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And let me clarify: that was not the only point GumOnShoe made, rather It's a point I personally would like to see addressed since it's one of the more damning arguments against the laissez-faire ideology.

At 4/12/10 10:59 PM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 4/12/10 10:56 PM, Musician wrote: Since you don't seem to be willing to directly address any of his points, why don't you enlighten us.

Other than recommending books/articles/videos, how am I supposed to concisely address points such as "things would be worse off", other than saying "No they would be better off".

Well lets see. You could start by addressing the issue that a "rational consumer" doesn't have the foresight to make decisions on macroeconomic scale ala this:

Consumers can't use their money as voting power unless they are fully informed about the product and the way it was made. Consumers are ignorant of nearly everything but price & function, and limited even on function most of the time. Do you fully understand your computer? Of course not. What about a McDonald's hamburger?

What if you are presented with two identical products and one costs 5 cents less than the other? Does the fact that child labor was used to make one of the products even enter your mind, would it change the what you bought?

How could you possibly vote with your money? Are you going to research every product you make and the history of each? Should an independent group be formed to make such determinations? How is this different from a government, and more importantly how do you guarantee such an institution has access to what it would need to do to supply such a rating? Who is going to pay for the rating? How do you guarantee offenders who don't like the rating system won't set up their own self serving rating system? etc etc etc

And then maybe after that maybe you can give a general layout of how you think a laissez faire society would function and how it would be better than the system we currently have. In detail of course, since according to you we don't understand anything about the stateless society and how it functions.

At 4/12/10 10:49 PM, SadisticMonkey wrote: I'm guessing you have read essentially zero on how a stateless society would function. Am I right?

Since you don't seem to be willing to directly address any of his points, why don't you enlighten us.

At 4/6/10 07:45 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: as far as I am concerned the Utilitarian argument for a free market in wages and prices has already been dealt with, and it is only the Utilitarian arguments that i am concerned with.

Which is why I'm wondering why you came into this particular topic and made such a fuss, when I obviously wasn't arguing against the utilitarian argument. The topic, "you're not entitled to your money", addresses the idea that the money you earn is the immediate result of your work, in the same sense that a loaf of bread is the immediate result of baking it. Value is an ideological construct; a (limited) right bestowed upon you by society. The purpose of this right is utility, not adherence to some abstract sense of morals.

On a side note, I do have some arguments against the utility of the free market, but probably not in this thread. I think you should make a new thread about Anarchy. I'd be happy to debate you about the utility of Anarcho-Capitalism or Minarchism.

At 4/6/10 11:06 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote: I can't prove it's morally correct. I can say that it is a more genuine depiction of how society values a particular kind of labor. Unless you want to make the case that people do not act upon how they value certain things.

By the same logic you could say anarchy is a more genuine representation of what society believes it's social laws should be. Even if we agree that it is a more "genuine" system, that still begs the question: how does having a "genuine" system benefit us? Obviously anarchy doesn't really benefit us, because rational self interest in pure anarchy inevitably leads to things like theft, rape, and murder.

Ideally, an economy is based off of what is most beneficial for a society as a whole, and not what is "genuine."

Smile you're still completely missing the point. The voluntary market system isn't inherently a more valid measurement of value just because it's voluntary. You can make the argument that it's a more effective system of value measurement (which I would partially agree with), but you can't argue it's inherently correct.

At 4/5/10 06:51 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: The only objective measure of the value a person brings to society is the value of the product he produces, and what the consumers of that product are willing to pay for it. Which means under free competitive conditions the wages paid to a worker will tend towards the subjectively determined value of the good or service he produces.

The idea that voluntary trade is the "only objective measure of value" is an unfounded assumption that is directly challenged by the OP of this topic. I can name 2 other objective measurements of value.

- all professions are valued equally
- the value of a profession are to be valued by voluntary trade, but the value of every profession is worth at least $10 an hour

Both of those are objective criteria for setting wages.

At 3/26/10 03:36 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: You copied this off of 4chan

Actually it was posted on 4chan after it was posted here. See I know because I was the one who posted it on 4chan

At 3/25/10 09:13 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Money was not created to track and distribute wealth, it was created to facilitate trade more effectively.

Economies as a whole were made to track and distribute wealth. Think about it, what challenges does a society face? They ask, how do we provide for our people? 40,000 years ago in a hunter gatherer society, the answer to this was simple. The hunters would hunt, the gatherers would gather, the homemakers would take care of the young, and at the end of the day everyone would sit down and eat. This worked back then because during that time people lived in 50 person groups (or groups of about that size), and everyone was so close together and so small in number that it was easy to track and distribute resources.

But as humans started forming in larger groups currencies came into use. I say they did this because they needed to find a way to effectively track and distribute resources. You say they did this because they needed to more effectively facilitate trade. What you fail to realize is that these two points don't contradict each other. Obviously efficient trade is an important part of managing a large distribution of resources.

