Ignore the scientists as experts. Ignore politicians that build consensus. Ignore the actuaries that do the sums and advice insurance agencies to put their rates up. Ignore the military specialists that treat climate change as a national security mater. They are all on the take, and the end goal is WORLD-SOCIALISM!!!
Of course, you could just be wrong. Nahhhh... WORLD-SOCIALISM!!!!
This is such a dumb meme. China is making a/huge/ investment in renewables, and will never produce the per-capita carbon of the USA. And they will own the technology of the future (along with Europeans) if congress doesn't pull its finger out.
The IPCC predictions are extremely conservative. That is the nature of the hard sciences. Expect pretty much all the projections to be revised continuously upwards as the data comes in.
You pay attention to what *some* scientists say. Follow the money.
You say that brazenly like someone who never followed the money themselves, and knows nothing about the academic process. Mainstream science has been unequivocal since the late 70s. The well-oiled and well-funded denial machine has been operating in its modern form since the 50s.
The thing that always surprises me is that people don't realize that the two main parties are basically the same with slightly different boogeymen.
This is completely naive. Most politicians really believe in issues, and generally cannot see their own hypocrisy. There is ideological warfare in Washington. The first step to understanding human nature is recognising that 95% of people really believe the bullshit that comes out of their mouth.
Take McCain's assault on Susan Rice: Mark Twain said "it is easier to fool a man then convince him he has been fooled." Congress is populated by the fooled. Only the wise know they are fools, which cuts out most of the political faithful.
When Exxon-Mobile pays think-tanks to drum up anti-science nonsense, everybody from the CEO, the "researchers", the news-anchors, to the rank-and-file republicans who repeat the claims as fact -- all these people fool themselves with a story about how they are the good guy, protecting something sacred. Once committed to the narrative, they/really/ believe it.
We're going to see a fight over a carbon tax, letting tax holidays for the rich expire, and the GOP will attempt to use the deficit crisis as a cudgel to destroy government (other then the military), because they/really/ believe that government is the problem -- an internalised narrative that can exist in a fact-free zone.
The Dems are not so reformist and reactionary (the Dems are truly the conservatives in this case), and they need to fight harder, and one D senator recently declared that they will "fight to the teeth".
But continue on with your narrative that both political parties are really the same.
Citizens United will make political corruption just worse. We really need to go back to public financing of politics in order to remove corporate money, and the resulting crony capitalism. The GOP are cheerleading the way for this type of corruption, as senior long-time GOP insider Lofgren describes in his new book.
I'm saying that the very same people who bitch about some endangered fly being harmed by an oil rig don't seem to mind when something they like is built on the same spot.
You will be able to find some wacko that reifies your pre-existing beliefs. Then you can think of/all/ environmentalists as a bunch of wacko hypocrites, and indulge in sick fantasies about how environmentalists really kill people with their stupidity.
And then you feel you know something, and therefore don't need to learn anything about what mainstream environmentalists actually think, and what mainstream science actually says, and also some of the successes of the environmental movement.
Eventually, the costs of alternatives like wind and solar will go down
Alternative energy will eclipse some traditional energy markets in the next 5 years. (Red-meat conservatives will almost deny that it is happening even as it happens.)
It will be like saving that pound of really good meat for a special day and forgetting it can spoil.
Once oil is used, it is used, and there is carbon pollution in the atmosphere. It will stay there for 1000 years, and there is no sane way to extract it. Burning oil has a negative externality which has/never/ been factored into the cost.
Given the degree of failure we see each and every time Keynesian economics is tried through history
Through history? You mean, since the Great Depression.
Sure the evidence is mixed -- like why was there such a huge boom after WWII when the government was repaying so much debt? But there is no conclusive evidence that macroeconomics is wrong, and there is inconclusive evidence that it does work. Such is the murky world of economics.
Trickle-down economics, on the other hand, is known to be junk. We already have a glut of investment money waiting to be parked. Cutting taxes for the rich just allows them to concentrate more wealth and power, and it doesn't trickle anywhere.
Read up on 19thC economic history for why we have the social and political reforms that we do. A true conservative would respect that those laws were put there for a reason, and what to know what those reasons are.
More central bank bailouts and foreign aid, at least in theory. In practice, I don't think Romney will do anything differently in that regard.
It is important to look to the constituency of the party. Who will have the most say when it comes to the issues.
The Dems (through Ruben and Summers) have a long history of financial deregulation, and are simply extending the intellectual heritage of Alan Greenspan -- who is a fan of Ayn Rand. Deregulation of the financial sectors was bi-partisan.
