Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Scientist Stephen Hawking wants to find a way to convince people to stop voting for Trump, and to start listening to people like him again, to save the planet from climate change and national borders.
This is the most dangerous time for our planet
Stephen Hawking
We can’t go on ignoring inequality, because we have the means to destroy our world but not to escape it.
As a theoretical physicist based in Cambridge, I have lived my life in an extraordinarily privileged bubble. Cambridge is an unusual town, centred around one of the world’s great universities. Within that town, the scientific community that I became part of in my 20s is even more rarefied.
And within that scientific community, the small group of international theoretical physicists with whom I have spent my working life might sometimes be tempted to regard themselves as the pinnacle. In addition to this, with the celebrity that has come with my books, and the isolation imposed by my illness, I feel as though my ivory tower is getting taller.
So the recent apparent rejection of the elites in both America and Britain is surely aimed at me, as much as anyone. Whatever we might think about the decision by the British electorate to reject membership of the European Union and by the American public to embrace Donald Trump as their next president, there is no doubt in the minds of commentators that this was a cry of anger by people who felt they had been abandoned by their leaders.
…
What matters now, far more than the choices made by these two electorates, is how the elites react. Should we, in turn, reject these votes as outpourings of crude populism that fail to take account of the facts, and attempt to circumvent or circumscribe the choices that they represent? I would argue that this would be a terrible mistake.
The concerns underlying these votes about the economic consequences of globalisation and accelerating technological change are absolutely understandable. The automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining.
…
The consequences of this are plain to see: the rural poor flock to cities, to shanty towns, driven by hope. And then often, finding that the Instagram nirvana is not available there, they seek it overseas, joining the ever greater numbers of economic migrants in search of a better life. These migrants in turn place new demands on the infrastructures and economies of the countries in which they arrive, undermining tolerance and further fuelling political populism.
For me, the really concerning aspect of this is that now, more than at any time in our history, our species needs to work together. We face awesome environmental challenges: climate change, food production, overpopulation, the decimation of other species, epidemic disease, acidification of the oceans.
…
See, if we don’t start listening to our betters again, elite globalists like Stephen Hawking, we fools will destroy the world.
Beyond parody.
Is that an opinion or a dare?
You can do it Brad,
I will be tuning into the climate at Nuremberg To find out what happens.
Brad how can you resist, man? That’s what they call low-hanging super fruit! It’s scientifically formulated for maximum satire!
> how can you resist, man?
I can’t. : – (
CN is fairly quiet these days, BTW; the action has moved to cliscep.
Knowing what is in a black hole via a theory cannot feed and school someone in Ethiopia nor tell us what is actually in the black hole. Reducing rent seeking via big government, dictators, corruption, education without outcome or need, money printing and financial scamming will help poor people as the world will be able to afford the time and funding to achieve it. Such poor may well be in a suburb next door to Cambridge.
People who claim to fix things (real or not) that can destroy our planet are invariably elitists. If they make constant claims or receive awards to show their superiority without empirically delivering a result or even an incremental success they cannot expect any reasonable person to pay them attention. They only degrade the awards they receive.
Today’s elitist may well be the cause of poverty. Not the solution.
+1
I stumbled on this article yesterday. As soon as I read “ocean acidification”, I lost all respect for Stephen Hawking.
“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”
― Epictetus
Oxford is an echo chamber and the most susceptible to seduction by “arguments from authority”. See Theophilus Painter and the mysterious 24th chromosome.
Of course, as there are about seven different models for black holes and none of them really fit the observed Universe, his black holes could very well not exist. Big Bang physicists pointedly ignore these details and talk about black holes as a given. So, why is it that all red shifting of light observed from other stars and galaxies is due to recession/Doppler effect and that black holes are completely driven by gravity, which also red shifts light? They pointedly ignore that a star’s or galaxy’s gravity can also red shift light, making the Doppler effect irrelevant, and only let gravity do this at black holes. When gravity is taken into account, quasars become object localized to specific galaxies and appear to be produced by galaxies.
When red shift by gravity is allowed, the Big Bang becomes a flawed model and the many band aids that have been applied to the model start to show. The observable Universe does not support the Big Bang. In addition, quantum mechanics also rejects the Big Bang and black holes. Einstein rejected black holes, Oppenheimer rejected black holes, and now even NASA is saying they do not exist.
So, we are supposed to believe a scientist who clearly should understand the real science behind CO2’s supposed role in our climate? Is he ignorant of this area of science? Or should be assume that he knows the truth and is pushing the globalist agenda, being a global socialist himself?
It would be hard, after so many years of “studying” the failed Big Bang model, to admit to being wrong. How to untangle one’s mind from the fantastical dark matter, dark force, and dark energy that were invented to make this model work. There’s a billion dollar industry built around trying to find and understand dark things that do not exist. Dark Physics is not needed with a Steady State Universe (the model that preceded the Big Bang model) and virtually everything we observe can be explained with science that we already know. Dark Physics simply evaporates, being the phantasm that it is.
Big Bang “theory” is now a scam just like the billion dollar industry that pushes Lipitor and statin drugs, aiming to lower our blood cholesterol while having no effect on heart disease at all, even with the resulting lowered cholesterol. However, as liver toxins designed to poison cholesterol biosynthesis by the liver, statins cause liver failure and liver cancer as well as fatigue, weakness and dozens of other side effects. Do they really think our livers make cholesterol to hurt us? Cholesterol is indeed a healing chemical that our body uses to heal damage caused by our high carbohydrate/high polyunsaturated oil diet. We should heed the implications of the real world observation that males with high cholesterol tend to live longest.
“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”
~ H. L. Mencken
Geoff @December 3, 2016 11:52 pm:
To your excellent comment I would add only that the ‘pure science’ communities are actually harming themselves by throwing in with the rent-seeking elitists. They would, in the long run, be more secure if voluntarily financed by a broad range of private supporters, and those supporters would have much greater means to do so absent all the statist impediments to wealth creation. Also, getting away from single point of funding, so to speak, would substantially reduce vulnerability to consensus driven, self-reinforcing error cascades – which by no means afflict only climate science.
Perhaps I am reading Hawking incorrectly but I think he is making an appeal to his fellow elites to not dismiss The Contemptible out of hand but to listen to our concerns. He does lose the argument ending with the climate change and ocean acidification as givens that we should all muster behind.
Higley,
Black holes have been observed, so they do indeed exist. And not just via the gravity waves created by their collision, as recently, but directly, thanks to spin:
http://www.seeker.com/spinning-black-hole-observed-for-the-first-time-1767260178.html
Not to mention gravity lensing observations or the behavior of objects in the vicinity of a black hole, which allows inference as to mass.
Nor does the existence of black holes require the Big Bang Theory, although it too is well supported by observations.
A few years ago, Hawkins did an interview in which he worried that if we don’t stop releasing CO2, the Earth will turn into another Venus.
Hawkins is a perfect example of someone who is an world class expert in one field, and a world class idiot in all other fields.
higley7: Not sure where you are going with that red shift by black holes. Any mass would have some red shift for light from or passing its surface. Outside the mass, the gravity is not somehow increased for a black hole. The gravity will be the same as for any such mass as though it comes from the center of mass. It is a matter of how close you can get to that center of mass without entering the mass itself as to the effects seen. No reason to discard the useful Doppler shift.
“I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.”
Richard Feynman, another Nobel Prize winner
Malcolm
My comment aligns with yours.
“…reject these votes as outpourings of crude populism.”
Yeah well, Dr Hawkins, perhaps there is something else going on.
It is the coastal bubble people who are projecting their prejudices on the deplorable. I note that crude populism is what the elite calls it, it is not the deplorables who say that. The elite media is trying to define their opposition rather than listening to them. It is so unfortunate this continues following the election where it caused the media to think they could “create” the result they wanted.
The upside is that the realization they are deeply disconnected from ordinary people is sinking in.
I agree. I call them the Parasite Class. They live off the wealth created by others. They create no wealth. If it were that they just sucked the wealth from others, that may not be a threat, but a large part of this Parasite Class are wealth destroyers. Stopping climate change, what an absurd use of those words, is the cover for “negative growth” and “de-industrialization”, which is wealth destruction. Just the way the old clergy lived off the toil of others, this new clergy does as well in the new monasteries we call universities.
