The pseudoscience is on the side of the "skeptics"
Do a survey at any green movement rally, and see what percentage of these people are anti-nuclear and anti-GM, or support "alternative" medicine over the conventional (scientific) kind. How many anti-vaxxers would you expect to find in the crowd?
None of this reduces the validity of AGW of course, but it does put paid to the notion that people follow this cause because they are more scientifically rational... indeed, there seems to be a general fear of technology in the green movement (and to be clear, I'm not talking about the scientists here, as much as the supporters).
In short, my global warming skepticism, though a minority view amongst scientists (and I accept that it IS a minority view) is still scientifically based... most of the green movements support of the "consensus" view is not scientifically based at all - it just happens to conform to their world-view.
Lots of money flowed to W and the neo-cons and now they are gone...
So, when you throw money/whatever at a problem, it goes away.
This was pretty funny, and not surprisingly, was modded so... then the followup posts this comment:
If I throw money at the democrats will they go away?
For some reason - that was modded troll? I found the second one as equally amusing, and fail to see how the second was any more trollish than the first - particularly when the first even referred to tea-party protesters as "tea-baggers"
Homing pigeons are not trained. Their ability is innate.
Kind of true, but training helps, that's why pigeon racing is a sport - different training methods produce different results (though breeding helps too, of course).
In war, they were often trained to find a "moving home"... an ability that is certainly needs training
I'm an engineer at Pratt & Whitney. I'll have to say that may be close, but Star Wars takes the cake.
You'd be mistaken... it certainly never achieved it's lofty goals of rendering nuclear weapons impotent, but it did help hasten the demise of the USSR as they were pushed to economic collapse.
I've been watching the farce that is the new ICANN process. They seem to think that the only test for a new top-level domain suffix is that it will make money for the corporate owner.
Actually - that is quite sensible. Only tld's which are in demand are likely to make money.
The problem, of course, is that there is nothing remotely free market about the tender process - and the tld's authorised are just insane (though.info is a bit more useful and "less spammy" than.biz)
And surely, that last eclipse on Heroes was the longest, rather than this one - certainly more than a few measly minutes! Not to mention the global coverage! (And please don't complain about spoilers... after the decline since season 1, you can't possibly complain)
In theory, it wouldn't really bother me as long as the characters sounded the same - that's one of the benefits of cartoons - that the "actors" never age on screen, so you can repeatedly recast the voices and keep the show going for decades... but in reality, the voice actors have grown into the role and provide numerous nuances that make up part of who the characters are. Replacing them all at once would certainly be noticeable, IMO.
People need to settle down though. Pretending that they're never going to watch if one one the voice actors is replaced doesn't fool anyone - you will still watch (at least at first), and you know it. Yes, I'm worried - but the voice actors aren't the whole show. Painting the producers as the big greedy corporates playing hardball is a bit one-side - the voice actors are playing the same game, which is as it should be... I suspect they will come to some agreement in the end.
Economics has nothing to do with global warming. It has plenty to do with policy decisions, regardless of what the policy decision is about.
Which is to say, that it has everything to do with global warming... not whether it's happening, but certainly in how we should react - which is kinda the whole point of the climate change movement in the first place.
I didn't suggest he is not a scientist. Please see my original post. I suggested that simply having a physics and an economics degree didn't qualify him as a climatologist.
I know - I wasn't referring exclusively to your post... sorry for the confusion.
I suggested that simply having a physics and an economics degree didn't qualify him as a climatologist.
And on that note, my point stands... to get a handle on the whole climate change issue requires a range of discipline which includes physics and economics (in fact, the latter is very important in determining costs of action vs inaction, etc).
Be fair. No real scientist would be seen dead with a degree in economics.
That's a pity, because it's an important discipline when it comes to AGW. Think of all the questions concerning warming:
Is it getting warmer?
If yes, what's causing it?
What will the costs be? (are there some winners as well as losers?)
Can we reduce it - at least partially?
If so, what does that cost - and is it greater than the savings (or cost of adapting)?
etc...
At least two of those are economic questions rather than scientific... so even if you accept that there is a "scientific consensus" on the topic of AGW, the matter still isn't over - and that's where economics comes in handy.
