[ExI] Is Global Warming Junk Science?

Brent Allsop brent.allsop at comcast.net
Tue Apr 21 02:58:59 UTC 2009


Keith Henson wrote:
>> I just get so sick of the eternal over and over again claims on both sides
>> of the story: Yes there is a consensus, no there isn't,
>>     
>
> Who cares?

I care desperately, for gazilions of what seems to me to be obvious and 
critical reasons.  I have always cared about knowing as much as possible 
what all other people think.

It's shocking to me to find out how many people, at least claim they 
don't care at all what everyone else thinks.  Such just seems like a 
terrible, failing, and hateful philosophy to have, but I guess that's 
just me?  Am I the only one that thinks this "I could care less what 
everyone else in the world thinks" philosophy is destroying our society?

> No matter where you come down on this controversy, a very
> large, low cost source of energy to replace fossil fuels is a good
> idea.
>
>   

This is obviously a very good idea.  And, because of your work, the 
people in the camp that think this way is likely growing very rapidly.  
But wouldn't it be a great boon to society to know, concisely and 
quantitatively, just how fast such an idea is catching on amongst world 
leading experts, relative to previoius good ideas, and so on?  You've 
got some anecdotal evidence, such as the recent popular  news stories 
that the idea is progress in all of our minds, but wouldn't having a 
more rigorous measure of such be far more valuable?  And wouldn't it be 
great to know concicely and quantitatively who was in a different camp 
as a result of such news stories, and for what reasons, even if only to 
better know what you were up against, and so you could more powerfully 
see the mistakes that needed to be pointed out to everyone that held them?

> Unless, of course, you are among those who think a massive die off
> back to one or two billion people is a good idea.
>
>   
Without knowing definitively who were in such camps, and knowing 
concicely all of their reasons for such, how can we ever work to correct 
such obviously terribly mistaken beliefs?

It seems to me like most of the problems in this world are simple 
communication problems.  There is no way for large groups of people to 
communicate concisely and quantitatively.  And as long as people could 
care less about what everyone else is trying to say, this terribly 
destructive and war causing situation will remain.

Brent Allsop








More information about the extropy-chat mailing list