[PassedOut]

olegru, on 2016-November-22, 08:41, said:

I don't think it is the worst problem. Titles always design to cause the attention and how much is the distance between reality and the title of that video is not clear. At least it is not clear for me, I saw video without checking the title. It speaks very loud for itself. And another video from Jonathan with girls from California school too.

The main problem I see is that, according your source, clear "hate" case was labeled as a road rage and liberals simply ignore it.

Thanks for posting your reaction.

As you can see from my post, I didn't hesitate to call it a hate crime. That might not count because I am a conservative businessman and not a liberal, but most of the liberals I know would not hestitate to call it a hate crime either -- and that includes blacks as well as whites. I don't know everyone's mind, of course, but I can't think of anyone who'd say otherwise.

Why do you think that labeling a hate crime as road rage is unacceptable while labeling it as punishment for voting for Trump is acceptable? After all, the crime was actually triggered by a traffic accident.

Let me say that I have a close relative in law enforcement and am always concerned for his safety. The dangers are not limited to angry blacks. Well-armed white men belonging to fringe militia groups sincerely believe that the laws don't apply to them and pose dangers to the police also.

When you say that liberals "ignore" black on white violence, I'm interested in what not ignoring it means to you. Most of us, conservative and liberals, understand that it's the responsibility of law enforcement to aprehend criminals and to bring them to trial.

olegru, on 2016-November-22, 08:41, said:

Now imagine sides were reversed. Would you have any doubts it would be labeled as a "hate" crime?
We would have riots with many cars put in flame; apologies from top officials, and couple of policemen killed by "concerned citizens."

If, in your view, the way for folks not to ignore the crime is to respond like this, I disagree completely.

olegru, on 2016-November-22, 08:41, said:

Our statistics manipulated based on political interests. It less and less reflects reality.
Not only from race relationship, take unemployment, for example.
We are basing our opinions and government bases its decisions on the bad data. On the intentionally bad data. This is the problem I have.

You'll have to give me more specifics before I'll be able to understand your last points here. It's certainly true that all politicians spin the data for their own purposes, but the government data these days is voluminous and as accurate as the civil servants working for the government can make it.

[y66]

From A Jolt of Blue-Collar Hope by David Leonhardt:

Quote

NEW CASTLE, Del. — The nearby factory that made Dodge Durangos closed eight years ago. The General Motors Boxwood Road Plant — open since 1947 — closed the next year. So did the oil refinery in Delaware City.

In the span of a year during the financial crisis, once-prosperous northern Delaware had to confront post-industrial devastation.

It’s sort of the devastation that now has the country’s attention. Donald Trump won the presidency with huge margins in places left behind. He lost the popular vote, but won 26 of the 30 lowest-income states, including the old powerhouses of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.

These places are stuck in what I call the Great American Stagnation. Tens of millions of people have experienced scant progress for decades. Median net worth is lower than in the 1980s, and middle-aged whites, shockingly, aren’t living as long as they used to. Ending this stagnation is the central political problem of our age: It fuels Trumpian anger and makes every other societal problem harder to solve.

I came here to New Castle looking for a jolt of hope after the terribly dispiriting presidential campaign. I came to see one of the more promising attacks on the Great American Stagnation.

It’s sort of the devastation that now has the country’s attention? Indeed. Perhaps we can move the conversation in this direction and toward some of the topics mikeh has suggested. passedout is a Michiganer. Would love to hear more about what's being done up there on this front.

[mikeh]

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-November-22, 00:11, said:

I don't think any of us can be sure that it doesn't apply to us. If I had to guess, I think both sides suffer from cognitive dissonance as you described it.

It's unlikely that we are right about every point, and it's unlikely that they are right about every point. There are some very smart people on both sides of this article (I'm talking nationally, just not here.)

We clearly don't know which issues we are wrong about because if you take them one at a time, we think we're more likely to be right about each one.

However, even if we are wrong about one issue, we are indeed suffering from cognitive dissonance - we believe something and it's hard to shake that belief.

Look at it this way, take an issue, any issue. One of two things is true - what we believe is right because it is right, or it isn't right and we've been convinced that it is right and are our belief is firmly entrenched. Our beliefs are going to be reinforced by conservative leaning publications, news programs, and websites which will continually "prove" we are right. Their beliefs are going to be reinforced by liberal leaning publications, news programs, and websites which will continually "prove" that they are right. On any issue, only one side (or neither as the truth may lie in the middle) can be right. It would be pompous for us to think that we are right on every single issue. It is equally as pompous for them to think that they are right on every single issue. It is more likely that both sides are suffering from cognitive dissonance. One would have to be arrogant to assume otherwise.

We have entirely different perceptions of what separates us, in our approach to these posts.

No internet forum post can encompass more than a tiny fraction of what I am about to suggest, and I will have to grossly simplify much.

In order to have an intelligent discussion, the speakers need to be able to agree on some underlying reality. All reality is, in a true sense, a question of perception. We perceive the universe through our very narrow senses. As a species, and for those working with such technology, we can perceive aspects of the universe hidden from direct observation. In addition, via media we can learn from others as to what they have perceived. This operates at the level of knowing about viruses, DNA, subatomic particles, exo-planets and the like, but also on more mundane topics such as the number of gun-related deaths in the US each year, or the effect of seatbelts and airbags on the outcome of car crashes, or that ISIS is being slowly forced out of Mosul, or that Russia is bombing civilian areas in Aleppo.

Now, the reliability of some of these 'facts' is debatable, and it is true that in some cases the source of the information has an interest in shaping our perception away from objective reality. In the context of my work as a trial lawyer, I tell all my clients that trials are not about reality: they are about perceptions of reality. Put two people in a room for a lengthy discussion, and ask them a week later what was said, and you will almost always hear two different descriptions, even with both being as honest as they can be.

So reality is fuzzy in many cases. Having said that, on many issues it is possible to agree on what reality is, at least provisionally. That is the heart of the scientific method. Science can provide 'reality' information, but always on a provisional level. The degree of uncertainty is variable, and can be vanishingly low, but will never be zero.

As an example, the theory of evolution is, broadly speaking, as close to a sure thing as anything we can know. The fine details are continuing to be explored, and new ideas are constantly being discussed, debated, discarded, or provisionally adopted as 'true'. But that in broad stokes, life evolved from simple chemical precursors over billions of years is so well demonstrated that no rational person, with any exposure to the field, would argue against it.

The same is not quite as true for global warming. The theories haven't been around as long, and the tools for modelling the climate are still relatively new and in need of improvement. The processing power to simulate the climate literally didn't exist a generation ago and is likely still inadequate. The theories that allow reliable prediction are still being developed. However, there is sufficient consensus amongst those with appropriate expertise that any rational person would accept, as provisionally true, that human action is at least a major contributor to a looming catastrophe. Such a person would understand that the available evidence shows that we are right now living through one of the major extinction events in the story of life on earth, and that the pace of extinction is growing and will threaten billions of humans within a couole of generations.

What to do about it is a different, albeit related, issue, and one that (unlike the questions of whether global warming is happening and whether human activity is a cause) involves value judgements.

It is possible for rational people to argue about what to do about global warming. It is not possible to debate the underlying issue on the basis of your opinion or my opinion. I am not a climate scientist and somehow I get the feeling that you aren't either. So we don't have any intellectual right to argue about whether the overwhelming scientific consensus is 'right'. When more than 98% of those with expertise agree on the big questions, we should provisionally accept that consensus. We can, if we want, cling to a hope that the consensus will be shown to have been mistaken but we shouldn't behave (or vote) on that basis.

This gets us back to where you and I differ. You accept as true matters that have absolutely no evidentiary foundation. You repeat right wing memes as facts, and then argue that your belief in them is as worthy of respect and acceptance, as 'right', as my reliance upon peer-reviewed studies on issues such as racial discrimination in rental housing or transportation options.

If you want to debate values, that's fine. Your opinions, if based on reality, are worthy of consideration. Your opinions, if based on right wing fantasies masquerading as facts are not. Until you demonstrate an ability and a willingness to identify the difference...to recognize that something is not true simply because you want it to be true....there is no point having a discussion with you. Seriously: when you cannot even tell the difference between bullshit like the socialist professor story and reality, what is the point?

You know, one of the major tragedies of our time is the dumbing down of the public. Not that the public was ever, really, not dumbed down, but the advent of politicized reporting (of which Faux News is merely the classic instance, but it has its precursors with Hearst and even earlier), has resulted in the false meme that there are always two sides to everything. Thus Creationism is advanced as a balanced alternative to evolution. Gimme a break. There is a basic difference between belief and knowledge, and until and unless you acknowledge that distinction, we have little to say to each other.

[y66]

fyi Donald Trump at the New York Times live on Twitter

[Kaitlyn S]

mikeh, on 2016-November-22, 10:51, said:

...You accept as true matters that have absolutely no evidentiary foundation. You repeat right wing memes as facts, and then argue that your belief in them is as worthy of respect and acceptance, as 'right',,,,

I understand what you are saying, but the timing of your post seems odd. You were responding to a post where I was suggesting to JonOttowa that he may have fallen victim to the cognitive dissonance that he was stating that you had been afflicted with.

[y66]

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-November-22, 12:56, said:

I understand what you are saying, but the timing of your post seems odd. You were responding to a post where I was suggesting to JonOttowa that he may have fallen victim to the cognitive dissonance that he was stating that you had been afflicted with.

mikeh makes a thoughtful post laying out ground rules for the constructive discussion you say you want and you talk about odd timing and then you throw in other stuff to further distract from the discussion you say you want to have? I'm not sure if we're in dog barking or not barking territory here but the inference is clear: you are not interested in having a serious discussion based on facts.

[y66]

Some perhaps useful advice from David Brooks:

Quote

It seems like the first thing to do is really learn what this election is teaching us. Second, this seems like a moment for some low-passion wonkery. It’s stupid to react to every Trump tweet outrage with your own predictable howls. It’s silly to treat politics and governance purely on cultural grounds, as a high school popularity contest, where my sort of people denigrates your sort of people.

There will be plenty of time to be disgusted with Trump’s bigotry, narcissism and incompetence. It’s tempting to get so caught up in his outrage du jour that you never have to do any self-examination. But let’s be honest: It wouldn’t kill us Trump critics to take a break from our never-ending umbrage to engage in a little listening.

[mikeh]

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-November-22, 12:56, said:

I understand what you are saying, but the timing of your post seems odd. You were responding to a post where I was suggesting to JonOttowa that he may have fallen victim to the cognitive dissonance that he was stating that you had been afflicted with.

I was responding to your offer to engage in a rational discourse, in which, I assume, you intended to advance your views on issues. However, my opinion of what that meant was informed by the post that I quoted in mine: the post in which you seem to divide views of matters into 'right' and 'wrong', while recognizing that one 'side' may believe their view to be 'right' and the other would disagree.

You refer to some 'very smart' people taking opposing sides.

My point was that there are matters on which one can legitimately assert that there are different opinions and that such differences are worthy of respect even tho, and maybe especially tho, one may prefer one side to the other, perhaps passionately. But then there are matters where no such respect should be accorded to some 'views'.

I cited one's acceptance or rejection of two ideas that are largely, tho not uniformly, rejected by leading republicans in the US: evolutionary theory and global warming. Note that Trump has publicly claimed that global warming is a hoax by the Chinese, altho he lied about that during the 3rd debate. His approach to cabinet selection so far, and his pronouncements on energy (including coal) suggest that he is a denier, or (given who he is) that he doesn't give a damn about anything but himself, and he doesn't see how a global catastrophe can be bad for him. Note that Pence is a Creationist as well as a religious bigot (the two often go hand in hand)

I want to know whether you accept that one should generally operate on the basis that a strong scientific consensus ought to give rise to a provisional acceptance of that consensus or whether you believe, as I infer that you do, that a rational person, with no scientific expertise, is entitled to respect for rejecting such a consensus. Ought we to recognize some form of equivalence between carefully researched, peer reviewed investigation by multiple specialist on the one hand, and religious or opportunistic babbling by scientific illiterates on the other?

I know where I stand. Where do you stand?

I warn you that this is a dangerous path to take, should you agree that one should provisionally accept scientific consensus when such exists. As has been often noted, reality has a liberal bias, and once you start accepting reality over fantasy, your attitides will change, and you will find yourself at odds with many of your friends. I doubt that you will or even can take this path but would be truly delighted if you did.

Please note that in no way am I saying that this would result in you agreeing with me on value-based issues. I would respect and appreciate opinions that differed from mine, but that recognized a shared reality based on facts that seem to have been proven, as opposed to merely alleged.

Btw, I hope that you understand why I use the word 'provisionally' in the above language. Contrary to many religiously motivated criticisms, science isn't just another religion, with a quantitatively different but qualitatively similar way of viewing the world. Religions teach absolutes, based on revealed knowledge. Science teaches provisional values, based on observation, formulation of hypothesese that explain the observations and (critically and often ignored by the uninformed) efforts to falsify the hypotheses.

Thus one of the landmark events of the early 20th century was expensive and time-consuming trips by European and American scientists to travel to locations where they could observe a solar eclipse.

Why?

Because Einstein had published a theory. An implication of that theory was that light could be bent by solar masses. A solar eclipse offered a chance to see whether what is now known as gravitational lensing existed.

Had it not been seen, then the theory would be challenged...it would seem to be inconsistent with the observed universe. So the experiment was intended as an effort to falsify the theory, as much as it was an effort to demonstrate that the theory was correct. In the event, gravgitational lensing was observed, and, within the limits of the available technology, precisely as the theory suggested.

Now, that did not 'prove' that the theory was absolutely 'right'. It merely showed that the theory was consistent with the observed universe and thus was entitled to be treated as provisionally correct. Indeed, those satellites that provide us with GPS info and near instantaneous global data transmission are able to do so only because the engineers who specified their orbits and the flow of data, took into account relativity....for satellites in orbit, due to their relative velocity compared to the surface of the earth, time passes at a measurably (tho incredibly tiny) different rate!

Thus by relying upon theory, we can manipulate the world.