I disagree. Informed debate is healthy. Is this guy expressing a carefully considered opinion or spewing political ideology? The distinction matters.
Perhaps... but then of course, you can just close down any debate by declaring the opposition uninformed - something that seems to happen a lot with AGW.
You're right. I could actually have done even better and stopped after the subject line. I'd like to see anyone who believes that "the sole purpose of government is politics" try to do without police, fire departments, an educated population, the common defense, lifesaving NIH research, the Internet itself, roads, and clean water.
You think education can't exist without government? Or that research wouldn't happen? About the only two you got right were police and common defense.
And the Internet thing is just hilarious... if government hadn't been creating monopolies, and stamping out competition in communications sector, we'd have had an internet analogue (though perhaps different) decades sooner.
We progress in spite of government, not because of it
The guy had a physics degree, and an economics degree. Neither which fully qualifies him to report on Global Warming.
What does, in your opinion?
The problem with "climate science" is that it really does require a broad application of disciplines - suggesting that someone with a degree in physics in not a scientist, or not qualified to report on GW is absurd. As for economics, this is an even more important discipline when it comes to determining what action, if any, should be taken (eg, cost benefit analysis of various approaches, etc).
What first impress me is the huge amount of ads in the search results. Searching for "sql server" I can only see two real results before having to scroll the page and is hard to distinguish the ads on the top of the page, from the real results.
So, no different to Google then?
Doing a comparison in my current window, Google is indeed more compressed, but both show 8 non-ad results before I scroll down (Google is more compressed, so gets extra ads at top... and Bing seems to have a "Best match" category in addition to ads). Searching for something more commercially competitive (like "web hosting") produces more ads (for both engines), but again, I can see 8 not ads on each.
That said, it will take some work to oust Google as #1 search engine... competition can't hurt though
by following your same logic, cars have been growing bigger and bigger for the last 20 years, there has to be an end for this nonsensical waste of productive resources
How is it nonsensical? People clearly like big cars, but you don't, so it's nonsensical... yeah, cars are a lot bigger and roomier than they once were (not just SUVs) - this is a good thing.
Personally, I think people buying a Prius is irrational - but it's their call. And I love this attitude that "people only want it because of marketing" - as though that's a bad thing. Somebody convinces you to buy something you want? for some reason, that's a bad thing; but hey, government legislating what you are allowed to buy/required to have? all good!
In fact, we're so bad at making decisions, that they should decide everything for us... what to eat (no fast food), what to wear (nothing too revealing), what to watch (swear words are bad), what to view online, etc...
Smaller cars as a whole are better for everyone.
Whether we want them or not, huh? I'm so glad that we have people like you to make the right decisions for all of us.
If people thought small cars were better for them, they'd be buying them... If there is a negative externality that they are not taking into account - figure out it's cost, and add it to the product (for the record, I think the negative externality argument is overused and doesn't apply here - but I'd rather have a tax on some of my options than to have those options removed)
More well-intentioned, but IMO, misguided interference. It will have minimal effect on total emissions, but will probably mean smaller cars as a result.
If people wanted smaller cars they'd be buying them... depriving them of this liberty under the guise of helping the environment (which this won't do) is a mistake.
For the record, I am somewhat skeptical about the climate change hype - which I think is over-exaggerated. But even if I accept CO2 as a negative externality (which I don't), then the correct response is a carbon tax. Cost the stuff appropriately and let the market decide - don't legislate inefficient results. Don't let the government "pick winners" and definitely not a cap and trade, which is too open to corruption.
A lot of these "rights" seem a bit wishy-washy. The US bill of rights works because they are primarily a list of "negative rights" - ie, a list of things the government can't do/take from you. These proposals read more like a list of entitlements (eg, net neutrality, the right to post anonymously) or government contractual obligations (eg, required to use open source). That doesn't necessarily mean that these things aren't desirable, but they don't belong in a bill of rights, imo.
For example, the "right to post anonymously on any internet site". Anonymity is good - but if it's my site, then it's my rules - this clause is a violaion of my property rights as the site owner. Don't like my rules? Post somewhere else. It's a similar case with net neutrality... I know this is a popular cause amongst fellow-slashdotters, but if I provide network access, then I should be able to constrain/restrict access in any way I please (provided I disclosed the rules when I sold access). Don't get me wrong - I want to see access open as well - but this is best served through the market. The only reason it's a problem now is because of government legislation creating huge companies or "regional monopolies", etc...
