Guest “I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take it anymore”* by David Middleton
(*Peter Finch as Howard Beale in the 1976 movie, Network.)
Gregory Wrightstone is a fellow geologist, past president of the AAPG’s Eastern Section and author of INCONVENIENT FACTS: The science that Al Gore doesn’t want you to know. This August 2018 article in the AAPG Explorer resulted in a veritable feud in the comments section. Many working geologists (like me) expressed support, while others (mostly academics) viscously attacked him and the AAPG (American Association of Petroleum Geologists) for publishing the article. Greg and I have become acquainted over the past couple of years through LinkedIn and email exchanges. He has been the author or subject of a number of WUWT posts.
This morning, I received a rather unsettling email from Greg. His LinkedIn account was suspended because LinkedIn “detected behavior that appears to violate our Terms of Service.” It follows that up with:
For more details on the behavior that can result in restriction, see the “Do’s and Don’ts section of our User Agreement.
This all started a few weeks ago, when Greg wrote an article about polar bear populations. The article was very well sourced and largely based on the work of Susan Crockford, one of the foremost polar bear experts in the world. The article featured this image:
The graph accurately reflects the data, it is well sourced and properly attributed to the original author. It merely points out that the hype about dwindling polar bear populations is nothing but hype.
After the article was taken down, Greg shared this meme on his LinkedIn page:
Nothing in the LinkedIn “Do’s and don’ts” prohibits posting scientific articles or funny memes. Political content is also not explicitly prohibited.
Nothing that Greg has posted appears to have violated any of the terms of service. Was this just Facebook-Fascist style political censorship?
I was going to post the screen shot of the restriction message that Greg sent out this morning, but then it dawned on me that Greg’s account was probably restricted because he posted a screen shot of then message regarding the removal of the polar bear article on LinkedIn.
If there’s one thing that the Masters of the Universe are even less tolerant of than dissent, it’s the questioning of their authority.
For those wishing to express support for Greg, his Facebook page is still up and running. I’d visit it sooner, rather than later, at the rate we’re being censored on social media, Watts Up With That may be our final refugium… (not entirely sarcastic).
Just to bring that movie line up to date (‘I want the truth’).
I like to imagine Mann vs Steyn in a similar court-room setting where Mann uses the line; and Steyn says: ‘You can’t handle the truth!’ (A Few Good Men)
“…good geologist but not an atmospheric scientist…” Most of the negative comments seem to be fact free conclusions, one with a link that claimed all the alleged errors. AAPG Bulletin used to be necessary reading for marine scientists, seem to recall that stratigraphy requires biology, biology requires geology. The enormity of what geologists need to about and have previously been required to know is apparently lost nowadays? Simulated rocks?
https://issuesinsights.com/2020/10/08/climate-change-is-here-its-going-to-get-cooler-says-nasa/
Sedimentary geology is basically a combination of paleogeography and paleoclimatology.
LinkedIn is a platform for professional networking. It was semiuseful to me before I retired. The major problem is people you don’t know wanting to link because of your own resume. I have ignored literally thousands of those.
It is not a very good platform for sharing content, as Greg unfortunately discovered.
And my LinkedIn account is now … closed. Been with them since the first year they started.
No shirt, no shoes, no Party line–No Service
I’ve just closed my LinkedIn account and told them why.
eFahrenheit 451
Head beyond the end of the tracks with that high and mighty facts and knowledge. There is no place for you here.
I registered few years ago with absolute minimum info. Have not looked at it for about couple of years until two min ago. Only thing I found there was:
“Steven Mosher has 44 new connections”
I thought it was very funny.
All best to all 44 of them, thank you Steve, .
You can’t laugh at Al Gore. It’s as simple as that.
“Susan Crockford, one of the foremost polar bear experts in the world”
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/68/4/281/4644513
Do you honestly believe a paper with two of the authors being Stephan Lewandowsky and Michael E Mann is a credible source … c’mon man.
Bizarre attempted hit piece..
They managed absolutely ZERO real science, just desperate pleas to consensus and the AGW meme.
A laughable FAILURE from start to finish.
Lucky there is no science standards laws or that would have got the authors jail time for gross abuse of science.
I will add, in the past I wondered about the roll of Lewandowsky in papers put out by the gangsters but it has become quite clear now. His roll is clearly to take the dumbest and falsified science ideas and grind them thru psycobable and sprinkle positive jargon on them. The result is highbrow concepts that still make no sense but the sprinkling of positive concepts makes the reader not question what is being said. When you read any article he has been involved in I guarantee you that you come out dumber for the experience.
