On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 7:44 AM, chris peck <[email protected]>wrote:
> >> Oh, when it suits your prejudice it's OK to just count votes. You > suddenly no longer need to read the papers and decide for yourself. > > Eh? Why the sour face? I thought you'ld be cracking open the champagne. > There's no consensus. I give you perhaps the best news in history, ever, > and you're just sour about it! You're not suggesting we ought to read about > the science and think for ourselves are you?! What a drag! > > Seriously though, how come this 97% figure is presented by climate change > acceptors as a consensus about the catastrophic effect global warming will > have when it isn't one? Do they even know that the figure represents just > those scientist who agree climate change is happening? Do they know it > doesn't reflect the amount of scientists who think the change is caused by > humans? They certainly don't know that less than 50% of scientists think > the effect of warming would be catastrophic otherwise that figure would > enter into their discourse, or would it? I suspect the temptation to keep a > bit silent about what a shocking figure like 97% really represents is > overwhelming. A little white lie and so on, an economy with the truth etc. > > In actual fact I think all these figures are bullshit. Listening to what > the scientists actually have to say is exactly what people should do, even > congressmen, rather than close ones ears to everything except easily > digestible and neatly misrepresentable figures. > > The title of this thread is really ironic. It could as well have been, "if > the the science is in fact ambiguous, deflect attention to startling > statistics." > > > I think global warming including AGW is real but there are two arguable outcomes: (1) transition to the next warmer stable climate, or (2) trigger global cooling as exemplified by the Vostok ice core data over the last few ice ages Richard > > ------------------------------ > Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2014 10:38:07 +0200 > Subject: Re: If you can't disprove the science, you can always try suing > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > > > > > On Sun, Apr 6, 2014 at 6:45 AM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 4/5/2014 4:13 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: > > > > > On Sun, Apr 6, 2014 at 1:01 AM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 4/5/2014 12:40 PM, LizR wrote: > > On 5 April 2014 23:30, Telmo Menezes <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Sat, Apr 5, 2014 at 11:47 AM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: > > That doesn't narrow it down too much. > > > Je m'accuse. I was one of them. > > My point was that conspiracy theories, in the sense of power elites > secretly cooperating to further their own interests against the interests > of the majority are not, unfortunately, unusual events in History. We know > of countless examples of this happening in the past. I think it requires > some magical thinking to assume that this type of behaviour is absent from > our own times. > > I further pointed out that broadly discrediting any hypothesis that some > elites might be conspiring against the common good, in broad strokes, seems > to benefit precisely the ones in power. Furthermore, thanks to Snowden, we > now have strong evidence of a large-scale conspiracy by western governments > that I would not believe one year ago. In this case I'm referring to the > secret implementation of global and total surveillance, with our tax money, > by the people we elected, to spy on us, infringing on constitutions. > > I can't help but notice the very common rhetorical trick of using the > nutty conspiracy theories (UFOs, the Illuminati, fake moon landing, etc.) > to discredit the much more mundane and reasonable suspicions of elites > abusing their power. The paper you cite in this thread uses that trick too. > > This broad denial of the existence of conspiracies is silly, if you > think about it. The official explanation for 9/11 is a conspiracy theory: > some religious arab fundamentalists conspired to create a global network of > terrorist cells with the objective of attacking western civilisation. They > hijacked planes and sent them into buildings and so on. If you don't > believe in this explanation, you are then forced to believe in some other > conspiracy. > > Of course conspiracies exist. The current denial of this quite obvious > fact feels Orwellian, to be honest. > > OK, it seems likely that conspiracies exist, however it seems unlikely > that the IPCC is part of one of them (I've lost track of whether you're > claiming this or not, so please let me know) because the ruling interests > are in favour of business as usual - i.e. there is almost certainly a > conspiracy to discredit the science. The fact that they will use the idea > of conspiracy theories to do this is indeed Orwellian, not to mention > ironic. > How does the paper use this trick? > > > I think Telmo makes conspiracies ubiquitous by calling any kind of > cooperative effort which is not publicized a "conspiracy" - like > Eisenhower's conspiracy to invade France. Legally a conspiracy is planning > and preparation by two or more people to commit a crime. So most of what > rich and powerful people do to keep themselves rich and powerful at the > expense of others