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Birds Are Vanishing from North America

nytimes.com

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Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#331

Post by JulianMorrison »

fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #311
anigbrowl wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your approach will fail for the same reason than an ethical environmental appeal does. Enough humans who feel and fear their impending mortality are selfish and vindictive enough to obstruct change because they want to conserve whatever material comforts they have now and do not care about what happens to other people after they're dead. I would go so far as to say that some of them take a perverse pleasure in the id…

>Enough humans who feel and fear their impending mortality are selfish and vindictive enough to obstruct change because they want to conserve whatever material comforts they have now and do not care about what happens to other people after they're dead. Sent from my iPhone

Oh hey I have to survive in society, this means I can't have opinions about how utterly fucked up that society is, because if I wanted to do that, I should starve myself and die to avoid hypocrisy in the eyes of random internet strangers.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#332

Post by JulianMorrison »

socialist_coder wrote: post #179
anigbrowl wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your approach will fail for the same reason than an ethical environmental appeal does. Enough humans who feel and fear their impending mortality are selfish and vindictive enough to obstruct change because they want to conserve whatever material comforts they have now and do not care about what happens to other people after they're dead. I would go so far as to say that some of them take a perverse pleasure in the id…

I don't disagree, but I also think it is important to note that what you are describing is baked into our entire economic system. Economic actors all acting rationally in their own best interest, which automatically filters out any long term multi-generational outlook. Capitalism is the root cause here.

Which is why it must be torn down.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#334

Post by ping_pong »

appleiigs wrote: post #217
ping_pong wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's only one jump: I don't trust the data, so I'm not yet concerned by this click-bait title. In this day of clickbait titles, studies that are not reproducible, and suspect motivation for studies, the idea that we can calculate the total number of birds with an error rate of less than 30%, including the fact that some data is 50 years old, doesn't pass my smell test. I would prefer waiting for accurate data rath…

> The analysis, published in the journal Science, is the most exhaustive and ambitious attempt yet to learn what is happening to avian populations. > A team of researchers from universities, government agencies and nonprofit organizations collaborated on the new study, which combined old and new methods for counting birds. > Kevin Gaston, a conservation biologist at the University of Exeter > Hillary Young, a conserv…

Not once does the article state the expected error rate with the calculation. Even polls give an error rate when they are announced. Saying 29% decrease without having an idea of its accuracy is meaningless. This is simple science. We learned about giving error estimates in college in every single experiment, and now it's okay to throw those out because it concurs with your world view?

Sorry but I prefer to look at things scientifically. You can continue to believe things that fit in your world view, but I prefer science over religion.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#335

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

joey_bob wrote: post #225
appleiigs wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The analysis, published in the journal Science, is the most exhaustive and ambitious attempt yet to learn what is happening to avian populations. > A team of researchers from universities, government agencies and nonprofit organizations collaborated on the new study, which combined old and new methods for counting birds. > Kevin Gaston, a conservation biologist at the University of Exeter > Hillary Young, a conserv…

This appeal to authority probably won't be very effective in convincing thr root commenter about the validity of the study. None of the quotes addres the concerns about counting methods, and the experts cited are more likely to be seen as experts in biology than statistics, inference, and logic.

If the experts do this sort of work often they'll be proficient in the application of statistics. We don't distrust engineers because they aren't the people who came up with the physics they are applying.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#336

Post by vpmpaul »

monktastic1 wrote: post #245
vpmpaul wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>psychedelics Every "epiphany" that someone has told me they had while on psychedelics has been something that easily could have been come up with a bit of quite time and thought. I have never heard a single story that blew me away or offered anything but mundane "insights" that easily could be gotten other ways. Its time for the "psychedelics" people to come clean and just admit they are simply getting high.

Have you seen any of the studies where psychedelics are able to resolve conditions like anxiety and depression that are resistant to other treatments? When a person goes through that kind of epiphany, it may sound insipid in words -- and thus not blow you away or sound like mundane "insights" -- but insights don't always have to be verbalizable. "Life is miraculous" sounds pretty obvious, but there are certainly time…

I was talking about these "grand revelations" people claim to get. Medical use is an entirely different thing.

Your second half just reinforces my original point. Its an "experience" ie just getting high.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#337

Post by vpmpaul »

reassembled wrote: post #135
vpmpaul wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>psychedelics Every "epiphany" that someone has told me they had while on psychedelics has been something that easily could have been come up with a bit of quite time and thought. I have never heard a single story that blew me away or offered anything but mundane "insights" that easily could be gotten other ways. Its time for the "psychedelics" people to come clean and just admit they are simply getting high.

That's a profoundly cynical view on experiencing, well, anything really. That's like saying couples in love should just wake up to the fact that an experience of love has zero nuance and can be summed up with a single word.

My point is no one is going to cure cancer or solve global issues because of psychedelics.

I have no issues with experiencing things. I just don't like that people try to sell it like it is anything more than that.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#338

Post by fuzz4lyfe »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #331
fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Enough humans who feel and fear their impending mortality are selfish and vindictive enough to obstruct change because they want to conserve whatever material comforts they have now and do not care about what happens to other people after they're dead. Sent from my iPhone

Oh hey I have to survive in society, this means I can't have opinions about how utterly fucked up that society is, because if I wanted to do that, I should starve myself and die to avoid hypocrisy in the eyes of random internet strangers.

You are society. Society is a large number of individuals just like you all pointing at each other and proclaiming everyone else is the problem. Do not ask others to do things you yourself are not doing. You care about climate change? Show me, don't tell me.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#339

Post by solotronics »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #230
solotronics wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lean more towards ignorance than malice. The average Earth person (out of all 11 billion) probably doesn't have as solid of a scientific or historical background to form an educated opinion on what affect we are having on the ecosystem in the long term.

Population is ~7.7 billion

See! I don't even know how many people are on Earth :]

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#340

Post by socialist_coder »

Kaiyou wrote: post #322
socialist_coder wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree, but I also think it is important to note that what you are describing is baked into our entire economic system. Economic actors all acting rationally in their own best interest, which automatically filters out any long term multi-generational outlook. Capitalism is the root cause here.

It's hardly the fault of capitalism that lots of people do not believe in human responsibility for climate change. I wouldn't advise to force people into complying with your vision.

The point here is that it does't matter if they believe or not. Capitalism does not let them stay true to their beliefs.

Businesses that act in a sustainable way will not be as competitive as businesses that don't. So, it's very hard to be sustainable in a capitalism system that doesn't "price in" the externalities of the natural world that we've been taking for granted.

You can use the same example for globalization and offshoring of jobs. If I'm a business owner who manufactures cheap things, it doesn't matter how much I care about keeping my factory in the US or Europe because other factories will go to where the labor is cheapest and out compete me. So, I'm forced to do it too just to compete.

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