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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
 Posted - 10/10/2011 : 18:10:14
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A pretty well made argument on Global Warming and what or which way to thing about it....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ
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"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 10/11/2011 : 08:18:27 [Permalink]
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Indeed!
If I had to choose only one argument, this would be it. Actually, it's one I've used myself a few times debating deniers at work (not that there are many of them), though not as eloquently.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 10/11/2011 : 10:21:56 [Permalink]
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It's Pascal's Wager for Climate Change.
Here's the table for Pascal's Wager:
. | | |
| Faith | Atheism |
| | |
--------------+-------------+-------------+
| | |
| Wasted | |
No God | Sunday | No Big Deal |
| Mornings | |
| | |
--------------+-------------+-------------+
| | |
| | |
God Exists | Paradise! | Eternal |
| | Damnation |
| | |
--------------+-------------+-------------+
Pascal argued that wasted Sunday mornings was a much lower risk than Eternal Damnation, and so we should pick the "Faith" column (the video's "column A").
So people who find this style of argument convincing should be religious. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 10/11/2011 : 10:46:30 [Permalink]
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Difference being though if we press forward to lessen human's impact on global warming, it's a possible win-win either way....
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"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 10/11/2011 : 11:10:49 [Permalink]
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| LOL! That's the best comic ever. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 10/11/2011 : 11:13:53 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Randy
Difference being though if we press forward to lessen human's impact on global warming, it's a possible win-win either way.... |
Yeah, but the guy in the video focuses on the doom-sayers.
The argument that combating climate change will result in benefits regardless of whether climate change is "real" is a different and much more powerful argument. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 10/12/2011 : 05:33:24 [Permalink]
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| I just tell em "If I'm wrong, we spend money. If you're wrong, we go extinct." |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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The Rat
SFN Regular
Canada
1370 Posts |
Posted - 10/12/2011 : 06:01:45 [Permalink]
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Here was the way I put it a few years ago, don't know if I ever posted it here:
Global Warming? Screw the Facts!
Did I just say that? The card-carrying skeptic who believes that evidence should be collected and examined with a scientific eye? Screw the facts?!
Yes, I said it. Maybe it’s my unwillingness to wade through reams of paper trying to find out who’s right, perhaps it’s just acceptance of the consensus of more than 90% of the world’s climatologists, but I no longer care about the facts, as if I ever did. I long ago came to the conclusion that there are four undeniable, inarguable facts that relate to this issue, facts which simply cannot be denied. (There I go again, displaying the dogmatism that skeptics should avoid.) But here they are:
1) The environment is the most important issue in the world simply because it is the world, without it we are dead. If you deny that then you deny your own existence. We evolved in a specific set of conditions, and even though our intelligence has forged technological means of staying alive and flourishing in everything from the tropical deserts to the arctic snows and into Earth orbit, we can only, as yet, engineer our immediate environments with heaters, air conditioners, and clothing. We cannot hope to quickly counteract large-scale weather patterns which are the result of the warming of our planet.
2) There is no way of knowing, and no way of predicting, how much damage we can do to the environment before we reach the ‘tipping point’, and things become irreparable. We know that everything is interconnected, again, denying that is denying the very ecosystems which keep our planet healthy and able to sustain us. Maybe we can lose 90% of the species on Earth and still be fine, but maybe as I’m writing this there is a logging company working in a rain forest and wiping out the last colony of a species of beetle which will cause the whole system to collapse around us. The system is far too complex for us to ever predict when that might happen.
3) If, and I will grant that it’s an ‘if’, the worst case scenarios are true we are in very serious trouble. If some of the less dire predictions are true we could still be in for some very profound changes to our societies and way of life.
4) From what I've seen, none of the measures being seriously proposed to alleviate global warming will harm the environment. It doesn’t matter if the hypothesis is a misinterpretation, miscalculation, an exaggeration, or an outright bare-faced bloody lie, the environment benefits anyway!
But the ECONOMY! people will scream, it will ruin our economy! I doubt it. If there’s anything which can evolve faster than a bacterium it’s a system which makes people lots of money. Maybe a few short-sighted companies will go under, but who needs them? Their place will quickly be taken by people with vision and hope, just the sort of people we need anyway.
I have used these arguments before, and have been accused of indulging in an environmental version of Pascal’s wager. I can see the comparison, but the world around us is a living, breathing system for which we have ample evidence just by looking out the window; deities, on the other hand, are conspicuous by their absence.
They certainly don’t seem to be cooling the Earth. |
Bailey's second law; There is no relationship between the three virtues of intelligence, education, and wisdom.
You fiend! Never have I encountered such corrupt and foul-minded perversity! Have you ever considered a career in the Church? - The Bishop of Bath and Wells, Blackadder II
Baculum's page: http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=3947338590 |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 10/12/2011 : 08:02:06 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
It's Pascal's Wager for Climate Change.
...
So people who find this style of argument convincing should be religious.
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But ~60-90% (depending on how you calculate) of the American population is religious. For those people this kind of argument could work. And we need to reach those people .
Except those of course, who believe that God will not allow us to fuck up the planet no matter what we do. But those are too screwed up to bother with anyway.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Hal
Skeptic Friend
USA
302 Posts |
Posted - 10/12/2011 : 08:19:02 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
[quote]Originally posted by Dave W.
Except those of course, who believe that God will not allow us to fuck up the planet no matter what we do. But those are too screwed up to bother with anyway.
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You might be surprised at just how "mainstream" that notion is in significant parts of the country. As much as I'd like to think this view is limited to a handful of snake-handling cranks, I've found it to be very common, perhaps even dominant, among the rank-and-file, practicing religious faithful, who make up the majority population in the areas I've lived. It would be nice to simply not "bother with" them, but they are my family, friends, neighbors, employers and coworkers, doctors, lawyers, pizza makers, ....
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Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Martin Luther King Jr.
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 10/12/2011 : 08:27:19 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
But ~60-90% (depending on how you calculate) of the American population is religious. |
No, Mab, I was saying that if we skeptics find Pascal's Wager compelling in this climate-change form, then we should be religious.| For those people this kind of argument could work. And we need to reach those people . |
I (for one) am not going to use an argument I know to be poor to entice the gullible towards agreeing with my political goals. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Global Warming boiled down to a simple view
