16,951 Forum Posts by "RedSkunk"
Continuing through on that thought.... Genetic modification of crops begets that of animals begets that of humans - unless government regulation intervenes (as it has in Europe).
I think a lot of you need to do some research. The great bulk of our foodstuff (in the U.S.) is already genetically modified. And genetic research is already proving beneficial in humans. What is genetically modified anyways? We've been genetically modifying for centuries with selective breeding and cross-pollinating of livestock / crops.
Here's the first link I clicked on in a google search for ya'll.
http://pewagbiotech.org/resources/factsh eets/display.php3?FactsheetID=2
No, the U.S. is not unique in the least bit. I just thought it might be helpful to limit the discussion to contemporary western society since we all know a bit about it.
At 11/23/07 11:01 PM, TheMason wrote:At 11/23/07 10:19 PM, RedSkunk wrote:Your mistake here is assuming that I'm coming at this from a partisan perspective. I don't think the IPCC has a partisan stake, but they do have a bureaucratic stake in maintaining funding from both public and private funding.At 11/23/07 10:06 PM, TheMason wrote:I would like to know how the UNEP and the WMO have a partisan stake in the (non)issue of climate change?
Their professional reputations are also at stake. The appearance of a consensus can do much to cover up the fact that environmental scientists have a track record of failure when it comes to predicting future weather/geological patterns.
I was using partisan in the strictest sense of the word. The IPCC studies the literature, funding is irrelevant because they are not out to prove or disprove. FWIW, the IPCC is a completely public body, funded mainly by governmental bodies as well as the WMO and UN.
Now you're claiming that coming to a scientific consensus is a matter of reputation?
At 11/23/07 10:55 PM, TheMason wrote: CATO quote
I must say, that article seems outdated when it talks about a "diminishing importance" on national security. How have NASA, DoE, & DOD "appropriated" climate change research? Has this changed at all in the past fifteen years since that article was written? Richard Lindzen qualifies the second paragraph you quoted with a "as far as I can tell." What are Lindzen's qualifications for determining whether funding has increased or decreased? And his claim about the number of scientists "dedicated" to studying climate change? Is this still applicable?
These links are talking about the politicization of climate change, not of the research. What articles have been summarily dismissed at Science and Nature? How often is "common"? You found two op-eds with the same argument, but not a lot of insight.
All of which starkly contrasts to the silence .........anything BUT irrelevant and a red herring.
red herring - "A red herring is a metaphor for a diversion or distraction from an original objective"
The discussion is climate change, not your opinions about Al Gore.
"If you submit to us now, we will train you to be free tomorrow."
This has been the foreign policy of the U.S. since virtually its inception. It's the white man's burden, and it's alive and thriving today. I don't want to talk about today's quagmires, however.
My question is this - when is it ethical to deny a group of people their humanity and deem them unfit for the liberties that we all enjoy and call "self-evident"?
I live for your pity, stafff.
At 11/23/07 05:40 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: Australia has shit-all in terms of defence, and if we were invaded by say, China, we would not stand an ice cube's chance in hell of coming out alive. Sure Bush is an idiotic arsehole, but I consider him that big friend you hang around for protection, despite secretly despising him.
Why would China invade Australia?
At 11/23/07 10:06 PM, TheMason wrote: With all due respect Skunk (BTW, glad to see you back on NG), many of my ex-wife's co-workers got into science to make above average livings...
However, when ppl like Richard Lindzen (who happens to be a professor of meteorology at MIT) express their doubts, he is decried as being in the pay of the oil industry...
Grant money is what keeps food on the table of academics. To not be willing to analyze this ignores reality and is...irrational. :)
Most academics I know are well-fed. Anyways, I'll accept that everyone needs to be paid. What I'm questioning is the assumption that the majority of research on this particular subject is tainted because of grant funding.
Is the bulk of climate change research funded by those who benefit from climate change? Who might that be? The proof of burden lays on the claimee.
.
