I'm glad you think it's ironic for you to take the skeptic's position. Most lay people do not feel that the burden of proving HEG falls on its proponents, rather that the burden of disproving it falls on the skeptics, leading to the akward situation of trying to prove a negative.
As for extrodinary claims, Lindzen put it best:
"In some ways, we are driven to a philosophical consideration: namely, do we think that a long-lived natural system, like the earth, acts to amplify any perturbations, or is it more likely that it will act to counteract such perturbations? It appears that we are currently committed to the former rather vindictive view of nature." Richard Lindzen, in testimony to Congress, July 1997
Critisism of treatment of clouds...
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/essd5f eb 97_1.htm
From the horses mouth:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/spm22-01.pdf (toward the end. Page 18 or 28?)
Y2K is not a good comparison. The cause problem was well understood. It was possible to test systems to determine if they were effected.
The climate is not well understood. The variability of the sun is not well understood. Positive and negative feedback mechanisms are not well understood.
What is well understood is that computer models that are predicting the changes are woefully inadaquate. Global warming by CO2 has been an idea in circulation for something like 110 years.
Good observations of climate features have only been collected recently. For most of the earth, good observations have only started since we started launching satellites.
Radius of the pie = scaryness * gullibility of the public.
That so much is spent on climate change research is a result of the scare. When was the last time you sent out a memo showing how wasteful your job is?
' I myself find it absurd, that people will rather take even the most remote possibility that their "fellow men" will drown, die of hunger and lose their whole countries (the Netherlands) than shave a couple of percent of their precious GDP!'
The harm that would be done by choking the world economies will do worse for the environment and the environmental movement than waiting until we understand the problem. Joe Sixpack isn't going to sign on to kyoto 2 when kyoto 1 caused him and his friends their jobs. Kyoto is widely recognized as being too little to solve the problem that is proported to exist, but is presented as a symbolic first step. I am not prepared to pay a penny for symbolism, no matter how much anyone whines.
It is absurd that people take so lightly the idea of shaving off a couple of percent of GDP; are so quick to sacrifice the livlihood of their fellow man.
The sea levels are NOT RISING 1 meter every 10 years. That would be very obvious to those of us who live in coastal areas.
There are many reasons we should not act on the current knowledge about cliamte. The one that you may be most interested in is that wealthy people care about the environment, and poor people do not. The more wealthy people, the more pressure on government and industry to be clean. Poor nations can't afford the efficient systems that we use to:
heat our homes (would you rather that they burn wood, making more CO2 and air pollution?),
aquire our food (modern farming rather than slash and burn the amazon to grow their crops for a few years?),
make scientific developments (viagra rather than grind up tiger penises as aphrodisiacs),
be peaceful (build complex industries and trade rather than have to constantly war over resources that they will squander on the next war),
and finally, to communicate in such a manner necessary to create special interest groups powerful enough to make them care about the earth.
The human enhanced greenhouse theories rely on positive feedback effects to produce any substantial warming. There are also negative feedback effects that lessen the warming. Most of the effects, both positive and negative are not well understood. When people plug these effects into computer models, they have to make a guesses about these effects. Guesses * desire for more funding = bias. You get what you pay for.
If you drop your piece of paper off a building, you can't tell if one of the flutters it takes won't drop it onto a ledge or into a truck, unless you know a whole lot about the conditions of the air which could interact with the paper. Assuming there are no ledges and trucks is disingenuous.
If the Europeans don't see themselves as superior, then why don't they try to improve themselves? Why would anyone want to live in a second rate state? Seems to me like the Europeans want to drag the US down with them. Superiority by tripping. I remeber that from middle school.
Good article here:
http://www.culturaleconomics.atfreeweb.com/cpu_b.h tm
Toward the bottom:
The plot of the booksellers was, however, ultimately defeated in 1774 by the decision of the House of Lords in Donaldson v. Beckett. It was this decision that established the basic concept of Anglo-American copyright. When an author fixed his creation on a tangible medium, he obtained a common law right that is eternal in nature. However, he lost this common law right with publication, or, ?dedication to the public?. In effect, the House of Lords accepted the dissenting opinion and reasoning of Justice Yates in Millar v. Taylor:
? Mr. Justice Yates had very clear and definite notions as to the limits of property, but a reference which he makes to the civil law throws a stronger light on his view of the whole subject than any of his direct reasoning. What the Institutes have to say relating to "wild animals," he observes, "is very applicable to this case." And he then proceeds to draw a comparison between these two singularly related subjects. Animals ferae naturae are yours "while they continue in your possession, but no longer. " So those wild and volatile objects which we call ideas are yours as long as they are properly kenneled in the mind. Once unchain or publish them, and they "become incapable of being any longer a subject of property; all mankind are equally entitled to read them; and every reader becomes as fully possessed of all the ideas as the author himself ever was." (Sedgwick 1879)
The important statement there is 'Copyright law as we know it'... Before then, copyright existed in a very different form. The points listed in your post were all things that changed with the Statute of Anne.
That's how it started, where the idea came from. Past that, the evolution has been different in each country.
In England, there was a famous case in the 18th century through which some publishers tried to assert a common law 'property right' to copyrights. They failed. The States inherited the English Common Law, sans copyright. That's about all you need to know.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Re:If you didn't buy the SUV
on
Eco-Terrorism
·
· Score: 2
The SUV that I often drive was gifted to my wife from my mother in law. I didn't buy it, yet I still don't have enough for solar panels. Strange. Wait, maybe if I renig on my student loans!
Too inexpensive not to have in place by law? Cloudy winter days => cold showers? Cough. Should go over real well in Wisconsin.
How hard would it be to have every business to have solar energy? Well, it'd put me right out of business. The small business I worked for for the past five years- it'd put them out of business too. Humm, how hard would it be to consolidate all commererce into big multinational corporations? All we have to do is put you in charge.
The claim that 'no matter how much the initial investment they will eventually pay back their cost' is absurd, yet you have the gall to lecture me about investment.
I don't tend to invest in anything. I won't need it, since I'm helping to bring upon the end of the world.
How long do we have, now, anyway? It so depresses me to look at the greenpeace website. It makes me want to cry. *sniff*. Those poor whales. *sniff*. Wait, no, sorry, I can't detect any emotional response. You'll have to resort to reason. Be careful, it could be dangerous to your cause.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Re:Vigilantes aren't all bad.
on
Eco-Terrorism
·
· Score: 3
I was looking for a specific essay on this subject, that I've read before, but alas, I can't find it tonight.
See William Barhill, Focus: Early Warnings; Identifying Violence-Prone Police Officers, WASH. POST, Aug. 11, 1992,
at B5 ("The prolonged, unremitted stress associated with law enforcement often results in a build-up of undischarged anger... waiting
for a chance to explode").
In 1993 'only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The 'error rate' for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high.
Newsweek, November 15, 1993
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Re:Torched SUV Dealership
on
Eco-Terrorism
·
· Score: 2
God forbid anyone want to carry something in their car.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Re:Really throw them for a loop
on
Eco-Terrorism
·
· Score: 2
Scientists from the future will also discover the slashdot archives, read through them and discover the word of God. The society of the future will meet every Linusday morning at the time of the first post and recite the revealed wisdom of the users with low numbers.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Re:Ineffective Revolution
on
Eco-Terrorism
·
· Score: 1
How many households can afford the $20,000 to install the solar array? Oh, I forgot- energy use is for the rich. Install some on your house, and cut yourself off from the grid.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Re:Is the absence of bio-engineering justifiable?
on
Eco-Terrorism
·
· Score: 1
It may not surprise you that I am not a farmer, but I will assert that an agricultural boom in Cuba has more to do with economic incentives that with organic farming. I could be wrong.
In 1994, they allowed farms to sell above-quota agricultural production. (CIA world factbook).
I can't think of any subjects where it's a good idea to cite a communist country as positive example. Cuba is often cited as having excellent healthcare, which may be true, but doctors there are driving cabs and catering to tourists. Intrusive government leads to all sorts of absurdities, including here in the US.
Even if the world could use only organic farming to feed everyone, it would be a bad idea, for the same reason Linux is a good idea. Resources allocated to agriculture are not available to other other endeavors, just as the money paid to microsoft in licensing and auting expenses is not available to develop your business, pay your workers, or god forbit, pay your shareholders.
The cost may be marginal, but Microsoft has amassed tens of billions of dollars by sucking at the margins. Organic farmers are sucking at the margins to try to revive obsolete and inefficient ideologies about what farming should be. I have no problem with that. I do have a problem with using fear as a marketing tool.
I've enjoyed this discussion. It's hard to find someone who will disagree with me (without getting mad or name calling, etc) long enough to have an interesting discussion.
When the gov't fixes education (by getting out of it, I propose), I will stand beside you in calling for full disclosure by Monsanto, et al. As I always say, what you don't know can't hurt you, unless it contradicts what you do know.
And the great irony of our times is that the prospect of the developing world approaching the standard of living of the developed world horrifies some people and delights others.
I would propose that international agribusiness, driven by making money, knows they have much to gain from a richer third world. Golden rice will not solve all the problems, but it will help solve some.
There are valid questions to ask about any new product, and they should be answered.
But there are huge disincintives toward admitting to risk. Someone will bring up the 'Precautionary Principle' and sink you no matter how theoretical the risk. You'll be sued by every nut with condition X that your product can theoretically cause. Your best bet is to get the product out and get people used to it, before it becomes known that it might cause an extra cancer per million people per year. That's not evil.
If you want to see honest scientific debate, start with tort reform so juries can't award absurd damages, education reform so people understand how to think about science, and political reform so that corporations don't have to buy off congress to stay in business.
Nothing is safe, therefore nothing can be proven to be safe.
The dose makes the poison. Biotech foods have, much like natural foods, poisons in them. For every substance, there is an amount of that substance that, ingested, will kill you. Likewise there is an amount that will kill you if injected, there is an amount that will kill you if it falls on your head, and there is an amount that will kill you if inhaled.
Forget the idea that we can live without biotech. We can't. There's not enough land. Agricultural advances in the past century have been truely amazing, but they will be dwarfed by the advances of the next century.
Then think about what happens when even the tiniest risk is associated with a product. Suddenly, in the eyes of the courts, every instance of that problem is worth millions of dollars. In the first successful Phen-fen case, the plaintiffs cardiologist testified that her heart valve problems predated her use of Phen-fen. But she was awarded millions of dollars. Every day I see commercials with lawyers trolling for PPA cases, based on a miniscule theoretical risk.
Many people don't have the perspective or the skills necessary to make judgements on risk, especially small ones. This can be seen quite directly by observing the fact that there are cars in the parking lot at Fresh Fields.
Perhaps someday we'll reintroduce math as a subject in schools, and people will be able to intellegently analyze risk. When they get old enough to serve on juries, companies might make more information available. Until then, it would just be stupid.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm glad you think it's ironic for you to take the skeptic's position. Most lay people do not feel that the burden of proving HEG falls on its proponents, rather that the burden of disproving it falls on the skeptics, leading to the akward situation of trying to prove a negative.
f eb 97_1.htm
4 2/ 2_objective.html
As for extrodinary claims, Lindzen put it best:
"In some ways, we are driven to a philosophical consideration: namely, do we think that a long-lived natural system, like the earth, acts to amplify any perturbations, or is it more likely that it will act to counteract such perturbations? It appears that we are currently committed to the former rather vindictive view of nature." Richard Lindzen, in testimony to Congress, July 1997
Critisism of treatment of clouds...
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/essd5
From the horses mouth:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/spm22-01.pdf (toward the end. Page 18 or 28?)
Gov't Agency.
http://www.arm.gov/docs/documents/project/er_04
Good model anecdote:
http://users.erols.com/dhoyt1/annex8.htm
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Y2K is not a good comparison. The cause problem was well understood. It was possible to test systems to determine if they were effected.
The climate is not well understood. The variability of the sun is not well understood. Positive and negative feedback mechanisms are not well understood.
What is well understood is that computer models that are predicting the changes are woefully inadaquate. Global warming by CO2 has been an idea in circulation for something like 110 years.
Good observations of climate features have only been collected recently. For most of the earth, good observations have only started since we started launching satellites.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Radius of the pie = scaryness * gullibility of the public.
That so much is spent on climate change research is a result of the scare. When was the last time you sent out a memo showing how wasteful your job is?
Surfing the net and other cliches...
' I myself find it absurd, that people will rather take even the most remote possibility that their "fellow men" will drown, die of hunger and lose their whole countries (the Netherlands) than shave a couple of percent of their precious GDP!'
Then stop breathing.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
caused/cost
Surfing the net and other cliches...
The harm that would be done by choking the world economies will do worse for the environment and the environmental movement than waiting until we understand the problem. Joe Sixpack isn't going to sign on to kyoto 2 when kyoto 1 caused him and his friends their jobs. Kyoto is widely recognized as being too little to solve the problem that is proported to exist, but is presented as a symbolic first step. I am not prepared to pay a penny for symbolism, no matter how much anyone whines.
It is absurd that people take so lightly the idea of shaving off a couple of percent of GDP; are so quick to sacrifice the livlihood of their fellow man.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Maximum Viable bias = 1 / (1-(% of peers with similar bias))
Surfing the net and other cliches...
The sea levels are NOT RISING 1 meter every 10 years. That would be very obvious to those of us who live in coastal areas.
There are many reasons we should not act on the current knowledge about cliamte. The one that you may be most interested in is that wealthy people care about the environment, and poor people do not. The more wealthy people, the more pressure on government and industry to be clean. Poor nations can't afford the efficient systems that we use to:
heat our homes (would you rather that they burn wood, making more CO2 and air pollution?),
aquire our food (modern farming rather than slash and burn the amazon to grow their crops for a few years?),
make scientific developments (viagra rather than grind up tiger penises as aphrodisiacs),
be peaceful (build complex industries and trade rather than have to constantly war over resources that they will squander on the next war),
and finally, to communicate in such a manner necessary to create special interest groups powerful enough to make them care about the earth.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Bad analogy.
The human enhanced greenhouse theories rely on positive feedback effects to produce any substantial warming. There are also negative feedback effects that lessen the warming. Most of the effects, both positive and negative are not well understood. When people plug these effects into computer models, they have to make a guesses about these effects. Guesses * desire for more funding = bias. You get what you pay for.
If you drop your piece of paper off a building, you can't tell if one of the flutters it takes won't drop it onto a ledge or into a truck, unless you know a whole lot about the conditions of the air which could interact with the paper. Assuming there are no ledges and trucks is disingenuous.
Littering is wrong.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
The English sorted this out when we were still colonies.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Can't resist this-
If the Europeans don't see themselves as superior, then why don't they try to improve themselves? Why would anyone want to live in a second rate state? Seems to me like the Europeans want to drag the US down with them. Superiority by tripping. I remeber that from middle school.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
http://www.culturaleconomics.atfreeweb.com/cpu_b.
Toward the bottom:
The plot of the booksellers was, however, ultimately defeated in 1774 by the decision of the House of Lords in Donaldson v. Beckett. It was this decision that established the basic concept of Anglo-American copyright. When an author fixed his creation on a tangible medium, he obtained a common law right that is eternal in nature. However, he lost this common law right with publication, or, ?dedication to the public?. In effect, the House of Lords accepted the dissenting opinion and reasoning of Justice Yates in Millar v. Taylor:
? Mr. Justice Yates had very clear and definite notions as to the limits of property, but a reference which he makes to the civil law throws a stronger light on his view of the whole subject than any of his direct reasoning. What the Institutes have to say relating to "wild animals," he observes, "is very applicable to this case." And he then proceeds to draw a comparison between these two singularly related subjects. Animals ferae naturae are yours "while they continue in your possession, but no longer. " So those wild and volatile objects which we call ideas are yours as long as they are properly kenneled in the mind. Once unchain or publish them, and they "become incapable of being any longer a subject of property; all mankind are equally entitled to read them; and every reader becomes as fully possessed of all the ideas as the author himself ever was." (Sedgwick 1879)
Surfing the net and other cliches...
The important statement there is 'Copyright law as we know it'... Before then, copyright existed in a very different form. The points listed in your post were all things that changed with the Statute of Anne.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
That's how it started, where the idea came from. Past that, the evolution has been different in each country.
In England, there was a famous case in the 18th century through which some publishers tried to assert a common law 'property right' to copyrights. They failed. The States inherited the English Common Law, sans copyright. That's about all you need to know.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
The SUV that I often drive was gifted to my wife from my mother in law. I didn't buy it, yet I still don't have enough for solar panels. Strange. Wait, maybe if I renig on my student loans!
Too inexpensive not to have in place by law? Cloudy winter days => cold showers? Cough. Should go over real well in Wisconsin.
How hard would it be to have every business to have solar energy? Well, it'd put me right out of business. The small business I worked for for the past five years- it'd put them out of business too. Humm, how hard would it be to consolidate all commererce into big multinational corporations? All we have to do is put you in charge.
The claim that 'no matter how much the initial investment they will eventually pay back their cost' is absurd, yet you have the gall to lecture me about investment.
I don't tend to invest in anything. I won't need it, since I'm helping to bring upon the end of the world.
How long do we have, now, anyway? It so depresses me to look at the greenpeace website. It makes me want to cry. *sniff*. Those poor whales. *sniff*. Wait, no, sorry, I can't detect any emotional response. You'll have to resort to reason. Be careful, it could be dangerous to your cause.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
I was looking for a specific essay on this subject, that I've read before, but alas, I can't find it tonight.
