General / Off-Topic Is man made climate change real or not? Prove your belief here.

Status
Thread Closed: Not open for further replies.
Why risk irradiating captured territory if your expanding population can't occupy it? Why use resources when patience will do the job within a couple of generations with an enemy that's too scared to breed? There's more than one way to skin a cat, there's cheaper and less disruptive paths to world domination.

[Edit: And if you can provoke an internal problem that consumes the resources they'd use to repell you...]
 
Last edited:
EVERY country that CAN is influencing EVERY American election.
Tsk, tsk, you're polarising again. If you'd left that at just everybody is trying to screw everybody else, sure.

[Edit: Did we forget the golden rule? They who have the gold, make the rules (and don't care about you).]
 
Last edited:
Why risk irradiating captured territory if your expanding population can't occupy it? Why use resources when patience will do the job within a couple of generations with an enemy that's too scared to breed? There's more than one way to skin a cat, there's cheaper and less disruptive paths to world domination.

[Edit: And if you can provoke an internal problem that consumes the resources they'd use to repell you...]
A good question deserves a good answer. Firstly, America cannot be conquered by conventional means, at least not quickly. More guns than citizens, remember? A land invasion by a foreign power would end a new American civil war pretty quick. Consider who we're talking about here, too. The Russians know all about wars of attrition and using the homeland against their enemies; over and over that Russian winter worked in their favor in the wars. They would never attempt a land invasion in the USA.

With the American heartland completely eradicated, keep in mind that literally the rest of the Western world is ripe for conquest. Who backs Taiwan against the Chines? The USA. Who backs the Japanese against the Russians? The USA. Who backs Israel against Russia and its Arab proxies? The USA.

Who is going to defend Australia when the USA falls? No one. Not themselves, certainly; they had their guns rounded up. Who is going to defend Canada when the USA falls? No one. They had their guns rounded up too, remember? Who is going to keep militant Communist nations in check in South America? No one. Who will keep Arab powers from overrunning Africa? I'd say the NATO allies, but they are going to have their hands full just surviving.

Even with the American homeland reduced to a barren waste, everyone who plunders Babylon will be satisfied.
 
A good question deserves a good answer. Firstly, America cannot be conquered by conventional means, at least not quickly. More guns than citizens, remember? A land invasion by a foreign power would end a new American civil war pretty quick. Consider who we're talking about here, too. The Russians know all about wars of attrition and using the homeland against their enemies; over and over that Russian winter worked in their favor in the wars. They would never attempt a land invasion in the USA.

With the American heartland completely eradicated, keep in mind that literally the rest of the Western world is ripe for conquest. Who backs Taiwan against the Chines? The USA. Who backs the Japanese against the Russians? The USA. Who backs Israel against Russia and its Arab proxies? The USA.

Who is going to defend Australia when the USA falls? No one. Not themselves, certainly; they had their guns rounded up. Who is going to defend Canada when the USA falls? No one. They had their guns rounded up too, remember? Who is going to keep militant Communist nations in check in South America? No one. Who will keep Arab powers from overrunning Africa? I'd say the NATO allies, but they are going to have their hands full just surviving.

Even with the American homeland reduced to a barren waste, everyone who plunders Babylon will be satisfied.

This is rhetoric typical of an American. You think you are the greatest nation on this planet, you aren't by a large margin.
"Pride goeth before destruction"
I've closely watched the developments in the US for more than 20 years and Asia has long surpassed the US in terms of modern living standards. Your maniac of a president will plunge the world in the next world war very soon, he will repeat history, and guess who will be sitting right in the middle of the theater of war. Europe. We can take the consequences of your naivity towards a "leader" who with help from right-wing media outlets assimilated anyone who
lacks proper education into becoming a inhuman drone to his all actions. This is exactly what happened in Germany in the 1930's. It's frightening how many similarities there are. And may i remind you of a Statement this maniac gave publicly not too long ago "i could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody, and yet not lose any voters"

America doesn't need to be conquered by conventional means, it will soon rip itself apart and take the whole world with it!
 