Hawkings convinced everybody decades ago that black holes had to have a singularity at the center. Then he says he had to spend a decade convincing everybody that he was wrong. Now, IIR, he is trying to convince other physicists that there are no black holes in the classical sense of having an event horizon.
This is all theoretical stuff based on no evidence. On what basis should I accept anything he has to say politically or with respect to earth science where he is swimming in the same waters as the AGW crowd.
And in a way it is beyond tragic. Hawking has been off his ivory tower, in my eyes, for quite some time but for him to plunge this deep is a little heartbreaking but far too common. I think T. Sowell discusses this in his book, Intellectuals and Society.
This nonsense came via Gruniad. One truly can’t stoop any lower.
Pity.
“ Hawking has been off his ivory tower, in my eyes, for quite some time … ”
Right you are.
Now I had been an admirer of Stephen Hawking for many years but that admiration began to fade about thirty (30) years ago and has pretty much degraded to ZERO, zilch, nada, none during the past ten (10) years.
And it is all because Hawking has forsaken his once great mental attributes of common sense thinking, logical reasoning and intelligent deductions ……. to become part n’ parcel with/to the socio-political lefty-liberal socialistic mindset of Academia.
Such as, to wit:
Quoting from above: Stephen Hawking
Horsepucky on his claim that automation decimated traditional manufacturing jobs.
It was labor’s demands for yearly increases in wages & entitlements ….. and government’s demands for yearly increases in taxation and compliance to/with “new” rules & regulations …… that forced manufacturers to automate their manufacturing or production facilities.
Still quoting Hawking:
Such silliness, ….. probably because Hawking has been drinking far too much of the “AI Kool Aide” being offered to him. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) that they are referring to will NEVER come to pass in their lifetimes.
If they don’t understand what animal intelligence actually is, …… how it is nurtured ……. or how it functions, ……… they can’t very well reproduce it in an electronic controlled device.
Quoting Stephen Hawking from his AI link:
And just what is …… “the rapid pace of AI development” ….. that they are talking about their research has achieved?
Theoretical physicist? Is that another term for Dreamer? All the action is in his head. This is not meant as an insult, but as a possible explanation. I have worked with people of focused brilliance. In a certain area of science they had few equals. When they found themselves out of their area of brilliance basic concepts seemed to elude them. I have worked with such people, which has brought me to the conclusion that intelligence is often directional. In short smart here, not so much there. One should not discount cases of the big head (Ego).
I seem to have slipped a gear and was a bit redundant. Sorry
Flyover Bob, my experience is the same. The only explanation I can think of (other than: 1) cynical corruption for money; OR 2) blackmail….. Hey! Maybe that letter is a cry for help!!!!) is that the sometimes ludicrous failure to think rationally/logically by those who are very brilliant in some areas of intelligence is that their success in those areas caused mind-choking Pride.
“Knowledge puffs up… .” I. Corinthians 8:1.
Living proof….you can over think anything
Samuel C Cogar, December 4, 2016 at 6:14 am
You and Stephen are both right and wrong. His statement regarding automation is correct, your statement about union demands driving wages beyond all reason is also correct. Where you are incorrect is the jobs lost due to those union demands were going away as automation was becoming an economically viable option. Union action made the people economically non-viable sooner. Stephen made the common mistake of labeling the effect as the cause.
Does hawking even know that “decimated” means reduced to one-tenth? Where are his supporting statistics?
Fly over Bob — I disagree with that sentiment, too. Increases in automation do not “cost jobs”. This is the same fallacy discussed over a hundred years ago during the industrial revolution. Back then, it was assumed that the improvements in automation made it impossible to have full employment ever again. They were wrong.
Any technology that increases the productivity of one hour of labor, creates jobs. There may be some significant perturbations in the economy as this shift takes place — but after the dust clears, there should be more jobs.
What costs jobs is ways the government policies make one hour of labor more costly than it would otherwise be. The most obvious example is employer provided health insurance. Since this is tied directly to hiring, then industry has a significant incentive to hire employees in other nations. Other costs include excessive regulations and policies — in our case, these policies favor financial manipulation over production gains.
The effect of labor is much more difficult to gauge. During the 1970s, labor became too powerful — these costs drove manufacturing away. Now, outside of government employees, the effect of labor is negligible. It would be easier to argue that the power of corporations over labor is a more significant factor at repressing job creation.
The government’s role shouldn’t be to favor one over the other. Their role should be to ensure a free and fair exchange of goods and services (including labor.)
Pop Piasa — Does hawking even know that “decimated” means reduced to one-tenth?
With all due respect: decimated means reduced by one-tenth.
The problem is that it means both senses. Steven Jay Gould had an expostion on how the usage had changed, from the old Roman punishment of execution of a tenth of a mutinous legion to reduced to one tenth. He was a historian of science, and did read Latin, so. . .
He “climbed” off his ivory tower many years ago when he started endorsing products (how much CO2 does a Jaguar put into the air) and appearing on TV shows (the recent episode of “The Big Bang Theory” comes to mind). I’ve been wondering for many years how much of that miracle talking computer and well controlled wheelchair is him, and how much of it is somebody treating us to a high-tech version of “Weekend at Bernie’s”.
I don’t recall who first said it, but if there’s artificial intelligence, there’s also got to be artificial stupidity.
One suspects, given the paucity of the real first and the prolixity of the real second, that artificial stupidity is what should really caution us.
Case in point: climate models. In this case potentiated by real stupidity.
Trapped in Davis
I’m a big fan of big bang. I think Hawking took a little step off the tower, allowing some humor with his “character”. Of course I’ve had to suck it up a little with appearances by Nye and DeGrassi. However, the best guest is and always will be Newhart.
Any case, what I wonder is, Hawking, having spent all the time and effort to study and understand the equations/theories, does this embed a confirmation bias? And if I use any more commas in a poorly structured sentence will it cause a black hole?
“””””….. The automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing …..”””””
Well it’s a bit late to be discovering that.
I thought that Henry Ford already showed how ” manufacturing ” could make goods available much more efficiently than could the handiwork of traditional craftsmen.
All that has happened to change that is that the wide availability of computers has enabled better organization of the manufacturing processes. The result is not only lower costs and higher productivity, but vastly improved product consistency.
Computerized Robots, don’t know about Monday mornings or Friday afternoons.
A recent ” Economist ” article decries the lower productivity in some Chinese factories; I believe a 35% lower rate than Western factories is mentioned.
The quality hasn’t suffered from that. But the Chinese simply cannot afford to have 95% of their people unemployed. So they can tolerate a lower productivity, to keep moe persons gainfully employed.
If you took your shiny new Caterpillar bulldozer tractor to Mexico to help them fix their roads, it would likely get rejected at the border.
But if you arrived with a semi trailer loaded with shiny new shovels; well now you really have something they can use to fix the roads, because they have plenty of people who know how to use a shovel, and far fewer who can run a bulldozer.
G
Pop P
Surely ‘decimated’ means reduced by one-tenth.
Auto
neoteny
Sorry.
I should have checked.
Your kudos.
Auto, late on a Sunday night.
Flyoverbob -December 4, 2016 at 7:29 am
Flyoverbob, I spent 30+- years of my working career directly involved in Design Engineering and Manufacturing of computers and their peripheral devices.
Steven Hawking has spent 60+- years, ….. or about 90% of his lifetime, ….. in pretty much seclusion on a college campus …… dreaming about “how the universe probably works”.
And ps, …… Flyoverbob, …… automation only becomes a “viable option” when the “cost-of-production (doing business)” increases to the point that there is very little to no “profit” to be made from the sale of the “goods” produced.
“ Employment in bituminous (coal mining) peaked at 705,000 men in 1923, falling to 140,000 by 1970 and 70,000 in 2003.”
F-o-b, ….. how much would a “ton-of-coal” cost today …. if there were still 705,000 coal miners employed …….. and all of them demanding circa 2016 Union wages and entitlements?
I find it interesting when people disparage AI and automation developments. Not like we’ve had powerful computers for all that long, but relatively complex tasks are already being automated. Besides, not like the average manufacturing job requires remarkable skills, so many are subject to automation. Likewise much white collar work.
I haven’t even touched on self-driving vehicles. The disruption that will caused by the latter is enormous, just by itself. I don’t see why people will be allowed to drive themselves, except in extraordinary circumstances, within a couple decades, as the vast majority of human drivers will be significantly inferior to the automated ones.
You don’t have to be a wide-eyed futurist to see that massive disruption is coming soonish (next couple decades), and there aren’t enough gig-jobs to go around after that.
@ Bulldust – December 5, 2016 at 4:55 pm
There is a big, big, big, BIG difference between AI development and automation developments.
And that BIG difference is akin to …… creating a computer “modeling program” for a self-driving vehicle ……. and creating a computer “modeling program” for correctly predicting climate change for several years in the future or for correctly forecasting weather conditions for several weeks in advance. Or even something far less complicated like correctly predicting the actual path of a mid-Atlantic hurricane approaching the East coast of the US.
So stateist: Bulldust …………
I agree with your above but not for the same reasons you are thinking.
Four (4) or five (5) “self-driving” vehicles on less traveled streets or roads ….. or in heavy multilane-traffic will probably do just fine. But as their numbers begin increasing and approaching the 30% to 50% of all vehicles travelling in said “heavy multilane-traffic” ………. then the “traffic flow” will quickly become disrupted and slow down to “snail’s pace” if not a complete “STOP”.
Sam: I have no idea why you are comparing AI with climate modelling … I went nowhere near the topic. Also, what evidence do you have that self-driving cars would halt traffic in general? We have plenty evidence showing humans do (even on a simple circular circuit), but none that automated vehicles will … I simply don’t follow your line of reasoning. I am more interested in AI development in areas which suit computers. Watson becoming the best diagnostic oncologist, or Google AI trouncing the world’s best at Go, etc. These aren’t mere tricks or gimmicks, these are significant advances.
@ Bulldust -December 7, 2016 at 4:51 pm
Bulldust, you are exactly right, ….. “ you went nowhere near the topic”, ….. and that is why you are exactly wrong about and/or with you “thinking n’ reasoning” concerning the potential development of AI.
And I wasn’t actually “comparing” AI with climate modelling, but on the contrary, I was trying to get you to comprehend the FACT that the creating of a computer based “electronic” Artificial Intelligence System (AI) is at least ten (10) times more complex of a task than the development of a Climate Modelling Computer Program that can actually hindcast or forecast earth’s climate.
Bulldust also askith:
Bulldust, iffen 40% or 50% of the vehicles in this picture of LA traffic were automated “self driving”, ……just what the ell do you think would happen with the “traffic flow”? To wit:
Source link: https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/
Shur nuff, Bulldust, ….. those are significant advances, …….. but significant advances in microprocessor speeds, …… significant advances in the “word size” that the microprocessor can function with, …… significant advances in the quantity of easily accessible “on-line” data storage, …… significant advances in the design and use of computer algorithms, etc., etc., ……… but little to NO significant advances in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Bulldust, the prima facie definition of “intelligence” and/or “Artificial Intelligenc” is: “the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.”
Complete Stupidity Worrall and, are you Sure, You are from other than Swine or its definition?
“See, if we don’t start listening to our betters again, elite globalists like Stephen Hawking, we fools will destroy the world.”
YOU Pitiful Fool!
Grow the F UP!!!
(The “elite” strike back, Eric . . never forget that ; )
JohnKnight,
Is Anthoney long in tooth, allows fools to post these days?
(I know, folks . . but the Lord is my Shepard . . ; )
Well, I’ve never had any problem posting, J McClure . .
A response, from down here below, Mr. Hawking et al
I’m a human man
but you treat me like a mule
I’ve got a hair trigger
and you’re callin’ me a fool
I’ve got twenty twenty
and you’re acting like I’m blind
I’m a hunter to the bone
there ain’t nothin’ I can’t find
I’m a human man,
but you do no know my name
I walk beneath the sun
saw you comin’ as you came
You’ve got reason for the reasons
for the reasons that you give
You walk beneath the moon
where the shadow creatures live
I’m a human man
But you cannot hear my voice
Just the echoes of the echos
of your long forgotten choice
You called the darkness holy
and crowned the silence king
But nothing is revealed
when you bow before this thing
I’m a human man
but you only see a ghost
A flickering disturbance
within the in within your host
Like mirror facing mirror
keeping light itself in chains
By your hollow dreaming
human man dream self disdains
With scientists fearing that sea levels could rise at up to 0.01mm per week, it’s the quadruplegic who will be the hardest-drowned by climate change.
Goudsmit Kramers! You really know the way to accelerate a Wheeler-chair!
Thus I’ll pass you this medal ‘for the masterpiece of polite scolding’
And all the while he is saying they haven’t been lying to me, have they? Not for money surely! blaach, I just vomited!
I think the space aliens beamed him (Hawking) up already. He’s talking via an avatar. Like Obama, his speeches contain lots of first person, i.e. no understanding of the hinterlands, fly-over country, the working stiff paying bills on a job that might end tomorrow, the single mom trying to keep her kids in school and fed. Humanity is an abstraction to the Hawking, the Global elitists, the gubment climatist scientists who feed from the trough.
Here on Planet Earth, truth still matters. Go F yourself Hawking boy.
I suspect that Hawking, like Attenborough, has passed his use-by date
IMLO, ….. it was a dastardly mistake on your part to associate the scientific brilliance of Attenborough ………. with the socialistic Academic ignorant mimicry of Hawking.
The two should not be equated. I cannot believe this quote by Hawking: “So the recent apparent rejection of the elites in both America and Britain is surely aimed at me, as much as anyone.”
He really thinks Brexit and Mr Trump’s election are aimed at him? Wow he is way out of touch with reality and has the biggest ego I have encountered.
No Sam Kogar, Attenborough insists, these days, on spouting AGW dogma more regularly than Old Faithful, in Yellowstone, spouts hot water.
Ray Boorman – December 4, 2016 at 6:15 pm
I checked, …… you are right, …….. my BAD, ……. and I apologize for my hastily posted remark.
Without first checking, I was assuming that the “badmouthing” of David Attenborough was a result of his publicly stated opinion in agreement with Elaine Morgan’s Aquatic Ape Theory of human origin.
Read more here: http://www.primitivism.com/aquatic-ape.htm
He needs to get out more and see the world as it really is, not as it might look from the streets of Cambridge.
…where, in Hawking’s words, “I feel as though my ivory tower is getting taller”. I really doubt there’s any orogeny happening in Cambridge at all.
His brainless acceptance of “global warming” destroys any other academic accomplishment he may have attained.
Hawking uncritically drank the 97% consensus koolaid, as Lew-boy hoped his science contemporaries would.
During my thesis/doctorate work, I had no time to question or investigate climate science alarmist claims. I simply accepted them, because I did not want to or invest the time to investigate it or suspect fellow “scientists” would lie blatantly about it (CO2 AGW hypothesis).
Today, I have taken the time investigate the climate change “science.” I have determined that Climate Change claims are mostly lies or unsupported projections. Climate change is driven by a hustle for grant money by the climatists. The true goal is power to the global socialists. That must end. Now.
black holes matter
indeed Rocky Road. His intellectual credibility was blown completely, when he admitted he believed that.
@joel: Your story parallels my own almost to the letter. Quite a revelation is it not when you first begin to appreciate the yawning abyss of deceit, corruption and voodoo pseudoscience opening up before your astonished gaze like some monstrous vista from a Hieronymus Bosch painting?
I spent 8 years, 2002 to 2010, examining every claim by the warmists and never found a climate change claim that was not a lie, misrepresentation, and altered or cherry-picked data. Along the way I found the real temperatures records and discovered that the big reason not one of the claims was true was that the planet was not warming. Warming effects are simply impossible, if we are not warming. We easily have no warmed since 1997 and have not warmed in any significant way in the atmosphere since 1988. Indeed, the upper proposal troposphere, where the warmist model requires there to be a “hotspot,” has been gently cooling for 30 years. Junk science is what it is and can usually be proven wrong in multiple ways. It is only the faith warmists have in their model that prevents them for listening to the real science. That or they support this junk science because of their socialist/ world government agenda.
Dr. Hawking,
I assure you that I did not have your opinions in mind when I supported Trump.
George Soros’, maybe.
