As I see it, it's left-wing (in your way of thinking) guys trying to paint the right with Hitler and Nazism. He was demonized by the press and generally by our culture. Yet the Mao did worse to his people. See: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2073 You have to admit that Hitler gets the "most evil" label, and by far. In all of WW II, including the genocides, "only" 55M people died. I'm good with saying that all those guys (Hitler, Mao, Stalin, etc.) were downright evil. I'm no apologist for him; I wish someone put a bullet in his brain in the early 1930s. True Conservatism is based upon three principles: libertarianism, anti-communism, and tradition. I might be into the first two, but I'm certainly not the third. I do want govt. to stay the hell out of anything and everything possible. Here's the rub. There is no left/right spectrum. Conservatives in Russia are communists (left wing) and here they're anti-communist. So when is left really left and right really right? Even if you use a US frame for left/right, where do I fit in? I'm a social liberal. I disagree with the democrats on soooo many things, especially big govt. and taxes and invasion of privacy and anti-capitalism, etc. Yet I agree with them on abortion and gay marriage and a whole host of other social issues. I'm an economic liberal, too. Get govt. out of our business. Kill the IRS and many other huge govt. beaucracies. I lean toward the republicans when it comes to their old mantra of "less taxes, smaller government, equal opportunity." The only regulation I believe in is those put on govt. Yet neither party suits me. There's so few actual Conservatives around, and none in office. I figure most moderates are close to my views, or at least have many that are far left (in your view of left/right) and many that are far right. Probably more that are right of center, based upon the polling data I've seen and posted. The left/right thing doesn't fit. But as maxiep pointed out, left/right with anarchy at one end and totalitarianism at the other makes sense. I don't care what you call "left" or what you call "right" - left <-- anarchy ---------------- totalitarianism --> right or left < -- totalitarianism --------------- anarchy --> right As long as a reference point (one of the other) is agreed upon, discussion is enabled. So let's use the first left/right reference. I'm a lefty. Near the far left end of that spectrum. It fits ALL of my positions. As you go right, you get bigger government and less Liberty. Bush and Obama both are rather to the right on that scale. Both parties are. The government is. The people are left of that. The Social Democracies are even further to the right. Saddam and Kim Il Jung and Hitler and Mao are all the way to the right, not much separates them (in truth). You also have religious governments like the Talliban over to the right (but left of Mao and Saddam). You have a govt. like Iran that has religious leaders yet a lot more individual liberties - they're to the right of us and those Social Democracies, but a bit left of the Talliban. You have monarchies which are to the right of those, depending on how benevolent the king is. And so on. Some people may find dead-center to be the ideal (moderates). Maybe even right of center (socialists who don't commit genocide). As I said, I'm not all the way left (I'm NOT an anarchist), but I'm only a smidge to the right of that. Carry on.
Looks like it's semantics for the loss. I think where you and I greatly part ways as I've discovered over the past few months is on the concern for the environment. On the scale you mentioned I imagine in your estimation (and probably mine) I'm to the right of you, but probably not too much. I think that with the way in which technology scales up the impact of individual will has changed things greatly from a few centuries ago. I think unfortunately we need more government now then we did in bygone ages. There simply has to be Hobbes "Leviathan" to scare some folks from doing certain things. It's a must for murderers etc. Environmental crimes though are not only allowed they are encouraged. One of those things that I think has simply got to be taken into the equation is environmental destruction. There is no question in my mind that we have greatly damaged the environment just during my own lifetime let alone the past few hundred years. I have personally witnessed the diminishment of all manner of fish, amphibians and birds not to mention the even more critical Old Growth forests. I believe we have a moral responsibility to future generations as well as utilitarian reason to start pricing environmental cost into the equation. We currently do not price in the environmental inputs in the economy in a way that truly expresses the environmental damage done to extract and refine raw materials into our myriad technologies. With our present, and growing, population we are wiping out certainly a significant portion of "higher" organisms and more frighteningly the bottoms of food chain, things like plankton. Currently it's first come first serve with resource exploitation and there isn't any limit on take, indeed increasing the amount of exploitation is incentivized for most things. This was all well and good 100 years ago although even then deforestation, in America for instance, was becoming a major issue (We are actually better forested now then we