You're right, Ehrlich has a strong misanthropist streak. As a controversial figure, who himself belabours under the cognitive dissonance of his own views, there is a lot or material to make fun of -- esp. such ideas as mandated sterilization. However, I believe my point still stands. Much of what is attributed to Ehrlich is itself both hyperbole and misquoting. Those with an anthropocentric point of view find him and easy and repugnant target. The truth is not so black-and-white, and in most cases, the lack of simplicity precludes a nuanced discussion on the topic. You will be able to find/something/ that Ehrlich has written that makes sense to you, even if you strongly disagree with/something/ over there. And dishonest attribution (unintentional or otherwise) simply decreases the signal-to-noise ratio when it comes to understanding something.
Yeah, there are lots of misathopists out there. Don't let them get you down -- or stop you from thinking about solutions to our problems. I make fun of them myself. As a side note, Ehrlich isn't the misantropist that he is made out to be. He wrote a section of a book on what/might/ happen if we just let population ballon. He reasoned that, at some stage, action on population growth would be inevitable, and then imaginatively and graphically described what that may look like. It was a warning; however, it is now deliberately portrayed as a presecrption. Those who portray it this way are almost always using it to bolster some other argument, as you just did.
Thankyou for all the great links. I agree that AGW is a serious problem, and denying it could potentially be very dangerous (say, 10% chance of CAGW), and Green energy is about to show its hand big-time.
There is something import that I'd like to add. You have decried all the Malthusians since the 70s, but they've been around forever. (e.g., Christianity was, and still is, an apocalyptic cult.) It is a phenotype -- related to our genetic make-up -- and short of a eugenics program, or some evolutionary-scale event that punctures the genetic equilibrium, we will always have members of the population who are attracted to Malthusian dreams. If behavioural genetics doesn't make sense to you, then you can think of it as Jung's archetypal unconscious.
But, and it is a big but, it would be a mistake to believe that just because there is a Malthusian streak to a significant portion of the population (moths flying towards the flames) -- that does not mean that catastrophes never happen. A a collective, we have still failed to digest the Greek myth of Cassandra. The primary reason is the cognitive bubble, which characterizes pretty much all political discourse.
In the end, I believe that it is scientists -- real seekers of truth -- that identified the problem of AGW, and it will be scientists and engineers that save us. Our political discourse is simply too puerile for anything else.
And in this economy, climate change isn't even anywhere on the radar. It's a rich people's problem.
A revenue neutral carbon tax can be used to stimulate the economy, as it has done over the past 10 years in 1/5th of the US economy (relative to the rest of the US economy), and in Germany, which sustained 3% p.a. growth during a global recession.
AGW is/perceived/ as a rich people's problem; however, the shrill cries of economic Armageddon -- ironically by those who decry "alarmism" -- has confounded sane public discussion on the economic benefits of ploughing oil money directly back into pure market-based innovations that save energy.
Energy bills have come down in North-Eastern USA for both industry and consumer. It is almost as if Adam's invisible hand can fall captive to tradition, and sometimes needs a little push.
If all your links are to one side of the issue, than it is likely that you know less than nothing, since you yourself will have no way of discriminating between something with a reasonable epistemological basis, and something that exists solely in a cognitive bubble.
If you really do have something of value with regards to good links on the topic, then by all means.
China may happily offer to sell them windmills etc to do it on a massive scale (and burn all the coal to do it;) ).
China is building huge wind farms. Their energy-policy doesn't make sense at first blush because it isn't based on "four-legs-good, two-legs-bad" when it comes to traditional power generation.
The same could be said of the USA, which generates a huge amount of wind energy, and has developed (along with Europe) the know-how for integrating it seamlessly into the power grid. The USA also has a 1/5th of its economy under a carbon tax, which over the last 10 years, has saved industry and consumers $$$ on their power bills. Interesting how incentive structures give people the little push to save money long-term.
The "don't emit CO2" idea is not a very realistic one as far as reality is concerned.
I have met people who think that there are too many human beings, and the world could do with a big die-off. They are few and far between, and not representative of the majority who take environmental issues seriously. You are imaging a boggie-man if you think that that is what reducing CO2 emissions is all about.
The real question is: how can we sustain our project of civilization long-term?
