Roomer are strong in political circles that Ron DeSanctimonious, whose Presidential run is a shambles, and whose poll numbers have absolutely crashed, putting him 3rd and 4th in some states, will be dropping out of the Presidential race in order to run, in Florida, against Rick Scott for Senate

Spellcheck fails him again. Kind of like “looser” when they mean “loser.” Since it’s an actual word, it doesn’t correct it, but who would think “rumor” is spelled that way in the first place? :lol:

Anyway, this is the buffoon we’re discussing here. One of the biggest political losers of all time, and yet he had a wide enough platform to work his con man magic on millions of people, who will apparently go to their graves defending him. It’s hilarious to watch, but also quite sad/pathetic.

It's not the economy, it's Schopenhauer's Will. — schopenhauer1

Yeah but a lot of Schopenhauer is just bullshit.

In any case, we’re talking about making production better by not having it controlled by a handful of elites. The person to read in this respect is Karl, not Arthur.

Many in that audience believed their country was being taken away from them, and that they'd lose it if they weren't willing to fight for it. It was in that context that the protesters didn't stay out on the street but broke into the Capitol in search of members of Congress. — GRWelsh

Exactly. Which anyone that isn’t in the cult can see— and could see even before it happened. There were warning signs that it could turn violent, based on the weeks of escalation Trump was sowing on social media alone.

I predicted violence — I didn’t expect them to breach the Capitol building, but violence was obvious. Fortunately, the entire thing was based on a delusion, so 4/5 the people there had no clue what exactly the objective was and were just going along, mostly wandering around.

Nick McDonell, Quiet Street: On American Privilege

Still, the rich like to believe in meritocracy, even fairness. These ideas are beloved by the media, and are one of the few bipartisan talking points. Barack Obama: “Anything is possible in America.” Donald Trump: “In America, anything is possible.” Famous examples demonstrate the seductive drama of economic mobility. Henry Ford was the son of a farmer. Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, George Soros—and so on in every profession. Such examples not only make one-percenters feel good; they distract from the reality that, in the United States of America and elsewhere, success almost always, and predominantly, depends on wealth—and frequently comes at the expense of the less wealthy. I could afford to spend a month writing a book at a fancy hotel, which, when it came out, took attention away from novelists who were not as rich or connected as I am. I could afford to buy a drink for that producer, who bought the rights to my book, not someone else’s.

[…]

The fear they shared was loss of wealth. Without ever saying so, they were very much afraid of losing their country houses, the space for the grand piano, the greenhouses, the pied-à-terre where their mother-in-law stayed without being in everyone’s business. They were afraid of processed supermarket cheese; they much preferred the organic stuff, which, they emphasized, would keep them alive longer. The same could not be said of their clothes, but they were afraid of losing the Prada bags anyway, the heavy zippers, the cashmere. They didn’t want to wear polyester windbreakers, or sit on Ikea sofas, or drive a Hyundai. They were afraid of losing the safer, sleeker Mercedes. They were afraid of losing all of it, any of it. And who wouldn’t prefer a Mercedes, anyway?

But the quality of the car was not what lay at the root of the fear. They feared losing wealth not for its own sake but because it was justified, in their own minds, by intelligence, hard work, determination—that is, by character. If they lost their wealth, then, well, who were they? The true fear was not loss of wealth but loss of self.

Perhaps climate change is just a manifestation of the notion that production itself is not necessarily a positive thing. It keeps us alive, but it's instrumental in nature. We are always dissatisfied and our need for production and consumption, and work and justification of work are manifestations of this. — schopenhauer1

I mostly agree with this. I’d add an obvious point: production can be done smarter. It doesn’t have to be in the hands of a small group of people motivated almost exclusively by profit.

So they care about climate change but won't take a couple hours every two years to vote about it? — RogueAI

I don’t think they realize the importance of voting. Some rather take stronger actions, for some it’s too difficult, etc. For some it’s apathy, yes, but not 3/4.

Good question. I’m not one of them, but would like to know how many we have (if we have any at all).

Only 1 in 4 young people are voting. That's really sad. That shows they don't really care about climate change. — RogueAI

I don’t think that’s what it means at all.

You want people not to be burdened with this, at least be a situational antinatalist. — schopenhauer1

Buddy, does everything have to come back to this one issue? Makes you sound a bit like a one-trick pony. I say this in a friendly way.

People want to combat climate change, but they don't want to sacrifice their standard of living while doing it. — RogueAI

People do things they don’t want to do all the time. It’s up to us to make it easier or harder. Bad habits, addictions, etc— I doubt many people want to continue with these things, but often times it’s simply “easier” than the alternative. It should be made harder. The reverse is true of good behavior — it should be made easier, regardless of what one thinks about it.

We can shape society through policy. Look at smoking. Or through technology — like streaming or digital music. I miss old record stores — but yet I’ve found myself defaulting to YouTube or Spotify because it’s that much easier — there’s less friction involved. Plus car (and computer) producers don’t bother selling their products with CD functions anyway.

None of that was my choice— if it were up to me, I’d go back to how it was before everything was on a phone. But things change and I go along because it’s easier or cheaper or more convenient somehow. Plus I don’t feel like it’s a major moral failing.

