Stepping Back (re: global warming)

Actualism
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Considering the Cause of Bias? and Global warming/climate change threads, I wanted to step back a bit and try to address something…

Stepping Back

Just to put things in perspective, this is the situation we find ourselves in:

  • Humanity is far, far better off in terms of standards of quality of life, health, wealth, etc., than pre-industrial times.
  • We are being told that there is a pending worldwide catastrophe
  • We are being told the worldwide catastrophe is that the planet is getting warmer… when the Earth is still literally in an Ice Age [1], and 9 times as many people are dying from cold as are from heat [2].
  • We are being told this is due to the direct results of industrialization, namely the burning of fossil fuels and emission of other gasses into the atmosphere, which incidentally also happen to massively benefit humanity (e.g. N2O, used for fertilizer – see what happens when a country bans the use of synthetic fertilizer: “When Sri Lanka Banned Synthetic Fertilizers, the Country Imploded”.)
  • We are being told the only way to prevent this worldwide catastrophe is by reducing emissions to be the same as pre-industrial eras
  • We are being told the way to do this is by taking measures that basically increase the costs of energy (by replacing w/ more expensive sources, or using less of it) which increases costs of everything, cost of food, not to mention it is all to make the world colder than it is now plus making it harder to heat our homes both of which will lead to more cold deaths… all of which directly deteriorates the quality of life of the people that are supposed to be being helped by this, i.e. the humans themselves

Now when presented with such a scenario, a few salient points come to mind:

  1. Such an extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence.
  2. It is a far better for everybody scenario if this worldwide catastrophe is not actually happening. So it is only sensible that the default should be “prove it”, with extreme criticism and skepticism taken to the claims.
  3. If this scenario is happening, the stated measures that need to be taken are extremely drastic and extremely harmful to the people affected by those measures (namely: … us!). Therefore even more skepticism is required.

And yet, when someone thinks to question, “hmmm, is this extraordinary claim really true?”, and points out that it’s literally founded upon a mathematical model of a flat Earth, the automatic (aka kneejerk) reactions[3] are… uhm…:

  1. Forgetting the argument and calling a different argument (that wasn’t an argument) a bad argument
  2. Forgetting the argument and calling a different argument (that wasn’t an argument) so bad that the people making this argument must have cognitive deficiencies that cause them to not be able to see how bad it is
  3. Whoever made this not-an-argument didn’t even do a 2-second google search to see why it’s wrong
  4. Just check Google
  5. This is a waste of time, you don’t have any qualifications on the topic
  6. Why even talk about this?
  7. Did you read the articles (on the site that you yourself linked on)?
  8. I would need to get a 4-year degree to even be able to evaluate this
  9. Even so, I still know you’re wrong
  10. It’s just an opinion
  11. Many posts of not even reading/attempting to understand the actual argument
  12. etc. etc. etc…

Given the ‘stepping back’ view of the whole scenario, the question must be asked: Why is this our natural reaction???

And this is where it’s relevant to point out what Vineeto mentioned to me, namely that these discussions are an example of peasant mentality in action.

Peasant Mentality

In short, the people that find themselves with the power to shape and influence the world, have taken it upon themselves, for whatever reason, to attempt to enact a series of measures with the effect of curtailing the advancements in comfort of life and quality of living that have happened since pre-industrial times.

They do it by claiming the world will end if we don’t do what they say.

They provide thousands of pages of reports of evidence… yet all of which is ultimately based upon an extremely flimsy mathematical model.

When people question their evidence… they are called deniers, they are ridiculed, they are condescended upon and called stupid, and often they are kicked from their jobs and their livelihoods destroyed.

All this creates a milieu where… the rest of us end up automatically defending their evidence, for fear that we, too, will be ridiculed and ostracized and aspersions cast upon us.

The effect of this is that we find ourselves being the so-called “peasants”, defending it against all common sense, often not even attempting to understand the holes pointed out in their logic and reasoning and evidence… all of which is against our own direct interest!

But why do it? Why continue to fight each other and put each other down, against our own interests?

Reconsider

So I ask everyone involved in the threads, to consider what I wrote here, become aware of the feelings that come up when presented with the argument, and instead of just attempting to rationalize the argument away, consider — why are those feelings come up that are coming up??

Do those same feelings come up when evaluating any other factual thing (like costings @Andrew ? Or the best poker play in a given spot @JonnyPitt ?)

If not then why not? What’s different about this topic?

And whence the intense and often overwhelming feeling and desire to shut down the argument, to claim ignorance, lack of expertise, to cast aspersions, to do everything but actually sit down and evaluate the facts that are apparent as best one can with one’s own two eyes??