From a scientific point of view -- which represents our best understanding -- we should be concerned about the long-term consequences of allow atmospheric CO2 to climb. Such measured analysis has nothing to do with kitsch throwaways like: "don't emit CO2" and "mass extinction of humankind".
Let me ask you a question. If your options were 1) Use a power source that doesn't require emission of CO2 to clean up CO2 or 2) Replace CO2 emitting power plants with power sources that don't require emission of CO2, which do you think would be more efficient? If you said #1, you missed a law of physics or two.
Obviously it is more efficient to simply produce energy in ways that emit little CO2 in the first place. However, because scientists tend to be very conservative, esp. en masse, we have every reason to believe that there is already too much CO2 in the atmosphere, and it will start to cost real $$$ and lives and human suffering in the coming decades. I am not saying that that is a certainty, but it is certainly a possibility.
So in makes sense to think about ways to remove the extant CO2.
A majority in the USA would like to see some action, and indeed, 1/5th of the USA lives under a carbon trading scheme -- with no evidence of any economic damage. A carbon neutral tax takes from the utility companies bottom line, and generates demand for energy efficient products and infrastructure. The official rggi report specifically shows that this is what has been happening over the last 10 years, with net savings for both consumers and business. Furthermore, this region of the US economy has grown in proportion to the rest of the USA. The "damage" of a carbon tax is a conservative myth. And besides, many Republicans want action on climate change, including supply-side economics guru Art Laffer.
Now, China wants the west to pay through the nose before it officially ties itself to any legally binding targets. Same with India, and the rest of the developed world. In my opinion, they have a victim complex, which does have some legitimate basis. But seriously: grow up.
But, returning to your post, it is too black-and-white to suggest that nothing is happening in the USA. And in China, the boots are marching.
Only the regressive climate-change denial machine stops real and cheap action on AGW, and for purely philosophical reasons that are not grounded in out best understanding of either science or economics. These people are not oil industry shills (although they do have oil-sugar-daddys) but they do really believe in the imminent threat of climate-change legislation.
That's pretty odd, because they are the only party every giving lip service to wanting internet freedom. The democrats just want to regulate the hell out of it, at the behest of Hollywood... why would Republicans do anything Hollywood wanted?
It is true that there are problems there. However, Democrats are split on the issue, and don't vote on purely partisan lines.
But your point of view is from the land of cognitive dissonance. I have sympathy that you support the GOP, but are frustrated with their position on net neutrality. Consider that Obama has been very clear that he will veto anti-net-neutrality legislation. Romney and Ryan are going to the electorate with the opposite position. Wishful thinking will not make the GOP the good guys on this issue. If you vote GOP, then you are responsible for the consequences if they win, and break the internet so that AT&T can make more money.
Someone always has freedom from and someone else has freedom to. Change the party in power and those roles are revers
Not so fast. Both parties will give and take some freedoms. The GOP is involved in a war on sin. Taking away your moral freedoms is for your own good. They also want to give you economic freedoms.
The Democrats tent to be moral individualists. After-all who am I to tell you what is moral. (I happen to believe in the scientific basis of moral questions, which makes of mockery of this type of relativism.) The Democrats also would also like to give and take some economic freedoms.
As usual, the truth is not as simple as "change the party in power and those roles are revered."
I cannot believe that sensible people vote for these guys at all. How bizarre does the GOP platform have to be before the GOP-faithful put the breaks on and reclaim their party from the fundies.
Regarding the deadlocked congress on the debt ceiling, Bill Clinton pointed out that the public should not be so upset with congress, but instead take responsibility for who they vote in.
VOTE
And if congress deadlocks over fiscal policy, forks over truckloads to seniors in entitlement programs and the 1% in tax cuts, enacts medieval social policies, breaks the internet, slashes science programs, gives a free hand to the banking sector and anybody who wants to treat the atmosphere, land or waterways as a trash can, then YOU are responsible if you voted for the GOP.
I don't believe network neutrality is a Good Thing, because I recognize that most people's definition amounts to price fixing of bandwidth
You/know/ that net neutrality has nothing to do with bandwidth. Carriers cannot discriminate on content, source and destination. What is so difficult to explain. There's nothing about bandwidth in there.
And the public has a moral right to this, since the government paid for most of the infrastructure anyway, in huge corporate giveaways.
As always, it's the government (except the NSA) not being attractive enough or not paying enough to get some real experts on board.
Private industry is just as bad. The big bucks on on perception management, and anything technical is generally approached with a "don't bother me" attitude. This works in private industry, because perception management is actually more important to making money. Kinda like politics.
It depends on the organisation that you are working for. I have worked in excellent and poor government departments, and I have worked in excellent and poor private companies.
Face-palm stupidity is orthogonal the private/public axis.
The troubling part of many government organizations is it is more important to have a "certified and accredited", than to have system that works correctly and securely.
That is absolutely a problem with private industry as well. And if you raise questions -- the messenger will be shot. If you demonstrate that something is wrong, you may well be shown the door.
1% of the federal budget type stuff and ignore the pentagon programs
They also ignore the social security problems, because, in the end, a lot of their voters are old people on entitlement programs.
The GOP has strayed squarely into reactionary politics. Aside from social conservatism, their only platform is that they are against whatever democrats stand for. That is why they consistently vote against their own policies when they come from across the aisle.
Why would a woman want to raise a child who carries the genes of a rapist? That is her choice, and if you try and take that freedom away from her, then she may choose the shady back-alley in Mexico.
I feel disgust for the morally "superior" anti-abortionist.
The other group says if an individual hasn't been seen yet, it doesn't exist, and thus executing said individual is fine and not murder.
I am pro-choice, and that is definitely not what I believe.
Both groups are really kind of strange.
I see, you are painting yourself as a moderate. The truth is/always/ in between when it comes to controversy, right? I mean, the world might be 5 billion years old, or 6000. Obviously that means a moderate "rational" person would think that the world is 2.5 billion years old.
he second group generally doesn't function as stated verbatim, but rather believes that at some arbitrary time the unseen individual is suddenly real (like, second, third trimester, a specific number of days into pregnancy), just a magic but arbitrary switch that has nothing to do with physical development
*Now* we see your true colours. What a joke. Once did an ethics essay on treating the terminally ill, and found that there is no actual solid definable point where someone is dead or alive. Some goes when an zygote turns into a human being. That may be a little difficult to understand for the black-and-white thinker, and hence, we have the truly magical *assertion* that the soul enters the zygote at the time of fertilisation, and therefore, a zygote is a human being, and should be protected by the constitution.
A fetus does not have a functioning neocortex until the third trimester. How a fetus is an individual when it doesn't have a brain requires an encyclopedic ignorance of science. It is highly unlikely that an aborted fetus (in the 1st trimester) experiences anything, since pain is experienced in (and because of) the neocortex.
Every place I ever worked at, government or private, or self-employed -- stupid little mistakes were made. Sometimes moderate. I found private industry to be sometimes asine, and as for government, don't polish your boots too much.
The point being, it is easy to point at fault. What is interesting is comparative problems. You know, a cost-benefit analysis. That might be too subtle for the US electorate, so gridlocked in its partisan myths, but such a thing can be done.
Anecdotally, I knew a Canadian doctor who did a 10 year work stint in the US before returning to Canada. Boy did he have horror stories to tell about the US healthcare system. He said he much preferred the Canadian system with all its faults, and that was purely from the point of view of being a doctor trying to do his job.
it would be much easier to get him extradited from the UK to the US than from Sweden.
On what charge? He was never in the USA, and is a foreign national? Do you know what sovereignty is?
If the USA went after Assage dirctly, the UK courts would have had no choice but to recognize that this was a politically motivated attack over wikileaks. So instead, they sent a spy and created some dirt.
Look, you completely misunderstood what I said. It has nothing to do with "free will". If you are interested, just re-read until you realize that I'm saying that action and consequence are confined to a single individual.
Slashdot Mirror
You're right, Ehrlich has a strong misanthropist streak. As a controversial figure, who himself belabours under the cognitive dissonance of his own views, there is a lot or material to make fun of -- esp. such ideas as mandated sterilization. However, I believe my point still stands. Much of what is attributed to Ehrlich is itself both hyperbole and misquoting. Those with an anthropocentric point of view find him and easy and repugnant target. The truth is not so black-and-white, and in most cases, the lack of simplicity precludes a nuanced discussion on the topic. You will be able to find /something/ that Ehrlich has written that makes sense to you, even if you strongly disagree with /something/ over there. And dishonest attribution (unintentional or otherwise) simply decreases the signal-to-noise ratio when it comes to understanding something.
Yeah, there are lots of misathopists out there. Don't let them get you down -- or stop you from thinking about solutions to our problems. I make fun of them myself. As a side note, Ehrlich isn't the misantropist that he is made out to be. He wrote a section of a book on what /might/ happen if we just let population ballon. He reasoned that, at some stage, action on population growth would be inevitable, and then imaginatively and graphically described what that may look like. It was a warning; however, it is now deliberately portrayed as a presecrption. Those who portray it this way are almost always using it to bolster some other argument, as you just did.
Thankyou for all the great links. I agree that AGW is a serious problem, and denying it could potentially be very dangerous (say, 10% chance of CAGW), and Green energy is about to show its hand big-time.
There is something import that I'd like to add. You have decried all the Malthusians since the 70s, but they've been around forever. (e.g., Christianity was, and still is, an apocalyptic cult.) It is a phenotype -- related to our genetic make-up -- and short of a eugenics program, or some evolutionary-scale event that punctures the genetic equilibrium, we will always have members of the population who are attracted to Malthusian dreams. If behavioural genetics doesn't make sense to you, then you can think of it as Jung's archetypal unconscious.
But, and it is a big but, it would be a mistake to believe that just because there is a Malthusian streak to a significant portion of the population (moths flying towards the flames) -- that does not mean that catastrophes never happen. A a collective, we have still failed to digest the Greek myth of Cassandra. The primary reason is the cognitive bubble, which characterizes pretty much all political discourse.
In the end, I believe that it is scientists -- real seekers of truth -- that identified the problem of AGW, and it will be scientists and engineers that save us. Our political discourse is simply too puerile for anything else.
And in this economy, climate change isn't even anywhere on the radar. It's a rich people's problem.
A revenue neutral carbon tax can be used to stimulate the economy, as it has done over the past 10 years in 1/5th of the US economy (relative to the rest of the US economy), and in Germany, which sustained 3% p.a. growth during a global recession.
/perceived/ as a rich people's problem; however, the shrill cries of economic Armageddon -- ironically by those who decry "alarmism" -- has confounded sane public discussion on the economic benefits of ploughing oil money directly back into pure market-based innovations that save energy.
AGW is
Energy bills have come down in North-Eastern USA for both industry and consumer. It is almost as if Adam's invisible hand can fall captive to tradition, and sometimes needs a little push.
If all your links are to one side of the issue, than it is likely that you know less than nothing, since you yourself will have no way of discriminating between something with a reasonable epistemological basis, and something that exists solely in a cognitive bubble.
If you really do have something of value with regards to good links on the topic, then by all means.
That sounds very much like the "no true communist state has ever existed" (i.e. No True Scotsman) lin
It is possible to fallaciously point out a logical fallacy. Perhaps you were being factitious? Nay, more like you're just shooting from the hip.
China may happily offer to sell them windmills etc to do it on a massive scale (and burn all the coal to do it ;) ).
China is building huge wind farms. Their energy-policy doesn't make sense at first blush because it isn't based on "four-legs-good, two-legs-bad" when it comes to traditional power generation.
The same could be said of the USA, which generates a huge amount of wind energy, and has developed (along with Europe) the know-how for integrating it seamlessly into the power grid. The USA also has a 1/5th of its economy under a carbon tax, which over the last 10 years, has saved industry and consumers $$$ on their power bills. Interesting how incentive structures give people the little push to save money long-term.
The "don't emit CO2" idea is not a very realistic one as far as reality is concerned.
I have met people who think that there are too many human beings, and the world could do with a big die-off. They are few and far between, and not representative of the majority who take environmental issues seriously. You are imaging a boggie-man if you think that that is what reducing CO2 emissions is all about.
The real question is: how can we sustain our project of civilization long-term?
From a scientific point of view -- which represents our best understanding -- we should be concerned about the long-term consequences of allow atmospheric CO2 to climb. Such measured analysis has nothing to do with kitsch throwaways like: "don't emit CO2" and "mass extinction of humankind".