I suspect many Americans are in the same boat with climate change: they want a cleaner environment and a better planet for their kids and grandkids, but it’s expensive to buy solar panels and EVs— public transit either doesn’t exist or sucks, etc. Plus, not a lot is known about the best use of time.

That’s why it’s up to those who both care about and have a good understanding of the problem to educate and organize, to affect the necessary changes of economic and productive policy. The tobacco industry is a good example, but the fossil fuel industry is much more politically powerful, and more embedded in everything we use. So the task is harder.

So there’s no need to sacrifice much if we implement sensible changes. It’s a false choice. We subsidize fossil fuels right now. Going from an oil furnace to heat pump isn’t sacrificing anything. It’s actually an improvement.

Or shall we tell a few jokes and shoot the breeze? — unenlightened

Right, because there's no reason to be "mean" or "overthink" or be "so serious" about ...anything.

Let's just take it easy and turn every thread into the Shoutbox.

Climate change, no matter how much footage of ice caps melting and X phenomenon isn't perceived by people as their problem. — schopenhauer1

Polls have shown people do care, and think governments should be doing more. There's large turnouts at protests, there's increasingly bold direct actions taken all over the world to stop drilling, new coal plants, deforestation, etc. On local levels, especially in cities, you see all kinds of innovative policies being implemented. Some will work well, others won't.

Not to mention that the media is finally starting to report on climate change more seriously. This is partly because the effects all around us are undeniable. It's no longer a future problem, or one that "other people" have to concern themselves with. The evidence is everywhere on earth, and there's no longer anywhere to hide. Even here in New England, a fairly insulated place, there are very real effects.

There's a lot of work to be done. There's some movement, but not nearly enough -- and there may not be enough time, unless there's a drastic change in political will. Right now, the obstacles are twofold: corporate and political. The fossil fuel industry has massive pull, and outright owns the "conservative" media and major political party (Republicans). Through their propaganda, campaign funding and lobbying, they've sown "doubt" among their audience and inaction among their beholden politicians.

Some of the denial you see on this very thread, including stock phrases like "nothing can be done," "it's good for the planet," "the climate always changes," "people don't want to change," etc., all serves in a minor way to divert from what we should be doing, which is acting. Not just individually, but collectively. Discussing local energy committees or public utilities commissions and ways to attend/influence them, local organizations to involve oneself in, individual actions like more efficient energy use/electrification (heat pumps, solar panels, induction stoves, community solar programs, better insulation, energy audits, available tax credits and rebates), and so on and so forth, is what should be going on. There's lots of information all around us.

Instead we're left talking about cows and how they're really not a problem because they "don't contribute any 'additional' warming". Wonderful. Meanwhile the planet is burning.

The attitude that nothing can be done because "human nature" strikes me as another useless position -- one more impediment, more dead weight.

Yes, you’ve introduced all kinds of issues— one silly thing after another, all shown to be ridiculous. But by all means continue— it’s good for others to watch new denialist “views” get debunked over and over.

Three in five Americans say Trump should stand trial before the Republican primaries or 2024 general election

Roughly 60% of the country thinks this guy is a crook and should stand trial before the election.

My fellow Americans really aren’t as dumb as their reputation would suggest. Polling shows only that the Republican Party is out of touch. They’ll continue paying for it.

(Democrats are out of touch too…but not by the same distance.)

killing all cows, goats, and sheep — Agree to Disagree

How odd that it’s this one issue — cows — that you want to dwell on, and yet repeatedly get wrong.

No one is suggesting we “kill all cows.”

Your particular brand of climate denial hasn’t even been very entertaining.

If two idiots agree, that doesn't mean they're right. — Benkei

Thank you for saying what we’re all thinking.

I have to say, the remark “Not everyone is x” is fatuous.

If you think we all are like that, that may say something about you. — Noble Dust

What I’m describing is an unavoidable psychological fact. Whatever else is being projected on to the word isn’t my business.

I had read that climate scientists said that a certain amount of global warming was "locked in" even if we stopped emissions today. — Agree to Disagree

Right. It is. From your own quote:

Temperatures would then plateau but remain well-elevated for many, many centuries.

This corresponds with what @unenlightened was saying. At least how I read it. So your talk about how climate scientists “changed their thinking” was a red herring, and the quote you provided from NASA only reiterates what was said.

The diversion of talking about CO2 and temperature lag is exactly that: a diversion.

Are you saying that the climate scientists at NASA are wrong? — Agree to Disagree

I’m saying you don’t have a clue about what you’re talking about. There’s nothing to “re-think.”

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/3/031001

Your original claims were ignorant and bogus - as usual:

The time it will take to stabilise, and the temperature it will eventually stabilise at, are extremely difficult to model but the time-frame will be decades, if not centuries. — unenlightened

This is the view that most climate scientists believed and they have told the public about this. — Agree to Disagree

Try reading what was said.

started rethinking this issue. — Agree to Disagree

No they haven’t.

However, if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, the rise in global temperatures would begin to flatten within a few years.

If we stopped. Not if we keep emissions constant. And within a decade or so the RISE in temperature should flatten.