But recently we've seen wall street very upset with Obama over proposed regulations. In particular, we've got loan reform, credit card reform, and additional capital requirements on "too-big-to-fail" companies. The Dems have said that if your business really is so large that the government will be forced to bail you out, that the government has a regulatory interest in making sure you have enough capital to meet your leverage. Less risk means less short-term profit and big CEO bonuses.
So Wall street (which supported Obama in 2008) has been heavily investing in the GOP this cycle, and the GOP will probably repeal those regulations. That will probably have no near-term impact. Long-term, it will almost certainly mean there will be another government bailout to cover for corruption in the financial sector.
So the Dems and GOP are really opposite on this issue right now -- while historically (in the 90s and 00s) they have been aligned on the issue.
There are lot of factors that lead to this. The Media being a big deal
Human nature and incentive structures explains most of the problems. The media is just reflecting who we are. I would welcome an erudite and dry public discussion of the issues, but you don't even get that in peer reviewed literature. (The hard sciences do a much better job then the social sciences and humanities, which are just laughable in their arrogance.) Nobody really listens to opposing points of view, but instead, we just cluster around narratives that reify our existing prejudices.
Perhaps the magic of democracy is simply that we have regular peaceful transitions of power. All the mouth-flapping is pretty meaningless.
I think you meant "Genghis Khan" at the top, and not "Attila the Hun". Two different people.
btw, when the big G sacked Samarkand, he held up the head of a priest and declared to the crowd that he was God's punishment for their sins.
Also, the old Roman Republic placed a great deal of emphasis on merit, but they were also handicapped by the (not completely inaccurate) notion that competent people have competent children.
47% of tax FILERS pay no net INCOME TAX (yes, they pay taxes on their cellphones, auto tires, gasoline, etc)
They pay plenty of other taxes. Just no federal income tax.
are you prepared to defend the idea that increasing taxes on higher income individuals will somehow stimulate the economy? I'd like to see that defense.
I'm not enough of an economic expert to say whether or not this *actually* works, but the theory runs something like that.
Cutting taxes on the rich might help if there was a dearth of investment money; however, just consider for a moment that there is a huge glut of investment money in the world, looking for a place to be parked.
OMFG. Thank-you for articulating something that is really a big deal for me. Right-wing postmodernism is almost identical (pathologically speaking) to the alternate reality in reasonably large tracts of the humanities and social sciences. Right down to the humour mix of conspiratorial thinking, and the belief in having some superior insight. And the use of Popper as the cure-all for anything that hurts the ears.
Having run my own experiments, and having some understanding of how endlessly we can fool ourselves in apparently subtle ways, having a small understanding of knowing something, I prefer to distrust the voice inside when faced with evidence. *Especially* if the evidence makes me feel uncomfortable. That's the signal that one is fooling themselves.
Government research agencies were operating under extreme pressure from ultra left wing political interests to generate only the results they wanted, or risk losing their jobs.
It is hard to believe how much projection there is on the extreme right. If you retargeted GOP words back on themselves, then they may well be more accurate. After-all, if you look at recent history:
+ The GOP are about big government. (Reagan, Bush & Bush)
+ They are fiscally irresponsible. (Reagan failed to balance the budget, but wasn't completely nuts. George W's own treasury secretary resigned because of his attitude towards money.)
+ They are obstructionist, but accuse Dems of not working across the table. (They will ask for the moon and more -- e.g., Debt ceiling, Eric Holder, the list is endless)
+ They believe Dems are engaging in voter fraud, and then aggressively engage in their own voter suppression campaign.
+ They believe they have the "truth" and others are just biased. (The kicker for me is that O'Reilly believes he's an independent, and his show is a "Spin Free Zone"
+ They believe their freedoms are restricted when they cannot restrict the freedoms of others. (The social conservative influence.)
There is a lot to respect about the historical GOP, but recently, they have become irresponsible.
+ They are disliked by about 70-80% of the rest of the world
Slashdot Mirror
Ignore the scientists as experts. Ignore politicians that build consensus. Ignore the actuaries that do the sums and advice insurance agencies to put their rates up. Ignore the military specialists that treat climate change as a national security mater. They are all on the take, and the end goal is WORLD-SOCIALISM!!!
Of course, you could just be wrong. Nahhhh... WORLD-SOCIALISM!!!!
If you want to point fingers, look at China.
This is such a dumb meme. China is making a /huge/ investment in renewables, and will never produce the per-capita carbon of the USA. And they will own the technology of the future (along with Europeans) if congress doesn't pull its finger out.
The IPCC predictions are extremely conservative. That is the nature of the hard sciences. Expect pretty much all the projections to be revised continuously upwards as the data comes in.