Let me ask you a question. If your options were 1) Use a power source that doesn't require emission of CO2 to clean up CO2 or 2) Replace CO2 emitting power plants with power sources that don't require emission of CO2, which do you think would be more efficient? If you said #1, you missed a law of physics or two.
Obviously it is more efficient to simply produce energy in ways that emit little CO2 in the first place. However, because scientists tend to be very conservative, esp. en masse, we have every reason to believe that there is already too much CO2 in the atmosphere, and it will start to cost real $$$ and lives and human suffering in the coming decades. I am not saying that that is a certainty, but it is certainly a possibility.
So in makes sense to think about ways to remove the extant CO2.
Carbons Credits. Biggest legal scam going. And you just reminded me that I need to get my carbon bank up asap.
A thoughtful person would want to know what the consequences were of carbon-limiting legislation around the world, and, a large chunk of the USA.
If you think you already know the answer before looking... then I have no reason to believe that you know anything of value on the subject.
In particular, America and China.
China recognizes the necessity of action, and are developing huge wind farms. (6 at 20GW each. By comparison, France uses 80GW.)
A majority in the USA would like to see some action, and indeed, 1/5th of the USA lives under a carbon trading scheme -- with no evidence of any economic damage. A carbon neutral tax takes from the utility companies bottom line, and generates demand for energy efficient products and infrastructure. The official rggi report specifically shows that this is what has been happening over the last 10 years, with net savings for both consumers and business. Furthermore, this region of the US economy has grown in proportion to the rest of the USA. The "damage" of a carbon tax is a conservative myth. And besides, many Republicans want action on climate change, including supply-side economics guru Art Laffer.
Now, China wants the west to pay through the nose before it officially ties itself to any legally binding targets. Same with India, and the rest of the developed world. In my opinion, they have a victim complex, which does have some legitimate basis. But seriously: grow up.
But, returning to your post, it is too black-and-white to suggest that nothing is happening in the USA. And in China, the boots are marching.
Only the regressive climate-change denial machine stops real and cheap action on AGW, and for purely philosophical reasons that are not grounded in out best understanding of either science or economics. These people are not oil industry shills (although they do have oil-sugar-daddys) but they do really believe in the imminent threat of climate-change legislation.
History will not remember them kindly.
That's pretty odd, because they are the only party every giving lip service to wanting internet freedom. The democrats just want to regulate the hell out of it, at the behest of Hollywood... why would Republicans do anything Hollywood wanted?
It is true that there are problems there. However, Democrats are split on the issue, and don't vote on purely partisan lines.
But your point of view is from the land of cognitive dissonance. I have sympathy that you support the GOP, but are frustrated with their position on net neutrality. Consider that Obama has been very clear that he will veto anti-net-neutrality legislation. Romney and Ryan are going to the electorate with the opposite position. Wishful thinking will not make the GOP the good guys on this issue. If you vote GOP, then you are responsible for the consequences if they win, and break the internet so that AT&T can make more money.
Someone always has freedom from and someone else has freedom to. Change the party in power and those roles are revers
Not so fast. Both parties will give and take some freedoms. The GOP is involved in a war on sin. Taking away your moral freedoms is for your own good. They also want to give you economic freedoms.
The Democrats tent to be moral individualists. After-all who am I to tell you what is moral. (I happen to believe in the scientific basis of moral questions, which makes of mockery of this type of relativism.) The Democrats also would also like to give and take some economic freedoms.
As usual, the truth is not as simple as "change the party in power and those roles are revered."
If you are being given freedom, then you are by definition not free.
Gee... more blank-and-white thinking on moral truths. Have you ever heard of a thought terminating cliche?
I cannot believe that sensible people vote for these guys at all. How bizarre does the GOP platform have to be before the GOP-faithful put the breaks on and reclaim their party from the fundies.
Regarding the deadlocked congress on the debt ceiling, Bill Clinton pointed out that the public should not be so upset with congress, but instead take responsibility for who they vote in.
VOTE
And if congress deadlocks over fiscal policy, forks over truckloads to seniors in entitlement programs and the 1% in tax cuts, enacts medieval social policies, breaks the internet, slashes science programs, gives a free hand to the banking sector and anybody who wants to treat the atmosphere, land or waterways as a trash can, then YOU are responsible if you voted for the GOP.
I don't believe network neutrality is a Good Thing, because I recognize that most people's definition amounts to price fixing of bandwidth
You /know/ that net neutrality has nothing to do with bandwidth. Carriers cannot discriminate on content, source and destination. What is so difficult to explain. There's nothing about bandwidth in there.
And the public has a moral right to this, since the government paid for most of the infrastructure anyway, in huge corporate giveaways.
As always, it's the government (except the NSA) not being attractive enough or not paying enough to get some real experts on board.
Private industry is just as bad. The big bucks on on perception management, and anything technical is generally approached with a "don't bother me" attitude. This works in private industry, because perception management is actually more important to making money. Kinda like politics.
It depends on the organisation that you are working for. I have worked in excellent and poor government departments, and I have worked in excellent and poor private companies.
Face-palm stupidity is orthogonal the private/public axis.
The troubling part of many government organizations is it is more important to have a "certified and accredited", than to have system that works correctly and securely.
That is absolutely a problem with private industry as well. And if you raise questions -- the messenger will be shot. If you demonstrate that something is wrong, you may well be shown the door.
1% of the federal budget type stuff and ignore the pentagon programs
They also ignore the social security problems, because, in the end, a lot of their voters are old people on entitlement programs.
The GOP has strayed squarely into reactionary politics. Aside from social conservatism, their only platform is that they are against whatever democrats stand for. That is why they consistently vote against their own policies when they come from across the aisle.
Why would a woman want to raise a child who carries the genes of a rapist? That is her choice, and if you try and take that freedom away from her, then she may choose the shady back-alley in Mexico.
I feel disgust for the morally "superior" anti-abortionist.
The other group says if an individual hasn't been seen yet, it doesn't exist, and thus executing said individual is fine and not murder.
I am pro-choice, and that is definitely not what I believe.
Both groups are really kind of strange.
I see, you are painting yourself as a moderate. The truth is /always/ in between when it comes to controversy, right? I mean, the world might be 5 billion years old, or 6000. Obviously that means a moderate "rational" person would think that the world is 2.5 billion years old.
he second group generally doesn't function as stated verbatim, but rather believes that at some arbitrary time the unseen individual is suddenly real (like, second, third trimester, a specific number of days into pregnancy), just a magic but arbitrary switch that has nothing to do with physical development
*Now* we see your true colours. What a joke. Once did an ethics essay on treating the terminally ill, and found that there is no actual solid definable point where someone is dead or alive. Some goes when an zygote turns into a human being. That may be a little difficult to understand for the black-and-white thinker, and hence, we have the truly magical *assertion* that the soul enters the zygote at the time of fertilisation, and therefore, a zygote is a human being, and should be protected by the constitution.
A fetus does not have a functioning neocortex until the third trimester. How a fetus is an individual when it doesn't have a brain requires an encyclopedic ignorance of science. It is highly unlikely that an aborted fetus (in the 1st trimester) experiences anything, since pain is experienced in (and because of) the neocortex.
Can you provide a reference to this information?
Every place I ever worked at, government or private, or self-employed -- stupid little mistakes were made. Sometimes moderate. I found private industry to be sometimes asine, and as for government, don't polish your boots too much.
The point being, it is easy to point at fault. What is interesting is comparative problems. You know, a cost-benefit analysis. That might be too subtle for the US electorate, so gridlocked in its partisan myths, but such a thing can be done.
Anecdotally, I knew a Canadian doctor who did a 10 year work stint in the US before returning to Canada. Boy did he have horror stories to tell about the US healthcare system. He said he much preferred the Canadian system with all its faults, and that was purely from the point of view of being a doctor trying to do his job.
it would be much easier to get him extradited from the UK to the US than from Sweden.
On what charge? He was never in the USA, and is a foreign national? Do you know what sovereignty is?
If the USA went after Assage dirctly, the UK courts would have had no choice but to recognize that this was a politically motivated attack over wikileaks. So instead, they sent a spy and created some dirt.
Look, you completely misunderstood what I said. It has nothing to do with "free will". If you are interested, just re-read until you realize that I'm saying that action and consequence are confined to a single individual.