Now, TnT, don't get carried awayOriginally Posted by TnT
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Now, TnT, don't get carried away
Trick question. One fact is far from enough to indicate climate change.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Two years ago, March 2012, North America:
But that is a freak event, and it proves nothing.Records are not only being broken across the country, they're being broken in unusual ways. Chicago, for example, saw temperatures above 26.6°Celsius (80°Fahrenheit) every day between March 14-18, breaking records on all five days. For context, the National Weather Service noted that Chicago typically averages only one day in the eighties each in April. And only once in 140 years of weather observations has April produced as many 80°Fahrenheit days as this March. Meanwhile, Climate Central reported that in Rochester, Minnesota. the overnight low temperature on March 18 was 16.6°Celsius (62°Fahrenheit), a temperature so high it beat the record high of 15.5°Celsius (60°Fahrenheit) for the same date.
Within a year, in Australia.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3666141.htm
http://climatecommission.angrygoats....-angry-summer/
Neither proves global warming, but both are consistent without it and highly unlikely without it..
Global warming just isn't worth the risk.
Nice warm weather in March in the American Midwest? Corn crops are far taller where I live in the summer after the most brutal winter in a century (constant snow cover protected soil moisture and then provided some) than after the summer-like March. We were better off with the harsh winter this year.
Last edited by pbrower2a; 07-05-2014 at 07:05 AM.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Which thread was that on?
Does anyone think this guy would benefit by a link to the Vandal-Mikebert discussion on probability?
Why should he study probability and statistics when he already knows everything?
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Reason
Ahhh. Good point. I think. There may be a flaw in your reasoning somewhere, but it doesn't seem worthwhile to pursue it.
Nobody is perfect, and nobody should be trusted to be perfect. Especially I! I have been caught in error many times here. Science does not depend upon personal authority; thus "Einstein said this" answers no question other than "What did Einstein say?" He could be wrong, and he knew it. Science is a collective activity, and the scientist who operates in secrecy and relies upon his personality to convince powerful people of the merits of his discoveries without outside testing has become a disreputable crank.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
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Stench removed. Should have been banned for hate speech, anyway.
A basic rule: don't make other posters the issue unless they make themselves the issue.
Last edited by pbrower2a; 07-05-2014 at 12:51 PM.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Jews?
Jews? You have problems with a supposed international jewish conspiracy? Just out of curiosity, are you coming from a Reagan-Republican worldview or a Hitler-Fascist?
I generally get riled up and discourage liberal posters here from equating Reagan and Hitler. It's an all too easy and false comparison, more worthy of a troll than a sincere contributor. Still, your world view is so confusing and irrational that is seems necessary to ask which way you are really leaning.
Two Windmills
An almost amusing... discussion? Conversation? Exchange of texts? I'm not quite sure how to describe it.
Thing is, you are coming from entirely different value systems. If you're going to join intelligent conversations around here, you ought to become familiar with several conflicting ways of perceiving the world. The majors include red political, blue political, fundamentalist Christian and scientific with passing familiarity with the communist and fascist approaches with an ability to recognize the differences between theory and reality. Marx is not Stalin, example.
But Eric stands fairly clearly outside of the usual traditions. He a spiritualist. He sees meditation and eastern texts as valid means of seeking truth, the equal of how many fundamentalist Christians might regard the Bible as a source of truth. His way of looking at the world generally leaves him pushing liberal political causes, but the way he gets there is... Well... Unconventional might be an understatement. He might do an astrological chart to prove your projection of the future is wrong, for example.
As I see it, the two of you are stating core principles or easy derivatives of your world views, and because each of your world views seems rock solid to the person inside the world view, each of you might see yourselves as winning the discussion hands down no questions asked. Watching from the outside, attempting to respect or at least understand both world views, my reaction is a face palm. Neither of you is apt to convince the other of anything. Both of you are apt to perceive the other as dangerous idiots. Repeating the basic tenants of one's own world view often and in all caps does nothing if your values aren't shared or at least respected. Meaningful conversation requires understanding and respect of what the other guy is trying to say. Alas, if you are going to advocate the worldview of Jesus-the-bigot, you are going to get little understanding or respect from Eric.
I see the Fourth Turning theory as explaining how values change on a large scale. Come the crisis, many conservatives wish to cling to the old values which proved themselves so well four score and seven years past. On the other hand, many progressives will fix on technological changes creating new problems which must be solved. Values are stubborn. Rather than change values, rather than change their way of life, people can and will refuse to see hard facts that would force them to change and reevaluate. In 1776, many conservatives saw the Divine Right of Kings as a mandate from God. In 1860, negroes seemed inherently mentally inferior, their position properly that of slave. In 1938, for many the proper stance for the United States of America was isolationism. It seemed essential to avoid entanglement in European conflicts. If one is a devout conservative in a time of approaching crisis, the old values seem True in an unquestionable iron clad way. After the crisis, a new set of values becomes the norm, the old wisdom seemingly so wrong that those thinking the old way can only be considered stupid, evil or insane.
