DesertFox-
The very model of a modern major general
+794|6655|United States of America
I assume KEN is making a joke, but I can't be sure without a /s.
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5328|London, England

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

its weird to me that you like to reference game theory to talk about climate change while also admitting that people don't act rationally unless a gun is in their face.

Also, i've personally audited two factories that were powered by 100% renewable energy. One was a garment factory in Sri Lanka, producing goods for a large international lifestyle company.  One was an electronics factory in Mexico owned and operated by a Fortune 50 company.  The manufacturing industry has already made a push towards renewables, like many other industries, but apparently you didn't get that memo.
Did they have battery storage or did they depend on spinning the meter backwards at peak times?

Sacrifice for the greater good is entirely irrational. It's why the communists had to murder hundreds of  millions of people to make their system slightly functional.

Last edited by Jay (2018-10-17 01:43:35)

"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
uziq
Member
+492|3423
lmao.
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5328|London, England
Anyway, I'm not a luddite by any means. I think electric cars are great, but with some major caveats.

The lithium-ion and lead-acid batteries are extremely toxic and, in the case of li-ion, their creation is dependent on the mining of rare earth minerals. This is not sustainable. Some advances have been made with dual carbon batteries. If these work out, it's a very big win.

The efficiency of a gasoline engine is in the range of 20-30%. The efficiency of a combined cycle natural gas power plant is between 50-65%. Even when accounting for transmission losses, it's still a very large net gain.

Personally, I'm eyeing the hybrid Toyota Highlander for my next vehicle. 30 MPG in an SUV is amazing, especially when I have a 70 mile round trip commute every day.

The next issue is with production. The US happens to have approximately 1000 years of natural gas reserves that we can tap. Many of our old coal power plants have been replaced with gas turbine plants which are less fuel efficient than coal, but cleaner, easier to maintain and can be fired up much faster to meet demand loads. But we're unique. Europe doesn't have the same supplies we do, and their sources are unstable (Russia and the Middle East), so you have a lot of legacy coal plants still in operation. Replacing it with solar is not really a viable option. Supplemental, yes, sure, but not as the primary source. And it's a lot more difficult to integrate when you have coal plants that take hours to reach the proper temperature.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_zTrR … 12kghp_gad

As you can see from my own power production at my house, solar is very variable. Wind is too. Because it's variable, you do need the conventional power plants to provide the bulk of power generation. In fact, you need enough conventional power in place to support the entire system should there be a cloudy, windless day. So the question then becomes whether or not it is worth the cost to build the solar and wind power plants in the first place. I really wish environmentalism hadn't become a new religion, because there's some serious thought that needs to be done about the cost vs the benefits and I don't think it's being performed. Instead, we have energy companies looking to make money off of subsidies and politicians looking for green votes greenlighting these projects. It's very easy to end up in a situation like Germany is in where they have too much production and no way to dump the excess or store it. They're well past the point of diminishing returns and their carbon emissions are on the upswing because they chose to de-nuke.

Last edited by Jay (2018-10-17 04:45:35)

"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

Jay wrote:

coke wrote:

"so climate change serious business right?"

Jay: "Yeah but I read a blog about game theory"

And the whole fucking point is that generating power does not HAVE to generate greenhouse gasses...
No? It's efficient and cost effective to do it any other way besides nuclear?
Just think how cheap and efficient nuclear could be if they could spew their waste material into the environment.
Vent gases into the atmosphere, liquids into the sea, disperse solids as fine aerosols and let them settle where they will - farmland, residential areas, resevoirs etc.
The only thing standing in the way is pesky environmental protection law, why does the environment even need protecting? Is it a nerd? It should be more like a jock and protect itself.
There's nothing really to worry about, having toxic and radioactive material spread around, infiltrated into the soil and waterways, is something the free market can deal with no problem. Capitalism will find a way, the human race is very adaptable, and surely clever engineers will be able to find a solution if they're paid enough. Besides, the cure for cancer must be right around the corner by now, and even if it isn't we'll just mutate all our problems away, there might even be some positives - just look at the X-Men series of films for all the cool stuff thats bound to happen if people are exposed to enough plutonium in their everyday lives. I personally would like to have knives extend out of my knuckles and if my grandkids have two heads then they'll be twice as smart and be able to zap pollution with laser beams which come out of their eyes.

Some proverbs I've picked up along the way:

As my grandma used to say - a stitch in time is an insult to free-market libertarianism, you might as well admit you worship Marx

and there's also an african proverb - tomorrow belongs to the people who sit back and do nothing because game theory means its all pointless anyway
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690
If you put the nuclear power plants in rural red States I would be okay with letting them pollute.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
And they'd be glad to have that pollution, it would create whole new markets and entrepreneurial opportunities.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3690
There were 49,000 opioid deaths last year. An increase of 7,000. It gets a little worse every year. Doesn't get talked about much. I mean it does on T.V. but Congress isn't squabbling over how to best address it or taking any steps.

We hear constantly from the right wing that the country is being made great again and the economy is never better yet we have the worst drug crisis in our history. And the only major bill the Trump regime passed was a giant tax cut.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3423
didn’t jay say the opioid crisis was total fake news or something. cited the total US population. lol. 50k people a year dying from a legally prescribed drug (or sequelae thereof) is a fucking joke.
coke
Aye up duck!
+440|6679|England. Stoke

uziq wrote:

didn’t jay say the opioid crisis was total fake news or something. cited the total US population. lol. 50k people a year dying from a legally prescribed drug (or sequelae thereof) is a fucking joke.
Game theory probably says otherwise.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

coke wrote:

Game theory probably says otherwise.
Is that the thing where people have to decide between a cookie now or allying with their kidnappers?
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

It's always weird to see environmentalism be called a "religion." Seems a convenient, monolithic tag for when you want to spook readers and tinfoilers with a sinister conspiracy theory.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
And science, belief in science is now a belief thing.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3423
blind faith is the prevailing norm. it has never been any different, whether people followed the 'elect' of clergy who were fortunate enough to go to university and gain ancient greek and logic via scholasticism or today's technocratic elite of scientists and legalese-wielding bureaucrats. belief in atheism is a thing, for god's sake. belief isn't even the best word for it -- you're discussing ideology, pure and simples. you should really read some critiques of ideology by the likes of foucault or althusser. embrace marxism. it's the underdog source of the best critiques of all the dominant/ruling ideologies that have prevailed in modern society.

what's quite an interesting thought is that, over 15 years of posting, some well-known members are perhaps approaching their early senility. it is very possible that the insipidities muttered by jay and shahter et al, their befuddled reasoning, their glassy-eyed, vacant 'ideals', all the faux-hegelian proto-babble we had to put up with 10 years ago in the halcyon days of various randianisms and libertarianisms, were an exhibition of their peak intellectual performance. we didn't realise it at the time, but that was the best they were ever going to get. people have been posting here long enough to track their measurable decline.

Last edited by uziq (2018-10-20 01:26:57)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
Nah, its not senility, simple intellectual laziness.

Latching onto religion is a way of avoiding thinking, claiming everything is an ideology and is equivalent to a religion excuses people's own intellectual laziness.
"You have a PhD in cosmological physics, I go to church on Sunday, our opinions on the origin of the solar system and how magnets work are equally valid"

Its going to get a lot worse before it get better, I don't know how big a cataclysm is needed to shake people's beliefs and force a return to rationalism.
I almost don't care.
It would be nice if all the stupid people could starve to death waiting for their god or the free market to fix things though.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2018-10-20 04:35:47)

Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3423
no one is saying a PhD in 'cosmological physics' is equal to a member of a tennessee congregation. the point is that blind faith that the scientific method will prevail is, to the average secular person nowadays, of the exact same form and nature as blind faith in the book of revelation 500 years ago. people think in the same way. magical and superstitious thinking about science is not new. the vast majority of people who are 'for' science nowadays are being just as blind and doing just as little actual thinking about it. they probably couldn't even tell you what the scientific method is. watching a BBC documentary about space is not exactly being informed or questioning things. all these 'facts' and 'laws' are apprehended on the same level of understanding as a sunday morning sermon. the irony is that it all probably means practically even less to the average person in their everyday lives than the religious folk-tales and fire-and-brimstone moralising once did.

Last edited by uziq (2018-10-20 02:43:23)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
The dumb religious are now equating their belief system with science as a belief system.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5328|London, England

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

It's always weird to see environmentalism be called a "religion." Seems a convenient, monolithic tag for when you want to spook readers and tinfoilers with a sinister conspiracy theory.
Modern environmentalism has been set up in much the same way that Christianity was set up. We're presented with various Armageddon scenarios and given a prescribed way of living our lives in order to stave it off. If we don't recycle, the world will end. If we don't ban straws, the world will end. Everything is a BIG DEAL and must be addressed NOW! Everything becomes a crisis so nothing becomes a crisis. They prey on the same guilt and pleasure centers of the brain that the church does. People watch a documentary and feel the same fervor they get from a really charismatic sermon. The current environmentalist moment is akin to The Great Awakening in my opinion.

Now don't get me wrong, most of it is benign. If people want to recycle, it's in the same category as volunteering at a soup kitchen or making a donation to charity. They're all ultimately good things, but the benefits are rather illusory.

The fact is that most recycled material ends up in landfills. People do it incorrectly as most material is not recyclable that ends up in bins. What percentage of the population actually understands the difference between thermoset plastics and thermoplastics and can identify them? Even if they did, the countries that used to import our recyclable material (China) now don't want it because the jobs are crap and they don't want our pollution. So it gets buried.

A lot of what corporations do is called Greening. They take a product, make it 'greener' in some way and charge more money for it. It makes people feel better about buying whatever product it is because they feel that they are positively contributing to the environment. A great example of this is "organic" food (nevermind that all food is organic). Same nutritional value, but marked up much higher because it gives people the warm and fuzzies.

A good part of my professional career has been spent analyzing how to reduce energy consumption. Most of the ideas that people have are, frankly, stupid and/or ineffective. There are a lot of effective ways to make a difference, but they aren't sexy. Changing all your light bulbs to LED makes you feel good, and it's something that anyone can do, but it doesn't have as large of an impact as putting proper insulation in your walls and attic, or upgrading your boiler to a condensing type. Putting solar panels on your roof gives you a decent payback, but for the system to function during a power outage you need to install a backup generator or a battery bank, both of which are expensive. You also have to throw out and replace the panels every 20 years, adding to landfill space. Nevermind the environmental damage caused by mining rare earth minerals.

In sum, when people don't have all of the facts (though in this case they are readily available), but are led anyway by the charismatic, it is equivalent to religion in my eyes. The Baptist Church is no different from the Sierra Club Church. They're dependent on intellectually lazy followers throwing them donations to get a feel good high while having a relatively small impact and giving the church leaders a cushy life. Pretty much all non-profits operate on the same premise.

Last edited by Jay (2018-10-20 06:41:53)

"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5328|London, England

uziq wrote:

blind faith is the prevailing norm. it has never been any different, whether people followed the 'elect' of clergy who were fortunate enough to go to university and gain ancient greek and logic via scholasticism or today's technocratic elite of scientists and legalese-wielding bureaucrats. belief in atheism is a thing, for god's sake. belief isn't even the best word for it -- you're discussing ideology, pure and simples. you should really read some critiques of ideology by the likes of foucault or althusser. embrace marxism. it's the underdog source of the best critiques of all the dominant/ruling ideologies that have prevailed in modern society.

what's quite an interesting thought is that, over 15 years of posting, some well-known members are perhaps approaching their early senility. it is very possible that the insipidities muttered by jay and shahter et al, their befuddled reasoning, their glassy-eyed, vacant 'ideals', all the faux-hegelian proto-babble we had to put up with 10 years ago in the halcyon days of various randianisms and libertarianisms, were an exhibition of their peak intellectual performance. we didn't realise it at the time, but that was the best they were ever going to get. people have been posting here long enough to track their measurable decline.
What's most interesting to me is that you haven't evolved past regurgitating what your professors espoused in college. Your beliefs have remained locked in stasis. You're approaching 30, yes? There's nothing sadder than a middle aged liberal burnout. You still have time.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
DesertFox-
The very model of a modern major general
+794|6655|United States of America

