House of Eratosthenes

A global-warming alwarmist who writes for TIME Magazine, met up in the airport with someone who’d already figured out the whole thing is a big scam. Teach links to her tale…and makes an observation of his own…

Would you be shocked that this article is in the psychology section rather than science? I’m not.

I’ve learned not to argue too long with people who do not “believe in” human-made climate change. I figure it’s impossible to reason someone out of a position that they didn’t reason themselves into. But the fact is that even those of us who do believe climate change is man-made are in partial denial about our enormous global problems, and almost all of us minimize or normalize the situation.

Most Warmists do not want to discuss this with non-Warmists, because Warmists tend not to have facts on their sides, and one can’t argue for long when they’re only armed with talking points. [emphasis mine]

In the global-warming scam, this happens all the time: A chicken-little will deliver some snotty monologue about “I’ve learned it is futile to discuss it with…” blah, blah, blah. With big smiles on their faces and with their eyes closed.

Erm no, I say. You didn’t learn you should stop discussing it with the other side. The truth is you never started. Oh, you might delight in repeating over and over that the “science” is on your side because CO₂ acts as an insulator and the greenhouse gas effect exists. It’s an established fact! Look it up! But when we get to that more crucial, thorny matter…of WEMUSTACTNOWORITMAYBETOOLATE!!. That’s where the problem is. As our illustrious President might phrase it, although He’ll never admit it here — there is no “there” there.

So they indulge in the snotty monologue about not discussing it, because that’s all they have.

It isn’t just global warming. I still remember the argument with the psychologist which never really was an argument at all…it was an inquiry, which met with a barricade of “I’m feeling bullied.” An inquiry that dealt with the fine distinction between actually finding something, and merely speculating on it being there. That’s, like, a defining trait of real “science,” and unfortunately this discussion would meander into that disquieting residual question about whether psychology should be considered a real science. So when she said she felt bullied, I’m sure that was sincere. Just unprofessional as all holy hell. The point is: There, too, we have something that is so obviously “proven” by “science,” that “there’s no use discussing it with” someone who doesn’t immediately and uncritically accept it.

The problem is not that there is futility involved in earnestly discussing what is supposed to be “known.” The problem is, any discussion in which the “known” is subjected to diligent questioning, might strip it of the quality of being “known.” So the proponents did not lately discover that they shouldn’t be doing that. They’ve understood it from the very beginning.

Because they insulate their ideas from challenge, they must insulate themselves from it as well. Because they are protected from honest discussion, they are sensitized to it.

When they finally are exposed to some diligent inspection of their cherished beliefs, whether they say so or not — they feel abused. Uh, yeah, they do. I’m sure when it finally happens, it feels like a real whallopin’.

I recall my son was, at the time his Mom and I split up, eyebrows-deep into this horrible Japanese cartoon about snotty little kids with eyes the size of dinner plates, who’d talk smack to other kids and get their magical creatures into fights with each other. I forbade any merchandise that had to do with that execrable franchise from ever entering my bachelor pad. I didn’t like the way the kids would generate the conflict by talking their smack, and the magical creatures would have to settle it. The message from the cartoon, to me, was abundantly clear: It isn’t up to you to handle anything or fix anything in life. Some magical pixie-dust fairy-goblin will pop out of a distinctive little ball, and make it all right for you. Great, a cartoon is going to teach our kids to become Michael Vick. Just want I wanted. No thanks. I hate that cartoon. Words cannot say how much. To this day I see it as like a second Pearl Harbor attack, I really do.

Anyway, back to the people who want to do a lot of arguing but not really. Maybe I should call these people “Pokemon People.” They generate the conflict, talking their smack…want to control the economy, refuse to take no for an answer, can’t & won’t deal with the resulting conflict. They require, but are frustratingly missing, their magical little creatures that are supposed to leap out of the ball and magically vanquish the “enemy.” Enemy being: Those who are inconveniently asking, just how & why is it you think you know the things you think you know?

I call bullshit on the idea that they have any litany of misadventures discussing things with the opposition, before they finally figured out they shouldn’t do it anymore. That’s a load. This never happened. They never started doing the discussion in the first place. They’ve known from the very beginning that this is something they can’t do. Their ideas are just too fragile.

Hat tip to Maggie’s Farm.

“There, too, we have something that is so obviously “proven” by “science,” that “there’s no use discussing it with” someone who doesn’t immediately and uncritically accept it.”

And that includes other scientists. Of which there are plenty.
- philmon | 07/16/2013 @ 09:08
Then again there’s “The Cat In The Hat and The Bathtub Ring”.

A call for Mr. Wizzard could ALWAYS magically “fix things” by removing (turtle guy) from the horrible impending concequences of inflicting HIS idea of “my way” on other people’s sphere of influence.

But what of those children suffering from failure to launch-DESPITE a “free” PreK-16 and up “education”(in critical thinking…right?)

