171–180 of 230 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you saying that the projections for the future should fit the past? I'm sorry.
Are you saying, that a model which does not fit past data will somehow correctly predict the future?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well in my experience that assumption often holds - most people aren't rational, don't understand the issues and will proceed to try and beat you down with "talking points". I have a two part test to figure out whether someone's a skeptic or a denier: 1. Ask them some sort of question about their position - "Why do you think X", or "How do you explain this weakpoint in your argument?" Basically try and put them on th…
It does often hold, but to me this doesn't justify the arrogance I see so often today. If we spoke with more honest language it might head off some of the defensive responses and make it easier to pinpoint the real break downs in communication. For example, for me the problem isn't that people aren't convinced by the GW evidence accumulated so far (either side). The problem is they are actively advocating a theory ba…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
MMGW: Man made Global Warming. >It's about a problem that should be taken seriously, because it is _global_ and it will affect future generations! And you do it again. Look, when you run out here screaming "We have to do something now! No time to discuss it and the other side are spewing nonsense anyway" you have the opposite effect. If time really is of the essence then all efforts should be in (a) proving that we f…
I get what you mean. But: You can lean back and discuss for the next decades without making a move in a direction. You can discuss and discuss and both sides will bring arguments and you will never find a conclusion. It's a sham. On the other hand it is quite obvious (without discussions, statistics, yada yada yada) that we are polluting the planet. I don't need figures for that, i just need to look out of my window.…
If we can't solve this problem then anything we do to save the environment now is just a band-aid.
>Germany, for example, is investing quite a lot into green energy. Just for fun? Or probably with a reason?
I think most everyone is on board with polluting less (with the obvious exception of people like the Koch brothers), it's just a question of how.
People point out, for example, that creating green technology can be more damaging then the potential savings in using it. I personally don't give this this argument much merit because we tend to get better at things when we do them more, but it just goes to show you that people who care just as much as you do still don't agree on how to tackle the issue.
>It's easier to accept the argument that everything is fine, not care about it and live as if nothing happened without reflecting.
I'm not sure as many people do this as you think. They may not agree with the severity of the issue but everyone understands that we are destroying at least parts of our environment (e.g. poisoning the oceans). That's not controversial.
>The quintessence is to not look away but do something.
We are. Not as fast as some people might like, but people are trying things. The reason is simple: there's money in it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>You will also understand just how strong the evidence for GW is. Here by GW I presume you mean Man made GW. In that case, many of the proponents are also ignorant of how strong (or not) the evidence is. They simply assume that the people paid to know, do. That's not a valid assumption.
Look, here's the thing. We know that CO2 absorbs light energy in the frequencies reflected by the Earth more than the frequencies that arrive from the sun. That is, any CO2 that you have in your atmosphere is going to lead to an increase in the rate of absorbtion of energy from the sun on a planetary scale. The spectrum of Earth's reflected light has been confirmed by satellites, the absorbtion spectrum of CO2 has be…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It does often hold, but to me this doesn't justify the arrogance I see so often today. If we spoke with more honest language it might head off some of the defensive responses and make it easier to pinpoint the real break downs in communication. For example, for me the problem isn't that people aren't convinced by the GW evidence accumulated so far (either side). The problem is they are actively advocating a theory ba…
Sure, but just because something isn't completely conclusive, doesn't mean that it's wrong, or that you shouldn't start taking action based on it. And where do you draw the line? If something's 99% certain, or 99.9% certain, at what point do you stop arguing and take it as fact? When are you allowed to start actively advocating a particular theory?
Those who are convinced should indeed start taking action.
>And where do you draw the line?
That's up to the person. Some people have a threshold so high it will always be beyond our grasp to meet, some have a threshold of "higher probability score than any alternative" no matter how low the probability actually is (e.g. 5% chance vs 2%, 1%, etc.).
>at what point do you stop arguing and take it as fact?
Again, it's up to the person. But again, if the person doesn't accept something as fact I'm fine with that. I'm not fine with them presenting their unconvinced-ness as some kind of alternative "theory".
>When are you allowed to start actively advocating a particular theory?
