Since then I just started reading abstracts/papers rather than the journalism. It takes a little longer, but at least I'm not being misled by some self-aggrandizing social-science major who chose his degree poorly and is now trying to just pump out stories in time for the weekend.
/yes, I'm bitter. But seriously, screw science reporters.
...all of the solutions I have heard suggested for dealing with that problem have been to give the government greater control over the economy and reduce the freedom of people to make decisions for themselves.
Sounds to me as if he's talking about proposed solutions and says nothing about whether science is correct or not.
dkleinsc responds with:
So let me get this straight, is your argument that:
Premise: Scientific consensus with lots of evidence says that a certain problem exists, but
Premise: The solutions proposed so far to address the problem involve ideologies distasteful to you, so
Conclusion: The science must be wrong.
And you say he was properly addressing the post he was responding to? You're not thinking straight. He was putting words in the mans mouth, and totally bypassing the question of whether the proposed solutions were worth it. As I correctly pointed out, HE IS IGNORING THAT QUESTION. AGW/CAGW or not, the proposed solutions have to be worth the cost or they are politically meaningless and the public is right to reject them.
However it seems many people want to lump it all together. A situation of "You have to accept that the Earth is getting warmer, the evidence is extremely solid. Once you accept that, everything else follows logically, you can't question the proposed solutions, they are science!" As such if someone rejects any part, they accuse them of being anti-science and blind to the observations.
There ^^ is where it starts. You've got politically motivated people, who don't realize they are politically motivated. They believe they are acting in the defense of science by insisting that anyone who disagrees with them on any one of those 4 postulates is some kind of anti-science moron. So they label, they berate, they attack anyone who does not think as they do because "Science" (however they personally define that) is on their side and "Science" cannot be wrong. Take notice, everyone, this is how religions start.
Will these extreme economic measures make a single dent in the projected temperature increase?
Even the scientists who espouse fully-government-regulated energy industries to address climate change acknowledge that no measureable difference would be made, even if we entirely got rid of all CO2 production now... HENCE, it is perfectly legitimate to reject such measures as being not economically rational. If the price is too high for what we're buying, it's actually quite irrational to suggest that everyone should simply throw themselves onto the grenade anyway to avoid a projected (but not certain by any means) future scenario that only has a probability of happening.
Humans have adapted to climate change throughout history, ADAPTED... not tried to change it, ADAPTED. There's no reason to believe that is not the better alternative at this point.
In other words, you disrespect 97% of the scientists - that's the proportion of those who consider man-made CO2 emissions as the most likely cause (or strongest forcing mechanism) for global warming. Since you hold such an extraordinary position, I would be very interested to read the scientific basis of it.
So you presume to know what 97% of scientists think? That's absurdly arrogant, beyond comprehension really. Surveys do not capture caveats. Surveys do not capture details of how research is applicable. Those 97% numbers you're pulling out of the talking-point-o-sphere are meaningless. Science is not run by consensus.
Is there any other kind of belief?
I've never met anyone with HIV, and since the scare slowly died off in the 90s I've not spent any time thinking about HIV as I'm not a promiscuous person. So I'm actually somewhat lost on your point with HIV, I think it detracts from your other valid point about politicized science, tbh.
When an overwhelming majority of scientists give you incontrovertible evidence
^^ Still waiting for that actually. Most evidence given has been controverted in some fashion, and it isn't even an overwhelming majority of scientists saying that (not that science is run by a voting system in the first place).
Its a good idea to have scientists advising politicians on science. They know a HELL of a lot more about science than politicians.
No, not really. It is good to keep scientists around to tell the public when politicians are horrifically wrong scientifically, but there is no reason that scientists should be "advising" a politician. When you mix scientists in with politicians, you lose the scientist. You can't run public policy by the scientific method, or else you would get nuanced versions of healthcare bills with enough exceptions to fill 10^9 pages of text. You also can't investigate the universe with politics, or else you get things like Lysenkoism.
The system we have works best when scientists educate the public of their caveated findings, and the public decides what it wants. When scientists start advising politicians, and wielding the false-flag of scientific authority from a political platform, you get the same problem as mixing religion and politics.
