....it became clear to me that the only thing that matters with regards to your well-being and future prospects is your attitude. Also, nobody will ever give two shits if you're sad---friends and family included.
Trying to help someone who flatly refuses to help themselves is futile, but in the first instance most people will try anyway.
Watching someone self-destruct is like watching a drowning man in a raging river, most friends and family, even strangers, are eager to throw them a life line but are (quite rightly) not willing to jump in the water. I offered a 60yo homeless alcoholic friend (who just got out of prison) such a life line just yesterday (pay for him to stay in a backpacker's for a couple of weeks and look after his dog). My friend rejected the offer out of hand because the only solution he would accept was to move in with me, so now he has nothing.
I don't feel guilty about preserving my own sanity. I do feel sad he can't see that he has become his own worst enemy, I also feel some sympathy because I realise "there for the grace of god...", etc. In the end he is free to choose to drown rather than grab hold of a life line that doesn't come in his favourite colour. Having refused to grab hold of several life lines (including free room and board from an ex-cop friend of mine), his self-fulfilling prophecy has now come true, there's nobody left on the river bank to help him.
And yes, I've been homeless and destitute too, shouting at the world didn't fix it, shouting at myself did.
That's how it's done everywhere, "public" means owned and/or funded by the government. You can't just opt out of the government mandated sewerage system and take your business to a competing sewerage system, or can you?
It's not irrelevant when your trying to negotiate a treaty, the west had already filled up most of the natural buffer before other nations got started, so the other nations will naturally expect some sort of compensation from the west. The argument over total emissions and compensation is the very reason that kyoto failed.
I cannot for the life of me think of a reason why "per-capita" numbers are senseless, are (say) the Chinese somehow less entitled to use their fair share of the atmosphere than we are?
Setting a good example in the hope others will follow is about as far from "diddly-squat" as you can get in politics.
Yep, I think (hope) that's how it will pan out. It will be much harder for Tony Abbot (opposition leader in Oz) to convince people at the next election that it will destroy our economy after the scheme has been up and running for a year and voters haven't noticed any economic Armageddon. The deniers have lost both the scientific and political argument here in Oz and are on the back foot everywhere except in the US, and it's only a matter of time before the tide turns there as well.
Because every motion can be subdivided into smaller motions until each accomplishes virtually nothing.
Did you ever study calculus and infinities? For example, you can divide each step into an infinite number of infinitely small steps that each have zero motion, but it won't make any difference whatsoever to the velocity at which you are moving toward the curb.
Now, why is it any sillier to consider your chosen proxies than mine?
Because you are choosing a particular set of proxies rather than using all the proxies that are available. In other words, you're cherry picking the data to suit your forgone conclusion. Actually it's not you that is doing that, it's Anthony Watts who is doing it and that's why he is afraid to put his ideas through the peer-review process and abuses DCMA notices when he is called on his bullshit (watch from 5:00 to see the simple but devastating evidence that debunks Watts using his own data).
Science isn't about "general agreement" - state a hypothesis, state the observations that would falsify it, and ruthlessly look for those observations.
You have clearly stated the modern scientific method, but totally ignored the philosophy behind it. Established scientific "fact" is all about general agreement amongst experts as to what has or hasn't been observed. Karl Popper (the guy who gave you your definition of the scientific method), called it the "republic of science", nowadays it's called "scientific consensus".
I'm not going to ring the alarms until we start seeing something that breaks an actual geological record.
In that case start ringing the alarm bells because a 30% increase in CO2 concentrations over a 200yr period is unprecedented in the geological record, and as any geologist or paleoclimatoligist will tell you, CO2 has been the main driver of Earth's climate since at least 500M years ago when a volcanic CO2 build up melted the last "snowball Earth", and that happened at a time before multi-cellular life appeared, when the percentage of free oxygen in the atmosphere was virtually nil.
Also the only things in the geologic record that can be reasonably compared to the speed and extent of the manmade "sixth great extinction" are a handful of very large impact events. In fact since the advent of industrial civilisation the geological record has changed so dramatically that it now has it's own name, the Anthropocene epoch. The Anthropocene is uniquely marked by such things as; a significantly higher ratio of C13/C12 isotopes in CO2, chlorine from atomic tests, mercury, soot, sulphur and lead from fossil fuels, long life pesticides, nitrogen and phosphorous from fertiliser, microscopic plastic particles, PCB's, and much more that all combine to form a thin layer over the entire planet. None of these things have ever been seen in previous geological layers.
Anyone who says "well the catastrophe hasn't happened yet, therefore they must be wrong" has a serious problem with logic.
Yep and if we do somehow fix the problem then those same people will still claim it was all a scam, eg: the common notion that Y2K was a scam because nothing happened, rather than the fact that nothing happened because millions of man hours were spent preventing it.
