By Larry Kummer, from the Fabius Maximus website.
Summary: Here are three powerful insights by Daniel Davies about predictions by experts. He used them to predict the outcome of the Iraq War. This post applies them to the public policy debate about climate change; you can use them to provide insights on other intractable problems. This is the another in a series about validating the case for public policy action to fight climate change.
Daniel Davies is a London-based analyst and stockbroker; he writes at his blog and the Leftist website Crooked Timber. Here he explains how he was able to accurately predict the disastrous outcome of our invasion of Iraq (different entirely from the theory-based predictions of those using history and 4GW). It is well-worth reading in full. His insights have great power and apply to many business and public policy issues — such as climate change. Excerpt…
… Here’s a few of the ones I learned {at business school} which I considered relevant to judging the advisability of the Second Iraq War.
Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance.
I was first made aware of this during an accounting class. …
Fibbers’ forecasts are worthless.
Case after miserable case after bloody case we went through, I tell you, all of which had this moral. … If you have doubts about the integrity of a forecaster, you can’t use their forecasts at all. Not even as a “starting point”. …
The Vital Importance of Audit.
Emphasised over and over again. Brealey & Myers on Corporate Finance
has a section on this, in which they remind callow students that like backing-up one’s computer files, this is a lesson that everyone seems to have to learn the hard way.
Basically, it’s been shown time and again and again; companies which do not audit completed projects in order to see how accurate the original projections were, tend to get exactly the forecasts and projects that they deserve. Companies which have a culture where there are no consequences for making dishonest forecasts, get the projects they deserve. Companies which allocate blank cheques to management teams with a proven record of failure and mendacity, get what they deserve.
There are two distinct insights here. The first concerns our personal reasoning. The second concerns the information processing systems built by organizations. Both are essential flaws in our society that help make modern propaganda so effective.
From Stephen Covey’s “The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything“.
(1) The importance of credibility
“Yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself.”
— Leo Tolstoy, “Three Methods Of Reform” (1900).
Both Left and Right in America have learned that their followers lack skepticism; they’ll happily believe stories so long as they fit their world view — stories that are ideologically pleasing, with proper roles for the good and bad guys. Without skepticism, credibility is too cheaply earned.
Each side clearly sees this behavior in their foes, but not in themselves (i.e., fact-checking has become a partisan game). For example, countless posts at Crooked Timber document the Right’s denial of reality (as have I). Do any document the Left’s similar misrepresentation of climate science Here are some examples of climate activists exaggerating, misrepresenting, or outright denying known climate science.
- A skillfully inaccurate article in The Guardian about climate change refugees.
- A skillfully misleading story about global warming in Alaska that’s set Twitter aflame.
- The North Pole is now a lake! Be very afraid!
- Skillful propaganda in Mother Jones about polar bears.
- Skillfully misleading articles about melting of Yosemite’s biggest glacier.
- Skillful propaganda in The New Yorker about “The Siege of Miami”.
- About “fibbers’ forecasts”: Manufacturing climate nightmares: misusing science to create horrific predictions.
Perhaps the Left’s most outrageous propaganda is their denial of what climate scientists call the “pause” or “hiatus” in the two centuries of global warming (most or all since 1950 caused by us, per the IPCC’s AR5). Scores of papers (see the links and abstracts) mark scientists’ progress through recognition of the phenomenon, analysis of its possible causes, and predictions of when it will end. Leftists work to keep their flock ignorant of this research. For examples see these articles by Joe Romm at ThinkProgress and Phil Plait at Slate..
“… first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:5).
(2) Warning about systems that lack strong audits
“Trust can trump Uncertainty.”
— Presentation by Leonard A Smith (Prof of Statistics, LSE), 6 February 2014.
The public policy debate about climate change rests almost entirely on the forecast of computer models. Forecasts of models are inherently impossible to prove; even robust testing is difficult. Furthermore the frequent misuse of models gives us reason for skepticism. Such as the bogus credit models that proved collateralized debt obligation securities (packages of mortgages, even subprime ones) were of investment grade, those making the obviously false claim that 30 thousand species go extinct every year, and the misrepresentations of the UN’s probabilistic forecast of 11 billion people by 2100.
Hindcasting is the basis given for trusting the climate models used by the IPCC, the basis given for making public policy decisions having multi-trillion dollar effects on the world economy– perhaps even changing the nature of our economic system (as urged by Pope Francis and Naomi Klein![clip_image001[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/clip_image0011.gif "clip_image001[1]"){kind=small}
).
Unfortunately the large literature about model validation says that hindcasting is inadequate when using the historical data with which the model was designed (e.g., for parametrization) for validation. Worse, it has failed to convince a majority of Americans despite a 27 year-long-campaign (since James Hansen’s Senate testimony), with climate change consistently ranking near or at the bottom of the public’s major policy concerns (e.g., Gallup). Rightly so, since neither the models nor their predictions have been audited by outside experts (i.e., an unaffiliated team of experts in climate, physics, software, etc).
For more about the challenge of validating climate models…
- About models, increasingly often the lens through which we see the world.
- Will a return of rising temperatures validate the IPCC’s climate models?
- We must rely on forecasts by computer models. Are they reliable?
- A frontier of climate science: the model-temperature divergence.
- Do models accurately predict climate change?
Where do we go from here?
How unprepared are we? “We don’t even plan for the past.”
— Steven Mosher (member of Berkeley Earth; bio here), a comment posted at Climate Etc.
The public policy debate has become gridlocked, giving us some choices. We can listen to the two sides bicker for another 27 years (by which time the weather will have given the answer), or we can seek ways to restart the policy debate.
Karl Popper believed that predictions were the gold standard for testing scientific theories. The public also believes this. Countless films and TV shows focus on the triumphal moment when a test proves a scientists’ prediction . Climate scientists can run such tests today for global surface temperatures. This would provide the equivalent of an audit and produce evidence about models predictive power superior than anything shown so far.
Any new approach probably will be denounced by Left or Right — or both. Let’s try new approaches, even if we have to “color outside the lines”.
“We don’t even plan for the past.”— Steven Mosher
That’s because we have to predict it first.
Vukcevic,
“That’s because we have to predict it first.”
Please explain that a bit more. Infrastructure is built to survive events that have happened before. We use historical standards, without predictions. The more vital the infrastructure (e.g., by importance and value), the higher the standard. Such as “100 year floods”.
Editor of the Fabius Maximus website
I think he is referencing the old joke about Communism and its memory holes.
The future is known, only the past is uncertain.
Eugene WR Gallun
Eugene,
Thanks for explaining. I’m a fan of Soviet-era jokes, and should have caught that!
“We use historical standards, without predictions. The more vital the infrastructure (e.g., by importance and value), the higher the standard. Such as “100 year floods”.”
A, good and valid point. However, there can be a problem when history based standards that are known to be inadequate are used. Example. The Fukushima dai-ichi reactors were designed to handle an earthquake equivalent to the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 — magnitude 8 (roughly). However, in the late 1900s, plate tectonics became better understood and by 2013 it was clear that the Fukushima site could experience an earthquake and tsunami far stronger than the Kanto earthquake. Which, of course, happened on march 11 2011.
Don K, below, commented on Fukushima. An even more pertinent example is that the designers of Fukushima chose a historical period for natural hazards study that began not long after a documented tsunami had inundated the site. They chose a “convenient” study period, rather than an effective one.
And with that out of the way, let the logical fallacies about what this article proves or does not prove…BEGIN!!!
Release the Sounds!!!
Aphan,
This post does not attempt to prove or disprove anything. As the summary says, these are insights — they are not like Euclidian geometry. They can help people gain new perspectives on the public policy debate.
Or not. They don’t come with guarantees; they don’t work for everyone.
Fabius-
“This post does not attempt to prove or disprove anything. As the summary says, these are insights — they are not like Euclidian geometry. They can help people gain new perspectives on the public policy debate.
Or not. They don’t come with guarantees; they don’t work for everyone.”
Excuse me, but what did I SAY that insinuated to you that you needed to point out that your article does attempt to prove or disprove anything??
What I DID say or at least insinuated, very, very obviously (I thought) in fact I almost stated it outright, was my expectation that MANY of the posts on this thread would turn out to be comments that include logical fallacies about what this article proves or does not prove! I pretty much said that someone would HAVE to use flawed logic in order to conclude that the article “proves/disproves anything” because no logical, rational comment about the article CAN conclude that it proves anything!
Of course your insights are not like Euclidian geometry, I never suggested that they are! I also didn’t suggest that they were like analytical geometry, or unicorns or bumper cars. What prompted you to make that statement?
That you arrived at a conclusion about my comment that is so directly opposed to what I actually said IN my comment, that it leads me to ask you, how did you come to each of your conclusions about my comment? I am interested to see whether you used objective means or subjective ones. What were your premises?
I ask because that is the only way that I can gain a correct perspective about YOUR perspective.
Aphan,
“what did I SAY that insinuated to you that you needed to point out that your article does attempt to prove or disprove anything??”
You said “let the logical fallacies about what this article proves or does not prove.” This essay is about evaluating what we see based on experience and intuition.
Me to FabiusM-“what did I SAY that insinuated to you that you needed to point out that your article does attempt to prove or disprove anything??”
FM-You said “let the logical fallacies about what this article proves or does not prove.”
Me-Yes Larry, I said those words. I said those words for the very reason you stated-your article does not prove or disprove anything. But I knew then, “based on experience and intuition” what I can prove now. That numerous people in this forum would ATTEMPT to use your article in ways they should not, and in doing so they would commit logical fallacies. Nothing that I said stopped that from happening.
FM-“This essay is about evaluating what we see based on experience and intuition.”
Wow….then why did you say further down that – “it is a thousand word essay comparing journalism with science. Politics is one frame used for this purpose.”
You don’t even repeat yourself with consistency.
““We don’t even plan for the past.”— Steven Mosher
That’s because we have to predict it first.”
That’s because we have to adjust it first !
There, fixed that for you.
Fabius Maximus, yes Mr. Gallun is spot on (I do remember experiencing the past being different to what it was)
On matter of predictions & forecasts
It is a hazardous business, I prefer to do extrapolations.
In 2003 I devised formula which is suppose to track solar activity based on the sunspot count.
When extrapolated couple of decades forward it ‘forecast’ SC24 max on annual count to peak at approximately 80. Since 2015 SSN count is just above 49, we could assume (at least for the time being) that the 2014 count of 79.2 is the SC24’s annual SSNmax.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN.gif
Prediction, forecast or extrapolation, call it whatever you wish, happen to be close beyond any of my expectation. Do I need to remind readers that even some 3-4 years later, the NASA’s top experts were forecasting for SC24 to be strongest ever (in 200s), and yes, NASA was made aware of my formula at the time. It should be mentioned that couple of years later (I think in 2005) Dr. L. Svalgaard forecast for SC24 SSNmax 70 (+ or – a margin ?) if I remember correctly.
Fascinating charts, Vuk. By eyeball, it seems we are about to experience weather (climate?) last seen at the turn of the 20th Century? Yes?
Hi Mr. Passfield, thanks.
If sun has any say in it, yes and I am not looking forward to it.
Your predictions seem to concur with several other (independent) studies based on solar activity. It would appear moving south in the immediate future would be a good plan.
One question: If I read this correctly, the low temperatures of the 60’s and 70’s coudn’t have been related to solar events?
There is a dip in sunspots (that is, solar magnetic activity) around that time, yes?
While solar luminosity has low variability, solar magnetic activity is much more variable. Solar magnetic activity seem correlated with periods of hot and cold climate. Today we are climbing out of the Little Ice Age, which is correlated with the Maunder and Dalton minimums in solar magnetic activity. It is no surprise that temperatures are rising given the rise in solar magnetic activity. The global warming seems natural – unless one believes Michael Mann’s PhD thesis and its ‘Hockey Stick’ (which no reputable person does these days – it is well debunked by the hard work of Steve McIntyre and others).
The solar magnetic activity affects the heliosphere (solar ‘wind’).
The heliosphere affects the intensity of cosmic rays reaching the Earth’s atmosphere.
The cosmic rays in the atmosphere seed cloud formation.
Water vapor is the dominant ‘greenhouse gas’ affecting climate.
Thus, we have some link between solar magnetic activity and climate. However, the fact that water vapor effects are so difficult to model (due to convection etc) means more research is needed. We don’t know if this is the dominant effect or simply a significant one.
That is my understanding of the ongoing work of Shaveev et al.
Bartleby January 4, 2016 at 4:52 pm
“Your predictions seem to concur with several other (independent) studies based on solar activity.”
Except for one important difference, some of those studies are based on ‘models’ how sun is suppose to work. Equations I published a based on the two solid well-known solar system orbital numbers.
“the low temperatures of the 60’s and 70’s coudn’t have been related to solar events?”
Yes, I think they are. It is often forgotten that the Earth is not an internally ‘dead planet’; to the contrary it’s magnetic field is continuously changing, what matters is how two magnetic fields (solar and terrestrial) interact.
My detailed analysis of that interaction clearly shows that 1960/70 temperatures fall is directly related to the magnetic changes interactions.
Bartleby-
“It would appear moving south in the immediate future would be a good plan.”
Careful, the ice at the south pole is growing faster and thicker than the ice at the north pole. Perhaps the equator would be the safest? lol 🙂
Thanks, Larry Kummer.
Excellent post; to learn from.
Three comments:
1. What is the Left? What is the Right? Those are rhetorical questions, but would be happy to entertain answers. That paradigm is worse than false, it is misleading and does not convey information. There is no bilateral dichotomy of political belief systems–at least not in the Left vs. Right model. It might be useful to tighten up this analytical language.
2. This commentary is an excellent foundation for a way forward for this scientific debate. Instead of the massively corrupt “peer review” system, it is clear that there is a need for an objective credibility assessment audit system for climate research. https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1828116
3. In addition to a credibility assessment audit system, there is also a need for a systematic approach to encouraging whistleblowers from within the closed brotherhood of climate science research. This system would be complementary to the credibility assessment audits in #2 above. There are excellent models to base this on. A great example is the Air Traffic control ATSAP error reporting system. See link below. However, at least for the initial phase, it is important that whistleblowers are afforded the benefits of existing laws which reward reports of fraudulent activity in federal contracting, the False Claims Act, specifically.
http://www.atsapsafety.com/atsap-home/#
Ken,
“What is the Left? What is the Right? … That paradigm is worse than false, it is misleading and does not convey information. ”
The division of political beliefs into Left and Right has been a standard metapor for two centuries, since the French Revolution. it remains commonplace because it is intuitively clear. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_politics
“There is no bilateral dichotomy of political belief systems”
Sure there is. Political systems can also be described with increasing specificity using 3, 4, or 15 dimensions. But this is not a PhD thesis in political science. it is a thousand word essay comparing journalism with science. Politics is one frame used for this purpose.
I suspect that most people understand the point being made.
I agree, I am neither a journalist or a scientist, but the point is clear to me.
I am a CPA and I understand the need for independent audit. Peer review in the scientific community, IMO equivalent to audit by my friends with similar opinions and interest, is meaningless. An audit without skepticism is inadequate and can not disclose what is false or misleading,
Yeah, it may have been “a standard metapor for two centuries,” but the point I’m making is that is not operative now. And the fact that it is meaningless today, but still used confuses the man in the street, and political scientists at the same time. Are Hillary and Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg “Left” or “Right?” Any analysis that uses the “Left vs Right” paradigm is faulty from the start, and useless in the end.
Is the “Right” religiously observant Catholics? Is the “Right” Wall Street executives? Is the “Right” nationalists? Is the “Right”….? Any characteristic that received wisdom associates with the “Right” can be refuted quickly with examples from reality. Same with the “Left.”
There really are three political factions today (in American, but this broadly holds true for the formerly Christian “Western” nations of Europe) :
1. Traditional Americans: believe in the traditional value system of America–American exceptionalism, Protestant work ethic, traditional morals and values, the constitution, etc.
2. Politically Correct Progressives: reject all aspects of Traditional American belief system–America is a racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, imperialist, capitalist hell-hole; and it must be changed. Are vigilant and aggressive in foisting their belief system on the rest of the country.
3. Crony Capitalists: have no underpinning belief system, found across both legacy political parties–Democrats and Republicans, masquerade as both “Left” and “Right”. Motivating factors are manipulation of the massive government regulatory behemoth for fun and profit. Have perverted the free market with regulations, and manipulation. Conduct wars–cultural, economic and kinetic–to advance the interests of themselves and their cronies. Includes most of the “ruling elite,” Wall St, the Fed, the Chamber of Commerce, lobbyists, and climate “scientists,” their enabling government bureaucracies (NOAA, NASA, EPA, etc), and the corporations, NGOs, and other leech organizations that profit and grow from their crony connections–Solyndra, GE, wind, solar, GM, GreenPeace, ACLU, etc.
That is today’s political reality–by pretending that Crony Capitalists do not exist, and that the man-caused global warming controversy is ONLY a Right vs Left struggle, you are doomed to failure.
The PC-Progressives are the shock troops of the Crony Capitalists–they can be agitated and brought to the streets for direct action when needed–but the PC-Progressives are NOT the real enemy in working against the Crony Capitalist leviathan that drives the destruction of Normal-America’s economy in the name of “carbon.”
Left vs Right are muddy at best and outright propaganda at worst.
You get folks calling National Socialists right wing…
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/nationalist-socialists/
Also more detail at:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/socialism-utopia-workers-paradise/
and
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/isms-ocracies-and-ologie/
So not only has the meaning of left vs right inverted over time, but there is a dozen plus more important aspects left out. My major complaint being that a freedom oriented Libertarian has no home at all when the choice is between power hungry Right Central Authority and power hungry Left Communist / Socialist Central Authority.
For any system to even begin to have use, there must be a third pole of Liberty and Freedom from massive Central Authority.
E.M.,
Amen.
See my 3 part political faction description above.
“Libertarian” beliefs would fit within the Traditional-American third. What is called “Libertarian” today is really the traditional American dominant political belief system–the various parties just reflected various flavors of the beliefs.
Left-wing indicates belief that radical change is needed to the status quo. Same with “right” but its more about left v conservatism ie. don’t want radical change to what made the west prosperous. There seems to be an attempt to label going back to (or merely sticking with) what worked as “right-wing” and that is the false paradigm that you should get your knickers in a knot over.
Editor of the Fabius Maximus website
You rightly say
Yes, but the American ultra-right try to dispute it because reality is inconvenient to their propaganda narrative. For example, as E.M.Smith demonstrates in this sub-thread, they even try to pretend the Naz1s were not right wing!
The ultra-right have always used Big Lie as their main propaganda tool, and attempt to reject the existence of the political spectrum is merely the most recent example.
Richard
“The ultra-right have always used Big Lie as their main propaganda tool, and attempt to reject the existence of the political spectrum is merely the most recent example.”
FALSE.
I’ll give you a hint of the Big Lie (which comes from the Extreme Left):
The Nazis were the National SOCIALIST German Worker’s Party. Notice the capitalized word?
The Fascists were an Italian SOCIALIST Party.
The Soviets were a Russian SOCIALIST Party.
The North Koreans are a SOCIALIST Party.