Of course Democracy is the proper form of government. Of course slavery is immoral. Of course the strength of the United States must resist the aggression of tyrants.
To progressives in years like 1776, 1860 or 1938, the old wisdom was already obviously wrong. Such is the way of things going into crisis.
You might want to browse the Global Warming thread. Some years back it was still possible to challenge the science in a meaningful way. We'd spend time talking science rather than calling those who disagreed with us names. These days, the only conservatives still actively arguing the point simply hurl insults, threatening to hold their breaths until they turn blue, denying the obvious, totally unable to quote any research, peer reviewed or not, to support their position.
I call it values lock. One is so rigidly fixed in one's way of looking at the world that one cannot see reality about to roll all over them.
Anyway, good luck trying to tilt with Eric. It might take a few weeks, but in time we might be able to judge who is playing the roll of Don Quixote, and who is playing the windmill. I'm not sure, though. There is so little actual understanding or communication going on that we might have a case of two windmills.
Ronald Reagan was not an overt antisemite. If he was he kept it well hidden and did not incorporate antisemitism into rhetoric or policy. For a right-winger, Reagan seemed not to get involved in conspiracies. He would be moderate by contrast to the Tea Party types.
No way can the bigoted-crank be a Reagan fan. The typical liberal is now closer to Ronald Reagan than is some fascist.I generally get riled up and discourage liberal posters here from equating Reagan and Hitler. It's an all too easy and false comparison, more worthy of a troll than a sincere contributor. Still, your world view is so confusing and irrational that is seems necessary to ask which way you are really leaning.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Empty Wind
Empty wind.
The important thing of note, though, is that he is as dead certain in his world view as you are, as most any other regular poster on the board is. While his perspective conflicts with yours, thus you feel confident in rejecting his, if neither of you is capable of understanding and arguing from the other's perspective, neither of you will begin to be able to communicate with, learn from or influence the other.
Though it is surprising how people working from entirely different perspectives might agree on specific issues. That you, me and Eric agree on secession and the 10th Amendment is an example.
Are you speaking from a Newtonian simple harmonics perspective, or from a chaos theory perspective? There are many simple physical systems that can be cleanly modeled as simple harmonics. These might include a pendulum swinging or ripples following a pebble dropping into a still pond. The motions resulting from these systems yield sine waves, repeating or wave motions of predictable frequency. If the system is simple enough to apply the equations, the result is generally predictable, deterministic.
Human history isn't like that. Cultures and firm fixed world views will prevent much motion at all for long lengths of time. However, with changing forces acting on the culture, more and more the society needs to change but conservatives try to block the change. Eventually something has got to give. The rhythm of the Fourth Turning theory is not that of a sine wave or something moving in a smooth circle. It is closer to water building up behind a dam which will eventually burst. You have stubborn resistance followed by catastrophic transition.
It's much harder to predict when a dam will burst, what transitions will come following the burst, than the result of a pebble being dropped in still waters. As a broad guideline, for the United States at least, I will often repeat that a cultural dam is apt to burst every four score and seven years. The result is generally a new birth of freedom.
Try Berkely Earth's Summary of Findings. Fact. The world is getting warmer.
However, throwing facts in front of a conservative in the years preceding a Crisis is often futile. World views and value systems are more important to humans (not just conservative humans, but all humans) than facts. There are proverbs about the utility of throwing pearls in front of pigs. Pigs don't appreciate pearls. They'll just dirty them and crush them. So it is with humans confronted with facts that conflict with their values.
A good number of Christians hold their religious values to be more important and central than their scientific values. They perceive their worlds in faith based ways rather than scientific or empirical ways. Thus, many of them reject entire fields of science, including evolutionary biology, astrophysics and geology. They must focus on the Bible as the central source of Truth. They cannot consider or perceive of any fact or perspective that casts doubt upon their core religious beliefs. Science must be wrong because... because... the Bible is Truth!
Rejection of whole branches of science is not a rare phenomena. I don't see you as particularly stupid, just as values locked. A lot of people on these boards are values locked.
One thing that unites most people on these boards is a hope and belief that big time transforming change is coming. Transforming crises are predicted by The Theory. Almost inevitably, there is a belief that the change will result in a new culture based on their own world views and values. Eric will point at a planet aligning with a star and predict a new age spiritual time. Someone with liberal economic and social values will anticipate a social and political transformation similar in spirit to the New Deal, but with details reflecting very different technology, resource availability, population, etc...