Last edited:
This is rhetoric typical of an American. You think you are the greatest nation on this planet, you aren't by a large margin.
"Pride goeth before destruction"
I've closely watched the developments in the US for more than 20 years and Asia has long surpassed the US in terms of modern living standards. Your maniac of a president will plunge the world in the next world war very soon, he will repeat history, and guess who will be sitting right in the middle of the theater of war. Europe. We can take the consequences of your naivity towards a "leader" who with help from right-wing media outlets assimilated anyone who
lacks proper education into becoming a inhuman drone to his all actions. This is exactly what happened in Germany in the 1930's. It's frightening how many similarities there are. And may i remind you of a Statement this maniac gave publicly not too long ago "i could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody, and yet not lose any voters"

America doesn't need to be conquered by conventional means, it will soon rip itself apart and take the whole world with it!
Um, that last bit is almost exactly what I've been saying.
 
As part of the 'real world reacts to AGW' (therefore it is real) series:

'Coal power becoming 'uninsurable' as firms refuse cover':


The number of insurers withdrawing cover for coal projects more than doubled this year and for the first time US companies have taken action, leaving Lloyd’s of London and Asian insurers as the “last resort” for fossil fuels, according to a new report.

The report, which rates the world’s 35 biggest insurers on their actions on fossil fuels, declares that coal – the biggest single contributor to climate change – “is on the way to becoming uninsurable” as most coal projects cannot be financed, built or operated without insurance.

Ten firms moved to restrict the insurance cover they offer to companies that build or operate coal power plants in 2019, taking the global total to 17, said the Unfriend Coal campaign, which includes 13 environmental groups such as Greenpeace, Client Earth and Urgewald, a German NGO. The report will be launched at an insurance and climate risk conference in London on Monday, as the UN climate summit gets underway in Madrid.

The first insurers to exit coal policies were all European, but since March, two US insurers – Chubb and Axis Capital – and the Australian firms QBE and Suncorp have pledged to stop or restrict insurance for coal projects.

At least 35 insurers with combined assets of $8.9tn, equivalent to 37% of the insurance industry’s global assets, have begun pulling out of coal investments. A year ago, 19 insurers holding more than $6tn in assets were divesting from fossil fuels.

Peter Bosshard, one of the Unfriend Coal campaign co-ordinators, said: “We hope within two to three years it will be so difficult to obtain insurance that most coal projects won’t be able to go forward.

“We’ve seen the acceleration [in firms pulling out of coal] for a good reason – people are freaking out.”

As global temperatures climb, hurricanes, wildfires and floods have become more frequent and severe, resulting in higher claims bills for insurers.
 
Mkay... So you seem to think you have the answer. What is value then?

Let's modify the thought experiment with the apples somewhat. Instead we put 10 people in a room, without telling them when they will get out. In the room there are two buttons that says "bucket of water" and "bucket of diamonds". Each person can only press one button per day and each bucket is a small bucket holding two liters of either water or diamonds. See where I'm going?

The first day, some of the more opportunistic people will probably take their chances and go for the diamonds, but after a couple of days they will be dangerously dehydrated. Do you still think they will push the button giving them diamonds? That was a rhetorical question.

Now let's make the experiment even more "fun": The second day each button can only be pushed nine times, the third day eight times and so forth. What do you think will happen with ten people in the room over time?

The thought experiment isn't as far fetched as it might seem. The room is similar to living on Earth, with no realistic way of getting away from the planet. Water, like food, is vital to anyone's survival. Finally turning down the number of times the buttons can be pressed equals food per capita getting lower, something happening IRL right this minute.

How many people in the room do you think gives a flying duck about diamonds after a week?

It might be so obvious that an 8-year old can understand it, so what happened to you and many others while growing up? :)
A very nice post here. Clear and lucid.
 
This is rhetoric typical of an American. You think you are the greatest nation on this planet, you aren't by a large margin.
"Pride goeth before destruction"
I've closely watched the developments in the US for more than 20 years and Asia has long surpassed the US in terms of modern living standards. Your maniac of a president will plunge the world in the next world war very soon, he will repeat history, and guess who will be sitting right in the middle of the theater of war. Europe. We can take the consequences of your naivity towards a "leader" who with help from right-wing media outlets assimilated anyone who
lacks proper education into becoming a inhuman drone to his all actions. This is exactly what happened in Germany in the 1930's. It's frightening how many similarities there are. And may i remind you of a Statement this maniac gave publicly not too long ago "i could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody, and yet not lose any voters"

America doesn't need to be conquered by conventional means, it will soon rip itself apart and take the whole world with it!
The US is not the greatest nation on this planet, I don’t really know which one is? However the US is a Nation with more freedom and liberty than any other nation I know of.
That is declining, because of those who want to control the people, reducing their rights and changing the laws the nation was build upon. It’s how to boil a frog alive effect.
 
