Psycochemotherapy for the masses.

The bitter fruits of our common human experience of the last rough decade are being distilled into an un-cordial essence of well-earned contempt. It's a distillation I savor at times like this; while I doubt it's good for me in the long run, and I do try to avoid overproduction from my own fruits - at the same time, perhaps it may do some good.

As does chemotherapy - a toxin designed to be somewhat more fatal to a disease than the organism it's trying to kill. Axel erupts with what might be a promising insight in a thread over at FiveThirtyEight.

Dwight, what you need to understand about today's rightwinger is that he wants all the ideological gratification with none of the work required.

Surely you won't deny him the pleasure of running around with the rest of the mob while chanting the same thing over and over in infantile bliss?

Basically, if y'all want to have your triumph outside of the circlejerks, you have to do some actual work (for *once* in your lives) and offer up some evidence. You can't point at a pile of text and say "it's all in there I'm telling you".

One of the main reasons I want climate legislation through is because I think the conspiracy of dunces against such legislation is a sign that it is good for society. You can tell a man's worth by measuring his opponents, and the haters of Gore and the climate scientists are some of the most pathetic and odious people on the internet - they make 4chan look like a British royal reception.

Do your homework or get out of our sights. I don't go up to my teacher and say "I understand it all - I don't have to do the exam" but you cretins can gurgle with happiness over what these e-mails supposedly show?

That's not how the world works, morons.

Personally, I generally try to say something more positive than that. I don't always succeed, but I do try. More often than not these days, I walk away from the keyboard rather than publishing the incoherent rant I've managed to inflict upon my computer.

But sometimes such a rant will include a truly golden insight; an observation that we would be ordinarily too polite to point out, but which is nonetheless both true and inherently toxic to the dangerous stupidities of our day.

...what you need to understand about today's rightwinger is that he wants all the ideological gratification with none of the work required.

Actually, it's worse than that. Some of them actually seem to think they HAVE done the work, when all they have done is expended effort, evidenced by waste heat and fricative noises.

After the third or fourth time that a person of educated intelligence has been presented a crayon-scrawl as being a Grand Theory of This or The Next Great Novel or Inarguable Proof that The Truth Has Been Suppressed - well, it becomes tiresome in the extreme; particularly when it becomes apparent that they really cannot tell the difference between the nonsense they present and the minimum standard of the form.

Before you can do the work, you have to understand what the work is. Perhaps even more importantly, you really do need to understand the people doing it - because people who thrive in academia and who think that modeling chaotic systems is interesting are not at ALL like "Normal Folks." Actually, they are kinda out of the range of pretty damn smart folks - who are mostly useful for translating the banjo music into human speech.

When you have a broad consensus among people who are capable of looking at the data, People like Nate, for instance, evaluating it themselves and understanding the conclusions ,people who come at it from a wide variety of scientific disciplines, it's really rather remarkable for there to be such a broad, scientific consensus.

Bluntly, if there was room for genuine debate, there would be more "sides" to the issue than "Those who have done the work" and "those who think any opinion is as good as any other."



Do they understand the mechanisms and directions of Climate Change completely? Good lord, no. The fundamental science required to make the crudest models is barely a generation old. The computational power to model that science is scarce and inadequate. So we don't have a complete picture, and are still unable to make very specific predictions about what climate is likely to do in any place at any time. But the picture we do have is accurate enough to be a compelling argument against complacency. What we do know is that climate is changing - rapidly, possibly more rapidly than we can gracefully accommodate. It's far more likely than not that human actions are in large part responsible, which is the ONLY spot of good news. You see, that means there is something we can do about the situation. But there is a large social problem in North America with that insight. It means The Hippies were right all along.

That's what it translates to in the minds of Authoritarian right wingers. That the sky and the earth and the waters are not endless, that resources are measured and that the side-effects of private profit will always have some diffuse social impact, the earth being a closed system. In North America in general, and the US in particular, it's considered to be absolutely wrong to ask any "soverign individual" to do any thing - even such a small thing as checking their tire pressure - for any reason other than absolute self-interest.

Indeed, it's considered intrusive when it IS in one's own direct interest, because it will also benefit others.

Well, it turns out that if you dump mercury in the ocean, it ends up in your tuna salid. If you chemicals into the air - you breathe them - after they have unholy congress with ultraviolet light and their offspring ALSO ends up in your tuna salad.

