You are absolutely full of shit, and provide nothing to back up your outrageous statements of opinion. You are also, apparently, an idiot who does not understand basic scientific concepts most of us learned in eighth grade.
Climate and weather are two different things. If you do not understand that basic concept, there is no hope in debating you. Climate says "if you put a pot of water on a lit burner, it will eventually boil." Weather says, "The next bubble to break the surface will occur in.6 seconds, at a location 2 inches from the center of the pan." It is impossible to predict weather more than a few days in advance (like it is impossible to predict where the next bubble in a boiling pot will break the surface) but it is easy to predict climate years or decades in advance (like predicting when a pot with a given amount of water in it will start to boil, given a flame of a certain intensity. We can do that exactly, even if we can't tell you exactly where the first bubble will pop.)
Reality agrees with our climate models. Our models say 'warmer' and it has gotten steadily warmer.
Let me ask you, is CO2 a greenhouse gas?
How much CO2 do natural processes put into the atmosphere?
How much has mankind put into the atmosphere?
Given that we have put in X amount extra of a known greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, how can you deny that we have increased the temperature? If you want to deny global climate change, you must either deny that CO2 is a greenhouse gas (laughably easy to disprove you there), or that the amount of CO2 we have put into the atmosphere is minuscule in comparison to the natural amounts going in (also laughably easy to disprove.)
So, smart boy, what's your explanation for the known facts?
But the evidence is incredibly strong in one direction, and totally lacking in the other. There is as little question about global warming as there is about gravity.
If anyone working for Bill could actually think for themselves, they wouldn't be working for Bill.
I guess everyone who thinks for themselves thinks the same as you.
Of course not, but if they could think for themselves, they would see they are getting reamed working for a sociopath who produces inferior products and survives by being the most brutal, underhanded, and duplicitous fucker in the business. If his workers could think for themselves, they would see that they could do better NOT working for such a sociopath. But our public schools teach kids to kowtow to authority, not to question their 'betters,' and not to rock the boat.
But more importantly, people who can actually think for themselves (and are not sociopaths) participate as little as possible in a system that debases the working class who actually create all value, while raising the owning class up to the level of near godhood. Why would anyone work against their own interests participating in a system that enslaves them to owning class sociopaths?
Anyway, this was all a tangent, when fairness wasn't really a major point of mine. But it does enter into the discussion about morality, because the sense of fairness is one of the basic subsystems of our innate morality. See below for some experiments done recently that show fairness is an innate sense, and that most people are not, in fact, selfish.
(...sound of cowardly assholes clicking the 'troll' mod button...)
Hey that's okay, Mr. Denier, we know you don't know how to think for yourself. All you can do is destroy, attack and tear down what you fear. You can't actually add anything useful.
I don't know why I bother, at this point, logical debate is impossible. It's entirely an emotional issue. People's self esteem and even their identity are tied up in the debate. The deniers hate and fear the people who claim global warming is real. They think of us as tyrants, coming to tell them what to do. We think of them as children, who won't take responsibility for the way they impact others; or also as tyrants, whose sole desire is to make more money, whatever the cost.
It's at the point where I would rather go all Tiger Woods on their asses, "Bitch, Ima spit on you, slap your face, and call you a dirty whore and you're gonna sit there and take it because you like it," than try to have a rational debate. But the problem with that is, they DO like it. It justifies their fucking persecution complex. Yeah, Mr. Denier, you're a failure at life because the (snicker) the hippies (guffaw) the hippies and liberals kept you down. Hilarious.
If anyone working for Bill could actually think for themselves, they wouldn't be working for Bill. The fact that Bill pushed so hard for H1-B visas and other measures designed to destroy the American worker proves he is no friend of the working class, and only interested in exploitation, like all owning class tyrants.
But who said anything about supporting teacher's unions?
Global warming alarmists are pretty bad. I don't know very many though. Most people who believe in the scientific evidence aren't alarmists, they are just logical and know where their own self interest lies: in protecting their only home.
I'm sorry, but my argument is valid, is not shouting, and does not appeal to emotion. If you'd like to prove me wrong, show some evidence rather than shouting and appealing to emotion. Like you said, your self-referential irony leads to your self pwnage.