Back during the Bush 43 years, we had a lot more conservative people posting to the boards. They saw Bush 43 as a brilliant innovator transforming the world into a new age. Trickle down supply side economics would yield jobs, increase income to the government while lowering taxes. Invading middle eastern countries for fun and profit was the wave of the future. Most of them left about the time the economy collapsed and Bush 43 realized that getting out of the Middle East was a good idea.
The reason you are so popular is a general lack of other fishes in barrels to humiliate. I don't know whether it is a feature or a bug that fishes in barrels can't sense their own humiliation. The good thing is that if they don't know how inane the seem from outside their worldview, they won't leave the barrel and thus end the cheap entertainment. Think of how much of an idiot Eric seems to you. Got it? Can you hold that feeling? Now, look in a mirror.
If a major transformation is coming, it seems easy to anticipate that a whole bunch of people will see the wisdom of one's own world view, the best world view in existence. It is just as easy to dismiss the worldviews of everyone else. In this you are not special or unusual. You are just less educated and more arrogant than most in your way of going about it.
Lee more aggressive in the late war years? Really?
Again, I'd start with Berkely Earth's Summary of Findings, though I anticipate your values lock will render you incapable of understanding the science.
Even if all natural phenomena result from interactions of sub-atomic particles and energy (materialism), the limitations of mathematical models establish the impossibility of using materialism for explaining something complicated. Toss one stone into a pond, and one may get a simple set of ripples that spread out regularly only to abate to some extent if nothing cause their reflection. But once the reflections begin to interact with the original ripples things get complicated. Toss multiple stones, and things get so complicated that no mathematical model can express what happens.
If it is possible that all human activity is the result of electrical charges within the brains and through motor neurons, we cannot explain human activity at the individual level, let alone the social level. We cannot explain the behavior of a wolf pack (and a wolf pack has a similar structure to a human family) at that level. Even the X's and O's on a football game plan are gross oversimplifications for a system that will get very complex very fast.Human history isn't like that. Cultures and firm fixed world views will prevent much motion at all for long lengths of time. However, with changing forces acting on the culture, more and more the society needs to change but conservatives try to block the change. Eventually something has got to give. The rhythm of the Fourth Turning theory is not that of a sine wave or something moving in a smooth circle. It is closer to water building up behind a dam which will eventually burst. You have stubborn resistance followed by catastrophic transition.
Such explains why Marx got so much about human nature wrong and why Freud came to recognize the incompleteness of his study of human nature (Freud seems to have been not much of a materialist in his conception of the universe, let alone human behavior).
Materialism can easily explain brute force -- like what happens if someone is buried alive in wet cement. Brute force is all too crude in its effects.
I can almost think of a pastiche of the Gettysburg Address based on D-Day, except that we would need to make accommodations to our British allies.It's much harder to predict when a dam will burst, what transitions will come following the burst, than the result of a pebble being dropped in still waters. As a broad guideline, for the United States at least, I will often repeat that a cultural dam is apt to burst every four score and seven years. The result is generally a new birth of freedom.
"Eight score and eight years ago our fathers brought onto the American continent a new Nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all Men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great Civil War within our Civilization, testing whether a Nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure against the proposition that Tyranny and Brutality are the inevitable course of History.
"We are met on a Battlefield across the ocean to dedicate a small portion of the Battlefield to those who surrendered their Lives in dedication to the proposition that Liberty is worth the sacrifice. But we cannot dedicate or consecrate this Battlefield as those soldiers have dedicated, for they have given far more than my feeble words can dedicate or consecrate it.
OK, so it is too blatant, and the Nazis made the Confederates look like gentlemen by contrast. But the Nazis had plenty of slaves to emancipate -- far more than there were in the Confederacy.
The problem is not so much conservatism per se (I can think of far different courses of economic action than occurred late in the last 3T that would have caused better results) as it is the get-rich-quick schemes; the neglect of long-term, low-yield, illiquid assets that pay off far better twenty years later; trickle-down economics; and a "don't-ask-any-questions" ethos in which the simulation of success is to be seen as success. Conservatism will revive in the 1T, but it will be even more different from the recklessness of the last 3T than it will be from the liberal trend of the time.However, throwing facts in front of a conservative in the years preceding a Crisis is often futile. World views and value systems are more important to humans (not just conservative humans, but all humans) than facts. There are proverbs about the utility of throwing pearls in front of pigs. Pigs don't appreciate pearls. They'll just dirty them and crush them. So it is with humans confronted with facts that conflict with their values.
If one is to believe in God through His Works, then let one learn science and mathematics to understand how He did things! Religious bodies that may be as firm in faith in doctrines and sacraments can more easily adapt to scientific reality than can those that rely upon anti-rational faith to the bitter end.A good number of Christians hold their religious values to be more important and central than their scientific values. They perceive their worlds in faith based ways rather than scientific or empirical ways. Thus, many of them reject entire fields of science, including evolutionary biology, astrophysics and geology. They must focus on the Bible as the central source of Truth. They cannot consider or perceive of any fact or perspective that casts doubt upon their core religious beliefs. Science must be wrong because... because... the Bible is Truth!