You pay attention to what *some* scientists say. Follow the money.
You say that brazenly like someone who never followed the money themselves, and knows nothing about the academic process. Mainstream science has been unequivocal since the late 70s. The well-oiled and well-funded denial machine has been operating in its modern form since the 50s.
The thing that always surprises me is that people don't realize that the two main parties are basically the same with slightly different boogeymen.
This is completely naive. Most politicians really believe in issues, and generally cannot see their own hypocrisy. There is ideological warfare in Washington. The first step to understanding human nature is recognising that 95% of people really believe the bullshit that comes out of their mouth.
/really/ believe it.
/really/ believe that government is the problem -- an internalised narrative that can exist in a fact-free zone.
Take McCain's assault on Susan Rice: Mark Twain said "it is easier to fool a man then convince him he has been fooled." Congress is populated by the fooled. Only the wise know they are fools, which cuts out most of the political faithful.
When Exxon-Mobile pays think-tanks to drum up anti-science nonsense, everybody from the CEO, the "researchers", the news-anchors, to the rank-and-file republicans who repeat the claims as fact -- all these people fool themselves with a story about how they are the good guy, protecting something sacred. Once committed to the narrative, they
We're going to see a fight over a carbon tax, letting tax holidays for the rich expire, and the GOP will attempt to use the deficit crisis as a cudgel to destroy government (other then the military), because they
The Dems are not so reformist and reactionary (the Dems are truly the conservatives in this case), and they need to fight harder, and one D senator recently declared that they will "fight to the teeth".
But continue on with your narrative that both political parties are really the same.
Citizens United will make political corruption just worse. We really need to go back to public financing of politics in order to remove corporate money, and the resulting crony capitalism. The GOP are cheerleading the way for this type of corruption, as senior long-time GOP insider Lofgren describes in his new book.
Are those 'facts and viewpoints' green in color?
Afterall, green is the new pink. (face-palm.)
See how that scuttles any serious debate on the issue?
I'm saying that the very same people who bitch about some endangered fly being harmed by an oil rig don't seem to mind when something they like is built on the same spot.
You will be able to find some wacko that reifies your pre-existing beliefs. Then you can think of /all/ environmentalists as a bunch of wacko hypocrites, and indulge in sick fantasies about how environmentalists really kill people with their stupidity.
And then you feel you know something, and therefore don't need to learn anything about what mainstream environmentalists actually think, and what mainstream science actually says, and also some of the successes of the environmental movement.
Buddhists call this protecting your ignorance.
Eventually, the costs of alternatives like wind and solar will go down
Alternative energy will eclipse some traditional energy markets in the next 5 years. (Red-meat conservatives will almost deny that it is happening even as it happens.)
It will be like saving that pound of really good meat for a special day and forgetting it can spoil.
Once oil is used, it is used, and there is carbon pollution in the atmosphere. It will stay there for 1000 years, and there is no sane way to extract it. Burning oil has a negative externality which has /never/ been factored into the cost.
Fact is, liberals hate oil.
Some liberals hate oil. The rest of us just love science.
Given the degree of failure we see each and every time Keynesian economics is tried through history
Through history? You mean, since the Great Depression.
Sure the evidence is mixed -- like why was there such a huge boom after WWII when the government was repaying so much debt? But there is no conclusive evidence that macroeconomics is wrong, and there is inconclusive evidence that it does work. Such is the murky world of economics.
Trickle-down economics, on the other hand, is known to be junk. We already have a glut of investment money waiting to be parked. Cutting taxes for the rich just allows them to concentrate more wealth and power, and it doesn't trickle anywhere.
Read up on 19thC economic history for why we have the social and political reforms that we do. A true conservative would respect that those laws were put there for a reason, and what to know what those reasons are.
More central bank bailouts and foreign aid, at least in theory. In practice, I don't think Romney will do anything differently in that regard.
It is important to look to the constituency of the party. Who will have the most say when it comes to the issues.
The Dems (through Ruben and Summers) have a long history of financial deregulation, and are simply extending the intellectual heritage of Alan Greenspan -- who is a fan of Ayn Rand. Deregulation of the financial sectors was bi-partisan.
But recently we've seen wall street very upset with Obama over proposed regulations. In particular, we've got loan reform, credit card reform, and additional capital requirements on "too-big-to-fail" companies. The Dems have said that if your business really is so large that the government will be forced to bail you out, that the government has a regulatory interest in making sure you have enough capital to meet your leverage. Less risk means less short-term profit and big CEO bonuses.
So Wall street (which supported Obama in 2008) has been heavily investing in the GOP this cycle, and the GOP will probably repeal those regulations. That will probably have no near-term impact. Long-term, it will almost certainly mean there will be another government bailout to cover for corruption in the financial sector.