were, just not in Old Growth forests). The point is the "invisible hand" doesn't have the data it needs to price that in. I think we just need to price thing appropriately. Prices of some things would certainly rise dramatically, prices of other things would, relatively speaking, drop in adjusted price. Much as $10 for a movie in Oregon is expensive, that same movie is probably $15.00 in New York. We price in exclusivity (living in NYC), and yet we don't accurately price inputs from nature. This has led to ludicrous practices such as wiping out stands of trees that pray a crucial role in aquifers and prevent mud slides or shipping parts across the ocean back and forth to be assembled in the cheapest labor factories available rather then making them domestically. Something akin to this sort of pricing in of inputs will have to be done in our generation or another. The reason I think it needs to be sooner rather then later is because, scientists (who include some of my trusted friends) are by and large saying we're screwed if we don't act soon. I'm not saying my idea is perfect but the point about inputs not being priced in is correct. Sure as things get rarer the price rises but this becomes problematic with rare species as is seen with the bush meat trade, illegal ivory poachers etc. I mean how much does a Dodo burger go for? Oh right, they're extinct. I think it's currently a pipe dream to think we will be able to reconstruct all of these organisms at a later date. What's more the interconnected nature of the environment means that, we might destroy something very important to the overall food chain. When Keystone species die off it can wipe out far more species then one might suspect. Even for utilitarian reasons we would be fools to destroy anymore species then we already have. ALL medicines come from natural sources originally and then are replicated with petrochemicals to be made into drugs (the legal kind). My point is we aren't pricing the market right. When we do all sorts of beneficial things will instantly become profitable and destructive and foolish things will be prohibitively expensive. Recycling of materials and improved process for refinement that use less resources and create less waste. Figuring out how to turn waste materials into something useful. These things are being done but because we don't price in environmental costs they are always at a cost disadvantage to things created from freshly extract resources. Yes, I realize this means we have to trust one another enough to allow an international scientific team to construct a pricing model. I think that we are all in this together. If we don't get this right then nothing else matters. The only thing I can think of that trumps it in importance is safety of the worlds NBC weapons of mass destruction. That's it.
I don't buy into the extinction of species argument. Literally, 99.9% of every species to ever live on the earth is extinct. It happened with or without Man. Now I will stipulate that Man has Intelligence and the ability to think about tomorrow. This is a distinction between us and the rest of the Animals. People with the best of intents and the advice of Science do the wrong thing all the time. I'm OK with Nature taking its course. I don't believe the Invisible Hand is the be-all/end-all of Capitalism. As I've pointed out, companies are made up of people, and people do make a difference all the time. As I pointed out: MacDonalds moving from styrofoam containers to biodegradable ones, etc. To conclude this post, the "semantic" difference isn't a "semantic" difference at all, but a view of actual Reality. NAZI means National Socialist Party. Literal. See the word Socialist in it? You may cry, "false advertising," but that doesn't change reality. You might go look up the Nazi Party platform from the 20's and 30's. In it you will find programs like Social Security, National Health Care, the President's Council on Physical Fitness, and other things your favorite party has enacted into Law over the decades. Then you might compare that with the Socialist Party platforms of the same era (from the United States) and you will see the same planks. So excuse me if I call reality how it is. Obama's takeover of corporations and coercion of them to do things the way he sees fit is more Fascist than the control of Industry has been through regulations over the years.
Utter nonsense. Would I be wasting my breath to request that you provide any sort of substantiation? I do remember my JH Science teacher saying more species had become extinct in the 20th Century than had in the rest of the Earth's lifetime, and this was in the 60's before the pace had snowballed so violently.
Good ol' Maris; never a bit embarrassed to show his lack of knowledge and intelligence, spouting out completely false assertions. link
fwiw, I was always taught that the Political Spectrum was a Circle, not a line; therefore, Fascists/Socialists are the same thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction Extinction, though, is usually a natural phenomenon; it is estimated that 99.9% of all species that have ever lived are now extinct. http://www.lassp.cornell.edu/newmme/science/extinction.html Of all the species that have lived on the Earth since life first appeared here 3 billion years ago, only about one in a thousand is still living today. EDIT: oops, looks like BB30 beat me to it.
This quote shows why I think you are wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_long_knives This quote would seem to support what you said but is evidence of the crazy views that Hitler had which while he called them "Socialist" were very different from say modern democratic socialism such as in Europe. It appears that Hitler called his party "National Socialists" even though their system would come to be called Fascist as distinct from say Stalin's Russia or Mao's China. This next quote shows why I think you are wrong to call them Socialists even if Hitler had some confusion himself as to what the term meant really. They weren't socialists man. They killed off the real socialist wing early on. That just happened to be the vehicle Hitler used but once in power he continued to have for profit run businesses working with the Nazi's. Stalin and Mao, real socialists, for instance simply absorbed ALL aspects of production into the government. You're right it's not a fine point at all. Talk about the horrors of Socialism all you want just use the correct Mao and Stalin figures. Stalin in my estimation was as bad or worse then Hitler. Fascism may have some similarities to Socialism but it clearly also has similarities to Capitalism. It is a hybrid in fact a "Merger of State and Corporations" as Mussolini who coined the word said. You are conveniently ignoring the profit making ventures and not recognizing them. My reading of the above is that Socialism is something different from Fascism in general and the Nazi's in particular. That was even their own claim. National Socialism was Hitlers word for his brand of Fascism. This is a WELL known historical fact. Your revisionist history is very strange to me. As to the environment you are ignoring the interconnected aspect. You are also ignoring the obvious depletion of "useful" species such as Salmon. The difference between wild salmon and farmed salmon is night and day in taste and nutritional value. We aren't so smart as to be able to create natural systems out of whole clothe. I find it staggering that you don't believe the vast body of evidence that shows we are dangerously close to a tipping point on a variety of environmental fronts. I'm putting aside climate change for the moment and saying the destruction of the forests, coral reefs, and various ocean and land systems has reached a point to where it's threatening the majority life on earth and threatens to make our existence very difficult if not impossible. Certainly our "standard of material living" will drop precipitously. This is a virtual scientific consensus! It's mind boggling to me that you value your own musings over the vast mountain of scientific evidence on environmental destruction. I disagree about the semantics thing. What I was saying is I think that other than the environmental thing and the Nazi thing I agree with most of what you post about politics and economics.
We are causing currently the 6th great extinction which has happened in the blink of the geological eye. We're on par with Comets hitting the earth. That doesn't disturb you that we are having an effect similar to a catastrophic global disaster? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction_event Also this 99.9% of species thing is a WEAK argument. Do you have ANY IDEA how long it takes the Earth to recover from the great extinctions? It takes MILLIONS of years. It's amazing that people can use that as an argument as to why it's no big deal. You know what a lot of those great extinctions had in common? The disappearance of the dominant species as keystone species were wiped out sending shock waves through the whole interconnected ecosphere. You guys blow my mind. You think all these scientists are making it up huh? I mean seriously what would it take for you guys to believe it? I mean you can see with your own eyes (if you haven't been trapped in an urban hell your whole life) that depletion of fisheries and the devastation of old growth. The decreases in catch on the ocean, the increases in cancers in the industrialized world it just goes on and on. The level of denial required at this point is simply staggering. You really think that YOUR knowledge is superior to the VAST scientific community arrayed against you? That's some pretty amazing confidence in your point of view. By the way you never responded to what I said in the other thread. I notice your attitude seems to be basically look out for #1. Social and indeed environmental "Darwinism" (which is really a misnomer Darwin commented on how amazing the COOPERATIVE species who lived in tune with their environment were) seems to be the name of the game to you.
By the way even Warren Buffet disagrees with you guys: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/opinion/19buffett.html?_r=1 So lets see you don't believe the media, politicians (both of those are fair) an increasing proportion of business men, virtually all academics and scientists and the most famous investor of all time. To paraphrase Saruman from Lord of the Rings "Your list of allies grows thin"
Every time I pick out something I disagree with and want to respond to, I read on and find an Idog post that says it much better than I could of. This thread is pretty awesome. I'm on board with discarding the left-right rhetoric that just tends to cause confusion. And I fully agree with Idog's point about our inability to sustain our environment with our current frame of mind. If the destruction of entire ecosystems doesn't phase you, at least recognize that we're threatening our own survival in the long run.