From the About page on the IPCC website.
The IPCC does not conduct any research nor does it monitor climate related data or parameters. Its role is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the latest scientific, technical and socio-economic literature produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change, its observed and projected impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.
The IPCC is the largest and foremost authority on climate change. They process the information coming from the world scientific body. The IPCC is a "scientific intergovernmental body set up by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)."
I would like to know how the UNEP and the WMO have a partisan stake in the (non)issue of climate change?
At 11/23/07 10:12 PM, TheMason wrote: My point is, I think it's telling that the mouthpiece of the GW movement (and it is a political movement) would rather the average person shoulder the burden than have his family lead the way. I mean if his family residence consumes 10x the average family residence...then obviously he doesn't believe in what he's preaching.
Red herring. For the point of discussion, it's irrelevant what Gore believes.
At 11/23/07 09:53 PM, TheMason wrote: I'll get right on it and start taking Al Gore seriously when his family stops consuming the same amount of energy as 10 average American families. Once he starts practicing what he preaches...
Why would another person's energy consumption influence yours?
At 11/23/07 07:28 PM, Thread-Killer wrote: For the most part, scientific studies only the reflect the opinion of those that paid for the research. A lot of researchers are afraid to lose grant money, which motivates them to keep silent.
Scientists don't get into the occupation to get rich. The argument that all (or "most") scientific study is flawed because money is involved isn't rational.
At 11/23/07 09:25 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Widespread drug use would also create a population of individuals incapable of doing they're jobs.
Enlightenment was about using logic and reasoning to solving problems in the world, it has nothing to do with changing your perspective of reality though recreational drugs.
Drug use doesn't intrinsically lead to dysfunctional people. Look at legal prescribed drug use, or legal unprescribed drug use, or countries with softer drug laws. As far as enlightenment, you're talking about a historical period. I'm talking about the noun.
"It has been said that wisdom is the ability to understand others; it is the understanding of yourself that is enlightenment."
Alexander Shulgin
One definition.
At 11/23/07 07:13 PM, stafffighter wrote: I have a pie made of oreo cookies. Compair your lives to mine and feel superior in every way except for pie.
I heard those oreo cakes or whatever you get at that one fast food dive have 900+ calories..
At 11/23/07 06:46 PM, Memorize wrote: Kind of tells a lot, doesn't it?
I thought this topic was about climate change. My mistake.
First politician I'll admit to voting for AND enjoying it.
At 11/23/07 06:37 PM, MickTheChampion wrote: I didn't realise I was this authoritarian.
Better get your head checked.
Were there any threads about Elliot Spitzer's plan to grant drivers licenses to individuals w/o social security #s? It was meant to solving the sort of problem that fli just described, but the media spun it as the Democrats trying to give illegal immigrants the ability to vote. Despite the fact that (legal) immigrants can currently get driver's licenses and that they're not a valid piece of identification to use to register to vote...
Spitzer's polling in the 30%s now because of it.
At 11/23/07 06:20 PM, bluedemonspeedracer wrote: This is the way politics work.
Why not attach political reform strings along with the military aid? This is the way politics works.
Military aid to a country like Pakistan is a fundamentally unsound idea. Check this for an example.
Economic Left/Right: -6.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.08
Nix those last two paragraphs, read these two, and stop trying to prove a point with death counts.
But if one is willing to take selective subsets out of context, then it is possible, in fact, to support any conclusion from these data. This is because the data are noisy and non-monotonic: values rise, then they fall, and both the rise and the fall are subject to apparently random fluctuations from month to month along the way. A misleading two-point comparison can thus easily be structured to imply that casualties are getting worse, not better, in 2007; or that the drop in 2007 is much greater than it is; or that there has been no change at all. If one chooses July and August of 2007, for example, then casualties go down for the MNF-I and Washington Post data, but they go up, during the surge period, for the AP, Reuters, and icasualties.org data (and all but the Washington Post data show a twenty to thirty-five percent one-month increase for June to July 2007, including MNF-I). But this is at least as likely to be an artifact of month-to-month instability as a sign of an underlying real reversal of security: much as the stock market bumps up and down even in the midst of long term trends to the contrary, so do these data, and the clear trend for 2007 as a whole is down.