Jay wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

It's always weird to see environmentalism be called a "religion." Seems a convenient, monolithic tag for when you want to spook readers and tinfoilers with a sinister conspiracy theory.
Modern environmentalism has been set up in much the same way that Christianity was set up. We're presented with various Armageddon scenarios and given a prescribed way of living our lives in order to stave it off. If we don't recycle, the world will end. If we don't ban straws, the world will end. Everything is a BIG DEAL and must be addressed NOW! Everything becomes a crisis so nothing becomes a crisis. They prey on the same guilt and pleasure centers of the brain that the church does. People watch a documentary and feel the same fervor they get from a really charismatic sermon. The current environmentalist moment is akin to The Great Awakening in my opinion.

Now don't get me wrong, most of it is benign. If people want to recycle, it's in the same category as volunteering at a soup kitchen or making a donation to charity. They're all ultimately good things, but the benefits are rather illusory.

The fact is that most recycled material ends up in landfills. People do it incorrectly as most material is not recyclable that ends up in bins. What percentage of the population actually understands the difference between thermoset plastics and thermoplastics and can identify them? Even if they did, the countries that used to import our recyclable material (China) now don't want it because the jobs are crap and they don't want our pollution. So it gets buried.

A lot of what corporations do is called Greening. They take a product, make it 'greener' in some way and charge more money for it. It makes people feel better about buying whatever product it is because they feel that they are positively contributing to the environment. A great example of this is "organic" food (nevermind that all food is organic). Same nutritional value, but marked up much higher because it gives people the warm and fuzzies.

A good part of my professional career has been spent analyzing how to reduce energy consumption. Most of the ideas that people have are, frankly, stupid and/or ineffective. There are a lot of effective ways to make a difference, but they aren't sexy. Changing all your light bulbs to LED makes you feel good, and it's something that anyone can do, but it doesn't have as large of an impact as putting proper insulation in your walls and attic, or upgrading your boiler to a condensing type. Putting solar panels on your roof gives you a decent payback, but for the system to function during a power outage you need to install a backup generator or a battery bank, both of which are expensive. You also have to throw out and replace the panels every 20 years, adding to landfill space. Nevermind the environmental damage caused by mining rare earth minerals.

In sum, when people don't have all of the facts (though in this case they are readily available), but are led anyway by the charismatic, it is equivalent to religion in my eyes. The Baptist Church is no different from the Sierra Club Church. They're dependent on intellectually lazy followers throwing them donations to get a feel good high while having a relatively small impact and giving the church leaders a cushy life. Pretty much all non-profits operate on the same premise.
I take issue with your interpretation insofar as it's not doomsday cult prophecy or Republicans trying to make Armageddon happen in the Middle East. The environmental movement has, for the most part, been largely ignored by leaders and the general public. They're the tutting schoolmarm for the child that thinks, "I don't need to listen to that!" The political argument for decades has been "BUT THE ECONOMY!" It's clearly not being acted upon, because many issues have been getting worse over time. The wolf population has rebounded, which is a notable victory, but rich rancher bastards get their way far more often than the tree huggers.

I agree sometimes peoples actions are ineffectual and mostly for show, i.e. using a totebag at the grocery store every once in a while when you remember. For actual impactful changes, the general public and politicians aren't on board with significantly changing norms in any way.
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5328|London, England

DesertFox- wrote:

Jay wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

It's always weird to see environmentalism be called a "religion." Seems a convenient, monolithic tag for when you want to spook readers and tinfoilers with a sinister conspiracy theory.
Modern environmentalism has been set up in much the same way that Christianity was set up. We're presented with various Armageddon scenarios and given a prescribed way of living our lives in order to stave it off. If we don't recycle, the world will end. If we don't ban straws, the world will end. Everything is a BIG DEAL and must be addressed NOW! Everything becomes a crisis so nothing becomes a crisis. They prey on the same guilt and pleasure centers of the brain that the church does. People watch a documentary and feel the same fervor they get from a really charismatic sermon. The current environmentalist moment is akin to The Great Awakening in my opinion.

