Letters to the Editor
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Apres moi le deluge
(excepting this time it'll be steam)
Anonymous, do you realize that only the other Anonymous is reading your posts? -
Only Government Action (And Strict Enforcement) Can Improve Our Economy And Save The Planet Too!
You keep making my case for me. Yes, we cannot compete against China for slave labor, nor child labor, nor their lower environmental standards. Yet you wish to give them an even greater advantage?
Somehow Europe has managed to function without lowering their labor standards. We talked about lead filled toys and here’s something you probably didn’t know: those toys were rejected by the EU first because they were inspected and didn’t meet their standards!
So where did China dump their toxic toys? On the one country that had standards low enough and didn’t require any inspections: the United States!
Again, this idea that we “must” have low standards or else we’ll go bankrupt is self-defeating and a little ridiculous. The evidence that you can have high standards and still be productive, efficient and highly competitive goes by the name of Europe. Which car would you rather buy: a German car or a Chinese car? It’s the German’s higher standards that are giving them a competitive advantage. It’s the Chinese low standards that are crippling them in certain areas. You’re solution is to reduce our standards and drop them as low as China’s in order to compete. It’s ludicrous. Shittier working conditions and crappier products isn’t going to make us more competitive. It will have the opposite effect.
Yes, but the cost will be higher due to that. One must weigh the cost vs. the benefit. Again, it is a cost-benefit analysis which I have stressed.
But who is figuring the “values”? What is the “value” of replacing 30 percent of our energy with renewables? What is the “value” of building a geo-thermal power plan or wind farm and what is the “value” of building another coal-powered plant? That’s the problem. You’re trying to argue that there is some hard, irrefutable mathematics here that we can all agree on when there simply isn’t.
Conservatives (such as yourself, I assume) will never accept the “value” of a geo-thermal plant that a Progressive assigns to it. You will simply claim that “coal is cheaper” by a very narrow definition. This will be done in much the same way factory owners came to the conclusion that “child labor is cheaper” using their own cost benefit analysis.
That’s the real problem. While Conservatives try to appeal to a mythical cost/benefit analysis – there is no such thing because the “values” being discussed are subjective. Is it “cheaper” to use slave labor? Yes. The cost/benefit analysis of any business owner in 1903 would bear that out 100 percent of the time. Yet we became a stronger and more powerful economy after we abolished it. So what does that mean? How did our economy become more powerful if we forced companies to do something that was more expensive? Something went against the sacred cost/benefit analysis?
40hr work weeks are more expensive in the cost/benefit analysis – yet implementing them made our economy grow.
Overtime laws are more expensive in the cost/benefit analysis – yet implementing them made our economy grow.
Making monopolies illegal was more expensive in the cost/benefit analysis (for some tycoons) – yet implementing that change in the law made our economy grow.
How does this relate to climate change?
Same thing. Yes, our transition to a renewable energy economy and raising environmental laws and regulations will be more expensive in the short term (almost all changes are in the short term) – but to cite short term pains as a reason for avoiding it altogether is self-defeating.
Stalling for more time or pleading for mercy or claiming the government “doesn’t have the authority” to force these improvements and changes is that standard ploy used by all corporations since the 1890’s.
“We need more time to phase out slavery. Give us another 100 years!”
“You can’t eliminate Child Labor overnight! That would bankrupt the entire nation! Have mercy!”
“You don’t have the authority to force me to allow unions! I can beat up union organizers if I want!”
We’ve seen these tactics time and time again from Conservatives.
In order to grow and improve as a country we need to just ignore them and drag them kicking and screaming into the 21st century!
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When Seeking to Spread Propaganda, Disparage the Messenger Why Don't You
Is a Salon-reading Alex Jones wannabe, with apparently no scientific credentials.
Right, I have not been indoctrinated into the 'sacred' orthodoxy.
Scientists are as prone to prejudices as anyone. Worse yet, they are more liable to be believed because of the suffix on their name, therefore they are more dangerous.
So, scientists are wrong lots of the time. How?
They often adhere to old belief systems or theories, even after the theories are supplanted by new evidence.
They refuse to research novel or unconventional fields.
They often tend to try to force fit supporting data and throw out dissenting data to suit their pet theory. They miss the bigger picture, the REALITY.
They are often muzzled by necessity, doing or saying things they might not otherwise because they know which side their bread is buttered on. Thus, they often engage in lemming type behavior, not wanting to stick out and challenge the agreed upon consensus reality.
They might engage in useless work because that is what is provocative and what got them their stipends.
They engage in the self deceit of believing that because humanity knows some things, we know all there is to know about something, or that we even know more than we really do know.
They refuse to acknowledge the importance of politics, intelligence, sociology, psychology or any of a number of other mitigating factors when they formulate theories or come to conclusions-- conclusions that in reality might even be 180 degrees to the actual reality of a situation. They tend to naively believe that others are incapable of mangling or manufacturing data to suit a political prejudice.
Part of the problem with the blind spots and shortcomings of scientists I describe above is that those in power are quite well aware of these all too human blind spots and are quite willing to take advantage of them for their own personal gain. Society leaders might even infiltrate the educational process to discourage scientists from, for instance, questioning the commonly accepted prevalent theories. Thus encouraging mob behavior and discouraging true scientific discovery. For instance, when is the last time YOU were taught true critical thinking? (critical thinking? What is THAT?)
Here is a good example of what I speak of:
On Mars, there are trees. Yes. Real TREES.
Hundreds of NASA photos clearly show these trees.
Scientists engage in indulging several canards to dispute or disavow this reality.
Some claim that if there really were trees, NASA would announce this finding.
For some, the possibility of trees elsewhere than on Earth is outside of their reality, so it does not exist, despite clear photographic evidence to the contrary. These sort of scientists will play around with the data until they come up with an alternate, more comfortable, but WRONG reality that they can accept.
Others prefer to believe their prejudice that life elsewhere would be so foreign as to not resemble anything on Earth.
Others refuse to acknowledge that Mars is quite capable of having trees and/or other life and that scientific instruments do show ample other evidence of this fact.
What is the other evidence?
Constantly replenishing supplies of methane into the atmosphere of Mars that can only be explained by extant life.
Spectroscopic examination of the Martian atmosphere clearly shows the signal of organic molecules.
Low-resolution visual confirmation of changing Martian seasons-- in the warm season in the North hemisphere on Mars, noticeable regions of green appear planet wide.
Other correllating evidence-- photographs showing fields of plainly evident 'stick and ball lollipop' life forms evident everywhere at the millimeter scale and photographed extensively by the Mars Rovers. These are typically called 'blueberries' by insiders, though they are green, not blue.
It is also important to note the life seeking experiments on board the Viking landers in the 1970s did not deny the possibility of life there, only that the results of the experiments were inconclusive.
Finally, the coup de grace, evidence of NASA DELIBERATELY fucking with the data to maintain a certain political stance. Photos show Mars with a red sky. All photos put up in front of sheeple faces show red sky. The sky on Mars is BLUE. The European space agency will have none of this. Their photos show the correct coloration of Mars-- which clearly shows GREEN on the ground. Thus, you see the reason every photo NASA puts out is all red, red sky, red ground. It makes greenery look black or dark gray, thus hiding the current life there.
Why is NASA doing such a thing? Two words. BROOKINGS REPORT.
Google it.
Anyway, my point is that having a PhD means little. Not having a PhD means little.
Some of the biggest, most profound idiots I have ever met have been academics and scientists. Some of the sharpest, most knowledgeable people I have ever met have had little more than a high school education. Make of it what you will.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was supposed to wake people up to the egregious shortcomings of human scientists.
WAKE UP SHEEPLE.