Likewise, it may seem like an intrusion to be "taxed" by being required to paint your roof white. But does a 20% savings on air-conditioning costs sound like a "tax" to you? In some areas, that's a damn fine return on a day's work. So people who insist on acting against their own self interest in the name of opposing what they think to be the intrest of the group, because they have 'a gaw-damn right' to do as they gaw-damn please....

Well, that's only tolerable to a certain extent. Oddly, these are the very same people who use "toleration" as a dirty word toward people who's actions, such as gay marriage, have NO noticeable effect on the arctic ice pack, while thinking that making bonfires out of old tires and spotted owls saturated in PCB-laced waste oil  is a celebration of individual liberty.

If you take too much water from here (because you have the "right" to do so) - there is too little over there - and those who have too little, and therefore thirst and starve are likely to take action against your absolute interpretation of your right to force them to die of thirst or hunger.

The Earth is not a Pyramid - it is a globe. Crap does not flow downhill - it circulates.

You can never act with complete impunity and you can never absolutely know what the ultimate outcome of your actions will be.

When you act conservatively and within your best understandings of the ability of the various, interlocking complex systems to absorb change, you will maximize long term goals at a minimum cost. 

But that requires that the required response to the problem must have some substantial social-action component. It will require the understanding and application of words like "Synergy" and "Appropriate Technology" and "Social mediation."

But regardless of what faith or ideology states, The Ecology is not something separate from us, nor are we independent of it. The Hippies were right. We do have to live in harmony with the land. The reverse is not actually true, though.

So, we all do have to get along. If that offends your idiology - you need a new ideological framework, because yours will eat your children. 

Well, that settles it, then!

The Best Arguement against Democra... - Customized by webcarve
T shirts from Zazzle.com

It's official. US Conservatives have lost all touch with reality. Why? Well, according to "Mainstream Conservative," a Rasumssun POLL clearly establishes that climate change is a hoax.

He quotes the poll; I follow suit:

Forty-four percent (44%) of U.S. voters now say long-term planetary trends are the cause of global warming, compared to 41% who blame it on human activity.

Seven percent (7%) attribute global warming to some other reason, and nine percent (9%) are unsure in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

I find it bizarre that anyone who is NOT actually a climate scientist claims certainty on this matter. It's one reason I rarely remark on the matter, bu apparently silence breeds this level of stupidity. I can't imagine what William F. Buckley would have had to say, but it would not have been complementary to this brand of "Mainstream Conservatism."

Or Barry Goldwater, for that matter.

The Goldwater Standard by webcarve

There is much that I would disagree with in terms of priorities in the statement illustrated above, but not a thing in terms of principle. And yet, while claiming the right to the legacy of "Mister Conservative," no single movement in modern politics has done more violence to Constitutional principles and individual liberty that the sort of "mainstream conservatism" that "Mainstream Conservative" advocates.

As far as I'm concerned, the proper role of a responsible conservative IS that of skeptic. It is about not being stampeded by social panics or losing one's brains in the face of crisis. And always, always, ALWAYS to ask, even when the need is indisputable, "what will this cost and how shall we pay for it?"

Nonetheless, let us remember that the most important matter to a genuine Conservative is value; an assessment of things that are of tangible and transcendent importance. Conservatives in their hearts know that one neither can nor should try to preserve everything; that indeed, not only is change inevitable, it's often desirable - so long as changes are implemented prudently and intelligently.

Prudence, caution and respect for intelligence was cast to the winds with the onslaught of Reganism; a triumph of feelgood populist appeals to nativist truisms and exceptionalist thought over the obvious, if sometimes inconvenient truths that arise from cause and effect. Clearly, cheerleading that twaddle for thirty or more years clearly leads to genetic damage. Crowing that public opinion PROVES that "global warming is a myth" proves just how utterly fucking consciously stupid you have to be to be a "Reagan-Thompson-Palin conservative."

It's an opinion poll! Even if the poll is scientifically valid in itself, all it measures is what people believe. It cannot and does not say anything as to whether that belief is accurate. To assert otherwise is the worst sort of cargo-cultic magical thinking, and that is without factoring in the depth of the bullshit we all have to wade through to get to the facts.