If we use the US definition of “Left” (Collectivist/Modern “Liberals”) and “Right” (Individualist/Classic Liberals) and place them on the US political spectrum:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_TI8bO8GurcI/TMGUCecRxYI/AAAAAAAACWw/i_E8qshErRA/s400/Political+Spectrum+Diagram+-+Domestic+Relations.jpg
Credit: http://chowanriver.blogspot.com/2010/10/where-do-people-really-stand.html
Then we see that the Nazis were ****FAR LEFT****.
The only reason you hear Nazis were “Far Right” is because you are hearing disinformation from the Extreme Left, where everyone is to the right of them, even the Far Left.
Yes, Richard, I understand this is the first time you may have had the US political spectrum (which is a vastly better descriptor than the obsolete-French Revolutionary one used by the Europeans and Soviet-indoctrinated Communists).
Collectivism is Left. The National SOCIALIST German Worker’s Party is not Individualist (Right) but Collectivist (Left).
Please use the correct terms when talking about *modern* political positions. Thanks.
Moa:
Thankyou for confirming my points.
You provide an excellent and clear demonstration of the American ultra-right attempting to distort political reality by use of Big Lie such as your ludicrous assertion that the Naz1s were not the extreme right.
Your ultra-right propaganda cannot alter the fact that black is not red.
Richard
“Confirm your points”
Hardly. Your views are non-falsifiable.
The fact that Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Mao though of themselves as radical socialists (Leftist) and had socialist programs will not dissuade you from the Cultural Marxist dogma you have internalized – which denies that Socialists, with recognizable Social Programs are collectivists of the Left.
Here is the National Socialist program. A significant proportion of it is re-hashed by the European and American Left today:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Program
This is not based on statements by the “American Ultra Right” but on the statements of these Leftists themselves. You are disagreeing with Hitler himself on his views – all because you want to protect Collectivism from a fair assessment of its (terrible) track record.
Note: I’m not American, nor am I “Ultra Right” in your Cultural Marxist reckoning. If you want to debate me, use facts (eg. prove that Hitler believed in things that the US Right believes in: Free Speech, Individual Liberty, Limited Government, a citizen’s right to armed self-defense, a citizen’s responsibility to defeat tyrannical government, Freedom of Conscience, Blind Justice, etc etc), not false labels.
I’m always prepared to listen and debate (the Scientific Method requires this of me). But you have to bring FACTS and not foaming-at-the-mouth Collectivist paranoia.
Editor Fabius-
“The division of political beliefs into Left and Right has been a standard metapor for two centuries, since the French Revolution. it remains commonplace because it is intuitively clear.”
Let’s see, your link opens by saying-
“The left–right political spectrum is a system of classifying political positions, ideologies, and parties. Left-wing politics and right-wing politics are often presented as opposed, although a particular individual or group may take a left-wing stance on one matter and a right-wing stance on another In France, where the terms originated, the Left has been called “the party of movement” and the Right “the party of order.” The intermediate stance is called centrism and a person with such a position is a moderate.”
“Amongst published researchers, there is agreement that the Left includes anarchists, communists, socialists, progressives, anti-capitalists, anti-imperialists, democratic socialists, greens, left-libertarians, social democrats, and social liberals.”
“Researchers have also said that the Right includes fascists, Nazis, capitalists, conservatives, monarchists, nationalists, neoconservatives, neoliberals, reactionaries, imperialists, right-libertarians, social authoritarians, religious fundamentalists, and traditionalists.”
Now, since you want your article to help change people’s perspectives, I would think that you would want to avoid all insinuations that appear to make it seem like you could possibly KNOW exactly where they, or anyone else, personally feels they fall on the political spectrum on any particular issue. Offending people by stereotyping them is not a good way to influence them to adopt your perspectives.
“But this is not a PhD thesis in political science.”
What is it with you and extremes? If anyone criticizes your perspective, you don’t attempt to defend your position by injecting a comment that insinuates that the person who offered the criticism MUST hold views that are of the most extreme opposite you can think of! It’s called Reductio ad absurdum, and it is defined as “a common form of argument which seeks to demonstrate that a statement is true by showing that a false, untenable, or absurd result follows from its denial, or in turn to demonstrate that a statement is false by showing that a false, untenable, or absurd result follows from its acceptance.”
“It is a thousand word essay comparing journalism with science. Politics is one frame used for this purpose.” “I suspect that most people understand the point being made.”
“You suspect..most people..”? I really don’t mean to be rude,I honestly don’t. But again, I find myself shocked at what YOU responded with to things that that Ken actually SAID. (And you haven’t just done it to him and me either) So I ask, more specifically this time, do you always use the same methods/tactics/lines of thought when you are “suspecting” what people understand that you are using here, in this thread? Because if you do, if your responses here are representative of your normal thought patterns, logic, reasoning skills, then your responses here demonstrate that you lack the ability to read/understand/interpret the actual words someone else says to you, because your responses aren’t logically appropriate for someone that does. And if you aren’t good at THAT, then what are the odds that what you “suspect” about what people understand when they DON’T tell you themselves, is accurate?
Richard,
“The ultra-right have always used Big Lie as their main propaganda tool”
Yes, as has the far Left. The rebuttal to skeptics that they are “deniers of climate change” and “deniers of climate science” is the big lie at work, used to derail debate and delegitimize those that disagree with them. That there is basis in science for the pause — despite the scores of peer-reviewed papers discussing it — is the big lie at work.
Both Left and Right use the big lie because it works so well.
Richardscourtney-
“You provide an excellent and clear demonstration of the American ultra-right attempting to distort political reality by use of Big Lie such as your ludicrous assertion that the Naz1s were not the extreme right. Your ultra-right propaganda cannot alter the fact that black is not red.”
Richard, I’ve always viewed you as a rational, intelligent man, so I’m going to provide you with some FACTS, let you verify them, and then hope that you will respond with logic and reason to them.
1)- Wiki Communism in the United States
“The Communist Party of the USA was founded in 1919, out of two groups who broke from the Socialist Party of America when it refused to join the Comintern. The original core of the CP believed that the triumph of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia meant that the revolution was at hand in the West as well.”
Communism in the US originated from Socialism in America.
2) The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist and social-democratic political partyin the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization in 189.
So “Socialism” in America ORIGINATED in the Democratic party, which is known as “the LEFT” in the US, not the RIGHT. And socialism in America, spawned Communism in America. They are two factions split from the same original movement-and that movement took place on the LEFT in the US.
3) “The Big Lie” is the name of an anti communism propaganda film created by the US Army and released in 1951. Wiki states”The imagery in it goes back and forth between Nazi and communist themes in an attempt to link the two ideologies and persuade the still-reeling public that communism was as dangerous as Nazism.”
4) Who was in charge of the US government in 1951 Richard? President Harry S Truman, a democrat, on the LEFT. So WHO created and disturbed the propaganda of The Big Lie? The LEFT, the democrats. The very same party/side that housed the Socialists, was now concerned about the rising influence of the OTHER extremist organization festering in it’s ranks…the Communists. They were infiltrating the ranks of the Democratic LEFT in the US Richard, because being a “socialist” had become anathema as Hitler rose to power in Germany and the whole world learned to hate “socialists”.
It doesn’t matter what you believe, or who tells you what, the above are well known, established FACTS Richard. Anything you try to argue with here simply cannot take them down. They are part of US History.
Now, if you want to know what Hitler believed, or whose side of the political system HE liked, you’d have to read the crap he wrote himself. (Why would you believe someone else’s opinion on what Hitler believed over his OWN stated opinions?) He loathed both the “right” and the “left” and Mein Kampf proves that. He created his OWN party, and he called that party the National Socialist German Workers’ Party-NSDAP commonly referred to in English as the Nazi Party.
Keep in mind that the “left” and “right” in Germany when Hitler came to power were different than the “left and right” in the US. If you find anything from Hitler discussing right and left, make sure you clarify WHICH country’s “left” or “right” he was talking about. Facts matter Richard.
I am an American citizen, born and raised here. My father, both grandfathers, most of my uncles, a great many of my cousins, etc ALL served in the various branches of the US military and just like them, I personally don’t give a rat’s patooty if ANY of them, or ALL of them-Hitler, Communists, Fascists, Socialists etc. originated on “my side” of the aisle or someone else’s. I loathe them all and would disavow them if they were my own family. So I find it really weird when people get all bent out of shape about where to “put” them. Especially people who are NOT US Citizens.
You can trust richardcourtney to jump in with his claims that anyone who disagrees with him that everything bad is right wing is just engaging in a political big lie.
What is his evidence that he is right? Why, everyone in the faculty lounge agrees with him. Therefore he can’t possibly be wrong.
Actually Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin and Mao disagree with richardcourtney. They all believed they were socialists of the Left – they just happened to be radical socialists because they were “true believers”.
Speaking of “true believers”, richardcourtney is clearly one. Despite National Socialism and Soviet Socialism and Maost Socialism and North Korean Socialism and East German Socialism and Cuban Socialism and Chavista Socialism etc all being authoritarian to totalitarian and mass murdering their own citizens by the hundreds of millions he thinks the problem with “National Socialism” is national-pride, and not the Collectivism that puts the Collective ahead of the Individual (thus, making oppression and extermination of enemies of the Collective not only possible, but desirable).
richardcourtney has a hypothesis about the Individualists (actual Right) that is non-falsifiable. He believes with religious zeal that he is doing good – all the while he provides cover for the Collectivists who have no problem oppressing the rights of those that dissent (as SJWs do to their opponents) or even killing them (as the #BLM movement would dearly love to do).
No amount of facts will persuade richardcourtney. He probably cannot be deprogrammed. If you are interested in why this is so I highly recommend ex-KGB agent Yuri Bezmenov on YouTube – who explains how and why richardcourtney is as he is.
I’ve been forced to smack richardscourtney repeatedly on this topic. He never bases any of his arguments in science, logic or rational thought. He will refuse to get down into the details because he knows he’s wrong… but like a good little collective that he is he will jump off that cliff without a second thought.
Moa,
I rarely get involved with political topics here, but I think your understanding of US politics is somewhat lacking. In particular, your left/right paradigm shows a serious misunderstanding of the position of many US Conservatives.
The US right does NOT support individual liberty as you believe. They do, in SOME ways, while denying it in others. You’re characterizing the right by an outdated definition.
Limited government? That’s a joke. Freedom of Conscience? I don’t see how support for the draft, a common right-wing position, jibes with that, nor with individual liberty. I’ll grant that the right is MORE friendly to individual liberty than the left, but they certainly aren’t the champions you make them out to be.
What you might want to consider instead is the Nolan Chart (http://nolan.jimeyer.org/graphics/nolanchart_withindices.jpg), which I think shows a more nuanced view of the various positions. At least take it into consideration.
Consider the questions from the “smallest political quiz” (https://www.theadvocates.org/quiz/quiz.php) regarding individual liberty:
“Government should not censor speech, press, media, or internet.” – well, neither right or left does well on this one
“Military service should be voluntary. There should be no draft.” – the right typically supports the draft.
“There should be no laws regarding sex for consenting adults.” – much disagreement from the right on this one
“Repeal laws prohibiting adult possession and use of drugs.” – again, not something the right supports.
These are great generalities, and there are varying degrees of agreement or disagreement, obviously. But what we in the US refer to as “the right” are not as much in favor of individual liberty as you seem to think. The positions you claim they take are more akin to libertarian – a philosophy that many right-wing politicians deride.
“I rarely get involved with political topics here, but I think your understanding of US politics is somewhat lacking. In particular, your left/right paradigm shows a serious misunderstanding of the position of many US Conservatives.
The US right does NOT support individual liberty as you believe. They do, in SOME ways, while denying it in others. You’re characterizing the right by an outdated definition.
Limited government? That’s a joke. Freedom of Conscience? I don’t see how support for the draft, a common right-wing position, jibes with that, nor with individual liberty. I’ll grant that the right is MORE friendly to individual liberty than the left, but they certainly aren’t the champions you make them out to be.”
I can see why you rarely get involved since you seem to know NOTHING about US politics. When the US Constitution is obeyed the US is the most right-wing country on the planet and thus the most limited government and in turn most personal and economic freedoms. I completely agree that the US is not that today. However even though its lurch heavily to the left its still vastly better then the majority of countries on the planet. The US is still(sadly) the most pro-free speech country on the planet. Right wingers have never supported the draft… never. Your confusing centrists/center leftist who we often call the republican establishment. If you knew much about US politics then you’d know the 2 parties break down roughly with a 45/45/10% split of far leftest/leftest/center leftest for the democrat party and 10/15/15/40/20% of leftest/center leftest/centrists/center right/rest of the right.
“What you might want to consider instead is the Nolan Chart (http://nolan.jimeyer.org/graphics/nolanchart_withindices.jpg), which I think shows a more nuanced view of the various positions. At least take it into consideration. ”
The chart is beyond retarded. First they conveniently leave out anarchists though most people who believe in that chart argue that anarchists are centrist. Second personal freedom and economic freedom are exactly the same thing. You can’t have max personal freedom with having max economic freedom…. its scientifically impossible. They try to create a false divide where none exists. Further the left has never stood for personal freedom. They stand for the “personal” freedom of the collective…. and that means oppressing/enslaving others to bring about their “personal” freedom.
“But what we in the US refer to as “the right” are not as much in favor of individual liberty as you seem to think. The positions you claim they take are more akin to libertarian – a philosophy that many right-wing politicians deride.”
No that what many centrists type deride…. libertarians ARE right-wing.
temp, you wrote:
You can’t have max personal freedom with having max economic freedom…
Is there a typo there? Freedom is freedom, right?
“I can see why you rarely get involved since you seem to know NOTHING about US politics.” – I don’t get involved because it so often turns into nothing more than people yelling at each other or calling names, rather than actually trying to understand each other. Thanks for reminding me.
Can we get past the pettiness and sniping and have a rational discussion?
You are using ‘right wing’ in manner that does not match the common understanding today. Given how you are defining it, then yes, libertarians are right-wing. But that is not the common usage today, and hasn’t been for quite some time.
“You can’t have max personal freedom with having max economic freedom” – I won’t argue that. But those who are commonly identified as ‘the right’ DO NOT support maximum personal freedom. You can certainly argue that it’s a misuse of the term ‘right wing’, but that doesn’t change what most people in the country mean by the term. My response was an attempt to make that clear. Obviously I failed.
Perhaps you can give some examples to clarify your meaning? Can you name some politicians or other public figures you would consider ‘right wing’? Most people would point to someone like Sean Hannity and say he is right-wing, but I don’t see him supporting maximum personal liberty. I don’t think you would consider him right-wing, based on how you are explaining it. So who would YOU consider right-wing?
You can’t have max personal freedom withOUT having max economic freedom…. its scientifically impossible.
spell check fail on my part
“Can we get past the pettiness and sniping and have a rational discussion?”
I can do both at the same time… muti-tasking is fun.
“You are using ‘right wing’ in manner that does not match the common understanding today. Given how you are defining it, then yes, libertarians are right-wing. But that is not the common usage today, and hasn’t been for quite some time.”
Not common by who? Left-wing nutters yeah sure but for normal people thats used correctly… I used the scientific display of it… further since you admit that its an ever changing definition then I’m free to use it as I wish…hence the biggest problem and why I don’t like using any of those terms and prefer terms like individualist and collectivist.
“I don’t think you would consider him right-wing, based on how you are explaining it. So who would YOU consider right-wing?”
Washington, jefferson, etc, etc. No such thing as right-wing politics in this day and age… ron paul could be close i guess… further no such thing as far right pols ever… can’t exist.
Once again the simple fact is that your using the term in an ever shifting ideology… that specific shift was caused by stalin propaganda who painted n@zi’s as right-wing and lets be perfectly clear from stalins extreme leftist view point they would be… along with 99% of the rest of the planet. Once again why I use the static well known scientific definitions of each when I use those terms… ever shifting definitions have no place in science.
Moa:
I am replying to you and addressing all the right wing propagandists who are spewing their nonsense in this sub-thread.
I recognise that you are all talking to any onlooking ‘useful idiots’ whose brainwashing you are trying to enhance, but your nonsense fools nobody else.
The definition of the political spectrum has existed for two centuries and YOU are claiming it is other than it is and always has been. I need do nothing except laugh at your ludicrous propaganda claiming the political spectrum is redefined by you and so is “different now” or different in the US”.
The extreme right has always used BIg Lie as its main propaganda tool and you are only continuing the practices of the right wing propagandist, Joseph Goebbles. However, your daft claim that the right is left is ridiculous, and its inability to convince anybody with working brain cells is not enhanced by your lacking sufficient conviction for several of you to put your name it.
Richard
Thank you for demonstrating the closed mind of the Statist Collectivist Left. No wonder your ideology failed and it is intellectually dead – with ZERO new ideas since the 1970s.
You have to deny that Socialism is Socialism. It is amazing to see. Just amazing.
And the more you post, the more everyone can see the lunacy of the Leftist. I mean, you are simply reinforcing the WUWT readers who understand how you Lefties are ideologically rigid and completely impermeable to facts and reason.
Where do I send for my check from ‘Big Oil’ and ‘Big Business” because they haven’t paid us yet? you loon !
Mao:
What you call my “closed mind of the Statist Collectivist Left” is my adherence to reality and truth.
I do not intend to join you in rejecting reality and truth merely because an anonymous ultra-right-wing internet popup attacks me by posting untrue idiocy and lunacy. Indeed, I am pleased to encourage your verbal ‘frothing at the mouth’ because it demonstrates to the uncommitted that your propaganda only consists of untrue idiocy and lunacy.
Richard
Once again richardcourtney displays his closed mind.
National socialists aren’t socialists. Why? Because Richard says so. If we aren’t willing to take his word for it, that’s just evidence that we are engaged in “the big lie”.
richardscourtney
“The definition of the political spectrum has existed for two centuries and YOU are claiming it is other than it is and always has been. I need do nothing except laugh at your ludicrous propaganda claiming the political spectrum is redefined by you and so is “different now” or different in the US”.”
Not really correct Science mostly finished codifying it about 200 years ago. Great sociologist like Mises polished it. Your confusing science definitions with ever moving political definitions.
“”The extreme right has always used BIg Lie as its main propaganda tool and you are only continuing the practices of the right wing propagandist, Joseph Goebbles. However, your daft claim that the right is left is ridiculous, and its inability to convince anybody with working brain cells is not enhanced by your lacking sufficient conviction for several of you to put your name it.”
Being the fact that your world view is based solely in well know stalinist propaganda its hard to take your arguments with much more then pointing out that your retarded as always. You like all propagandist refuse to debate and refuse to have any static terms because you know that as soon as your force to put that goal post somewhere and start detailing it… it will look NOTHING like you claim it will.
Exactly. “richard’s” position is the result of a concerted disinformation campaign waged by the KGB. This is detailed in the book “Disinformation” by Lt Gen Ion Mihai Pacepa.
Yuri Bezmenov on Youtube also explains how and why the KGB did this to subvert the West and advance Marxist interests.