On a slight tangent: We don't even have a normal bill of rights in Australia - let alone a technological one - but whenever people talk about introducing one (which I love the idea of in principle), they talk of including things like, a "right to a job" and a "right to a free education". This is the challenge in any proposed bill of rights - to ensure they don't become a bill of entitlements to other people's property[1]
[1] Though IP rights are a separate issue here, since there's valid debate about whether or not IP is/should be considered real property or not.
This is appalling - the "facepalm" tag is spot on. I have a great fondness for the UK, even though I've only visited once, and the people there have my sympathies for such bureaucratic stupidity. Policies like this and ASBO's of the last few years have had a disastrous effect... government is getting way too intrusive over there.
Sadly, I think Australia is heading in the same direction, though at least the Australia Card/Access Card proposals have been shelved by the current mob (for now)
Hello Telstra sale. What did the public get for their money there? A short term tax cut. What did that tax cut cost us? A royal ass fucking from a now unleashed national monopoly.
Are you kidding? We'd still be using dial-up if the telceomms industry wasn't de-regulated - and I'm sorry, but you can't de-regulate without privatising.
Their big mistake was not splitting Telstra up before they privatised... though in fairness they needed a high price for it in order to retire the public debt.
So many interesting and useful possibilities, I guess that just means it will be debunked faster than other scientific theories.
Your glass the wrong size often there, mate?
Not necessarily... the more exciting an idea is, the more interest it attracts, and so the quicker its ideas are either proven true or false... or, since we're dealing with quantum physics, we'll discover a whole bunch of other stuff which makes absolutely no sense, but is nonetheless true.
I think he was making fun of all those posts claiming that Linux wasn't ready for the desktop just because many users dual boot with Windows in order to run certain windows only software.
Ah... in that case, it was I who was being over-defensive.
Slashdot Mirror
The pseudoscience is on the side of the "skeptics"
Do a survey at any green movement rally, and see what percentage of these people are anti-nuclear and anti-GM, or support "alternative" medicine over the conventional (scientific) kind. How many anti-vaxxers would you expect to find in the crowd?
None of this reduces the validity of AGW of course, but it does put paid to the notion that people follow this cause because they are more scientifically rational... indeed, there seems to be a general fear of technology in the green movement (and to be clear, I'm not talking about the scientists here, as much as the supporters).
In short, my global warming skepticism, though a minority view amongst scientists (and I accept that it IS a minority view) is still scientifically based... most of the green movements support of the "consensus" view is not scientifically based at all - it just happens to conform to their world-view.
Minority scientific opinion <> pseudoscience
Interesting, first poster says:
Lots of money flowed to W and the neo-cons and now they are gone ...
So, when you throw money/whatever at a problem, it goes away.
This was pretty funny, and not surprisingly, was modded so... then the followup posts this comment:
If I throw money at the democrats will they go away?
For some reason - that was modded troll? I found the second one as equally amusing, and fail to see how the second was any more trollish than the first - particularly when the first even referred to tea-party protesters as "tea-baggers"
Homing pigeons are not trained. Their ability is innate.
Kind of true, but training helps, that's why pigeon racing is a sport - different training methods produce different results (though breeding helps too, of course). In war, they were often trained to find a "moving home"... an ability that is certainly needs training
I'm an engineer at Pratt & Whitney. I'll have to say that may be close, but Star Wars takes the cake.
You'd be mistaken... it certainly never achieved it's lofty goals of rendering nuclear weapons impotent, but it did help hasten the demise of the USSR as they were pushed to economic collapse.
I hope you like walking around the world and curing your diseases with water.
Ah - homeopathy!
I've been watching the farce that is the new ICANN process. They seem to think that the only test for a new top-level domain suffix is that it will make money for the corporate owner.