States did not originate money either

I don't remember ever saying that it did. Why do you keep avoiding my real points here and attacking strawman arguments? You're trying to paint me like I'm trying to give the state credit for economic innovations. I'm not, and It doesn't matter who invented it, that's completely besides the point. What I'm saying is that this is how larger governments have traditionally operated (larger governments meaning city-state and up, smaller governments being those of small towns and villages).

The legal tender that you "own" is really just a certificate of value

You're basically describing an economy as if every economy in the world is run in a stalinistic fashion, where the government sets all wages and all prices and determines all levels and means of production

No, once again you're misunderstanding my point. But it's probably my fault so let me elaborate a little bit here. The government doesn't give money value in the sense that it sets what a dollar is worth. It gives money value by standardizing it as legal tender. If you take a look at your dollar, you'll notice in fine print "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private" The government has forced what would normally be a piece of paper into an item of value through law. Understand? That's what I'm referring to.

Saying that because the government issues money, means that the government controls the distribution of all goods and services in an economy is like saying that All of the poetry in the world prior to computers was the genius of the ink companies that gave poets the medium to transfer their ideas more effectively.

I don't understand you're analogy at all. And I'm trying to. But besides that, "controls" is the wrong word. Obviously the government doesn't control the distribution of wealth in a laissez faire society. A government does however manage an economy. How it does this depends on their economic governing style. A pure laissez faire economy obviously wouldn't have any government intervention, but the government would manage the economy by facilitating contractual agreements, and standardizing legal tender. In a pure communist society, the government wouldn't allow a private market, would assign roles to individuals, and equally distribute resources among its people.

Vastly different designs that adhere to the same core principle. The government's role is to manage the distribution of resources (and also to manage the production of resources but that's a different subject I think).

you advocate Laissez Faire Statism (the absurd idea that government can regulate itself and should therefore be given free reign to do whatever it pleases as long as a politician can amass 51% of an ignorant populace behind him)

What? This is not what I advocate at all. It's true that I do believe that decisions should generally be made through majority decisions, but I think it should be done so through a system of checks and balances, much like the ones we have in place today.

As for 'rights' I agree, my support of property rights is utilitarian based, But you're statement has more truth than you realize. Because This is also why saying people have a right to healthcare is absurd. You are entitled to nothing

I agree, you are entitled to nothing. I don't think people are entitled to health care, but I think they should get it. Why? Because the purpose of society is to provide for it's people. If capitalism really has failed (and it appears that it has), then we must find an altered means to provide for our people.

what you get in life is determined by the value you provide to society, and that can only be determined when people freely and voluntarilly pay for certain goods and services.

Ah, and see this is where we enter the realm of opinion. It is not a fact that your value to society can only be determined by free market evaluation. Like I said in the OP, there are other ways of determining value. Let me ask you this question. You truly believe that the free market makes accurate assesments of a persons worth in labor correct?

Being someone of your stance I'm sure you're aware of the current wealth distribution in the US. The upper quintile holds somewhere around 85% of the total wealth. What that would seem to imply is that 20% of people in the US do 85% of the work. This is the free market's assessment. The question is this: do you really believe that is correct?

I don't. I'd lean towards the communist position that every laborer is equally important to a functioning society. That doesn't mean I think distribution should be completely controlled by the state as in a communist society, rather that the state needs to balance out the free market assessment with a bit of common sense every once in a while. If the free market places the value of the manual labor worker at lower than the price of living, then the state needs to shift the distribution of resources in order to provide for that person.

Wages are determined by derived demand, or to make it simpler, how much an employer is willing to pay his employee is his wage

Yes, as I said to poxpower, I understand that this is the way the free market evaluates a persons value. My question is this: Is that evaluation correct?

But i strongly recommend you read into principles of economics

Why should I? First of all, I already know the principles of economics so fuck your snide little comment, I don't appreciate that shit at all. Secondly, this isn't an economic debate, no matter how much your try to make it one. It's a social argument about the idea of innate human rights, and the idea of entitlement.

Little do you know Proteas that personally I totally agree with you

In America, people do have the right to protest, and to vote, and to voice against the actions of their government (not an inherent or natural right, but I digress). The problem I have is when these people try to make the argument that they're entitled to their currency, and that the government isn't allowed to impose taxes for some innate moral reason (that doesn't exist).

At 3/25/10 06:06 PM, poxpower wrote: Well it's partially driven by supply and demand. Anyone can shovel coal into a pit but it takes a great deal of education to build a rocket. So there's certainly good argument to be made why a job is worth more than another one.

I understand that this is how the free market tends to set prices and wages. I even personally believe that it's the right way to set prices and wages (most of the time). The point is that this isn't inherently a correct evaluation. The problem comes in when the work of a laborer is valued below what it takes to keep him alive. Then we're going into an area where resources aren't being distributed effectively by the government (basic living standards aren't being met for a segment of the population) and controls need to be put in place.

Also this reminds me of cellardoor who never understood the argument that taxing someone who makes 100 billion dollars by 99% a year still leaves the guy with a billion dollars to live on.