When you have one. "The other guy is probably wrong" isn't a theory.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, it's like arguing on a crowded bus. Everyone hears you, nobody cares and they either want you put in your place or told to STFU. I'm more dubious of the proposed solutions to global warming than anything as it looks highly like a band-aid infused with arsenic to me. Sure it'll kill the infection, but it could well kill you too. Go nuclear, it's the lesser of the evils. Existing infrastructure can be cannibalized…
How about building partially underwater coastline? Though, it could be an issue if there is a crack in the window. Instead of trying to stop global warming, maybe we should try living with it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you kidding?! I watched an anti-evolution video about a decade ago, and it was so creatively wrong it has been an endless source of mirth for me since. "You see, there was a giant ice shield around the Earth in the early days, and that messed up carbon dating. Then God melted it to create the flood!"
I can remember explaining evolution one Sunday morning to a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses who were very confused about how it all worked ("No, no, evolution isn't random . How it works is that you have this population of animals who are all slightly different..."). They lasted maybe half an hour or 45 minutes before they fled. I figured it was a public service - every minute they spend with me is one less minute that t…
http://www.myspace.com/captaincreationandthegodrobots
They said they liked the music, but I never told them the name of the band - I kind of wish I had.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Er, you didn't understand it correctly. The bot provides citations. Suppose that human-caused global warming is false. It would still be possible (and common) to make erroneous arguments about how humans aren't causing global warming. Skepticism is great, but most people's pro-X or anti-X nonsense isn't thoughtful skepticism. It's noise. This is a way of injecting signal back into the noise.
You realize that you're defending a bot which provides random citations base on key phrases found in twitter posts on the claim that "most people's ... nonsense isn't ...skepticism, It's noise"? Here is someone providing no thought and adding nothing to the discussion, by definition, he is providing noise. Just because you disagree with someone, doesn't mean what they say is nonsense. The primary attribute of the glo…
Do you understand what you did here? I explicitly said "pro-X or anti-X" to abstract out the truth-value of X. I don't care whether X is true or not [EDIT: for the sake of this argument]. Yet, because I used your keyword "nonsense", you assume that I'm calling human-global-warning (AGW) skeptics' arguments nonsense.
In effect, I've triggered your auto-rant based on a keyword. It's ok, I do it too. In fact, we all do it. In this sense we're no better than chat-bots. Or, turning it around, a well curated chat-bot has the possibility of providing answers that are at least as good as some of our worse answers.
> Here is someone providing no thought and adding nothing to the discussion, by definition, he is providing noise.
Why use the phrase "by definition". This is just a dogmatic assertion. You have to work the argument.
Thought can be recorded. If I hand someone a leaflet, is it noise, by definition? Of course not! So, if thought and care and good arguments are recorded, then handing out appropriate ones at appropriate times is far from noise. The actual arguments may or may not be nonsense, but that depends on their content, not their delivery mechanism.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, it's like arguing on a crowded bus. Everyone hears you, nobody cares and they either want you put in your place or told to STFU. I'm more dubious of the proposed solutions to global warming than anything as it looks highly like a band-aid infused with arsenic to me. Sure it'll kill the infection, but it could well kill you too. Go nuclear, it's the lesser of the evils. Existing infrastructure can be cannibalized…
Furthermore, the totality of all nuclear accidents in the world has caused less deaths than coal soot alone. This is where the current environmentalist movement has really failed: "Don't burn shit, it's bad for the environment and it's bad for us" was a compelling story, because it's pretty obviously true and hard to fight back against. When environmentalism was all about smog, coal burning, and all that nasty stuff,…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect that part of the problem is that, at least with climate deniers, is that there's no real meat to their arguments. I know a few, and most of their arguments boil down to hearsay or "denier blog X says so, and who trusts Obama/the UN world government anyway". If they provided a link to something supporting their position I'd probably pass out from shock. At least 95% of the argument with deniers is basically…
"I suspect that part of the problem is that, at least with climate deniers, is that there's no real meat to their arguments. I know a few, and most of their arguments boil down to hearsay or "denier blog X says so, and who trusts Obama/the UN world government anyway". If they provided a link to something supporting their position I'd probably pass out from shock." All of the global warming data is based on informatio…
Also, the profits from purchasing carbon credits do not go directly into Al Gore's pocket. I don't have any idea where anyone would get such a stupid idea.