Adam Sandler was only acting
Lewy is the real deal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKjxFJfcrcA
Pretty soon you will have Maduro-style election results too.
With mail in ballots and total lack of voter identification, we are pretty close to Maduro-style elections as it is. 4 years of Democrats in total control of the White House and Congress and the Democrats will be able to guarantee that they never lose another election.
It’s not about numbers. Polar Bears were much happier in 1960 than they are now.
Its all about those “feelings” isn’t it.
Perhaps they “feel” that the Arctic is no longer their “safe space” 😉
Social justice for all polar bears and the right to be gender fluid.
To the surprise of no one, LinkedIn went downhill and fast after Microsoft bought it. So I stopped using using it, but I kept it active. Earlier this year I completely removed my LinkedIn page. Good thing I did. Skype became garbage after Microsoft bought it too. Microsoft is only surviving because of the Windows exosystem. Windows peaked at 7, Office peak at 2003. Everything since has been worse, with Windows 10 the worst one ever. Even worse than Windows 1.0 and worse than Windows ME. Not a hyperbole. If businesses ever switch to Linux, it is game over for Microsoft.
I refused to upgrade to Win 10 when Win 7 reached the end of tech support due to privacy and security concerns, and general dissatisfaction with Microsoft. Instead I switched all my personal computers to Linux Mint with Win 7 as a dual boot option for the handful of apps that I could not find a good Linux version for. It was surprisingly easy. Linux Mint has an excellent Windows-like GUI that requires a minimum of Linux-fu to use. I regret not switching earlier.
I think Microsoft knows that their Windows / Office suite business model is unsustainable and has decided to maximize near term revenue (e.g., Office 365 subscription scheme) while pivoting to an exploiting customer data model.
David,
You said, “… viscously attacked him …” Are they trying to make magma great again? 🙂
D’oh!
Unintentional geo-humor for a change.
I wish we could prevail on every so-called sceptic, every true scientist, every clear-thinking politician to scrap their face-book accounts, their linked-in accounts and their twitter accounts – beginning with President Trump. How dare they “remove” what really just amount to personal opinions. Why does Trump continue using face-book? They have the audacity to remove his opinions.
If enough really powerful intellects cancel their accounts, these odious, seductive, brain-washing organisations, catering only for small minds, will lose their power.
Why does Trump continue using face-book?
Like it or not, FB and twitter are about the only place he can reach a large audience relatively unfiltered.
A little video you may get a laugh out of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3VLqLLWxbQ
The headline of the graph:
“There are nearly four times as many polar bears in 2017 as in 1960!”
This is not correct: 30000/10000=3. Three times not four times.
1960 5,000 to 15,000
2017 28,500
28,500/5,000 = 5.7
28,500/15,000 = 1.9
It would have been more accurate to say there were 2 to 6 times as many polar bears in 2017 as in 1960.
30,000/7,000 = 4.3
Everyone in WUWT, and all of their friends, co-workers, personal care attendants, families, families of friends, families of co-workers, families of personal care attendants, should immediately, formally drop linkedin. Then, we check back next quarter to see if there’s a statistically significant (i.e. the value is below P2.5 from either a linear or semilog trend) drop in this plot. If not, then the original poster/whiner here should post, with no weasel words elsewhere, “Living with genital herpes has made me a better person. But I remain pathetic.” If so, then me. Deal?
Correction:
“next quarter” s/b “when the next quarter data becomes available”. My bad for being distracted by the aggressive trend and not squinting on the last quarter of available dat. That will give the original whiner/poster over a year to gird up…..
David Middleton – I seem to be the only sceptic I know, who closed their facebook account when facebook started blocking sceptic material, who left twitter (when parler became available) and who no longer uses google (I’ve just left a google group of sceptics … whose know what Google have done, but don’t want the hassle of finding a new site).
Because I stand on principle, not only have I left all these platforms, but I’ve never once had to leave. Yet, I sit, waiting on parler for other sceptics to join me (@haseler) and there are only a handfull of us. And that is why it is so easy to pick off sceptics or conservatives.
Yes I know that whenever two sceptics come together there are at least three opinions, whereas when there are a 10,000 alarmists group-thinkers, there’s less than one opinion between them, but unless or until sceptics start working together and leaving fascist book, google-youtube, tricker, etc., sceptics will continue to be picked off one by one.
I rarely use Twitter… Mostly just read Tweets of people I follow.
I mostly use Facebook to keep in touch with people I would otherwise not keep in touch with.
