3) There's significant global warming, but man doesn't cause it. 3.1) Man causes it, but it isn't a problem. 3.2) It's a problem, but it's not a problem for man, it's only a problem for other animals and plants. 3.3) It's a problem for man, but man is incapable of solving it. 4) Man causes significant global warming, but it's not economically possible to tackle it.
Trust me, dude, the goalpost can be moved one inch at a time.
Claim 1: CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Claim 2: CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere.
I still haven't heard any deniers disclaim either of those. They seem to be pretty uncontroversial. And yet, deniers have trouble with:
Result Claim: therefore, the increased CO2 must result in a warmer atmosphere.
I can't figure out how a person could accept 1 and 2, but not the result. Especially considering:
Claim 3: the data shows the earth is warming.
If you accept 1 and 2, but not 3, then you have some serious explaining to do, because you've discovered a crazy mystery like the mystery of dark energy.
I don't know. The denials don't make any sense to me. I'm just waiting for the goal post to be moved again: Okay, fine, humans are causing CO2 to increase; okay, fine, increasing CO2 is causing an increase in atmospheric temperature; but it's not a problem, so we still shouldn't do anything about it. At least then the deniers would be out of the game of science denial, and into the game of policy denial, which isn't a game that can be settled using facts.
You don't like Skeptoid? I like that it is single-topic and about 10-to-15 minutes long. I also like that Dunning usually has his facts straight before he records, which sets him apart from, say, Stuff You Should Know.
So, to be clear, you are saying that climate scientists somehow think they will make more money working for tree huggers than working for oil companies? Please respond to this and say "Yes, I think there is more money to be made pushing AGW than denying it."
Um... yeah.... so, to be clear, the Skeptical community rejects the climate deniers as ideologues. They are not skeptics; they are deniers. Skeptics accept things that are clearly demonstrated by evidence, which these people do not do. We skeptics insist that our good name not be sullied by these folks. You are entitled to your (wrong) opinion, but you are not entitled to use a word which means the opposite of what you say.
I know these names from some of my favorite podcasts. I'm going to toss them out here for people who aren't familiar with them, and please respond with similar podcasts if you love some.
The Skeptics Guide To The Universe (sponsored by JREF) AstronomyCast (Pamela Gay) NOVA scienceNOW or NOVA|PBS (often features Tyson) Planetary Radio (Bill Nye The Planetary Guy) Skeptoid (related topics by Brian Dunning) Radiolab (related topics, best of the best of the best)
I think the police are worried about different opinions on what is "wrong". If an officer arrests you for shoplifting, and you think it's "wrong" of the officer to do that, and you go use this website to find his house and burn it down -- well then, tell me Mr McBain, does the officer have anything "to be worried about"?
The line between reasonable and unreasonable is in between the actions of recording the on-duty officers to make sure their on-duty actions are appropriate, versus recording the off-duty officers' private information for the purposes of off-duty retaliation for on-duty actions which most people -- but perhaps not everybody -- think are "right".
So, the first guy (Layzej) made a joke about tulip bulbs having value, which is a reference a Dutchman is sure to understand. The second guy (Oswald) made a joke, I think, by taking the original joke as a literal comment, and then joking about other similarly stupid currencies. I suppose it's possible that Oswald was being serious, but it would be so ridiculous that I think it's much more likely he was extending the original joke. He dropped in a Star Trek reference at the end for bonus nerd points. An extra layer to Oswald's joke is that a currency which grows from one to 12 trillion in a year, is a very bad currency indeed.
I'm not familiar with that book, but I think the understanding of most people is that fiat currency means what Wiki says it means: "Fiat money is money that has value only because of government regulation or law." Shit, even the word "fiat" means "A formal authorization or proposition; a decree."
Fiat money has value because someone with power and legitimacy says it has value. You can have your own definition if you want, but please excuse the rest of us for ignoring it and using the common definition.
That's a bad example because it is the exact opposite of the truth. I'll put it plainly: imagine I discover a huge mountain range which is absolutely chock full of tons and tons of easily mined gold. Say it's enough to quadruple the amount of gold in the world. There is now a vastly increased quantity of gold in the world. Yeah, I'm rich because I have a lot of gold now, but everyone who had gold yesterday is a heck of a lot poorer, because their gold buys less today than yesterday, because suddenly I'm willing to trade my gold for less of that stuff, because I have so much gold. And if my friend discovers TWO mountain ranges of gold tomorrow, then suddenly I'm less rich.
The reason this doesn't happen is that there is good geological reason to believe that there aren't huge swaths of easily gotten gold hidden in the ground. Similarly, there aren't huge swaths of easily gotten bitcoin hidden in the... uh... numbers. Similarly for dollars, although the "reason" for the limitation is political instead of geological.
But scarcity isn't the only cornerstone of currency stability or value.
You only get credit for discovery if you successfully tell the rest of the world community about it. Many, perhaps most, inventions and discoveries were thought up or discovered by someone else before the person who eventually got the credit.
It may be the case that the save-the-trees greenies are concerned about more than one environmental problem, for instance both global warming as well as biodiversity. Have you ever considered that the problem is your mis-characterization, and not their ideology or ignorance of science?
Is "he" suggesting? No, I think the world's climate scientists are suggesting. The only refutations to that consensus is that either the evidence is terribly misleading, or there is a huge scientific conspiracy. You seem to be suggesting both (correct me if I'm wrong), but I don't find either criticism plausible. It's fine if you do find them plausible, I simply think you're wrong, as you do me. Or rather, I simply think my caricature of you is wrong, but my caricature could be wrong.
Ha! Thank you for first pointing out that my reliance on Wiki was naive, and then also for doing the research to prove that the unsourced Wiki slander might be rightheaded after all.
Me? I don't have an opinion on it. The guy's explanation for the bones sounds reasonable to me, because it jives with my understanding of octopuses as among the brightest species on the planet. Still, I don't normally put a hell of a lot of weight on what one scientist says.
You make a good point, a point which perhaps controls the policy determination of whether or not government should be the primary or exclusive providers of capital. Still, I don't think such a system would be "communism" the way I understand it. If you disagree, I'm okay with that, and I don't think less of you.
Well, to start with your question is an unrelated tangent to what I said, which didn't say anything about "do better" or "cost effective", I merely said I like and prefer the things the government does. (That is to say, I could, and in fact do, prefer some things to be done by the government even if they aren't as efficient because of other benefits besides efficiency.)
Nevertheless, okay, I'll name one, but after this, I'm not going to continue to engage this topic.
Medicare is a social safety net program. It provides health care to the elderly. It is a popular American program which is "done better" than the same program done "by someone else" in that nobody else provides a social safety net of health care to elderly people. The free market doesn't do that, and of course it never could, it's exactly the opposite of what private markets provide. Furthermore, strictly on the merits, Medicare is "more cost effective" than private health insurance, in that identical procedures cost the payer less. There are legit criticisms of Medicare (my favorite is that the "cost effective" nature of Medicare leads to rationing), but "done better" and "more cost effective" are not any of them.
I'll go ahead and throw in a second one: national defense. The government does this "better" than the alternative, which would be, I suppose, roving bands of disjointed mercenaries under the control of wealthy locals who pay them to protect their individual plots of land. It's hard to even imagine that other kind of "privatized" national defense, but I suppose it's possible. Would that be more "cost effective"? I can't say, but I don't even think that's a useful way to even think about that problem.
Don't paint me as some kind of ideologue here, because I'm not at all. Like you I am not perfectly happy with how government functions. I'd make changes, too. But I don't think the "big government" complaint is valid -- I think it's meaningless, I mean truly meaningless, like it has no meaning whatsoever, it is nothing but empty rhetoric.
Science is awesome, but keep in mind this disparaging note on the "scientist's" Wiki page: He has earned the nickname McMinimal from his colleagues due to the perceived poor quality of his research, such as suggesting that Agnostids are cannibals and claiming that the Kraken was a real beast..
Still, to me those sure look like discs purposefully arranged into tentacle patterns.
Slashdot Mirror
You missed some steps:
3) There's significant global warming, but man doesn't cause it.
3.1) Man causes it, but it isn't a problem.
3.2) It's a problem, but it's not a problem for man, it's only a problem for other animals and plants.
3.3) It's a problem for man, but man is incapable of solving it.
4) Man causes significant global warming, but it's not economically possible to tackle it.
Trust me, dude, the goalpost can be moved one inch at a time.
It's simpler than that.
Claim 1: CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
Claim 2: CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere.
I still haven't heard any deniers disclaim either of those. They seem to be pretty uncontroversial. And yet, deniers have trouble with:
Result Claim: therefore, the increased CO2 must result in a warmer atmosphere.
I can't figure out how a person could accept 1 and 2, but not the result. Especially considering:
Claim 3: the data shows the earth is warming.
If you accept 1 and 2, but not 3, then you have some serious explaining to do, because you've discovered a crazy mystery like the mystery of dark energy.
I don't know. The denials don't make any sense to me. I'm just waiting for the goal post to be moved again: Okay, fine, humans are causing CO2 to increase; okay, fine, increasing CO2 is causing an increase in atmospheric temperature; but it's not a problem, so we still shouldn't do anything about it. At least then the deniers would be out of the game of science denial, and into the game of policy denial, which isn't a game that can be settled using facts.
You don't like Skeptoid? I like that it is single-topic and about 10-to-15 minutes long. I also like that Dunning usually has his facts straight before he records, which sets him apart from, say, Stuff You Should Know.
Because a lot of the skeptics do want to say there is no warming trend
Please don't credit deniers with the superlative "skeptics".
Indeed, and yet, AGW is a settled issue, being accepted by 97% of expert scientists. Darn! I guess that means there is no more money in AGW.
Hmmm. No, I don't actually think you fixed it, I think you "fixed" it.
So, to be clear, you are saying that climate scientists somehow think they will make more money working for tree huggers than working for oil companies? Please respond to this and say "Yes, I think there is more money to be made pushing AGW than denying it."
Um... yeah.... so, to be clear, the Skeptical community rejects the climate deniers as ideologues. They are not skeptics; they are deniers. Skeptics accept things that are clearly demonstrated by evidence, which these people do not do. We skeptics insist that our good name not be sullied by these folks. You are entitled to your (wrong) opinion, but you are not entitled to use a word which means the opposite of what you say.
lulz
I know these names from some of my favorite podcasts. I'm going to toss them out here for people who aren't familiar with them, and please respond with similar podcasts if you love some.
The Skeptics Guide To The Universe (sponsored by JREF)
AstronomyCast (Pamela Gay)
NOVA scienceNOW or NOVA|PBS (often features Tyson)
Planetary Radio (Bill Nye The Planetary Guy)
Skeptoid (related topics by Brian Dunning)
Radiolab (related topics, best of the best of the best)
Excuse the half-off-topic post, please.
I think the police are worried about different opinions on what is "wrong". If an officer arrests you for shoplifting, and you think it's "wrong" of the officer to do that, and you go use this website to find his house and burn it down -- well then, tell me Mr McBain, does the officer have anything "to be worried about"?
The line between reasonable and unreasonable is in between the actions of recording the on-duty officers to make sure their on-duty actions are appropriate, versus recording the off-duty officers' private information for the purposes of off-duty retaliation for on-duty actions which most people -- but perhaps not everybody -- think are "right".
I agree: people have to believe it. That's what I meant with the word "legitimacy", and even to a lesser extent "power".
So, the first guy (Layzej) made a joke about tulip bulbs having value, which is a reference a Dutchman is sure to understand. The second guy (Oswald) made a joke, I think, by taking the original joke as a literal comment, and then joking about other similarly stupid currencies. I suppose it's possible that Oswald was being serious, but it would be so ridiculous that I think it's much more likely he was extending the original joke. He dropped in a Star Trek reference at the end for bonus nerd points. An extra layer to Oswald's joke is that a currency which grows from one to 12 trillion in a year, is a very bad currency indeed.
I'm not familiar with that book, but I think the understanding of most people is that fiat currency means what Wiki says it means: "Fiat money is money that has value only because of government regulation or law." Shit, even the word "fiat" means "A formal authorization or proposition; a decree."
Fiat money has value because someone with power and legitimacy says it has value. You can have your own definition if you want, but please excuse the rest of us for ignoring it and using the common definition.
That's a bad example because it is the exact opposite of the truth. I'll put it plainly: imagine I discover a huge mountain range which is absolutely chock full of tons and tons of easily mined gold. Say it's enough to quadruple the amount of gold in the world. There is now a vastly increased quantity of gold in the world. Yeah, I'm rich because I have a lot of gold now, but everyone who had gold yesterday is a heck of a lot poorer, because their gold buys less today than yesterday, because suddenly I'm willing to trade my gold for less of that stuff, because I have so much gold. And if my friend discovers TWO mountain ranges of gold tomorrow, then suddenly I'm less rich.
The reason this doesn't happen is that there is good geological reason to believe that there aren't huge swaths of easily gotten gold hidden in the ground. Similarly, there aren't huge swaths of easily gotten bitcoin hidden in the... uh... numbers. Similarly for dollars, although the "reason" for the limitation is political instead of geological.
But scarcity isn't the only cornerstone of currency stability or value.
Hmmm. I think it is you who missed the joke.
Because we cut down all the trees again.
Come on, man, keep up with the conversation. This isn't brain surgery.
You only get credit for discovery if you successfully tell the rest of the world community about it. Many, perhaps most, inventions and discoveries were thought up or discovered by someone else before the person who eventually got the credit.
It may be the case that the save-the-trees greenies are concerned about more than one environmental problem, for instance both global warming as well as biodiversity. Have you ever considered that the problem is your mis-characterization, and not their ideology or ignorance of science?
Is "he" suggesting? No, I think the world's climate scientists are suggesting. The only refutations to that consensus is that either the evidence is terribly misleading, or there is a huge scientific conspiracy. You seem to be suggesting both (correct me if I'm wrong), but I don't find either criticism plausible. It's fine if you do find them plausible, I simply think you're wrong, as you do me. Or rather, I simply think my caricature of you is wrong, but my caricature could be wrong.
Ha! Thank you for first pointing out that my reliance on Wiki was naive, and then also for doing the research to prove that the unsourced Wiki slander might be rightheaded after all.
Me? I don't have an opinion on it. The guy's explanation for the bones sounds reasonable to me, because it jives with my understanding of octopuses as among the brightest species on the planet. Still, I don't normally put a hell of a lot of weight on what one scientist says.
You make a good point, a point which perhaps controls the policy determination of whether or not government should be the primary or exclusive providers of capital. Still, I don't think such a system would be "communism" the way I understand it. If you disagree, I'm okay with that, and I don't think less of you.
Well, to start with your question is an unrelated tangent to what I said, which didn't say anything about "do better" or "cost effective", I merely said I like and prefer the things the government does. (That is to say, I could, and in fact do, prefer some things to be done by the government even if they aren't as efficient because of other benefits besides efficiency.)
Nevertheless, okay, I'll name one, but after this, I'm not going to continue to engage this topic.
Medicare is a social safety net program. It provides health care to the elderly. It is a popular American program which is "done better" than the same program done "by someone else" in that nobody else provides a social safety net of health care to elderly people. The free market doesn't do that, and of course it never could, it's exactly the opposite of what private markets provide. Furthermore, strictly on the merits, Medicare is "more cost effective" than private health insurance, in that identical procedures cost the payer less. There are legit criticisms of Medicare (my favorite is that the "cost effective" nature of Medicare leads to rationing), but "done better" and "more cost effective" are not any of them.
I'll go ahead and throw in a second one: national defense. The government does this "better" than the alternative, which would be, I suppose, roving bands of disjointed mercenaries under the control of wealthy locals who pay them to protect their individual plots of land. It's hard to even imagine that other kind of "privatized" national defense, but I suppose it's possible. Would that be more "cost effective"? I can't say, but I don't even think that's a useful way to even think about that problem.
Don't paint me as some kind of ideologue here, because I'm not at all. Like you I am not perfectly happy with how government functions. I'd make changes, too. But I don't think the "big government" complaint is valid -- I think it's meaningless, I mean truly meaningless, like it has no meaning whatsoever, it is nothing but empty rhetoric.
Science is awesome, but keep in mind this disparaging note on the "scientist's" Wiki page: He has earned the nickname McMinimal from his colleagues due to the perceived poor quality of his research, such as suggesting that Agnostids are cannibals and claiming that the Kraken was a real beast..
Still, to me those sure look like discs purposefully arranged into tentacle patterns.
Perhaps eventually there could be a movie that I would like enough to pay as much as $5 to have on hard copy, but I haven't seen it yet.