"Freedom" thread or something

dtguitarfan wrote: Epignosis wrote: 1. As I mention below, I don't necessarily disagree about climate change.  Of course, I could have just skipped the analogy and went straight to the fact that your 97% statistic is baloney.  Absolute hogwash.  A made-up number.  Lies. Oh Rob.  I wish I could find the link I had found once to the actual study results, and to an article that talked about Forbes' contesting of it.  But it's not worth my time, to be honest.  The gist of it was that conservatives are saying this is a bunch of lies based on the fact that they took a look at the TOTAL consensus of ALL scientists (not just "climate" scientists) and found a smaller number...that was still in the 90's.  Oh wow, I guess it's all baloney then.  (That was sarcasm.) Epignosis wrote: 2. Oh, lots of stuff.  There's money to be made in making people afraid of something likely to happen.  Like you say below: "Cleaner technologies are still more expensive."  So who is getting that money?  Private companies developing and selling it, that's who. Really?  You think all "climate scientists" are working for companies that sell cleaner technologies?  Is that really what you're going with?  Think about it.  Who might be classified as a "climate" scientist?  You really think they're all working for companies like that?

I never said nor implied all climate scientists.  However, just because one is a scientist doesn't make one inherently authoritative.  Even a group of scientists can be and often are wrong.

Michael Crichton wrote: Imagine that there is a new scientific theory that warns of an impending crisis, and points to a way out. This theory quickly draws support from leading scientists, politicians and celebrities around the world. Research is funded by distinguished philanthropies, and carried out at prestigious universities. The crisis is reported frequently in the media. The science is taught in college and high school classrooms. I don't mean global warming. I'm talking about another theory, which rose to prominence a century ago. Its supporters included Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Winston Churchill. It was approved by Supreme Court justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis Brandeis, who ruled in its favor. The famous names who supported it included Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone; activist Margaret Sanger; botanist Luther Burbank; Leland Stanford, founder of Stanford University; the novelist H. G. Wells; the playwright George Bernard Shaw; and hundreds of others. Nobel Prize winners gave support. Research was backed by the Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations. The Cold Springs Harbor Institute was built to carry out this research, but important work was also done at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and Johns Hopkins. Legislation to address the crisis was passed in states from New York to California. These efforts had the support of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Medical Association, and the National Research Council. It was said that if Jesus were alive, he would have supported this effort. All in all, the research, legislation and molding of public opinion surrounding the theory went on for almost half a century. Those who opposed the theory were shouted down and called reactionary, blind to reality, or just plain ignorant. But in hindsight, what is surprising is that so few people objected. Today, we know that this famous theory that gained so much support was actually pseudoscience. The crisis it claimed was nonexistent. And the actions taken in the name of theory were morally and criminally wrong. Ultimately, they led to the deaths of millions of people. The theory was eugenics, and its history is so dreadful --- and, to those who were caught up in it, so embarrassing --- that it is now rarely discussed. But it is a story that should be well know to every citizen, so that its horrors are not repeated.

Edited by Epignosis - July 10 2013 at 07:25

dtguitarfan wrote: Not a good comparison, Rob.  Let's think about the theory of climate change.  What's the point of this theory?  What is it that scientists are trying to encourage us to do with this theory they are bringing us?  They want us to stop putting crap into the environment.  Wow.  How evil of them. In what crazy, backwards universe do you have to live in to think that pollution is actually a good thing, and that there couldn't possibly be any bad consequences for it?

I'm not endorsing pollution.  I'm opposed to expensive legislation based on questionable, conflicting models and fear.

Didn't you claim everyone in this thread was an idiot  a while back and you were giving up trying to convince them?

I think the question of whether climate change exists is rather a moot one, personally. If it is as bad as people say it is, nothing can be done about it without causing economic collapse that would cause at least as much suffering (probably more) than just letting the climate change happen, and that's assuming you can get China and Russia to go along, which you almost certainly can't.

Alarmists need to get their story straight. Sometimes they tell us that if we recycle and have a small tax hike go towards solar power companies we'll be fine, other times they say that we need a massive decrease in global carbon emissions, like, yesterday or else we're all doomed. At least one of the two positions is lying (probably they both are.)

Geoff, calling people idiots only diminishes any value your arguments might have.

Anyway, I believe climate change is happening. I believe is due to human action. I don't believe shock actions that would cause more poverty would be the solution. People learning how to waste less and companies being forced to pollute less to a reasonable level is preferrable.

But I also believe there are more important issues.

