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I accept lots of philosophical propositions that are denied by many able, well-trained philosophers. Am I to believe that in every case in which I believe something many other philosophers deny ... I am right and they are wrong, and that, in every such case, my epistemic circumstances are superior to theirs? Am I to believe that in every such case this is because some neural quirk has provided me with evidence that is inaccessible to them? If I do believe this ... is it the same neutral quirk in each case or a different one? If it is the same one, it begins to look more a case of “my superior cognitive architecture” [but i]f it is a different one in each case –well, that is quite a coincidence, isn’t it? All these evidence-provoking quirks come together in one person, and that person happens to be me. (2010, p. 27) — van Inwagen, P. (2010), “We’re Right. They’re Wrong,” in R. Feldman and T.A. Warfield (eds.), Disagreement (Oxford University Press), pp. 10-28.

Recently, I showed that the subjectivist, post modernist, anti-truth position of the left is false, with numerous examples, in an argument peppered with literary and philosophical references, and ran into an ideologically indoctrinated brick wall of direct contradiction. This inability and/or unwillingness to learn plunged me into a sudden and deep depression, for - if humankind cannot learn, cannot correct this mistake, we are doomed. — counterpunch

I agree that post-modernism opened a can of worms, which I suppose is fine but since the box hasn't been closed, the worms of post-truthism are now all over the place. Which leads me to my question: why do you lampoon only the left? Hasn't Trump been the king of anti-truthism lately? Or are you amongst the ones who happen to believe him?

I worked for it. I tore my hair and gnashed my teeth. I looked past myself, and past the powerful religious, national and economic ideologies with which I was indoctrinated since infancy, and I persisted - for many years. I don't imagine I am superior except in any regard but this. I earned the truth.

Then for how many years do you imagine your interlocutors have worked to obtain their knowledge? What is the exact difference in years worked between someone who will discover the truth and one who will not. I'm interested because I've put in a few years myself - am I nearly there yet?

It'd help if you didn't frame your views in ideological terms. You don't seem so much interested in creating a coalition to further your goal as you are in identifying who the enemy is. Which, in your case, incongruously is "the left", even though people on "the left" are a lot more likely to agree with your focus on cheap, clean energy.

I live in the UK. I was a Remainer. I ripped into the right for several years during and after the 2016 Brexit referendum, which coincided with Trump's election - and had many of the same characteristics. It's true, they lied. But ultimately, capitalism is necessary to a sustainable future - and the left wing, anti capitalist, carbon tax this, stop that, eat grass and cycle approach won't work.

I don't know Issac. It's not merely a matter of distance run, but whether you are running in the right direction.
Have you actively sought to abandon your assumptions and base your arguments in solid realities, like epistemology, evolution and physics, and then see if your philosophical favourites can be sustained in those terms?
Or are you looking down the wrong end of the telescope - starting with some metaphysical concept, like being, or some moral purpose - like equality, and bending the world around it?
Do you have a tendency to think in terms of superlatives - highest, fastest, biggest, strongest? That's often a road block.
Are you unreasonably attracted to nihilistic despair? You know you can just turn your back, because nihilism supports no value that requires you accept nihilism. All these, and a thousand other things - I've had to force my way past. Have you?

Well therein lies the problem. I can make the case to the right. It's a case for a sustainable and prosperous world. It's a case for dividing massive infrastructure costs from loss of revenues. It's a case for maintaining geopolitical stability as we transition to sustainable energy sources. I can make the case to them. I cannot make the case to the left - who, I would argue, are using the climate change issue as an anti-capitalist battering ram. They are constructing an argument for eco-communism, overlaid with authoritarian political correctness as a means of control. The only thing I can tell the left is that their approach will not secure a sustainable future, and it will run to genocide.

It's true, they lied. But ultimately, capitalism is necessary to a sustainable future - and the left wing, anti capitalist, carbon tax this, stop that, eat grass and cycle approach won't work. — counterpunch

The climate catastrophe is now inevitable. It's gonna start hitting badly by the end of this century only, if we're lucky. What form of 'civilisation' will sustain and survive for centuries ahead in spite of climate change, I don't know. I guess we'll all take a hit, some bigger hit here, some smaller there. But I would hope that societies built on common search for truth and respect for truth stand a better chance of surviving the incoming crises than societies built upon lies.

It's a case for a sustainable and prosperous world. — counterpunch

And you think the right wants that, and the left does not, because?

I cannot make the case to the left - who, I would argue, are using the climate change issue as an anti-capitalist battering ram. They are constructing an argument for eco-communism, overlaid with authoritarian political correctness as a means of control. — counterpunch

I consider myself "on the left", and I don't want authoritarian eco-communism. So I wonder why you'd think all people on the left are the same, or why you think that they are somehow not rational.

I consider myself "on the left", and I don't want authoritarian eco-communism. So I wonder why you'd think all people on the left are the same, or why you think that they are somehow not rational. — Echarmion

Yes. This guy has an irrational fear of the commies. Or is raising a straw man.

There's no dearth of doomsayers in the world. In fact, many great minds have apocalyptic predictions down to a science to the extent that that's possible. Read the wikipedia entries on doomsday, judgment day, the day or reckoning, the end of times and you'll find yourself going through a list of probable world-ending events that experts, no less, have been turning over in their minds.

I'm reluctant to put stock in armageddon predictions because I believe that if matters come to a head, better sense will prevail and the world will put up a united front against whatever man-made catastrophe that's threatening the globe.

That said, one need only look in the right places for evidence of cataclysmic events we simply lack the technology to prepare for. The dinosaurs were wiped off the face of the earth by an asteroid impact 65 million years ago and who knows another one of those space rocks may be hurtling through space on an earth intercept course as we speak.

The climate catastrophe is now inevitable. — Olivier5

There's the spirit!

It's gonna start hitting badly by the end of this century only, if we're lucky. What form of 'civilisation' will sustain and survive for centuries ahead in spite of climate change, I don't know. I guess we'll all take a hit, some bigger hit here, some smaller there. But I would hope that societies built on common search for truth and respect for truth stand a better chance of surviving the incoming crises than societies built upon lies. — Olivier5

There's a massive source of clean energy inside the earth - that we can tap into and use to extract carbon from the atmosphere, and sequester it in the earth. This isn't just producing slightly less carbon, because we get a small fraction of our energy from wind and solar, but actively reversing climate change - using the heat energy of the earth itself. So no, climate catastrophe is not inevitable. It's a matter of the technologies we employ.

Where philosophy comes in, is that this approach implies a global solution, and ultimately, a post material world. This is externalised by national and economic ideologies. Politicians want the huge kick-backs from all that windmill building, they want bumps in the mining stocks in which their final salary, index linked pension pots are invested, they want 'green' jobs, and the pretence of sustainability, more than they want sustainability. A global solution providing limitless clean energy is contrary to the idea that nation states are sovereign entities; like the world were a jig-saw puzzle made up of nation state pieces, and not in fact - part of a single global environment with ideological lines drawn on it.

common search for truth and respect for truth — Olivier5

That's exactly what we don't have. We are dealing with people who believe nation states exist, and that there's a man in the sky who will drop down at the last minuet and make everything all right. And people who think, just in case, they'd better die with enough gold on hand to bribe their way across the river Styx. That's the problem. We are technologically advanced, but ideologically, we haven't moved an inch since Galileo was being shown the tools of torture and asked if he might like to reconsider his earlier answer.

Have you actively sought to abandon your assumptions and base your arguments in solid realities, like epistemology, evolution and physics, and then see if your philosophical favourites can be sustained in those terms? — counterpunch

Yep.

are you looking down the wrong end of the telescope - starting with some metaphysical concept, like being, or some moral purpose - like equality, and bending the world around it? — counterpunch

Nope.

Do you have a tendency to think in terms of superlatives - highest, fastest, biggest, strongest? — counterpunch

Nope.