I don't know if you are aware of the LHC at Cern, but I think it was last year when, due to subtle faults in the equipment, they detected readings that, if correct, suggested that some particles were moving at a speed greater than the speed of light. While virtually all physicists whose views I saw were highly skeptical, almost all of those quoted were extremely excited by the mere possibility that the results were genuine. Why? Because such would invalidate key aspects of the prevailing scientific consensus and open up enormous questions. IOW, they saw the existing paaradigms as provisional and capable, at least conceptually, of being falsified by observation. As it happens, the fault was detected, fixed, and the anomalous results disappeared. I mention these stories in an effort to show you why asking you to accept a scientifically demonstrated proposition is different in kind, not mere degree, than asking you to accept a political meme or a religious assertion.

No rational person could think that we, as a species, know all the answers. What we ought to aspire towards is the search for the answers, from observation of what is, and not from what was written by ignorant people hundreds or thousands of years ago, or indeed what was written 5 minutes ago on the internet.

Our views of what to do in response to reality can and ought to be debated, but not reality itself.

[Kaitlyn S]

mikeh, on 2016-November-22, 13:53, said:

I was responding to your offer to engage in a rational discourse, in which, I assume, you intended to advance your views on issues.

I was confused by what was quoted. Sorry! Yes I do want to engage in rational discourse. While I do try to advance my own ideas, I frequently learn new things that changes the way I look at the situation - because while I have opinions on just about every issue that is argued, I'm not 100% married to any of those opinions. I hope the same is true for the people I'm discussing things with but in my experience my views have changed far more frequently than those of the people who I speak with. (Apparently being aware of one's cognitive dissonance is the first step in overcoming it, and most people are not aware of it affecting themselves, while everybody intelligent should be aware of it.)

mikeh, on 2016-November-22, 13:53, said:

However, my opinion of what that meant was informed by the post that I quoted in mine: the post in which you seem to divide views of matters into 'right' and 'wrong', while recognizing that one 'side' may believe their view to be 'right' and the other would disagree.

You refer to some 'very smart' people taking opposing sides.

My point was that there are matters on which one can legitimately assert that there are different opinions and that such differences are worthy of respect even tho, and maybe especially tho, one may prefer one side to the other, perhaps passionately. But then there are matters where no such respect should be accorded to some 'views'.

I agree with this assessment. There are some matters where fundamental beliefs will never bring the two sides together no matter how much they argue the points, such as the pro-choice/pro-life argument. I am personally pro-choice and thought that my party's obsession with pro-life would cost us the election. But there is no point in arguing this point with fellow conservatives because they think I advocate for murder. So I think that's one of those issues where people have to agree to disagree.

There are other issues where one side is clearly right and the other is wrong, but only a limited number of people can know for sure (like whether Hillary was truly hiding something evil by wiping her servers.) We can't know for sure, the only thing that each side can do is present examples of her good character or her bad character to support their side.

As I posted elsewhere, I totally expect that Trump will be a terrible president and that Hillary would have been even worse and one of my points will probably be proven, and I'll be slammed for voting for Trump even when I might have been 100% right. However, we will never know and it's probably pointless discussing this issue because (a) it won't matter and (b) it's going to be very hard for either side to prove the other right. However, one side is clearly right - we will never know which but it is certain that one of the following is true: Hillary would have been worse, or Hillary would not have been worse. Although it could be argued what the definition of "worse" is: many Sanders voters might be quite happy with a country that falls under my definition of worse.

mikeh, on 2016-November-22, 13:53, said:

I cited one's acceptance or rejection of two ideas that are largely, tho not uniformly, rejected by leading republicans in the US: evolutionary theory and global warming. Note that Trump has publicly claimed that global warming is a hoax by the Chinese, altho he lied about that during the 3rd debate. His approach to cabinet selection so far, and his pronouncements on energy (including coal) suggest that he is a denier, or (given who he is) that he doesn't give a damn about anything but himself, and he doesn't see how a global catastrophe can be bad for him. Note that Pence is a Creationist as well as a religious bigot (the two often go hand in hand)

I'm not happy with his Cabinet selections either, especially Banner. Whether I personally like Banner there or not, I think he is adding to the divisiveness in the country by choosing Banner, and if he truly wants to work with Democrats, then this is not the way to show it.

I agree that Pence is a scary choice of VP for many people. I would hate to see what would happen to the LGBT community if God forbid, Trump died and put Pence in charge. However, Trump in one of the debates said he didn't agree with Pence on an issue and Trump is the big dog so Pence's ideology might not matter. However, having Banner advising Trump isn't going to be good for minorities or LGBT. I just hope he can use good judgment in choosing when to ignore his advisors when they give him awful advice.

But I think there is hope, I think choosing Pence was more a move to help get elected than a serious replacement leader for the country in Trump's mind.

Climate change? I'm sitting that one out. I don't know enough and most of the material on the matter neither interests me nor is understandable to me. The only thing I have to say about it is that both sides of scientists should be allowed to speak freely on the subject. I at some point heard that Lynch wanted to arrest climate change denying scientists but that is probably right wing propaganda, but in case it isn't, she shouldn't be allowed to do that. Not only for freedom of speech, but let's let science happen freely and without legal consequences.

mikeh, on 2016-November-22, 13:53, said:

I want to know whether you accept that one should generally operate on the basis that a strong scientific consensus ought to give rise to a provisional acceptance of that consensus or whether you believe, as I infer that you do, that a rational person, with no scientific expertise, is entitled to respect for rejecting such a consensus. Ought we to recognize some form of equivalence between carefully researched, peer reviewed investigation by multiple specialist on the one hand, and religious or opportunistic babbling by scientific illiterates on the other?

Normally if scientists agree on something, I would rationally go along with it. However, the argument is whether the scientists truly agree or those that disagree are being muffled. Again, I don't know the answer, but conservative (you might say alt-right) sources say that the public is only hearing one side. I believe that there are evil forces in government, on both sides, so while it sounds like a conspiracy theory, I can't discount it as being 100% false. Certainly if the government only gives grants to scientists who have a preconception that man-made climate change is not only real but will have disastrous effects, then there is bias coming from the scientific community. It's not that I don't believe the scientists, it's that I'm not sure I'm not hearing only one side. After all, if I listen to Fox News and Breitbart, wouldn't you say I'm only getting one side of each issue? The same may be true for climate change, except that it's the other side.

Am I denying man-made climate change? Not on your life. I don't know enough. What I am sure of is that those scientists that I am allowed to hear from say that it's real. So that says there is at least some chance that it is real and I would be a fool to say that it isn't.

mikeh, on 2016-November-22, 13:53, said:

I know where I stand. Where do you stand?

I warn you that this is a dangerous path to take, should you agree that one should provisionally accept scientific consensus when such exists. As has been often noted, reality has a liberal bias, and once you start accepting reality over fantasy, your attitides will change, and you will find yourself at odds with many of your friends. I doubt that you will or even can take this path but would be truly delighted if you did.

I agree that since we don't know, the safer path is to assume that we can do something about it, as long as the expense isn't so great that other necessary programs will bite the dust. For example, given a choice between funding education or trying to fix the climate change problem, I think we have to fund education. If we are rich enough to do both, fine. However, our country is almost 20 trillion in debt (NOT counting unfunded Social Security and Medicare liabilities) and that works out to be a few hundred thousand for every taxpayer! If you count the unfunded liabilities, each new baby born is a few hundred thousand dollars in debt at birth. At some point, people will stop funding the U.S. government's extravagance. Also, it's a worldwide initiative and much of the world is ignoring the problem. Last I heard, only the USA fulfilled their Kyoto Protocol obligations, so we can pour untold trillions trying to solve the problem but it will do little good if there are countries with 4 times as many people as we have that continue to pollute and are become more industrialized.

mikeh, on 2016-November-22, 13:53, said:

Please note that in no way am I saying that this would result in you agreeing with me on value-based issues. I would respect and appreciate opinions that differed from mine, but that recognized a shared reality based on facts that seem to have been proven, as opposed to merely alleged.

I don't think you're being unreasonable here.

I've got a lot more to respond to here but unfortunately I must get some work done before Orlando.

However I think it's possible to have some good discussions. I remember one discussion I had recently on UBI. All the other participants were left-leaning as my fellow conservatives wouldn't touch the subject. However I felt having a conservative in the discussion was valuable to them as I was in a much better position to discuss the political obstacles that they are going to run into (knowing how fellow conservatives might think) and ways to overcome them and have people be happy about it, whereas without me it would have been more of an elitist "We know this is right so we're going to ram it down the Americans' throats."

[Winstonm]

Cognitive dissonance is a feeling that results from personal beliefs conflicting with best known information, i.e., reality; confirmation bias is our way of avoiding cognitive dissonance.

Quote

Confirmation bias

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Confirmation bias, also called confirmatory bias or myside bias,[Note 1] is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses, while giving disproportionately less consideration to alternative possibilities.[1] It is a type of cognitive bias and a systematic error of inductive reasoning. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. People also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position. Biased search, interpretation and memory have been invoked to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence), belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect (a greater reliance on information encountered early in a series) and illusory correlation (when people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations).

It is important to understand our own confirmation bias in order to factor it in to our research. Otherwise, we simply search out quotes to support our position.

[Kaitlyn S]

Let me just add that it is a dangerous game for the party in power to ignore the other side. Right now the Republicans control everything and IMO it would be just awful to pass a lot of legislation and executive orders to take the country far right, only to have a Democratic sweep in a few years and have the country move far left. Nobody could plan anything that depends on the future because the country could be drastically different in a few years. I feel that any party that is in power needs to carefully consider the other side's position since it represents about half the country. I'm not sure how to make that happen politically but since there are very strong opinions on both sides of each issue and very many people on each side, so ideally some degree of compromise needs to happen.

Trump choosing Bannon is scary since it's an implication that this isn't happening. However there is hope. Obama had both the House and the Senate for two years and yet couldn't get that much accomplished. Perhaps the same will happen this time; after all there is much disagreement between the conservative congressmen and the Trump populist congressmen and the good ol' boys of the GOP establishment. So it's unlikely that they're going to agree on much and maybe any of the factions will need some Democratic support to get anything done. Let's hope so. For while I'm in favor of conservative change, I'm also opposed to ignoring the opinions of left-leaning Americans just because we won this time.

[Kaitlyn S]

Winstonm, on 2016-November-22, 15:29, said:

It is important to understand our own confirmation bias in order to factor it in to our research. Otherwise, we simply search out quotes to support our position.

I recently got that lesson when I stated that the left was following Alinsky tactics and someone mentioned that the Tea Party was handling out Rules to Radicals to some of their leaders (to follow, not just to see what the other side was doing.) I looked it up and damn! He was right!

[billw55]

mikeh, on 2016-November-22, 13:53, said:

Now, that did not 'prove' that the theory was absolutely 'right'. It merely showed that the theory was consistent with the observed universe and thus was entitled to be treated as provisionally correct. Indeed, those satellites that provide us with GPS info and near instantaneous global data transmission are able to do so only because the engineers who specified their orbits and the flow of data, took into account relativity....for satellites in orbit, due to their relative velocity compared to the surface of the earth, time passes at a measurably (tho incredibly tiny) different rate!

Thought I would add a little to the science here. For GPS satellites, special relativistic effects due to relative motion must indeed be taken into account. However, general relativistic effects due to being farther out in earth's gravitational field are larger, and in the opposite direction. Both effects must be correctly calculated and adjusted for to get GPS working to the existing precision.

[mikeh]

billw55, on 2016-November-22, 15:38, said:

Thought I would add a little to the science here. For GPS satellites, special relativistic effects due to relative motion must indeed be taken into account. However, general relativistic effects due to being farther out in earth's gravitational field are larger, and in the opposite direction. Both effects must be correctly calculated and adjusted for to get GPS working to the existing precision.

I did say I was doing some gross simplification, but thanks for the addition

[onoway]

I have pretty much given up on the outrage posts stuff except for what is happening at Standing Rock in North Dakota. That has actually got to the point where I am starting to call people out for moaning and wringing their hands about what was done to the Native Americans 100 years ago while sitting comfortably on their butts while the Sioux and others are being blasted with water cannon in below freezing temperatures, fired on with rubber bullets and tear gassed on their own land. By taxpayer paid police for the benefit of corporate interests.

Moaning about what happened 100 years ago and ignoring what is going on now so they can focus on Trump's latest twitter ( this is not referring to anyone here, but people on Facebook I badly misjudged as actually being activists) infuriates and depresses me.

Latest word, which I don't know if true or not, is that a bunch of US veterans are coming to Standing Rock to support the protesters. That's what counts, in the long run. Obviously not everyone can do that, but where people put their energy is telling.

[helene_t]

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-November-22, 15:11, said:

Normally if scientists agree on something, I would rationally go along with it. However, the argument is whether the scientists truly agree or those that disagree are being muffled. Again, I don't know the answer, but conservative (you might say alt-right) sources say that the public is only hearing one side.

You could check for yourself by asking some scientists.

The problem with Fox News etc is not that they are conservative. Because there is no such thing as a conservative (or liberal, or socialist) science. There is good science and there is bad science (or pseudo science, or non-science, or anti-science).

You can be a good scientist while having conservative, liberal, communist, anarchist or facist political viewpoints. I suppose scientists are relatively unlikely to support politicians that are hostile to science. But there are plenty of scientists who are conservative.

Are antropogenic-climate-change-sceptical climate scientist being mufled?

I haven't had much contact with climate scientists so I can't say based on first hand evidence that this is not the case. Having worked in similarly politically sensitive research areas like pesticide safety and breast cancer screening I can say, however, that the trend is basically what you would expect: while government employed or industry employed scientists are being heavily censored by their employers' interests, academic scientists generally have a lot of freedom, and even when they feel pressure from peers, funders, bosses and editors, different scientists can feel opposite-direction pressure so if you listen to the whole scientific community you will get a varied picture. Not necessarily completely unbiased: "70% of academic scientists believe product X is safe" would not be very significant. But if 99% believe it is probably safe to say that it is our best guess based on available evidence.

I suppose climate science could be different. Maybe there is a global conspiracy that suppresses divergent views on antropogenic climate change. But I find it unlikely. Generally, the scientific community feeds on disagreement. So if they all agree I think it is for the same reason why they all agree that the moon is not made of green cheese.

By the way, they don't all agree. Yes, nearly all agree that CO2 and methane emmisions is at least partly responsible for the temperature increase over the last century. But there are plenty of details which they disagree about. And that disagreement is by no means being swept under the carpet.

They probably all agree that Mike Pence is talking out of his *****, though.

Anyway, seeking input to this discussion on hyperpartisan anti-scientific websites is not the way to go.

[mikeh]

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-November-22, 15:11, said:

.

Climate change? I'm sitting that one out. I don't know enough and most of the material on the matter neither interests me nor is understandable to me. The only thing I have to say about it is that both sides of scientists should be allowed to speak freely on the subject. I at some point heard that Lynch wanted to arrest climate change denying scientists but that is probably right wing propaganda, but in case it isn't, she shouldn't be allowed to do that. Not only for freedom of speech, but let's let science happen freely and without legal consequences.

Normally if scientists agree on something, I would rationally go along with it. However, the argument is whether the scientists truly agree or those that disagree are being muffled. Again, I don't know the answer, but conservative (you might say alt-right) sources say that the public is only hearing one side. I believe that there are evil forces in government, on both sides, so while it sounds like a conspiracy theory, I can't discount it as being 100% false. Certainly if the government only gives grants to scientists who have a preconception that man-made climate change is not only real but will have disastrous effects, then there is bias coming from the scientific community. It's not that I don't believe the scientists, it's that I'm not sure I'm not hearing only one side. After all, if I listen to Fox News and Breitbart, wouldn't you say I'm only getting one side of each issue? The same may be true for climate change, except that it's the other side.

Am I denying man-made climate change? Not on your life. I don't know enough. What I am sure of is that those scientists that I am allowed to hear from say that it's real. So that says there is at least some chance that it is real and I would be a fool to say that it isn't.

I agree that since we don't know, the safer path is to assume that we can do something about it, as long as the expense isn't so great that other necessary programs will bite the dust. For example, given a choice between funding education or trying to fix the climate change problem, I think we have to fund education. If we are rich enough to do both, fine. However, our country is almost 20 trillion in debt (NOT counting unfunded Social Security and Medicare liabilities) and that works out to be a few hundred thousand for every taxpayer! If you count the unfunded liabilities, each new baby born is a few hundred thousand dollars in debt at birth. At some point, people will stop funding the U.S. government's extravagance. Also, it's a worldwide initiative and much of the world is ignoring the problem. Last I heard, only the USA fulfilled their Kyoto Protocol obligations, so we can pour untold trillions trying to solve the problem but it will do little good if there are countries with 4 times as many people as we have that continue to pollute and are become more industrialized.

The US signed Kyoto but Congress refused to ratify it. However, that is a quibble. The more important fact is that the US has not met its targets. Kerry was quoted in 2013, I think it was, as claiming that it had, but the Washington Post did an excellent article, with statistics, refuting that idea and pointing out thet Kerry was using political sleight of hand in much of what he said. Given that the WP is generally seen as pro-Obama, I think it fair to see this as likely accurate reporting since it was critical of the Obama administrations claims on climate change.

Since it took me less than a minute to find and read the start of the WP article, I suspect that as with most of your other 'facts' you are regurgitating some lie you heard or read somewhere without any interest at all in whether what you write is true. It is a classic post-truth statement. How it made you feel was more important to you than whether it was true.

As for being on the fence, another 30 seconds or so online will lead you, via the miracle of google, to understand that 97-98% of climate scientists stand on one side of the fence. Guess which side.

As for the others being muffled...the idea that there are hundreds or thousands of PhD researchers into climate change who are being muffled is ludicrous. Where do you get these ideas from? Have you ever aksed yourself how this muffling is being done?

Hmmmm....the Republican Party has controlled the House for years, and the Senate for some time, and they have climate change deniers on influential committees. The coal industry has its very existence at stake, and surely paying a few hundred million or more on science to save their businesses would make sense to the coal companies/ What about the oil companies? Hmm....they'd love to show that reliance on oil isn't causing mass species extinctions, I'd think. What do you think? Do you think that the Republican controlled administrations of Bush Jr. were muffling scientists?

In Canada, we did indeed have government censorship of climate science. Our former right wing government banned federally employed scientists from any public comment. Why? Because they agreed that our Oil Sanda are major contributors to global warming, and the government wanted to keep that under wraps. Thus the only evidence of muffling of which I am aware is to the opposite effect of your story.

So please explain the evidence for you assertion that there are two more or less equal sides to the climate change scientific consensus/

Oh...don't bother. You are not only ignorant, which is true of all of us with respect to most areas of knowledge, but you are intellectually lazy.

Ignorance is unavoidable, and nothing to be ashamed about. We come into the world utterly ignorant and, if we are lucky, we spend the rest of our lifes, leaving aside dementia, learning. it is both a glory of our humanity and a sobering thought that the growth of human knowledge outpaces the ability of any one person to learn, so our individual ignorance decreases in absolute terms but increases in relative terms.

It is a shame that so many of us are comfortable with our ignorance, and have no intellectual curiosity. We substitute for that wonderful attribute a willingness to live inside an informational bubble in which we are fed lies and distortions that resonate with our ignorant biases, and we mistake that for learning.

I don't give a damn about you as a person, any more than you do about me. However, you are able to write, and you claim, falsely, to like to debate. You commit a far greater wrong against yourself than you do against me, by your intellectual laziness. My only real concern is that you reflect and represent an alarmingly large number of people who no longer think, but repeat memes.

[PassedOut]

Kaitlyn S, on 2016-November-22, 15:11, said:

Climate change? I'm sitting that one out. I don't know enough and most of the material on the matter neither interests me nor is understandable to me. The only thing I have to say about it is that both sides of scientists should be allowed to speak freely on the subject. I at some point heard that Lynch wanted to arrest climate change denying scientists but that is probably right wing propaganda, but in case it isn't, she shouldn't be allowed to do that. Not only for freedom of speech, but let's let science happen freely and without legal consequences.

Normally if scientists agree on something, I would rationally go along with it. However, the argument is whether the scientists truly agree or those that disagree are being muffled.

In the Climate Change Thread, y66 posted a link to this article, The Rockefeller Family Fund vs. Exxon, with some of its introductory text. If you read on past that introduction, you'll find a very understandable history of the findings of the ExxonMobil scientists over the years and of the actions of management to counter those findings. The report has numerous reference links if you wish to learn the basis for statements made.

You might be too young to have seen how the cigarette companies worked to create doubt about the scientific evidence that cigarette smoking causes cancer. Doing so was effective enough to keep cigarette profits high for forty years. The doubts created about the scientific evidence for climate change are spread using the same playbook, and even employed some of the same players.

It's fine to read that report skeptically, but do read it to see what you think. (After Orlando, if you don't have time now).

[onoway]

The former right wing government in Canada also banned scientists who had concerns in the area of fisheries from commenting - and pretty much anything else which might possibly impact what the government wanted to do.

Harper wiped out several long term studies and sold off some of the infrastructure which had supported science, one notable one being the PFRA which had had a direct influence in bringing the Prairies out of the 1930's dust bowl..yes it reached into Canada. It had ever since supplied trees free to anyone who had more than 10 acres, a very positive strategy for combatting climate change. This is likely to have a fairly large impact the next time a drought rolls around, and it will, we have had minor ones within the last ten years.

Was it Carlin who said that an educated public was the last thing that a government wants?

[Kaitlyn S]

mikeh, on 2016-November-22, 16:35, said:

You commit a far greater wrong against yourself than you do against me, by your intellectual laziness. My only real concern is that you reflect and represent an alarmingly large number of people who no longer think, but repeat memes.

My "intellectual laziness" is somewhat practicality. If I assume that everything I believe is wrong, and has to be checked, it would take me hours to write a fairly simple but long post, since I would have to check everything that wasn't 2+2=4. I have to make some assumptions about things that I already "know" being true. If they aren't true, I'll find out soon enough, but to me it's better to write something including 50 facts in an hour and have someone tell me that one of my facts is false then to spend 12 hours checking every one of the fifty facts. Even adding in the time discussing intellectual laziness, the time spent is still far less.

How would you feel if you had to write your long posts and had to check every thing that you were going to say before you wrote it? You wouldn't get to say anything. You're writing what you know, and if you say something wrong, you're probably going to get away with it because I'm not that likely to call you out on it because I'll probably not know it is wrong (however I'll look it up if it sounds fishy.)

But you know the points I was trying to make, and it's not really that relevant to my points whether we met the Kyoto protocol or not. Instead of discussing the points, you decided it was better to call me intellectually lazy. The points being that (1) how does it do any good to try to solve climate change if others won't do their part, and (2) what are you going to give up to pay for it? These are both very important points IMO and if you disagree that either of these points is important, just say so. You can add that you believe I'm wrong about the US meeting Kyoto protocol in your discussion, but to say you really want to discuss issues, and then make the "mistake" the focal point of your discussion is kind of disingenuous. If you want to discuss issues, fine, let's discuss issues. But if your sole reason to discuss issues is to make your "adversary" look stupid, then I have no desire to engage, for we're not discussing issues, we're involved in a sh*t-flinging contest. Not having much practice, I don't think I stand a prayer in a sh*t-flinging contest against you since it's an essential part of your career and you're probably pretty good at it.

While the particulars of climate change science don't interest me, I'm willing to discuss the practical side of the politics and economics of it. That is if we can do so with some mutual respect. It doesn't sound like that's going to happen though. It's almost like you're saying "You said something wrong so you're not worth talking to anymore." I know that isn't exactly what you're saying but you can understand how it sounds like that. Imagine how someone would feel if they were discussing the play of a hand on the Expert forum and someone came up with a really detailed line of play and someone else dismissed them from the discussion because at one point he said "The odds of a 3-2 split are 70%" and the reason given for the dismissal of his ideas were that the odds were more like 67.8% even though the rest of his analysis was good. And everybody else is talking about the hand but ignoring this one poster just because he was wrong about one of the facts. Do you think that's right?