OK, liberals could never accept a complete break with the Enlightenment. Few of us would accept Pascal's wager (live miserably in This World in the service of God or Plutocracy and accept that if one doesn't get an Eternal Reward in return, then what has one lost?) Plenty. People who live in poverty lack the means of generosity. People whose lives are pure drudgery suffering rarely exude optimism. Suffering cannot reliably create happiness except to a sadist.Rejection of whole branches of science is not a rare phenomena. I don't see (the crank) as particularly stupid, just as values locked. A lot of people on these boards are values locked.
That such things will go one's way is still wishful thinking. Eric is a liberal; maybe the stars will prove post hoc to be a timing mechanism. After all, three cycles of Saturn is very close to "four score and seven years". I see the cycle of Uranus (roughly 84 years) coinciding with the extinction of early-childhood memories in a society through death and senility.One thing that unites most people on these boards is a hope and belief that big time transforming change is coming. Transforming crises are predicted by The Theory. Almost inevitably, there is a belief that the change will result in a new culture based on their own world views and values. Eric will point at a planet aligning with a star and predict a new age spiritual time. Someone with liberal economic and social values will anticipate a social and political transformation similar in spirit to the New Deal, but with details reflecting very different technology, resource availability, population, etc...
In the end reality decides what ideas can work and which ones can't. Something for nothing almost never works. The only jobs that trickle-down economics can create are those in domestic service (and those jobs expanded rapidly under Dubya) and the creation of elite luxuries. If one has a choice between getting fed in return for a degrading existence, being a live-in domestic is a good thing. Otherwise it is a raw deal.Back during the Bush 43 years, we had a lot more conservative people posting to the boards. They saw Bush 43 as a brilliant innovator transforming the world into a new age. Trickle down supply side economics would yield jobs, increase income to the government while lowering taxes. Invading middle eastern countries for fun and profit was the wave of the future. Most of them left about the time the economy collapsed and Bush 43 realized that getting out of the Middle East was a good idea.
History is far from reliable in achieving wish-fulfillment. There are so many contradictory visions of a glorious new future that very few can happen. For some in Germany eighty years ago the glorious future was the conquest of eastern Europe as if Germany were conquering Native Americans instead of Slavs. German workers who really hated industrial labor and longed for a return to the farm and an escape from the Sodom-and-Gomorrah that they thought of German cities (with all the Jews 'corrupting' German culture -- the German leadership would solve "that problem" and did in ways that the Cranky One denies having happened. Contrast America: a liberal government acquiesced with the idea that workers could get materially-better lives through strong, militant unions than by invading Mexico and settling conquered lands with yeoman farmers.If a major transformation is coming, it seems easy to anticipate that a whole bunch of people will see the wisdom of one's own world view, the best world view in existence. It is just as easy to dismiss the worldviews of everyone else. In this you are not special or unusual. You are just less educated and more arrogant than most in your way of going about it.
Under Der Phooey, industrial labor remained paid with starvation wages; management got to use the concentration-camp system against anyone who goldbricked or complained. In those concentration camps workers would learn that there are worse ways of life than working to exhaustion for near-starvation wages while plutocrats waxed fat. Jews would be blamed for what Germans hated about themselves and be the scapegoats and finally the burnt offerings. America under FDR may have never achieved paradise, but Germany under Hitler became a Hell. Yes, Germany ended up with a labor shortage -- just as to be expected in a slave system.
Unlikely as it may have seemed, the Great Power least militaristic became by default the Great Empire... and after it won the war with a military machine improvised for the time, it won the peace with mercy toward all but the Nazis. The Crank needs know that his racist ideology is now unpopular in Germany.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
It works!
But no, I don't arrive at pushing liberal political causes, on the basis of astrology. I was a liberal first.
Or flood them out, or burn them, etc. So it is.You might want to browse the Global Warming thread. Some years back it was still possible to challenge the science in a meaningful way. We'd spend time talking science rather than calling those who disagreed with us names. These days, the only conservatives still actively arguing the point simply hurl insults, threatening to hold their breaths until they turn blue, denying the obvious, totally unable to quote any research, peer reviewed or not, to support their position.
I call it values lock. One is so rigidly fixed in one's way of looking at the world that one cannot see reality about to roll all over them.
I think apollonian has this relationship with everyone here, not just with me.Anyway, good luck trying to tilt with Eric. It might take a few weeks, but in time we might be able to judge who is playing the roll of Don Quixote, and who is playing the windmill. I'm not sure, though. There is so little actual understanding or communication going on that we might have a case of two windmills.