I remember him and I've still got my cellardoor6 bingo card on my hard drive. That guy was a freaking riot... for all of 2 hours then his ridiculousness lost its novelty. I'm glad he's gone

"You're not entitled to MY money!" You hear it everywhere these days. On the news, in political debates... at those ridiculous tea party rallies. "It's MY money and the government has NO right to it."

But lets back up a bit here. What exactly is money? Paper? does it have any inherent value? No, currency is a part of our economy, a man made construct. We developed currency, and the entirety of our economy for a sole purpose: to most effectively distribute resources among the population of a community. We developed money, because once we started living together in populations larger than 100 or so people, we NEEDED a system to track and distribute wealth.

The legal tender that you "own" is really just a certificate of value issued to you by the government, managed by the government, and given value by the government for the sole purpose of distributing resources throughout a society. People who say that the role of government has nothing to do with redistribution of wealth, must have a serious misunderstanding of the history of human governance, as managing the distribution of resources (and in doing so creating productivity) is essentially the reason government exists in it's current form.

But I digress, let me get back to the point. Right now, all the Randians are scrunching their brows, pouting, and asking themselves "Why wouldn't I be entitled to my money? Private property is an innate human right!" Innate rights don't exist bud. There's no force of nature that bestows exclusive use of a piece of land to one person. The idea that you're inherently entitled to your property is a fairy tale, like Santa, or GOD (LOL CRY SOME MORE). property rights, like just about everything in our society is a human construct.

The only reason we even have property rights, is because capitalism has proven itself to be an effective system for distributing resources. See what I'm getting at here? Capitalism hasn't survived because it's innately right or moral, it's survived because it's effective at distributing resources (note: resources include both tangible products and services. examples of tangible goods being food, housing, etc and examples of services being healthcare, military and police protection, etc) and promoting productivity. But capitalism has failings, and in order to keep society healthy, the government regulates and controls certain areas of the market in order to more effectively distribute resources.

In order to pay for these government interventions, we instate taxes. This is where the tea partiers cry because they're "entitled" to their money. No you're not. By being a US citizen, by being a part of our nation's community, you have signed a social contract that essentially states that you will work within our guidelines, which have been (supposedly anyways) specifically implemented to benefit the community over the individual. The government never grants you complete entitlement to all your money. No government in existence does that.

Inevitably someone will bring up the following point: "I do have an inherent right to my money, and you know why? Because my labor inherently produces goods. I have a right to the inherent fruits of my labor, sweat of my brow, etc, etc, etc." That's great and all, but the whole argument falls apart when currency becomes involved, because as stated before money is a human construct, and in modern society, any "inherent fruits of labor" are going to be given an artificial value in currency. So then the question is "who decides what a man gets paid for his labor?"

The capitalist argues that the invisible hand of the free market will decide. After all you're only worth what people will pay you. But in this kind of scenario the hard working manual laborer who grinds a 9-6 work week deserves less compensation than the man who works a comfortable office job managing bank loans. Many of you will read that last sentence and totally agree with it, which is understandable seeing as in the US we're conditioned from birth to believe that white collared working men are somehow "better/smarter/whatever" than blue collared working men. That's fine if you believe it, just realize there's not neccesarily a factual basis for that, it's a completely emotional argument.

In contrast, the communist argues that both the banker and the worker are equally essential to society. After all, who would construct our buildings if it weren't for the worker? And who would manage the distribution of wealth if it weren't for the banker? If any one of these proffessions were to dissappear entirely, it would be chaos. So the fruits of their labor deserve equal payment in resources. Obviously communism didn't work in practice for a variety of reasons, but it's core principles are no less valid that the core principles of capitalism. Once again, there is no natural law that states the free market philosophy is moral, and that the community philosphy is not.

So the next time you're at a Tea Party rally, making vitriol filled speeches about how the government is stepping over the line, and how we're becoming a godless welfare state, or having man on man sex or whatever you do there, consider this: Maybe you're the one with the entitlement complex.

At 2/14/10 02:05 PM, FUNKbrs wrote: Study geologic climate history based on ice cores, stalactites, and other fossils.

Climate change is NORMAL. It was going on for millions of years BEFORE humanity.

Yes global warming has occurred in the past due to natural causes, this does not mean that the current warming trend is natural. Many scientists have tried to prove the current warming trend is natural and have failed to do so.

So would everyone in this thread stop being so vocal about shit they clearly don't understand?

If you haven't done the research stop pretending you have

At 2/11/10 04:52 AM, WolvenBear wrote:
No, sorry. Fail. Your sources use numbers to prove the opposition wrong. As soon as someone uses the tactic back you cry foul. Next?

What are you talking about. My numbers are a statistical analysis, yours are just... well numbers. Saying 30,000 people disagree doesn't prove anything on it's own. If we're talking about 30,000 out of 40,000 people, then yes it may be significant. If we're talking about 30,000 people out of 300,000 people, then it's much less relevant. The Doran Zimmer study puts things in a statistical context, making them a valid measurement of the consensus, your source does not.