The US is not the greatest nation on this planet, I don’t really know which one is? However the US is a Nation with more freedom and liberty than any other nation I know of.
That is declining, because of those who want to control the people, reducing their rights and changing the laws the nation was build upon. It’s how to boil a frog alive effect.
US is 38 or something on the democracy index, when it comes to civil liberties. Seems the decline is well underway. 😛

Sorry, I don't like the constant US bashing, but this one was to easy.
 
Marx, when speaking as an economist, was talking about labor as being value. I'm not a marxist in any way. Honestly, I don't have time for politics, and it seems there are plenty of people that have.

The labor theory of value long predates Marx, certainly has never been limited to Marxism, and is less inherently political than some aspects of your posts in this thread.

What I'm talking about is work as in work in physics. You need to convert energy to do that, and converting energy causes the amount of exergy to drop.

Yes, that's basic thermodynamics and it has very little to do with practical valuations, even if it would define the absolute physical limits of value if carried to logical extremes.

When I give some simple thought experiments, you cannot answer that you get eight liters of diamonds a day.

Without more constraints (and I'm already assuming I can't break out of this hypothetical room, or kill the other inhabitants and press the button with their thumbs or something), sure I can.

If there are ten people and they each get one button press that either provides either two liters of diamonds or two liters of water, per day, and I force four of them to choose diamonds, five to choose water, and take water myself, that sounds like enough for eight liters of diamonds a half ration of water for everyone else, and a full ration for me, with half a ration left over if one of my button pushers seems to be getting a little too weak to push that button, or I'm feeling a little thirsty.

Of course, should I begin to suspect that room will never open up, I just switch to everyone pushing the water button, elevate a few of my former slaves (who may have talents that I cannot easily extort out of them), and continue on with a water economy in this society of ten, because water has value, and diamonds do not, in this scenario.

I know this isn't the sort of thing you were envisioning, but that's the point. Value is subjective and what it's applied to highly mutable to suit the situation.

the main difference between money and gold being that the amount of gold atoms in the system is constant

You're getting the basic dictionary definition of money wrong, and then misapplying it.

Money is simply something accepted as a medium of exchange. Gold can be money, but it isn't always, and all money certainly isn't gold. Gold is also not fixed in supply, no are all other forms of money less constrained in supply than gold.

You think you are the greatest nation on this planet, you aren't by a large margin.

I'd imagine most people who aren't suffering from blatant inequities (which is probably a fairly small minority of people) or who aren't aware of it (a much larger portion), are entirely convinced their current situation, no matter how far from ideal they may find it, is better than what others have elsewhere...partially from familiarity, partially from ignorance, and partially because their ideals tend to be shaped by the norms of the environment in which they were raised.

The US is not the greatest nation on this planet, I don’t really know which one is? However the US is a Nation with more freedom and liberty than any other nation I know of.
That is declining, because of those who want to control the people, reducing their rights and changing the laws the nation was build upon. It’s how to boil a frog alive effect.

This is also an over generalization. While there are certainly de facto and de jure freedoms I can exercise in the US that would be difficult for me to apply to the same extent elsewhere, I can think of numerous examples where the reverse is true.

Changing tides of freedom don't often flow in one direction either. I can think of plenty of areas of recent and continuing expansion of American liberties....just as I can point out many areas of decline. The problem is that the valuations of specific kinds of freedom are subjective; everyone thinks their kind of freedom should count more than others' and almost everyone is willing to limit the freedoms they do not value in an (often misguided) attempt to ensure they can exercise the ones they do.
 
snip

Changing tides of freedom don't often flow in one direction either. I can think of plenty of areas of recent and continuing expansion of American liberties....just as I can point out many areas of decline. The problem is that the valuations of specific kinds of freedom are subjective; everyone thinks their kind of freedom should count more than others' and almost everyone is willing to limit the freedoms they do not value in an (often misguided) attempt to ensure they can exercise the ones they do.
I cannot agree more, however how do you measure freedom? to me freedom is things you as a private person can do without the interference of a government entity.
 