“Yuri Bezmenov: Psychological Warfare Subversion & Control of Western Society”
“Former KGB Agent Yuri Bezmenov Explains How to Brainwash a Nation”
Bezmenov talks specifically about how people like ‘richard’ were indoctrinated, and this indoctrination to deny reality is so strong they cannot be deprogrammed. We see this in the CAGW Alarmists who are resistant to all facts and reality checks you may supply them. They quite literally cannot see the truth even when it is presented right in front of them. It is amazing that indoctrination can be so powerful, but it is true.
The denial of rival socialisms as ‘socialism’ by Marxist is only one prong of this campaign. The whole ‘Global Warming’ scam is another attack against the strength of the West originating from the same gang.
With political and economic Marxism defeated and discredited (except among reality-resistant loons like ‘richard’) their only axis left is ‘cultural Marxism’. There are many great videos explaining cultural Marxism, such as Bill Whittle’s one on YouTube, but here is another more recent one that ties various aspects together (climate change is simply one aspect of this fight against the prosperity and liberty of the Free World):
“What is Cultural Marxism?”
Here is an excellent explanatory essay by economics Professor Reisman, that the socialists/SJWs have had to try banned (they can’t argue against the facts, so they go for totalitarian censorship instead):
“Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian”
ps. Notice how we can back up our position with facts and videos? ‘richard’ only has his fanatic assertions, closed mind, and Stalinist propaganda, to go on.
Moa
January 6, 2016 at 11:27 am
“ps. Notice how we can back up our position with facts and videos? ‘richard’ only has his fanatic assertions, closed mind, and Stalinist propaganda, to go on.”
Sadly the reality is that old richard has no interest in debating or learning about the topic… it is much the same way cultists accept global warming as real just because some “experts” say so…. Until those people choose to do real research(aka spend about 10 min) looking into the matter and suddenly learn that no what “experts” say is meaningless…
Old poor richard probably took to many “experts” to the head that were bought and payed for stalinist, maoist each. Hell when I went to school the sociology prof I had was either a stalinist or a maoist. She explained lots of stuff about how great collectivism was and how illegals running across the border didn’t depress “our jobs pay” clearly implying that they were too stupid to do much more then mow grass… also leaving out the fact they get huge benefits and tons of free money for college. Then the very next day talks about how having more people depresses wages…
The best part however was the fact that no sociology books that I can find unless you get to the PH.D level even explain what the “means of production” truly is… and even then they go as vague as they possibly can because it has to be “sciency” enough to past muster but can never come out and speak the truth of the matter.
Oh. I am sad. I’ve always thought that richardscourtney was a man who used logic and sound reasoning to arrive at his conclusions. Apparently he is not.
FACT-The FRENCH origin:
“The terms “left” and “right” were not used to refer to political ideology but only to seating in the legislature.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_politics#cite_note-12
The way that “left” and “right” are defined here in the United States can be viewed here-
http://infobeautiful4.s3.amazonaws.com/2015/05/1276_left_right_usa.png
Richardscourtney is NOT the authority upon which United States politics is formed, or operates, and he is clearly wrong here. Both socialists and communists are categorized in the United States as being on the “left”. Anything richardscourtney says that attempts to prove otherwise, is A BIG LIE! (oh…the irony!)
Richard said-“The extreme right has always used BIg Lie as its main propaganda tool and you are only continuing the practices of the right wing propagandist, Joseph Goebbles. However, your daft claim that the right is left is ridiculous, and its inability to convince anybody with working brain cells is not enhanced by your lacking sufficient conviction for several of you to put your name it.”
The term “Big Lie” originated from Hitler himself-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie
“The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, about the use of a lie so “colossal” that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”
(still quoting the above wiki page)
“Later, Joseph Goebbels put forth a slightly different theory which has come to be more commonly associated with the expression “big lie”. Goebbels wrote the following paragraph in an article dated 12 January 1941, 16 years after Hitler’s first use of the phrase. The article, titled Aus Churchills Lügenfabrik (English: “From Churchill’s Lie Factory”) was published in Die Zeit ohne Beispiel.”
“The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.”
The specific “English leadership” that Goebbels was referring to was the leadership of ENGLAND-and Winston Churchill in particular. (see quote) He was NOT referring to the United States.
The most ironic thing of all? Richard S Courtney is ENGLISH…he’s British. And if Richard’s behavior is truly indicative of ALL English/British people, he just demonstrated that what Joseph Goebbels said above about the English being remarkably stupid and thick headed IS TRUE.
Joseph Goebbels-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels
Aphan
not to point this out but the chart you post is wrong…. and exactly what richard believes is correct.
Aphan
“not to point this out but the chart you post is wrong…. and exactly what richard believes is correct.”
I’m sorry. How on earth does one make a statement that says “not to point this out” and then point something out?
Sadly, your opinion is not constitute evidence. Everything Richard has stated in this thread about US Politics is WRONG on every level so you’ll have to be more specific about what you are referring to with regards to what you feel he has said correctly.
I picked that chart because it was one of the first ones on the list. I’d be happy to provide you with hundreds, if not thousands of links that demonstrate the same thing.
I suggest you twice before you respond back that I am wrong because I’m ready to nail you to the wall on this one. Your move.
And furthermore, the debate was if National Socialists are “socialist”. Hitler thought he was a socialist. Mussolini thought he was a socialist. Same with Stalin. Same with Lenin. Same with Kim Il Sung and Kim Il Jong. Mao thought he was a socialist, and the Ernesto “Che” Guevara who was a psychopathic killer who sought revolution so he could do mass murder.
But apparently richard disagrees with Hitler’s opinion of his political position, and Mussolini’s opinion of his political position. And the opinion of the rest about themselves. Richard believes he knows better. This shows richard is prepared to deny reality to maintain his collectivist views. This is a dangerous sign and mark of an extremist.
Why does richard do this? because Statist Collectivistism is the second most common route to mass murder (after Islam). But since richard is clearly a socialist he MUST deny this fact – or he’d come to realize that he is on the same side as sociopathic control freaks like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Kim Il Jong, etc.
Thus, he must contort people’s views in order to maintain the fiction that various flavors of socialism were not the cause of mass murder in the 20th Century – when clearly they were.
If what you say about Richard is true, then this is very sad – that he is unable to use the Scientific Method to objectively examine his own hypothesis.
“not to point this out but the chart you post is wrong…. and exactly what richard believes is correct.”
In that case richard remains wrong because he cannot account for Libertarians (the true “Far Right”) and Anarchist (the true “Extreme Right”).
This is why i prefer the vastly simpler, clearer, yet more comprehensive view of:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_TI8bO8GurcI/TMGUCecRxYI/AAAAAAAACWw/i_E8qshErRA/s1600/Political+Spectrum+Diagram+-+Domestic+Relations.jpg
And I’ll post George Orwell’s insight that matches this spectrum:
“The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.”
Richard is stuck in the old meme between conservatives and revolutionaries. He has not yet migrated to the superior view of authoritarianism vs libertarianism.
National Socialists, like all socialists are Big State authoritarians.
It is *impossible* to have large amounts of Individual Liberty under a Big State system – because the State only gets power (and money) by taking it from citizens.
So Leftists who think that the Big State they work towards is going to give citizens more liberty is absolutely delusional. States may be more or less permissive, but what is granted are privileges that the State can give or withhold – because the State has primacy over the individual.
Individual Liberty is about *rights* that exists whether the State wants you to have them or not. This is only possible with Limited Government.
Hence, we get socialists thinking they are working toward more ‘rights’ when they are working toward more ‘privileges’ that the State can grant and take away at a whim. This kind of confused thinking also allows them into denying National Socialists are socialist – despite the National Socialist themselves declaring themselves to be socialist.
Does richard know better than Hitler how Hitler saw himself?
By denying National Socialism and Soviet Socialism as socialisms it allows the oppression and mass murder to happen again and again and again under nearly all socialist regimes (even Sweden is degenerating fast as the citizens are oppressed and unable to resist the Government’s mass importation of rapists and criminals).
If richard wants to deny reality, that’s his delusion. But it is clear that he has to deny Hitler and Mussolini’s own statements to do this (thus, engaging in the ‘No True Scotsman” fallacy), as well as clinging to an obsolete political spectrum that doesn’t account for Libertarianism and Anarchists (the actual Far Right and Extreme Right).
Richard’s political thinking, like most leftists never gets much above the “me good, you bad” level.
Socialists are good guys. National socialists were bad guys. Therefore the two cannot be the same.
A few months back he tried to make the claim that socialism actually is the best system available for creating freedom.
As if stealing money from one group of people and using it to buy votes created freedom.
I guess if you are on the receiving end of that stolen money, as most socialists are, it does increase your freedom, and since those who are having their money stolen are defined as bad guys, their loss of freedom doesn’t matter anyway.
Well said.
“As if stealing money from one group of people and using it to buy votes created freedom.”
Not only stealing money, but the political class stealing money using coercive force (the threat of State violence) to buy vote bribes with the politically favored. And now the amount that can be stolen is not enough, so they generate debt which enslaves your children and now even grandchildren (since your children cannot possibly pay this off). Your children and grandchildren will not receive any benefits from this, and could not vote to agree nor disagree with this policy.
Thus, socialism is FUNDAMENTALLY IMMORAL.
“I guess if you are on the receiving end of that stolen money, as most socialists are, it does increase your freedom, and since those who are having their money stolen are defined as bad guys, their loss of freedom doesn’t matter anyway.”
Under socialism the State matters more than the Individual. It doesn’t matter how many individuals are hurt as long as the ‘State’ (which really means, the sociopathic ‘elite’ at the very top) benefits. This is why Angela Merkel can import jihadis and with a straight face ignore the young girls molested and raped by them – ‘it’s all for the good of the State, don’t you know?’. Similarly, when socialism eventually fails (as it must, since it doesn’t understand a fundamental of economics – “Wealth is Created”, usually by self-interested entrepreneurs seeking to make their own, and everyone else’s, life better) then the socialists start looking for enemies to demonize. If unrestrained, the socialists end up persecuting, oppressing and then eventually, killing, people who point out their system is fundamentally unjust, immoral and broken.
But you are right that the people (like richard?) receiving the stolen money support this system. As one person put it, “If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can count on Paul’s support”. The robbery is not really about the money, it is about the POWER that the robber receives as a result – and Collectivists love POWER above all things. Have we not seen that here are WUWT? that Collectivists will corrupt science and deny reality in return for POWER.
Collectivism Kills !
We’ve all provided evidence that supports our claims. Richard has no evidence to back up his, because there isn’t any.
kent – :
1. What is the Left? What is the Right? Those are rhetorical questions, but would be happy to entertain answers.
Here is a smart quote on Left/Right Political Tags I find helpful.
Big government socialists. Another way to spell “someone too stupid to spend his own money.”
2. there is a need for an objective credibility assessment audit system for climate research.
Who gets to pick the audit team? “The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” – Joseph Stalin”
DD,
So someone who supports massive government subsidies to their preferred cronies is a “Big government socialist?” Is that the “Left?”
If so, then you better add about half the Republican Party to the “Left:”
From Politico:
“RSC Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan doesn’t sit on the Agriculture panel but represents an Ohio district that ranks among the top 50 recipients of farm subsidies, including $30 million in annual direct payments.”
A perfect example of Crony Capitalism–the “Left vs Right” paradigm is totally useless, and confuses people.
See also “Uncle Sam’s favorite Corporations” for an exhaustive review of the massive government subsidies provided to the largest, and other, corporations:
http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/sites/default/files/docs/pdf/UncleSamsFavoriteCorporations.pdf
Are these corporations therefore, “Left?”
Sorry, “Left vs Right” is totally useless, and confusing to describe the political situation in America at large, and in “climate policy” specifically.
“2. Politically Correct Progressives: reject all aspects of Traditional American belief system–America is a racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, imperialist, capitalist hell-hole”
Hey, that sounds like critical
thinkingtheory!Then add half the Republican party to the left. Parties are even less useful than the left/right dichotomy when it comes to defining political characteristics.
Kent – “If so, then you better add about half the Republican Party to the “Left:”
They are called Establishment Republicans and fervently hate Trump, Cruz and Tea Party members. Read the quote again, the names do not mean anything. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
@DD More said:
“The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. ”
Exactly !
“The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.” – George Orwell.
Here we have advocates of the Big Government solution trying to pretend they are ‘above’ pretty disputes – all the while advancing the growth of Big Government (which can only come at the expense of Individual Liberty, as Government power and Individual Liberty are opposed).
DD, anyone who quotes Robert on Liberty is bound to be in agreement with my personal doctrine, and of course I agree the fundamental divide isn’t between Republican Big Government and Democrat Big Government; both are foul simply because they both, for whatever reason, seek control over every aspect of the individual’s life. It’s the difference between the Syndicate and the Mafia. C.M. Kornbluth wrote a topical short novel on the subject in the 1950’s.
The primary axis is the State vs. the Individual. Mass media advanced the power of the collective (the State) over the individual. During the 90’s and early 00’s it seemed the Internet might counter that influence, but the advent of Google, Yahoo and other ‘net portals have taken a lot of wind out of those sails. I can’t continue to believe the ‘net will be our salvation. For awhile the “dark net” looked like a possibility, but it was successfully shut down under the guise of protecting the world from “evil”.
The internet was like the Gutenberg Press in many ways, but its life was very brief.
I just attempted to post to richardscourtney, but I don’t see it and no “your comment in is moderation” so I think one of my links was bad.
Richard,
This sub thread makes me sad. VERY sad. I have always viewed you as a man who uses logic and reason to arrive at your conclusions. Your posts here in the last 24 hours demonstrate that you are not, at least, not when it comes to US politics.
200 years ago, when the FRENCH started using the words “left and right” in regards to politics, they had NOTHING to do with political positions, and ALL they applied to were the SEATING positions in the French parliament!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_politics-
“The terms “left” and “right” were not used to refer to political ideology but only to seating in the legislature.”
https://www.quora.com/What-does-it-mean-in-politics-when-a-party-is-either-right-wing-or-left-wing
“Given the history of the French revolution, left became those groups that was about challenging the establishment. Right became those groups that was about preserving the traditions.
Now, Richard, either you are just UNINFORMED on US Political History, OR you are making wild assumptions about it based on SOME OTHER COUNTRY…”England perhaps”….but you are WRONG by every single piece of empirical evidence on the internet!!!
The United States uses the terms “right and left” as applied to US political positions THIS way-
https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2012/06/political-left-and-right-properly-defined/
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/left-vs-right-us/
But not only are you uninformed on US political history, you are ALSO completely mental when it comes to THE BIG LIE-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie
“A big lie (German: Große Lüge) is a propaganda technique. The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, about the use of a lie so “colossal” that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” Hitler asserted the technique was used by Jews to unfairly blame Germany’s loss in World War I on German Army officer Erich Ludendorff.”
Joseph Goebbels was Hitler’s chief propagandist!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels
Back to the wiki Big lie link-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie
We find THIS-
“Later, Joseph Goebbels put forth a slightly different theory which has come to be more commonly associated with the expression “big lie”. Goebbels wrote the following paragraph in an article dated 12 January 1941, 16 years after Hitler’s first use of the phrase. The article, titled Aus Churchills Lügenfabrik (English: “From Churchill’s Lie Factory”) was published in Die Zeit ohne Beispiel.
The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.[2]”
Richard, as the above evidence shows, when Goebbels made the above statement, he was referring to the “English” as people from the country of England specifically, and the leadership he was referring to was WINSTON CHURCHILL! (There is zero evidence with which to conclude he was referring to all people who speak the english language so he must have meant the US)
The worse irony of all is that YOU Richard S Courtney are from ENGLAND!! You ARE the “English” Goebbels was talking about AND if your behavior here is in ANY way indicative of “English” behavior, then you are PROVING that what Goebbels said above isn’t propaganda-its THE TRUTH!
Let me show you-in case you really are blinded by your ignorance.
Because Richard is “English” (from England) … [rest of English comment trimmed. They won. .mod]
“Left” and “Right” convey information, but that information is far less relevant than “Mega State” vs “Minimal State.” Leftist oligarchs are fond of claiming they are merely carrying out the will of “The People,” when nothing could be less true. Rightist oligarchs do much the same, but refer to, say, “The Motherland,” or “The Fatherland” as the source of their power. (Reification in both cases.)
When the oligarch has all the power, with no effective human rights, no checks and balances, it doesn’t matter what you call it. Socialist governments killed 120,000,000 people in the 20th Century–twenty Holocausts. I doubt if Left or Right terminology matters a whit when the State is killing people “right and left” and use terror to control the rest.
Jorge,
See above on Crony Capitalism, copied below.
The Left vs Right paradigm is totally defunct, most especially as regards government climate policy.
Various factions have their pet sectors for crony funding–climate, farms, international trade, banking, labor, etc.
“3. Crony Capitalists: have no underpinning belief system, found across both legacy political parties–Democrats and Republicans, masquerade as both “Left” and “Right”. Motivating factors are manipulation of the massive government regulatory behemoth for fun and profit. Have perverted the free market with regulations, and manipulation. Conduct wars–cultural, economic and kinetic–to advance the interests of themselves and their cronies. Includes most of the “ruling elite,” Wall St, the Fed, the Chamber of Commerce, lobbyists, and climate “scientists,” their enabling government bureaucracies (NOAA, NASA, EPA, etc), and the corporations, NGOs, and other leech organizations that profit and grow from their crony connections–Solyndra, GE, wind, solar, GM, GreenPeace, ACLU, etc. “
Crony capitalism is better thought of as crony socialism. Just because a company is for profit doesn’t make it a creature of the right.
I suspect that a lot of left-wing protests are just a racket ie” we’ll get the swampies hot under the collar about something else for a fee’. Still, there is a need for a left-wing/conservative label.
The correct term of a government to fear is ‘totalitarian’. This comes in ALL guises, all forms. For example, Saudi Arabia is a totalitarian government that also has ‘elections’ like North Korea which is a totally different but equally totalitarian country and both enforce their dictates via killing people and torturing them severely.
All sorts of ideology disguises totalitarian rule. There is no ‘left’ or ‘right’ there is despotism that enforces rules for thinking and living, often hideous rules (ask any Saudi female about these).
When the NAZI party was first seated in the Reichstag in the 30s, the Communists and Nazis were fighting in the streets. Reichstag seating was left to right: Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats, Liberals (classical) and the Conservatives. The Nazis were to be seated between the Communists and Socialists, but, because of the street brawling, were seated to the right of the Conservatives. Thus the Nazis are right wing notion took root and Stalin made the most of it after the war.
The Extreme Left (Soviet Socialists) and Far Left (German National Socialists) were competing for influence in the World in the 1930s. At the time the National Socialists were the darlings of the American Left at the time, especially when the Americans looked at Germany’s apparent transformation into the society the Leftists wanted as shown in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
However, at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War the Extreme Left and Far Left fought each other. The Far Left had picked up support of traditionalists along the war (eg. the Catholic Church in Germany and Spain). The Extreme Left called the Far Left “Far Right” due to the Far Left’s allies, and this percolated into the US media and mainstream where the notion dominates US politics today.
The European view of politics does arise from seating at the time of the French Revolution. Revolutionaries vs Traditionalists.