No, we believe because of the evidence. You believe despite all evidence. We start from theory and test it against reality, you start from fantasy and find data that fits. In science, the truth always wins out in the end. In science, if you can prove that everybody else is wrong and you are right, you will be the next Einstein and your name will go down in history forever. So, when all the experts agree, that's pretty good evidence that none of them could make a huge name for themselves by disagreeing. And with the HUGE amounts of money that corporate polluters are pouring into this debate, not only would anyone who proved climate change be famous, they would be very, very rich.
Why do you keep on lying when the report is right there, disproving your lies? It's not as if these guys represent even a fraction of climate scientists, so what do you say to the vast majority of climate scientists whose data and methods are valid?
Economic coercion is just as real as physical coercion. Collusion between big players will exist with or without government. Beyond a certain amount necessary for survival and personal freedom, money is a measure of control over other people's lives. A corporation can force you do whatever it likes, in the absence of government protection. For instance, it can force you to breath filth and eat poison.
The ruling class will collude with each other to coerce us into laboring for them as cheaply as possible. Sure, they can use the government against us, if we let them. But the answer to that problem is to stop letting them, not to do away with government, which is the only real protection the poor have from coercion by the rich.
The purpose of government is to enact and protect the freedoms its citizenry desire. Certainly, freedom from fraud and coercion is a freedom worth protecting. But what is coercion? If men are starving, most will do nearly anything for food. Saying, "Starve or be a slave" is coercion. A social safety net provides freedom from economic coercion, and I for one feel that is a freedom worth protecting. Regulations on workplace safety, child labor, and nondiscrimination also protect citizens from fraud and coercion. I also value a clean environment, dumping your crap and expecting me to deal with the consequences is coercion.
In short, yes, I agree. The government's job is to prevent fraud and coercion. You and I just differ as to how we define coercion, and how far we think the government should go in protecting against it.
Well, How about this, then? If there is a God and he has set up a world where there is such a thing as an immortal soul, but the connection between the soul and the mind can be disrupted by a magnetic field, then God is a dick, and fuck him right in the ear. I think that better captures my sentiments in the matter, and I hope it makes things clearer for you.
You poor guy, suckered by those evil stockholders and board members. Now I feel all sorry for you and shit.
Punk ass bitch, you played with the big boys and got beat down hard because you just don't have the skills, the brains, or the common sense to go back to the kiddie pool. You know, after this is all said and done, the criminal charges will come. You'll be spending your days in the pokey, not living it up in Cancun with all the money you and your family embezzled from SCO.
But you are a narcissist, so we can't expect you to understand any of this, as you have no concept of right and wrong. In your own mind, I'm sure you are completely innocent of any wrong doing.
1.) Who do I identify as the owning class? 2.) It's not from that long ago. And Bill Gates still wants drones. He doesn't want anyone educated to put two and two together. He wants think-drones, who will think about only what he tells them to think about. 3.) I support what now?
You need to stop reading things into what I write that simply aren't there. It's obvious that I've impressed you enough for you to remember who I am and what you think my politics are, but you needn't be so threatened. Maybe you should read what I write, and not what the imaginary socialist in your head writes.
How am I defending "the forces that tore down Escalante's progress?" I think you suffer from reading comprehension problems.
Did you miss the quote I was responding to?
It's no wonder he got lots of resistance against his peers, administration and teachers union. Public schools are not about education, its about creating dumbed down automatons who are easily controlled.
It isn't the government that benefits from churning out uneducated drones, it is the owning class. I never said the owning class was leading the charge to bring meaningful change to schools, I said the opposite. The owning class wants uneducated drones, and they are arrogant enough to come right out and say it.
Obviously, the answer to the problem of owning class people gaming the system in their favor is to do away with all government oversight of the owning class, and sell the government to them wholesale. Because, if we had an unregulated free market, all the little mom and pop operations would rise up against their corporate masters and we would immediately have a free and fair market in everything. Obviously, the government is not protecting the little guy from the owning class, they are keeping the little guy down for the owning class.
But wait, if all that is true, why is it the owning class telling us this? Why are the rich leading the charge to get rid of government regulations? Are they trying to use reverse psychology on us or something?
Fairness is NOT just a euphemism for 'I didn't get my way.' According to recent research in economics and game theory, most people will attempt to act fairly even when there is no benefit, or even harm, to them. Fairness is a felling, an analog circuit in the brain, optimized by evolution to produce cohesive and functional social groups.
You deny that you have free will, but your notion of what constitutes "free will" is not something anyone is asserting. It is a strawman.
Free will doesn't allow you to escape reality. Your mind doesn't exist *in* your brain - it *is* your brain. Any modification to your brain modifies your mind, and can certainly impact your ability to reason. Whether the damage is done with a bullet, an axe, or a disruptive magnetic field, makes no difference.
It would be absurd to demand - as you do - that in order for one to be considered to have "free will", one's mind must be capable of making the same choice regardless of the damage done to the brain. That is not free will - it is magic.
But that's exactly the idea many religions promulgate about the self, the soul, and free will. Most people are dualists, they think of the self as something separate, not arising from conditions that create and support it.
As most people understand the concept, 'free will' boils down to 'I could have made a different choice.' Regardless of whether the world is deterministic or not, if free will is an aggregate thing, a conditioned thing, then it can not be an uncaused cause. Any 'cause' originating from the will is merely an effect of conditions. And therefore, 'you' couldn't have made a different choice. If were conditions were different, a different choice would have arisen, but that's not how most people see it.
I believe there is no self separate from the constantly changing conditions creating and supporting that self. The self is not a root cause, or a definite and unchanging thing. It's just a label, a concept that at best only roughly matches reality.
Ah, Jeeves and Wooster, what a funny series. Hugh Laurie is a top notch actor, and Stephen Fry is a comic genius of course. It also helps that the books are some of the best satire ever written.
I don't know about you, but I have an innate sense of fairness and a desire to uphold justice and equality. So when things aren't fair, I feel it. And when I feel something, I point it out. That's one of our strength's as a species. The world may not be fair, but we can make it more so.
You know who the phrase "life isn't fair" is for? Losers who have given up trying to make it fair.
Slashdot Mirror
You are absolutely full of shit, and provide nothing to back up your outrageous statements of opinion. You are also, apparently, an idiot who does not understand basic scientific concepts most of us learned in eighth grade.
Climate and weather are two different things. If you do not understand that basic concept, there is no hope in debating you. Climate says "if you put a pot of water on a lit burner, it will eventually boil." Weather says, "The next bubble to break the surface will occur in .6 seconds, at a location 2 inches from the center of the pan." It is impossible to predict weather more than a few days in advance (like it is impossible to predict where the next bubble in a boiling pot will break the surface) but it is easy to predict climate years or decades in advance (like predicting when a pot with a given amount of water in it will start to boil, given a flame of a certain intensity. We can do that exactly, even if we can't tell you exactly where the first bubble will pop.)
Reality agrees with our climate models. Our models say 'warmer' and it has gotten steadily warmer.
Let me ask you, is CO2 a greenhouse gas?
How much CO2 do natural processes put into the atmosphere?
How much has mankind put into the atmosphere?
Given that we have put in X amount extra of a known greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, how can you deny that we have increased the temperature? If you want to deny global climate change, you must either deny that CO2 is a greenhouse gas (laughably easy to disprove you there), or that the amount of CO2 we have put into the atmosphere is minuscule in comparison to the natural amounts going in (also laughably easy to disprove.)
So, smart boy, what's your explanation for the known facts?
If you have extraordinary claims to make, they require extraordinary evidence. We've presented our extraordinary evidence, where's yours?
But the evidence is incredibly strong in one direction, and totally lacking in the other. There is as little question about global warming as there is about gravity.
If anyone working for Bill could actually think for themselves, they wouldn't be working for Bill.
I guess everyone who thinks for themselves thinks the same as you.
Of course not, but if they could think for themselves, they would see they are getting reamed working for a sociopath who produces inferior products and survives by being the most brutal, underhanded, and duplicitous fucker in the business. If his workers could think for themselves, they would see that they could do better NOT working for such a sociopath. But our public schools teach kids to kowtow to authority, not to question their 'betters,' and not to rock the boat.
But more importantly, people who can actually think for themselves (and are not sociopaths) participate as little as possible in a system that debases the working class who actually create all value, while raising the owning class up to the level of near godhood. Why would anyone work against their own interests participating in a system that enslaves them to owning class sociopaths?
Anyway, this was all a tangent, when fairness wasn't really a major point of mine. But it does enter into the discussion about morality, because the sense of fairness is one of the basic subsystems of our innate morality. See below for some experiments done recently that show fairness is an innate sense, and that most people are not, in fact, selfish.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictator_game
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_goods_game
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum_game
(...sound of cowardly assholes clicking the 'troll' mod button...)
Hey that's okay, Mr. Denier, we know you don't know how to think for yourself. All you can do is destroy, attack and tear down what you fear. You can't actually add anything useful.
I don't know why I bother, at this point, logical debate is impossible. It's entirely an emotional issue. People's self esteem and even their identity are tied up in the debate. The deniers hate and fear the people who claim global warming is real. They think of us as tyrants, coming to tell them what to do. We think of them as children, who won't take responsibility for the way they impact others; or also as tyrants, whose sole desire is to make more money, whatever the cost.
It's at the point where I would rather go all Tiger Woods on their asses, "Bitch, Ima spit on you, slap your face, and call you a dirty whore and you're gonna sit there and take it because you like it," than try to have a rational debate. But the problem with that is, they DO like it. It justifies their fucking persecution complex. Yeah, Mr. Denier, you're a failure at life because the (snicker) the hippies (guffaw) the hippies and liberals kept you down. Hilarious.
If anyone working for Bill could actually think for themselves, they wouldn't be working for Bill. The fact that Bill pushed so hard for H1-B visas and other measures designed to destroy the American worker proves he is no friend of the working class, and only interested in exploitation, like all owning class tyrants.
But who said anything about supporting teacher's unions?
Global warming alarmists are pretty bad. I don't know very many though. Most people who believe in the scientific evidence aren't alarmists, they are just logical and know where their own self interest lies: in protecting their only home.
I'm sorry, but my argument is valid, is not shouting, and does not appeal to emotion. If you'd like to prove me wrong, show some evidence rather than shouting and appealing to emotion. Like you said, your self-referential irony leads to your self pwnage.
No, we believe because of the evidence. You believe despite all evidence. We start from theory and test it against reality, you start from fantasy and find data that fits. In science, the truth always wins out in the end. In science, if you can prove that everybody else is wrong and you are right, you will be the next Einstein and your name will go down in history forever. So, when all the experts agree, that's pretty good evidence that none of them could make a huge name for themselves by disagreeing. And with the HUGE amounts of money that corporate polluters are pouring into this debate, not only would anyone who proved climate change be famous, they would be very, very rich.
Why do you keep on lying when the report is right there, disproving your lies? It's not as if these guys represent even a fraction of climate scientists, so what do you say to the vast majority of climate scientists whose data and methods are valid?
Climate change deniers do not make logical arguments, they shout talking points and appeal to emotion.
Economic coercion is just as real as physical coercion. Collusion between big players will exist with or without government. Beyond a certain amount necessary for survival and personal freedom, money is a measure of control over other people's lives. A corporation can force you do whatever it likes, in the absence of government protection. For instance, it can force you to breath filth and eat poison.
The ruling class will collude with each other to coerce us into laboring for them as cheaply as possible. Sure, they can use the government against us, if we let them. But the answer to that problem is to stop letting them, not to do away with government, which is the only real protection the poor have from coercion by the rich.
The purpose of government is to enact and protect the freedoms its citizenry desire. Certainly, freedom from fraud and coercion is a freedom worth protecting. But what is coercion? If men are starving, most will do nearly anything for food. Saying, "Starve or be a slave" is coercion. A social safety net provides freedom from economic coercion, and I for one feel that is a freedom worth protecting. Regulations on workplace safety, child labor, and nondiscrimination also protect citizens from fraud and coercion. I also value a clean environment, dumping your crap and expecting me to deal with the consequences is coercion.
In short, yes, I agree. The government's job is to prevent fraud and coercion. You and I just differ as to how we define coercion, and how far we think the government should go in protecting against it.
Well, How about this, then? If there is a God and he has set up a world where there is such a thing as an immortal soul, but the connection between the soul and the mind can be disrupted by a magnetic field, then God is a dick, and fuck him right in the ear. I think that better captures my sentiments in the matter, and I hope it makes things clearer for you.
You poor guy, suckered by those evil stockholders and board members. Now I feel all sorry for you and shit.
Punk ass bitch, you played with the big boys and got beat down hard because you just don't have the skills, the brains, or the common sense to go back to the kiddie pool. You know, after this is all said and done, the criminal charges will come. You'll be spending your days in the pokey, not living it up in Cancun with all the money you and your family embezzled from SCO.
But you are a narcissist, so we can't expect you to understand any of this, as you have no concept of right and wrong. In your own mind, I'm sure you are completely innocent of any wrong doing.
1.) Who do I identify as the owning class?
2.) It's not from that long ago. And Bill Gates still wants drones. He doesn't want anyone educated to put two and two together. He wants think-drones, who will think about only what he tells them to think about.
3.) I support what now?
You need to stop reading things into what I write that simply aren't there. It's obvious that I've impressed you enough for you to remember who I am and what you think my politics are, but you needn't be so threatened. Maybe you should read what I write, and not what the imaginary socialist in your head writes.
You, uh, might want to reread my post. Don't just stop when you begin to get angry at what you think I'm saying. Read the last paragraph.
How am I defending "the forces that tore down Escalante's progress?" I think you suffer from reading comprehension problems.
Did you miss the quote I was responding to?
It's no wonder he got lots of resistance against his peers, administration and teachers union. Public schools are not about education, its about creating dumbed down automatons who are easily controlled.
"I don't want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers." - John D. Rockefeller
It isn't the government that benefits from churning out uneducated drones, it is the owning class. I never said the owning class was leading the charge to bring meaningful change to schools, I said the opposite. The owning class wants uneducated drones, and they are arrogant enough to come right out and say it.
Obviously, the answer to the problem of owning class people gaming the system in their favor is to do away with all government oversight of the owning class, and sell the government to them wholesale. Because, if we had an unregulated free market, all the little mom and pop operations would rise up against their corporate masters and we would immediately have a free and fair market in everything. Obviously, the government is not protecting the little guy from the owning class, they are keeping the little guy down for the owning class.
But wait, if all that is true, why is it the owning class telling us this? Why are the rich leading the charge to get rid of government regulations? Are they trying to use reverse psychology on us or something?
Fairness is NOT just a euphemism for 'I didn't get my way.' According to recent research in economics and game theory, most people will attempt to act fairly even when there is no benefit, or even harm, to them. Fairness is a felling, an analog circuit in the brain, optimized by evolution to produce cohesive and functional social groups.
You deny that you have free will, but your notion of what constitutes "free will" is not something anyone is asserting. It is a strawman.
Free will doesn't allow you to escape reality. Your mind doesn't exist *in* your brain - it *is* your brain. Any modification to your brain modifies your mind, and can certainly impact your ability to reason. Whether the damage is done with a bullet, an axe, or a disruptive magnetic field, makes no difference.
It would be absurd to demand - as you do - that in order for one to be considered to have "free will", one's mind must be capable of making the same choice regardless of the damage done to the brain. That is not free will - it is magic.
But that's exactly the idea many religions promulgate about the self, the soul, and free will. Most people are dualists, they think of the self as something separate, not arising from conditions that create and support it.
As most people understand the concept, 'free will' boils down to 'I could have made a different choice.' Regardless of whether the world is deterministic or not, if free will is an aggregate thing, a conditioned thing, then it can not be an uncaused cause. Any 'cause' originating from the will is merely an effect of conditions. And therefore, 'you' couldn't have made a different choice. If were conditions were different, a different choice would have arisen, but that's not how most people see it.
I believe there is no self separate from the constantly changing conditions creating and supporting that self. The self is not a root cause, or a definite and unchanging thing. It's just a label, a concept that at best only roughly matches reality.
Ah, Jeeves and Wooster, what a funny series. Hugh Laurie is a top notch actor, and Stephen Fry is a comic genius of course. It also helps that the books are some of the best satire ever written.
I don't know about you, but I have an innate sense of fairness and a desire to uphold justice and equality. So when things aren't fair, I feel it. And when I feel something, I point it out. That's one of our strength's as a species. The world may not be fair, but we can make it more so.
You know who the phrase "life isn't fair" is for? Losers who have given up trying to make it fair.
Calvin didn't understand emergent phenomenon. So no, I'm not really.
Emergent phenomenon. Look it up.