It may very well take nerves of steel to do so, though…

Cheers,
Claudiu

  1. "Striking during the time period known as the Pleistocene Epoch, this ice age started about 2.6 million years ago and lasted until roughly 11,000 years ago.

    Like all the others, the most recent ice age brought a series of glacial advances and retreats. In fact, we are technically still in an ice age. We’re just living out our lives during an interglacial." https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-coldest-earths-ever-been ↩︎

  2. “In most places, the temperature is more often too cold than too hot, which helps explain why more than 90 percent of temperature-related deaths were from cold, according to the Lancet study. On every continent, cold deaths surpassed heat deaths.”. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2023/hot-cold-extreme-temperature-deaths/ ↩︎

  3. (references available upon request) ↩︎

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The glaciers are melting and that will bring fresh water problems if nothing else. That alone won’t become catastrophic if those sources are replaced in time. Otherwise, we can see some very significant mass migrations. The other doomsday scenarios like changing jet streams are probably based on the flat earth model so I guess I can toss them into the trash can as well. Catastrophic decline in wildlife populations is worth considering. Idk if it’s true or not or how consequential it may be. But poking a gaping hole in the man made global warming theory doesn’t by itself challenge that one.

Idk why people think the cause of bias question wasn’t what I said it was: speculation to get at a possible physical cause of bias. And the examples of bad arguments given (reluctantly; a dozen or so posts into the thread and with qualifications iirc) were given to show why I was considering the question at all. I’m not saying speculation upon speculation isn’t a stupid exercise. Extra stupid when you can just ask for clarifications from the get-go. And it was rude to talk behind peoples backs. But I wasn’t even trying to talk about global warming.

True in very select professional capacities. But not generally true. Not for the people I know. When I think about my own belief in it, I think I was just following rules of thumb. 1). Even those who had the most to lose were agreeing with the theory. 2) Those disputing the theory the loudest were exclusively using bad arguments. 3) Even if not true, the tech needed to reduce emissions also has other benefits* 4) the miniscule probability of a once in a geologic age event happening during our 200 year window**.

But none of that changes the fact that man made GW is in the textbooks and taken for fact. And I think that phenomenon has most to do with the University model. Professors teach kids and both have an incentive to believe implicitly in what they are teaching or being taught. And within a generation or two, it becomes completely ingrained.

*better batteries, decentralized energy sources, more efficient farms, stronger communities with women encouraged to have control over their own bodies and life choices, etc.

**in which the industrial/population revolution occurred - I have now discovered that’s it not even close to being a once in a geologic age event.

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Aye - such is the nature of “groupthink,” and will naturally feature, in one way or another, in every group that displays a tendency towards conformity, concurrence, and cohesion.

Every group.

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesiveness, in a group may produce a tendency among its members to agree at all costs. This causes the group to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation.
. . . .
Groupthink requires individuals to avoid raising controversial issues or alternative solutions, and there is loss of individual creativity, uniqueness and independent thinking. The dysfunctional group dynamics of the “ingroup” produces an “illusion of invulnerability” (an inflated certainty that the right decision has been made). Thus the “ingroup” significantly overrates its own abilities in decision-making and significantly underrates the abilities of its opponents (the “outgroup”). Furthermore, groupthink can produce dehumanizing actions against the “outgroup”. Members of a group can often feel under peer pressure to “go along with the crowd” for fear of “rocking the boat” or of how their speaking out will be perceived by the rest of the group. Group interactions tend to favor clear and harmonious agreements and it can be a cause for concern when little to no new innovations or arguments for better policies, outcomes and structures are called to question. Groupthink can often be referred to as a group of “yes men” because group activities and group projects in general make it extremely easy to pass on not offering constructive opinions.
Groupthink - Wikipedia

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Sorry for a bit of diversion…the name of that fellow :wink:

It makes up for a very interesting angle to read about the CO2 concentrations of trapped air bubbles in glacial ice and it’s link to climate change :

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The point I was making here is simply that this is presented to the public as a worldwide catastrophe. e.g. from the article @Shashank just linked:

Lorius died on Tuesday morning in the French region of Burgundy.

It was his love of adventure which set him on the path to identifying and predicting an impending catastrophe for the planet.
Claude Lorius: Pioneering French climate change scientist dies aged 91

Did not have to look far :grin:

Regardless of whatever the thread may or may not have been, I was just pointing out that the topic of global warming came up when you were visiting Richard & Vineeto in person, they presented the same arguments they do to everyone (i.e. the Earth being modeled as a flat disk – which btw I remember Richard mentioning to me in person too one fine day), and your take-away from that conversation was to forget the flat-disk argument (which incidentally I also forgot until Vineeto brought it up to me again in an email) and bring up the ‘Earth is too big’ and ‘Soros is a socialist’ as if they were the arguments (which they weren’t).