Good point, and speaking of civil war issues, it is said on the TV doc that Gen. Lee was such a good general because he could "make himself Grant" and anticipate his moves.
In the case of apollonian, I don't find it easy to nail down just what his views are, in any consistent way. It's a mishmash of mostly-right wing conspiracy theories, racism, libertarian trickle-down, populist anti-oligarchy, philosophy tidbits, science nostrums, and religious nostrums mixed with constant insults.
Actually, I don't use the stars much in my prophetic astrological work.One thing that unites most people on these boards is a hope and belief that big time transforming change is coming. Transforming crises are predicted by The Theory. Almost inevitably, there is a belief that the change will result in a new culture based on their own world views and values. Eric will point at a planet aligning with a star and predict a new age spiritual time. Someone with liberal economic and social values will anticipate a social and political transformation similar in spirit to the New Deal, but with details reflecting very different technology, resource availability, population, etc...
Last edited by Eric the Green; 07-07-2014 at 04:47 PM.
But you swipe out some tidbits from Aristotle and Christianity and ignore the rest, so how can I claim to know what your views are on the basis of "I'm Aristotelian, Christian"?
Would you take my test? That might help pin you down
http://philosopherswheel.com/questionnaire.htm
Could Marc Lamb be getting paid again?
And how am I supposed to understand the reasoning behind your views based on a statement like this? ho ho ho
I don't remember Marc Lamb being involved with Holocaust denial.
The Koch Brothers and most of the rest of the Corporate Right stay clear of antisemitism in any form, probably because they don't want to scare American Jews into re-forming communities that existed before the Holocaust (My bad, according to one poster, since it 'didn't happen, although it would have been a good thing). In societies going pathological, Jews are the canaries in the mine, the first people to be exiled or lynched. The Corporate Right gladly panders to the Religious Right in a vicious alliance against liberal, rational humanism before it turns on Christian fundamentalists when the Corporate Right refuses to stop producing pornography and liquor and to shutter the gambling casinos that turn a profit. The most extreme in their quest for material gain cannot forever be in alliance with those who believe only in "Pie in the Sky When You Die". Contradictory interests may collaborate for a time, perhaps against a shared enemy that they think that they must destroy if for different reasons. but once they have annihilated their hared enemies they turn on each other.
Last edited by pbrower2a; 07-08-2014 at 10:21 AM.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Aristotle, Newton, Krakatoa, Hooker and Meade
Like building the Global Land Surface Databank?
I feel more comfortable giving homage to Newton's Philosophić Naturalis Principia than Aristotle. One of my roles in the Global Warming thread is to throw in updates from Real Climate, such as the release of the Global Land Surface Database.
But I'm also used to denialists whose world views are so much in opposition to empirical observation that they find it necessary to throw out entire fields of science. That you honor Aristotle in one breath while dismissing massive amounts of empirical evidence with the other just shows the depths of your mental problems.
Which natural cycles do you believe are creating the warming trend of recent centuries? What other phenomena to you believe is casing the rapidly increasing warmth? The solar cycles? Too small an effect. The period is much shorter than the time frame of the observed rise. The Milankovitch cycles? Too slow an effect. While the magnitude of the change is roughly the right order, the Milankovitch periods are much longer. The signatures of the Milankovitch cycles are just too well known.
Which natural cycles are you talking about, then?
There is a real difference between simple harmonic motion and disrupted equilibrium. If you try to wrap your mind around the Fourth Turning theory while thinking in terms of simple harmonic motion, you aren't going to get anywhere. Alas, your inability to listen or learn suggests you aren't going to get anywhere, anyway.
Krakatoa might be a good example of disrupted equilibrium. Much of the time nothing much is happening. Every once in a great while there is a really big boom. The mechanics of what is going on is not at all similar to a pendulum swinging back and forth. Both are in very different senses periodic, but the pendulum can be reduced to relatively simple equations with an easily visible and quite steady frequency. The volcano? Not so much.
The United States traditionally disarmed between major wars, and technology changes to a great extent rendered the doctrines of the prior war obsolete. It takes a while to truly remobilize. In the case of the Civil War, it wasn't until 1864 that the Union figured out how total war had to be waged during that era. While you left out Sheridan, another officer that embodies the era, otherwise an excellent description.
Lee might have tried continuing his Stonewall era aggressive "divide the army and hit them in the flank and rear" tactics. He might have disrupted the Union forces into short term retreats for reorganization a few more times. For the reasons you describe above very well, it wouldn't have made a big difference. More confederates would likely have died sooner. The end of the war might have come faster.