Alternatively, many have compared 2007 data with figures for the same month from 2006; in each case, the 2007 figures are higher. But this hardly means that casualties are now increasing-on the contrary, the slope is now downward for all sources save the latter months of AP. The downward slope for 2007 is shallower than the upward slope for 2006, hence comparisons separated by twelve-month spans will show that the later values have not yet declined to the earlier levels. But if the current trend continues, they will. And there is nothing magic about twelve-month intervals; if one compares casualties at quarterly intervals, for example, the later values are generally lower than the earlier ones for 2007, not higher. For cyclic businesses in the civil economy, twelve-month comparisons are important because they compare like quantities (Christmas season sales this year and last year, for example). But there is no reason to suppose that Iraq is a seasonally cyclic business, hence there is no special significance to same-month comparisons per se.
I'm just quoting. No point spending too much effort here. Anyone using statistics to argue that anything is "looking up" in Iraq has their head in the sand.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/14295/
"There is a growing debate over the data used to support claims of progress in Iraq. In particular, it has been widely asserted that Gen. David Petraeus and MNF-I (Multi-National Force-Iraq) have produced artificially optimistic data on civilian casualties. Petraeus has argued that civilian fatalities climbed over the course of 2006, but fell forty-five percent over the last eight months as surge brigades have arrived in Iraq. [1] These findings have been challenged on a variety of grounds. Some accept the observation that casualties have declined, but argue that much of this is due to sectarian cleansing rather than improved security: where the intended targets have already been driven out, violence becomes unnecessary but the neighborhood is no more secure for targeted minorities. [2] But others dispute the observation of decline itself. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, Spencer Ackerman of the American Prospect, and John Podesta, Lawrence Korb, and Brian Katulis of the Center for American Progress, for example, argue that violence is not falling. National security expert Rand Beers argues that claims of a decrease cannot be verified by independent sources. [3]
Iraq data are inherently messy and all empirical claims need to be treated with caution. But two broad points seem clear nonetheless. First, sectarian cleansing is an important factor in Iraq 's violence, but it is hard to know how important it has been relative to the surge in reducing civilian casualties. No claim for the relative importance of the surge and cleansing for Iraqi civilian casualties can be sustained from available data. Second, MNF-I is not alone in finding a reduction in civilian deaths since 2006. Multiple, independent sources find similar trends, and there is very little evidence to suggest any upward trend in violence in 2007. Given this, the Petraeus testimony is not inaccurate or uncorroborated in the way many have claimed. But neither is it complete: while the testimony does not explicitly attribute the casualty reduction to the surge as opposed to sectarian cleansing or other causes, its weight of emphasis implies a primary role for the surge. A more complete assessment would have addressed potential alternative causes explicitly, and would have clarified the limitations on what can be known about the surge's effects."
Societal norms change. This isn't "political correctness."
Here are the cliff notes to a little ditty I wrote awhile back...
America's so-called "war on drugs" is ostensibly focused on eliminating nonessential, unprescribed drug use. The reason given is the purported harm that follows. It's a sort of benevolent prohibition; it's the government's way of saving us from ourselves. People accept this because of several historical realities - including a century or more of said institutionalized prohibition, a puritan religious ethos, and the uninterrupted flow of junk science telling us the dangers of all unprescribed drug use.
But the criminalization of drug use has less to do with the health of the population and more with enforcing a uniformity of consciousness. This aversion to nonstandard or altered states of consciousness is the result of a society molded out of monotheistic religious practices - practices which necessarily promote a standardized, monopolized way of thinking about life, god, and the meaning of it all. Narrow definitions of purity, clarity, and sanity rule the day. Altered states and the thought processes produced are dangerous to the status quo - particularly in regard to our religious beliefs and the moral underpinnings of our society (the rarely questioned "realities" we find ourselves living in).