No I DON'T need to provide anything for this. The study says that people believe that warming is happening AND/OR it is caused by humans. By the study's own criteria it is bunk.

This is just false. The study was looking for people who endorsed the consensus position that global warming is being caused by human activity. there was no and/or factor involved.

Gotcha. Consensus then is irrelevant because consensus now is more informed. Yawn.

There was no consensus on Global Cooling, this is just a lie. There were in fact, more papers being written about the possibility of Global Warming than about the possibility of Global Cooling. There was no consensus on climate change (at least in this area) back in the 1970s, the community was much more fractured.

Exaggerations and Alarmism? No, what it shows is that scientific hypothesis are not always correct. Which is actually the mechanism by which the scientific community works. Multiple hypothesis are formed and the bad ones are weeded out.

Gotcha. So a large degree of scientists believing something doesn't make it true,

How is this at all a proper response to what I said above? Of course it doesn't make something true, I never implied that it did.

No, they're not. If CO2 heats the world, and every yeat sees an increase in CO2 than the world temp should increase every year. Otherwize the theory is wrong.

This once again assumes that CO2 is the only factor influencing climate change. There are all sorts of environmental factors that can cause different weather patterns in different parts of the globe. Do some research on the el nino/la nina cycle for a specific example of this.

But it hasn't. You're wrong.

Yes it has, look at the data you yourself linked to. Sunspot activity as a whole has been in decline since the 1980s. And as I said before even if I was wrong, sunspot data still wouldn't correlate with the current increase in temperature so the point is moot.

Then this years winter should be less than last years, or you're wrong.

There's a third possibility: Namely that you have grasp whatsoever of the argument the scientific community is making. GHG are not the only thing effecting global temperature. Nobody has been saying that. So stop making arguments based on this assumption.

If what I'm saying is wrong go ahead and prove me wrong. If you're right you should be able to prove me wrong on a scientific level, correct?

There's no if, bud. I've put forward real challenges to your record. You simply said they don't matter. You're not a scientist and you dob't even play one on TV.

Your challenges are irrelevant because saying that because I'm not a scientist I must be wrong is an ad hominem fallacy.

At 2/9/10 08:23 PM, adrshepard wrote: If you just felt like shutting people down and putting them in their place, then I commend you for it. The world needs more of that.

Haha yeah well admittedly this was probably it. But I'm going to have disagree with you on some of your points there:

1. The scientists who dispute the conventional global warming conclusions are for the most part probably not oil-industry hacks or deliberately trying to deceive people.

I kind of disagree with this because I really do think the oil-industry has put weight behind the anti-global warming movement. But in the end it doesn't really matter if they are backed by the oil companies, what does matter is that by and large they're putting out bad science.

2. The points on which these scientists disagree are probably not due to any simple, easily understandable error on their part. More likely they involve differences in measured data, methodology, and interpretation, and not general theory. Put simply, I doubt any one of your arguments, or those found on websites meant for the average public viewer or climate enthusiast, is enough to completely stump them.

In some cases yes, in others no. The junk science is easy to stump, the actual skeptics are hard to fully disprove due to the factors you mentioned. One example of this is the sunspot data. There's still a small group of scientists who believe the warming trend may be attributed to sunspots. While the current data says sunspots are in decline others insist that there may be some misinterpretation or error in the data and that more studies need to be conducted. They're a small group of people though, as mentioned earlier in this thread.

At 2/9/10 01:42 PM, Memorize wrote: 35% of Democrats are Truthers

Being a bit disingenous there Memorize. Believing that Bush had knowledge of the 9/11 attacks before they happened is a far cry away from thinking that Bush had explosives planted in the the buildings or some crazy shit like that. I'd be more interested in seeing how many registered democrats believe Bush orchestrated 9/11

28% of Republicans are Birthers

Yes, this was found by the same dailyKOS 2000 poll, only it's one year old. The new poll shows 36% of all republicans say they don't believe Obama was born in the United States, and additional 22% say 'i don't know' (what does that even mean?)

At 2/9/10 02:56 AM, Korriken wrote: dur hur hur ohmagawd dem cunservatives er sher ignant. dur dur dur. I kint buhleave dey would tink that ACORN iz anuhthin uther din duh bestest orginizashun hehpin peepul aut!

Seriously.

The question wasn't "do you think ACORN is the bestest organization ever?" It was, "do you think ACORN stole the election?"

There's a subtle difference.

At 2/9/10 01:17 AM, poxpower wrote: Again I can't believe there would be this many stupid people alive in the US. But when I see Memorize... I wonder.

Quite frankly I can't see any error in their methods, apart from the question about entering the kingdom of heaven (though IIRC less than 4% of all registered republicans are atheists), and maybe that one about teaching the bible in school (either way their advocating teaching religion in school). But even if those questions were flawed this says nothing about the other questions.

So I'm thinking these polls are probably legit, which honestly doesn't surprise me too much given the crazy shit that's been happening at these tea party protests.

http://www.dailykos.com/statepoll/2010/1 /31/US/437

Some of the highlights:

QUESTION: Do you believe Barack Obama was born in the United States, or not?: 36% no, an additional 22% say 'not sure'.

QUESTION: Do you believe Barack Obama wants the terrorists to win?: 24% say yes, an additional 33% say 'not sure'.

QUESTION: Do you believe ACORN stole the 2008 election?: 21% say yes, an additional 55% say 'not sure'.

QUESTION: Do you believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be President than Barack Obama?: 53% say yes, an additional 33% say 'not sure'.

QUESTION: Do you believe Barack Obama is a racist who hates White people? 31% say yes, an additional 33% say 'not sure'

Well anyways, I better not spoil all the surprises. What do you guys think of this recent polling?

At 2/7/10 06:32 PM, Musician wrote: Are you trying to suggest that NASA satelites are making the same errors, in the exact same areas at the exact same time in all instances?

*As surface temperature data

At 2/7/10 05:25 PM, adrshepard wrote: All of which is completely error free and 100% reliable in its current state.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/satellit e-measurements-warming-troposphere.htm

Nobody is saying that all measurements are 100% reliable. We have to expect errors to appear in data as a matter of fact. But yes, global readings of temperature by NASA overall are considered to be accurate. If they weren't why would they match so well with surface temperatures. Are you trying to suggest that NASA satelites are making the same errors, in the exact same areas at the exact same time in all instances? Because that's the only way both could be flawed beyond use and still be consistent with each other.

So, returning to what I said in my first post, whatever we believe about global warming as non-scientists has very little to do with actual fact but more with how convincingly each scientist or group of scientists makes their case.

See this is where we're different. You openly admit to not understanding the science behind it, I don't. I understand the science behind global warming because I've been actively involved in the scientific community for the last 2 years. I may not understand every little detail behind it, but yeah I understand how it works and I understand the arguments against it, which is why I'm so effectively disarming anyone in this thread who tries to argue with me on a scientific level.

The case you're making is that since I don't know on hand the rate at which carbon emissions spread, I must not have a firm grasp of the theory on climate change. Which is of course fallacious logic. So here's an idea

1. Form a hypothesis (ex. "CO2 cannot be warming because if the dispersal rate in the atmosphere is too slow. I predict the dispersal rate is too slow")
2. Find Solid evidence to support than claim
3. Then come back and maybe you'll have something.

Until then I'm not going to bother doing research on every half-assed idea you manage to pull out of your hat because quite frankly my time is more valuable than that.

If you can link me to a site that details the economic costs of dealing with various warming scenarios, go ahead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_tax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cap_and_tra de

Those are the two most popular proposed forms of emissions control. Please feel free to find the description in those articles on which countries have already implemented reform and explain to me how exactly they qualify as third world countries.

Are we to believe that category 5 hurricanes did not exist before whenever the hockey stick point in the temp timeline starts?

Hmm, you're being sloppy. Nobody is saying that, what we're saying is that global warming has the potential to increase the frequency of such storms.

Poverty, famine, and war are not natural disasters. It's okay that you missed that, though; I'm a man of "arts and humanities" myself and we don't fail as much at the reading comprehension.

Poverty, famine, and war can be a direct result of natural disasters. You can argue that the US has an infrastructure that would make it more resistant to their effects, and I would agree to an extent, but the US would not be immune as you seem to suggest by saying "*in africa"

At 2/7/10 06:23 AM, WolvenBear wrote: Oh goodness. Um, sorry chap, but epic fail. Poverty rates increased quicker after abortion was legalized. As did crime. But don't let facts stand in your way.

There was a major drop in crime in 1990s. I know what you're thinking: "Hey abortion was legalized in the 1970s, so if what you said is true shouldn't there have been an immediate decline in crime rates?" Not when you consider why exactly legalized abortion lowers the crime rate. Consider this, when abortion was illegal, kids were being born into poor living conditions. Because of this most of them lived in poverty and were more likely to become involved in crime at an older age. Maybe starting around the 16-20 year old age group.

When abortion was legalized, kids were less frequently born into such conditions, and so we had less kids growing up to become criminals. This explains the 20 year gap. You can read more about this and why it's considered one of the better explanations for the recent drop in crime here.

But even if you were right and the overall crime rate had increased, that still would not mean abortion had a positive effect on crime rates, because it absolutely disregards the fact that there's more than one factor contributing to crime rates. It could be while abortion is lowering crime rates, another factor is raising it. Just another area you failed to address.

As for poverty, it's well known that children cost a lot of money. By keeping abortion illegal many people get trapped in perpetual poverty because an unwanted child puts a strain on their limited resources. You can say that adoption is possible in response to this. But this ignores the fact that most people do not opt for adoption.