Lee really had to have made his 1863 invasion of the north work, to embarrass the northern armies sufficiently that Lincoln would have lost the upcoming election. I think the decisive moment of the campaign and perhaps the war was Lincoln accepting Hooker's resignation a few days before Gettysburg. It was a big risk changing commanders just before a big fight, with the enemy already having stolen several days march into the Union rear. If Hooker had continued to march six miles a day, Lee might well have made the northern military effort seem incompetent. The mighty Union machine of 1864 might not have had its day.
Lee was really good at understanding and anticipating the commanding general on the other side. A lot of what happened was Lee having a wonderful plan for fighting Hooker, but he got Meade instead.
Last edited by B Butler; 07-08-2014 at 11:34 AM. Reason: Added Krakatoa reference
You are the one invoking a god as your handle Mr. Apollo, and issuing your opinions as if you were a god issuing decrees. And you are a conspiracy fan to boot.
Hmm, paranoid with delusions of godhood. What could that be?
Why should this be? The mechanism I propose posits that people in their 50's and 60's who run the institutions of our society have different worldviews than those in their 20's simply because they became adults at a different time.
For example, the generation who came of age in the 1930's and 1940's, on average, were more accepting of the view that American intervention is effective than the generation that came of age in the 1960's and 1970's. The former saw the use of American power to effectively neutralize a rising threat. The latter saw the use of American power to counter a threat which ultimately failed, and the threat ended up going away on its own. These different experiences colored the foreign policy worldviews collectively held by these two generations.
Different world views mean different policies that flow from those views. To the extent that humans choose to act in order to correct the mistakes of the past, policy can in certain ways operate as a negative feedback control mechanism (e.g. a thermostat), If you introduce a lag, (different policy by different generations) these can display oscillatory behavior (cyclical policy). In no way is free will abandoned.
I propose another lagged negative feedback mechanism to model cycles in medieval and early modern times. This too does not violate free will.
Last edited by Mikebert; 07-08-2014 at 06:32 AM.
So, does he really know anything about climate science?
You clearly didn't examine the data base. It's a bunch of raw observations.
In the lab, one can measure the frequencies at which CO2 and other greenhouse gasses absorb light. They are transparent at the frequencies the sun emits, but absorb light at the frequencies that the Earth admits. Measured. Observable.
The greater the concentration of CO2 and similar gasses, the higher the equilibrium temperature as the same amount of heat comes in but less gets out. A simple theory. Science tests such theories through observation.
CO2 and other gas concentrations can be measured. The simplest and longest history for CO2 has been taken at the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii. CO2 concentrations have been going up. Measured. Observable.
While you seem never to have heard of the thermometer, there are quite a few of them scattered about the globe. Temperature is going up. Measured. Observable.
Theory confirmed.
Now, you asserted that the amount of temperature shift attributed to global warming is small compared to variations in natural cycles. This is not true of the solar or Milankovitch cycles. Again, which natural cycles do you propose have a magnitude and variance comparable to the observed temperature rise? There are a goodly number of factors that impact climate. It would be highly unusual for one with your linguistic and cognitive handicaps to be aware of what they are, how much effect they have, and over what time frame they operate. Could you give some indication that you have made a greater effort at understanding climate than you have the Civil War?
(You have to watch southern sources on the Civil War. After the war, Longstreet mingled with northerners and continued to advocate his style of digging in on the high ground. His argument was valid. The trends Longstreet was aware of blossomed in World War I, resulting in essentially stagnant trench warfare. However, pushing his very valid theory was an implied criticism of Lee and Stonewall, who had made maneuver warfare work rather spectacularly at times. This was the time when the Lost Cause perspective was being shaped. Criticism of Lee and Stonewall was not to be allowed. Thus, for the first several decades after the war ended, there was a huge flame war taking place in military and history journals, echoed in the popular press. The two sides, feeling the importance of their arguments, were quite creative with their facts and opinions, just as you are, perhaps not as blatant as you. You sound like you've read a few of the Longstreet perspective arguments and are unaware of the post war politics. While the vitriol has lost its edge over the years, many southerners interested in the Civil War are still echoing the rather creative histories their ancestors created after the war. It is prudent to double check southern opinions against the northern histories as the Yankees were fighting entirely different flame wars.)
Now, there is a hint in your post of a philosophical argument. Some propose that if one cannot observe something directly through one's own senses, one cannot observe it at all. Thus, a human feeling warm or cold is a valid observation, while a reading off a thermometer is not. Take this argument to an extreme, and one cannot use instruments when performing science. It's a convenient sort of argument to use if one's world view requires one to throw away entire fields of science.
I encountered this argument in earnest in a philosophy course, my senior year in college. As an example, the professor proposed that as one cannot directly observe an electron, it follows that electrons do not exist. (He was of course teaching in a class room lit by electric lights.)