I set up Parlor and Connect-zing pages… But I don’t use them.
I mostly use YouTube to download funny videos, military documentaries and old movies & TV shows… And the 1969 Jets-Colts Super Bowl, that I watch every year instead of the Kneeler Bowl.
I mostly use LinkedIn for professional networking with other oil industry people and climate change skeptics.
If I want to read articles by skeptics, I come here. When I write articles, I publish them here… And I think they still appear on Facebook and Twitter.
That said, it’s outrageous that Greg’s LinkedIn account was frozen. But, I don’t see how boycotting LinkedIn would fix that. Finding ways to annoy the Masters of the Universe on their own platforms seems like a better response to me.
the push needed to close account
One thing to reflect on is what gets attention.
The Flat Earth advocates are not really threatening the political status quo, business status quo, or the get-rich schemes, such as global cap-and-trade and the Paris-Accord-style agreements to inve$t heavily in mitigation, that are under way.
So, while the majority of us may not believe the earth is flat, it does not really bother us that they practice their free speech. If any of us really had to have a substantial debate with a Flat Earth advocate, and had a purpose to be motivated to do this, many of us could muster up a pretty good debate to counter the flat-earth idea. And maybe even win some debates.
There are many topics where prevailing beliefs to influence government action, and influence market$. In these, we should still stick to the liberal ethos that free expression of ideas, and debate, including “participatory democracy,” and “deliberative democracy,” are very valuable.
The idea is that if “we,” generally, are able to freely carry on in debate and discussion, we ought to end up at some status quo, for however long, that is acceptable and reasonable to us, the governed. For better or for worse.
There is no guarantee that this ideal delivers the best policy, but that the prevailing policy has been free from tyranny or secrecy. IOW: it is better for us all to have joint deliberative decision-making and stumble along generally in the right direction, however meandering and slow, versus frank oppression.
Tyranny or secrecy might provide a better status quo, at some times, but it is generally recognized to have the absolute worst outcomes for all of us, except for the small handful of oppressive winners.
This liberal, enlightened attitude, that we adults have the capacity to “self-govern,” is a barrier to these bunches of schemers.
They right now are trying to put a happy face on it all, but are greatly hampered by our supposedly rock-solid commitment to a society of open discourse.
When you are taking flak, you are over target.
Where are we being hampered and censored?
Not with the Flat Earth issue. flat or not, no big diff.
Likewise, you are free to search for Big Foot, or Nessie, all you want.
I am one of these clowns who throws “bacon” memes around; my Jewish and vegetarian friends might groan, but we can all tolerate each other. When I host parties, I try to have non-meat food, and I know there are people I cannot reach for 24 hours once the sun goes down on Friday. We can all agree to disagree.
No one will cancel your LinkedIn.
But threaten their schemes, and they will take advantage of the tools you have given them over you, and will suppress open discourse.
I am sure Mencken has the perfect quote for this. But do note that we call can discuss anything amongst ourselves, UNTIL it interferes with their plans.
Why doesn’t LinkIn, or Facebook, or twitter, censor the Flat-Earthers? Because the Flat-Earthers give them clicks, and are not interfering with the Global Cap-And-Trade effort.
AND: the Global Cap-And-Trade effort CANNOT survive if we practice open discourse.
Sorry to add this in: The “Democrats” CANNOT win an election unless they can cheat the vote, or end the electoral college, or suppress our open discourse, or give 16-year-olds the right to vote, or pack the Supreme Court, or have their own team as debate moderators, etc., etc.
What I don’t understand is how these companies (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) benefit from the global warming charade. Any given company will benefit from generalized economic growth. Growth in the Texas oil-patch should benefit Silicon Valley because the overall demand for products and services is increased. The economic pie gets bigger for everyone. Thus, win-win for all. The global warming people want to shutdown much of the economic growth, reducing the size of the pie for everyone. I fail to see how this latter scenario benefits Silicon Valley companies.
Linked in helps me a lot here in calgary during man-made economic catastrophe to be able to keep in touch with people who’ve lost their jobs
Tweeted, ’20 Oct 10:
——
Storms, fires, floods, quakes, temp.s, etc, all,
worse thru few doz. previous decades
— w/ CO2 much lower; yet,
the assumption, “All worst now”, was loaded into
Q.’s to Pence & Harris in ’20 VP Debate.
(Q’s c/o USA Today.)
Old data shown & explained:
https://youtu.be/6y3ObG5Xyys
——-
That explanatory video, narrated by “Toto”, is courageously hosted by the YouTube channel, “Tony Heller”.