But it’s happening on this very forum in front of your very eyes!

Why, not just 6 hours ago you wrote:

That is, you literally never even contemplated the possibility that somebody could reject the global warming consensus and not be a “bootlicker”[1] or “water carrier” [2]!!

You even used this topic as an example of Richard and Vineeto being cognitively deficient (and whether you think everybody else is also cognitively deficient in other ways doesn’t change this)!

So you know your own reaction to somebody questioning the evidence. If you yourself have this reaction – and such strong ones as to vigorously question the intelligence of the person saying it – then you know that other people also have these reactions. (Which BTW I myself have also viscerally felt at times (that the people making these arguments are unintelligent), and very vicious it was – the only real difference is that I did not air it out in public.)

Therefore you also know the amounts of ridicule, denigration, and ostracization that faces anybody who would question this evidence. And it is not hard to see that somebody who finds themselves in a position to question the evidence, would also realize the ridicule that would be hurled their way.

As such it is not a stretch of the imagination at all to see that such a fear would underlie any speaking out against it – in an intuitive and viscerally felt manner – or in other words, that there are dark psychic currents swirling around and underpinning any discussion on the topic.

It is the emperor having no clothes!!

And it may be very pertinent to ask: who exactly is it that benefits from this atmosphere of fear, anxiety, ostracization, etc? Is it the peasants themselves? Or those in charge?

  1. “someone who praises or is extremely polite to a more powerful or rich person in a way that is not sincere, usually in order to get an advantage for themselves” BOOTLICKER | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary ↩︎

  2. “An individual doing simple, ordinary work, usually in opposition to somebody considered more valuable.” water carrier - Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

    Or, in other words, a “rube”, viz.:

    “That doesn’t make me the rube.” Cause of Bias? - #111 by JonnyPitt

    Where rube is: “An uninformed, unsophisticated, or unintelligent person.” rube - Wiktionary, the free dictionary ↩︎

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Well I had never encountered one before. It was probably more accurate to say it’s been few and far between. I remember once encountering a professional golfer who had a sensible opinion that was far from the mainstream. And I recall reading surveys of scientists of different disciplines which showed there really was no consensus in the overall scientific community. But other than these few, every other doubter I came across, before Richard, Vineeto and Peter, were a nutjobs.

Thanks for acknowledging that I did recognize that everyone is cognitively deficient in multiple ways.

It completely depends on what evidence they give. If they say something new that is very relevant to me then I immediately perk up. If they use the common language of propagandists then I do get viscerally upset.

I remember Richard bringing the model thing up once on his or Peter’s boat. I heard the word model and I immediately thought he was questioning the whole idea of models. On top of that, the wonkiness of using a flat earth to model the Earths climate is not nearly as damning to me as the duration and magnitude of the Little Ice Age. I would compare the model to being the nail in the coffin and the little ice age as being the coffin.

He may have brought up the little ice age too in the same convo. But at this point with all this other talk, my memory has most certainly been manipulated. At any rate, if he did it was a brief allusion to it. It would have been mixed in with lines about the climate is always changing. I would have assumed I knew all about the little ice age and the mention of it was just another right wing tactic he had fallen for. A lesson for me is to ask questions. Instead, I try to shoehorn other’s words into the common propaganda.

I never considered it to be an attack on their intelligence. I was questioning the very nature of intelligence itself. How can two highly intelligent people stand by poor arguments? What physical process is going on in the brain?

Most certainly.

I see now that it definitely came off as vicious. It did occur to me that I was questioning their literal IQ since it measures deductive reasoning skills. But I also figured they both would score quite highly on those tests. (I should have mentioned this a few times - instead I focused on how everyone has multiple cognitive deficiencies. As it turned out, that focus did not remove the perception of viciousness) So while being one who has no psyche yet still holds onto bad arguments, they have high IQs. It was a confusing phenomena to me. Of course, the question itself depends on concrete examples. Otherwise it’s just speculation based on a hypothetical. I was comfortable with that at the time. But now I see it as pretty stupid. And extra stupid since I could have stripped away the hypothetical part of the equation simply by asking them directly.

Not so much. In my world, anyone can say anything. And they do! There are no filters among the groups I hang with. I can see it certain careers like journalism but I’ve never been in that world. University faculty is another world. And those are big players in the public opinion universe. So I get what your saying. But I have no experience with it. I hang out with low lifes. They can and do say anything. But my girlfriends Mom is a chrisitian. And I’d never question her religion to her. Similarly my parents are democrats. And I’ve stopped going against the grain when talking to them. Just like me with Richard, Peter and Vineeto, they automatically assume I’m sprouting right wing propaganda. So similarly, in some influential circles, there is a culture of silence or unquestioning allegiance to the party line.

Man made global warming is kind of a weird myth to develop. For one, nothing is being done about it anyways. Germany has more green power plants but who’s making money off those plants. Is it the same rich people or a different set? I don’t know. In France, they have more nuclear plants. Who benefits? Maybe the government bureaucracy does. In the US, we have more solar roofs and more electric cars.

What I’m saying it’s just a lot of noise and no real change. So it’s a weird myth to propagate. Not a lot of money is being made off of it. Entrepreneurs have come and taken advantage of this new demand. Sure. But they would have made money of off something else anyways: Some other space, some other new demand. It’s not like Yellow Journalism creating a war hysteria so they can sell newspapers or the military industrial complex funding imperial nationalistic groups to keep the war machine going. I would factor the odd lack of financial motivation into your warning.

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This is indeed a good question, indeed it’s THE question that defines much of human history.

The feedback loop, which we have talked about, and Richard has also written about, is that the peasants themselves will indeed go to war believing the interests of their overlords are synonymous with their own interests.

This is observed again and again. So, who is to blame? If the peasants didn’t go the war (whether a real war, or a virtual one) then they wouldn’t be peasants, but then the war itself (the fight for resources etc) would be individual.

The individual, as we are quickly seeing in the age of the “global village” is just as unreasonable as the overlord he has evolved to replace.

Which is to say, as much as a “peasant mentality” can be exploited, it’s so far been a mixed bag “liberating” peasants.

As Richard points out, democracies rarely go to war these days. In democracies, no one is literally indentured to the land, or (legally) in forced servitude.

So, are we dealing with the mentality of peasants, or are we seeing the rise of the individual “overlord”?

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Just a brief thought: the most salient thing for me about this is that the torrential turmoil psychic current approach to things is just rotten and terrible and not sensible.

So even if I am wrong … it doesn’t mean they are right , and doesn’t mean I have to submit and get dunked back in. It’s always safe to leave, the key thing is to find my way back to actuality!!

And then it’s easier to sensible evaluate what the facts may be

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Which brings it back to the original thing I was posing - what is the reason for an actualist to explore these questions in a naive way?

Is it to be right, to build a logically consistent theory, to have a good argument etc

Or is it to begin to peek outside of that curtain of humanity that you mention @claudiu

Of course it’s a nice benefit to get to the bottom of these things and be right but it seems more a fringe benefit, the main one is freedom.

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Yeah this kind of reminds me of that chapter in Richard’s Journal where that “activist lady” wants to know of Richard’s views on protest demonstrations as a way of getting the river pollution under check. Richard readily acknowledges that protest demonstrations can indeed get the job done, but the rage-driven psychic atmosphere at such places is very unwholesome in terms of human togetherness(paraphrasing)…and that his solution is more enduring - when one is experiencing this magnificent actual world and perfection, there would not be any river pollution to begin with and thereby dispensing with the need for band-aid solutions like protests.

Talk about eliminating the problem for good !..Actualism can be scary lol

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To your point @claudiu regarding the untold billions spent on the current climate predictions, and to flesh out my own searching around the topic;

It’s what is missing which is so damning.

Not a single scale model. None.

It’s well with the budgets of even the poorest nation to build a scale model, a vacuum chamber, and some Stirling cycle heat pumps. Heck, it doesn’t have to be that big at all.

Just something at all.

Now, it may just be the search algorithm. It’s impenetrable to anything related to climate. The irony is funny.

However, chatGPTs database turned up nothing at all. Nothing. Not a single attempt at physically modelling a scale earth, to verify the starting point.

This should perhaps be in the other thread. I am sorta going between topics.

However, let me try to stick with this one.

The consensus reality is so thick, pun intended, that it’s completely detached. To why it’s so?

Well, one could say the masses no longer what the spectacular in politics.

But I don’t think so. That’s not it.

It’s more spectacular than ever really. Rockets every second day it seems.

It’s probably the reverse. It’s so spectacular, that something as simple as a physical attempt at proof no matter how misguided it seems, is now beneath their (my) tastes.

Now, as many times before, the spectacular is the smoke screen for the avoidance of the issues of the human condition.

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Honestly, of all the smoke screens humans have come up with so far, I do prefer this one to the others involving trillions spent on weapons.

I’m really happy you took all of this the level you have @claudiu

It’s not every day I can look into something so “big” and find out something so “new”.

It really does change the experience of looking at the clouds. Which I do a fair amount of.

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