is not legally a conspiracy because there's no crime - > the rich and powerful use laws, not break them. But in common parlance a > conspiracy *theory* refers to some group doing something nefarious while > pretending to do something benign, and especially something contrary to > their stated goals, e.g. Catholic clergy conspiring to abuse children. > > > Or prohibition, > > > That makes my point. Prohibition wasn't illegal, it was a law and it was > promoted and passed by people who had openly advocated it for years - and > for some good reasons. But you want to call it a conspiracy just because > you disagree with it. You might as well call the civil rights act of 1963 > a conspiracy. > > > The story of prohibition is much more complex than this, and the real > reasons for it seem to be a mix of religious beliefs, racism, industrial > lobbying and opportunity for profit. Passing laws and false pretences > doesn't sound legal to me. > > The differences between the prohibition and the civil rights act of 64 is > not just a matter of my opinion. The first is an imposition of the state on > freedom of action on the private sphere, while the second is an enforcement > of universally justifiable ethic behaviour in the public sphere. The other > important difference is that the former increased social problems while the > latter diminished them. > > There is most certainly a conspiracy to keep the prohibition in place, in > the face of strong evidence that it does much more harm than good. > > Check out, for example, how David Nutt, a neuropharmacologist and > professor at the Imperial College, was sacked from the UK government > advisory board of drugs for publishing a scientific paper: > > > http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/oct/30/drugs-adviser-david-nutt-sacked > > > > > or the implementation of anti-constitutional total surveillance, > > > It's not clear that collecting records of who calls overseas is > unconstitutional; no court has ruled it such. > > > I guess you're a little outdated on the leaks. It's forgivable, because > the main stream media ignores them. We now know that they do much more than > collect meta data -- which is just Orwellian language by the way, meta data > is just data, and it can be private and very revealing. But that doesn't > matter because we now know that there have been instances of spying on > american citizens without warrants and that the five eyes share information > to bypass constitucional limits. This is obviously against the spirit of > the law. It doesn't matter how the NSA obtains private information without > a warrant, the only thing that matters is that they endeavour -- or shell I > say conspire -- to obtain it. Of course we now also know about spying > through web cams and the use of countless underhand tactics to compromise > several major companies and security protocol committees from the inside. > We know about parallel reconstruction too. And the link I shared the other > day about secret service agents infiltrating social media to manipulate > public opinion. Are you really comfortable with these actions? Do you > believe they are legal? > > > > > or starting wars under false pretences, > > > Yes, the the Iraq war was very bad - but was it a conspiracy. It wasn't > secret, the neo-cons in the the Bush administration had advocated military > overthrow of Sadam Hussein for years. The even had a website, Plan for a > New American Century, which hosted scholarly(?) papers about the mideast > and why the U.S. should make Lybia, Syria, Iraq, and Iran into western > style democracies. > > > The president and other higher officials lied about having evidence for > WMD in Iraq to obtain support for a war. Isn't that a conspiracy? > > > > > or using government agencies like the IRS to harass political > opponents, or trying to silence journalists. > > > That's an invented charge. The IRS was just doing it's job screening > organizations that claimed 501c status, which forbids *any* political > activity. > > > http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-0343.00090/abstract > > > > > We have compelling evidence that governments have been engaging in all > of these types of conspiracy very recently, and they mach your definition. > > > No they don't. They match Telmo doesn't like them. I don't like some of > them too, but that doesn't make the conspiracies and they certainly aren't > conspiracy *theories* because they don't explain some event in terms of > secret activities. > > > > So my point is that it is not reasonable to dismiss the possibility of a > conspiracy by government actors just on the grounds of it being a > "conspiracy theory". > > > I don't dismiss the possibility. But "possibility" is a very weak > standard. Possibilities tend to be at the bottom of lists by probability. > It's possible that MH370 was electronic hijacked by hackers taking control > of a an uninterruptible autopilot in the 777 - something I read just the > other day - but it's very unlikely. > > > But there you're using the straw man again. I'm not stating that > "conspiracies are always the most likely explanation". I am simply saying > that conspiracies are not rare events, so they cannot be discarded simply > on the grounds of being conspiracies. > > Telmo. > > > > Brent > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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