I personally find the US memes vastly more useful (State Power/authoritarianism vs Individual Liberty) for modern politics:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_TI8bO8GurcI/TMGUCecRxYI/AAAAAAAACWw/i_E8qshErRA/s1600/Political+Spectrum+Diagram+-+Domestic+Relations.jpg
Thanks for providing detail about the seating arrangements in the Weimar Republic.
This is another post where I have trouble figuring out which side the author is on. First we have, “the Right’s denial of reality,” and then right after that, the list of the Left’s denials and lies.
I don’t get the point of this article.
Chris,
Analysis does not need to have a “side”. Often the best does not have a side.
This series attempts to give an alternative perspective to help people better understand the public policy debate about climate change. The next one is even better, discussing Karl Popper’s advice about testing scientific theories. Predictions are the gold standard. What does that mean for predictions about the climate? It’s a missing piece of the debate.
My top recommendation appears in the “Where do we go from here” section. My other recommendations appear in section (f) here: http://fabiusmaximus.com/science-nature/climate-change-67063/
Are you trolling for clicks on here? good luck!
I click on FM once in a while.
No problem with linking to FM. But I mostly listen to AM over at Bishop Hill.
“It’s a missing piece of the debate.”
I would argue it isn’t missing at all, it’s simply ignored.
Karl Popper’s work is well known among scientists, not so much among activists bt the more well informed have at least heard of the scientific method. The problem is most folks haven’t, the alarmist/activists know this, and they make political hay from it.
You just can’t fix stupid. I hate to put it so bluntly, but that’s the problem. We will never get the great unwashed to decide scientific method is important and so we *will* lose this battle.
Bartleby,
“We will never get the great unwashed to decide scientific method is important and so we *will* lose this battle.”
Not sure why you say this. The polls consistently show that climate change ranks at or near the bottom of the American public’s policy priorities.
Looks like winning to me.
That could change, of course. A big extreme weather event might do it. It will get likely be blamed on climate change and us “deniers”.
“A big extreme weather event might do it.”
Of course it will, and it will simply because the great unwashed don’t understand the scientific method. That was my point.
Next year, when 2016 is declared the warmest year in recorded history, the masses will swallow it hook, line and sinker. You must know that.
The defense against hysteria is intelligence. As a species we are sorely lacking in that trait. We are still tribal in our thinking and we honestly feel the majority is correct in all things. In some sense its defensible; we learned very early that a shriek from the tree tops meant a predator was near. We gathered together with whatever weapons we could find and if we were successful we ate tiger for our next meal, otherwise the tiger ate us.
We haven’t evolved intellectually beyond that response. That’s exactly why we will fail.
I wouldn’t say alarmists are all ‘unintelligent’. They do lack the humility to understand that they may not know all the facts, that their picture may be incomplete (eg. they often don’t know critical data, such as the satellite measurements).
Some would be measurably somewhat intelligent, but just bat guano crazy through their ideology, and discard data they don’t like – resisting all reason. They’re so convinced their cause is just that reality cannot persuade them, Climate troll David Appell springs to mind here, who ignores everything that doesn’t look like Michael Mann’s fraudulent Hockey Stick.
There are some pretty dumb ones too – who know nothing except the mantras handed down by their leadership. SJWs (‘Socialist Justice Worriers’) fit into this category.
Hence, even intelligent people can be woefully wrong, once they are convinced they already ‘know it all’, or are ideologically predisposed to favor collectivism over scientific observation.
I think it is more productive to understand the ways that otherwise intelligent human beings can get sucked into the CAGW scam – so we can correct these that are amenable to it.
Labelling them as ‘unintelligent’ doesn’t seem so helpful, IMHO – and it stunts our own thinking about how to teach them the great stuff that WUWT readers know.
Editor FM & Moa :
I apologize for my venture into the depths of depression 🙂 I’d just finished a long, drawn out, war of words with a person who wasn’t all that well versed in the sciences yet still held a rock solid opinion on the subject and I’d actually come here in retreat for some spiritual “support”. There was no confusing this person with facts; the planet was doomed, CO2 was the culprit and nothing would change this person’s mind. Done. Over. Fini.
I got tired (exhausted really) and let it spill over into this thread. My apologies again to the both of you. Keep your respective chins up and keep fighting the good fight.
Sincerely,
Bart.
Christopher,
I think the takeaway is “A pox on both their houses”.
Here is the salient question: How is that all politicians can go to Washington with a middle class net worth and leave Washington just a few years later as millionaires? They want us to argue about left and right while our wallets are emptied at a + 50% clip. Keep your eye on the walnut shells, but you’ll never find the pea…because it has been taken right along with your money.
PBH
McComberBoy,
“A pox on both their houses”.
I do think that, often. But it is a useless perspective. This series attempts to look at the debate as a broken system, and ask how to fix it.
“This series attempts to look at the debate as a broken system, and ask how to fix it.”
You can’t fix it as long as at least one side remains adamant about avoiding debate.
Tony,
The partisans on both sides of the climate wars are a small fraction of US voters. Polls show that few see climate change as a high public policy priority: http://www.gallup.com/poll/182018/worries-terrorism-race-relations-sharply.aspx
Due to the gridlocked policy debate, that means even measures that might command broad support (e.g., preparing for past weather to revisit us) are in the trash can. We can change that, if we try.
You have a much brighter view of human nature that I, it would seem.
The problem is that the rational voices are shouted down by the radicals. And since the radicals are the loudest, the politicians cater to them. From my view, it seems to be getting worse.
Do you have any specific thoughts on how to ‘fix’ any of this? How do you propose we change things?
Tony,
“How do you propose we change things?”
The same we get action on all public policy issues, from the American revolution to today. Speak to other people via the many media, organize, press for action. There are no short-cuts.
Our inability to see the world and act together is imo our most serious problem. No amount of national wealth or power can offset it. Climate change first caught my attention five years ago as a stage on which this problem was demonstrated with unusual clarity. That’s proven sadly true.
It’s clear in the comments on the alarmists’ websites as much as on the skeptics. It’s visible on this thread. Lots of striking bold poses, little interest in finding ways to resolve this crisis. It’s the third world solution: do nothing and wait for Fate to decide.
You can’t fix something until you understand it.
You can’t understand it until you can adequately explain it.
Fabius-
Tony asked you “How do you propose we change things?”
And you replied:
“The same we get action on all public policy issues, from the American revolution to today. Speak to other people via the many media, organize, press for action. There are no short-cuts.”
First, If the media doesn’t want to publicize your point of view, they won’t. Second, there ARE people speaking to other people, here, all over the internet, in their communities etc. I can just as logically assume that because of that, Americans aren’t buying the AGW crap anymore. But let’s say that we did organize and press for action. HOW exactly would you recommend that we do that? I ask because they WAY people “organize” and “press for action” matters…examples-Occupy Wall Street, Greenpeace, Black Lives Matter. If the WAY you organize and press for action is OFFENSIVE to the general public-no matter WHAT your message is…they won’t support it. It’s just a fact.
“Our inability to see the world and act together is imo our most serious problem.”
It is your opinion that 1)-that “we” are unable to see the world” and 2) we are unable to act together and 3) that this is our most serious problem. And? What are your premises for those assumptions? Maybe we all see the world perfectly and realize that we are never, ever going to be able to act “together” on anything. Maybe you see that as a serious problem, where others might see it as just how things are, and thus not a problem that can be solved. Your assumptions may not be anyone else’s, much less everyone else’s.
“No amount of national wealth or power can offset it.”
And if you are correct about this, and I’m not saying you are, you might also want to consider it a &amn GOOD thing as equally as you consider it a sad thing! Can you imagine what would happen if national wealth or power WAS NOT offsetting your assumption that the inability to see the world and act together is a problem? Are you aware of what would happen if those who “see the world differently” than you do “acted together” against you? Is that NOT an equally serious problem in your opinion?
“It’s clear in the comments on the alarmists’ websites as much as on the skeptics. It’s visible on this thread. Lots of striking bold poses, little interest in finding ways to resolve this crisis. It’s the third world solution: do nothing and wait for Fate to decide.”
Really? Are the comments you are reading being posted on alarmist and skeptic websites in third world countries? Because if they aren’t, it looks like it’s a first world solution too.
“It’s the third world solution: do nothing and wait for Fate to decide.” That happens to be the right idea wrt climate change.
Great insights, but they will be lost on most of the faithful. Too many innumerate C.P..Snow literature-intellectuals on the global warming side to ever make headway talking actual numbers to them. Once someone believes in something for political reasons, particularly those “literary-only” types for whom narrative is truth and scientific reasoning is subjective, rational discussion is impossible. One has to have some kind of common ground to start on, and it isn’t there for many of them.
Notanist,
That’s a depressing perspective. Unfortunately, my experience during the past 3 years agrees with yours. Either there is outside intervention on the debate (new ideas forcibly interjected) or the weather will eventually end the debate.
Since we’re often poorly prepared for the repeat of past weather (let alone climate change), that might prove quite painful.
Yes. Depressing, but accurate, and I see no rational outside source of scientific intervention. The scientific bodies that should be custodians of scientific thought have themselves been corrupted beyond repair. I see instead Daish and a host of ignorant savages seeking to destroy civilization and rationality, itself, from inside and out.
First, there is nothing wrong with our climate, and second, there is nothing we have done, hence nothing we can do to “improve” it. Finally, the absolute stupidest and most damaging thing we can do is to switch to expensive, less reliable forms of energy, making us less able to adapt to whatever climate fluctuations are in store, particularly cooling, which may in fact be coming.
Bruce,
It’s no longer a matter of who is correct. The gridlocked debate is preventing America for preparing for repeat of past weather — such as a really long drought in the SW or a major hurricane strike on an East coast city.
We’re beyond the point where both sides stating their views has any value, let alone doing so even more boldly and loudly. We need new ways to break the debate open, new perspectives. I suggest a test that can be easily and quickly done (as such things go), that can be accepted as fair by both sides. I’m sure we can find other ideas, if we try.
We already know the best way to prepare for weather – vibrant, healthy economies. The “debate” as to whether mankind is endangering the planet by his use of fossil fuels is already over – the Climatist liars have lost.
Bruce,
The best way to prepare for the weather is to do things that prepare for the weather. A strong economy makes it easier, but it has to be done regardless. No matter how poor we are, the roof must be strong. No matter how rich we become, that will not help when a Force 4 or 5 hurricane hits an east coast city (look what little, relatively speaking, Tropical Storm Sandy did to NYC).
But there doesn’t have to be a national policy about weather. Those are local, or at best regional decisions. And none of it has anything to do with energy policy. The IPCC can disband, as there never was any need for alarm over the weather. What we all wouldn’t give to have the Alarmists just shut up.
Bruce,
“What we all wouldn’t give to have the Alarmists just shut up.”
And they wish the skeptics would shut up. Meaning while this critical public policy (at every level of government) is quite deadlocked. Perhaps your wishes cancel out their wishes, leaving nothing but work to get the political machinery moving again.
But that’s probably not going to happen, I suspect, since both sides seem to have so much fun yelling at each other.
Fabius-
Bruce said-”
“First, there is nothing wrong with our climate, and second, there is nothing we have done, hence nothing we can do to “improve” it. ”
YOU replied-“It’s no longer a matter of who is correct.”
Bruce didn’t say that it was a matter of WHO is correct. He said ” 1)there is nothing wrong with our climate” and 2) hence, there is nothing we can do to “improve it”.
“The gridlocked debate is preventing America for preparing for repeat of past weather — such as a really long drought in the SW or a major hurricane strike on an East coast city. ”
Can you PROVE that the climate science debate is responsible for preventing “America” from preparing for a repeat of past weather or any future crisis? Can you PROVE that if there was no longer a debate that “America” WOULD agree to prepare for a repeat of past weather? You can’t and the reason I know you can’t is because I personally know a LOT of very smart, very logical, very rational Americans that you might call “preppers” who are doing all that they can, rich or poor, to prepare for ANY event in the future that might affect their safety and survival and that of their families. NONE of the people I know are doing it based on paranoid, illogical, irrational premises. They are doing it because all the evidence suggests that there is nothing that “America” can do to prepare or prevent would benefit them more than what they can do for themselves.
Bruce;
Hear, hear!
An interesting quote which seems to have an anti-business flavor, as though these things apply only to businesses and nowhere else. It would be far more accurate to change the flavor of this quote by replacing the word “companies” with the word “organizations”. These are problems that afflict not just companies but also non-profits and government agencies.
Leon,
“seems to have an anti-business flavor, as though these things apply only to businesses and nowhere else”
You are reading into this by ignoring the context. He clearly states that these are basics he learned at Business School. They weren’t teaching about life and everything — just business.
Resolving violation of the ceasefire, invading Iraq to capture Saddam Hussein, and holding a trial by his peers was not a disaster. The disaster, including the Islamic State, millions of aborted and threatened people, and the refugee crisis followed the premature evacuation of coalition troops and mediators from Iraq, and subsequent failures in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, etc. driven by the social justice movement “Arab Spring”. The humanitarian disaster is a product of opportunism and anti-native policies, both in the Middle East and North Africa, and their progress in Europe, America, etc.
” “Is it still Arab Spring?” ”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2016/01/quote-of-the-we-12.html
Exactly!
The US WON the Iraq War. And it actually WON the Vietnam war too – there was not a single major battle in either war that was lost, and conditions in 1973 and 2009 were so good the US felt it could go home. Both the Vietcong and Fedayen had been destroyed, respectively – and Al Qaeda in Iraq was considered neutralized and had no popular support. These were VICTORIES.
However, in both cases the battlefield victory was sabotaged. In Vietnam the Democrats had used their decades of subtly pro-North Vietnamese propaganda to get into power and immediately abrogated the equipment replacement treaty the US had with South Vietnamese. This was a clear signal that the US would not assist South Vietnam in repelling another invasion by the Communist North (which the Vietcong could not participate in, since they had been *destroyed* some five years earlier). Hence, the Democrat Party leadership who *loathe* the West handed the Communists a victory.
Similarly the Democrat Party leadership whose loathing of the West had reached insane levels by the 21st Century abandoned the hard-won victory in Iraq. Deliberately – which is obvious since the US held all the cards in negotiating a Status of Force Agreement, which would be required to transform Iraq as had been done in Germany, Japan and South Korea (and look at them all now! although South Korea took decades to come right), but the Obama Administration failed to do this (they are incompetent, but cannot be that incompetent – plus they said they would pull out for ideological reasons).
The US can always win on the battlefield but the Left cannot allow the US to have a victory. Hence the counter-factual propaganda (technically, “Disinformation” if you read Lt Gen Ion Mihai Pacepa’s book of the same name) that is bombarding citizens to believe the reverse of what actually happened. It is bizarre and looking at Fabius Maximus’ website it seems he has soaked up this Disinformation without ever getting down to the level of actually checking the *actual facts*.
Hence, we also see Fabius Maximus’ thinking that WMD were not found in Iraq – THOUSANDS were, and even the New York Times had to admit this (although well after the damage had been done to the credibility of the US):
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/world/cia-is-said-to-have-bought-and-destroyed-iraqi-chemical-weapons.html?_r=0
http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/bombshell-new-york-times-reports-wmds-found-iraq/
Now what is important is that even if these weapons were not found, President GW Bush honestly thought they were there (and they were, as it turns out!) – he did not lie, and at worst was badly mistake (although, in this case, he was correct). Yet Fabius Maximus’ is *ignorant of the facts* and holds the 73% of Republicans who think thought the Bush Administration did not mislead the public are effectively crazy – yet it is Fabius Maximus who is ignorant of the actual state of affairs (weapons were found, and even if they were not, GW Bush honestly believed they were there).
Fabius Maximus’ uses surveys based on popularity of opinion – not based on the actual facts of the matter (ask Galileo for the significance of the difference between these). Hence, he even uses the IPCC AR5’s “extremely likely” CAGW assertion which the majority of readers here know is bunk – there are so many unresolved issues with the AGW Hypothesis that we know the CAGW assertion is extremely unlikely to be true. Yet, the fact that people disagree with the IPCC is taken to be proof that they are “untethered from reality” – which is basically Fabius saying that the majority of WUWT readers have “unhinged minds” !!!!
In Fabius Question #13 he displays a shocking ignorance of Islam. He seems to assume the Muslim do not want to follow Sharia, yet a recent survey commissioned by the Center for Security Policy (and cited recently by Donald Trump) showed that 51% of US Muslims would like to live under Sharia (of course, Koran 9:29 commands them to try to achieve this), and a whopping 25% think that Islamic violence against US citizens is justified. Yet he thinks that anyone who understands these facts is “unhinged”. No Fabius, it is just that you seem to consider yourself above ‘petty politics’ but are actually completely ignorant about Islam and its goals, so cannot understand those that do have a concern about these things.
Note: I’m not a Republican, not even North American. I just use the Scientific Method where FACTS and OBSERVATIONS matter more than opinions or frequency of opinion. So I went and checked the claims of the article and found the analysis atrociously bad (surprised it was linked to on WUWT, since usually WUWT is good – did the moderators here not bother to check the links ?????).
The article here on WUWT is very interesting. But the linked Fabius Maximus article “Delusions of Republicans” actually demonstrates how little Fabius knows except for the memes of the Leftist Narrative propagated in the mainstream media. His ‘analysis’ here was disappointing because it was superficial and oriented pretty much opposite from the known FACTS. In short, Fabius is well behind the times in terms of information, and his research methodology stinks. Thus, when Fabius claims that the Republican (and WUWT reader) minds are unhinged he does it based on his own flawed understanding of the World (ignorance of both historical and contemporary facts). Very disappointing.
Fabius, you have to evaluate both Republican and Democrat hypothesis based on as many facts as you can get. When I do this it turns out (which is a big surprise to me) that the Republican hypothesis is usually the one that is consistent with the actual facts. This has led me to conclude something which I’ll offer as an insight for readers:
1) Democrats are well-meaning. They start from a set of axioms (all people are well-meaning an equal) and proceed to reason from there. Facts can be ignored as the axioms are sufficient. This is a mode of reasoning analogous to classical philosophy.
2) Republicans are well-meaning. They start from a set of axioms but do modify these based on observations. Hence, their solutions are not ideologically ‘pure’ and can appear to be less-than well-meaning if you are not in possession of all the facts. This is a mode of reasoning which follows the Scientific Method.
Thus: Democrat reason like (classical) philosophers, Republicans reason like scientists.
This is a gross generalization, but a first-order approximation. But this accounts for the result where the Tea Party members were found to be the only group with statistically-significant, slightly superior scientific knowledge.
Did not one else bother to check Fabius’ claims ??????
ps. the survey page I refer to (since I ‘checked my facts’ about Fabius’ claims):
http://fabiusmaximus.com/2014/03/03/republican-delusions-polls-65308/
US victories? Are you serious? If so, since when does a victor _LEAVE THE COUNTRY_ he has just conquered? Neither Vietnam nor Iraq became States of the Union, nor US-American colonies, there are still local people in charge. Nothing else would have been the case if the US of A had looked the other way all the time. Not even the massive (and largely successful) brainwashing they did to my people after 1945, effectively replacing a millennium of German history with American trailer-trash fastfood “culture” apparently took place, or we would hear more about Vietnamese rappers and Iraqi sitcoms. The British once did it right – Hong Kong before 1997 was about the most apolitical, yet unrestricted, and therefore ideal society imaginable. Would _THAT_ not be a starting point to re-organize today’s hotbeds of terrorism?