Now don't get me wrong, most of it is benign. If people want to recycle, it's in the same category as volunteering at a soup kitchen or making a donation to charity. They're all ultimately good things, but the benefits are rather illusory.

The fact is that most recycled material ends up in landfills. People do it incorrectly as most material is not recyclable that ends up in bins. What percentage of the population actually understands the difference between thermoset plastics and thermoplastics and can identify them? Even if they did, the countries that used to import our recyclable material (China) now don't want it because the jobs are crap and they don't want our pollution. So it gets buried.

A lot of what corporations do is called Greening. They take a product, make it 'greener' in some way and charge more money for it. It makes people feel better about buying whatever product it is because they feel that they are positively contributing to the environment. A great example of this is "organic" food (nevermind that all food is organic). Same nutritional value, but marked up much higher because it gives people the warm and fuzzies.

A good part of my professional career has been spent analyzing how to reduce energy consumption. Most of the ideas that people have are, frankly, stupid and/or ineffective. There are a lot of effective ways to make a difference, but they aren't sexy. Changing all your light bulbs to LED makes you feel good, and it's something that anyone can do, but it doesn't have as large of an impact as putting proper insulation in your walls and attic, or upgrading your boiler to a condensing type. Putting solar panels on your roof gives you a decent payback, but for the system to function during a power outage you need to install a backup generator or a battery bank, both of which are expensive. You also have to throw out and replace the panels every 20 years, adding to landfill space. Nevermind the environmental damage caused by mining rare earth minerals.

In sum, when people don't have all of the facts (though in this case they are readily available), but are led anyway by the charismatic, it is equivalent to religion in my eyes. The Baptist Church is no different from the Sierra Club Church. They're dependent on intellectually lazy followers throwing them donations to get a feel good high while having a relatively small impact and giving the church leaders a cushy life. Pretty much all non-profits operate on the same premise.
I take issue with your interpretation insofar as it's not doomsday cult prophecy or Republicans trying to make Armageddon happen in the Middle East. The environmental movement has, for the most part, been largely ignored by leaders and the general public. They're the tutting schoolmarm for the child that thinks, "I don't need to listen to that!" The political argument for decades has been "BUT THE ECONOMY!" It's clearly not being acted upon, because many issues have been getting worse over time. The wolf population has rebounded, which is a notable victory, but rich rancher bastards get their way far more often than the tree huggers.

I agree sometimes peoples actions are ineffectual and mostly for show, i.e. using a totebag at the grocery store every once in a while when you remember. For actual impactful changes, the general public and politicians aren't on board with significantly changing norms in any way.
When you get lied to repeatedly about motives it makes you cynical. My county recently passed a "plastic bag ban". If I want a plastic bag at checkout I now need to pay $0.05 each. No big deal, right? It was sold as a way to raise money to address environmental issues like heavy metals in the groundwater from industry but instead the money stays with the retailers. Or you have the massive gas tax increase that was sold in California as a way to repair all the roads and bridges that are in terrible condition. That money has instead been diverted to public transit projects that have almost non-existent ridership because they were designed poorly.

I'm a cynic, and it makes me come off as an asshole. I just see so much waste in general. My gripe is ultimately with people who pass on intellectual discovery and instead pass off the responsibility to supposed experts. Most of them are simply confidence men, no different than the self-help gurus who travel around the country giving speeches at corporate events. They're mostly benign, but some of the ideas they put out are malignant. It doesn't help that the only people that get air time are the people who take up extreme positions. The middle is boring. Incremental improvement is boring. We want big ideas and big solutions. Now... right up until we get handed a bill.

Ultimately, politicians are caught between a rock and a hard place. Doing nothing is easier than doing something. It's why we have trillions of dollars of debt and a budget that isn't remotely balanced. It's not that they don't have the intellectual capacity to address the issue, it's that doing so would piss off everyone and they would lose their job and be hounded by the media for the rest of their lives, even though it's the right thing to do.

Edit - Lastly, the environmental movement does itself no favors when it attracts and cultivates hard-left types that demand reparations and other payment transfers. This lets conservatives dismiss the entire issue as a communist plot.

Last edited by Jay (2018-10-20 08:27:24)

"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
coke
Aye up duck!
+440|6679|England. Stoke

Jay wrote:

DesertFox- wrote:

Jay wrote:

Modern environmentalism has been set up in much the same way that Christianity was set up. We're presented with various Armageddon scenarios and given a prescribed way of living our lives in order to stave it off. If we don't recycle, the world will end. If we don't ban straws, the world will end. Everything is a BIG DEAL and must be addressed NOW! Everything becomes a crisis so nothing becomes a crisis. They prey on the same guilt and pleasure centers of the brain that the church does. People watch a documentary and feel the same fervor they get from a really charismatic sermon. The current environmentalist moment is akin to The Great Awakening in my opinion.

Now don't get me wrong, most of it is benign. If people want to recycle, it's in the same category as volunteering at a soup kitchen or making a donation to charity. They're all ultimately good things, but the benefits are rather illusory.

The fact is that most recycled material ends up in landfills. People do it incorrectly as most material is not recyclable that ends up in bins. What percentage of the population actually understands the difference between thermoset plastics and thermoplastics and can identify them? Even if they did, the countries that used to import our recyclable material (China) now don't want it because the jobs are crap and they don't want our pollution. So it gets buried.

A lot of what corporations do is called Greening. They take a product, make it 'greener' in some way and charge more money for it. It makes people feel better about buying whatever product it is because they feel that they are positively contributing to the environment. A great example of this is "organic" food (nevermind that all food is organic). Same nutritional value, but marked up much higher because it gives people the warm and fuzzies.

A good part of my professional career has been spent analyzing how to reduce energy consumption. Most of the ideas that people have are, frankly, stupid and/or ineffective. There are a lot of effective ways to make a difference, but they aren't sexy. Changing all your light bulbs to LED makes you feel good, and it's something that anyone can do, but it doesn't have as large of an impact as putting proper insulation in your walls and attic, or upgrading your boiler to a condensing type. Putting solar panels on your roof gives you a decent payback, but for the system to function during a power outage you need to install a backup generator or a battery bank, both of which are expensive. You also have to throw out and replace the panels every 20 years, adding to landfill space. Nevermind the environmental damage caused by mining rare earth minerals.

In sum, when people don't have all of the facts (though in this case they are readily available), but are led anyway by the charismatic, it is equivalent to religion in my eyes. The Baptist Church is no different from the Sierra Club Church. They're dependent on intellectually lazy followers throwing them donations to get a feel good high while having a relatively small impact and giving the church leaders a cushy life. Pretty much all non-profits operate on the same premise.
I take issue with your interpretation insofar as it's not doomsday cult prophecy or Republicans trying to make Armageddon happen in the Middle East. The environmental movement has, for the most part, been largely ignored by leaders and the general public. They're the tutting schoolmarm for the child that thinks, "I don't need to listen to that!" The political argument for decades has been "BUT THE ECONOMY!" It's clearly not being acted upon, because many issues have been getting worse over time. The wolf population has rebounded, which is a notable victory, but rich rancher bastards get their way far more often than the tree huggers.

I agree sometimes peoples actions are ineffectual and mostly for show, i.e. using a totebag at the grocery store every once in a while when you remember. For actual impactful changes, the general public and politicians aren't on board with significantly changing norms in any way.
When you get lied to repeatedly about motives it makes you cynical. My county recently passed a "plastic bag ban". If I want a plastic bag at checkout I now need to pay $0.05 each. No big deal, right? It was sold as a way to raise money to address environmental issues like heavy metals in the groundwater from industry but instead the money stays with the retailers. Or you have the massive gas tax increase that was sold in California as a way to repair all the roads and bridges that are in terrible condition. That money has instead been diverted to public transit projects that have almost non-existent ridership because they were designed poorly.
How can miss the point so badly...
When you say they lied to you, I think it's more likely that you just didn't understand what the fuck was going in the first place, as per.