Hey thanks man I actually don't begrudge people who don't see it, but I'm becoming increasingly worried that the "I don't see it crowd" has enough inertia and an odd desire to stop the necessary reforms. I'm worried that the environmental crisis and our exploding population will end up being handled by nasty elite enforcement rather then democratic reforms. This isn't like Healthcare reform (which would be nice if done right NOT Obamacare) or reigning in spending (critical if we want our economy to survive) discontinuing or modifying greatly the bank bailouts (again critical to our economy and democracy) or any of the hot topic political points right now. The environmental issue as I said is on par with the way we treat (NBC) Weapons of Mass Destruction. We don't allow people to just blow them up above ground anymore or experiment in the open with these things. The reason is the EXTREME danger they represent. At this point I would argue that only nuclear holocaust is a more dangerous outcome then our continued ignoring of the environmental catastrophe.
I don't think that NBC has anything to do with environmental policy or politics. As I've said in other threads I am philosophically skeptical of political policy based upon debatable science. That's not to say I don't like understanding the "hard" science behind it. BTW, "vast amounts of scientists arrayed against me" doesn't generally sway my opinion, which I consider a problem in today's society. Science isn't a popularity contest. If those "vast amounts of scientists" have data that they believes "proves" something, they're welcome to show me. But I'm not going to listen to Warren Buffett's view on global warming just because he's Warren Buffett. Or the SecEnergy because he's a Ph.D. in physics. I'll listen to the data they provide, the experiments or observations they derived it from, and run it through my filter (I'm pretty good at science and engineering). If it makes sense, great. If not, I'll continue to ask questions and point out where I see failure. What's wrong with that? From the wiki article you quoted, Idog: In my own words, that looks like the "hard science" is that 784 species have become extinct (and that was footnoted), but that the "real" answer (un-documented) is that "scientists" estimate something three to five orders of magnitude above that? I notice that they're using "upper-bound" estimating, which would seem to work well if you're inflating your estimates by multiple orders of magnitude in order to further an agenda. And if they're actually counting 784, how are they estimating 140k PER YEAR? What 140k last year went extinct? BTW: How many species are there? Are we going to estimate that as well, by jumping up by a factor of 100,000 or so? I also noticed that noted economist Warren Buffett didn't talk about the spewing of water vapor or methane into the environment, even though the are greenhouse gases orders of magnitude more in abundance and "heat-trapping capacity" (my term) than CO2. The NBC debate and "nuclear holocaust" are for another thread, but with all respect I think your premise is factually incorrect (for instance, I was in that Holocaust wasteland of Hiroshima last month. They seem to be doing alright). And as for "we don't allow people to experiment in the open with these things", I submit that North Korea just popped off a nuke earlier in the year. I'm not sure what was done about it.
That's somewhat ridiculous. What is your definition of debatable science? We still have people debating whether we ever landed on the Moon and whether the Earth is flat hundreds of years after it was proven to be round. Could it be proven wrong later and we find out that our round is another person's flat? Sure, but after a decade or so I'm willing to see some policy adjustments in that area. There's always a nut job Phd somewhere looking to flail around with wild opinions on topics. Where do you draw the line? What qualifications matter to you to designate a scientist "reliable"? Must they be conservative or have ideals in line with your reasoning? What if 3 scientists who are "credible" contradict 1 scientist who is "credible" but agrees with you? Do the 3 scientists automatically lose because they disagree with your gut instinct? What ratio / event / action / notice / whatever convinces you that some particular piece of science is indeed credible and valid, despite the fact that it may be "debatable" until the end of time?
For clairty I slightly cut down the quote above to leave the points I want to address. Here you go. I was lazy before because I don't feel it's my job to be someone else's research assistant. I just don't want anyone reading this to think that your contention is correct. Btw I agree about Methane not being mentioned that is questionable. The North Korea nuke is what has led to incredible tension and the brink of war a war that may yet happen. I'd say it had a definitive effect in escalation and is borderline considered an act of war in combination with their rhetoric. I'm extremely concerned about North Korea as it happens. I see the threat of North Korea to be limited. I see the threat of extinction to be global. I also think your choice of Hiroshima is pretty tasteless considering the effect of dropping the bomb at the time. When I said Nuclear Holocaust I meant a global one which you very well know would result in Nuclear Winter, Fallout etc. The site I link to below has graphs and pictures that did not copy over http://www.cbd.int/gbo1/chap-01-02.shtml I urge you to look at the actual site because I couldn't transfer the graphs well even using Code tags. if you want some NON dumbed down for non-scientists info here is from an extract in a scientific journal (peer reviewed) showing the interrelated nature of species and how a cascading effect can occur from extinctions. http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/587068?prevSearch=extinction&searchHistoryKey= It's not my job to educate you on these things. You're an adult look it up yourself. The vast majority of the scientific community agrees with this. They are last I checked the experts on these matters. There arguments make perfect sense: overharvesting, agriculutural conversion of ecosystems, devastation from warfare, devastation from industrial mismanagement, crazed rapacious resources extraction destroying the local environment, mass consumption of resources, pollution etc. Your contention on the other hand that its no big deal is the one that is the one lacking in a complete coherent argument. The biologists are pretty clear on this front. I have a number of friends who have Masters Degrees and PHD's in biology and you know what? Not even ONE of them agrees with you. They all think you guys are off your rocker and they are in a state of despair over trying to convince you folks who spend plenty of time researching denial and very little confrontation of the VAST scientific record. Science in peer reviewed journals is EASILY the most objective things humans do. Indeed it's not perfect because it still involves humans but it is so vastly more objective then business or politics it's not even comparable. I'm sorry but I have to say that its sheer folly and hubris to ignore this problem any longer.
How about this: not a single model anyone's posted in this or any other 500-post thread has accurately predicted the last 10 years. Not one. I'd be happy to see one that did. Yet these models are being used to predict anywhere from 10 to 500 years out, and policy is being based upon those (and Nobel Peace prizes are given out based upon them). I asked you to bring me data, and you ask me to look at resumes while in the same paragraph talking about "nutjob PhD's". Who brought up gut instinct or "reliable" science? I said bring me data, and conclusions built upon that data that can be actualized. Many of those on the "environmentalist"/"global warming"/"climate change" side made observations and brought data, have built models upon that data, and have looked silly over the last 10 years. I'm not saying they have no case or to take away research funding; I'm saying build an effing model that works before you make me change my way of life on your hypotheses for the future. That's where I draw the line. I'm sorry you're taking this as a political bash by bringing up conservative vs. non-, whatever that has to do with research. How tough is it?
So has the status quo built a model that works for projecting into the next 10 to 500 years? I'm just curious. Certain things make sense to me. You destroy the life support system of the spaceship you die. I don't need a model that predicts the exact breakdown of things in perfect order to know that destroying the life support system with reckless abandon is a bad idea. Also you clearly don't value non-human life as anything other then a resource to be exploited. Until the status quo predicts economics correctly for 10 years then we shouldn't engage in capitalism. Oh wait economic models are proven wrong all the time. Look at the budgets drawn up a couple of years ago, guess we should give up on Government. Just because exact models of how releasing mass murders into general populations would result in a predictable level of killing don't exist, it doesn't mean we should let that occur. We are slaughtering the environment in just such a fashion and I don't need a model that perfectly predicts the future I can look at the past and current measurements. Those all show me significant things are wrong Salmon runs, reduction in old growth and equatorial forest the dying coral reefs. I don't need a FUTURE model I have CURRENT DATA. The models are there to help conceptualize what we might need to do. They are flawed just as economic models are flawed. We need to start turning our attention to how we can modify our economy. Our economy can evolve to conform to environmental limitations, the environment cannot conform to unrestrained rapacious environemental degradation of the status quo. Only one of the two can change it has to be the way we do our economy. Lot's of people automatically assumes that it will be an economic armageddon that's false you're really under estimating human ingenuity and resiliance. It's a false dichotomy to say either we have an environment or we have technological society. Modern techonological life can go on but we must adapt to environmental realities. Our way of life constantly changes cars, planes, PC's etc. those will just change into energy efficient means of living and sustainable harvest and other practices. We can meet these challenges but only if we act on a massive scale to transforming our technologies using less energy and attacking the challenge of helping our bio-sphere to regenerate. I'm saying the status quo is going to end in annihilation. You're saying you might have to change the way you live?!?!? Um, you know an alocholic who's liver is failing might need to change the way they live even if it's not to their liking. In fact the alcoholic may find he even feels better after he stops drinking not knowing what life is like in that way. That way would be living in tune with our environment like all other species. The few that go against that like the giant beaver of Northern Europe wipe themselves out when they outstrip their environment. Invasive species have a similar effect. The so-called nature deficit disorder shows the real psychological effect of not being around natural environments and shows how we miss out when separated completely from nature. Likewise we are addicted to a throw away lifestyle of endless resource depletion and consumption. These don't make one happy they are essentially neutral after a certain level of existence (beyond 50k earnings sees no increase in happiness). We can be happy and have technology but we have to adapt to environmental constraints or face death. We can still have an incredible living circumstance and a healthy environment it's not a dualistic thing. The status quo and a healthy environment are however an either or situation. I'm saying we cannot have small amounts of change (styrofoam or whatever Denny was saying lol) in the face of vast ecological disaster. We are at a watershed moment in history where we can either change our behaviors or see a constantly declining standard of living compared to what we currently have for more and more people. Even the super rich won't escape eventually unless we have perfected space travel in that short window. If that did happen how sad to destroy our planet of genesis only to become nomads in space. We can't live without air clean water and clean food so if we destroy the systems that support those things we will die. That's not a matter of resiliance and adaptability of economics it's live or die.
What, pray tell, was my "contention"? I stated that I wanted data leading to verifiable conclusions before I jumped blindly behind Warren Buffett's environmental claims. I asked 3 questions, and said that I thought you factually incorrect about NBC (a thing I do know a bit about), but that that was another thread. Why isn't anyone answering my questions lately? We're not at a "brink of war" with North Korea. Not close. It didn't have an effect on "escalation". We haven't raised or lowered a defcon level because of it; no terrorist warning went from orange to red; the state of 7th Fleet operations didn't change. If it was such a big deal, then why did no one east of Tokyo pay attention when they lit up the sky on the 4th of July with some Medium-range missiles shot into the ocean? BTW: I'm with you that stunts like that should be punished and punished hard. It seems as if our government does not agree with me. Are you a history buff? Check out the effects of the Operation Meetinghouse (just one of about two dozen raids over 6 months) that killed more people in one night that the 2 nukes combined. Check out how tens of thousands of people were being seared to death with burning jelly every couple weeks and then call what happened with the nukes "tasteless". I'm interested in your theory of how a "nuclear holocaust" would occur. I've done a bit of unsubstantiated modeling on this myself, and am slightly less convinced than the average American about the threat of global nuclear holocaust. Especially with our drawdown of nuclear weapons. I really don't want this to come off as snarky, so if it sounds sarcastic don't think of it that way, but have you studied the effects of radiation and fallout in military applications, or just repeating stuff you've heard from friends? I'm not saying you have to trust me--you don't know me from Adam-- but I try to point out when I think someone's viewpoint may be skewed for whatever reason. Will do. (again, where did you get this from?) Of course they don't...I didn't say anything to agree or disagree with, except NBC stuff--and forgive me if I think I've got a decent handle on that. The questions I have are still that. I have a number of friends in many fields who don't agree with me on multiple issues: I guess I'm a disagreeable guy. I don't get how that's germane. "Scientific Record"? "Peer reviewed journals?" That's what you're bringing me? I asked a question about how the number went from 784 to 2 million species (BTW: I haven't read the link you posted...if it's in there I apologize in advance) and instead of an answer I get how your friends totally think I'm off my rocker and that I contend that millions of species dying is "no big deal"? That I spend "Plenty of time researching denial"? As an aside: If you think that "peer reviewed" or any other scientific research hasn't been corrupted over the last 25 years by non-partisan funding sources drying up, I don't know what to tell you. It doesn't all have to do with environmentalism or global warming. See how many PhD's have been awarded in physics in areas other than "String Theory" in the last 25 years. Then examine what advances we've made in physics in 25 years, as just one example unrelated to this highly emotional issue.
I don't believe I ever asked you to look at resumes, could you show me where? I'm simply trying to find out how you define your "sources" and what is debatable or not.