For over 20yrs the US have been, and still are, leading global CO2 emissions policy by example, unfortunately it's not a good example. It's a genuine shame that the GOP has been hijacked by anti-science whacka-doddles who have studiously forgotten what their hero Ronald Reagan did with cap and trade on sulphur emissions.
I agree that the carbon tax in Australia won't make much of a difference. But of course we can look at each individual in the world and say their individual actions won't make much of a difference. It would be unreasonable to use this as a reason to take no action.
I don't know who said it but - It's like seeing a truck coming at you from a distance, do you start calmly taking one step at a time towards the curb, or do you wait until the last minute and then dive into the gutter?
Personally I'm strongly in favour of this small step despite the fact I'm in the tax bracket that gets zero compensation. In principle I would like to see a situation where the cost of dumping shit on to the commons is greater than the cost of proper disposal.
Most casual gamers used to be hardcore gamers before they grew up.
I was married with a kid when PacMan was released in 1980, I've been a casual player since I first played (arcade) Pong in the early 70's, favourite game at the moment is World of tanks. There are lots more old farts like me, even my dad plays video games every now and then. Currently I'm training the fourth generation of gamers in my family not to eat the hardware.
I believe Australia makes it illegal to give money to politicians, period.
No, campaign contributions are legal but heavily regulated and audited. Pauline Hanson was thrown in jail for mishandling her campaign funds. I think it's our culture rather than our laws that keeps campaign spending within reason.
The government gives parties money to run [in] the elections.
They give each individual in the race a modest allowance.
But they can't be bribed.
An individual voting against their publicly stated party line (crossing the floor) is much more unusual here than in the US, the Labor party go so far as to forbid their members to cross the floor. This is a double edge sword but as far as bribery goes, it's much harder to bribe an entire party than it is to bribe a few key individuals.
Slashdot Mirror
A "dork" is literaly a whale's penis, at 3 meters long it's hardly anonymous.
FFS, who the hell gave Glenn Beck a slashdot account?
....it became clear to me that the only thing that matters with regards to your well-being and future prospects is your attitude. Also, nobody will ever give two shits if you're sad---friends and family included.
Trying to help someone who flatly refuses to help themselves is futile, but in the first instance most people will try anyway.
Watching someone self-destruct is like watching a drowning man in a raging river, most friends and family, even strangers, are eager to throw them a life line but are (quite rightly) not willing to jump in the water. I offered a 60yo homeless alcoholic friend (who just got out of prison) such a life line just yesterday (pay for him to stay in a backpacker's for a couple of weeks and look after his dog). My friend rejected the offer out of hand because the only solution he would accept was to move in with me, so now he has nothing.
I don't feel guilty about preserving my own sanity. I do feel sad he can't see that he has become his own worst enemy, I also feel some sympathy because I realise "there for the grace of god...", etc. In the end he is free to choose to drown rather than grab hold of a life line that doesn't come in his favourite colour. Having refused to grab hold of several life lines (including free room and board from an ex-cop friend of mine), his self-fulfilling prophecy has now come true, there's nobody left on the river bank to help him.
And yes, I've been homeless and destitute too, shouting at the world didn't fix it, shouting at myself did.
If the law was fair (no-fault divorce) then none of this would be a problem.
I realise the post was meant as tongue in cheek (although it's hard to tell these days).
Whoosh.
He is doing the right thing. So let's not be quick in judging him. ok ?
A parasite that exclusively feeds on other parasites is still a parasite.
That's how it's done everywhere, "public" means owned and/or funded by the government. You can't just opt out of the government mandated sewerage system and take your business to a competing sewerage system, or can you?
It's not irrelevant when your trying to negotiate a treaty, the west had already filled up most of the natural buffer before other nations got started, so the other nations will naturally expect some sort of compensation from the west. The argument over total emissions and compensation is the very reason that kyoto failed.
I cannot for the life of me think of a reason why "per-capita" numbers are senseless, are (say) the Chinese somehow less entitled to use their fair share of the atmosphere than we are?
Setting a good example in the hope others will follow is about as far from "diddly-squat" as you can get in politics.
"semi-private", is that the same as semi-public?
Yep, I think (hope) that's how it will pan out. It will be much harder for Tony Abbot (opposition leader in Oz) to convince people at the next election that it will destroy our economy after the scheme has been up and running for a year and voters haven't noticed any economic Armageddon. The deniers have lost both the scientific and political argument here in Oz and are on the back foot everywhere except in the US, and it's only a matter of time before the tide turns there as well.
Because every motion can be subdivided into smaller motions until each accomplishes virtually nothing.
Did you ever study calculus and infinities? For example, you can divide each step into an infinite number of infinitely small steps that each have zero motion, but it won't make any difference whatsoever to the velocity at which you are moving toward the curb.
Now, why is it any sillier to consider your chosen proxies than mine?