But I’m glad to stick it to you, just the same.
Sincerely,
Chimp
As much as I admire him, he’s just being goofy. I get wholesale email offers of solar panels in the range of $0.30 per watt, and first run panels below $0.50 per watt now. At these prices solar works for almost everyone. And prices continue to drop. We couldn’t stop the transition to renewables if we tried!
Hawking had his day.
Like Einstein, his best science work was early adulthood.
Since then… not so much. Actually.. none.
Science is sans compassion. It is Spock from StarTrek.
Humanity is all about compassion. The Dr. McCoy.
Trying to mix the two leads to false compassion.
The Captain must pick the rational and the emotional response.
That is why our elders do better at humanity, and the youngsters do better at science. And Hawking should return to Vulcan.
Like Einstein, Hawking has apparently determined that because of his knowledge of theoretical physics, he is also the best choice to run the planet. Einstein’s social science opinions were as unbelievably naive as his concept of the physical world was brilliant, and reading them today, one feels embarrassed for him. Hawking’s not far behind.
Maybe it’s because these “celebrity scientists” are so used to questions from the press – “Dr X, now that you’ve plumbed the secrets of the atom, what do you think we should do about world hunger?” I guess both the human impulse to reply to friendly questions, and the flattery of one’s ego leads one to begin to believe his own press clippings, I dunno. But “genius” is always limited in scope as well as focus. Horowitz’ genius was just as patent as Einstein’s (or Hawking’s) yet I wouldn’t expect a virtuoso concert pianist to save the world – even with UNESCO funding.
In the end, it’s the media’s fault for perpetrating this myth of all-knowing “genius.” And ours for swallowing it – along with anything else they publish – without question.
Bill P — It is not “crony Capitalism”. It is “crony socialism”. Eugene WR Gallun
socialism is crony capitalism. They are one in the same.
We couldn’t stop the transition to renewables if we tried!
EXCELLENT! That being the case, governments can just cancel the subsidies, feed in mandates and other artificial supports for renewables. A small surcharge on renewables would, of course, be in order to pay for back up power to be available. So glad to hear that renewables are so cost effective that they can pay their own way!
But…but how would the political class reward their contributors?
It should be obvious by now, especially after eight years of Obama, that “crony capitalism” is the new, improved, compassionate and above all ELITIST capitalism we’ve been waiting for!
It’s that new form of solar energy that gives you 10KWm^-2 instead of only 1 KWm^-2.
We just have to figure out how to tap into the original gravity source of solar energy. That is what is running the universe; not thermo-nuclear fusion.
G
“We couldn’t stop the transition to renewables if we tried!”
What about the batteries?
Why is electricity so expensive the poor can’t afford it when using renewables?
You are right–the batteries are the problem. I have 2 solar homes, one grid tied and one not. The one that is not is a constant drain because the da** batteries are so sensitive–lost them 3 times to moron men (my apologies to all the non-moron men) who thought they understood electricity and “tweaked” the system to work better and blew up the batteries. One was an electrician! Fortunately bonded so I got new batteries, but the point is–everything works pretty well BUT the battery situation–not that they cost so much (they do) but that you lose them too easily. In ten years I’ve replaced batteries 3 times–it should have been once. Systems should not, can not, be this complicated that men can’t figure it out and turn one knob wrong and I lose my batteries. Once that is overcome, then we can talk about renewables being viable. (the men weren’t morons–I believe that the systems are so complicated that a man who can keep a 1990 ford truck running with duck tape and bailing wire (which is a total mystery to me) should be able to handle a battery setting. It is inherently the fault of the solar systems, not the guys who have tried to help. And in particular, the batteries hooking into the system.)
I have two solar panels on my lobster boat – to keep the batteries charged while at anchor. Through careful measurements, I have found that they do not work at night.
You need to contact the Spanish authorities. I have heard that they have a version that do work at night.
Greg,
All we would have to do to stop the renewables is to end the subsidy paid by the common folk via taxes.
How out of touch with reality can anyone be not to realize that fact.
A thought on language–“subsidy” has a technical definition, of direct payments to an operation. Loosely, there is a tendency to include in the term the rules like mandatory purchase/priorities given to “renewables”, which are probably a larger expense to ratepayers than true subsidies, and disrupt the functioning of the grid rather more.
For many home in many places simple thermal capture systems are of far more value than a bit of electricity .
Greg,
What? There will be no transition to renewables. Flux at the rate output by our Sun just produces electricity that costs more, and people will not waste their money.
I think you must be in the photovoltaic industry, sales manager maybe. Your understanding of Supply and Demand could use some work.
Greg,
The problem with renewables is that nameplate ratings and actual production are very different. My 3.12 kw system maxes out at 2.2 kw midday in late June and early July. It is barely half that right now. Shorter days mean that daily production is around 6 to 6.5 kwh compared with peak production of 22 kwh in June and July. These numbers are for days with minimal cloud cover, and thus are not as high every day.
My point is that renewable nameplate production must be reduced significantly to match up with reality.
Perhaps you forgot to point your panels towards the sun. Nameplate energy or power levels assume that you know that the energy is coming from the sun, so that’s where you need to point the normal to your PV cells.
If you point your PV cells towards other stars than the sun, you don’t get as much power from them.
G
Point them towards the sun at what time of day. The sun has been known to move from time to time.
“Our Betters”? Is Hawking kidding?
Hawking needs to compare his first plea (that of “We can’t ignore inequality”) with his claim that we need to heed the will of “our Betters”!! Boy, if that doesn’t demonstrate abject hypocrisy, I don’t know what does.
So get off your high-horse, Hawking. Besides, you might not like Trump, but he’s got a successful track record as a builder and employs thousands of people. What have you built and how many people do you employ?
Perhaps his speaking device is connected to Obama’s teleprompter?
+1
Is the tele-prompter tele-connected?
The elites consider themselves “Betters” because they basically see the People as a mindless herd of sheep, to be lied to and directed to whatever pens they want. And for the most part the “Betters” are right and able to direct the herd where ever they want, which gives them a massive sense of superiority. What Hawkings forgets is that here in the United States we have constitutional concepts called “separation of powers” where the People are constitutionally equal or greater than the “Betters”, and we have this other concept called “consent of the governed” which means the People don’t have to listen to the “Betters” and submit to their nonsensical lies. When push comes to shove the People can replace the “Betters” so it actually behooves the “Betters” to listen to the People, not the other way around.
You mean you’re not fooled by this double-talk, Scott?;
“What matters now, far more than the choices made by these two electorates, is how the elites react. Should we, in turn, reject these votes as outpourings of crude populism that fail to take account of the facts, and attempt to circumvent or circumscribe the choices that they represent? I would argue that this would be a terrible mistake.”
Did you notice he’s actually doing exactly what he said would be a terrible mistake? . . !
Better get you onto some psychotropics or something ; )
Hawking never used the word “betters”, Worrall did as a way to manipulate simple minded people into hating Hawking.
Eric didn’t say he used that word, Andrew, and if you think it’s inappropriate, please make an actual case, rather than just act like non-elites (he did use that word) are not allowed to summarize as we see fit. just as Mr. Hawking did . .
You yourself just did that, to Eric, accusing him of trying “to manipulate simple minded people into hating Hawking.” He never said any such thing . . but you clearly felt you has a right (which I agree you do) to express what you made of the things he did say . . Consistency matters, don’t you think?
I don’t hate Hawking, Andrew. I think he’s a lazy scientist who doesn’t have the energy to critically study climate.
And please, don’t project your own simplemindedness onto others–it makes you look lazy, too!
Hawking didn’t need to use the term ‘betters’. I am intelligent enough to understand what he said along with the way he said it. Are you calling me simple-minded? I am, after all, one of the ‘deplorables’ and I will proudly confess to voting for Trump. I am also watching very intently as not only global warming alarmism comes tumbling down, but also as the Big Bang Universe and all its mythical black holes implodes into electrical streams of Burkland currents.
But he did talk about elites, and how they have an obligation to thwart the will of the electorate.
That sounds a lot like “betters”, just not using that word.
BTW, I don’t have any Betters….
+1000
Greg,
Yes you do.
Not since Superman died????
I don’t bet.
Most often you lose.