Tsenay Serequeberhan, author and assistant professor at Hampshire College, writes that "that which is beyond question is the solid ground on which one stands." To question this solid ground is to question the "realities" of the day. These realities include the nature of human interaction, the purpose of our lives and how we live them, and the systems (economic, political, social) we find ourselves involved in. In short, the sort of fundamental questions usually reserved for organized religion. Altered states allow us to disconnect from the prescribed standards of the world - to remove the barriers that keep us from discovering deeper truths. Instead of faith, we're able to discover these truths ourselves.
The danger to traditional monotheistic religion is obvious. Enlightenment through introspection avoids subjugation to a god. The threat to other established elite comes from the nature of true enlightenment.
One would have a difficult time disputing the idea that the American (ergo global) economy today is rooted in overproduction and, as a result, conspicuous consumption. Hedonism is distinct in that it's explicitly rejected but implicitly practiced by the great majority of Americans. But a person can be cognizant of this while at the same time a willing participant. Rational self-interest can keep the best of us from acting on what we believe in.
Should that rational self-interest be stripped away (however momentarily) and our way of thinking - and therefor, our actions - can change decidedly. The altered state of an entheogen may be transient, but the effects need not be. Properly used, a "positive hangover" can be had, remaining with the user long after the physical effects have worn off. A new outlook on life, discovered in a state of mind with no baggage, commitments, or self-interest obstructing our view. And in an imperfect world, an enlightened populace risks challenging the dominant structures.
I can't believe you just admitted to reading Newsweak.
At 10/17/07 03:33 AM, Gunter45 wrote:At 10/17/07 03:02 AM, RedSkunk wrote: Bribery is the giving or offering of a bribe, which is to persuade by any sort of inducement. It doesn't necessarily revolve around money.But it's the giving of something. Telling somebody to vote a certain way based on information you've gathered doesn't qualify.
Inducement can be a verbal threat of voting for the "other guy." This is just a semantics argument, and you're basically arguing that lobbying isn't bribery because bribery carries with it an illicit connotation. That's an argument leading nowhere, fast.
At 10/14/07 10:35 PM, Ravariel wrote: Also, expanding on what I said about primary care, there is very little preventative care out there. Things like Diabetes and viral/bacterial issues can often be avoided through education and the support that a primary care physician (family doctor) can give. What's the saying... a penny of prevention is worth a pound of cure?
Diabetes can't be "avoided" through education like an STD or an unwanted pregnancy. The rate of diabetes is exploding (in the West) because of sedatary lifestyles and the obesity that comes with it. (Along with family history, of course, which doesn't take heed of the brainiest or most educated of people.) It's a repercussion of a societal prob.
As far as healthcare. The pharmaceuticals have been mentioned - I might point out their ballooning revenues. The inefficiency of the middleman (insurance companies) and the extravagant (vis-a-vis every other country of similar wealth) wages we pay medical professionals also factor into it. They need to be paid that much to afford insurance in our litigative society? Sure, throw that on the pile of reasons, but now we're just being redundant.
There is no single political issue (politics broadly defined as the struggle for power) that can be succinctly asked, answered, or argued in a form where the typical attention span is, at most, 500 words. Therefor, we come to the realization that it is not Newgrounds' fault - or its posters, or "society" - for a lackluster politics section. It's an innate failing of the media form. Until book-length & -quality content is realized, political "debate" or dialogue on the internet is lame and largely impossible / irrelevant. Till a major restructuring ("Web 3D"?), the internet as a political discussion tool will be limited to:
1) preaching to the choir and the sharing of info between like-minded individuals,
2) shouting matches between the simpleminded, ideologues, and the naive,
&
3) being the playground of bored, sexually frustrated individuals preying on the aforementioned parties.
Thought?