The labor theory of value long predates Marx, certainly has never been limited to Marxism, and is less inherently political than some aspects of your posts in this thread.



Yes, that's basic thermodynamics and it has very little to do with practical valuations, even if it would define the absolute physical limits of value if carried to logical extremes.



Without more constraints (and I'm already assuming I can't break out of this hypothetical room, or kill the other inhabitants and press the button with their thumbs or something), sure I can.

If there are ten people and they each get one button press that either provides either two liters of diamonds or two liters of water, per day, and I force four of them to choose diamonds, five to choose water, and take water myself, that sounds like enough for eight liters of diamonds a half ration of water for everyone else, and a full ration for me, with half a ration left over if one of my button pushers seems to be getting a little too weak to push that button, or I'm feeling a little thirsty.

Of course, should I begin to suspect that room will never open up, I just switch to everyone pushing the water button, elevate a few of my former slaves (who may have talents that I cannot easily extort out of them), and continue on with a water economy in this society of ten, because water has value, and diamonds do not, in this scenario.

I know this isn't the sort of thing you were envisioning, but that's the point. Value is subjective and what it's applied to highly mutable to suit the situation.



You're getting the basic dictionary definition of money wrong, and then misapplying it.

Money is simply something accepted as a medium of exchange. Gold can be money, but it isn't always, and all money certainly isn't gold. Gold is also not fixed in supply, no are all other forms of money less constrained in supply than gold.



I'd imagine most people who aren't suffering from blatant inequities (which is probably a fairly small minority of people) or who aren't aware of it (a much larger portion), are entirely convinced their current situation, no matter how far from ideal they may find it, is better than what others have elsewhere...partially from familiarity, partially from ignorance, and partially because their ideals tend to be shaped by the norms of the environment in which they were raised.



This is also an over generalization. While there are certainly de facto and de jure freedoms I can exercise in the US that would be difficult for me to apply to the same extent elsewhere, I can think of numerous examples where the reverse is true.

Changing tides of freedom don't often flow in one direction either. I can think of plenty of areas of recent and continuing expansion of American liberties....just as I can point out many areas of decline. The problem is that the valuations of specific kinds of freedom are subjective; everyone thinks their kind of freedom should count more than others' and almost everyone is willing to limit the freedoms they do not value in an (often misguided) attempt to ensure they can exercise the ones they do.
Maybe I misunderstood you on the 8 buckets a day, and yes, I did not write that I assumed that each person would get their share as that is kind of assumed their right in the World the thought experiment is supposed to illustrate. Any thought experiment is a simplified version of a complex situation. I'm pretty sure you already know that, and it seems that my thought experiment worked. It was supposed to illustrate the Value Paradox (why are diamonds more expensive than water, when diamonds hold much less utility?), and furthermore I asked how the group would behave internally. I hadn't quite understood, that the eight buckets you got (putting yourself voluntarily in the room?), was because you chose to disregard the rights of the other people in there. Normally people have slightly unrealistic thoughts about their ethical skills when they're outside the room, but once inside moral quickly deteriorate. Just to be perfectly clear. The room is symbolic and ment to represent the finite system called Earth, and the ten people are supposed to represent the global population. The diamonds represent money, and the water represents the vital resources in the system. I also rhetorically asked how the group dynamic would develop over time.
 
Last edited:
I cannot agree more, however how do you measure freedom? to me freedom is things you as a private person can do without the interference of a government entity.


My ideal of freedom is pretty much that line from Jefferson: "rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will, within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others."

However, even this is not as unambiguous as it may seem at first glance. Someone who refuses to acknowledge the negative effects of pollution isn't going to believe their pollution is harming me or that they are transgressing on my rights by polluting. Likewise, I'm not going to believe that my possession of any firearm is an inherent threat to anyone else; I'd have to try to intimidate them with it, or use it on them for that to be the case. Some people would think they'd be harmed by seeing me without any pants on; I think I am harmed by being required to wear pants on my front porch when it's 95 degrees and 90% relative humidity...etc and so forth.

It was supposed to illustrate the Value Paradox (why are diamonds more expensive than water, when diamonds hold much less utility?)

Yes, well the value paradox is one with plenty of fairly obvious answers. In the case of diamonds vs. water, it about scarcity.

I hadn't quite understood, that the eight buckets you got (putting yourself voluntarily in the room?), was because you chose to disregard the rights of the other people in there.