See William Barhill, Focus: Early Warnings; Identifying Violence-Prone Police Officers, WASH. POST, Aug. 11, 1992,
at B5 ("The prolonged, unremitted stress associated with law enforcement often results in a build-up of undischarged anger
for a chance to explode").
In 1993 'only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The 'error rate' for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high.
Newsweek, November 15, 1993
Surfing the net and other cliches...
God forbid anyone want to carry something in their car.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Scientists from the future will also discover the slashdot archives, read through them and discover the word of God. The society of the future will meet every Linusday morning at the time of the first post and recite the revealed wisdom of the users with low numbers.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
How many households can afford the $20,000 to install the solar array? Oh, I forgot- energy use is for the rich. Install some on your house, and cut yourself off from the grid.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
I'd like to see that evidence.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
I have a similar problem with Netscape 4.7x on linux. If a page is very long, the widgets at the top repeat themselves somewhere down the page.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
It may not surprise you that I am not a farmer, but I will assert that an agricultural boom in Cuba has more to do with economic incentives that with organic farming. I could be wrong.
In 1994, they allowed farms to sell above-quota agricultural production. (CIA world factbook).
I can't think of any subjects where it's a good idea to cite a communist country as positive example. Cuba is often cited as having excellent healthcare, which may be true, but doctors there are driving cabs and catering to tourists. Intrusive government leads to all sorts of absurdities, including here in the US.
Even if the world could use only organic farming to feed everyone, it would be a bad idea, for the same reason Linux is a good idea. Resources allocated to agriculture are not available to other other endeavors, just as the money paid to microsoft in licensing and auting expenses is not available to develop your business, pay your workers, or god forbit, pay your shareholders.
The cost may be marginal, but Microsoft has amassed tens of billions of dollars by sucking at the margins. Organic farmers are sucking at the margins to try to revive obsolete and inefficient ideologies about what farming should be. I have no problem with that. I do have a problem with using fear as a marketing tool.
I've enjoyed this discussion. It's hard to find someone who will disagree with me (without getting mad or name calling, etc) long enough to have an interesting discussion.
When the gov't fixes education (by getting out of it, I propose), I will stand beside you in calling for full disclosure by Monsanto, et al. As I always say, what you don't know can't hurt you, unless it contradicts what you do know.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
And the great irony of our times is that the prospect of the developing world approaching the standard of living of the developed world horrifies some people and delights others.
I would propose that international agribusiness, driven by making money, knows they have much to gain from a richer third world. Golden rice will not solve all the problems, but it will help solve some.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
There are valid questions to ask about any new product, and they should be answered.
But there are huge disincintives toward admitting to risk. Someone will bring up the 'Precautionary Principle' and sink you no matter how theoretical the risk. You'll be sued by every nut with condition X that your product can theoretically cause. Your best bet is to get the product out and get people used to it, before it becomes known that it might cause an extra cancer per million people per year. That's not evil.
If you want to see honest scientific debate, start with tort reform so juries can't award absurd damages, education reform so people understand how to think about science, and political reform so that corporations don't have to buy off congress to stay in business.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Nothing is safe, therefore nothing can be proven to be safe.
The dose makes the poison. Biotech foods have, much like natural foods, poisons in them. For every substance, there is an amount of that substance that, ingested, will kill you. Likewise there is an amount that will kill you if injected, there is an amount that will kill you if it falls on your head, and there is an amount that will kill you if inhaled.
Forget the idea that we can live without biotech. We can't. There's not enough land. Agricultural advances in the past century have been truely amazing, but they will be dwarfed by the advances of the next century.
Then think about what happens when even the tiniest risk is associated with a product. Suddenly, in the eyes of the courts, every instance of that problem is worth millions of dollars. In the first successful Phen-fen case, the plaintiffs cardiologist testified that her heart valve problems predated her use of Phen-fen. But she was awarded millions of dollars. Every day I see commercials with lawyers trolling for PPA cases, based on a miniscule theoretical risk.
Many people don't have the perspective or the skills necessary to make judgements on risk, especially small ones. This can be seen quite directly by observing the fact that there are cars in the parking lot at Fresh Fields.
Perhaps someday we'll reintroduce math as a subject in schools, and people will be able to intellegently analyze risk. When they get old enough to serve on juries, companies might make more information available. Until then, it would just be stupid.
Surfing the net and other cliches...