G
The second law of thermodynamics doesn’t allow you to win more than you lose, when you bet. If you could depend on that, sooner or later somebody will run out of money to pay you.
G
I used to respect Hawking.
You can still respect. He’s an old man.
You respect people for being wiser….NOT for being older;
Hawking has just attained arrogant stupidity.
you give respect for people who’re too old to be sane
No fool like an old fool.
If the damn rural poor would just give up on looking for the “Instagram nirvana”, everything would be wonderful. They should stop complaining and just accept their lot …
w.
I accept my lot. I will never be a private jet gazillionaire like Soros, Clinton, Steyer, Obama.
But I will not go quietly into the night. No matter how much Jon Podesta, Tom Steyer, or George Soros would like me to. I will fight their sorry dishonest ilk until my last breath.
Call me me Deplorable. Call me Le Miserable. Those become badges of honor.
+1000
With that attitude, I would call you a winner, joel. 🙂
Well, it’s this damned new*, utterly unforeseen flight of rurals to the cities that appears to be the culprit!
* Since about the Fourteenth Century
Funny that we who live in the country think too many folks are moving out of town. He displays the urban antilog to my rural confirmation bias
“Instagram nirvana” — My thoughts went to:
Arugula-gate, when in Iowa, Obama asked, “Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately? See what they charge for arugula?”
Fun Fact:
We all know President Obama has come in for some flak for identifying as Biracial and then—when pressed on which two races he identified as—responding simply Black and Biracial. But did you know that Professor Cornell West, the semi-retired Vice-Chair in Semi-Black Semiotics at West Cornell, confirms that this is a perfectly valid combination of answers given by a growing demographic, whom he dubs Arugulan-Americans?
Who or what is instagram ??
G
http://allteresting.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/c6.jpg
Chuck gets cold?
Well he WAS at the South Pole. Where he cut a hole in the ice and had a swim.
@ Andrew Very deep hole then? All the way to the ice-free Arctic…
Chuck Norris visited the Virgin Islands last year. Now they’re just known as “The Islands”.
Chuck knows more ways to make an body building exercise machine out of string and rubber bands than anybody else. Doesn’t matter if you just sit on your butt or lie down face up or down; there’s a new do it for all of your mussels, machine made out of string and rubber bands with a dish to slide on and it all folds away under your bed where the chamber pot used to be. And just four easy payments of $49.99 ;but if you call now we will make the first payment for you.
But wait; there’s more. Call in the next 15 minutes and we will double your order; just pay separate shipping and handling, and we will send you the rubber bands in a different package.
g
“all of your mussels”?
Chuck spends his time building exercise machines for shellfish?
Whew! That was really out there. So he imagines that all those non thinking types are sinking into worthless oblivion because all the wonderful inventions will make people obsolete, except of course those at the pinnacle. My God! All those flocks of worthless rural dregs of humanity hoping to find a shanty town. So they are supposed to work together to do what? Wipe his ass? Did he really write that stuff? FYI smart guy, mobs with pitch forks and torches have been offing high and mighty types for centuries. Has nothing to do with Instagrams and a lot to do with messing with freedom.
Hawking needs a Turing Test.
Well said Rod.
Howcome the ashes never ever fall off the cigarette ??
Just asking.
g
Prolly shot it till they got a take where the ashes made it through his scene . . They knew about making art back then . . not just elitist propaganda . .
it’s a trick.
you stick a needle in the cigarette so the ash can’t break off.
nobody in the room can take his eyes off the ash, waiting for it to fall.
keeps the board members mesmerized while the competitor does his dog & pony show-
then you do yours and that’s all they remember.
It’s going to get worse for the Ivory Tower dwellers.
On Sunday, Italy and Austria vote. Next year, globalists must suffer more nationalist angst over peasant revolts in the Netherlands in March and France in May. Hollande has already thrown in the towel, reading the writing on the wall in blood:
http://www.scmp.com/business/global-economy/article/2051066/why-sunday-could-be-dark-day-europeand-world
Aye I think so too now.
Too late for Sweden I suspect. they’ll just have to jump to the chapters titled “Insurrection”.
The EU can survive the pound-denominated UK leaving. But the exit of a Euro zone country, especially a big one like France or Italy, will spell the end, IMO.
And good riddance.
I suppose a rump EU based upon Germany and its client states could muddle through for a while.
Italy has voted … the political carnage continues
But in Austria the left-leaning candidate for president defeated a so-called “far right” opponent.
That’s ok, my family is Austrian, like another famous Austrian, “I’ll (he will) be back!”
That is just too sad, but it shows that someone with Hawking’s qualifications in his field of expertise isn’t necessarily knowledgeable in other areas such as economics and climate.
Yup. The “Halo Effect” is strong with him.
Hawking is right about the dangers of “the rise of artificial intelligence,” but probably not in the way he means.
Just look at the fake-intellect cult of deGrasse Tyson, the myth of Brian Cox’s widom, or any other symptom of the recrudescence of punditolatry.
Who are we to deny the toxicity, or at least obnoxiousness, or this cultural decline?
Hawking, and deGrasse Tyson and Brian Cox are more examples of people who can be really smart in one subject, and really ignorant in another.
Thanks TA
Is it true that Tyson and Cox “can be really smart in one subject”? Are they more than just TV scientists, then?
Is Hawking more than just a “Big Bang Theory” guest star, then?
Oh, yeah, a Simpsons guest star.
A significant reason I’m a programmer and APL language implementer is to be a creator , not a subject of such tek . I learned APL to have the tools to have a glimpse of an understanding of how brains work . Now I have the tools to understand and implement any AI . ( Personally , wirelessly programmable hearing aids optimally mapping frequency and intensity auditory space would be an interesting marketable project now possible . )
The dinosaurs didn’t need any intelligence at all; just big teeth.
g
Some of them were actually pretty intelligent, too, as are many of their descendants among the birds.
Who are they ?? are they the cardashians ??
g
Stephen, you should stick to your area of expertise, which is NOT climate. Then, again, you are of the age where dementia and Alzheimer’s are a possibility.
Meh. What would Hawking know about radiation?
If it were simple first principle radiation physics, the cimate models would have it (climate forecast) nailed already. Obviously, they haven’t, so it’s not (1st principle simplicity).
He’s very active and famous for radiation. What he knows about ocean geology or weather forecasting could be much less.
What does ANYONE know about the physics that determine climate on earth?
“Believing in Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast, and Climate Models”
Dr. Christopher Essex
(from WUWT 10th Anniversary anthology at 221)
McLeod doesn’t know that we do not know.
Believing in Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast, and Climate Models
(youtube — Dr. Christopher Essex)
Hawking, wheelchair and mute bound for decades, does not understand or relate to today’s humanity. His mental picture is grounded in the late 1960’s. A period of social upheaval, hippy culture, Beatles, etc.
His feeding tube, his catheter have been managed by the poor working-class schleps keeping his ass alive for 30+ years.
He should keep to pure theorethetical science of singularities and time-gravitation. His understanding of humanity is invalid.
His theory of time is not that bright either.
I had a lot of respect for Stephen when he was rational. Forgiving his health condition which is NOT dementia or alzheimer’s, he has been drawn to the alarmist side. A brilliant mind now wasted.
Watts, You have done a good job up to now as an advocate for science. But presenting without comment logically incoherent comments of this kind from Worrall together with the thoughtless response from your readers will damage your reputation.
How so?
When a person (Hawking or anyone else) makes a trite claim like “ocean acidification” which is patently false, they earn all the criticism they garner. For a scientist to describe a liquid at 8.1 -8.3 pH as acidifying shows a complete lack of rigor.
Words are important. His choice of phrases lessened his credibility.
Further, his claim of “elite” is self-serving and qualitative. What is he elite at? Is he an “elite” historian? Does he have keen insight into the causes of economic failure in Cambodia, USSR, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Greece? Does he understand the impact of mass immigration on a borderless collection of nation-states?
The Brexit vote was a powerful assertion of sovereignty against a government body in Brussels that no longer recognized individual states as having rights. It was a vote for freedom, and should be hailed as such. What this election cycle demonstrated is that starting with the Magna Carta, through the French Revolution, and embodied in the Constitution:
The affirmation that government is of, for, and by the people.
No it won’t. Hawking is quite fond of making stupid statements but here he doesn’t get the pass most people accord him because of academic achievement or infirmity or age or celebrity or whatever else. It enhances the reputation of this site as being somewhere where the truth is brokered no matter who is doling out the bovid ordure.
Oh, we have a little concern-troll.
Maybe Hawking should revise his understanding of hypothesis that he seems to have forgotten.
Here is Richard Feynmans video which may remind him.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
Lecturing Stephen Hawking about science. That about tops it Rog.
Watts must surely, at least occasionally, guffaw into his keyboard.
Well I am quite sure that Hawking would not have the respect in the scientific community that he enjoys without making sure that the principles, that Feynman illustrates in the video, were respected meticulously during his career.
Its one thing for real science it seems and another thing for politicized science.
The left has always wished for “science” to be much more of a religion, where someone like Al Gore could become a secular pope and make ex-cathedra pronouncements that all must respect and obey.
Science has NO ranks of nobility, no grants of privilege. Anyone who pertains to speak for “science” is only as credible as there latest pronouncement, and when they say things as idiotic as Stephen Hawkings just said, then they are through.
And there are always some people who were once very good, who lose what they had and become nothing but embarrassments to their profession. Stephen Hawking is now the Colin Kaepernick of the scientific world. Yeah, he had his day, but now – get the hook, and yank him off the stage. He’s through.
He is closer to Sheldon Cooper than to Richard Feynman
We all know Isaac Newton’s fame in physics and mathematics.
Less well known is that he wrote pages and pages of stuff on metaphysics. Drivel.
Hawking has the right to be nonsensical.
Classic appeal to authority.
On science, Hawkins can’t be wrong, therefore anyone who disagrees with him must be wrong.
“You just keep thinking, Butch. That’s what you’re good at.”
yawn
So Hawking is not a real scientist at all it seems.
He buys into the ocean acidification nonsense, overlooks that food production is increasing due to CO2 fertilization, and has fallen for climate alarmism hook, line, and sinker.
Shame, although I have thought for some time his ideas have been given more attention than they merit.
A theoretical physicist that doesn’t understand a logarithmic scale. You would think he could realize it is theoretically, mathematically, and scientifically impossible for the oceans to measure below 7.0 on the pH scale.
“Ocean acidification”. There you go again. He should stick to black holes and not pretend he knows something about chemistry.
Dealkalinesation is such a difficult word to spell. Acidification let it be.
I think the word neutralisation is not so difficult.
It seems with regard to chemistry that he is a bufferoon.
Didn’t we just endure 8 years of “our betters” ?
No thanks Steve. The world has suffered enough under the “intellectuals “.
Obama, Clinton (either), and Kerry are intellectuals? Surely not!
Surely in their own minds.
Funny he is someone who uses theory for a living commenting on others who use theory for a living .
The guy is a waste of time and grant money….. Black holes, dark matter, neutronium in Neutron stars… all untestable, unfalsifiable and non observable. Gravitational, Mathematical fudge factors for theoretical cosmological models that don’t work without them and will never lead to anything, because you cannot test it nor apply it nor use it. It’s not science. He’s not science.
We pay a lot of money to keep them in clover. We get fairy tales in return.
As he says, he’s living in a bubble. He look out more.
As he says, he’s living in a bubble. He should look out more.
Everyone.
Hold on. What articles are you reading compared to the one SH has at The GIGGLE.
It ends with…
‘We can do this, I am an enormous optimist for my species; but it will require the elites, from London to Harvard, from Cambridge to Hollywood, to learn the lessons of the past year. To learn above all a measure of humility.’
If it is Elitism on Steroids you want then we in Australia have a doozy going down at the moment.
Eric would you in particular or Brad at CN as well check this out as I am getting only partial info about the funding.
Search for Fabian Dattner. Homeward Bound. Antarctic Leadership and Science get together.
It involves about 77 Aussie women, and a few overseas people, of generally Scientific ilk, each paying (20,000 of the 30,000 to 35,000 US Cost) to hire a vessel and go to the Antarctic for 20 days or so and engage in leadership and sciency activities. Its web details are big whingy on this lack of female leadership in science and beyond.
Note that Its Auxiliary Support List has Madam Figueras and Franny Armstrong of 10:10 Splattergate fame (exploding heads of dissidents) as connected plus Jane Goodall and Dr Sylvia Earle, both attendees at Paris Cop 21. The travellers Scientific credentials are thick with either Climate or Sustainability.
So I am wondering if its Leadership and Science learning trumpeting isn’t just a masquerade to go there and parrot all the horror of Climate Armageddon. And return as Climate Heroines or should that be heroes now.
My main concern is what is the long term purpose of this Homeward Bound Campaign and where is all the extra funding coming from..I have titled this …Snow White and her 77 Sisters of Western Caucasian Princess Privilege Tour of The Antarctic…Schoolies On Ice Escapades for Lady Sciency Nerds. It is not a diversity festival for sure and certain! More like The Greens again.
If they can drum up all the massive dollars for such a campaign well and good but I want to know if the Taxpayers have coughed up a motza of dollars for what is actually a holiday of a lifetime for people who are already very, very well off by any standards.
Would really appreciate it if some bods with the know how to check this out do so.
Note that without Fossil Fuels (as all here will be shouting) this Project would have to take place in Fabian Dattner’s backyard.Those red jackets to ward off hypothermia? Do they have Fossil Fuel written all over them!
Apologies for taking the post a way off the proper track.
Already heard about this thanks Robbert, just waiting for them to do something interesting… 🙂
That would be Fabian Dattner who years ago featured on television commercials for her fathers fur trade business. The Fabian Datner whose father was a right wing MI5 agent and whose brother has views which are further right than those of Attila the Hun.
Ship of Fools Mk2
Look on the bright side – they might do a Shackleton and spend a couple of years stuck in the pack ice.
You’ve got to remember that Stephen Hawkings is totally helpless, there were once reports that he had been abused by one of his carers…my guess is that he dare not condemn the Warmist Hoax…otherwise next time he needs the bathroom…..
(black humour)
Ooops… sorry are you allowed to say ‘black’ humour these days?
..That’s “Melanin-rich” humour. Or “Other-colored”.
Ever heard of purple pheomelanins? People have more or less melanins you have. There’s nothing intrinsically funny it that. It can, in essentia, be a very non funny thing.
Start by googling Hermansky Pudlak
THING ONE:
Will artificial intelligence (AI) replace middle class jobs?
One of the most time consuming lawyer jobs is researching precedents. There is now an AI called ROSS which does that much more quickly than a human. link The result may be that we will need many fewer lawyers.
The worry about AI replacing jobs is justified. We’ll see what actually happens.
For years, people have been trying to replace teachers with computers. It hasn’t happened yet. It won’t happen until there is some kind of game changing breakthrough. Could that happen? Eventually it will. How soon? A year, a decade, a century, longer? We don’t know.
THING TWO:
At least Dr. Hawking didn’t blame Donald Trump’s victory on racism. He’s right that the working people feel betrayed by the politicians. The Democrat party claims to represent working people. In fact, it stabs them in the back every time it gets a chance. link
I think one reason more teachers have not been replaced by Computers, or at least had their jobs made a lot easier by them, is that they have the strongest union in the world.
If someone had already found the magic formula to replace teachers with computers, it would have been done somewhere already and we’d know about it. It’s something we’ve been working on since the beginning of computers and it hasn’t panned out yet.
Computers can change how a teacher does his work but I can’t see any evidence that they actually make it much easier. Some individual things are, indeed, easier but having computers in the classroom also complicates things enormously. I think it’s a wash.
Once they do find a way to automate teachers out of existence, just watch their unions cease to matter. Remember the air traffic controllers? link
The big sticker in replacing human teachers with computers, is that they’re teaching human children. We’re social animals. Children will require a social milieu to properly learn.
Computers will augment human teachers. Computers will supplant human teachers when computers become human (or humans deteriorate into computers).
By the way, I’m not worried about AIs replacing human workers. That trend will signify the increasing wealth of our societies. In extremely wealthy societies, humans freed of drudge labor will turn to their personal creative outlets, and be paid for their expression. I see the likelihood of an explosion of creativity among humans free to pursue their innate talents.
“Children will require a social milieu to properly learn.”