My major was electronics engineering. I had just spent a bunch of years studying the behavior of electrons. At the time I took the philosophy course, I was also writing a paper on how to bias light emitting diodes (LEDs). How does one add small impurities to semiconductors to control the voltage change at the junction, and thus the frequency of the light given off by the LED? The energy lost by the electron in jumping the junction was the energy spent creating the photon. The energy of the photon determines the frequency of the light.
I told the professor he wasn't qualified to have an opinion on the reality of electrons. He had just not examined the evidence. He was talking out of his hat. Still, if he was allowed to define the word 'exist' as meaning directly observable by human senses, he had a consistent position. As he was the professor, that seemed to mean he could define the meaning of words.
Do you really want to go with a position that knowledge gained through instruments is invalid? If so, most hard science and much of engineering is invalid.
Does it follows that we have to abandon technological civilization? Or is it OK to use instruments so long as the reality recorded by the instruments does not threaten your world view?
Just out of curiosity, is your computer display based on LEDs?
Last edited by B Butler; 07-08-2014 at 01:20 PM.
Apollonian does something that none of the rest of us do (aside from Holocaust denial) -- which is to put a label upon himself and ask for praise from the rest of us for what he is. Does anyone deserve praise just for being an "accountant" or a "teacher"?
As an example of the denial of rational evidence, consider the better-intentioned creationists who believe that godless evolution leads to amorality manifesting itself in genocide. The Creationists want a better world, and they believe that amoral, atheistic Evolution gets in the way of a morality informed more by faith than by science. So if Creationists lose an argument based on some scientific test they raise the bar.But I'm also used to denialists whose world views are so much in opposition to empirical observation that they find it necessary to throw out entire fields of science. That (Apollion) honors Aristotle in one breath while dismissing massive amounts of empirical evidence with the other just shows the depths of (his) mental problems.
OK, the simple truth is that Evolution (like all science) is amoral. Just think about it: a chemistry text might show that sulfuric acid destroys living flesh by stripping water from chemical compounds and leaving (largely) carbon behind. The chemistry text cannot tell you that destroying human flesh by carbonizing it through chemical dehydration as sulfuric acid does is abominable. It's up to the moral teaching of parents or those to whom they delegate it to show that turning live flesh into carbon with excruciating pain to the victim is unthinkable.
Cyanide poisoning is also a horrible way to die, and pointless, deliberate killing of people is still murder. The Nazis inflicted it upon millions of people in the perverse belief that they were doing a great service to Humanity even if such 'reactionaries' as Churchill and Roosevelt thought it one of the worst deeds possible. Churchill and Roosevelt prevailed, showing the relevancy of those 'reactionary' assessments of the value of human life. But even if the cause for deciding that gassing millions of people because of their ethnic origin is wrong is in a religious text that one thinks absurd and unreliable, someone like Bertrand Russell offers the concept of extreme, vehement disgust for denouncing the Holocaust -- no Bible necessary. Yes, atheists can be moral, too.
One could flood the troll with evidence, but the troll would simply say "I am still not convinced". Tough! Science typically sets standards of proof that establish not so much absolute certainty as practical certainty. "I demand one more point of certainty -- it is 100% or no acceptance." With that sort of demand, such an activity as medicine would make no progress. People must take some risk, whether it is in attending school and getting bad grades, making investments in productive enterprise, or starting military campaigns. Doing nothing is one sure way to both achieve nothing and get the certainty of failure.Which natural cycles (can one) believe are creating the warming trend of recent centuries? What other phenomena to you believe is casing the rapidly increasing warmth? The solar cycles? Too small an effect. The period is much shorter than the time frame of the observed rise. The Milankovitch cycles? Too slow an effect. While the magnitude of the change is roughly the right order, the Milankovitch periods are much longer. The signature of the Milankovitch cycles are just too well known. Which natural cycles (can one) talking about, then?
I think that he has a high pretension-to-wisdom ratio, and maybe he needs to get some graduate education in the School of Hard Knocks, not the most satisfying place to learn what one must learn, but sometimes the only "school" with open enrollment and equal opportunity. One thing that he needs learn is that the conventional story of recorded history is usually right if it isn't fictionalized. (George Washington almost certainly did not cut down a cherry tree).There is a real difference between simple harmonic motion and disrupted equilibrium. If (the troll tries) to wrap (his) mind around the Fourth Turning theory while thinking in terms of simple harmonic motion, (he isn't) going to get anywhere. Alas, (his unwillingness) to listen or learn suggests (he isn't) going to get anywhere, anyway.
It may be an odd coincidence that the Lost Generation started being born the year in which Krakatoa erupted. Volcanoes are extremely-complex systems, which explains why all those brilliant geologists can't figure that a volcano is likely to erupt within ten years until two years or so before the eruption.Krakatoa might be a good example of disrupted equilibrium. Much of the time nothing much is happening. Every once in a great while there is a really big boom. The mechanics of what is going on is not at all similar to a pendulum swinging back and forth. Both are in very different senses periodic, but the pendulum can be reduced to relatively simple equations with an easily visible and quite steady frequency. The volcano? Not so much.