Because you are choosing a particular set of proxies rather than using all the proxies that are available. In other words, you're cherry picking the data to suit your forgone conclusion. Actually it's not you that is doing that, it's Anthony Watts who is doing it and that's why he is afraid to put his ideas through the peer-review process and abuses DCMA notices when he is called on his bullshit (watch from 5:00 to see the simple but devastating evidence that debunks Watts using his own data).
Science isn't about "general agreement" - state a hypothesis, state the observations that would falsify it, and ruthlessly look for those observations.
You have clearly stated the modern scientific method, but totally ignored the philosophy behind it. Established scientific "fact" is all about general agreement amongst experts as to what has or hasn't been observed. Karl Popper (the guy who gave you your definition of the scientific method), called it the "republic of science", nowadays it's called "scientific consensus".
I'm not going to ring the alarms until we start seeing something that breaks an actual geological record.
In that case start ringing the alarm bells because a 30% increase in CO2 concentrations over a 200yr period is unprecedented in the geological record, and as any geologist or paleoclimatoligist will tell you, CO2 has been the main driver of Earth's climate since at least 500M years ago when a volcanic CO2 build up melted the last "snowball Earth", and that happened at a time before multi-cellular life appeared, when the percentage of free oxygen in the atmosphere was virtually nil.
Also the only things in the geologic record that can be reasonably compared to the speed and extent of the manmade "sixth great extinction" are a handful of very large impact events. In fact since the advent of industrial civilisation the geological record has changed so dramatically that it now has it's own name, the Anthropocene epoch. The Anthropocene is uniquely marked by such things as; a significantly higher ratio of C13/C12 isotopes in CO2, chlorine from atomic tests, mercury, soot, sulphur and lead from fossil fuels, long life pesticides, nitrogen and phosphorous from fertiliser, microscopic plastic particles, PCB's, and much more that all combine to form a thin layer over the entire planet. None of these things have ever been seen in previous geological layers.
Anyone who says "well the catastrophe hasn't happened yet, therefore they must be wrong" has a serious problem with logic.
Yep and if we do somehow fix the problem then those same people will still claim it was all a scam, eg: the common notion that Y2K was a scam because nothing happened, rather than the fact that nothing happened because millions of man hours were spent preventing it.
Capitalism and Soviet-style communism both fail to take externalities (such as environmental damage) into account.
Exactly, and I'm sure the long dead inhabitants of Easter Island had never heard of capitalism or communism.
For over 20yrs the US have been, and still are, leading global CO2 emissions policy by example, unfortunately it's not a good example. It's a genuine shame that the GOP has been hijacked by anti-science whacka-doddles who have studiously forgotten what their hero Ronald Reagan did with cap and trade on sulphur emissions.
Australia's emission may be insignificant now but Australia is 14th (out of 200) in the total accumulated emissions since the start of the industrial revolution.
I agree that the carbon tax in Australia won't make much of a difference. But of course we can look at each individual in the world and say their individual actions won't make much of a difference. It would be unreasonable to use this as a reason to take no action.
I don't know who said it but - It's like seeing a truck coming at you from a distance, do you start calmly taking one step at a time towards the curb, or do you wait until the last minute and then dive into the gutter?
Personally I'm strongly in favour of this small step despite the fact I'm in the tax bracket that gets zero compensation. In principle I would like to see a situation where the cost of dumping shit on to the commons is greater than the cost of proper disposal.
When has a tax ever done anything? Name one!
It's amazing how many Americans have never heard of sewerage systems.
Losing your Mojo does not mean losing your skills, when your old and comfortable like I am you sometimes need a brush with death to feel alive.
Most casual gamers used to be hardcore gamers before they grew up.
I was married with a kid when PacMan was released in 1980, I've been a casual player since I first played (arcade) Pong in the early 70's, favourite game at the moment is World of tanks. There are lots more old farts like me, even my dad plays video games every now and then. Currently I'm training the fourth generation of gamers in my family not to eat the hardware.
Is "freedom-based comms medium" some sort of code for POTS?
Think about it this way. How stupid is the "average" person? Realize that half the people are dumber than that.
Carlin may be dead but that's not an excuse to steal his jokes.
I believe Australia makes it illegal to give money to politicians, period.
No, campaign contributions are legal but heavily regulated and audited. Pauline Hanson was thrown in jail for mishandling her campaign funds. I think it's our culture rather than our laws that keeps campaign spending within reason.
The government gives parties money to run [in] the elections.
They give each individual in the race a modest allowance.
But they can't be bribed.
An individual voting against their publicly stated party line (crossing the floor) is much more unusual here than in the US, the Labor party go so far as to forbid their members to cross the floor. This is a double edge sword but as far as bribery goes, it's much harder to bribe an entire party than it is to bribe a few key individuals.