Temperatures would plateau but remain elevated for many centuries. Not hard to understand.

I wondered if they made this up — Agree to Disagree

How ignorant and arrogant a person has to be to think this is astounding.

Yeah, so let’s just forget about it and relax. That’s worked wonders so far.

This is an existential issue. We could use more thinking, not less.

Having said that I’d say climate change is real and that within a short time frame we’ve sped the global warming cycle up a little bit — simplyG

More than a bit. At an alarming, unprecedented rate.

14% contribution to emissions, not to mention 80% of deforestation of the Amazon (and much of the rest to grow feed) for cattle.

But there’s no reason to worry, because some guy on the internet recently learned the term “biogenic carbon cycle” from a meat-producer website.

Another one bites the dust. Bob Barker, at 99.

This is not the norm unless you are a narcissist. — L'éléphant

Yeah, I think that’s nonsense. A feeling that you’re unique or important in some way is hardly narcissism. If that’s true, we’re all narcissists, because it’s a psychological truism.

https://twitter.com/RepMTG/status/1694849434062877177?s=20

Lol

MUG-SHOT: Trump Capitalizes on Jail Photo With T-Shirts, Mugs, and Bumper Stickers

Imagine the kind of dupe you have to be to buy this crap. :lol:

Anyway— the hope from his cult is that this will be the “biggest thing ever,” and will lead to him winning. It won’t. It’ll last about a week, die down like everything else, and be forgotten by the public. Most people think he should be convicted anyway.

We were told for two years how badly the democrats were gonna be wiped out by the Republican “red wave” …same kind of wishful thinking here I guess.

Voting is a virtue of our democracy and randomizing officials rather than electing them would undermine the democratic process, preventing citizens from voting according to what they think is best. If you take away voting, you severely curtail the ability of people to participate in the political process and you disconnect politics from the will of the people. — NotAristotle

The article argues against this point.

People expect leaders chosen at random to be less effective than those picked systematically. But in multiple experiments led by the psychologist Alexander Haslam, the opposite held true. Groups actually made smarter decisions when leaders were chosen at random than when they were elected by a group or chosen based on leadership skill.

Why were randomly chosen leaders more effective? They led more democratically. “Systematically selected leaders can undermine group goals,” Dr. Haslam and his colleagues suggest, because they have a tendency to “assert their personal superiority.” When you’re anointed by the group, it can quickly go to your head: I’m the chosen one.

That is sad.

Deniers will always deny, but so what? — Wayfarer

:up:

Lock him up! Lock him up!

Did you make it up (kudos if you did) or is it in common usage? — BC

It’s common usage, at least among people in New Hampshire. I wear it with pride.

I was just checking and it says that town meeting members in those cases are elected, not chosen by lottery, so I was wrong. — T Clark

Too bad— I’d like to see how/if it works somewhere closer to home.

So this thread is now a message board for climate deniers to post whatever “thoughts” pop into their heads. :yawn:

My primary concern is that a non-expert might not make good decisions concerning a policy. My related concern is that an extremist would make decisions inconsistent with the majority. — NotAristotle

But that’s happening already. Trump was hardly an expert in anything, and pretty extreme.

Take a look at the republican candidates. Good lord. Politics is almost like survival of the dumbest.

Towns are governed by a Board of Selectmen and a Town Meeting. — T Clark

Yeah I know. I’m a Masshole at heart, having lived there most of my life. Similar structures here in NH. But are any of them selected by sortition?

In some larger towns that becomes unwieldy so they started using representative town meetings with members selected by lottery from a pool of applicants. — T Clark

Interesting. I wasn’t aware of this. Do you happen to know which towns?



Well the civics exam is supposed to be a kind of filter, I guess. I share your concerns though. Still intriguing.



But none of this was by sortition, right?

Presumption of innocence. Plenty of that going on with Hunter Biden, and Hillary Clinton prior (“lock her up”) from the MAGA base. So they feel entitled to lecture others about it. No hypocrisy to see here.

:clap:

You mean you don’t want to get lectured about the basic physics of CO2 from a physics professor internet rando?

I applaud your patience and explanations.

What’s frustrating is that most of this could be avoided if we just say to ourselves “Maybe when thousands of scientists around the world tell us that methane emissions from livestock are a problem, we should take that seriously.”

I think Desantis looked awful in this farce. Vivek was much more in-your-face, but really obnoxious. Christie looked OK but was loudly booed and didn’t get much time. Haley and Scott were bores. Pence did OK, for Pence. Although he’s about as exciting as cardboard.

That’s exactly what was said as well! I think Burnham raised that point— that we get our batteries and EVs from China manufacturing. It’s just a joke.

Haley:

“Is climate change real?” she said. “Yes, it is. But if you want to go and really change the environment, then we need to start telling China and India that they have to lower their emissions.”

Asked to raise their hands if the candidates believe climate change is human behavior driven, no one did so…it was interrupted by Desantis, who seemed to be somewhat panicked about the question.

I see their new fossil fuel-approved slogan is “China and India need to reduce their emissions FIRST.”

Anyone watching this debate?

Jesus…