271–280 of 578 posts
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Why won’t anything else matter?
Society will collapse when we become unable to ensure food security, and massive climate refugee migrations overwhelm our infrastructure.
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There is a severely underestimated group of religious people who think that only God controls the weather, His reasons for what he does with it are not for you to evaluate, and that saying that humans can change the weather is blasphemy. It's easy to make fun of, but the most direct experience that people have of a God who controls the universe would be the weather. These people need to be approached theologically; s…
I have never been able to get my head around the religious paradox of God has a plan and free will. Can we make choices that effect the outcome of things or is it all part of Gods plan? It can't be both right? Did God create everything including free will or does it exist outside of his control? I don't blame my program when it does something wrong, I mean I wrote the code that tells it how to behave.
You'd think that forcing god to take some action would not be a concept, but it goes at least as far back as the ten commandments. The "take the lord's name in vain" thing was this idea that words had magical power in a snow crash kind of way and that you could literally go so far as to command god with the right incantation. Obviously that's a big no no which is why "saying curse words" was considered higher priority than "don't rape". You see pieces of that still in Orthodox Jewish numerology of Hebrew like was a plot point in Pi.
For example, people don't want to live in the Rust Belt because the winters are too cold. Could the region's economic viability increase if winters get milder?
In some places, climate change makes things worse for growing crops, makes people need to move out, or increases the probability of disasters. Everyone is talking about this.
In other places, climate change should be making things better for growing crops, making people want to move in, or decreasing the probability of disasters. Why is no one talking about this?
What's up with the asymmetry?
Edit: Wow this got downvoted fast. I was hoping to get meaningful answers to a genuine question from knowledgeable people with minimum political agenda, but apparently the HN crowd isn't good at dealing with even slightly contrarian takes on this issue.
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As I see things the only solution is that humans need to stop reproducing so much. There are far too many people for the resources of the planet given current technology.
this is a myth from the 1970s. it has been debunked countless times (even by history itself), but people still fall back to this.
There are not enough resources for everyone to live like we Americans. As the world gets richer we’ll collectively destroy more of the environment. This is not disputable.
On record meaning 142 years of history. Sometimes people conflate "on record" with "ever since humans were around" but on a species scale 142 years is basically no history at all. Not to say that climate change isn't a very serious issue, but we will likely have to live with the realities of where we are headed, and life has adapted in the past to much larger swings of temperature.
"Life" will adapt. Ecosystems won't. It really sounds like you're expressing your feelings about a likely mass extinction event as "shit happens, what're you gonna do?"
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Remember that global warming is not real. If it is real, then we don't know what is causing it. If we do know what is causing, it is not humans. If we do know it is humans causing it, then there is nothing we can do about it. If there is something we can do about it, it's not worth it, think of the jobs.
I believe in climate change, the evidence is there when looking at the earth’s geographical shifts in time. The question I pose to people which sometimes is misinterpreted is this: What will we do in order to survive climate change? All we hear is how to consume “greener” products. Where’s the plan for major city relocation, new technologies, etc?
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There is a severely underestimated group of religious people who think that only God controls the weather, His reasons for what he does with it are not for you to evaluate, and that saying that humans can change the weather is blasphemy. It's easy to make fun of, but the most direct experience that people have of a God who controls the universe would be the weather. These people need to be approached theologically; s…
I have never been able to get my head around the religious paradox of God has a plan and free will. Can we make choices that effect the outcome of things or is it all part of Gods plan? It can't be both right? Did God create everything including free will or does it exist outside of his control? I don't blame my program when it does something wrong, I mean I wrote the code that tells it how to behave.
Now, I don’t know what you hold dear, but I guarantee you, somewhere you hold a fundamental belief that is inconsistent with something else you believe at a fundamental level. That’s what makes belief systems tick - you run into something you can’t reason your way out of and must commit to taking something on faith.
Paradoxes are not flaws in belief systems, they are essential.
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Most of the deniers I know have shifted from it doesn't exist to either its not man made and just a natural cycle or it may actually be a good thing because plants like CO2 and warmth...
I had to explain this to a relative who started in with the “the earth has always had climate change” jibberish. They tried to tell me no-one knows how the last Ice Age happened. So I explained, but because they didn’t understand any of the concepts involved they thought I was just making it up. It’s a good reminder never to assume malice when plain old stupidity is on the table.
This is the worst kind of bullshit, because it starts with something that's technically true. Nobody is ever going to say the Earth's climate hasn't changed. Obviously, we've had ice ages and warmer periods. And, we've had CO2 concentrations much, much higher than today.
What we haven't had until is human civilization, and the capability to affect the climate ourselves. But, that's never going to impress someone who starts out their argument with "but the Earth has always had climate change."
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It's not just ordinary stupid people. I've known people with advanced degrees who ostensibly make a living making predictions who don't believe it. Sometimes their arguments get very very intricate. There's just so many layers to the onion it's impossible to do in a conversation, rather than say an essay. Other friends have CS degrees and don't believe it either. It's particularly hard because there's a lot of little…
> It's not just ordinary stupid people. I've known people with advanced degrees who ostensibly make a living making predictions who don't believe it. Sometimes their arguments get very very intricate. There's just so many layers to the onion it's impossible to do in a conversation, rather than say an essay. You've just described the "bullshit asymmetry principle," AKA Brandolini's Law: "The amount of energy necessary…
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As I see things the only solution is that humans need to stop reproducing so much. There are far too many people for the resources of the planet given current technology.
How do you back that statement?