[/quote]The United States traditionally disarmed between major wars, and technology changes to a great extent rendered the doctrines of the prior war obsolete. It takes a while to truly remobilize. In the case of the Civil War, it wasn't until 1964 [I think you mean 1864] that the Union figured out how total war had to be waged during that era. While you left out Sheridan, another officer that embodies the era, otherwise an excellent description.
Lee might have tried continuing his Stonewall era aggressive "divide the army and hit them in the flank and rear" tactics. He might have disrupted the Union forces into short term retreats for reorganization a few more times. For the reasons you describe above very well, it wouldn't have made a big difference. More confederates would likely have died sooner. The end of the war might have come faster.
Lee really had to have made his 1863 invasion of the north work, to embarrass the northern armies sufficiently that Lincoln would have lost the upcoming election. I think the decisive moment of the campaign and perhaps the war was Lincoln accepting Hooker's resignation a few days before Gettysburg. It was a big risk changing commanders just before a big fight, with the enemy already haven stolen several days march into the Union rear. If Hooker had continued to march six miles a day, Lee might well have made the northern military effort seem incompetent. The mighty Union machine of 1864 might not have had its day.
Lee was really good at understanding and anticipating the commanding general on the other side. A lot of what happened was Lee having a wonderful plan for fighting Hooker, but he got Meade instead.
Paradoxically the extent to which America demobilizes may make it more capable of responding to a military crisis. American aircraft and ships at Pearl harbor were, so far as the Japanese gangster regime saw them, fish in a barrel. Improvisation can work. Significantly, the observation that Hermann Goering made of the US (They make good refrigerators and razor blades, but they have shown no ability to make good armaments) would be proved very wrong very fast. We were likely in a worse position from which to defend against a Soviet advance through the Fulda Gap than we were to defend against kamikaze attacks.
The military equipment available at the start of the war is usually destroyed by enemy attacks early.
... So far as I am concerned, the American Civil War was decided in eastern Tennessee with the Union forces taking a big chunk of its military-industrial complex at Chattanooga. After that, Sherman could sever the important part of the South (the Confederacy west of the Mississippi wasn't that important) into two disjointed regions that after Sherman's march to the sea could never help each other effectively. The South could continue fighting hard and mostly effectively in Virginia for nearly two years after its blundering at Gettysburg. It collapsed in April 1865 as the South ran out of soldiers to create trenches to defend Petersburg -- in part because fresh troops from Mississippi and Alabama could not break their way through the Chattanooga-Atlanta-Savannah corridor seething with Union troops.
Last edited by pbrower2a; 07-08-2014 at 01:12 PM.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
http://thefederalist.com/2014/07/01/...ring-freezing/
A funny thing happens when Hollywood tries to portray the horrific negative consequences of global warming: they tend to end up showing an Earth that has frozen over...
Perhaps it’s because a suspenseful movie needs something that is actually deadly, and freezing weather is deadly. By contrast, the actual, projected consequences of global warming—presuming they will come to pass, which is looking very unlikely—are relatively mild and beneficial. A few degrees of increase in average temperatures will not be deadly, assuming we still have the electrical generating capacity to power air conditioners during heat waves. A small, gradual rise in sea levels will not be visually or dramatically catastrophic, not compared with any reasonable projection of the benefits of another century of industrial and technological progress. Look, New York City has to be protected by dikes—which we see as we travel above them in our flying cars. It would be like one of those old Soviet newsreels that was supposed to impress its Russian viewers with everything that was wrong in the United States, except that they couldn’t get past the fact that everyone was driving around in shiny new automobiles...
The main effects of global warming would be: sun, warmth, lush vegetation, and lots of water. So global warming is basically like a day at the beach. Which is a problem if you want your movie to tell people that global warming is no day at the beach...
-Sheesh.
No, it's not a misunderstanding. This was the original research, which the Telegraph stuff is sort of based on:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2...the-year-2000/
Here is a criticism of that research:
http://reason.com/archives/2014/07/0...ists-fudge-tem
...and another (which mention changes in recording sites as a legitimate reason for adjustments):
http://reason.com/blog/2014/06/23/di...alter-us-tempe
...but concludes:
It is my view that while NOAA/NCDC is not purposely “fabricating” data, their lack of attention to detail in the process has contributed to a false warming signal in the USA, and they don’t much care about it because it is in line with their expectations of warming...
This is a detailed example which explores another legitimate reason for adjusting old data, difference in collection times:
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com...n-alabama.html
...but observes that the changes should go either way, not just warmer, as with NASA's adjustments.
But you keep pontificating!