So the Dems and GOP are really opposite on this issue right now -- while historically (in the 90s and 00s) they have been aligned on the issue.
There are lot of factors that lead to this. The Media being a big deal
Human nature and incentive structures explains most of the problems. The media is just reflecting who we are. I would welcome an erudite and dry public discussion of the issues, but you don't even get that in peer reviewed literature. (The hard sciences do a much better job then the social sciences and humanities, which are just laughable in their arrogance.) Nobody really listens to opposing points of view, but instead, we just cluster around narratives that reify our existing prejudices.
Perhaps the magic of democracy is simply that we have regular peaceful transitions of power. All the mouth-flapping is pretty meaningless.
What's in it for the rest of the world if Obama wins?
4 more years without the Bush foreign policy "wonks" in the Pentagon and white-house.
Religious people like to pull select quotes
Misattribute quotes, and make stuff up as well.
Yes, Christians post his picture and a quote about knowing God on facebook all the time.
Made-up quote you mean.
Including Einstein, I presume?
Einstein was not religious. A bunch of morons are trying to rewrite history, complete with made-up quotes. Look it up.
I think you meant "Genghis Khan" at the top, and not "Attila the Hun". Two different people.
btw, when the big G sacked Samarkand, he held up the head of a priest and declared to the crowd that he was God's punishment for their sins.
Also, the old Roman Republic placed a great deal of emphasis on merit, but they were also handicapped by the (not completely inaccurate) notion that competent people have competent children.
People blaming republicans, conservatives, FOX News, and general unfairness instead of the rich? Check.
HaHa. I love how this is evidence of propaganda to you.
You can read the report here.
One objection made by GOP staffers was that the report used the term "Bush era tax cuts", which didn't set the correct tone.
This is pretty pathetic.
47% of tax FILERS pay no net INCOME TAX (yes, they pay taxes on their cellphones, auto tires, gasoline, etc)
They pay plenty of other taxes. Just no federal income tax.
are you prepared to defend the idea that increasing taxes on higher income individuals will somehow stimulate the economy? I'd like to see that defense.
Just take economics 101.
This is pretty basic stuff. So, my question to you, is where is the substance behind all that outrage?
I'm not enough of an economic expert to say whether or not this *actually* works, but the theory runs something like that.
Cutting taxes on the rich might help if there was a dearth of investment money; however, just consider for a moment that there is a huge glut of investment money in the world, looking for a place to be parked.
OMFG. Thank-you for articulating something that is really a big deal for me. Right-wing postmodernism is almost identical (pathologically speaking) to the alternate reality in reasonably large tracts of the humanities and social sciences. Right down to the humour mix of conspiratorial thinking, and the belief in having some superior insight. And the use of Popper as the cure-all for anything that hurts the ears.
Having run my own experiments, and having some understanding of how endlessly we can fool ourselves in apparently subtle ways, having a small understanding of knowing something, I prefer to distrust the voice inside when faced with evidence. *Especially* if the evidence makes me feel uncomfortable. That's the signal that one is fooling themselves.
"Romney wants to cut taxes for the rich, but a never-released economic report proves him wrong".
It *was* released, and then quietly retracted. You can grab a copy here.
One of the complaints was the phrase "Bush era tax cuts" doesn't set the correct tone.
Government research agencies were operating under extreme pressure from ultra left wing political interests to generate only the results they wanted, or risk losing their jobs.
It is hard to believe how much projection there is on the extreme right. If you retargeted GOP words back on themselves, then they may well be more accurate. After-all, if you look at recent history:
+ The GOP are about big government. (Reagan, Bush & Bush)
+ They are fiscally irresponsible. (Reagan failed to balance the budget, but wasn't completely nuts. George W's own treasury secretary resigned because of his attitude towards money.)
+ They are obstructionist, but accuse Dems of not working across the table. (They will ask for the moon and more -- e.g., Debt ceiling, Eric Holder, the list is endless)
+ They believe Dems are engaging in voter fraud, and then aggressively engage in their own voter suppression campaign.
+ They believe they have the "truth" and others are just biased. (The kicker for me is that O'Reilly believes he's an independent, and his show is a "Spin Free Zone"
+ They believe their freedoms are restricted when they cannot restrict the freedoms of others. (The social conservative influence.)
There is a lot to respect about the historical GOP, but recently, they have become irresponsible. + They are disliked by about 70-80% of the rest of the world
rather than fight about this or that, he wants a cap on deductions.
It's a good idea -- nigh on perfect -- except that it cannot raise enough money to offset tax cuts.