Yes. it’s called a family. Teachers are a poor substitute.
Schools exist to indoctrinate kids to do what they’re told. That’s the last thing we need in a post-industrial world.
Actually computers already can replace teachers. I know of a number of homeschool families that are computer based curriculum.
I read a science fiction story a few years back, in which all manual labor had been replaced by robots and automation.
In this story, personal worth was no longer measured on how much stuff you could accumulate, since everything was essentially free.
Personal worth was determined by competence, and competence was measured by the assessment of your peers.
Don’t know that it could actually work, but it was something worth thinking about. Especially since automation is here to stay and no amount of sabotage (read up on the root of the word) will stop it. So we’d better figure out how to deal with it.
My senior year in high school, I was required to take a course called Fundamentals of Punctuation. Class was taught by “Programmed Learning,” textbook named “English 2600.” I plowed through the whole thing the first week, handed zero-error worksheets to Mr. Hintz Friday half-way through the 55 minutes. He said not one word to me the whole week.
Last year an attractive young cocktail waitress asked me to do her College Algebra homework for her, on the Internet. Took me about three hours to do her semester’s work for her. Professor said not one word to me.
Traditional subjects can easily be taught by automated instruction. The problem is getting a grade distribution. And, yes, teacher’s unions bitterly oppose such methods.
You can indeed run automated courses. How much algebra did your waitress learn?
For engineering programs there is a requirement that students use knowledge in a context other than the one in which it was originally learned. (Could the student use the concepts learned in the context of an RLC circuit to analyze an automobile’s suspension; in other words, mass, spring, damper?) Machine learning is woefully inadequate for that.
The thing with automoation, is that it allows you to make things cheaper., the result is that less work is needed in order to afford the products that are now being made via automation. If government wasn’t working so hard to keep stuff expensive, the resulting drop in prices would be of benefit to everyone.
I admit with reluctance and rare candor, that Prof. Hawking is a *better* theoretical physicist than I.
Also a better shill.
I have a certain admiration for people like Stephen Hawking. He made a series of bets with physicists at Caltech, and iirc, lost them all. He proposed four laws of black holes, at least one of which turned out to be falsified by his own calculations. He p*ssed all over Higgs and tried to discredit him, only to have CERN prove that Higgs was right. He’s made a career out of mostly getting things wrong, and long ago ditched science for the worlds of mass media entertainment and political advocacy.
He’s in the same class as Bill Nye and Paul Erlich. He most likely surpasses both of them in celebrity as well as money earned. Gotta admire a guy achieving that from a wheel chair.
So according to Hawking time and the universe began with the supposed big bang …. cosmology, palmology, phrenology, astrology, …. legends in their own lunch boxes.
For all his intelligence (real or imagined) he hasn’t figured out that the greatest threat to both mankind and the environment is that seething mass of humanity gathering around his ivory tower. Arrogant academics should keep in mind we are first and foremost “social animals”. Black holes are not related to solutions of social problems.
A couple of thoughts.
1. He is right about living in a bubble. He has little idea how we avergae Joe Schlubbs get on.
2.”The automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing”- does he fancy a job on a production line or is he OK to keep making use of the results of the hadron collider experiments, for example?
3. He did well at physics and should stick to it.
4. As far as I know, however, he has not yet produced a quantitative model of the climate and so I do not know what he is basing his predictions on.
5. He needs to reacquaint himself with the scientific method.
does he fancy a job on a production line or is he OK to keep making use of the results of the hadron collider experiments, for example?
Or, for another example, speech synthesizers operated by a single cheek muscle.
3. He did well at physics and should stick to it.
Er, theoretical physics
“So the recent apparent rejection of the elites in both America and Britain is surely aimed at me, as much as anyone.”
What an ego! Does Hawking really believe that when people think “elite,” the first thing they think of is Stephen Hawking? He must really live in a bubble.
A movie I saw showed him working on his early theory for years, finally publishing it and getting awards and recognition for it, and then eventually coming to the conclusion that it was wrong. How long will he cling to the theory of climate change before realizing it is wrong too?
But – who gets to determine who our “betters” are?
“A thousand pictures can be drawn from one word
Only who is the artist
We got to agree
A thousand miles can lead so many ways
Just to know who is driving
What a help it would be”
Hawking used to be worth listening to, like back in 1980s, but then he started rabbiting on about alien invasions and other claptrap. Since then I’ve had little time for his twittering. Now he’s joined forces with Brian Cox, another physicist I once respected. Both have lost their way. I suspect they know which side their bread is buttered on, ie., play the game or lose your air time. I suspect they know the BBC and the lamestream media will shut them down. Very sad.
I wonder. How many elephants does it take (supply of tusks) to build an ivory tower?
This article is a disappointment.
Hawking did not use any phrase close to “listening to our betters “.
His statements have been slightly misrepresented.
In this case, readers should read the source article instead of trusting Eric Worral’s interpretation.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/01/stephen-hawking-dangerous-time-planet-inequality
I read the full article to which you linked. Hawking makes it clear that he is one of the “elites” and without the guidance of him and the rest of the “elites”, humanity is doomed. Eric’s “listening to our betters” rather understates the man’s arrogance.
He’s no different than Paul Erlich. Repeatedly wrong, yet he somehow clings to his celebrity status while enriching himself and wailing away at the plight of the poor.
+ 1.
Mr. Hawking should learn from the words of Mr. George Carlin …
https://youtu.be/BB0aFPXr4n4
Eric knows his audience. He is also a ‘shit-stirrer’ which is a common Australian tradition.
I am confused. Whose opinions should I believe — those of Hawking or Madonna????
Oh! Wait! They have the same opinions!!!
Eugene WR Gallun
Leo, of course. The other two are has-beens.
Eugene,
Are you implying that Madonna is not just another dumb blonde? 🙂
I’ve heard of Hawking, but could someone please tell me what he has contributed to society and science other than theoretical “deep thought”.
He has created another God for people to fawn over. Himself.
Hardly a positive contribution !!
A legend in his own mind.
[as somebody once said]
I believe the technical term for the sum total of his contributions to the lot of humanity is “bupkis”.
But since he has been doing it for so long, it may now add all the way up to bupkis squared.
That’s the conclusion I had come to.
A load of unprovable and unproven conjecture
No wonder he accepts the AGW thought bubble.
Hawking supporters.. Give us something !!!
Mosh, Griff, Toneb and the other alarmist self-worriers……
come on.. surly you must have something
When I think about it, yeah, there is a void in a place of his actual contribution. Unlike Einstein, his deep thoughts were amended far too many times to stand for anything seriously scientific.
“Mosh, Griff, Toneb and the other alarmist self-worriers……
come on.. surly you must have something”
They don’t work on Sunday
There’s a clear divide in the way climate is viewed between the pragmatists who have worked in real-life occupations and theoretical ivory tower “thinkers”.
Hawkings is one of the few who had very little choice in the matter. And whilst it is predictable that he’s an alarmist, there’s very little he could have done about it.
Why predictable? He has a brain like everybody else. He prefers to follow MSM and refuses to think outside his own speciality, even though he has the capacity to do so. He deserves all the ridicule he gets.
“… theoretical ivory tower “thinkers”.
——————–
Sans spectacles, my first take was “theatrical” ivory tower..
Blessed subconscious mind.
Article not complete, thanks for sharing the source. The conclusion reads:” We can do this, I am an enormous optimist for my species; but it will require the elites, from London to Harvard, from Cambridge to Hollywood, to learn the lessons of the past year. To learn above all a measure of humility.”
“to learn the lessons of the past year”
That could be good or that could be bad. It depends on what kind of lesson Hawking is talking about learning. Does he think the Elites should figure out how to keep running things, or does he mean the Elites should bow to the will of the People?
The human race will survive if the Ivory Tower Elites bow to the practical People. The Elites wouldn’t do it voluntarily. Now they are going to do it involuntarily. They should get used to it, and all of us will get along better.
The People know what they want and what they are doing, evidenced by their votes. And now that Trump is in, the Peoples’ hold on power will only increase, and Elite power will decrease, although they will fight it every step of the way. But, they fought it every step of the way this time, and they lost, and their position is even weaker now.
Elites from…Cambridge… Wadhams, anyone?
