[ExI] How to make progress (was Re: Why do political and economic leaders deny Peak Oil and Climate Change?)

[Tomasz Rola]

On Tue, 10 Sep 2013, Eugen Leitl wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 09, 2013 at 06:21:58PM -0600, Brent Allsop wrote:
> 
> > You indicated knowing who the experts is the problem.  But at
> > Canonizer.com it isn't.  At Canonizer.com anyone can pick any

It's really easy to know experts, they tend to advertise themselves. But 
I'd like to know who pays them, this would've been a valuable information. 
There were experts and scientists working in Tobacco Institute, who proved 
with plenty of experimental data that smoking and cancer were unrelated.

[

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_Institute

]

This pitiful (AFAIK) act ended 40 years later not because there was some 
kind of public call but more likely because health care could no longer be 
provided on required level, and the gov (acting on behalf of interested 
parties... erm.. voters I mean) stepped in. Just MHO, as usually.

Sooo... So much about experts. They belong to the hand that feeds them.

[...]
> You don't know what a hateful conversation really is.
> I'm blunt and abrasive, but I'm not hateful.

Whoa, Eugen. The more I know you, the more I like you. 

[...]
> I did that when I thought it would make a difference. I'm both
> stupid *and* stubborn, so sue me.

The only bad thing I find about you is that you're not a woman.

[...]
> If I had many people agree with me I'd knew I'd be dead wrong,
> and need to radically change the whole approach.

Alternatively, that you lived on a planet inhabited by non-humans. Non 
homo sapiens sapiens. Too much or not enough sapiens, and see where we 
are, knee deep in television.

[...]
> > doubt their claims of 'expert consensus'.
> 
> Here's news: you don't matter. This list doesn't matter.
> Even if a large fraction of the population would be doing the
> right thing it will only postpone the reckoning a little.
> 

There might be a solution, even now. Just grab this puny civilisation with 
iron fist and impose changes to its ways. Unfortunately, it seems iron 
fists have ugly, ugly side effects. And they tend to be implemented by 
morons who think they understand it (and they end up washing blood from 
ugly side of the fist so it looks nicer) and by those who claim that "one 
milion/bilion bodies, not a big dealion".

This, of course, assuming we are going to the cliff. We may, indeed. OTOH, 
the peak/global memes are great advertisers, just like y2k was. So what 
we, or at least I, have access to is advertisements. I'm not sure if it's 
possible to get sense out of them, even with few tons of logic.

Heck, this email is advertisement, too. Whatever I sell, don't buy. I 
mean, really, when I tell to not buy, then don't. Now, go and buy :-).

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **