there too.
Trump is certainly does his best to spread ignorance, but many of his supporters see through at least some of it. I'm somewhat loathed to link to a slate.com article, but this one interviews Trump supporters about climate change. Many of his supporters see climate change as real and caused by humans, but they prioritize other things or thinks that Trump will come around on the issue. Many people support Trump because they think he is a successful business man, a man of action, and is not a dirty Washington politician. I take issue with the first two claims, but Trump hasn't really had to propagate those claims; the media was doing that long before he ran for president.
OK some people somewhere may want to take away all of your liberties because climate change, it is a big world ya know. However, most of us are open to discussion of the many approaches. It is your side that does not even want to have that discussion. The meme that the only solutions to climate change are ones that, from an economic perspective, will make the sky fall on us is a fantasy of the climate denier industry. .
The problem has never been that the public disagrees that "smoking is bad for you".
Speaking of gaslighting... it would be nice if you didn't just reinvent history to make a point.
Likewise for climate change as the current cause celebre - It's the solutions, again, being demanded.
Ana again with the gaslighting. No, plenty of people are flat-out denying the science and ignoring the evidence. All you have to do is visit a slashdot thread on global warming/climate change to see this.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
So If he is really investigating the spread of ignorance, why did he use a religious term of "denier" to explain people that doubt climate change is as dire as some report? This is a guy that has wrote books about how forward thinking the Nazi's were about science. He has multiple books about tobacco, and testified against the tobacco industry. Does that discount it all? No, but full disclosure wasn't done and it defiantly shows a bit of an agenda on Proctor's part.
Everyone is too busy watching distracting nonsense to actually put some thought into what people are saying. They believe it because it is easier than thinking.
I think these two quotes are relevant:
“The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.” - Michael Crichton
“It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” - Mark Twain
Then again when writing someone's name in chalk causes as much of an uproar as it did, it makes me think that Trump doesn't have a monopoly on idiot supporters.
I'm still hoping that Sanders can come back and beat Hillary (really long odds, but stranger things have happened) but let's not pretend that some of the political left's supporters aren't the same kind of ignorant, hateful people. They merely spread a different kind of ignorance belief than those individuals on the political right, but beyond that they both act in the same way.
Many people are brought up to blindly accept authority and facts without evidence or actually thinking it over for themselves. Facts are taught as subjective, with an emphasis that reality itself is subjective. This is problematic because it starts with their family at infancy.
Further, those who excel at education or in more extreme cases even participate are ostracized and in more severe cases physically beaten for the simple crime of thinking for themselves. It is considered "uncool" to be smart in many circles and further being violent and stupid are sought after qualities. Is it any wonder that these groups tend to have the worst track records with reality acceptance and actual societal productivity?
Sure everyone has an agenda but until all our youth are universally allowed and encouraged to fact find and think for themselves, it will be easy to pull the BS over their eyes and turn them into puppets.
Those kinds of lies and propaganda are called advertising.
it is a big world ya know
spreading more ignorance
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The problem has never been that the public disagrees that "smoking is bad for you"
Congressional testimony: "I believe that nicotine is not addictive" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
After all, the BBC ought to know all about spreading lies and disinformation.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Switch over all gasoline engines to battery usage (which pollute and damage the environment in just as many other ways as battery creation (and reclamation) will cause pollution and environmental damage of other kinds.
While I agree with you on this point, do you have a better solution? Or should we just throw up our hands and go "Oh well! May as well just keep burning fossil fuels!" and forget about it? We KNOW what damage those are causing. The only problem with you or anyone making the point you're making, is that you and others like you never propose a better solution, or worse, you suggest a solution that might mitigate or even prevent the damage entirely, but that is an unworkable solution; 'forcing everyone to use public transit' is one that comes to mind. It would eliminate many problems, but it would never be practical for so many reasons, therefore it's a non-starter.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Philosopher David Hume was writing about the spread of ignorance in the 1700's.. Not sure how this is news.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Such is only possible because an ever smaller section of people had basic education including solid scientific fundamentals or STEM.
Especially those working in mainstream media and at all levels of politics show a near wilful ignorance of science and technology.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
See revised subject. I need to do a better job proofreading...
Since the confusion spreading amounts to fraud, these things end up going to court. The trick is to have the liability match the damage. For the tobacco settlement, that probably didn't get there. For the investigation of Exxon and others going on now, it is possible the net worth of the companies involved won't be sufficient to cover the damage.
Somehow you sound like someone who tries to sell us the fact, that cooking food denaturates protein as if that somehow was a really hidden secret some sinister society in the background does not want us to know.
People are not generally stupid yet it seems that the majority of people can sincerely hold two conflicting views at the same time. eg. Tobacco kills and "I don't need to worry about its effects on me" or faith vs observed reality or welfare dependency with fiscally conservative views. I'd like to understand how that works because it seems to be part of human nature.
If anything the market seems to be in convincing people that the situation is OK
Nullius in verba
from your linked article: "In her mind, the world has to “change, or be changed” because an “economic system” — meaning free-market capitalism — has caused environmental “wreckage.”"
Free-market capitalism is an oxymoron. Markets do not remain free once a capitalist captures it. They always move to close the market and bar others entry to it.
We don't need no education. Or as some wise guy said: If you don't read, then you are uninformed. If you do read, then you are misinformed. If you can't read, then you are an ignoramus.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I'm sorry, but I certainly do not 'come from a monk'.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Maybe the problem was that the writers primarily used white chalk? Maybe it is time to use black chalk on white boards instead? That picture however, clearly showed blue chalk being used. The horror.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
BBC complaining about propaganda. Oh, the irony.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Your post is an excellent example of gaslighting!
I don't respond to AC's.
Wind mills have been generating weirdos for centuries. Cervantes wrote his books in 1605 already and people are still tilting at wind mills.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
He wrote a lot on the use of propaganda. And by the way, he was as suspicious of corporations and capitalists, as he was of politicians of all stripes (Fascists and "Communists" alike).
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
There are certainly forces at work promoting ignorance in order to sustain the status quo. The video shows that this is even promoted in congressional testimonies. And this ignorance pays dividends.
The article quotes a tobacco company memo:
“Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.”
Mmm. Looking at the odds, Cruz takes the Republican nomination in a contested election, Hillary beats Sanders 51% to 49% and Trump/Sanders goes on to beat Hillary and Cruz in a massive write-in landslide in the general election.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Well, it is a mistake to use consensus as validation when it comes to anything. After Einstein's theory of relativity came about, somebody published a work titled "100 authors against Einstein" that was trying to "disprove" relativity by means of scientific consensus. Einstein correctly pointed out that it should only take one of them to prove him wrong.
Pathological science is an area of research where "people are tricked into false results ... by subjective effects, wishful thinking or threshold interactions."
Except for climate science, where any question of the alleged "Consensus" is heresy suitable for burning at the stake.
That only happens if you ignore the existing evidence, and bring none of your own.
"The people" are not at all cautious of cons and scams. They rush willingly into being taken advantage of for all kinds of terrible reasons, including a desperate desire to have their prejudices agreed with by their egos massaged. We've seen again and again, for example, that people will agitate for, vote for, and even participate in revolution on behalf of political forces that will take advantage of them as long as those forces claim to agree with their political, religious, or social views, even when those claims fly in the face of both reason and the history of those forces' actions.
People are positively eager to be hoodwinked, as long as the hoodwinkers are parroting a narrative that reinforces what those people want to believe.
Religion is quite explicitly not a science and deals not in facts, but in beliefs.
No, Science — and Scientists — ought to be judged on their own merits and record. If you must compare scientific disciplines with something, it can only be other scientific disciplines. For example, we know, that Psychology is less reliable than Physics, for example. And that Climate Science is yet to make a prediction, that is both meaningful and correct — indeed, it is already treated as religion by some of the more fervent adherents.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You can't "spread ignorance" like you spread jelly. To fight knowledge you have to block someone else's speech, or spread disinformation to counter it, or harm people's ability to think by drugging them or hitting them on the head.
In other words, more TV shows and breaking news.
Likewise for climate change as the current cause celebre - It's the solutions, again, being demanded. Switch over all gasoline engines to battery usage (which pollute and damage the environment in just as many other ways as battery creation (and reclamation) will cause pollution and environmental damage of other kinds. Or rework the economies in favor of socialist ones.
The problem is that the people opposed to those solutions are "solving" the problem by denying it even exists, and thereby relieve themselves of the duty to come up with a solution that's acceptable to them.
The origins of computer related religious wars
A little bit of doubt can be very effective for those people already looking for it.
The essential premise of the book, which Postman extends to the rest of his argument(s), is that "form excludes the content," that is, a particular medium can only sustain a particular level of ideas.
You were doing OK until your tone turned socialist.
Consensus is an important part of science, but it is not the only part. The scientific method is strong enough that the truth eventually prevails even if the current consensus is wrong (such as for your Einstein example). People who spread ignorance use the fact that consensus is not always correct to disregard it whenever it disagrees with their point of view. Hence "teach the controversy".
Is nuclear power safe? That's like asking is a car safe, or is an airplane safe. There are many ways to build a car or airplane. When people think of "airplane" they will normally think of a Boeing 747 and not the Wright Flyer. When people think of "car" they will think of what they drive, some iconic car from recent history, but not a car highlighted in Unsafe at Any Speed.
Ask people about nuclear power and often they don't think of the hundreds of nuclear reactors that have operated safely and continue to operate safely, they will think of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, or Fukushima.
Why is that? Why does the mention of nuclear power bring up images of exploding buildings when that is such a rare event?
Could it be that, as the article points out, there is a concerted effort to prevent people from accepting nuclear power as safe? If there is a concerted effort to prevent man made climate change from being accepted by the public then certainly it is possible to believe that there is a similar effort to prevent nuclear power from growing, no?
Give me a minute while I put on my aluminum foil conspiracy theorist helmet....
Oil, natural gas, and coal, are all big business and they will hire people to spread information, and misinformation, to protect that business and I understand that. On the other side we have the big business of government and these people will likewise also spread information, and misinformation, to protect their business. Wind and solar survive on government subsidy, remove that subsidy and those business models collapse. But energy is more than just fossil fuels and "green" energy, we have nuclear power. So you have "big oil" and "big wind" both fighting to keep nuclear power from becoming a viable option in the minds of the public and the policy makers. Should nuclear power gain acceptance then both models are likely to fail.
From this we have a lot of misinformation floating around such as nuclear power is expensive. Nuclear power is expensive only because the government deems it so. The DOE has a habit of revoking permits in the middle of constructing a nuclear power plant. Banks know this risk and so they set a high bar on the issuance of loans to fund the building of a nuclear power plant, such as high interest rates, a requirement for a government backing, and more. That also leads to another myth, that nuclear power plants are so expensive that only a government can fund it.
If the federal government allowed for the issuance of a permit like they do for a $500 million Boeing 747 then we would not need a government backed loan for a $500 million nuclear power plant. Unless the federal government is on the hook for the loan then they have no incentive to see the power plant built, it's not their money. If the loan is not paid back, because the plant was not completed, then the political pressure to revoke the license is much greater as no one has to answer for a half billion dollars disappearing from the budget.
All the other claims on problems of waste, contamination, and other hazards are irrelevant as we don't build nuclear power plants like Fukushima, Three Mile Island, and certainly not like Chernobyl. In fact the only reason nuclear power could be called unsafe today is because we have not built a new nuclear power plant in decades.
We rely on nuclear power right now to keep the lights on. We can build more nuclear power plants, build more coal plants, or cover our ears on the deafening sucking sound that is wind and solar. That sucking sound that is wind and solar will end with a crash as our economy comes falling down or in the unlikely event we get some leap in technology that makes wind and solar viable.
Am I a climate change denier? Yes, and here's why. I conclude that climate change does not pose the threat to society that people claim largely because of the reluctance to embrace nuclear power. These people claim to be "scientific" about how they came to their conclusion and yet ignore the "sc
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Wait... I forgot...... Does Obama dump the screaming new born kids in the fire @ Bohemian Grove during the Cremation of Care Ritual , OR Just the High Priest? Drone The Grove 2016! Yes Grandma, for the last time there will be countless wave after wave of Drones flying above the Bohemian Grove streaming the Cremation of Care Ritual to YouTube and CNN, get over it and take your pills silly...
Very well said.
"Global cooling", oops, now called "Global warming", oops, now called "Climate Change", is, in truth, just the latest Apocalyptic The Gods Are Angry End Of The World Unless We Repent Cult. There's a new such cult every few generations complete with sinners (climate change deniers), purchasing external signs of righteousness and piety (Prius cars as an example), the ability to sin at will by buying forgiveness from the gods (carbon credits), outlawing sins against the gods (banning plastic bags for example), large visible tributes to the gods to show our piety as a social group (huge wind power projects as an example), and most of all a uniting of the ruling and clergy class (politicians and "scientists") to strip the people of their wealth in sacrifices (taxes) to conduct ceremonies and make offerings to the gods to appease them. Human nature is simply human nature and does not change appreciably over thousands of years. These behaviors have made the elites rich through all of human history and the average human alive today is no more wiser about the manipulation the an ancient Egyptian making an offering to a priest to help make sure the Nike flooded again this year to make the soil fertile.
I liked the socialist part at the end but your craziness in the first paragraph is an invalid premise and your conspiracy theories are a prime example of the spread of ignorance.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
It's naive to suggest that the public has accepted climate change and even more so that it's anthropogenic. Once they do accept that, then the debate can move on to the difficult question of solutions, as you rightly point out; but for now, it's the deniers who make all the noise and stifle that much-needed debate.
The pill does not stop menstruation. For seven days in a cycle, the pill does not contain estradiol (or any other hormon that causes the estradiol level to heighten), and thus menstruation starts. The endometrium can only grow for so long, then it has to be removed from the uterus. If there was no menstruation, the endometrium would die in the uterus, causing blood poisoning.
It's 97% and even that figure is bunk, based on a flawed analysis that excluded the vast majority of studies and then hand-picked through the rest with a bias that even global warming supporters recognize.
This is not FUD, these are open questions that the 97% gloss over:
The heat trapping effects of CO2 -- somewhere between .5 and 2 -- where .5 means a slight warming and 2 means Earth is on a path to become like Venus
The half life of CO2 in the atmosphere -- somewhere between 30 yrs and 1000 yrs -- probably can get 99% with that spread
The availability of new CO2 sinks -- somewhere between none and more than enough -- another tent pole that can fit 99%
The effects of feedbacks -- somewhere between all negative and all positive -- yay consensus science that can mean anything
The skeptics are doing more to answer these questions then the so-called scientists who are busy covering their collective asses because nature hasn't cooperated and produced scary hockey sticks or flooding of coastal regions. Instead they keep floating out new adjustments to produce the warmest year ever even if it is only by a few tenths of a degree and within the error bars.
The funniest thing about all of this is how a few skeptics pointing out the large flaws can produce such vitriol and FUD, of which this paper is just the latest.
The problem has always been that some people always promote the idea that smoking is NOT bad for you and some people always promote the idea that we are NOT changing the environment.
The proposed solutions all have a cost (to some people... tobacco and fossil fuel companies) and benefits to others. Narrow self interest leads individuals to come to irrational obfuscations.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Historically, civilization always fall not because of environmental disaster or wars, but due to demographics. Civilizations die because they lose the will to continue living.
In mathematics (not science I know), a proof is one that is agreed upon by consensus. ... very bad ...
So you must be very bad in math
Science doesn't have proofs (it has supporting data for a hypothesis). Maybe this is a problem.
That is nonsense, too. There is plenty of since that has proofs. E.g. the absorption spectrums of elements, or their atomic weight or electron hull. Plenty of science stuff is simply facts and does not need particular proof beyond facts. E.g. that stuff lighter than water swims in water ... no brainers.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Why not correct the whole thing and delete the post completely?
If natural oils in your country are "deodorized" then mail order normal oils from the original countries.
Your idiotic idea about "the pill" got already corrected in other answers.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Are you comparing the money used to put satellites into orbit with the money spent to spread misinformation, doubt, and denial? Possibly more is spent on the science than on misinforming people about the science... but so what?
Utterly false. A bunch of examples in Collapse by Jared Diamond. Can you put an example of your "loss of will" nonsense?
There has never been a fully free market according to the model. By definition. Because the model assumes a lot of things that are impossible to achieve. Most of all the "fully informed customer" is an oxymoron. With emphasis on the moron. Not only does the customer never have all the information he would need to fulfill his role in the free market model, everything is geared towards him not being able to do exactly that.
That alone makes the model unfeasible.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I appreciate the explanation of the normal pill cycle, but the pill itself most definitely does stop menstruation, just because you're eating a glorified sugar pill for 7 days doesn't change this.
And as much as the problems are known many people do enjoy the convenience of being able to decide their cycles.
Odd. Especially considering that Germany was aiming for self-sufficiency during that time and it had a pretty decent car industry even back then. Yet nobody tried to make car (and tank) fuel out of alcohol. Even when the Nazis came to power, they were aiming for coal and wood gas generators rather than alcohol as fuel, and believe me that one, getting rid of that dependency on oil (which was hard to come by for them) was one of the key research topics during that time.
Strikes me as odd.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...
The opposite of "knowing" isn't "not knowing". It's "believing".
If you don't know and you want to know, you can learn. But that has some unfortunate blocks in its way. It's quite cumbersome. And arduous. Because "knowing" requires "understanding". And understanding requires you to actually have the relevant knowledge first of all to be able to understand it. It's not possible to understand how a computer works if you have no idea about electrical engineering and mathematics. And understanding them again requires more fundamental work.
Believing is far more appealing. Because you needn't learn, you needn't invest time and energy, you don't even need to think. You only have to accept as true what I tell you.
It's easier. Simple as that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
My first wife lost 1/2 the month to moodiness caused by her menstrual cycle. When we were no longer married, my readings had a little dietary "tip" for cheaply making women's periods easier. So I called her up, and suggested she give it a try. "I CAN'T EAT RAW VEGETABLES *CLICK*". They make her bloated.
After we talked she realized that she had nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Furthermore, "lunch" I'd proposed was cheaper than what she would otherwise have eaten. A month later she called me back, with tears of joy. Her period had just started, and she wasn't an emotional train wreck. Two or three months later her period snuck up on her, which had never happened before.
There's an old book at one of my state's university libraries whose authors expressed hope that one day menstrual difficulties would be understood, and that we'd learn how to solve these common female problems. Some time in the last 40 years, "science" must have given up. There's a lot of inertia involved in suppressing women's hormone cycles with prescription drugs in perpetuity.
Estradiol is "the heart attack hormone". Inappropriately-high doses of the synthetic estrogen Mestranol is what caused many of the formerly-healthy users of Enovid to drop dead from clotting and heart attacks. Modern birth control pills use smaller amounts of the xeno-estrogen ethinyl estradiol. This drug is more estrogenic than humans' natural estrogens, and is why many woman can only tolerate progestin-only pill formulations.
The Tesla actually produces more CO2 (albeit indirectly) than a gas powered car. Go figure.
Maybe you can help my presentation. People do not advocate for the consumption of linseed oil, because that substance was used to make stain for the preservation of wood. But institutionalized science-mistakes now have people consuming rebranded linseed oil - Flaxseed Oil - as a health food. There are other sites on the internet about the problems caused by consuming polyunsaturated oils, but Society still allows these bad oils to be sold as food ingredients.
A few of my case studies confirm that prescription xeno-hormones are not necessary to improve women's health, and that there are better ways to keep women from getting knocked up. But... the influence of the charlatans is stronger than the influence of scientists who understand these matters.
You have to be careful to not confuse the attitudes of people who for whatever reason do not care about an issue with those who simply do not understand it. It is even more difficult when selfish people pretend not to understand in order to not be accused of being selfish. Addressing this significant dynamic would have made the observations more relevant to the real world.
http://www.bbc.com/future/stor...
This is a really insidious example of the information war. Really, really bad. It's part of the campaign to control people who would begin to distrust society in general.
Basically the entire problem of this article is that it keeps repeating the implicit idea that scrutiny belongs within a particular scope and that there is such a thing as "THE TRUTH". It is completely incoherent and comes to no precise conclusion. The article is just an excuse to shoot out a few polarizing phrases to derail rational ('meta') thought. It is meant to confuse people trying to take stock of the situation with the information war. It tries to tranquilize your instinct to find a pattern here by assuring you that there is a branch of OFFICIAL SCIENCE that is combating that dang old problem of people being so fucking stupid.
But how you ask?
It plays wide by getting people to agree with it that smoking causes bad health. Then it fires a scatter shot citing unsupported examples of various events that are implied to be deceptive yet are still implied to have clear explanations (as though that isn't contradictory). It starts playing tight by trying to get people to agree with it that "climate change" is real without defining what climate change is at all or presenting any anecdote or data. Then it just swings. It makes the implication that there is always an 'objectively correct' side to every issue by implying "there are not two sides to every story". Then it broadens out again: "When people do not understand a concept or fact, they are prey for special interest groups who work hard to create confusion". OH WOW you don't say what a revelation. Are you beginning to see the pattern? Pressure, release, pressure, release, but with a consistent underlying force going in one direction - ambiguity.
It puts the cherry on top of the crap sundae by citing the idea that "the internet makes people think they are smarter than they are" without going into any implications, purposely leaving you to think about that in light of the nebulous collection of statements already presented ("Am >>I one of the people who makes mistakes when making up my own mind??")
And then it adds the sprinkles: the politically biased statement. Not necessary to the overall point of the article, but it takes an opportunity to try to influence your view of politics while you are maybe distracted from trying to sort out this nonsense.
The crime is that it proposes that complex matters can be distilled into simple ideas of "true" and "false" for some vague purpose of "understanding". It completely subverts the broad picture that it vaguely implies to address. The question "What do I need to know and why?" That is the antidote to this poison.
Except for climate science, where any question of the alleged "Consensus" is heresy suitable for burning at the stake.
So how many people have been burnt at the stake for being a denier?
Now if you mean simple ridicule, hell yeah, just that same as people who believe that the earth was created in 4004 b.c.e, or that all life was created at once in it's present form.
Or that the earth is flat.
You are entitled to your own beliefs. You are not entitled to your own facts. It is getting very difficult to be a denier these days without joinng the camp of the others I just posted. When even Exxon confirms the physics - even if they lied about them, when even the patron saint of the deniers and his one time discrepancies becoming in line with the other data and him as co-author of an article saying just that - there isn't much room left on that limb of denial you are perched on.
What is it you have left? Calling Michael Mann an asshole? Sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling neener, neener, I can't HEAR YOUUUUU!
Not much, is it? Michael Mann isn't an asshole, and the laws of physics don't care how loud you yell. Carry on.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Great. Seven years of mathematical physics education wasted. Thanks.
If you really want to bake your noodle, read Gödel. :)
"Plenty of science stuff is simply facts and does not need particular proof beyond facts. E.g. that stuff lighter than water swims in water ... no brainers."
So, logically... If she weighs the same as a duck she's made of wood.
And therefore?
Except for climate science, where any question of the alleged "Consensus" is heresy suitable for burning at the stake.
That only happens if you ignore the existing evidence, and bring none of your own.
Tobacco doesn't cause cancer either. As the Simpsons prove, it is Democrats https://www.youtube.com/watch?... (at 1:38 mark)
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Mike Judge got it right.
Serenity now, insanity later.
I have a pet conspiracy theory that the political and business elite in the western world (okay, fine, the United States) engages in activities to keep its population intellectually sedate through its entertainment industry and overly calorie-ridden food (do you really need HFCS in your bread?).
When people get fat and lazy and distracted, they stop caring about things that require effort of thought and people in power can get away with whatever they want.
For the tobacco companies, physicians’ approval of their product could prove to be essential, especially since patients often brought smoking-related symptoms and health concerns to the attention of their doctors. Through advertisements appearing in the pages of medical journals for the first time in the 1930s, tobacco companies worked to develop close, mutually beneficial relationships with physicians and their professional organizations. These advertisements became a ready source of income for numerous medical organizations and journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), as well as many branches and bulletins of local medical associations.19
Coming during the Great Depression, the placement of advertisements in medical journals helped to keep medical organizations financially solvent when resources were scarce. Philip Morris praised physicians in these advertisements with taglines like “Every doctor is a doubter” and “Doctor as judge” as they appealed to physicians’ expert ability to evaluate the evidence, referring them to scientific articles that they claimed illustrated the superiority of their brand. As one such advertisement explained in its entirety in 1939, “If you advise patients on smoking—and what doctor does not—you will find highly important data in the studies listed below. May we send you a set of reprints?”20
Not only, then, did physicians’ findings help to make the Philip Morris brand appear superior in the eyes of the public, but the company also turned to physicians with great effect. Physicians became, through this process, an increasingly important conduit in the marketing process.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...
Doesn't have to just be scientific knowledge that you can spread ignorance about.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
eeeh, every ideology has its bad apples.. Besides he's not talking about communism
No idea, probably you got something from it.
Perhaps - however - you should go back and check how proofs work?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
So true! "Green" politicians, renewable energy companies looking for investments and government funding, scientists eager for grants and public exposure, journalists looking for sensationalist articles, and non-profits looking for funding and donations have all been spreading ignorance about climate change.
Yeah. Also the devil put the fossils in the ground to test our faith. You lot are exactly the same as creationists.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
"that unless we drastically cut our standard of living, reduce energy consumption, etc. the world will turn into a ball of flame."
There is no such narative. But nice strawman.
The actual narrative goes: "To avoid bad outcomes, we should replace archaic 19th century technologies with the best 21st century technologies and capitalise on 200 years of scientific progress".
Coincidentally that would imply *raising* our standard of living - and using energy more efficiently, not reducing consumption significantly (though when combined with increased efficiency reducing consumption doesn't actually imply doing any less work - it means achieving the same goals cheaper).
So you not only fail at science, but at basic economics as well. Improved efficiency can only raise standards of living and make goods and services more affordable. Energy is a *cost* reducing that cost while maintaining the same outcomes makes us all *better* off.
That this also means getting rid of the 99% of the cost of fossil fuels which are in externalities is a huge bonus - both in the immediate term for the current externalities like respiratory illnesses caused by them and in the longer term for externalities like climate change.
The problem with your argumentum-ad-consequentum fallacy is that you're fighting against something where all the side effects and additional consequences are extremely *good* things. Hell - even if climate change was a complete hoax (which would be basically impossible) then those other side effects would still make this an investment with guaranteed returns a billion times more than it costs. Private investors would be reticent to invest much in there - because the entrenched nature of fossil fuels make it risky to bet against and because most of the profit won't go to the investors but to everybody else. But we have long ago invented a tool we can use to invest in things that would be good for everybody to have but may not be profitable for private industry to provide: it's called "government".
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
So now we're saying that quantum physics is what..? A lie? lol
Funny how you extreme-rightwingers can always quote that number - but have no idea what capitalism's death toll is, and how you ignore that where socialism was achieved democratically rather than through revolution (i.e. most of the world) - it's death toll is lower than where capitalism is achieved democratically. You also utterly ignore that where capitalism is achieved *without* democracy - it's death toll is worse. Citing big numbers without context is a great way to sound scary while saying nothing at all.
100-Million out of how many ? Over how many years ? You need both time and per-capita measures to actually *compare* anything. Pinochet killed at least 40-thousand people in his first 2 years in office - and he was a hardcore capitalist.
So clearly the system of government is a much bigger factor than the economic system in determining how many people the government kills. In the meantime, today, the world's greatest bastion of capitalism is also one of the last bastions of the death penalty in the developed world while the democratic socialist countries have all done away with it - often decades ago, meaning that capitalism has killed more people *just* in America in the past 30 years than socialism has killed globally !
And of course, if you're really going to compare death tolls of economic systems you should count every preventable death within them. Everybody who has ever starved because he was underpaid or couldn't find work and capitalism didn't provide a social safety net (that's a socialist idea). Everybody who ever died because the boss skimped on a critical safety feature in the factory to increase profits (that's easily topping your 100-million all by itself about once a decade - hell *just* goldmines are killing *at least* 3000 people per year - for the most capitalist purpose of all - to stick bars of metal in vaults and never use them for anything), everyone who ever died because they got a curable disease and couldn't afford the medical care they needed to survive. For fairness - you could limit it to the century between 1910 and 2010 - since the Soviet Union sort of began in 1910 and including the Industrial era before that is a number we have nothing to compare with.
Hell you could go as far as to conclude that the extreme death toll of 19th century capitalism, it's rabid exploitation of the poor and the horrible treatment of workers were the *reason* that revolutionary Bolshevist states arose in the first place. Which means that the entire 100-million you cite was *actually* killed by unregulated capitalism, since if the markets (especially labor) had been properly regulated in the 19th century and not had bred all that terrible poverty and suffering the Russian revolution would never have happened.
When you inform your ideas with simplistic big-numbers you get stupid conclusions. Now I'm not saying you should be pro-socialism or pro-mixed-economy or pro-capitalism or pro-something-else-entirely(yes there a literally thousands of economic philosophies in the world that are neither capitalism nor socialism). What I am saying is you ought to base your decision, and what ideas you support based on a careful and analytical consideration of all relevant facts, not some scary big number with no context to give it meaning.
To hammer the point home. Last year the South African AIDS death toll was a frightening 200-thousand people (and considering most of them were just too poor to buy good drugs - you can chalk that up to "killed by capitalism" by the way). That's a big frightening number eh ? Well, no, actually - it was 4 times that much in 2010. The number is proof that South Africa is *winning* the war against AIDs. That it's still so big means we have a lot of work left to do and the war is far from over and nobody denies that, but it does prove our strategies are working. See the point ? Numbers without context is a way to tell lies and decieve people while appearing to tell the truth. Abandon the lie - read a bit wider - and form an informed opinion. You may
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
It's called civilization and every "ism" does it not just socialism.
Actually when there's no wind to drive the turbine, most bigger plants are kept in a very small motion by the generator bow turned engine. This is because the weight of the blades could cause damage to the bearings if left stationary..
Epic Asshattery
So...you are fine with government deliberately murdering one hundred million because capitalism has supposedly killed more.
Kodos would be proud.
Here's the context for you. GOVERNMENT...people with guns, FORCED people to work themselves to death, starved them to death, or murdered them outright. This was done because those people didn't agree with the Government's policies.
That's all the fucking context you need.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
No. Every "ism" doesn't do it.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Utterly false. A bunch of examples in Collapse by Jared Diamond. Can you put an example of your "loss of will" nonsense?
Exactly. Civilizations die because they do not manage their resources in a sustainable way.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Nope. I never said I was fine with anything. I said a big number without any context is meaningless and gave various types of things that one ought to consider.
The most important bit was that blaming socialism for that 100 million is clearly false. Its much more reasonable to say dictatorships killed those people. The particular economic system seems to have almost no impact on death tolls at all. At least compared to the impact of "type of governance system". I argued that keepimg government accoubtable is the best way to avoid people killed by the government. Economics are important but not for this topic. For this topic its like arguing wheter we can increase the safety of the space program by putting a mattress on the moon to land on.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
She said the climate policy de facto redistributes wealth. That implies it is predictable effect rather than an intentional goal.
It is not a goal of climate policy, but the restrictions on emissions and the development of alternative energy both have drastic economic impacts. No one is pretending otherwise.
Because of this, the negotiations take place with those economic effects as a significant concern. Everyone knows there is a lot of money at stake. Even the scientists acknowledge the implications.
The difference is that the politicians need to be reelected after the treaty is signed.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
In the case of communism and socialism, Government IS the economy.
And just because you don't think Socialism is to blame foe 1200 million dead, doesn't mean those people are any less dead and that socialism/communism wasn't responsible. that's because THEY were not as important as the State's goal of a "worker's paradise".
You are a fool. You should go live in Venezuela.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
You are entitled to your own beliefs. You are not entitled to your own facts. ...
Well said. The article in a nutshell. There is a whole industry out there of consultants and "scientists" trying to create custom-made facts, suitable to any industrial or political interest. This is pretty well-known, but it doesn't hurt to shine some light on it now and again. In my opinion, one of the best works in this regard is "Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming" by Erik M. Conway and Naomi Oreskes. Good read.
I am 55. Ever since first-grade, I have noticed how the Republicans have been consistently trying to destroy the public education system. Reducing funding to the point where teachers were forced to spend their own money for classroom supplies. Then reducing effective salaries for teachers (but not administrators) to the point where the teachers couldn't afford to buy the supplies at all. Then imposing testing requirements that cover material that is NOT a good measure of educational achievement. Then vilifying those teachers from whom all freedom to teach has been stripped. All the while, bitching and moaning about how kids in other countries are doing better on standardised tests, but then sending jobs to the countries where the education is far, FAR worse than ours....
All in an attempt to create an electorate ignorant enough to believe any and every fallacious, emotion-based argument they use to cover for the fact that all they are really doing is helping big business and the filthy-rich take even more money at the expense of the people and the environment.
Now, the Repulicans have created an electorate so assininely stupid that they are voting, in droves, for someone who is so mind-bogglingly, insane, ignorant, and assinine that even the GOP can't stand him.
So, yes, the Republicans have created a Frankenstein's monster of an electorate, composed of all the worst parts of society and now they will have to deal with the destruction said monster will visit upon them.
In some ways, I hope we do end up with King Trump. After he shows himself to be such a meglomaniacle jackass that even France is ready to go to war with us. After the 1% get reduced to the .001% and the top 1 to .001 % end up having to take service jobs, cleaning the toe-nails of the top .001%. After Kim Jong Ill buys the last Trump Tower. And after both parties unanimously vote to impeach the fucker but the ignorant and radicalized military refuse to unseat their "One True Leader" (I was in the military, so I have seen both how ignorant most of them are and how little respect they have for the population they are supposedly there to serve. Most of them would happily follow the most criminal of orders if given by someone like Trump.) Only then will this country wake up and realize that promoting assinine ignorance is maybe not such a good thing.