@chris Z
“US victories? Are you serious? If so, since when does a victor _LEAVE THE COUNTRY_ he has just conquered?”
When the Collectivists are in charge and they MUST sabotage a battlefield victory with political defeat. This is “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” and has become a pattern – which means it is not likely to be the result of incompetence on the part of the Obama Administration.
If you think the US was defeated in Iraq, who beat them? Saddam? the Fedayen? nope. Only the media who promote a narrative counter to the facts. Same as Vietnam.
@chris Z
“Neither Vietnam nor Iraq became States of the Union, nor US-American colonies, there are still local people in charge. Nothing else would have been the case if the US of A had looked the other way all the time.”
America intervened to stop Soviet expansion. Their goal was not (and never is) territorial expansion.
@chris Z
“Not even the massive (and largely successful) brainwashing they did to my people after 1945, effectively replacing a millennium of German history with American trailer-trash fastfood “culture” apparently took place,”
Um, the “brainwashing” in Germany and revisionism was by socialists. They are the ones who say that National Socialism was somehow not socialist, and that the Italian “Fascist” socialists under Mussolini were not socialists. In short, it was not America that did that to you – and the fact you blame America for what the socialists did shows how well the socialist disinformation has worked (see Yuri Bezmenov on Youtube for details on what the KGB did to plant these memes, or read “Disinformation” by Lt Gen Ion Mihao Pacepa).
Yes, I know you have not heard the truth before. So please check the two references I’ve just given. You’ve been lied to by Collectivists who wish to control you.
@chris Z
“or we would hear more about Vietnamese rappers and Iraqi sitcoms. The British once did it right – Hong Kong before 1997 was about the most apolitical, yet unrestricted, and therefore ideal society imaginable. Would _THAT_ not be a starting point to re-organize today’s hotbeds of terrorism?”
We cannot re-organize the jihadis as long as we don’t listen to them – which is, we deny they are following Mohammed’s example when it is very clear that is *exactly* what they are doing. Once we start confronting Islam, and the fact the archeology shows its claims are false, then we can liberate people from the totalitarianism that enslaves their minds even more than their bodies.
But America is not the cause of this – no matter what the Collectivists try to make you believe. Please look up Yuri Bezmenov, or read Pacepa’s “Disinformation”. Then you will understand why the disinformation of the CAGW mythology is not unique, and in fact nearly all the media-fed information we hold as ‘common knowledge” is actually also disinformation.
Peace .. and Truth 🙂
nice analyses of FMs claims and the lead article. I was bothered by much what he said, but I don’t have the time to analyze his claims and write a rebuttal like you have here.
Thanks.
Joel
My pleasure Joel.
I welcome their difference of opinion, but when I checked their assertions I found they had missed some critical information – in fact, it appeared they’d never even bothered to listen to the arguments of their opponents and the information behind it.
No, Fabius simply declared everyone who disagreed with the media narrative as “unhinged” (which, if you look at his page, includes just about every regular WUWT reader).
Then he assumed unearned moral superiority, which was then the source of him being right – and everyone else who disagreed MUST be wrong.
All because he wants to advocate more Big Government boondoggles – to “heal the planet” because inactivity is assumed to be fatal, based on what the “IPCC scientists agree on”.
Hence, I’ve pointed out the flaws in his argument with FACTS. I hope he’ll come back at me with any facts I may not know about (the Scientific Method requires me to do this). Then we can debate based on EVIDENCE and not on assumptions about unearned moral superiority. But this is not looking likely.
Instead, Fabius has fled with an unproven assertion that I’m wrong (which I quickly showed he was wrong, again), as he doesn’t seem to know enough facts to counter the facts I’ve presented (I do my homework).
I don’t want to be mean, but I wouldn’t let this guy manage my investments – not if he is resistant to facts he doesn’t like, and cannot understand that the people who differ in opinion from him are not “unhinged” but actually better informed than he is and he could quickly gain insights from them.
So there are some interesting things in this article, but the Fabius Maximus website itself demonstrates closed-minded partisanship masquerading as objective reasoning. Very disappointing.
ps. there was a great newspaper editor in Chicago (back when newspapers gave news, and not a Collectivist Narrative, Left or Right) who used to advise journalists to “Check your facts!”, “Kid, if your mother tells you she loves you – check it out!”. Great advice.
Also Moa,
In US current political divide, a look at the candidates running for the two parties’ nomination is insightful.
The Republicans: honesty of a candidate matters, thus provable dishonesty of a candidate would clearly be a disqualifier to the base voters in their party.
The Democrats: the frontrunner and presumptive nominee has provable, multiple cases of public dishonesty from when she was in office. Even after she left her government position she has made numerous, provable false statements regarding her handling of sensitive highly classified info. Yet she remains the Democrats polled frontrunner. And her closest Democratic rival refuses to use her clear dishonesty to attack her to improve chances of winning. Those facts clearly show that honesty and integrity are trumped by ideology for most Democrats.
Yes, as a non-US citizen living in my home country I can see the difference between the Republicans (both Establishment Republicans and the Conservative wing) and Democrats.
I never understood the USA (that is, its people) until I saw the following political spectrum, which seems to be the only one that actually matters:
State Power vs Individual Liberty
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_TI8bO8GurcI/TMGUCecRxYI/AAAAAAAACWw/i_E8qshErRA/s1600/Political+Spectrum+Diagram+-+Domestic+Relations.jpg
From:
http://chowanriver.blogspot.com/2010/10/where-do-people-really-stand.html
Once I understood that then I knew:
1) Republicans are about Individual Liberty. The true “Far Right” are the Libertarians.
2) Democrats are about State Power. The true “Far Left” are the Fascists (they are not Far Right at all, except from the perspective of the Communists of the Extreme Left where everyone who disagrees with them is “Far Right”). The Democrats don’t believe in anything except POWER. They promoted gays, women and poor blacks in the past, but have now sold those identity groups out for fast-breeding misogynistic and homophobic Islamists, and cheap Mexicans that will ensure poor blacks can never get a job. All because these are tactical positions as the Democrats hunt for their one true love, POWER.
So, as a foreigner, I look for the facts that support both their positions, but I find the Individualists to be much more appealing, and more honest, than the Collectivists.
It reminds me of a joke I once heard:
How do you annoy a Conservative (Classic Liberal) ?
lie to them !
How do you annoy a Progressive (Modern “Liberal”) ?
tell them the truth !
🙂
Thanks for taking the time to follow up your post with an explanation.
There Is No Substitute for Liberty !
Chris Z-
“US victories? Are you serious? If so, since when does a victor _LEAVE THE COUNTRY_ he has just conquered? Neither Vietnam nor Iraq became States of the Union, nor US-American colonies, there are still local people in charge. ”
On what premise do you base the conclusion that a “victory” can only be declared if all of the allied forces on the “winning side” take possession of/ or remain in, the country in question? It’s only NOT a victory if the victor’s original intent was to POSSESS/OCCUPY that country.
Vietnam and Iraq were instances in which WARS broke out between two different countries or two different factions in the same country, and the US stepped in as an ALLY to one side in those conflicts. As far as I can determine, the country known as the United States of America, does not, and NEVER HAS, initiated a war against another country, with the intent to conquer and claim those lands as their own!
(The Revolutionary War does not count under my definition because it started between England and 13 of it’s North American colonies that declared their intent to become independent from England. The US was not an official “country” then.) The “aggressor” in any war is defined generally as the country that starts the war. The UN defines the “aggressor” in a more limited way, as the country that first uses “armed force.”
If you want to arrive at an approximation to the truth, the truth of our current levels of ignorance etc etc, then you have to be dedicated to finding the truth.
Being dedicated to finding the truth means that you may ruffle the feathers of the political right or left (those outside the US do not recognise too much the concept of ‘the left’ in the USA, where being a communist is an imprisonable offence almost!).
It requires you to talk to people of all political colours, usually in terms of confronting their ‘sacred cows’ (which usually differ markedly between two protagonist political parties). As a result, you will be derided as ‘far left’ by the far right and ‘far right’ by the far left (I’ve been described thus in the UK several times by blog commenters).
In terms of the ‘political debate’, the big logjam currently is between those who believe humans are motivated by selfish desire and those who believe humans are driven by social conscience.
Anyone who has examined human beings over 30+ years knows that almost all human beings can be driven by either of those at different times in their lives. Take Bill Gates: the guy was one of the toughest MFs in history whilst he was making his billions. Now his top priority is his ‘foundation’. Bill Clinton was almost embarrassed whilst he was a politician that his wife was almost ‘keeping him’ financially, but once he finished in office he took great pride in finally earning a decent crust. Paradoxically, he was arguably more selfish in politics than he has been as Mr-Ex-President……
Those who are bullied by their parents as children actually need lessons in being MORE selfish – for them the piety of Christianity is almost a certain extinction unless they are supremely lucky. Christianity on the other hand modifies the baser instincts of the more ruthless and violent of our species and hence socialises them and makes their propagation more, not less likely. Yet we still have these arguments about whether Christianity is ‘good’ or ‘evil’. It’s good for some people, disastrous for others, if truth be told……just like every other religion on earth.
To unblock the ‘climate change’ debate, you need politicians who can think for themselves, stand up for themselves in public sessions and know how to question conflicting experts successfully. The adversarial legal system may provide relevant training in that regard, but it is not the only place you can get it. You can learn it at the coal face of websites such as The Guardian (www.theguardian.com) and the Daily Telegraph (www.telegraph.co.uk) in the UK. Try using the same arguments on those two communities and you won’t get very far. You have to learn to see the world from their perspective and then see how you can move things forward. It’s less easy than you might think……..
Ultimately though, you must not be driven by seeking Company Directorships, since the truth may be inconvenient to certain financial interests.
How many politicians do you know who have thinking minds, a dedication to the truth and the ability to put narrow financial interests behind the public good, eh??
Well, they are not extinct in the UK, but they are by no means the majority…….
“where being a communist is an imprisonable offence almost”
This kind of irresponsible lie completely ruined whatever point you were trying to make.
“Being a communist” should be a reason to remove you from the human gene-pool rather quickly in any civilised society worth its salt. Bismarck saw the danger of the Socialist movement back in 1888 already, and resigned because of Kaiser Wilhelm II.’s all-too-lenient policy against the terrorists from within (aka the “labour organizations” from which ultimately all the notorious terrorist Führers of the 20th century emerged – there was NOT ONE aristocrat, nor any successful “capitalist” among them, ever noticed that? Just rabble trying to rule other rabble).
Well said.
I always think of it this way, “When the Collective becomes more important than the Individual, then Individuals will inevitably suffer”.
This is why various flavors of Socialists (National Socialist, Soviet Socialist, North Korean Socialist, East German Socialist, Cuban Socialist, Hungarian Socialist, Maoist Socialist, North Vietnamese Socialist, etc etc – you can see what is common here) ended up killing 200 million of their OWN citizens, in peacetime.
Collectivism Kills !
rtj1211
You start off well saying -“If you want to arrive at an approximation to the truth, the truth of our current levels of ignorance etc etc, then you have to be dedicated to finding the truth.”
But then everything that followed that appears to be completely subjective (as opposed to objective) examples and suggestions, and as such, if he follows them, they can only lead him to arrive at YOUR subjective version of the truth, or an approximation of it. (Unless of course he uses them as examples of what NOT to do or think)
Too many things to dispute about this opinion piece. I’d like to know what lies were told to sell the 2nd Gulf War? The one that comes up the most is that Saddam did not have Weapons of Mass Destruction, which is laughable. We know for a fact he used nerve agents against his own people and the Iranians. The Iranians actually got samples from the battlefield (not an easy thing to do). And as we are seeing in Syria, it is very easy to make chemical weapons.
Finally, Iraq was under a cease fire agreement they made after unconditionally surrendering to the coalition in the first Gulf War. A cease fire they routinely broke. Not only by firing at coalition forces but also by plotting to assassinate Bush the First.
The 2nd Gulf War couldn’t have gone much better until the politicians declared victory and took over.
Thanks, Tim,
Too many people ignore or rewrite the history between the 1st and 2nd Gulf war. They pretend that the 2nd was a starting point, in fact the coalition was still flying planes over Iraq to protect the Kurds and others from Saddam which were routinely fired at by Saddam as he violated the cease fire agreement.
During the withdrawal, the Obama administration declared a victory as their achievement leaving a vacuum that many pointed out would have the results we now see.
Rewriting history is another tactic of the Progressives to mislead the public of their mistakes.
Remember ISIS was called a JV team!
Yeah, and I remember being told if I liked my plan, I could keep my plan. And a long list of lies from the same source.
Agreed. Had the war not been fought, the sanctions would have been over long before now, indeed were already pretty much done at the time, and a resurgent Saddam, bolstered by the knowledge that nobody had the backbone to confront him, would be a far more fearsome threat in the region than the rag-tag army known as ISIS. The boil had to be lanced, and that pustulant dictator removed.
The final outcome was indeed a disaster, however, because once again, we bugged out before the job was finished. I will stop there because this site is not supposed to be a political forum.
It amazes me how the same people who back then were demanding that the sanctions be removed, are now whining that there no need to invade since the sanction regime was keeping Saddam in his box.
Great Article!
Thank-you Larry Kummer. I particularly like posts that are broad enough in scope to keep my attention since my knowledge about everything is spotty.
Also, I like the “Where do we go from here?” statement.
I think asserting a need for audit is worthy and likely devastating to the CAGW argument.
now…
How do we go from here?
I’m not sure how this all predicted the result of the Iraq invasion (just what is the result?) but it was clear to more than a few soldiers that without enough infantry, it would be a debacle. Wasn’t there a US general sacked or ‘retired’ over such a prediction?
General McChrystal …
was reportedly known for saying and thinking what other military leaders were afraid to.
Regards – Hans
Actually I am highly concerned about Global Warming in that to prevent it our politicians will ruin our lives and the global economy.
Back in the dark ages when I was in grad school the numerical analysis (today called modeling) profs told us to use numerical models for interpolation and not for extrapolation. I strongly doubt that advice has changed much. When the models do not match reality how do they know if they have a software bug or parameterization problem or…
guereza,
I think the data shows that the peak has passed to the movement for massive public policy action to fight climate change. The polls consistently show that it ranks at or near the bottom of American’s major policy priorities. Today’s post at WUWT about Greens “diversifying away” shows that also know this.
As for modeling, the world has become so complex that little can be done without models. Weather prediction relies on models. Economic policy is done with models. Much of medicine, science and dozens of other fields rely on them.
We need to know how to validate and audit these tools. These posts discuss the large body of knowledge we already have about how to do so. For various reasons this knowledge has not been well applied to the policy debate about climate science — but it can be.
“We can listen to the two sides bicker for another 27 years…”
Actually, this is exactly what we *should* do. Science advances via this sort of “bickering”. The main problem with the AGW hypothesis is not so much controversy over the theory as the fact that there are activists who wish to use the theory as an excuse to forcibly reshape the world economy.
DH,
“Actually, this is exactly what we *should* do”
I’m talking about the public policy discussion. The science will sort itself out, eventually. But the gridlocked public policy debate prevents vital work to prepare us for the repeat of past weather, let alone climate change.
Should something hit the US, the catfight over responsibility will be terrific to watch as both sides show them selves to be true 21st C Americans, yelling “not my fault”. However that will neither bury the dead or rebuild the damage.
GRIDLOCK IS A DESIGN FEATURE !!!!
The point of gridlock is it is supposed to keep Government powerless and only the things that all sides agree on get advanced into action. This is a design feature of the US Government and not a bug. It is designed to stop unilateral action, such as the current Administrations anti-democratic ‘Executive Action’ that bypasses the elected lawmakers.
It is staggering how many people do not understand this – hence they allow the anti-democratic actions to occur.
I understand that gridlock is exactly what the US Founding Fathers intended, and I’m not even a US citizen.
Moa,
“I understand that gridlock is exactly what the US Founding Fathers intended”
That’s astonishingly wrong. The US became a great nation in large part through bold policy actions, from the great infrastructure projects of the 19th and 20th centuries through the government-sponsored R&D that’s produced much of the electronic, communications, and biotech/medical.revolutions.
That we should leave our vital infrastructure vulnerable to people worshiping gridlock is bizarre. It’s the sort of thinking from which 3rd world nations are made.
Fabius said:
“That’s astonishingly wrong. The US became a great nation in large part through bold policy actions, from the great infrastructure projects of the 19th and 20th centuries through the government-sponsored R&D that’s produced much of the electronic, communications, and biotech/medical.revolutions.”
No, again you show you don’t understand the history at all. In the US it is private industry that created all the wealth and innovation. Railroads were built by private consortiums. Steamship travel sucked when the Government did it, but became cheaper and vastly more pleasant when private companies became involved.
Which is better, Government regulated taxi companies, or Free Market Uber ? why?
Which is better, Government created Lada and Trabant vehicles, or Free Market choices of Ford, BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Volvo, Alfa Romeo, Citroen, Renault ???
You don’t seem to understand the history at all. Hence you think that Statist Collectivism is the only solution – when Collectivism not only does not work, it CANNOT work – because it does not understand that “Wealth is Created”. When there is no personal incentive for creating, it doesn’t happen. Hence, Government solutions are inferior.
Look at what Space X is doing verses NASA? who has the re-usable rockets? sure, NASA led the way using massive amounts of tax dollars, but now NASA still soaks up large quantities of money but does ‘Muslim outreach’ with it instead of innovating.
Speaking of Islam. Question #13 on your page holds people if they are “unhinged” if they understand that 51% of US Muslims want to live under Sharia (as Koran 9:29 commands them to), and a massive 25% of Muslims believe that Islamic violence against American citizens can be justified (see the Center for Security Policy study that Donald Trump has been citing). It is clear you seem to assume that Islam is closer to Buddhism than Old Testament fire-breathing Christianity. Hence, you assume that people who are concerned about Islam – because they understand it better than you – must be “unhinged”. I put it to you, that perhaps before throwing such labels around you’d do better to ask “Why?” – and look for the data people use to support their position. From the point of Free Society there is no major difference between Islam and National Socialism (both are totalitarian, both require conquest of the World and killing all Jews everywhere).
With regard to the WMD in Iraq, you claim that people who don’t think GW Bush was lying are also “unhinged” – yet even the New York Times has had to admit that there were THOUSANDS of WMD found. Did you not know this? It could be said that anyone who does think that GW Bush was lying is one of the “unhinged” ones – because that meme is counter-factual based:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/world/cia-is-said-to-have-bought-and-destroyed-iraqi-chemical-weapons.html?_r=0
http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/bombshell-new-york-times-reports-wmds-found-iraq/
Also, you think that anyone who disagrees with the IPCC AR5 is also “unhinged”. Again it sounds like you call anyone “unhinged” who dissents from the media narrative, even though WUWT readers are *extremely* well informed about this and disagree from the IPCC’s recommendations for very good factual reasons. Do you not understand the problems with the IPCC’s policy summary ?
Fabius said:
“That we should leave our vital infrastructure vulnerable to people worshiping gridlock is bizarre. It’s the sort of thinking from which 3rd world nations are made.”
Completely wrong again. The 3rd World is held back because there are no Individual Rights (Free Speech – right to dissent and *offend*; Property Rights; Individual Liberties that the Government cannot infringe). Either a strong State (eg. North Korea, Marxist, or African countries) or religion (57 Muslim-majority hellholes) keep citizens from CREATING WEALTH.
Gridlock is one tool for keeping Government out of innovation. It is amazing that Collectivists like you still think that the Government could do as well as Apple or Space X or Uber or Google in innovating. Hence, you want to steal from the productive (thereby, slowing growth) and give to the politically favored in return for political power. Besides this being fundamentally immoral, it also doesn’t work – as has been shown all around the World. Why do you think Greece is broke? because it closely followed the policies you espouse? why are nearly all of the EU countries broke? why is Sweden failing very badly where-ever their Government touches (If not for Swedish PRIVATE innovation the Government would have already turned Sweden into Greece – but now it is turning it into Lebanon instead as the rape capital of Europe).
To me, it seems like you don’t understand much about the things you are talking about. You agree with the media narratives without ever checking the facts for yourself. Since you assume the dominant media narrative is always right, you think anyone who disagrees is “unhinged”. It has never occurred to you that perhaps the dissenters have more facts and it is the media who are wrong (through ignorance or to promote the Collectivist Narrative, who can say?). So it appears you’d like take the position that you are ‘above the petty politics’, but in fact you are slandering people based on your ignorance – and you have not even done basic research into the hypotheses of each side.
In short, you need to learn and use the Scientific Method. At the moment you are using “argumentam ad populam” and you need to get out of this bad habit. Please.
Mao,
It’s clear there is no point to this. Your comment is largely wrong. I’ll just point to one item then quit.
“Railroads were built by private consortiums.”
Many mid-19thC RR’s, including the transcontinental railroad, were built by the government — who (as with most projects, public and private) paid for others to do the work. Even more were done by public-private partnerships (a structure still frequently used, since it works well). You might as well say (falsely) that Apollo was done by private consortiums, since NASA contracted out much of the work.
Fabius:
“Many mid-19thC RR’s, including the transcontinental railroad, were built by the government — who (as with most projects, public and private) paid for others to do the work. Even more were done by public-private partnerships (a structure still frequently used, since it works well). You might as well say (falsely) that Apollo was done by private consortiums, since NASA contracted out much of the work.”
FALSE.
Please read:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rail_transport_in_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transportation_in_the_United_States
Excerpts:
“A series of bankruptcies and consolidations left the rail system in the hands of a few large operations by the 1980s. Almost all long-distance passenger traffic was shifted to Amtrak in 1971, a government owned operation. ” – showing PRIVATE companies ran the railroads.
“State governments granted charters that created the business corporation and gave a limited right of eminent domain, allowing the railroad to buy needed land, even if the owner objected”
Again, you demonstrate you have another strongly held position that is counter-factual. My point is you need to double-check the facts, ‘all the way down to the metal’, especially if you want to claim some kind of moral superiority over others (in fact, an assumption of moral superiority is all you have – which is why you arguments are being shredded with actual facts).
Fabius wrote:
“It’s clear there is no point to this. Your comment is largely wrong. I’ll just point to one item then quit.”
Yeah, that’s typical. When I provide factual evidence that contradicts your counter-factual views you just ignore it and move on. You want us to listen to your views, but when we use EVIDENCE to point out why there are different points of view you simply run away.
Since you were in finance and not in science (as I was) I’ll post something for you to ponder:
“In science it often happens that scientists say, “You know, that’s a really good argument, my position is mistaken,” and then they actually change their minds, and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.” – Carl Sagan.
It is always ok to be wrong, but it is not ok to reject objective facts. You are entitled to your opinion, but not your own facts. I have demonstrated that your slandering of Republicans is wrong and given you the evidence – yet you refuse to accept this and simply run away rather than accept the new data. Please stop this bad habit as it is counter to the Scientific Method !
@Chaam Jamal wrote:
“Moa, you cite passages from the Qurran, yet you don’t even know what they say. 9.29 does not mention “Sharia”
…
It’s obvious that you are getting your information from dubious sources.”
FALSE.
Koran 9:29 commands Muslims to work until the entire World submits to Islam. Of course it doesn’t mention ‘Sharia’ explicitly since Sharia was not invented by men until later – to embody this principle.
What YOU don’t seem to understand is not only is Sharia invented, but the archeology now PROVES that Islam was invented too !
Did you know that all the Arab temples (‘mosques’) from 630 AD to 725 AD are ALL oriented towards Petra in Jordan, and not Mecca ?
Did you know that the earliest Qurans we have differ from the ones we have today? meaning, the mythology that Caliph Uthman codified it is FALSE !
Did you know this?
“An Historical Critique of Islam’s Beginnings – Jay Smith”
For the benefit of WUWT folks, this is exactly what Koran 9:29 says, and it is important because under the Islamic Doctrine of “abrogation” is replaces all the peaceful verses of the Koran (no surprise, since the fictional character Mohammed allegedly got more and more violent, sexually depraved, misogynistic and anti-Semitic as time went on and he gained more power).
“Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture – [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled.”
From: http://quran.com/9/29
This command is clear, universal and eternal.
Do you deny Allah/Mohammed commanded this, Chaam ?
Did you not consider that perhaps the hated kufr (non-Muslims) might be able to read and understand what the imam’s are saying? that taqiyya and kitman is easily seen through?
Islam is fiction. It is man-made and designed to enslave men and (especially) women for the benefit of evil men (the Caliph and his henchmen). I just want you to be free of the falsehood and fiction that enslaves all Muslims!
[Reply: ‘Chaam Jamal’ is a sockpuppet. Also posts under the name ‘Richard Molineux’ and others (K. Pittman, etc.) As usual, his sad life writing fake comments has been completely wasted, as they are now deleted. –mod]
“But, I understand, you are not familiar with it and get your info from sites on the Internet that are what one would call “biased.”
Ok, we can play that game Chaam. What happens to those that are not “People of the Book” ?
What happens to the “People of the Book” when Al Mahdi arrives?
Does it not say to fight unbelievers? or are you denying that part?
And you cannot explain the fact that there is no mention of “Islam” nor “Mohammed” until the time of Caliph Abd al Malik – who was seeking to provide a religious counter-balance for Arab Imperialism that the Byzantines had with Christianity and the Persians had with Zoroastrianism.
You cannot explain the fact that ALL ‘mosques’ point to Petra in Jordan, and not Mecca. This by itself is enough to prove the Islamic narrative is fiction.
Then we get on to the multiple versions of the Koran – and the fact that none of the earliest Korans have more than 43 Sura. All the other Sura were added ***later***, by men – which means it CANNOT have come from Allah.
Furthermore, are you denying the example of Mohammed? are you trying to say he didn’t rape, torture, behead, steal from, extort protection ‘jizya’ from, have sex slaves, lie to, fabricate (as his secretary left him, after realising it was a sham), invade, have women pulled apart by horses, burn muslims in their mosque for building a mosque without getting permission from Mohammed, etc.
Do YOU even know the significance of Koran 53:19-20, and how it relates to all the mosques pointing to Petra ?
Sorry Chaam, you are way, way out of your depth here. You have know idea how much more I know about Islam (the real historical thing, not just the fabricated mythology).
Islam is Fiction. Islam is the Scientology of the Dark Ages.
Islam hurts Muslims and non-Muslims.
Islam enslaves men for the benefit of other men.
You cannot refute the satellite images that shows Islam’s story CANNOT be true – which is a nice way of saying Islam is FALSE.
Islam is just like any other theory in that it is falsifiable – and now we have the data that falsifies it.
Why would you ruin your life for FALSEHOOD, Chaam? I’m trying to give you the choice of being Free – of seeing reality instead of mythology.
Look again, and tell me which of the facts contained therein are wrong (but we both know you cannot – but you’d prefer to live the lie instead accept the truth, that Islam is fiction):
“An Historical Critique of Islam’s Beginnings – Jay Smith”
You don’t know that Al Mahdi comes from the hadith? and that Sunnis believe in him too?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdi
“Differences exist in the concept of the Mahdi between Sunni Muslims and adherents of the Shia tradition. For Sunnis, the Mahdi is Muhammad’s successor who is yet to come.”
Like a typical Muslim you are so easily enslaved by something you don’t understand. You’ve been lied to Chaam. I’m trying to tell you the truth. I’m trying to free your mind from the control other men have over it.
Watch the video I have linked to. What are you afraid of? surely you’ll easily be able to dispatch the facts in there.
FAIL.
I don’t believe in any of your man-made superstitions. But if I did, Al Mahdi matches the Anti-Christ *perfectly* was was predicted 600 years before Islam.
Peace be with you. Advancing (man made) evil makes one evil. Don’t do that.
You don’t want to correct your defense of Koran 9:29? the disgusting supremacist verse? surely you reject such evil as nonsense?
No?
How about you talk about the fact that the SUNNI version of Al Mahdi is an evil figure that intends to conquer the World?
No?
How about explain the satellite images that show Islam is false?
No?
You cannot ! you’ll run away and hope people don’t notice how EVIL the man-made ideology called “Islam” (Submission) is.
You think the hated kufr (us readers) don’t know about Islam? don’t know every trick that Islamic supremacists make to try and fool us? don’t know the deliberate lies that Muslims tell us? to lull us into joining the sexually-perverse medieval mafia-cult of Islam?
Then why are you unable to answer ANY of my questions?
Why did you not know about the Sunni version of Al Mahdi?
Why can you not explain why all the earliest mosques are oriented toward Petra?
Why will you not comment on the supremacist Koran 9:29 (and there are many more we could debate)?
Why won’t you denounce the homophobia, misogyny, sex slavery, pedophilia, mafia tactics, genocide, anti-Semitism and imperialism of the direct example of Mohammed in hadith Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim? you agree with these ?
I suggest YOU learn about Islam. The real Islam of archeology and objective Koranic analysis – instead of trying to mislead the readers here.
You cannot address any of these. Can you? You are utterly unprepared for kufr that know vastly more about Islam than you do – its origins, its history, the evidence against it, the scholastic interpretations of Koran, ahadith and the Sunna.
I have already proven gaps in your knowledge – you didn’t know that Al Mahdi is an evil, genocidal figure in Sunni Islam too, not just Shia Islam. Don’t you yet understand how much you do not know?
Hate Islam? not really. Islam itself is just man-made superstition that holds human beings back. Just a badly plagiarized heresy of Christianity, but even dumber and more obviously fake. Apparently Allah was so dumb he didn’t even know how to make soap, knowledge which would have benefited billions. But “Allah” was more concerned about what children Mohammed could have intercourse with – and “Allah” didn’t know anything that a Iron Age desert barbarian of the 8th Century wouldn’t know. He didn’t know about the Chinese. He didn’t seem to know that the Earth revolves around the Sun and not that the Sun settles in the West in a muddy spring “18:83-91”. Amazingly, incredibly dumb stuff that you have to laugh at. And be amazed that people think the nonsense has any merit whatsoever when it is so obviously fiction and fake.
I do hate Sharia – which is very similar to National Socialism, but doesn’t even pretend to be civilized – no surprise since it is medieval and extremely backward barbarianism. But hey, YOU hate Sharia brutality as a “moderate” Muslim, right? no ?
I can one “hate” something that doesn’t exist? something for which zero objective evidence exist? do you “hate” the Flying Spaghetti Monster? at least I’ve seen spaghetti – but I’ve never seen anything of Dushara (see Koran 53:19-20, who has the title “Allah”).
@Chaam said:
“Just to show again how ignorant of religion you are, don’t forget “Allah” is the God of Abraham.”
Nope. This is a LOGICAL impossibility. The God of Abraham, a Jew, is YHWH. The attributes of YHWH are he is “ever faithful can cannot lie”. The attributes of the God of Mohammed bin Abdullah are that he is the “Greatest of Deceivers” as stated in the Koran and ahadith many times.
YHWH and “Allah” cannot be the same. They are opposites. One tells the Truth and the other deceives everyone (especially Muslims).
And there are other claimed attributes that show that the claim that Allah is the God of Abraham (YHWH) cannot be true:
“Is Allah the God of the Bible?”
http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/god.htm
Although the truth is – there is zero objective evidence for either one? unless you have some evidence aside from fairy stories that are demonstrably false (eg. the Koran’s “semen comes from between the rib cage and the spine”, or the equally dumb, “Sun sets in the West in a muddy spring”).
It is YOU who doesn’t know anything about the actual God of Abraham (despite the Koran telling you that you should read the Torah and Christian Gospels).
Like I said, Chaam – I’m so far ahead of you in this subject I haven’t even begun to work up a sweat to debunk the nonsense you are putting out.
I’m happy to get you up to speed on the verifiable FACTS about Islam. But you need an open mind. Don’t you know that you can’t defeat the hated kufr (“infidel”, for WUWT readers) views unless you understand them first?
“An Historical Critique of Islam’s Beginnings – Jay Smith”
If Allah is as All Powerful as you think he is, why would be be frightened of you watching that video when it would enable you to take on a hated kufr like me ? or is it you frightened to hear about the archaeological evidence at the time Mohammed was said to have existed?
Are you going to show fear and inferiority in front of WUWT readers? that you don’t even know kufr views in order to beat them?
Free. Your. Mind.
“Why are you such a hateful person?”
That’s right, try to “play the victim”. It beats trying to argue with facts, when you have none.
You cannot defeat the fact that your assertions have all been false: “Allah is the Greatest of Deceivers” cannot match the fact that the God of Abraham, YHWH, cannot lie. Your whole superstition is based on easily disproven falsehoods.
You don’t know enough to even begin to debate the archaeology. So the only thing left is to pretend that the people trying to expand your mind are “hateful” towards your fairy tale.
We’re trying to help you come from 7th Century thinking into 21st Century reasoning. Whether or not you want to cling to the superstition after that is up to you.
We don’t hate you at all. I’m bothering to write to slap you with a wet fish to snap you out of delusion you have been indoctrinated into. I would like you to have a full, happy, and productive life based on reality – not on false claims that don’t match even weak scrutiny.
Plus, I’m teaching the WUWT folks about some false claims that Islam makes at the same time. So thanks with your help doing this.
@Chaam
“No, you cannot use logic in matters of faith.”
So “Allah” is both the “Greatest of Deceivers” and is “Ever Faithful can cannot lie” ?
That’s like saying Allah exists and doesn’t exist at the same time. Or Allah is All Powerful and Allah is Not All Powerful at the same time.
All you are proving is that you are completely divorced from any semblance to reality. Completely.
Something cannot be true and false at the same time. La Yumkin !
But hey, do you doing great work for me, showing just how crazy the Slaves of Allah really are. Which is why your da’wa here is getting shredded.
@Chaam wrote:
“Your entire range of experience with the religion you despise is based on what you’ve swallowed from people that obviously HATE that religion.”
So satellite imagery “hates” your supremacist political ideology (that has a fig leaf of the dumbest ever plagiarized superstition loaded on top) ?
So noticing that most of the Koran didn’t exist one hundred years after Mohammed was alleged to have lived means the Koran “hates” Islam ?
@Chaam wrote:
” You denounce a religion, without the slightest understanding of what true belief is,.”
Your true belief is “There is no sky ghost except Allah and Mohammed is his pimp” amiright?
Oh, we do know what “true belief” is. The renouncing of reality in favor of fiction. We’ve read about Mohammed’s barbarism (from the Koran, hadith and Sunna – so your own sources “hate” Islam, according to you), we’ve see the Islamic State follow Sharia *exactly* as Mohammed intended, and now we see you deny reality right here in front of us.
Apparently your “Allah” is so weak and so puny that you have to deny reality and be afraid of facts to defend him.
@Chaam wrote:
“The only thing that is obvious from your posts is that I’m thankful that you are not my neighbor, because you would be an awful person to live near.”
BOOM! Straight to the ad hominem. You are getting your superstitious azz handed to you – like you deny what Koran 9:29 instructs and try to distract people from its meaning; you deny the Sunnis believe in Al Mahdi; you deny the Koranic verses that show Allah cannot be Abraham’s YHWH; you deny Islam’s political intentions; you deny Mohammed was a mass mudering, rapist pedophile, misogynistic, anti-Semite, deceiving, warmongering illiterate pirate – which the hadith and Sunna make very clear is the alleged case.
Your resort to ad hominem shows you have lost. You cannot defeat FACTS with silly assertions about sky ghosts and man-made books that don’t even match their own mythology.
Epil Fail. Allah will be most disappointed with you – since clearly you consider him too weak to defend himself and you are required to do it for him. If he actually existed (for which there is zero evidence except the ravings of crazy people and perverts).
Try again. Bring facts.
(Moa writes; “The God of Abraham, a Jew, is YHWH.”
Abraham was not a Jew. Judah was one of the twelve sons of Jacob (Israel), a descendant of Abraham.)
Moa, JohnKnight is correct here-
“Abraham was not a Jew. Judah was one of the twelve sons of Jacob (Israel), a descendant of Abraham.)”
He was neither from the loins/house of Judah (Judah had not been born yet) nor was he from Jerusalem, since it didn’t exist yet either. I believe he was from Ur.
Yes, I stand corrected. Can we agree he was a Hebrew (the word I should have used, thanks for the correction) ?
My point is, he did not travel to Mecca to construct the Ka’aba (the Muslim claim). He was (allegedly) born in Ur in Mesopotamia/Chaldea and moved to Canaan.
How do we know? Mecca did not exist on any map during the Roman habitation of Arabia. If it didn’t exist in later Roman times, how could it have existed at the time of Abraham.
This is why I’ve been pushing the video about the archaeological facts that show Islam’s claims don’t match the archaeology, and thus, Islam is a verifiably false work of fiction.
“An Historical Critique of Islam’s Beginnings”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd9lIuUjPs0
Once you look at the physical evidence you will never see Islam (and Islamists) in the same light again.
Oh I know what you meant 🙂
I’m not sure where/how you connected Muhammad with Abraham in the first place. They are not the same person as far as I know…Muhammad was born in Mecca and lived there for roughly the first 52 years of his life (c. 570–622). This period is generally divided into two phases, before and after declaring his prophetic visions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad
But I have an idea…what if, from now on, just tell Chaam that everything you are saying comes from your “faith” in the facts? Then he can’t say anything at all to you based on his own declarations! 🙂 LOL
“I’m not sure where/how you connected Muhammad with Abraham in the first place. They are not the same person as far as I know…Muhammad was born in Mecca and lived there for roughly the first 52 years of his life (c. 570–622). This period is generally divided into two phases, before and after declaring his prophetic visions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad”
Muslims claim that Abraham built Mecca and the Ka’aba. This is not possible, since Mecca did not exist at the time (please watch that video I’ve been linking to – it is critical to understand the difference between Islamic claims and the actual archeology of the region).