Waaaaayyyy too many metaphores…..
Can’t wait to see who’s going to save the usual suspects (ie NBC/MSNBC) from court for shouting FIRE in a crowded theater-just to establish that the Emporor’s New Clothes sure look good, but ONLY to…you know… educated, discerning, savvy, hip, independant, strong, yet hyphen-oppressed/challanged folk, that NEVER seem to be able to “find” who’s the the sucker at the poker table.
- CaptDMO | 07/16/2013 @ 09:37
“Argue” is one of those words that liberals use, that I don’t think means what they think it means.

A typical “argument” I have with a liberal buddy goes something like this:

Liberal: Here’s this thing over here that I hate, about which I know fact A, which proves that you should hate it too. Come hate it with me.

Severian: Well, I see your fact A, and counter with facts B and C, which somewhat mitigate what you’re saying. Maybe we should hold off on the two minutes’ hate.

L: Yeah, but I also have facts D and E.

S: Where did you get those? I’ve heard of D and E, but they’re quite different than the way you’re portraying them. See, for instance, this link here, and this newspaper article here, and this study…

L: Oh, those. They’re obviously invalid, because of [pick one: The studies were done by corporations / the author once said something conservative-ish / Rush Limbaugh pointed it out, so it’s obviously wrong / this guy on Daily Kos wrote a diary about how it’s all wrong]

S: Ummm… yeah. But you see, none of those are dispositive in any way. Meanwhile, the facts remain…

L: [smugly] You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.

S: But those aren’t “my own facts.” They’re just the facts, full stop, and you’ve yet to show me any reason to believe that….

L: [extra-smugly]: See, this is why this country’s so riven by partisanship. I have my facts, and you have yours, and nobody ever compromises.

S: But there’s no “compromise” on a matter of fact. I have citations, and figures, and studies; you have some bullshit about how the author once voted for Reagan….

L: [extra-extra smugly]: Well, if you want to cite some crap you got off hate radio, go ahead, but I prefer to trust science, thank you very much.

&c.

“Argument” won. Game, set, and match to the lefty.
- Severian | 07/16/2013 @ 09:39
Feeling smug, and feeling like the argument has been “won,” is the point. The point isn’t to get gramma her medicine or end racism or end poverty or anything of the kind. Feeling smug is the end goal.

Otherwise, Detroit, Atlanta and Chicago would look like Oz without the wicked-witch problem.
- mkfreeberg | 07/16/2013 @ 09:48
[…] has a good post about liberal “arguments.” The catalyst is some bullshit about Global Weather, but it […]
- D3: Beachhead Facts | Rotten Chestnuts | 07/16/2013 @ 10:33
The point isn’t to get gramma her medicine or end racism or end poverty or anything of the kind.

Sheesh, ain’t that the truth. This is how I know I’m not smart enough to be a liberal: I keep thinking that the ultimate test of any political proposition is whether or not it achieves it stated goal. On that metric, leftism is oh-for-infinity.

You can take a cursory glance at Asian history and see that Marxism doesn’t work. You can look at the Great Depression, or Japan’s Lost Decade, to see that Keynesianism doesn’t work. You can open any random British newspaper to a random page and see that nationalized healthcare is a fiasco. You can step outside and test the truth of Global Warming for yourself. Or you could look at the history of the United States, Australia, etc. and see that free markets tend to work out in the long run.

But whatevs. I don’t have one of those Rain Man-like compulsions, where I have to constantly reassure myself what a great person I am, so I can’t possibly understand what they’re going through, poor dears.
- Severian | 07/16/2013 @ 11:11
I never saw Pokemon as a “let’s you and him fight” scenario. My objection, if any, was that it was a portrayal of an entire world that basically ran on legalized cockfighting/dogfighting.

But methinks you were a bit over-hysteric about it. I mean seriously.

It’s a CARTOON. A child can grasp that such things are make-believe and only for the world of pretend. But not if the adult acts as if it were the real thing. Do you react this way to toy guns and children playing cowboys and indians? Do you get the fainting vapors when your child runs around the yard going “bang, bang, I gotcha” because ‘he’s being indoctrinated into violence?’

Be honest with yourself. You hated the cartoon because you personally didn’t enjoy it (fair enough– Pokemon’s not exactly the pinnacle of the art) and you looked for a reason after the fact to rationalize taking it away from your kid…. probably to the detriment of your kid, who doesn’t GET your obscure issues and probably just sees it as a petty continuation of your inter-parental issues with your ex-wife.
- rhjunior | 07/16/2013 @ 12:13
Yeah right, sure. The kids confront other kids and make the problems, the imaginary creatures do all the hard work to solve the problem, then the kids confront other kids all over again and make more problems. Who in the world could possibly object to that.
- mkfreeberg | 07/16/2013 @ 12:53
Just a cartoon? Yeah, but as aptly put by the late Andrew Breitbart, politics is downstream from culture. The cartoon teaches something, whether it tries to or realizes it. It’s make-believe but that doesn’t excuse the bad message, nor does an objection to the message mean that pretending or imagination is bad.

Morgan can speak for himself, and no doubt will; I can only speak about the cartoon in this case, because I’ve been exposed to a lot of it via younger relatives.

For my money, the very best episode of Pokemon was the first one. Ash dreams of being the very best, like no-one ever was, etc etc… except that on the day the kids of his town are to receive their Pokemon, he oversleeps terribly.

The end result is that he gets Pikachu. The mouse is certainly clever enough to recognize that this incompetent bozo who couldn’t be arsed to show up on time is not what he’s looking for in a trainer, and he resents the hell out of the relationship – he refuses to go into his little ball, he won’t train, he mocks Ash’s poor skills and bragadoccio, and Ash is reduced to dragging Pikachu around on a leash while getting electro-shocked regularly. Along the way he fails at his first attempt to capture a wild Pokemon, steals a bicycle, and nearly gets himself killed.

The point (at least for that first half-hour) was that Ash was an irresponsible snot with a big mouth who had to earn the respect of those around him. They kept that theme up for a little while, such as when he foolishly “evolved” one of his other Pokemon into a form way beyond his abilities, only to have it refuse to listen to him any more. But in the end, all that kind of went away and all that was left was the cockfighting.

Why the “TL/DR” synopsis? Because the message of the show changed. It started out defensibly. Heck, the program used to show the critters needing medical care after particularly bad battles, emphasizing that lousy actions had consequences. It went to pot pretty quickly after that.
- nightfly | 07/16/2013 @ 13:08
There are two things going on here. One is what my Mom used to call “internal [vs. external] locus of control.” Explanation here. When it comes to parenting, that’s a very important thing, to me, as it was to her. When people care about an outcome, they should have the opportunity to shape it or at least to try to shape it; without that, they get frustrated. And no I’m not completely inflexible about this, if my kid wants to become a football or baseball fan, that’s fine with me, although those have the same ingredients as Pokemon: Nothing for the cheerers of the winning team to do, after a win, but…gloat. Nothing for the supporters of the losing team to do, but go: Awwww…darn. While the game is in progress, nothing for anybody to do on the sidelines, except do a lot of cheering. And occasional booing. Lots of hoping. But all external locus of control. Pokemon seems, to me, for the reasons nightfly just gave, to be dedicated to external locus of control. Don’t worry, the magical creatures will handle everything. Hope they do, anyway!

By the way, it is my conviction that “internal locus of control” is under attack right now. If you have internal-locus, and the effort ultimately fails, the thing you do after that is to ask: What could I have done differently? That just makes sense. But, in the present, that is called “beating yourself up” and we’ve been discouraged from doing that since at least the 1970’s. Really, go back and watch some retro teevee show (we were up to our eyebrows in them at the time) and watch for just ten minutes…someone will be telling someone else they have to stop blaming themselves.

Second thing that is going on: You don’t get to decide the form and shape and content of something, by adding content to it. It’s much more effective to decide form and shape of content of something by eliminating things. The people who are the target of my original complaint in this post, realize this implicitly: They seek to add to the form and shape and content of our thoughts about global warming, by rejecting things — defining who should be excluded from the discussion. Excluding is effective. That’s the trouble with them, they seek dictatorial rule in deciding what we “know” about climate change…by strategically excluding voices from the discussion.

Well, with parenting, that is appropriate. Parents are supposed to have dictatorial rule over how the parenting is done. But, lately, as my critic here has ably demonstrated, there is a stigma against parents saying “no, I won’t allow that.” Parents are somehow not supposed to be doing that…I’m not sure why. Is there some crisis taking place with too much form and substance and definition-of-content taking place, vis a vis parenting? I’m having trouble seeing that.

But as far as what I think parenting should entail — it is absolutely dazzling what a great job this cartoon seems to have done figuring out what I think is desirable, and leaving it out, and figuring out what I think is most loathsome, and making sure to include it. External locus of control, conflict for no good reason, apathy, laziness, and just for good measure some dog/cock-fighting thrown in.
- mkfreeberg | 07/16/2013 @ 13:47
That’s the trouble with them, they seek dictatorial rule in deciding what we “know” about ~~climate change~~ ANYTHING…by strategically excluding voices from the discussion.

Wow.
You just described the “efforts” of Harry White, and John Keynes, surrounding the
“economic strategy plan ” for post WWII at a very nice secluded resort in New Hampshire.
(If one is to accept Benn Steil’s extensive historical account in “The Battle of Bretton Woods”)
- CaptDMO | 07/17/2013 @ 06:38
You feel about Pokemon the way I did about “Transformers” So I guess my kids are a bit older than your son

The universe according to the Transformers
There are evil robots that are going to come and enslave humans so the answer is to build other robots that that will protect us by making us dependent upon them.

The problem was there is no morality except might makes right, my mechanical chicken can out fight you mechanical chicken

I just hated that cartoon series
- Fai.Mao | 07/18/2013 @ 22:57
[…] IN THE GLOBAL-warming scam, this happens all the time: A chicken-little will deliver some snotty monologue about […]
- Steynian 481rd | Free Canuckistan! | 07/21/2013 @ 16:18
[…] A GLOBAL-WARMING alwarmist who writes for TIME Magazine, met up in the airport with someone who’d already figured […]
- Steynian 482rd | Free Canuckistan! | 07/25/2013 @ 16:25

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No, You NEVER STARTED Arguing…Tuesday, July 16th, 2013

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