Actually - that is quite sensible. Only tld's which are in demand are likely to make money. The problem, of course, is that there is nothing remotely free market about the tender process - and the tld's authorised are just insane (though .info is a bit more useful and "less spammy" than .biz)
And surely, that last eclipse on Heroes was the longest, rather than this one - certainly more than a few measly minutes! Not to mention the global coverage! (And please don't complain about spoilers... after the decline since season 1, you can't possibly complain)
In theory, it wouldn't really bother me as long as the characters sounded the same - that's one of the benefits of cartoons - that the "actors" never age on screen, so you can repeatedly recast the voices and keep the show going for decades... but in reality, the voice actors have grown into the role and provide numerous nuances that make up part of who the characters are. Replacing them all at once would certainly be noticeable, IMO.
People need to settle down though. Pretending that they're never going to watch if one one the voice actors is replaced doesn't fool anyone - you will still watch (at least at first), and you know it. Yes, I'm worried - but the voice actors aren't the whole show. Painting the producers as the big greedy corporates playing hardball is a bit one-side - the voice actors are playing the same game, which is as it should be... I suspect they will come to some agreement in the end.
Economics has nothing to do with global warming. It has plenty to do with policy decisions, regardless of what the policy decision is about.
Which is to say, that it has everything to do with global warming... not whether it's happening, but certainly in how we should react - which is kinda the whole point of the climate change movement in the first place.
I didn't suggest he is not a scientist. Please see my original post. I suggested that simply having a physics and an economics degree didn't qualify him as a climatologist.
I know - I wasn't referring exclusively to your post... sorry for the confusion.
I suggested that simply having a physics and an economics degree didn't qualify him as a climatologist.
And on that note, my point stands... to get a handle on the whole climate change issue requires a range of discipline which includes physics and economics (in fact, the latter is very important in determining costs of action vs inaction, etc).
Be fair. No real scientist would be seen dead with a degree in economics.
That's a pity, because it's an important discipline when it comes to AGW. Think of all the questions concerning warming:
etc...
At least two of those are economic questions rather than scientific... so even if you accept that there is a "scientific consensus" on the topic of AGW, the matter still isn't over - and that's where economics comes in handy.
I disagree. Informed debate is healthy. Is this guy expressing a carefully considered opinion or spewing political ideology? The distinction matters.
Perhaps... but then of course, you can just close down any debate by declaring the opposition uninformed - something that seems to happen a lot with AGW.
You're right. I could actually have done even better and stopped after the subject line. I'd like to see anyone who believes that "the sole purpose of government is politics" try to do without police, fire departments, an educated population, the common defense, lifesaving NIH research, the Internet itself, roads, and clean water.
You think education can't exist without government? Or that research wouldn't happen? About the only two you got right were police and common defense.
And the Internet thing is just hilarious... if government hadn't been creating monopolies, and stamping out competition in communications sector, we'd have had an internet analogue (though perhaps different) decades sooner.
We progress in spite of government, not because of it
The guy had a physics degree, and an economics degree. Neither which fully qualifies him to report on Global Warming.
What does, in your opinion?
The problem with "climate science" is that it really does require a broad application of disciplines - suggesting that someone with a degree in physics in not a scientist, or not qualified to report on GW is absurd. As for economics, this is an even more important discipline when it comes to determining what action, if any, should be taken (eg, cost benefit analysis of various approaches, etc).
What first impress me is the huge amount of ads in the search results. Searching for "sql server" I can only see two real results before having to scroll the page and is hard to distinguish the ads on the top of the page, from the real results.
So, no different to Google then?
Doing a comparison in my current window, Google is indeed more compressed, but both show 8 non-ad results before I scroll down (Google is more compressed, so gets extra ads at top... and Bing seems to have a "Best match" category in addition to ads). Searching for something more commercially competitive (like "web hosting") produces more ads (for both engines), but again, I can see 8 not ads on each.
That said, it will take some work to oust Google as #1 search engine... competition can't hurt though
by following your same logic, cars have been growing bigger and bigger for the last 20 years, there has to be an end for this nonsensical waste of productive resources
How is it nonsensical? People clearly like big cars, but you don't, so it's nonsensical... yeah, cars are a lot bigger and roomier than they once were (not just SUVs) - this is a good thing.
Personally, I think people buying a Prius is irrational - but it's their call. And I love this attitude that "people only want it because of marketing" - as though that's a bad thing. Somebody convinces you to buy something you want? for some reason, that's a bad thing; but hey, government legislating what you are allowed to buy/required to have? all good!