Muslims also claim that Mohammed lived in Mecca. This is not possible. I’ll say that again, this is NOT POSSIBLE – based on the descriptions of Mohammed’s abode (which do not match the terrain of Mecca, but do match Petra in Jordan), and the fact that ALL the mosques from 630 AD to 725 AD all point toward Petra.
If you look at Koran 53:19-20 with the proper understanding you will see that Mohammed worshipped the Nabatean god Dushara, whose daughters are Al Lat, Al Uzza and Manat.
But Caliph Abd Al Malik needed a system to justify his reign against rivals, and provide a balance to the Christianity of the Byzantines and the Zoroastrianism of the Persians. Hence, he mashed together all sorts of traditions (including early first millennium Christian and Jewish poetry and constructed the Koran – although a parts of the Koran were *added* in the following centuries – this means the Koran could not have come from Allah, and parts not from Mohammed either).
This is why I urge you to spend 71 minutes of your life and look at the video – it will revolutionize your worldview and catch you up to the latest Western scholarship on the subject. Islam is fiction and is doomed – Enlightenment Civilization can survive without violence, once everyone understands the Truth. Islam is a man-made fiction.
Here’s the video link, for your convenience:
“An Historical Critique of Islam’s Beginnings – Jay Smith”
It is interesting how Muslims claim to love “truth”, but actually want to deny the truth of physical reality (archaeology) when it is presented to them.
“This is why I urge you to spend 71 minutes of your life and look at the video – it will revolutionize your worldview and catch you up to the latest Western scholarship on the subject. Islam is fiction and is doomed – Enlightenment Civilization can survive without violence, once everyone understands the Truth. Islam is a man-made fiction.”
Don’t have to. I already believe that Islam is fiction, and doomed. The idea that humans are capable of creating an Enlightenment Civilization without violence, where everyone understands and accepts one “Truth” is also fiction to me. But this isn’t a place for discussions on religion in the first place. 🙂
Mao says: ” I’m so far ahead of you in this subject”
Chaam Jamal says…
[Reply: ‘Chaam Jamal’ is a sockpuppet. Also posts under the name ‘Richard Molineux’ and others (K. Pittman, etc.) As usual, his time writing comments has been completely wasted, as they are now deleted. –mod]
“No, you cannot use logic in matters of faith.”
You can’t. Which is probably why Moa isn’t isn’t discussing matters of faith. She’s discussing matters of dogma, doctrine, scripture-and so far, you haven’t offered anything that proves what she’s saying ABOUT those dogma/doctrine/scriptures is wrong.
“Again you show your ignorance.”
Ignorance-“a lack of knowledge or information.”
Why would you use a term related to knowledge or information to insult someone who you accuse of discussing matters of faith? You appear to ignorant about the meaning of ignorance as well as everything else Moa is talking about.
“Mao says: ” If he actually existed (for which there is zero evidence except the ravings of crazy people and perverts).”
“Little does Mao know that there is no evidecne that the Jewish/Christian “God” exists either.”
“Just another tidbit showing that Mao knows nothing about “religion””
ROFL! Mao isn’t trying to prove that the Jewish/Christian God exists either. Maybe you need to stop pretending you can read minds and just speak to exactly what Mao says instead of making illogical, irrational assumptions about what Mao may or may not be thinking?
One can very logically and rationally discuss the tenants of ANY religion that has published their tenants. Mao is doing that. YOU seem to be confusing the word “faith” with “religious doctrine”. You should seek clarity on both before attacking Mao as if they are the same thing.
@Chamaal wrote:
“No, you are way off base on that. You will find most Islamic scholars and religious leaders denouncing Daesh.”
Who cares? if your cousin Mohammed bin Mohammed denounces the Islamic State, who cares?
There are only two opinions that matter in Islam:
1) Allah’s (defined in the Koran), and
2) Mohammed’s (defined in the hadith and Sunna).
Everybody else is merely spouting their opinion. Which is why Al Azhar university in Cairo has repeatedly been asked to denounce the Islamic State as unislamic (by people who misunderstand Islam as badly as you do), but they CANNOT – because everything the Islamic State does follows Mohammed’s personal example and/or Allah’s alleged commandments.
You do know that that leader of the Islamic State has a PhD in Islamic Studies, right? he opinion is a bit more informed that yours, Chaam – although still not the same as Mohammed’s if they were to differ (although they don’t).
I agree with the Caliph who agrees with Mohammed who agrees with Allah. The Islamic State is perfectly islamic in the way Mohammed intended. It is you who is in denial about what Islam actually is.
So, please, show me one thing that the Islamic State is doing that is not permitted under Sharia, or doesn’t follow the exact example of Mohammed (eg. like when Mohammed tortured Kinnana by lighting a fire on his chest to obtain the location of the clan’s gold – before he took Kinnana’s wife and raped her that very night). Mohammed was an evil psychopathic mass-murdering monster, and the Koran and hadith clearly show this.
So give me an example why the Islamic State is not Islamic – because Al Azhar University in Cairo cannot find one.
@Chamaal wrote:
“Do you know what people say about someone doing the same thing over and over expecting different results?”
I can only “lead the horse to water, I cannot make you think”. Your argument is based on character assassination of me – the typical Islamist and Leftist tactic. You cannot debate the facts because you don’t even know of them. You don’t want to know them. You’d rather live in falsehood than risk finding out that truth. You will avoid truth and reality at all costs – this is what you are exhibiting for readers. And WUWT readers have seen the same pattern of denying reality with the Green zealots.
@Chamaal wrote:
“No, religious beliefs are not in the same category as “facts,” Your instistance that they are “facts” shows you are devoid of a basic understanding of ANY religion, be it Judaism, Christianity, Islam, or Pastafarianism.”
We are not talking about your beliefs – we are talking about archeological FACT that shows Islam’s claims CANNOT BE TRUE.
What you believe is utterly irrelevant. The facts are the facts no matter who observes them. These facts prove Islam’s claims cannot be true.
So, you end up having to deny reality. Which is precisely what we are seeing here.
@Chamaal wrote:
“What I find humorous about your ranting is that you have even mistaken what religion I follow. You have made gross assumptions which are so off base as to make you look foolish to the people who know my faith.”
Sorry Chamaal, we don’t care what superstition you are or are not engaged in. It is completely irrelevant to this discussion.
What is being talked about are the observable facts that show Islam is FALSE. Islam is no different to Scientology – although the difference is Scientology has not mass murdered 270 million over the last 14 centuries of jihad – all based on bullshirt.
@Chamaal wrote:
“You are not a man of religion, you are a hack that attacks something well beyond your capacity to understand.”
You’re name right I’m not a man of religion. I used to be, but I evolved past the idiocy once I started looking at the evidence for religion. I did see masses of evidence that counter’s religions claims.
It seems you don’t understand ANYTHING about the evidence AGAINST your superstition. Which is why you cling to delusion and defend Iron Age barbarity.
@Chamaal wrote:
“What would Isa do?”
Who cares what deluded, ignorant and superstitious human beings thought? But Isa is an interesting case – how the Koran picks up the Christian Yeshua (“Jesus” in English) and initially bases his legitimacy on the Torah and Gospels, but then it has to reverse itself later when Mohammed is rejected as a fraud by all the Jews and Christians who hear his claims (that is, his contemporaries found he was a charlatan; as did Mohammed’s personal secretary – who realized Mohammed was just making crap up and allowed the secretary to add to the Koran).
So, who cares what the mythical “Isa” thinks about the mythical “Mohammed” and mythical “Allah”. ? They are all fictions designed to advance Arab Imperialism and don’t match reality in any way.
So, you keep avoiding the facts I’ve presented. Keep ignoring things you cannot answer and keep trying to deflect the debate about facts into a discussion of faith, or what some mythical person would do, or into discussing what you believe.
All because you need to deny the verifiable and objective fact – Islam is fiction. And because Islam is fiction, it means the things done in its name are EVIL.
@Chaam wrote:
“What would Isa do?”
I nearly forgot to mention. According to the Christian Book of Revelations (written 600 years before Mohammed was said to have lived) Jesus will return and make war on an Empire of nations (the Beast) lead by a great leader called the “Anti-Christ” (Al Mahdi) and a False Prophet (your “Isa”). Jesus comes down and wages war on named countries – countries that are ALL Muslim today.
Now, I don’t believe in this superstition, nor any other – but according to your Koran which says the Gospels are to be believed (until Mohammed changes his mind after he is rejected as a false prophet by the Christians) then when Jesus returns he makes war on named Muslim nations, lead by Turkey (whose capital is a city of seven hills).
You can look it up for yourself. Just as Allah is the Greatest Deceiver and the opposite of Abraham’s YHWH, so to us your great leader and Isa the opposite of the Christian Jesus. If you are going to believe in Jesus, then perhaps you’d better understand the prediction 600 years before Mohammed that match your Al Mahdi and Isa as enemies of YHWH. Which means you are on the side of the Anti-Christ, if you believe such things (which I don’t, but you claim to be motivated by “faith” rather than “reason”).
“Why Islam Is Antichrist Part 1 Former Muslim Walid Shoebat ”
Not very scientific.
Just a reminder that science is not about getting it right the first time. That’s for those relying on the finished work like engineers. The whole method is very much about auditing but those who pursue a wrong path are valuable too. My favourite paper was one where we showed a lot evidence for what we postulated but also the result of one final experiment that debunked it.
Robert,
“Just a reminder that science is not about getting it right the first time.”
Just a reminder of what I said in the opening paragraph: “This post applies them to the public policy debate about climate change…” It is not about the science, which will sort itself out eventually.
Public policy requires making decisions despite often high levels of uncertainty. Heuristics like Davies’ are of proven value.
It wasn’t so much a criticism of your piece but a reminder to the amateurs and kiddies. “If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulder of giants.” includes those who guessed wrong all their career but did their science thoroughly.
Political climatology has decided that CO2 controls climate. All we have to do is control CO2 and we are in charge. These people deserve to be in an asylum.
As for debate. The very fact that there is a debate says that it is metaphysics and not science. By all means continue and have a debate and have a good time.you all.
George,
“By all means continue and have a debate and have a good time.you all.”
If we all take your advice then the climate alarmists will win the public policy debate. They will put thru large scale measures while you mutter about “metaphysics”. Perhaps then both you and they will be happy. The rest of us, not so much.
The liberal left claims to be on the tolerant side, but if you’ve ever gone onto a liberal web site and gave any different view from their cause, you find out pretty quick just how ” tolerant ” they are !! The hate they spit out is astonishing, all the way up to wishing you dead because you have a ” different ” opinion from them !! IMHO
Another obvious difference is that the Right does not ” adjust ” the real world data with Fairy Dust data !! Liberals believe the end justifies the means !
The predictive skill of a scientific theory is all that matters for practical reasons. If there is such a thing as “climate science theory” it’s predictive skill is inherently dubious, if not inevitably non-existing at this point of time, as the subject of climate science by definition is long-term. With a time frame of 30 years minimum for climate events to take shape, a useful audit will span a period which is a multiply of the time needed for the climate event to unfold, and this repeatedly so as one audit will not be enough to give scientific reliability. So realistically we we are talking centuries of audits for climate events.
This still serves a purpose in the long run, but for the short run it is useless as a policy tool.
On the other hand, as a tool for dissecting “robust settled” climate science it is very effective, as it shows with infallible logic it is boneless and by definition lacking any proven predictive power as a scientific theory.
Jurgen,
“The predictive skill of a scientific theory is all that matters for practical reasons.”
I agree.
“This still serves a purpose in the long run, but for the short run it is useless as a policy tool.”
I disagree. We make decisions, both public and private sectors, business and personal, with less than perfect information.
Hence my proposal to test the models used in the first IPCC Assessment Reports (effectively, #2 and #3). While not long enough for a definitive test, they are 20 and 15 year durations. Combined with other validation tools and “audits” (review by a outside multi-disciplinary team of experts), we would have a reasonable basis for public policy decisions.
Has any climate model tracked the past at sufficient accuracy to be considered for further work?
I think not.
Data >>> climate model >>> rubbish.
steve,
“I think not.”
That’s nice, but many experts disagree – with a considerable basis for doing so. Both sides striking bold poses will resolve nothing.
I wonder how many people on this thread (or the similar threads on activists’ websites) would treat their sick child’s health so casually. Make a decisions on limited info — no need to bother with those extra tests to give strong evidence! Just wait and see what happens.
Having fun in the debate is not enough. Self-confidence is not enough.
The similar thinking on both sides is quite amazing.
“That’s nice, but many experts disagree – with a considerable basis for doing so. ”
FALSE !
Where is your data to back up your statement? where is the data that proves something must be done? there is no data!
But you play the sanctimony card, that you are ‘above’ petty disagreements – all the while it is you who is partisan (you’ve already demonstrated this in your past statements – with a call to get Big Government to effectively ‘heal the Earth’). You rail against people who are armed with facts over a complex topic yet you have ALREADY MADE UP YOUR MIND THAT ACTION IS REQUIRED. You are, in fact, vastly more partisan than the rest of us, but seem oblivious to the amount of information you do not know. If only this was atypical.
Sure there is warming, but there is no evidence that it is catastrophic. In fact, there is no evidence it is even harmful – and the paleo record shows quite the opposite.
Have you looked at the most probable values of TCS and ECS from objective studies (eg. Lewis and Curry 2015) more recent than the IPCC ???? do you even know what they are and why they are significant? sounds like you don’t, yet you condemn anyone who doesn’t agree with you call to increase Big Government into Huge Government (what rights cannot be infringed, or cannot be regulated, or taxed when you’ve decided to ‘heal the planet’).
Sorry Fabius, you are WORSE than both Republicans and Democrats – you have position based solely on the media narrative, and seem unaware of the actual facts.
Fabius,
Have you read the articles posted here that show the ongoing and increasing discrepancy between model predictions and reality? They clearly show that the models are NOT accurate assessments of fact.
Would you agree with Richard Feynman that “”It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”? THAT is the scientific method – and in the case of AGW theory, the ongoing experiment (AKA reality), is not matching the theory. Therefore, the theory is wrong.
It doesn’t matter what “experts” say. Experts can say anything they want. But, “If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”. Hundreds of scientists wrote to oppose Einstein’s theories, remember? But that didn’t make them right. What made ANYONE right was the agreement of theory and reality.
Elsewhere on this thread we were discussing what could be done. It seems to me that until someone is willing to admit AT LEAST THE POSSIBILITY that AGW theory might not be right, we get nowhere. I agree there are loud and strident voices on both sides, but the loudest, most vitriolic, and least willing to listen are on the alarmist side. And they WILL NOT TALK ABOUT IT. Raise an objection. For that matter, just ask some probing questions. See what reaction you get.
You mention a sick child’s health. Well, let’s use health as an analogy: how many people have suffered and died needlessly thanks to slavish adherence to the low-fat low-cholesterol dogma that the “experts” told us was right for so many decades? A position that was backed not by science, but by organizations and individuals pushing an agenda. It wasn’t until the success of ‘fad’ diets like Atkins that any serious study was done – and guess what was found? The whole thing was a myth.
(I’ll admit oversimplification but the details are too much to go into here)
When Steve says “I think not”, he is referring to the comparisons I mentioned earlier. Comparisons admitted to even by the IPCC. What does it matter what the “experts” say when reality proves the theory wrong? Do we continue to follow the “experts” over the cliff, destroying ourselves in the process?
What is needed in the public policy debate, that you are so concerned about, is for people to stop with the doom-mongering and to pay attention to reality. But you’re trying to decouple that from the scientific debate on the one hand, and then you cite the “experts” on the other – you can’t do that. The public policy debate and the scientific debate are intricately linked. And the heart of it is the scientific debate: If you are debating public policy based on false facts, the debate itself is pointless.
I’ve been paying attention to this subject for quite some time now. While you are right that there are strident voices on both sides, I see much more openness to honest debate on the skeptic side than on the alarmist. How about we get people to actually be willing to debate the subject at all, instead of just screaming ‘D-NIER’ and calling names? What is your suggestion for opening that dialog?
Because until that happens, you achieve nothing toward your stated end. All you get is a bunch of D’s saying “save the world from Climate Change” and a bunch of R’s saying “It’s not real”, and nobody ever listens.
Tony,
“Have you read the articles posted here that show the ongoing and increasing discrepancy between model predictions and reality?”
More relevant is to ask if you have read the large peer-reviewed literature validating the models? A question cannot be accurately resolved by looking at one side of the debate.
But that is how the cacophony that is the policy debate about climate runs. As time rolls on the two sides have come to more closely resemble one another — both too certain in their beliefs to test them. Both has their lists of evil doers who should not be read, only mocked or denounced.
Hence the gridlock. Eventually the weather will resolve it, perhaps painfully. The only certainty is that both sides will blame their partner in this dance if there is a bad outcome. We should put “it’s not my fault” on the dollar. it seems to describe us better than “e pluribus unum.”
“More relevant is to ask if you have read the large peer-reviewed literature validating the models? A question cannot be accurately resolved by looking at one side of the debate.”
Neither can it be resolved by ignoring or dismissing one side, which is what you just did. Not only did you dismiss my specific question without an answer, while assuming facts not in evidence about my own knowledge of the subject, but you also completely ignored everything else I said beyond that one point (all of which addressed your ‘rebuttal’ in advance of it)
I have tried to engage in an honest dialog, but your response indicates to me that you are not really interested in one. You have your own position and are unwilling to open yourself to a contradictory point of view. This is not science, this is religion. (or better yet, dogma)
You behave as you accuse others of behaving. Perhaps a little time for introspection?
Wow…let’s examine the “evidence” here shall we? Crunch some numbers? Run an audit?
So far, I count more people here that you have dismissed or offended that I count people who say anything complimentary to you about the article. Without fail, almost EVERY SINGLE ONE of your responses here have been dismissive, factually incorrect, lacking citations that back up your statements, and completely and utterly frustrating to both experience and watch.
This forum is the best, most honest, most accurate “people model” you are ever going to find. Trust us, we all can VOUCH for that. And if this is the way you treat smart, intuitive, logical people then I’m going to make one more prediction for you (my first one here has turned out to be more accurate than ANY climate model you’ve got) you will end up without ANY followers at all, or you’ll find yourself stuck with a small flock of sheep who have to be told what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and then watched constantly in order for anything to get done.
You need to study some PEOPLE Heuristics, because whatever you brought here that you thought was so revolutionary and exciting, isn’t. I’ll be skipping the rest of your series. I wonder how many others have already decided that today.
Well said. I found some tidbits from the article, but looking at material at the Fabius Maximus site, watching their interactions, and seeing the motivations of their article here I am very disappointed.
The Fabius Maximum appears to have a Far Left/Progressive viewpoint – which is ok, they just need to bring facts. But they don’t bring facts, they simply declare anyone who disagrees with them as ‘unhinged’ and imply they are above ‘petty politics’. This is the usual Leftie “I’m right and anyone who disagrees with me is insane”.
What is also surprising is the number of WUWT readers who didn’t bother to check the claims made at Fabius Maximus’ site – which basically said that the view that a significant number of very well-informed WUWT readers is “unhinged”.