That's how the real world almost invariably works when there is a power imbalance and any sort or degree of scarcity.

Most pretensions to morality don't hold up long in the face of existential threats and I don't even try to pretend that my good will is not contingent on my needs being met first.

So erm, is any of this proving if AGW is real or not? just curious (before mods step in) ;)

Pretty sure the scientific method already failed to punch any convincing holes in the basic idea of AGW well before you made this thread and that no convincing evidence contrary to that consensus has been forth coming.

So, seemed like a rhetorical question to me!
 
So erm, is any of this proving if AGW is real or not? just curious (before mods step in) ;)
AGW is real, and it's a symptom of a planet that is not sustainable. That far I think people tend to agree. Even among some deniers there seems to be some sort of consensus of things to come. What I've been trying to figure out is why they don't react and try to change things. My general understanding from reading some of the post in this thread and other, is that they imagine themselves strong enough to survive, while accepting that billions will die. You can discuss ethics and moral around that, but that is not my point. When I mention ethics, I write that it's still very much up for debate, and very subjective.

Economics and politics are built into the system we live in. Politics is one of those subjects that is difficult to demarcate, but generally politics is consider being the proces of making the laws that govern a certain group of people. I have absolutely no interest in that, as much as being a boss never rang my bell.

When I do system modelling of Earth and future scenarios I have to consider politics and human behavior. That is much more complicated and unpredictable than the biophysics. Also we tend to think that we can solve everything with politics, willpower and good intentions. That does not correspond to how things actually work. We are leading more and more CO2 into the atmosphere, even though IPCC is more than 30 years old. I think it's a very relevant question why we keep doing that? Likewise, figuring out whether that is going to change, leading to less AGW, is also relevant, unless we think we can talk the problems away.

To try and answer those questions you have to try to find the important factors driving the system. It does not matter anything to AGW if you wear a blue or a red shirt today, but economics has huge consequences, and whether the world leaders can agree on both the problem and the solution is also very important. I have my doubts about the latter.

However, I have during my work met argument upon argument against AGW and sustainability from economists, and since economics also has been a part of what I've been taught, it's not as incomprehensible to me as some here suggest. Contrarily I've "discovered" that value is an axiom of economics, and like the "rational consumer in the market", it seems to be a very shaky axiom. If we had a clear understanding about what value really is, then I'm pretty sure that someone would have answered my question. Value matters, not because of economics or politics, but because value is what we use when we decide something. You pick the most valuable option.

Today we use money in the form of different currencies. Money is said to represent value, because we all believe in it. Imagine trying to pay the person in the stone age with a piece of paper with numbers written upon it. Good luck with that. Instead you would, like Jason said, use barter. The example I started out with, with the apples, is commonly used in text books to explain the fundamentals of the supply and demand model in economics, the model that tells us the equilibrium price. I agree with economists that this model is true. Not in the linear form that is used from day to day, but with the demand curve expressed as f(x)=1/x, which you'll also find if you dig a little deeper in the books.

That model has been said not to be usable for macroeconomics, but that isn't always true. If we replace the apples with Coca Cola, and increase the price, people will start buying alternative products like Pepsi. This leads to what economists call price elasticity. However if we replace the apples with a nonrenewable resource, then price elasticity goes down the drain together with, say phosphorus. Also I raise an eyebrow towards any solution of AGW being argued against, using value and economics, typically saying that "we can't do that, because expensive". Before we all accept that, I think the debate about the definition of value is very relevant. I'm not the inventor of that idea. At least people like Georgescu-Roegen was asking similar questions even before the Club of Rome.

We are in the situation we're in, because we're short sighted and somewhat ignorant. That is irrational if we also believe ourselves to be capable of taking good decisions. That is my point, and it doesn't have much to do with politics. I can tell you about the situation and possible solutions, but I have no intention of describing in words how we do it in practice.
 
Last edited:
The right to own a firearm and keep it on your person is true freedom, any government who what to take the right of the people to defend themselves is not a freedom loving government. Same apply to knives.
 
We all
The right to own a firearm and keep it on your person is true freedom, any government who what to take the right of the people to defend themselves is not a freedom loving government. Same apply to knives.

Is there a limit to this? Nuclear weapons? Biochemical weapons? Armored divisions?
 
Status
Thread Closed: Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom