Salt in the sea is pollution of the worlds oceans.
If you increased the salt concentration in the sea, you will kill everything. The question is how much. That is an empirical question, and has nothing to do with politics.
The part about going from TRACE_AMOUNT to 2x TRACE_AMOUNT is just not all that persuasive of an argument that we are about to become Venus.
Well, a TRACE_AMOUNT of botox is cosmetic, but 2x TRACE_AMOUNT is lethal. I mean, who would have thought!
The point about Venus is crass. The earth's climate is different. CO2 has historically been a feedback (that produces more feedbacks), and now it is a forcing that produces the same feedbacks. The question of climate sensitivity to CO2 is an empirical one. I will take real journal publications (some of which I have read) over your gut-reaction ALL-CAPS reasoning.
What? You mean 98% of climate scientists overlooked this simple fact?
Let's see. Dictionary definition of pollutant: "any substance, as certain chemicals or waste products, that renders the air, soil, water, or other natural resource harmful or unsuitable for a specific purpose."
Well, well, it seems that CO2 is a pollutant depending on whether they become harmful (or unsuitable) at certain concentrations. Admittedly the word "concentration" doesn't appear in the dictionary.com definition -- but these guys aren't chemists.
So, for the vast majority of humans, it does boil down to a leap of faith.
There is a very simple time-saving metric which allows you do discover whether someone knows what they are talking about, or are living in fantasy-land making stuff up. (And the surprisingly sparse gradations in-between.) It is as simple as recursively spot checking the references. Pick on constrained topic and try and work out whether the argument is supported. Then look for the counter-arguments and do the same.
Ideologues are almost always so sloppy in how they make stuff up, that it becomes obvious in a matter of hours or less. This is surprisingly efficient, because debate polarises so quickly.
Profit margins for restaurants are usually around 3-4%. So, if they paid more, they'd probably just eliminate staff and automate more.
This is so not true. In Australia, the staff are paid more (a lot more), and the restaurant meals are cheaper. How can this be possible? The answer is worker productivity. I have worked in the restaurant industry in both Australia and Canada/USA, so I have first hand experience with this. The Canada/USA labour-force is poor in comparison -- both training and work ethic.
There is an interesting bit of history for why Australia has higher minimum wages and greater productivity for minimum-wage workers. It is because of a deal the unions made with industry back in the early 80s, called the Accord. If a workers increase their productivity, then businesses couldn't refuse passing on some of the revenue as a pay raise.
So unions became responsible for worker productivity (otherwise they couldn't obtain pay rises), and then everyone benefited.
The Constitution and Bill of Rights say nothing about the "separation of church and state." It simply states that, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
I can't believe that that is your argument. No analysis or opinion of whether or not separation of church and state is a good thing. Just that the magic document doesn't prohibit it. That is the same intellectual footing as young-earther christians. *facepalm*
That said, it's just silly to infer that extra snow means the globe isn't warming.
Indeed. In the process of joining conclusions backwards to supporting evidence, may denialists indeed use such an argument. The smart ones move onto smarter arguments, but nothing that hasn't already been definitively answered for someone willing to look.
Political reasoning is abhorrently dishonest, even in really smart people. Curiously enough, the mind prevents us from seeing just how dishonest we are being with ourselves. We really could solve our problems with politics didn't involve so much head-in-ass time.
Compare the tax as % of GDP of every country in the world, and try and find any place nicer then the USA that pays/less/ tax. (Hint, no such place exists.) The difference between the USA and the rest of the developed world, is that the USA spends 33% and only taxes at 25%. In other words, they want their cake and eat it too. Just like Spain/Italy/Greece.
you really shouldn't bring up serfdom. A serf paid his master only 25% of his earning
A serf didn't get the infrastructure, education, health care, and social benefits of a modern society either. (Government run health-care/education actually works outside the USA.)
If you really object to paying taxes, then move to El Salvador, where it is essentially optional. Go for it!
It should also be noted that when the Republican House passed a measure last week to extend that interest rate, the President immmediately threatened a veto
For fucks sake, why is it that the politically minded always stop at recrimination, and never point out the reasons for why things are done.
Both the Rs and the Ds want the student load extension project to be funded. They are arguing about/how/ to fund it. The Republicans want to fund the program with cuts to preventative health services. The Democrats want to fund the program by closing tax loopholes that Republicans have previously wanted closed.
So... how do/you/ think the program should be funded?
I hear ya.....tell that to Obama...I've never seen a guy with such thin skin.
There is actual real criticism that could be made of Obama. I rarely hear conservatives making it -- but instead get bizarrely off the mark dribble like this. Any outside observer will note that Obama is a very cool rational person who speaks in measured tones -- quite the opposite of what you suggest.
This is, of course, falling on deaf ears, since perspective is completely alien to people who say things like "Obama has such a thin skin". You just know that it comes from some right-wing echo chamber that's disconnected from the rest of the world. I know it is scary to break out of this comfy padded cell, but seriously, this is just madness.
If the US only produced domestic cars, then your response might be reasonable. However, if the USA is going to export one car, (or import parts from one other country), then they will need to deal with the metric system. Furthermore, regarding left-hand drive, it is used in Japan and the UK, which are huge markets.
What you have said is so absurd... perhaps it has more to do with cognitive dissonance then anything else.
You're obviously trolling.. but 1 AUD is 1.047 USD
The US dollar wont recover because of the debt situation. Devaluing the dollar is one way to deal with debt. Printing money, and causing inflation, is another way. (Think quantitative easing.)
The US dollar fell during the Bush years, after profligate spending coupled with large tax cuts. But the fundamental problems in the US economy were already there.
It is entirely plausible that the US dollar could fall further; however, currency rates are always relative, and the US dollar should gain against the Euro in the coming years.
How stupid do you think the chinese are? A hardware backdoor in every device means that if you lose control of it even once, your entire infrastructure belongs to whoever you lost it to. I don't think anyone would take that risk for a bit of spying, not if you already have 100 better ways of spying.
The fearmongering is a valid point. However, the rest of your sentence is nonsense. People who make political decisions are rarely connected to the realities of their policies. Why do you think Stephen Conray wants to protect children be censoring the internet? The Australian PM admitted that it is a moral decision and not a technical one. Think about that for a moment, and then translate to China -- a place where 20 million people starved to death in the late 60s, because Mao wanted to increase steel production, and people melted their farming tools.
The world is irrational. Don't expect someone to hold back on "great idea" because it has the potential to backfire.
Okay, I deliberately belittled you. And for good reason, from my point of view. You gotta get over that if you are going to speak to people with different points of view. The point of running your "brilliant" idea past skepticalscience, is because it has almost certainly already been thoroughly debunked, and it will be explained there. If the explanation if wrong, then we can fix it. The people who manage that site want a comprehensive and accurate rebuttal of "skeptic" talking points. Note that I am not saying they are correct.
The reason for belittling you has to do with the emotional quality of debates. The mind protects its beliefs with powerful emotions. If you cannot deal with a little discomfort, how are you going to deal with the rug being pulled out from beneath you.
I can tell you that I have gone through all this myself. When my world model was crushed, it was quite dis-orientating, and I was angry for a very long time at the people who self-righteously taught me various myths for my own good. (They wanted to believe them too.)
To understand just how poor the "skeptics" case is against climate science, I think it helps to read the debunking handbook, which talks purely about the psychological elements of protecting ignorance. This handbook is not specific to any set of beliefs.
Therefore, you could use the information in this handbook to debunk my erroneous beliefs.
Be warned, however, that I really understand these issues extremely well, and will be ahead of you when you are trying to come up with reasons for why 2+2 = 5 or whatever.
Slashdot is not the best place for this type of thing. Send me an email.
An appeal to authority is where you say something is correct because some authority says so. If you look closely you will see that I am asking you to find something wrong or missing in the "authority". Not really the same thing, is it =0.
2) You've assumed (within the context of an argument) that you are coming from the correct position, instead of actually building your argument, which makes it impossible to have any debate.
This is my right. You are welcome to try and prove me wrong with arguments, but I'm not going to let you waste my time.
3) The idea that you can stick to a single point of discussion on a topic which solely focuses on a chaotic system containing thousands of variables. According to your rule, I'd have to demonstrate why a model's assumptions are incorrect instead of being able to correctly point out that it's moot because the data is wrong.
If you are correct about AGW, then this wouldn't worry you. And besides, I gave you carte blanche to choose the weak point in the AGW story.
I refuse to have a "debate" with someone who starts from the position of "assume everything ever said in my favour is correct".
Well, well, well. Methinks that subconscious cost-functions have something to do with this display of indignation. Yes, you are indeed the victim here. It simply isn't possible that you've already
If you are really interested in learning something about AGW, you will read different sources, and follow the references. This is such a simple thing to do (emotionally difficult, and also time consuming), but it is such a powerful technique to work out who knows what they are talking about and who is blowing gas.
If you find a genuine mistake on skeptical-science, then I am the moderators there will be delighted to know.
I am a scientist, but not a climate scientist. Got degrees in psychology and electrical engineering, and do research in cognitive science.
As such, I know a lot about how the human mind works, and in particular, how the mind protects ignorance. To have a debate, there has to be rules -- rules that believers of any sort can never follow. You/always/ restrict discussion to a single point, and/never/ discuss anything outside of that point until it is settled. The plays directly against the mechanisms of denial.
Personally, I don't think it is worth debating you, since you can find all the arguments already enumerated and answered online. skepticalscience is a good source, but nothing beats reading actual journal publications.
If you want to try this, then find some argument that hasn't already been rebutted on skeptical-science. Furthermore, you must agree to the rule. I will hold you to it, and I will keep score. A failure to stick to the rule is an admission that you are wrong, refuse to admit it, and are wasting my time.
Thank-you for saying something interesting about the political process. We could actually solve our problems if we could dialogue with each other. Instead, we get truly childish and hate-filled "discourse", and an inability to self-reflect or escape from this destructive process.
It's not evil at all, it's no different than what every union does
This is true.
But... there is already a power differential between a worker an their boss. It would be hard to argue that employers need/more/ power over their employees through such antics.
Is it possible that MS and Nokia are astroturfing? Isn't is even likely? Check this out (from below)
I went through a lot of Lumia 900 reviews on Amazon. Most of them repeat the same stuff. And for most of the reviews, Lumia 900 is the only review, nothing else ever reviewed. Several reviewers had the same text posted on different colors of Lumia 900 and had no other reviews.
My guess is that MS/Nokia shills are everywhere, not just on Slashdot...
Say you're not an astroturfer are you? You didn't just create an account to astroturf slashdot?.
Slashdot Mirror
Salt in the sea is pollution of the worlds oceans.
If you increased the salt concentration in the sea, you will kill everything. The question is how much. That is an empirical question, and has nothing to do with politics.
The part about going from TRACE_AMOUNT to 2x TRACE_AMOUNT is just not all that persuasive of an argument that we are about to become Venus.
Well, a TRACE_AMOUNT of botox is cosmetic, but 2x TRACE_AMOUNT is lethal. I mean, who would have thought!
The point about Venus is crass. The earth's climate is different. CO2 has historically been a feedback (that produces more feedbacks), and now it is a forcing that produces the same feedbacks. The question of climate sensitivity to CO2 is an empirical one. I will take real journal publications (some of which I have read) over your gut-reaction ALL-CAPS reasoning.
The reason being, CO2 is NOT POLLUTION.
What? You mean 98% of climate scientists overlooked this simple fact?
Let's see. Dictionary definition of pollutant: "any substance, as certain chemicals or waste products, that renders the air, soil, water, or other natural resource harmful or unsuitable for a specific purpose."
Well, well, it seems that CO2 is a pollutant depending on whether they become harmful (or unsuitable) at certain concentrations. Admittedly the word "concentration" doesn't appear in the dictionary.com definition -- but these guys aren't chemists.
Let me guess, you're going to stick by your claim that CO2 is NOT POLLUTION, as the start and end of your ideological analysis. To which I say: pathetic.
So, for the vast majority of humans, it does boil down to a leap of faith.
There is a very simple time-saving metric which allows you do discover whether someone knows what they are talking about, or are living in fantasy-land making stuff up. (And the surprisingly sparse gradations in-between.) It is as simple as recursively spot checking the references. Pick on constrained topic and try and work out whether the argument is supported. Then look for the counter-arguments and do the same.
Ideologues are almost always so sloppy in how they make stuff up, that it becomes obvious in a matter of hours or less. This is surprisingly efficient, because debate polarises so quickly.
Profit margins for restaurants are usually around 3-4%. So, if they paid more, they'd probably just eliminate staff and automate more.
This is so not true. In Australia, the staff are paid more (a lot more), and the restaurant meals are cheaper. How can this be possible? The answer is worker productivity. I have worked in the restaurant industry in both Australia and Canada/USA, so I have first hand experience with this. The Canada/USA labour-force is poor in comparison -- both training and work ethic.
There is an interesting bit of history for why Australia has higher minimum wages and greater productivity for minimum-wage workers. It is because of a deal the unions made with industry back in the early 80s, called the Accord. If a workers increase their productivity, then businesses couldn't refuse passing on some of the revenue as a pay raise.
So unions became responsible for worker productivity (otherwise they couldn't obtain pay rises), and then everyone benefited.
Go figure.
ARM won't take anything from the server or desktop market, so the only current Intel market left is laptops.
We are heading into an era of performance per watt. I imagine data warehouses would appreciate the $$$ savings for running low-power servers.
The Constitution and Bill of Rights say nothing about the "separation of church and state." It simply states that, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
I can't believe that that is your argument. No analysis or opinion of whether or not separation of church and state is a good thing. Just that the magic document doesn't prohibit it. That is the same intellectual footing as young-earther christians. *facepalm*
That said, it's just silly to infer that extra snow means the globe isn't warming.
Indeed. In the process of joining conclusions backwards to supporting evidence, may denialists indeed use such an argument. The smart ones move onto smarter arguments, but nothing that hasn't already been definitively answered for someone willing to look.
Political reasoning is abhorrently dishonest, even in really smart people. Curiously enough, the mind prevents us from seeing just how dishonest we are being with ourselves. We really could solve our problems with politics didn't involve so much head-in-ass time.
Compare the tax as % of GDP of every country in the world, and try and find any place nicer then the USA that pays /less/ tax. (Hint, no such place exists.) The difference between the USA and the rest of the developed world, is that the USA spends 33% and only taxes at 25%. In other words, they want their cake and eat it too. Just like Spain/Italy/Greece.
you really shouldn't bring up serfdom. A serf paid his master only 25% of his earning
A serf didn't get the infrastructure, education, health care, and social benefits of a modern society either. (Government run health-care/education actually works outside the USA.)
If you really object to paying taxes, then move to El Salvador, where it is essentially optional. Go for it!
The problem is not so much a publicly funded education system but a government-run education system.
Governments in other parts of the world seem to do better with education. Perhaps ideological blind-spots are the root of the problem.
It should also be noted that when the Republican House passed a measure last week to extend that interest rate, the President immmediately threatened a veto
For fucks sake, why is it that the politically minded always stop at recrimination, and never point out the reasons for why things are done.
/how/ to fund it. The Republicans want to fund the program with cuts to preventative health services. The Democrats want to fund the program by closing tax loopholes that Republicans have previously wanted closed.
/you/ think the program should be funded?
Both the Rs and the Ds want the student load extension project to be funded. They are arguing about
So... how do
Well???
I hear ya.....tell that to Obama...I've never seen a guy with such thin skin.
There is actual real criticism that could be made of Obama. I rarely hear conservatives making it -- but instead get bizarrely off the mark dribble like this. Any outside observer will note that Obama is a very cool rational person who speaks in measured tones -- quite the opposite of what you suggest.
This is, of course, falling on deaf ears, since perspective is completely alien to people who say things like "Obama has such a thin skin". You just know that it comes from some right-wing echo chamber that's disconnected from the rest of the world. I know it is scary to break out of this comfy padded cell, but seriously, this is just madness.
If the US only produced domestic cars, then your response might be reasonable. However, if the USA is going to export one car, (or import parts from one other country), then they will need to deal with the metric system. Furthermore, regarding left-hand drive, it is used in Japan and the UK, which are huge markets.
What you have said is so absurd... perhaps it has more to do with cognitive dissonance then anything else.
You're obviously trolling.. but 1 AUD is 1.047 USD
The US dollar wont recover because of the debt situation. Devaluing the dollar is one way to deal with debt. Printing money, and causing inflation, is another way. (Think quantitative easing.)
The US dollar fell during the Bush years, after profligate spending coupled with large tax cuts. But the fundamental problems in the US economy were already there.
It is entirely plausible that the US dollar could fall further; however, currency rates are always relative, and the US dollar should gain against the Euro in the coming years.
How stupid do you think the chinese are? A hardware backdoor in every device means that if you lose control of it even once, your entire infrastructure belongs to whoever you lost it to. I don't think anyone would take that risk for a bit of spying, not if you already have 100 better ways of spying.
The fearmongering is a valid point. However, the rest of your sentence is nonsense. People who make political decisions are rarely connected to the realities of their policies. Why do you think Stephen Conray wants to protect children be censoring the internet? The Australian PM admitted that it is a moral decision and not a technical one. Think about that for a moment, and then translate to China -- a place where 20 million people starved to death in the late 60s, because Mao wanted to increase steel production, and people melted their farming tools.
The world is irrational. Don't expect someone to hold back on "great idea" because it has the potential to backfire.
Okay, I deliberately belittled you. And for good reason, from my point of view. You gotta get over that if you are going to speak to people with different points of view. The point of running your "brilliant" idea past skepticalscience, is because it has almost certainly already been thoroughly debunked, and it will be explained there. If the explanation if wrong, then we can fix it. The people who manage that site want a comprehensive and accurate rebuttal of "skeptic" talking points. Note that I am not saying they are correct.
The reason for belittling you has to do with the emotional quality of debates. The mind protects its beliefs with powerful emotions. If you cannot deal with a little discomfort, how are you going to deal with the rug being pulled out from beneath you.
I can tell you that I have gone through all this myself. When my world model was crushed, it was quite dis-orientating, and I was angry for a very long time at the people who self-righteously taught me various myths for my own good. (They wanted to believe them too.)
To understand just how poor the "skeptics" case is against climate science, I think it helps to read the debunking handbook, which talks purely about the psychological elements of protecting ignorance. This handbook is not specific to any set of beliefs.
Therefore, you could use the information in this handbook to debunk my erroneous beliefs.
Be warned, however, that I really understand these issues extremely well, and will be ahead of you when you are trying to come up with reasons for why 2+2 = 5 or whatever.
Slashdot is not the best place for this type of thing. Send me an email.
1) Appeal to authority skepticalscience.com
An appeal to authority is where you say something is correct because some authority says so. If you look closely you will see that I am asking you to find something wrong or missing in the "authority". Not really the same thing, is it =0.
2) You've assumed (within the context of an argument) that you are coming from the correct position, instead of actually building your argument, which makes it impossible to have any debate.
This is my right. You are welcome to try and prove me wrong with arguments, but I'm not going to let you waste my time.
3) The idea that you can stick to a single point of discussion on a topic which solely focuses on a chaotic system containing thousands of variables. According to your rule, I'd have to demonstrate why a model's assumptions are incorrect instead of being able to correctly point out that it's moot because the data is wrong.
If you are correct about AGW, then this wouldn't worry you. And besides, I gave you carte blanche to choose the weak point in the AGW story.
I refuse to have a "debate" with someone who starts from the position of "assume everything ever said in my favour is correct".
Well, well, well. Methinks that subconscious cost-functions have something to do with this display of indignation. Yes, you are indeed the victim here. It simply isn't possible that you've already
If you are really interested in learning something about AGW, you will read different sources, and follow the references. This is such a simple thing to do (emotionally difficult, and also time consuming), but it is such a powerful technique to work out who knows what they are talking about and who is blowing gas.
If you find a genuine mistake on skeptical-science, then I am the moderators there will be delighted to know.
I am a scientist, but not a climate scientist. Got degrees in psychology and electrical engineering, and do research in cognitive science.
/always/ restrict discussion to a single point, and /never/ discuss anything outside of that point until it is settled. The plays directly against the mechanisms of denial.
As such, I know a lot about how the human mind works, and in particular, how the mind protects ignorance. To have a debate, there has to be rules -- rules that believers of any sort can never follow. You
Personally, I don't think it is worth debating you, since you can find all the arguments already enumerated and answered online. skepticalscience is a good source, but nothing beats reading actual journal publications.
If you want to try this, then find some argument that hasn't already been rebutted on skeptical-science. Furthermore, you must agree to the rule. I will hold you to it, and I will keep score. A failure to stick to the rule is an admission that you are wrong, refuse to admit it, and are wasting my time.
My email is: aaron at pageofswords net
Thank-you for saying something interesting about the political process. We could actually solve our problems if we could dialogue with each other. Instead, we get truly childish and hate-filled "discourse", and an inability to self-reflect or escape from this destructive process.
The overall the US defense budget has been declining
You can pick and choose statistics to show whatever you want. That's why there's the expression "Lies, damn lies, and statistics".
It is hard to imagine a scenario where the USA needs to spend as much on the military as the rest of the world combined.
Another proof that US is run by jews who want Iran gone.
You wouldn't be demonstrating the confirmation bias, would you? Just saying...
It's not evil at all, it's no different than what every union does
This is true.
/more/ power over their employees through such antics.
But... there is already a power differential between a worker an their boss. It would be hard to argue that employers need
Post examples of this massive, fraudulent Astroturfing campaign on Amazon, or STFU please.
Haha, that would be you. Long-time slashdot contributor.
NOT
Hope you sleep well at night, knowing what a TURD you are.
Is it possible that MS and Nokia are astroturfing? Isn't is even likely? Check this out (from below)
I went through a lot of Lumia 900 reviews on Amazon. Most of them repeat the same stuff. And for most of the reviews, Lumia 900 is the only review, nothing else ever reviewed. Several reviewers had the same text posted on different colors of Lumia 900 and had no other reviews.
My guess is that MS/Nokia shills are everywhere, not just on Slashdot...
Say you're not an astroturfer are you? You didn't just create an account to astroturf slashdot?.
YOU ARE A TURD.