It's pretty clear making abortion illegal would have a negative effect on our society. If you're really against abortion, it's better to work through means that truly work, like sex education, and higher availability of birth control products.

Because me not giving you a pat on the back and saying "good boy" deprives you of your rights? eye roll.....

This is just stupid. Open homosexuals are being denied rights (the ability to serve in the military, the ability to have a civil union) because of a "moral" held by the majority. This has nothing to do with open acceptance of gays, they are literally being denied the same rights as you or me.

graph below shows lag time btw

At 2/7/10 01:49 PM, FUNKbrs wrote:
Which three thousand? Only the earth scientists? In effect, the only scientists on the planet that have a vested interest in supporting the myth of human caused global warming to continue the influx of government research dollars?

Not all earth scientists are involved in research on climate change.

Scientific hypothesis are not always correct, this does not discredit the scientific body as a whole. Only a fool would believe that

1: Yes it does.
2: Yes it does.
3: Yes it does.

So your belief is scientists should never form a hypothesis unless they are 100% certain that it is correct?

Insanity is defined as doing the same action again and again, expecting different results. In science, this is exactly what happens because it arrogantly assumes human perception is capable of isolating all determining factors in research. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle distinctly disproves this.

Science never makes that assumption. Science is simply an unbiased observation of the facts.

As long as people are the ones conducting the research, error is implicit in all science.

Yes, but in this case evidence for global warming has been confirmed by multiple independent sources. If there were some crucial flaw in the theory on AGW it would have been brought to the attention of the scientific community by now.

Actually, it means that the mean temperature of the earth rising would be PEFECTLY NORMAL AND ACCEPTABLE IN ALL WAYS.

Although it's not. At all.

Funk, you're not even making sense anymore

It has been in decline. This year. And this year, we had record cold temperatures.

Wait a minute.....

Which can be attributed to any number of scientific anomalies. one or two years of cooling does not erase an overall trend of warming

At 2/7/10 11:32 AM, adrshepard wrote:

Because last I checked european countries have enacted many of these supposedly draconian policies. Are they living like third world peasants?

Of course not, because their policies are not nearly strict enough to "avert catastrophe." It was hard enough to get nations to follow the Kyoto Protocol and even if those targets were extended to the end of the century, there would only be a tiny difference in temperature compared to doing nothing.
http://www.ucar.edu/news/record/#kyoto
And if this article is any indication, the Copenhagen pledges are apparently even less demanding, since this guy says the temps would still rise 3.5 degrees by 2100 (as opposed to the 2.5 midpoint in the other link).
I can't find the graph right now, but from what I remember it would take an instantaneous 75% reduction in global emissions for the temperature to remain roughly constant over the next century. I'm telling you, unless there's some critical breakthrough in technology, there's no way that green living and carbon trading is going to reduce emissions by that much.

There are varied ideas of what we should do to slow carbon emissions. I've heard some say that the global crisis could be solved with a 50 euro per ton of carbon emission tax. Anyways, it's not my area of expertise so I won't argue over it.

No scandal except that the guy resigned and the emails were a major news story for a week or two.

Neither of which prove anything of relevance

From your response to b0b3rt you're not willing to go into it, and if you look at what I actually said, the implications of the scandal go far beyond what the actual science says.

We're not here to discuss popular public opinion, we're here to discuss what is fact. And no, I won't go into the climategate emails myself because that's incredibly tedious boring and un-necesarry given that dozens of people have already debunked the claims set forth about the climategate emails.

Yes, and while a theoretical understanding is well and good, it gets you nowhere when the issue is entirely about degrees.

Don't see how. The larger scale is obviously what we need to be looking at and worrying about.

Could you tell me the seasonal variation in the range of the heat island effect?

I assume you mean the Urban Heat Island effect, and I don't see how that's relevant since we're looking at global temperatures as a whole. And surface temperatures are also checked against atmosphere temperatures for accuracy.

How about the rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide distribution given certain emissions at points in the world?

Again, not seeing the relevance. I'm sure if you had evidence of CO2 distribution being too slow to make any significant impact on world wide temperatures you would have presented it by now.

How many temperature monitoring stations are necessary to give accurate enough data for a country the size of China?

That's up for individuals doing the measuring to decide. See, the beautiful thing about science is that if the skeptics really don't believe that scientists are making accurate measurements of temperature, they're free to do it their way and submit it to peer review. I have no reason to believe the temperature readings from China were inaccurate.

We aren't talking about a little increase in income taxes.

In some scenarios, yes we are

We're talking about crippling new regulations and penalties applied to transport and energy consumption. Prohibitive taxation on all meat to reduce consumption. New technology and subsidies is not going to achieve anything on the scale we supposedly need.

[citation needed]

Sure, worst case scenarios by definition usually suck. But there's no certainty about any of it. You can't look at two natural disasters and say, "this one would have happened anyway, but the other one is a global warming disaster."