Like you, I’m disappointed that WUWT has published this. Not because it presents a different point of view, but that the research is so obviously biased and actually poor quality. Even basic facts like the fact that IPCC summary is at odds with the research sections, that thousands of WMD were found in Iraq (reported by the NYT, not some ‘right wing hate rag’), and that the majority of Muslims want to live under Sharia and citizens only oppose this because they must be racist xenophobes of some sort. Fabius Maximus takes their position as absolute gospel despite not know significant data.
I won’t avoid the rest of the series – I’ll just be looking at it with a skeptical eye and checking all the facts. The answer to bad speech is neither censorship nor avoidance, but responding with good speech and the facts. Like Donald Trump, I’m not afraid to tell the truth 🙂
Continuing the discussion on auditing scientific findings, I was listening to a BBC news program on the car radio about these new elements discovered, which completed the seventh row of the periodic table.
The interviewer asked when these elements will be named. The interviewee stated that after the discovery lab had documented their work, we have to wait till two other competing labs replicate and confirm the discoveries, then it is up to the first lab to start name selections.
How, simple and clear – ‘competing labs confirm the work’!
If only climate science worked in this way, we may have moved much further forwards at a much lower cost.
Unfortunately, Fabius Maximus Editor got Popper backwards. He said scientific hypotheses cannot be proved, only falsified. This is a huge difference. Climate change is not a scientific hypothesis, since it cannot be falsified.
An audit of temperature adjustments should be taken at the same time. Start with plotting the raw data then plot adjusted data and give valid reasons for variances and why adjustments have been made.
Can you quickly summarize the lies leading up to the Iraq war? I don’t remember them. I remember reasons for the war resolution being very different from what the popular consensus seems to be today.
I only remember one instance in the few days before the announcement major combat operation had begun where Bush alluded to a mushroom cloud or some such. I cringed because I thought he shouldn’t be selling the WMD stockpiles angle, it was unlikely Iraq had much for WMD (JIT was the buzzword of the times and well suited for WMDs which have shelf lives) and wasn’t a major factor in the reasoning for the war (non-compliance, the threat he posed to his neighbors and how it suppressed their economies,…).
@aaron chmielewski; thousands of WMD were found. The New York Times said so. You are out of date !
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/world/cia-is-said-to-have-bought-and-destroyed-iraqi-chemical-weapons.html?_r=0
http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/bombshell-new-york-times-reports-wmds-found-iraq/
President Bush DID NOT LIE ! please stop lying about this.
Moa, I’m aware. But it’s irrelevant. It simply wasn’t a big part of the justification for the war.
Moa, I don’t know you at all, but your spunk and tenaciousness and FACT filled posts here today have been a delight and a splash of cool water in a hot, dry, desert. I look forward to engaging with you on other threads, but I think my Fabius Heuristicus just suffered a fatal blow out! :0) I’ve watched him insult too many smart, caring, fabulous people as it is.
That is very kind of you Aphan. Thank you.
I try to do my homework, use the Scientific Method (I have a PhD in Astrophysics and try apply the Scientific Method everywhere these days), keep an open mind to the possibility my current hypothesis may be invalid, and try and disseminate what I’ve learned.
I’m not afraid to push back against the silly and the sinister (both of which I find frequently among those that follow Leftist memes). In fact, it is rather fun to publicly shred their nonsense while informing other people of the facts. So I ain’t a shrinking violet afraid of a scrap 🙂
So hail, and well met. I look forward to learning from, and with, you – and putting what truth I know out there despite the jamming from the Collectivists who have an insatiable lust for the fruits of our labor and most of all for more POWER.
It wasn’t just stockpiles, WMDs also involved programs to develop such stockpiles. Mothballed WMD programs were found. Ready to be reactivated when the pressure was off.
Correct, and well said.
It is amazing how far the Statist Collectivist propaganda distorts the factual history even a decade on. Mind you, they were sewing massive amounts of disinformation (which has a technical meaning, see “Disinformation” by Lt Gen Ion Mihai Pacepa) at the very time – all to undermine the efforts of the West to spread Individual Liberty (which Collectivist cannot stand, as it blocks their move to an utopia – which looks like North Korea, although they don’t seem to be able to figure that part out).
Minor nit:
Sowing is what you do when you put seeds into the ground, and is what you meant.
Sewing is what you do when you use needle and thread to connect two pieces of fabric.
I remember engaging with DD on crooked timber in the past. He’s delusional and dishonest.
aaron,
I do not believe he is delusional. He has strong political views, as do many of us.
As for dishonest — after 38 years in the finance biz (and a decade as an arbitrator), I can say that I’ve met few saints. No Marquess of Queensbury rules out there. Survival means assuming everybody you meet is a crook (and they too often are). It does bad things to our ethics.
But I’m told that’s true in many fields these days.
D^2’s post is more like adjusting the historical record to fit a hindcast.
It certainly is the reasonable default position when engaging a state-sponsored climate modeler…
aaron,
That’s an interesting analogy. Can you point to or describe the post? (I understand if it’s lost to memory; I don’t well recall much of what I read yesterday).
That will be a tough one. I have pain issues and shouldn’t do too much digging in the internet, but maybe the mood will strike me at time I can play around with look back.
I did some google searches of crooked timber and didn’t find any exchanges with dsquared. I only found a few of my comments near the end of 2006 and some after.
I thought I was active there earlier, but it is all hazy.
Exchanges may have been on other blogs, perhaps janegalt.net, chicagoboyz, econlog, volokh, uss clueless…
Did find some old climate comments. Can’t believe the co2 reduction mob has been getting away with the same crap for decades now.
http://crookedtimber.org/2007/02/14/charlie-brown-and-the-football/#comment-186975
http://crookedtimber.org/2006/11/06/parallel-universe-quiz/#comment-177895
http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/2967.html
My bullshit detectors are picking up “political correctness”. Emotion and concern where none are required.
Nothing to do with right or left.
Davies points out that liars should not be trusted. Philip Tetlock points out that even honest experts’ predictions are no better than those of a dart-throwing monkey. Such predictions include scientists’ hypotheses. Tetlock’s work is exhaustive, extensive, and pretty darn bullet-proof.
CAGW is a chain of hypotheses. If we assign a 50% probability (ie. dart-throwing monkey) to each link in the chain, the probability that the whole chain is accurate is about zero (even if we are being generous).
CommieBob,
Everything I’ve seen from Tetlock about the sciences is about what he calls the “soft” sciences: aka the social sciences. Can you point to something by him with that message about the physical sciences?
Most of the physical sciences rest on a “chain of hypotheses”, yet they work far better than any dart-throwing monkey.
Whatever led you to suggest Climatology might be a “physical science?
Or science of any kind?
The post title “Insights about predictions can unlock the climate change debate”
What debate? And when did this debate occur?”
Projections or predictions?
30 years of hype and zero measurement of mans impact on climate, separate from natural variations.
The CO2 magic gasser meme is fading away, the correlations are negative now.
And mounting evidence of Policy Based Evidence manufacturing, at the bequest of these very same “policy makers” you feel must make decisions while still uncertain.
The bogus certainty of the Team IPCC ™ is one of the major problems of climate policies.
Second only to deliberately vague terms.
What is this Climate Change?
Care to define your terms?
When you say climate,what definition are you using?
Sorry fabius editor but you do sound like an apologist for group deception, trying to bargain for a better self image.
Political Left Right, is all rubbish.
Parasites want to feed for free, big government schemes or UN CAGW, all good.
Good ways to rob the many to enrich the well connected.
There will be no “Better Policy” until our elected and appointed elites become terrified of the people they freeload upon and fear the end of their free ride.
Tetlock’s experiments did not involve physical scientists but he did not give them a pass on the same foibles that infest the social scientists (and the rest of society for that matter).
He clearly recognizes that physical science can be tainted by ideology.
The 50% probability I used is what statistics allows you to use if you don’t have a basis for a better number. For the statement, “electrons exist” I would assign nearly 100% certainty. For the statement “we accurately know the density of Ununtrium” I would assign nearly 0%. YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary) 🙂
CAGW is not a chain of hypotheses, it is a chain of lies aligned with enhanced statist control powered by vast wealth extracted at gunpoint, perpetuated by the greed of an endless gravy-train and protected by compliant media philosophically aligned with the statist elite.
Hansen in 88, Santer in 95, Mann in 98 and the Nobel lies of oil and strip mining tycoon Gore – to highlight some doozies. The evidence is clear of the subjugation of peer-review and FOIA processes during this period in deference to “the cause”. It is now apparent these same charlatans are repeatedly altering historical climate records, in each case nonsensically cooling the past and warming current records.
There is NO evidence that the warming since the LIA is dangerous or human caused. Global proxies demonstrate current temperatures are well below multiple periods during this interglacial. The statist models have been falsified- dramatically overstating warming and failing to reflect 18 years without warming.
Meanwhile, tens of billions of dollars flow annually from working Americans to statist coffers. Globally the price of this tragedy is far greater, with nearly a billion truly poor denizens of Gaia lacking clean water…
Sadly, the author seems to be ignorant of these truths.
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” – George Orwell
These people are, literally, Orwellian.
About those railroads. James J. Hill built the Great Northern RR with no land grants and private capital. Avril Harriman and Otto Kahn of Kuhn Loeb reorganized the failing RR including the Union Pacific with private capital.
The GN was built very slowly over time from roughly 1879-1889 — running from MN to WA. It was one of the last of the 19thC transcontinental RRs, and the only privately funded one.
The first being completed in 1869, and others in the next few decades. America grew rapidly because the government rapidly built the infrastructure that let it grow. It takes amazing amnesia to ignore this.
Fulfilling one of the two defined roles of our federal government- facilitating interstate commerce. The other is protecting our nation. Extracting resources from my family to pay for protected sex for law students is an example of how far “off the tracks” we’ve gone…
“…companies which do not audit completed projects in order to see how accurate the original projections were, tend to get exactly the forecasts and projects that they deserve. Companies which have a culture where there are no consequences for making dishonest forecasts, get the projects they deserve. Companies which allocate blank cheques to management teams with a proven record of failure and mendacity, get what they deserve.”
Is someone teaching people to put a comma after a subject clause? Or is it simply that the internet is revealing just how widespread ignorance of punctuation is?
I don’t think they teach diagraming of sentences or punctuation anymore period.
Perhaps, he muses parenthetically, it is a missing comma rather than an extra one?
This is one of most crap texts i have read in WWUT.
– There were WMD in Iraq while the link in website said None.
– I don’t see anything that predicts failure in Iraq. Btw what is failure in Iraq?
Is Iraq hostile to USA like Saddam Regime?
The only salvation is that at least is not, not even wrong. Can be falsified. And it is false.
Fabius Maximus
Catastrophic global warming (CGW) agitprop was replaced by more ‘friendly’ sounding Catastrophic climate change agitprop and now there attempts to move towards the Catastrophic environmental change agitprop.
Names may mutate from one to the next but the agitation and propaganda is the fundamental to the process.
vukcevic,
“the agitation and propaganda is the fundamental to the process.”
Yes. Activists (including activist scientists) took control of and dominated the public policy debate. Which is imo the primary reason it has failed despite so much effort over 27 years.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08/17/how-we-broke-the-climate-change-debates-lessons-learned-for-the-future/
Ed,
“Yes. Activists (including activist scientists) took control of and dominated the public policy debate. Which is imo the primary reason it has failed despite so much effort over 27 years.”
To my mind (such as it is ; ) you seem to have generated a very tricky rhetorical split right there . . What is the “it” that you feel has failed?
To me, it’s like there was a mugger that tried to take a woman’s purse, and she held on to it despite some blows being thrown at her . . and you are describing that as the failure of a debate . . rather than a successful resistance to money changing hands as the mugger wished . .
Well said. Please visit the links in the article to the Fabius Maximus site. There you will see that the authors think that anyone who doesn’t agree with the “majority of IPCC climate scientists” is “unhinged”.
These people are like the Muslim “interfaith” outreach – it all goes one way. Fabius Maximus pleads for constructive dialog, but calls you “unhinged” if you don’t agree with the IPCC’s CAGW.
These people are just sly about their motives – and stunningly poorly informed. They need to listen to US, not the other way around. But they are so convinced they are ‘morally superior’ for being above partisanship – all the while they are criticizing us for disputing the mugging and the mugger’s motives.
I’m really disappointed with WUWT for putting this up. Not because it is an alternative point-of-view, which would be welcome when backed with data, but because Fabius Maximus is ignorant of many facts (looking at their website’s memes, which are Far Left and denying well-known facts). This article is a subtle propaganda move for us to shift to the narrative of the mugger – all the while ignoring the facts we know about it which invalidate the mugger’s claimed reason for mugging.
John,
The public policy debate about climate change has failed because we are unprepared
… not just for almost certain climate change (e.g., seas have been rising for millennia (Sandy showed NYC’s preparations for a big storm were almost nil),
…but also for the inevitable return of past extreme weather (hurricanes of the size that hit NYC in the 20th C)..
That’s simple prudence, of the sort that distinguishes great nations from 3rd world nations. That’s failure to agree on measures that should command broad support. But both sides are having such fun!
Ed,
“The public policy debate about climate change has failed because we are unprepared ”
The “debate” has only been about CO2 causing global warming, it seems to me sir . . no one I am aware of has resisted/protested things like a city preparing for possible flooding . . The very fact that you play such “shell games” with the central issue of the “public policy debate” in question, causes me to see you as a con artist, frankly.
Visit the Fabius Maximus site. This is a complete con, all the while pretending that it is above ‘petty partisanship’. But when you visit their site you see that they call anyone who is skeptical of the IPCC AR5 conclusions as “unhinged”.
It is hard to know whether Fabius Maximus is deluded (since they are ignorant of important facts) or dishonest. Either way, they’d be better off putting the megaphone down and *listening* until they are up to speed.
ps. for non-English readers, ‘con’ is a ‘confidence trick’, used by scammers to steal or manipulate.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/05/tragic-winter-weather-in-europe-doesnt-fit-the-mannian-narrative/#comment-885438
[excerpt]
Let’s talk predictive track record.
None of the IPCC’s scary predictions of runaway global warming have materialized.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/10/09/are-we-chasing-imaginary-numbers/#comment-2047103
[excerpt]
One’s predictive track record is an objective measure of one’s technical competence, and based on its negative predictive track record, the IPCC has NO credibility.
‘Both Left and Right in America have learned that their followers lack skepticism’
Lefty projection.
This whole rhetorical concoction is a confluence of LW projection and LW lies. This guy still doesn’t get it- CAGW is a LW construct DEVOID of any scientific evidence. Which is why, accurately, conservatives don’t buy the crap and we’re tired of paying for it.
BTW Ed, you are aware it was the Clinton Admin that linked Saddam and Al Qaeda and the potential dangers posed by the delivery of WMD to the terrorist group?
Here are the “two sides” of the “debate”: One side – the Climatists uses lies to promote their Greenie ideology.
The other side – the Skeptics/Climate Realists just want the truth about climate. There is no level playing field here. The Climate Liars have had all the power. The truth is winning out, slowly, but it has been an uphill battle.
I would like to return to the opening paragraphs of the subject article. It seems to me that not enough attention is being paid to the temperature record from 1880 to the present. That record seems to be sending a message about our past temperatures and what we can expect in the future. A perusal of that record seems to reveal a predictable pattern of temperature change. It shows alternating periods of warming and pauses in warming that are about thirty years in duration. Thus an observer in the 1980’s or 1990’s, after studying the the available global temperature record, might well have predicted that another pause in warming would probably begin shortly after the year 2000. Taking into consideration that climatologists believe we entered a longer range 500 year warming period beginning around 1850, the observer could also conclude that we would probably see the beginning of another thirty year period of warming beginning when the current pause ends around the year 2030. If, in fact, the changeover from pause to warming does occur at that time then maybe more import will be given to the global temperature record as a predictor. Hopefully the officials charged with maintaining that record will not have been politically corrupted to the point that they distort the record and end its usefulness. One more thing. I find it hard to accept that the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere at 400 PPM is at all effective at slowing the heat loss from the Earth’s surface. That level of carbon dioxide is more like a flimsy veil then a heat blanket. A gas that represents one part of 2500 parts of air is an extremely small essence not a global climate change giant.
That’s a good point. But I think the best perspective so far is the 10000 year view from the Holocene Climatic Optimum.
Jo Nova has a wonderful visualization of the data, here:
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/gisp-last-10000-new.png
Puts everything to perspective, doesn’t it ? 🙂
my new favorite commenter: Moa
perspicacious, logical, literate.
make room on the bench, DB.
Haha, I’m humbled. Actually, I learned much from you guys.
The Free World can win against these Collectivist scumbags – and thanks to my fellow netizens I’m locked and loaded with lots of FACTS 🙂
Thanks to your all – and to you gnomish for the kind words of encouragement.
Yes, it does. It gives a telling idea of how overblown is much of the concern about our current temperature change. Especially when one considers that Man has lived through much warmer periods.
Not just lived through, but prospered during.
Do any document the Left’s similar misrepresentation of climate science
Do any document the Left’s similar misrepresentation of climate science?
Bill Everett said”I would like to return to the opening paragraphs of the subject article. It seems to me that not enough attention is being paid to the temperature record from 1880 to the present.”
The subject article does not discuss the temperature record at all, not in the opening paragraphs, not any where. It barely talks about climate at all, so returning to it serves what purpose?
Thanks for all you have done (and will do) to further truth, Anthony. However, I’m not sure what is accomplished by the publication of a litany of LW constructs starkly contradicted by reality at every turn. The links were painful: Bush lied about WMD? Republicans are whacko because they don’t believe the Mann/Hansen/Holdren lies? Sounds like this guy worships the journo-list and lives Lewandowsky.
The best to the WUWT family in 2016 and thanks to the fabulous contributors that have made this site as interesting and informative as anywhere in our cyber library.
Aphan, You make my point. Climate is discussed in the article and there is no interest shown in the record of global temperatures which, I believe, contains information that can allow prediction of future temperature behavior.
Bill Everett said”I would like to return to the opening paragraphs of the subject article. It seems to me that not enough attention is being paid to the temperature record from 1880 to the present.”
I replied-“The subject article does not discuss the temperature record at all, not in the opening paragraphs, not any where. It barely talks about climate at all, so returning to it serves what purpose?”
Bill Everett said-“Aphan, You make my point. Climate is discussed in the article and there is no interest shown in the record of global temperatures which, I believe, contains information that can allow prediction of future temperature behavior.”
Because the FOCUS of the article is not on what constitutes climate, or what can or cannot be proven by climate science/ or the temperature record, or anything else. The author tells us this in the opening paragraphs of the subject article:
“This post applies them [the insights of Daniel Davis] to the public policy debate about climate change; you can use them to provide insights on other intractable problems. This is the another in a series about validating the case for public policy action to fight climate change.”
Returning to the opening paragraphs only proves MY point… the POINT of the article is not CLIMATE, it is something else entirely. You can, and should, make whatever point you wish to about the temperature record from 1880 to the present, and not enough attention being paid to it any time you wish. But since the article isn’t about that, in any way, “what purpose does it serve to return to the opening paragraphs of the article?”
General McChrystal …
was reportedly known for saying and thinking what other military leaders were afraid to.
Regards – Hans