Cecile,
I didn’t know that there were any elites living in Hollywood. While many of them think that being attractive and being able to memorize the lines in a script somehow give them special insights on politics and science, I’m afraid that they a legends only in their own minds. They are confusing being rich with being intelligent.
“climate change, food production, overpopulation, the decimation of other species, epidemic disease, acidification of the oceans”
Almost amazing to think that someone supposedly as intelligent as this man could talk such crap. I wonder if he has actually studied any raw data or just believes his intellectual mates
I wonder, given the advanced state of his disease, if he is simply a prop being exploited by his handlers.
Hunter asks: “I wonder … if he is simply a prop being exploited by his handlers.”
I’ve shared that opinion myself or many years. I’ve never understood the media worship the man seems to attract to begin with since he’s never made a significant contribution to his field. He made what reputation he has popularizing some subjects in theoretical physics, a job he isn’t even all that good at when compared to men like Ilya Prigogine.
Hawking has no way to communicate without assistance. he’s completely dependent on his “staff” for everything, which guarantees co-operation. I’m convinced he’s a media creation used as a puppet to lend credibility that same media gave him. A fake in other words.
It’s impossible to take his pronouncements as something an educated scientist would say or write.
I have thought this is possible for years now.
Who would know?
He cannot speak.
Hawking, you may be bright is your little and in practical terms unimportant field, but in the real world you are an ignorant an undereducated academic. If you want people to listen then you cannot tell them the case is proved. You have to prove it over and over again in the face of the most hard line questioning available. You cannot expect intelligent and practical people to accept that first testing people to believe in a case where the judge jury prosecuting council are all pre tested to have found the case proven and any defence is disallowed because they are not qualified since they have not passed an exam to say the case is proven makes any sense at all.
You must allow engineers who are far more qualified than any mere untrained academic to examine and verify that every single measurement station will stand up to quality control standards appropriate to the sort of spending that is demanded based on the science. That means it must be done not just to average commercial but to life critical standards as they is what is claimed to be the consequence. As it stands the enclosures themselves for sub degree accuracy do not pass the quality control standards demanded by a major pound chain in the UK when verifying their product’s quality. More so when you add in the way that the clean air acts and the changes in paint used have each altered the temperature characteristics of the Stephenson screen to a greater extent than the claimed warming.
Add to that the failure to compare the top quartile and the bottom quartile of the changes and prove there is no regional or localised cause for the variation makes it all so suspect it is not longer science it is pure guesswork.
The Ivory Tower crowd are some of the most abusive around. Look how they treat kids in America. They tell them everyone needs to get an education in science. Yes, science is the way to improve the world and achieve personal greatness.
But they don’t tell you that over half of all college graduates in science can’t find a job doing science as a career. They don’t tell you they are bringing in over 1 million foreign students to fill the same positions. If you decide to ignore the lack of jobs and pursue advanced science training, they don’t tell you there are more than 5 applicants for every available slot. They don’t tell you that over 800,000 graduate school and training positions are given to foreigners while Americans are displaced. They don’t tell you that if you get in your salary is set by the Ivory Tower crowd at the NIH and NSF, and that even with a college degree you will only be paid $11 per hour, with no retirement benefits, no overtime, no 401k, no COLA, and zero job security. If you ignore that an graduate with a PhD, your salary is again set by the Ivory Tower crowd at the NIH and NSF, at only $18 per hour, again with no overtime, no retirement, and zero job security. If you complete postdoctoral training, you have a 6% chance of landing a tenure track faculty position. If you re-up for another postdoc with no overtime, no retirement, and no job security, you get another 6% chance of landing a tenure track faculty position.
The jobs are flooded by foreigners, and the politicians who urged you to make science your career now say that we need the best and brightest from all around the world, so keep the planetary floodgates open at all levels, from college to grad school to postdoc training, to private industry.
In China they pay a graduate student $50 per month, they pay a new PhD $100 per month. This is the Ivory Tower’s idea of equity and fairness, a global Thunderdome style market where a handful of elites lord over millions of science serfs.
Brutal but accurate. Thanks. I have very close family members stuck in the Academic plantation system. What is interesting is how self policing the Academic plantation system is.
Graduate students kick off at about $400 a month in China. It’s not that bad. Cost of living is lower in China. They can move up to about $1000 a month in 18 months or so. I work in a university here. I keep in touch with my ex-students. I’ve been doing it for about 12 years. I would check my sources of information if I were you.
So 200 hours a month, that comes to 2$/hr Alex. $10 is 2000/month. Source of info is not faulty.
I was commenting on the last paragraph:
‘In China they pay a graduate student $50 per month, they pay a new PhD $100 per month. ‘
My source of information was from an article about ‘Science in China’ that came out in 2009. Perhaps they have instituted some modest reforms since then. However you have to admit that even placing American students in direct global competition with people making a tiny fraction of the salary will necessary suppress US wages.
More galling is that the lions share of the money funding these US graduate programs and labs come directly from US taxpayers. Do you think China has Americans beating down the door to get $2 per hour? No, and if an American applied they would be told the positions were reserved for native Chinese students. They understand the benefits of educating their own, unlike America.
KTM
I wasn’t actually disagreeing with your comment I don’t know enough about the ustasian education system and prospects for graduates to comment. I was just, in a kindly fashion, suggesting that you might update your information. China is a very complex place (it’s why I like it here). Most westerners make great assumptions based on MSM, Chinese and global.
You make valid points, especially around immigrants (in this case legal ones) being used to suppress wages of citizens. Your figures are somewhat out of date but in any case, students need to figure out what the actual situation is accordingly and take some responsibility for their own career paths. Relying upon what the “elites” tell them is troublesome.
KTM – any references for these numbers? They could be very useful.
Found the article I was thinking of.
Science in China: 30 years on. Cell. 2008 Aug 8;134(3):375-7. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2008.07.035.
“Some scientists in China, however, worry that this program will further deprive domestic faculty of talented graduate students. “I am puzzled by this program. The best undergrads can go abroad on their own, without government help,” Rao says. “Funds should be better used to support graduate students in China whose pay is too low.” Soon after their return to China last year, Yi Rao and Yigong Shi drafted a letter and gathered signatures of more than 50 professors, calling on the government to raise stipends for domestic graduate students, the majority of whom receive less than $50/month, lower than the urban minimum wage. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has agreed to the suggestion, and government ministries are believed to be discussing detailed plans for its implementation.
The shortage of talented graduate students is compounded by an acute shortage of postdocs. “The biggest problem for top scientists who have returned is the lack of postdocs,” says Zhinan Yin, an immunologist recently recruited from Yale University to be Dean of the School of Life Sciences at Nankai University in Tianjin. The standard salary for postdocs in China is about $300/month. Even though they may supplement base pay with grants, compared with compensation in the US (and coupled with the desire of domestic PhDs to gain research experience abroad), “the US is clearly at an advantage,” notes Yin. Xiongli Yang of Fudan University agrees, “All the PhDs I train go abroad to do postdocs.” To address the problem “China must increase postdoc pay drastically,” emphasizes Yin.”
Less than $50 per month for grad students, even lower than the Chinese minimum wage. $300 for postdocs, so not -quite- as bad as I remembered.
There are no betters amongst humans. Rather what can be advanced are policies that actually work to improve affairs instead of reducing the overall wealth that has allowed us to escape the brutal shortness of life that has been mankind’s lot for much of his existence.
What you get when intellect and intelligence part ways.
To be fair, I don’t think Hawking used the work “betters”.
Scientists like Hawking cannot conceive the pseudo science swamp that is climate change.
I got news for him, We The People have a social contract called the Constitution that governs our laws, so if his ideas are so much better, then let him and his friends convince us to change it.
But elites don’t go the legal route of change because they always lose arguments because their ideas aren’t better. So they break oaths of office, violate our laws, steal our property, and invade our country with “refugees” whom they’ll have an easier time controlling.
And so it goes…
http://www.toonpool.com/user/997/files/constitution_130835.jpg
“awesome environmental challenges: climate change, food production, overpopulation, the decimation of other species, epidemic disease, acidification of the oceans.”
but no evidence that cutting fossil fuel emissions will do anything to attenuate any of these .
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2853163
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2873672
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2862438
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2845972
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2669930