It was actually Earvin "Magic" Johnson who was declared HIV positive. And yes, he has remained AIDS free. While I personally find this miraculous to the point of incredulity, I'm willing to believe he has a good combination of genetics, a fantastic health regimen, and lots of money for experimental drugs to stave off full-blown AIDS. For the record, there are recorded cases of people who live with the HIV virus and never show symptoms without taking ANY special medication.
I think you assume too much of the decency of the average tech-firm employee, to be honest. Especially at times like these when the job market sucks, there's a lot more sealed lips when it comes to corporate corruption.
Exactly how would the general public find out if they ever shared information with the government? Facebook has no incentive to tell you, and the government certainly doesn't. Facebook isn't even subject to FOIA requests, whereas the government (outside of classified operations) is. The government, however, has many legal ways of extracting that information while keeping their request from the public.
Who said people are generally concerned with the NSA etc listening to their entire life? Hint, they're not.
From the OP:
...It is a testament to how little people give thought to their everyday actions that so many people use Facebook.
People care about things that matter to them. Facebook doesn't harm them in any way, and it provides a valuable service to them. Go around and ask a thousand FB users if they are being harmed by FB. You'll just get a lot of blank looks and confused stares. There's no reason for them to avoid Facebook, so why should they?
You seem to want to explain social pressures as it if excuses ignorance of the consequences, unless I'm wrong.
What exactly am I projecting? Is it unreasonable to be concerned when you see someone following you on the street, taking pictures of what you're doing, listening to your conversations? If you saw that happening to yourself or someone you were with, would it be paranoia to be concerned?
Now imagine a system wherein someone can do this to you, or your friends, while being invisible and undetectable. That's what facebook allows and I don't consider it an unreasonable concern to effectively not use facebook because of that.
You entirely skipped the context quoting me there. Why is ok to be concerned of the CIA/FBI/NSA listening to your entire life, but not ok to share that same concern over a private company?
I've been called worse things than paranoid. So until you can answer ^^that^^ question to my satisfaction, with no hand-waving of privacy agreements, or anecdotal "well they haven't hurt me so far" nonsense, I'll continue to think what I think.
Also, the "everybody's doing it" argument is quite high-school.
While it is true that facebook never forces anyone to share personal information, the fact that the user has no ultimate control over access to it limits its social use quite a bit, now doesn't it? Most people should care who has access to that information, just as people generally care when they see someone spying on/stalking them in public. The difference on Facebook is, you never even know you're being stalked, you're blind to all attempts to access your information.
The idea of a central company having complete control of my information and social network is just absurdly bad, to me. I don't care what privacy protections they give assurances of, that information alone is so powerful in the hands of those who would seek power, it is literally irresistable. It is a testament to how little people give thought to their everyday actions that so many people use Facebook.
Replace "facebook" with "a 3-letter federal agency" performing the same task, and the outrage would be unquenchable... but somehow people trust Facebook not to betray them. I just don't understand it.
UK Citizens unfortunately trust their government too much. I like UK citizens, and I think they're very very rational people, but they can't seem to grasp that no matter how reasonable and rational a politician might seem, they still want power over you, so they can't be trusted
What you would essentially be asking states to do is give up energy independence. It's a nice idea if you strongly trust every other nation in the world. The trouble is, even most allied nations these days harbor low-level suspicion of each other. That is to say nothing of all the ongoing conflicts and near-conflicts that exist. We're still living in a time of independent nation states that look after their own interests and try to avoid getting too pissed off at each other, so compulsory use of a central fuel repository is asking a lot of your average nation.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes... but please stop ruining my day further...
*cries*
...and then climate change happened.
Since then I just started reading abstracts/papers rather than the journalism. It takes a little longer, but at least I'm not being misled by some self-aggrandizing social-science major who chose his degree poorly and is now trying to just pump out stories in time for the weekend.
/yes, I'm bitter. But seriously, screw science reporters.
Does everyone just fail at reading comprehension?
Post by Atila:
...all of the solutions I have heard suggested for dealing with that problem have been to give the government greater control over the economy and reduce the freedom of people to make decisions for themselves.
Sounds to me as if he's talking about proposed solutions and says nothing about whether science is correct or not.
dkleinsc responds with:
So let me get this straight, is your argument that:
Premise: Scientific consensus with lots of evidence says that a certain problem exists, but
Premise: The solutions proposed so far to address the problem involve ideologies distasteful to you, so
Conclusion: The science must be wrong.
And you say he was properly addressing the post he was responding to? You're not thinking straight. He was putting words in the mans mouth, and totally bypassing the question of whether the proposed solutions were worth it. As I correctly pointed out, HE IS IGNORING THAT QUESTION. AGW/CAGW or not, the proposed solutions have to be worth the cost or they are politically meaningless and the public is right to reject them.
If that's so, then you didn't address the post you were responding to.
However it seems many people want to lump it all together. A situation of "You have to accept that the Earth is getting warmer, the evidence is extremely solid. Once you accept that, everything else follows logically, you can't question the proposed solutions, they are science!" As such if someone rejects any part, they accuse them of being anti-science and blind to the observations.
There ^^ is where it starts. You've got politically motivated people, who don't realize they are politically motivated. They believe they are acting in the defense of science by insisting that anyone who disagrees with them on any one of those 4 postulates is some kind of anti-science moron. So they label, they berate, they attack anyone who does not think as they do because "Science" (however they personally define that) is on their side and "Science" cannot be wrong. Take notice, everyone, this is how religions start.
You're forgetting one fantastic question:
Will these extreme economic measures make a single dent in the projected temperature increase?
Even the scientists who espouse fully-government-regulated energy industries to address climate change acknowledge that no measureable difference would be made, even if we entirely got rid of all CO2 production now... HENCE, it is perfectly legitimate to reject such measures as being not economically rational. If the price is too high for what we're buying, it's actually quite irrational to suggest that everyone should simply throw themselves onto the grenade anyway to avoid a projected (but not certain by any means) future scenario that only has a probability of happening.
Humans have adapted to climate change throughout history, ADAPTED... not tried to change it, ADAPTED. There's no reason to believe that is not the better alternative at this point.
Selling T-Shirts saying, "I've got your false-positive right here..." with a picture of goat.se on the back...
Those who cannot adapt to the bitter necessity of audits will certainly be the cause of the most painful ones.
In other words, you disrespect 97% of the scientists - that's the proportion of those who consider man-made CO2 emissions as the most likely cause (or strongest forcing mechanism) for global warming. Since you hold such an extraordinary position, I would be very interested to read the scientific basis of it.
So you presume to know what 97% of scientists think? That's absurdly arrogant, beyond comprehension really. Surveys do not capture caveats. Surveys do not capture details of how research is applicable. Those 97% numbers you're pulling out of the talking-point-o-sphere are meaningless. Science is not run by consensus.
... willing to believe...
Your belief is faith-based?
Is there any other kind of belief? I've never met anyone with HIV, and since the scare slowly died off in the 90s I've not spent any time thinking about HIV as I'm not a promiscuous person. So I'm actually somewhat lost on your point with HIV, I think it detracts from your other valid point about politicized science, tbh.
^^ Still waiting for that actually. Most evidence given has been controverted in some fashion, and it isn't even an overwhelming majority of scientists saying that (not that science is run by a voting system in the first place).
Its a good idea to have scientists advising politicians on science. They know a HELL of a lot more about science than politicians.
No, not really. It is good to keep scientists around to tell the public when politicians are horrifically wrong scientifically, but there is no reason that scientists should be "advising" a politician. When you mix scientists in with politicians, you lose the scientist. You can't run public policy by the scientific method, or else you would get nuanced versions of healthcare bills with enough exceptions to fill 10^9 pages of text. You also can't investigate the universe with politics, or else you get things like Lysenkoism.
The system we have works best when scientists educate the public of their caveated findings, and the public decides what it wants. When scientists start advising politicians, and wielding the false-flag of scientific authority from a political platform, you get the same problem as mixing religion and politics.
It was actually Earvin "Magic" Johnson who was declared HIV positive. And yes, he has remained AIDS free. While I personally find this miraculous to the point of incredulity, I'm willing to believe he has a good combination of genetics, a fantastic health regimen, and lots of money for experimental drugs to stave off full-blown AIDS. For the record, there are recorded cases of people who live with the HIV virus and never show symptoms without taking ANY special medication.
Based on Pew Research studies and calibrated anticipation meters around the world.
What is the global SI-standard for anticipation you say? Well, it's measured in Daikatanas...
...so it evens out in college.
//never actually worked in the food service industry
///maybe a small regret in my life
The question is, is the IOC prepared for this kind of accuracy so people can lose an olympic sprint by 12 attoseconds? I'd like to see their anguish.
I think you assume too much of the decency of the average tech-firm employee, to be honest. Especially at times like these when the job market sucks, there's a lot more sealed lips when it comes to corporate corruption.
Exactly how would the general public find out if they ever shared information with the government? Facebook has no incentive to tell you, and the government certainly doesn't. Facebook isn't even subject to FOIA requests, whereas the government (outside of classified operations) is. The government, however, has many legal ways of extracting that information while keeping their request from the public.
Who said people are generally concerned with the NSA etc listening to their entire life? Hint, they're not.
From the OP:
...It is a testament to how little people give thought to their everyday actions that so many people use Facebook.
People care about things that matter to them. Facebook doesn't harm them in any way, and it provides a valuable service to them. Go around and ask a thousand FB users if they are being harmed by FB. You'll just get a lot of blank looks and confused stares. There's no reason for them to avoid Facebook, so why should they?
You seem to want to explain social pressures as it if excuses ignorance of the consequences, unless I'm wrong.
What exactly am I projecting? Is it unreasonable to be concerned when you see someone following you on the street, taking pictures of what you're doing, listening to your conversations? If you saw that happening to yourself or someone you were with, would it be paranoia to be concerned?
Now imagine a system wherein someone can do this to you, or your friends, while being invisible and undetectable. That's what facebook allows and I don't consider it an unreasonable concern to effectively not use facebook because of that.
You entirely skipped the context quoting me there. Why is ok to be concerned of the CIA/FBI/NSA listening to your entire life, but not ok to share that same concern over a private company?
I've been called worse things than paranoid. So until you can answer ^^that^^ question to my satisfaction, with no hand-waving of privacy agreements, or anecdotal "well they haven't hurt me so far" nonsense, I'll continue to think what I think.
Also, the "everybody's doing it" argument is quite high-school.
While it is true that facebook never forces anyone to share personal information, the fact that the user has no ultimate control over access to it limits its social use quite a bit, now doesn't it? Most people should care who has access to that information, just as people generally care when they see someone spying on/stalking them in public. The difference on Facebook is, you never even know you're being stalked, you're blind to all attempts to access your information.
The idea of a central company having complete control of my information and social network is just absurdly bad, to me. I don't care what privacy protections they give assurances of, that information alone is so powerful in the hands of those who would seek power, it is literally irresistable. It is a testament to how little people give thought to their everyday actions that so many people use Facebook.
Replace "facebook" with "a 3-letter federal agency" performing the same task, and the outrage would be unquenchable... but somehow people trust Facebook not to betray them. I just don't understand it.
UK Citizens unfortunately trust their government too much. I like UK citizens, and I think they're very very rational people, but they can't seem to grasp that no matter how reasonable and rational a politician might seem, they still want power over you, so they can't be trusted
What you would essentially be asking states to do is give up energy independence. It's a nice idea if you strongly trust every other nation in the world. The trouble is, even most allied nations these days harbor low-level suspicion of each other. That is to say nothing of all the ongoing conflicts and near-conflicts that exist. We're still living in a time of independent nation states that look after their own interests and try to avoid getting too pissed off at each other, so compulsory use of a central fuel repository is asking a lot of your average nation.