That was 1995 - probably their last ditch effort. The Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement was entered in 1998 - game over. I wonder if we're approaching the point in climate denial where that kind of congressional testimony is untenable. Ignorance (hopefully) can't win out in the long run.
I'd bet that each and every one of the 1200 million people were also DHMO users, and we know that DHMO kills people. Claiming DHMO is not to blame doesn't mean those people are any less dead and that DHMO was not responsible.
I know that you think that communism was responsible for those deaths, but your argument is crap.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Ah yes, the famed Nike river, brought to you by the sweat of cheap labor.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Capitalism and socialism can coexist. They're good balancing factors, in fact. It's just a question of which industries, products, and services belong in which category. Most people, even conservatives, bemoan the privatization of toll roads, for example -- they much prefer the socialized, state run roads. They don't think of it that way, of course, but that's what it is. Most people don't think of firefighters as socialism, but they are nonetheless. Nobody asks you for a check before putting out the fire. They used to do just that, of course, but we rightfully recognized that neighboring property owners can suffer by the inaction or insolvency of another. The same is true for education and healthcare. When we have an uneducated population, we're less able to compete in the global market. When we have people who can't or won't obtain health insurance, we end up paying to treat their late-stage medical problems, or else let them die -- "them" including our friends and family, if not ourselves. Individualism should be leveraged for the good it can do -- personal responsibility and accountability are generally good things -- and collectivism should be leveraged for the good it can do. What's the point of making life worse or harder than it needs to be? That just seems sadistic and spiteful.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
That's just not true. The typical course of BC pills have placebos solely because women tend to worry about being pregnant when they don't get their periods. It's possible to get placebo-free prescriptions -- Lybrel for example -- but they're unpopular for the reason stated. In fact, they may actually offer protection against endometrial carcinoma.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Those that have few morals and have a vested interest in something will try to misdirect people, and those with lower intelligence are more likely to fall for it...
Did I get that right? I am sure pretty much anyone could have deduced that.
Trump! Need I say more?!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
Karl: Your lack of understanding and reasoning is astounding. If you are protecting yourself from the educated, you are wallowing in ignorance. Had you truly understood the Frankfurt school, or read anything after the 1960s, you'd know that the legacy of the Frankfurt school has been a REJECTION of Marxism and capitalism as both lead to state monopolies: one communist, the other fascist, neither good for the people. Of course, if you drink the right wing Koolaid, you'll never know anything. So you're just embracing fascists over communists, both failed 'isms' and attesting to the earlier point that all "isms" are quite dangerous.
Really? Why do you say that? Please tell me what other than ignorance and total lack of thought made you come to that conclusion. Please show your working.
Even at the tribal level the individual is subservient to the good of the group. Even at the family level when disasters hit and tough choices are made the individual is subservient to the good of the group. Ask nearly any parent. Most would put themselves in danger if that's what it took to save their kids. Most would think that there is something seriously wrong with a person who would put themselves first as you suggest.
If you think otherwise I'd be interested to know why because it is totally opposed to anything I have observed so I'd like to know what groundbreaking declaration you are going to make which is going to totally change the way everyone looks at society. Let's hear it.
That's just not true. The typical course of BC pills have placebos solely because women tend to worry about being pregnant when they don't get their periods.
The funny thing is that the "withdrawal bleed" (aka fake-period) is a pill-using woman's most vulnerable time for getting knocked up. The ovaries use the days without being chemically suppressed to do what they're supposed to do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry
Casteism
In The China Study, the authors discuss ways in which nutrition science is riddled with conflict of interest. They say the food industry treats nutrition science as a marketing channel, and is largely able to neutralize negative messages about its products by controlling the direction of research and/or generating conflicting and confusing messages. Meanwhile, for example, some physicians personally seek dietary treatment for cardiovascular disease but still support a medical institution that prefers to recommend surgical intervention.
The term agnotology is an interesting one. Could be a real thing.
Wow... you can determine the value of a comment without reading it ? That must be a superpower.
Seriously though: TLDR is basically announcing to the world that you are an idiot. The real world is complex and has no simple or brief answers. All short claims about it are deceptions designed to abuse your short attention span to fool you into believing a lie.
Notice the size of the panama papers ? 2.7 terabytes of legal documents. In a world where people only understand simplistic explanations the easiest way to commit and hide atrocities is in complexity and verbosity. You wont get caught because nobody will read that far or follow a chain with more than 3 links.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
A prism doesn't, and neither does jism.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Your signature can use past tense now.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
so absurd that they can "successfully reproduce temperatures since 1900 globally, by land, in the air and the ocean." ?
Again: Nothing to do with socialism, and no, taxes are not socialism.
Again: You are ignorant. and just throwing out words you heard that sound cool to your feeble mind to sound smart, such as socialism and control systems and political structures, doesn't actually make you smart.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
This post here makes the point of "Spreading Ignorance" brilliantly. Well done, sir!
Word!
Sounds like the Hillary Clinton campaign!