Even if it were that the result of an honest difference of INFORMED opinion, instead of the result of years upon years of bullshitting and propaganda, dating back to the seventies of "science" bought and paid for by the oil and coal industry - it still would not be worth a fart in a high wind. Why?

This is the sort of matter that is true or not regardless of what you, I or anyone believes.

It's true or not regardless of what your climate models say, or what data set you have, honest, cooked or falsified entirely. The only thing that will inform you what a prudent, conservative, rational response to any emergent issue is as many hard, cold facts as possible. Agitating against the people who are actually doing the science to get the facts we need is utterly criminal stupidity.

Right now, I state no solid opinion as to whether anthropogenic inputs are a significant factor in climate change. I state that because I understand something "Mainstream Conservative" does not: I have not the slightest qualification to HAVE such an opinion.

Indeed, the matter is of such mind-boggling complexity that no single scientist can possibly have a good enough handle on it to do more than contribute to a scientific consensus.

That scientific consensus exists and that scientific consensus states with very little equivocation that climate change is occurring - and that it is highly probable that our actions have contributed to it. In other words, we have a choice between the highly informed widespread consensus of thousands of experts using the best information and best simulations possible - as opposed to a few well paid "contrariness" and the "skeptical review" of people who also tend to believe The Rapture is immanent and that the fossil record is ALSO a hoax.

My opinion - for what it's worth - IS based on going to the the data to the degree that I can digest it at all - and seeking out as many different sources as possible. That leads me to assume that betting against the current scientific consensus is akin to trying to improve two pair on the draw. You might actually do it often enough to think it's worth betting on. If it's a small pot, it's worth the risk. But in case you haven't looked around, we are all in. And you don't go all in on two low pairs in the face of a possible straight flush.

The data persuades me that, for whatever reason, we ARE facing a significant global climate change, there WILL be much more severe weather, there WILL be significant changes in fertility, ocean currents and weather patterns may change and if we do not start planning and acting now, we will have a catastrophic situation on our hands within twenty years.

Of course, I could be wrong. So could all the climate scientists. There could be mechanisms at work that they have never observed or understood. No one understands that better than they do. But we are at a point now where we must act on what we now understand. We cannot wait to be certain, because that certainty will be established by the very events we need to be prepared for.

And, what's the worst case if the worst does not occur? We will have transformed our economy by massive investment in green or at least green-er tech, we will of necessity broken the monopoly on energy currently held by energy cartels and therefore made not just ourselves, but the entire world much more secure.

All wars are resource wars; any rumor to the contrary is bullshit for the plebes. For examples of what sort of bullshit - consult any statement by Donald Rumsfeld.

It's criminal if he was manipulating us and the pinnacle of incompetence if he believed what he said with a straight face; either way, it's pretty damn clear that confidently asserting something does not make it come true. And it doesn't matter how many "warbloggers" and "mainstream conservatives" believe your bullshit. Why? Because facts are facts, reality is reality, cause leads to effect and shit rolls downhill no matter WHAT your chief economist says.

We will also have to address the issue of a secure food supply and to do that, we will again have to restructure the way things are currently done. Again, concentrated control over monoculture food supplies are disasters waiting to happen - an observation of fact that should transcend any political viewpoint, and is certainly a compelling state interest of every state that wishes to REMAIN a sovereign state.

This situation is global, and we simply do not have the luxury to afford widespread pissing matches over water, oil or food. Not when we have the knowledge and technical ability to address these things for far less than such wars would cost.

And - fortunately - we have the knowledge to do this, if we can sweep distractions, denial and disaster capitalism aside. Because - let me be absolutely clear on this - while one may be legitimately and properly skeptical about the worst case scenario, it is absolutely bizarre to suggest that climate change is "a hoax." Climates change.

We have benefited from a long period of relatively stable climate, but that appears to be a somewhat uncommon thing. And there's rather a lot of evidence in the fossil record to suggest that not only do climates change, they can change rather rapidly. When they do change rapidly, those creatures that do not adapt - die. Rapidly.

It would be a shame to die from sheer ignorance and stupidity in the face of the inevitable - but that is often the way of things.

But, if you honestly believe that this is all a hoax with the sole intent of separating you from your jacked-up assholemobile - if you are certain enough to bet your life, your fortune and family - than I do encourage you to invest in waterfront property on the California or Gulf Coasts. Hey, once this hoax is busted, it's going to be worth a fortune!