The Donald vs Big Tech

[Caomhaoin]

Should probably drop at least half a yoke half an hour beforehand to avoid arguing about some other ball of shite

[astfgyl]

A heretic? No, you're a dupe.

You are one of the most fervent believers I've ever encountered. All tied into your political worldview. And then you have the brass neck to be going on about theocracy when all you're doing is replacing the gods in it. Where's your belief in my freedom to not believe? Yes, heresy

[astfgyl]

All available evidence points to CO2 not being the apocalypse, but the shit that the terror about it is used to justify will be another rotten wealth transfer. In fact I'm sure it will lead to digital ID like everything else will.

No, CO2 will green the planet if we stop getting rid of trees at the same time. Yes it looks likely that it contributes to atmospheric warming but we as a species could be looking to adapt instead of terrorising ourselves with it, especially in light of the fact that our attempts are experimental and very likely to make no difference to the planet but a massive difference to our quality of life on it.

Let's just say we were good as gold and then this https://www.carbonbrief.org/tonga-volcano-eruption-raises-imminent-risk-of-temporary-1-5c-breach/ happens, rendering our efforts pointless while China uses coal to power air conditioning for half a billion people and the fuckin eejits in Europe are bollixing on with the same oul paper fork shit and hardly a rex to their name but the place still isn't getting colder or staying at the imaginary optimum.

There's also a mad idea floating around that there's an absolute optimum amount of Co2 or optimum temperature for the earth, even with all the known variables, such as the amount of it that's absorbed by green cover. Well do we think that the earth has ever reached that equilibrium before, and if we do then why the fuck didn't it stay that way? Because it can't but yet here's the fuckin humans thinking they can get there. Lord above. Am I to assume that the absolute optimum was reached right before the industrial revolution and we ruined it by burning things? Ah the whole thing withers me

All anyone has to do is forget the fuckin scientific consensus for a minute and look at the thing as it is and the evidence available and if they are anything like me they will see it's another bullshit game but lots of people are being paid well by pushing it.

The "anything like me" bit got me, so I have to ask - what are your scientific credentials, exactly?

Please, not the credentialism. It's an extremely weak position.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

You do have freedom not to believe. That freedom has got nothing whatsoever to do with you being a demonstrable dupe to fossil fuel company sponsored think tanks. You're not a "heretic" so to speak because you're not coming up with these statements yourself, you're just repeating them but while also refusing to engage with evidence of their ultimate source. You've been duped by some of the wealthiest companies on the planet. I listen to scientists who earn basic researcher wages. There's simply no comparison.

[astfgyl]

Oh there is plenty of comparison. Your priests say what you want to believe and so reinforce you.

Here, read the first line of this before considering who is being duped: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2021/11/19/5-big-lies-about-climate-change-and-why-researchers-trained-a-machine-to-spot-them/

Fuck it, I'll quote it for you:

When it comes to climate change, the science is settled.

= GIANT RED FLAG

There you go, that's the current state of science. Settled. We should have stopped looking at things or being skeptical of claims back when the earth was flat and the sun went around it, because that was the consensus, right? No, of course not.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

If you want to call David Vetter a "priest" that is fine by me: he's a journalist, not a scientist. If you want to talk about how badly and sensationally science is reported in popular media, we can do that, but it's again independent of the actual results of the basic scientific research carried out regularly by ordinary climate scientists not on the take from anyone.

[astfgyl]

So who decided that The Science Is Settled? A rotten phrase that was popularised during the covid years and was spouted by journalists, governments and members of the scientific community. Are you telling me that scientists haven't said that exact phrase at all?

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I'm not saying, unfortunately, that it's impossible some scientist(s) may at some point have said something like "When it comes to climate change, the science is settled," but I can be pretty sure they won't have said it in the framework of their peer-reviewed basic research. Because it's a non-scientific assertion. Certain specific questions regarding climate change are considered more "settled" than others, in the same way that it's considered settled that below a certain extreme minimum ppm of atmospheric CO2 most plants can no longer survive. Or the way it's considered settled that volcanic explosions release CO2 into the atmosphere. Or that there have been multiple cooling and heating phases in earth's "recent" millennial history. Or that levels of atmospheric CO2 are currently at an unprecedented high and that the overwhelmingly vast majority of it comes from human sources.

[astfgyl]

Is it at all possible that a rise in Co2 levels, coupled with significant reforestation would actually improve things? Could the higher Co2 levels actually ease the process of reforestation, and would that be desirable? Could greening be a bad thing if we did too much of it, and could that be bad for the earth or just humans? Is the whole carbon warming thing not playing on people's good nature, making them think they are doing it for something other than fear of a lack of self preservation as a species? Do we only want to save the earth to save ourselves or do we want the ecological balance to remain intact? What happens to dissenting voices in this field?

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Let me try to cut through all of that and ask you if (setting aside the vital to human-life energy it produces) you believe industrial-level burning of fossil fuels is on the whole good or bad for the environment, both locally and globally?

[astfgyl]

Well there's no point freezing to death in a nice place. The balance must be struck between the effect of it and the effect of not having it. Why not go nuclear and have cheap and plentiful energy to supplement the fossil fuels that must be burned to keep a reliably good standard of living. So yeah it's probably not the best and should be reduced if it can be replaced but we're nowhere near that and nobody will use the nuclear. The question is too simplistic.

I don't think it's worth it the way it is though, banging on about distant future generations and having it shit for my actual current generation.

Maybe if there was a solution that didn't simply steal more from me without actually improving anything then I could be talked round somewhat

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I see Walz is in a bit of hot water in time for the election. I wonder will the media treat it like hunter's laptop until the results are in?

You didn't provide any details and I didn't bother asking at the time, but was this comment about this..?
https://www.wired.com/story/russian-propaganda-unit-storm-1516-false-tim-walz-sexual-abuse-claims/

[astfgyl]

I see Walz is in a bit of hot water in time for the election. I wonder will the media treat it like hunter's laptop until the results are in?

You didn't provide any details and I didn't bother asking at the time, but was this comment about this..?
https://www.wired.com/story/russian-propaganda-unit-storm-1516-false-tim-walz-sexual-abuse-claims/

Yes that was the one. Something sounds awfully familiar about it don't you think?

I wonder will the media treat it like hunter's laptop until the results are in?

Read this first: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/19/hunter-biden-story-russian-disinfo-430276

Then this:
https://judiciary.house.gov/media/in-the-news/spies-who-lie-leader-cosigners-were-cia-payroll-when-they-falsely-claimed-hunter

How original, eh?

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I know two things:

At this stage, I wouldn't be particularly surprised to discover any man had sexually abused someone.

Foreign (and domestic) disinfo does happen.


So we'll see what happens, but I'll be neither presuming I know what's going on nor wasting any of my own time trying to figure it out.

[astfgyl]

Indeed it will come out in the wash, and like all rape claims it should be established beyond doubt before anyone commits to it, but you have to admit the oul Russian disinformation accusations from the Democrats are becoming a bit of a trope at this stage.

They could have just said they'd prove it wasn't true or something without the Russians in it but they rely on the stupidity of people to take that explanation without skepticism, as if they haven't been caught flat out lying about the same thing during the last two elections there with hunter's laptop and hilary's emails.