Yes you can actually, and we have. Scientists have determined that Katrina reached the intensity it did indirectly due to global warming. This is how you do it:

1. Determine what increases storm intensity
2. Determine if global warming can effect the variable that increases storm intensity
3. See if there's evidence that this occured

here's more information on global warmings impact on Katrina if you're interested

But in reality we're looking at a massive loss of resources, and all the social issues that come with that: poverty, war over limited resources, etc*

*In Africa

Like I said, certain scenarios predict the US losing large amounts of resources.

*In Africa

Now you're just being arrogant. Show me the data that says global warming will only cause natural disasters in Africa.

At 2/7/10 05:57 AM, WolvenBear wrote:

1. There is no scientific consensus on climate change

assessment of the the consensus within the scientific community.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sci entists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientif ic_assessment_of_global_warming
http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/05/31072-
american-scientists-against-agw.html

As I've already shown, polling indicates that approximately 82% of all scientists believe in significant AGW, and that percentage gets even higher when a scientist specializes in climate science. I'm sorry but posting these petitions here is just disingenous, 30,000 people? out of how many? This information means nothing to the debate.

The first study you linked to was criticized because it included people in the "consensus" who felt the world was warming, but didn't believe man was the cause,. They would be in the implicit category.

This is akin to saying that a woman died because she was struck by a car. 100 doctors study her. None of the 100 disagree that she's dead, though many disagree that she was struck by a car. Therefore 100% of the scientists implicitly or explictly agree.

You're going to need to provide a citation for this one. I've never heard of Orestes being criticised for this before. If you're going to be the first I suggest you provide some examples of when she misinterpreted support for the consensus within a paper.

It does discredit them if a general "consensus" said cooling, after a consensus said warming before, and is now saying coling again.

Science doesn't work like that. Everything starts with competing hypothesis and as more evidence shows up the hypotheses that explain the evidence better get moved forwared. Back in the 1970s we didn't have the data on rising global temperatures that we did now, so it makes sense that there would be competing hypothesis. The fact that there wasn't a consensus in the 1970s doesn't show weakness in the scientific community, because starting without a consensus is a staple of the scientific community.

That being said, even back in the 1970s when the earth was going through a period of cooling, global warming was the dominant theory.

It shows that even scientists are prone towards exaggerations and alarmism.

Exaggerations and Alarmism? No, what it shows is that scientific hypothesis are not always correct. Which is actually the mechanism by which the scientific community works. Multiple hypothesis are formed and the bad ones are weeded out.

Of course, no one is making this foolish argument. But if we are having one of the coldest winters on record (we are), and last year was unseasonably cold (it was), it hurts the argument.

Making observations like that are short sighted. Sure, someone in the world may be having a cold winter, but another part of the world may be experiencing the hottest summer in it's history. That's why climate scientists look at temperatures of the world as a whole.

That's a bold faced lie.

Heh, a bold claim

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p RCU-GILWR0NIkAN4Y5eQPw

Hmmm, no constant down activity hurts your case. Hmmm.

See, no it doesn't. I never said anything about constant down activity. I said that sunspot activity has been dropping since the 1980's, that is sunspot activity as a whole. If you'll look back at my argument you'll even see I posted a graph showing that there was not constant down activity. And even if I was wrong, sunspot data still does not correlate with the current warming trend now does it?

This is nonsense. The earth would've boiled over if that was the case. Warming would've lead to more ice melting which would've lead to more warming, which would've lead to more ice melting...yadda yadda yadda.By this silly theory, once warming starts, it is irreversible. Of course, the fact that such warming reversed in the past proves this wrong.

Until of course the earth is put through an ice age due to changes in the planets orbit relative to the sun.

And this simply relies on accepting your word as gospel

If what I'm saying is wrong go ahead and prove me wrong. If you're right you should be able to prove me wrong on a scientific level, correct?

which I'll pass on given your bad record.

Ad Hominem, lovely.

At 2/7/10 01:25 AM, b0b3rt wrote: At best, huge amounts of misconduct.

No, at best it shows the actions of a few unethical individuals who fabricated data. Which does not in anyway disprove the massive amounts of data that already exists on the subject. And that's at best. None of those emails are relevant when taken out of context the way they are. I'm not going to go dumpster diving through 1000+ emails to find the context of those quotes you gave me. I know enough about the climate gate debacle to know that most if not all of the emails have been taken out of context, and there has been no solid evidence presented of misconduct.

At 2/6/10 10:16 PM, adrshepard wrote: Or because Americans don't want to start living like third-world peasants for no other reason than that some scientists say they have to.

Start living like third world peasants? And they're calling proponents of global warming sensationalist... tell me adrsheperd, where did you get that figure? Because last I checked european countries have enacted many of these supposedly draconian policies. Are they living like third world peasants?

The British scandal is almost the worst thing that could happen to global warming activism, since up until now it was considered implausible that so many scientists could be wrong about it. Now, it comes up that one significant prediction of the IPCC report is baseless and climatologists from a major climate research center deliberately tried to hide their data. It doesn't matter if it's an isolated incident or not; when you start ordering people to basically throw their money in the fire, you can't afford to make mistakes in your PR campaign.