Last edited by coke (2018-10-20 09:03:07)

Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5328|London, England

coke wrote:

Jay wrote:

DesertFox- wrote:


I take issue with your interpretation insofar as it's not doomsday cult prophecy or Republicans trying to make Armageddon happen in the Middle East. The environmental movement has, for the most part, been largely ignored by leaders and the general public. They're the tutting schoolmarm for the child that thinks, "I don't need to listen to that!" The political argument for decades has been "BUT THE ECONOMY!" It's clearly not being acted upon, because many issues have been getting worse over time. The wolf population has rebounded, which is a notable victory, but rich rancher bastards get their way far more often than the tree huggers.

I agree sometimes peoples actions are ineffectual and mostly for show, i.e. using a totebag at the grocery store every once in a while when you remember. For actual impactful changes, the general public and politicians aren't on board with significantly changing norms in any way.
When you get lied to repeatedly about motives it makes you cynical. My county recently passed a "plastic bag ban". If I want a plastic bag at checkout I now need to pay $0.05 each. No big deal, right? It was sold as a way to raise money to address environmental issues like heavy metals in the groundwater from industry but instead the money stays with the retailers. Or you have the massive gas tax increase that was sold in California as a way to repair all the roads and bridges that are in terrible condition. That money has instead been diverted to public transit projects that have almost non-existent ridership because they were designed poorly.
How can miss the point so badly...
When you say they lied to you, I think it's more likely that you just didn't understand what the fuck was going in the first place, as per.
Maybe your government is more open and honest about its intentions. Ours generally are not. I have town, township, county, state, and federal governments and they're all deliberately opaque. The federal government, as bad as it is, tends to be the most open because they have a national spotlight on them and the media is devoted to scrutinizing their decisions. This is largely the reason so much of the law is now made by bureaucratic regulation rather than openly in congress these days. My state government? Obscenely corrupt. The lower level governments get away with even more because there are no watchdogs anymore. Local newspapers got replaced by Patch. Budget votes are held on weird days and are only attended by interested parties and the elderly with nothing better to do. Who has the time to review laws passed by 5 separate governments?
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
uziq
Member
+492|3423

Jay wrote:

uziq wrote:

blind faith is the prevailing norm. it has never been any different, whether people followed the 'elect' of clergy who were fortunate enough to go to university and gain ancient greek and logic via scholasticism or today's technocratic elite of scientists and legalese-wielding bureaucrats. belief in atheism is a thing, for god's sake. belief isn't even the best word for it -- you're discussing ideology, pure and simples. you should really read some critiques of ideology by the likes of foucault or althusser. embrace marxism. it's the underdog source of the best critiques of all the dominant/ruling ideologies that have prevailed in modern society.

what's quite an interesting thought is that, over 15 years of posting, some well-known members are perhaps approaching their early senility. it is very possible that the insipidities muttered by jay and shahter et al, their befuddled reasoning, their glassy-eyed, vacant 'ideals', all the faux-hegelian proto-babble we had to put up with 10 years ago in the halcyon days of various randianisms and libertarianisms, were an exhibition of their peak intellectual performance. we didn't realise it at the time, but that was the best they were ever going to get. people have been posting here long enough to track their measurable decline.
What's most interesting to me is that you haven't evolved past regurgitating what your professors espoused in college. Your beliefs have remained locked in stasis. You're approaching 30, yes? There's nothing sadder than a middle aged liberal burnout. You still have time.
i have never been liberal, haha.

and what is it professors are supposed to put in students heads? we don’t have the same stereotypes about ‘cultural marxist’ professors raising campus cults. you’ve been reading too much jordan peterson.

i’m sure a little consistency puzzles you. you’ve aggrandized every political view possible as if they’re baseball cards. it takes a certain sort of stupid to veer all over the spectrum in the way you have.

Last edited by uziq (2018-10-20 09:41:57)

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