Edited by The T - July 10 2013 at 10:00

thellama73 wrote: Here is a sampling of climate predictions from over the years, not a single one of which has come true. Can someone explain why I'm supposed to cower in terror at predictions from people who have a long track record of never getting anything right ever? Weren't we supposed to have already been underwater by now? Weren't the ice caps supposed to be gone? Weren't the snows of Kilimanjaro supposed to have vanished forever? How long is it going to take before the world realizes that the reality we see every day does not mesh with the predictions of fancy climate models? If there still hasn't been any devastation in another fifty years, or a hundred, can we let it go at that point, or do we have to keep being afiaid forever? http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/column_the_10_worst_warming_predictions/ http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/joncgabriel/the-13-worst-predictions-made-on-earth-day-1970

The point of arguing that climate change is real and that we should do something about it is not that every prediction ever made has been true.  The point is that pollution and such things are bad, and we should do less of it.  Of course bad predictions have been made.  So what.  That's not what this is about.  This is about the fact that every year now we have a storm of the century.  I live in Chattanooga, TN, where for decades they had never seen a tornado, because Chattanooga is surrounded by mountains which usually keep such storms away.  Then we had one of the worst storms in history and a record number of storms hit Chattanooga and the surrounding area.  There's a little town at the foot of Lookout Mountain named St. Elmo.  I read a story after the storm about a family that had their house destroyed - the husband said he had told his wife "a tornado isn't going to hit our house, because we live right at the foot of a mountain - it would have to drop straight down on us from the sky."  That's what happened to them.  Then we have Hurricane Sandy.  Every year, the storms get worse.  I worked for a few years for a company that dealt with electrical power.  Every year they hit a new record for temperature, and for the wattage they had to produce.  Last year, they were 16 MW away from being in a state of emergency because two units went down (something that wouldn't normally be a big deal).  The point of all this: you don't even have to be a climate scientist these days to see evidence for climate change - that's how bad it's gotten.  What does it take for us to get it through our thick heads that it's time for a change?

I'll repeat what I said earlier - free market economics is not going to provide that change.  People are too damn selfish.

dtguitarfan wrote: Epignosis wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Not a good comparison, Rob. Let's think about the theory of climate change. What's the point of this theory? What is it that scientists are trying to encourage us to do with this theory they are bringing us? They want us to stop putting crap into the environment. Wow. How evil of them.In what crazy, backwards universe do you have to live in to think that pollution is actually a good thing, and that there couldn't possibly be any bad consequences for it? I'm not endorsing pollution. I'm opposed to expensive legislation based on questionable, conflicting models and fear. So basically, you're against doing anything about pollution. 'Cuz that would be, like, governing and stuff.   And gubmint is bad.

"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain." - Bastiat

dtguitarfan wrote: I never said everyone in this thread was an idiot. I just implied certain hard set ideologues in this thread are.

People in glass houses....

manofmystery wrote: - Bastiat

Bastiat is an idealogue and an idiot.  His point is that what you're saying shouldn't be done by government will be done by some other undefined entity.  I'm saying that entity is going to look an awful lot like a government, and then one of these days someone just like you is going to come along and say "'entity a' is evil, and these things shouldn't be done by 'entity a'."  Then we're back at square one.  Let's cut the crap and stop arguing about who should be doing this, and just do it.  Just get things done.

thellama73 wrote: What is the solution, then Geoff? What exactly are you proposing we do about it? Every time I ask that I get a different answer. From "buy compact fluorescent lightbulbs" to "eliminate all cars in the world." From what I've heard, all reasonable, relatively painless activities will be useless due to the scope of the problem. You never stop to consider that the cure may be worse than the disease.

So...because you haven't heard a good proposal for a solution, that means we shouldn't even try?  Is that it?  That's sure what it sounds like....

No worthwhile endeavor is ever accomplished by a single, simple solution.  It always takes multiple steps, and trial and error.  You take a little step, find out where you went wrong, adjust, and take more steps.

I'm a computer programmer.  One of the things I've learned as a computer programmer: just do it.  Sit down and write.  Don't spend months arguing over the design - just start writing.  Yeah, your first design is going to be crap.  You're going to have to make adjustments.  But if you spend hours arguing over the perfect design, you just get analysis paralysis.  Just do it.

dtguitarfan wrote: Bastiat is an idealogue and an idiot.

This is moronic now. Regardless of your school of thought he's an indispensable thinker in the history of economics. You may as well come in here and call Hipparchus or Leucippus an idiot while you're in here.

Equality 7-2521 wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Bastiat is an idealogue and an idiot.  This is moronic now. Regardless of your school of thought he's an indispensable thinker in the history of economics. You may as well come in here and call Hipparchus or Leucippus an idiot while you're in here.

As far as influential economists go, I prefer this guy:
"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."
- John Maynard Keynes

"The decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn't deliver the goods."
- John Maynard Keynes

I think he is more relevant to our time as well, as I believe what we are experiencing is very much similar to what led up to the great depression during FDR.  Keynes helped get us out of that, and his ideas kept our economy stable for decades, until Reagan ushered in the culture of anti-government and deregulation, and our economy suddenly became unstable again (surprise, surprise).

Another good quote:

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
- John Kenneth Galbraith