Yeah, only there never was a scandal, and nobody was hiding data. None of those emails showed any evidence of scientific misconduct. Feel free to prove me wrong of course if you think you can.

As far as the science goes, you're wasting your time trying to convince people. None of us have any real understanding of the issue

Well that's a shame since it's really not that hard to understand. Let me explain: CO2 is something known as a green house gas. Green house gases have the ability to trap and contain heat within the earths atmosphere. The more GHGs in the atmosphere, the higher the amplification of heat becomes. Thus when we emmit co2 into the atmosphere, we increase our planet's temperature.

and I doubt you're doing anything more than reciting other people's theories and conclusions.

These aren't theories, these are facts that disprove poorly formed arguments.

Best to hunker down and prepare in case the activists are right and take whatever comes our way. I'm not changing my life for the sake of poor countries whose shoddy infrastructure and overpopulation make them vulnerable to natural disasters.

You would rather have our country attempt to withstand an increasingly inhospitable conditions than maybe pay a few extra taxes? You do realize that natural disasters, disease, rising sea levels, etc do kill people. Taxes don't.

Short of a cataclysmic rise in sea levels, global warming activists can say little more than "there could be more diseases, hurricanes, and droughts...somewhere in the world." Things would probably get more expensive because of disruptions to the economy, but then again, economic stagnation and population control are basically what the activists propose in the first place.

You're understating the potential effects of global warming and overstating the effects of carbon control. Now the exact outcome of Global Warming is hard to predict, but in a worst case scenario the economic impacts alone would be far greater than anything implemented through cap in trade. Consider this: minor changes in the ecosystem could lead to massive losses in crops, the US's #1 export, in some scenarios the entire breadbasket of the US could become a dustbowl [1]. AGW deniers like to pretend that the implifications of global warming aren't serious. But in reality we're looking at a massive loss of resources, and all the social issues that come with that: poverty, war over limited resources, etc

At 2/6/10 04:35 AM, Al6200 wrote: This is just a ridiculous accusation akin to claiming that global warming is a political movement backed by ideological statists who want to raise government spending.

Where are the scientifically backed arguments against global warming then? We really need to stop pretending that the two sides of this debate are equal. The proponents of man made global warming are backed by tons of scientific data, and the "skeptics" of global warming are backed by junk science and political drivel. In my opinion, the only reason there even is a movement against anthropogenic global warming is because of 1) personal interests of companies that have something to lose from caps on GHG emmissions, and 2) Republicans who get re-elected by propping up a boogey man of a gigantic liberal conspiracy

At 2/6/10 02:10 PM, AapoJoki wrote: Musician, this'll save you the trouble.

Thanks. I'm actually making this one specifically for newgrounds. Cause i'm just such a nice guy.

Another one dedicated to Memorize:

8. The Earth has gone through periods of warming and cooling before in the past. Way before industrialization. This proves that carbon dioxide can't possibly be having the impact we're attributing it to.

It is true that the earth has gone through phases of global warming before, and has even been hotter than it is now without seeing the effects of man made carbon. But this not invalidate the argument for Man-Made Global Warming in the slightest. Why is that? It simple really: There's more than one source of climate change. Scientists have always been clear in stating that GHGs are not the only things that could potentially cause the earth's climate to change, all they have said is that GHG emmissions are the only things that can explains the current warming trend.

So what are the factors that influence the warming and cooling of the planet? Here's the big 3

1. Sun Activity (and Earths position relative to the sun) (provide more or less solar heat)
2. Green House Gases (trap more or less solar heat)
3. Particulates and Aerosols (reflect more or less solar heat)

So what caused the former periods of global warming? Most likely increased solar input caused massive ice sheets to begin to melt, releasing large amounts of GHGs into the atmosphere further amplifying the effects of the solar output. This is how it is assumed to have happened in the past. However, the current trend of global warming CANNOT be explained through increased solar output. Why? Because as shown in Debunk #5, solar activity has been decreasing since the 1980s. Seemingly, the only possible reason for the current trend of warming is an increase in green house emmissions.

At 2/6/10 12:35 AM, dySWN wrote: So you're arguing that morality doesn't make sense... with your own moral stances?

I'm not saying morality doesn't make sense, in many cases morality coincides with reality. The morals that say murder is wrong for example, coincide with reality because a society can't exist where nobody can assume the right to life.

Sometimes, however, morality does not coincide with reality. Legislated abortion for example, has been empirically proven to be a failure. Such a program not only fails to prevent abortion, but it breeds poverty, and with that higher crime rates. From an objective stand point the pro-life morality does not coincide with the reality of the situation.

The case for legislating against gay rights is even clearer: it persecutes a completely harmless group of people for no other reason than "my morality says they're bad". A group of American's are stripped of their rights because of a "morality" held by an irrational majority.