In fact, we're so bad at making decisions, that they should decide everything for us... what to eat (no fast food), what to wear (nothing too revealing), what to watch (swear words are bad), what to view online, etc...
Smaller cars as a whole are better for everyone.
Whether we want them or not, huh? I'm so glad that we have people like you to make the right decisions for all of us.
If people thought small cars were better for them, they'd be buying them... If there is a negative externality that they are not taking into account - figure out it's cost, and add it to the product (for the record, I think the negative externality argument is overused and doesn't apply here - but I'd rather have a tax on some of my options than to have those options removed)
If people wanted smaller cars they'd be buying them... depriving them of this liberty under the guise of helping the environment (which this won't do) is a mistake.
For the record, I am somewhat skeptical about the climate change hype - which I think is over-exaggerated. But even if I accept CO2 as a negative externality (which I don't), then the correct response is a carbon tax. Cost the stuff appropriately and let the market decide - don't legislate inefficient results. Don't let the government "pick winners" and definitely not a cap and trade, which is too open to corruption.
A lot of these "rights" seem a bit wishy-washy. The US bill of rights works because they are primarily a list of "negative rights" - ie, a list of things the government can't do/take from you. These proposals read more like a list of entitlements (eg, net neutrality, the right to post anonymously) or government contractual obligations (eg, required to use open source). That doesn't necessarily mean that these things aren't desirable, but they don't belong in a bill of rights, imo.
For example, the "right to post anonymously on any internet site". Anonymity is good - but if it's my site, then it's my rules - this clause is a violaion of my property rights as the site owner. Don't like my rules? Post somewhere else. It's a similar case with net neutrality... I know this is a popular cause amongst fellow-slashdotters, but if I provide network access, then I should be able to constrain/restrict access in any way I please (provided I disclosed the rules when I sold access). Don't get me wrong - I want to see access open as well - but this is best served through the market. The only reason it's a problem now is because of government legislation creating huge companies or "regional monopolies", etc...
On a slight tangent: We don't even have a normal bill of rights in Australia - let alone a technological one - but whenever people talk about introducing one (which I love the idea of in principle), they talk of including things like, a "right to a job" and a "right to a free education". This is the challenge in any proposed bill of rights - to ensure they don't become a bill of entitlements to other people's property[1]
[1] Though IP rights are a separate issue here, since there's valid debate about whether or not IP is/should be considered real property or not.
This is appalling - the "facepalm" tag is spot on. I have a great fondness for the UK, even though I've only visited once, and the people there have my sympathies for such bureaucratic stupidity. Policies like this and ASBO's of the last few years have had a disastrous effect... government is getting way too intrusive over there.
Sadly, I think Australia is heading in the same direction, though at least the Australia Card/Access Card proposals have been shelved by the current mob (for now)
Hello Telstra sale. What did the public get for their money there? A short term tax cut. What did that tax cut cost us? A royal ass fucking from a now unleashed national monopoly.
Are you kidding? We'd still be using dial-up if the telceomms industry wasn't de-regulated - and I'm sorry, but you can't de-regulate without privatising. Their big mistake was not splitting Telstra up before they privatised... though in fairness they needed a high price for it in order to retire the public debt.
Out with the old religion, in with the new?
So many interesting and useful possibilities, I guess that just means it will be debunked faster than other scientific theories.
Your glass the wrong size often there, mate?
Not necessarily... the more exciting an idea is, the more interest it attracts, and so the quicker its ideas are either proven true or false... or, since we're dealing with quantum physics, we'll discover a whole bunch of other stuff which makes absolutely no sense, but is nonetheless true.
It's true that these words had their basis in sci-fi, but they are perfectly cromulent words, so it's only natural that they embiggen our language.
Considering the stakes, shouldn't we err on the side of caution?
And which way is that? How do you know your actions won't make things worse - or have higher negative consequences?
I think he was making fun of all those posts claiming that Linux wasn't ready for the desktop just because many users dual boot with Windows in order to run certain windows only software.
Ah... in that case, it was I who was being over-defensive.
Irony can be embarrassing, can't it?