Are you unreasonably attracted to nihilistic despair? — counterpunch

Nope.

All these, and a thousand other things - I've had to force my way past. Have you? — counterpunch

Yep. 1001, in fact.

So...how many years?

Then why do you support political correctness and extinction rebellion? Why do you act in ways that are contrary to human rights like freedom of conscience and freedom of expression? Why do you pursue a "have less-pay more" approach to sustainability? You may not think you want eco communist authoritarian government and genocide, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

In order for better sense to prevail, one has to understand the fundamental nature of the problem. With regard to the climate and ecological crisis - which is, whether you believe in it or not, an imminent existential threat - the fundamental cause is not capitalism, as the left would maintain, but is our mistaken relationship to science. In short, science is not just a toolbox full of new gadgets and neat ways to kill people. It's also an instruction manual for use of those tools. But we don't act in regard to science as an understanding of reality. We use the tools but we don't read the instructions. That's the mistake we need to correct to survive. It didn't matter so much what we believed when we were half a billion people running around naked in the forest, poking each other with sharp sticks - but now we're 8 billion, and ignoring a scientific understanding of reality in favour of the primitive religious politics of our ancestors, as a basis for the application of powerful technologies, and it is the fast track to extinction.

Sounds like you're there! So why do we not agree?

Let's start with epistemology.

What can we know, and how can we know it?

climate catastrophe is not inevitable. It's a matter of the technologies we employ. — counterpunch

I'm not speaking technologically. Technologically we can send people live on Ganymede.

I'm talking of what is possible politically, in practice, given limited means and time. Realistically speaking, the world needs to turn around tomorrow. This is not going to happen, full stop. Hence we're screwed.

My hope is the smartest will survive. Some societies are smarter collectively than others. In my view the center-left ones.

We are technologically advanced, but ideologically, we haven't moved an inch since Galileo was being shown the tools of torture and asked if he might like to reconsider his earlier answer.

My point entirely. Galileo did well BTW. He was wise to live, unlike Bruno. Descartes had his own manuscript almost ready about the superiority of the solar centric system, and he wisely decided to shut up. He did not print it, seeing the risks taken by Galileo.

I think it was St Augustine who wrote something like "rational knowledge and religious knowledge cannot be in conflict" - so it was wide open for the Church to embrace Galileo as discovering the means to decode the word of God made manifest in Creation, afford scientific understanding moral authority, and technology would have been applied as suggested by a scientific understanding of reality - rather than for ideological ends.

But the Church was burning people alive for heresy right through to 1792 - well into the Industrial Revolution. Refusing to afford science any moral authority, as the means to establish valid knowledge of Creation - meant, we worshiped the book, not the Creation itself, and maintained the religious, political and economic ideological architecture of societies, intact - unreformed in relation to this burgeoning understanding of reality, even as we pressed ahead with technology, produced by science reduced to the status of a whore.

We need to grow up real fast, accept that science is true, and act accordingly. It doesn't mean turning the world upside down. We have to get there from here. It begins with massive, base load clean energy from the molten interior of the earth. In terms of the fundamental physics, doing anything requires energy, and we need massive amounts of it. Not less energy - from wind and solar, but radically more, from the big ball of molten rock beneath our feet.

It's kinda weird to assume a bunch of things about my opinions after I just asked you why you think everyone on the left is alike, or why you think they are inherently less rational. But in the hopes of getting this conversation somewhere:

political correctness — counterpunch

Political correctness is useful insofar as it keeps ad-hominem and poisoning of the well at bay. It makes sense to take care that our language doesn't unduly label and marginalize people who might have important opinions to contribute. I don't really care much about it beyond that, it's sometimes taken too far, but even where it is it doesn't really seem worth worrying about to me. It plays into the whole "culture war" thing, which as far as I am concerned is a distraction from actual problems.

extinction rebellion — counterpunch

I honestly don't know enough about their exact goals and approach to form an opinion on extinction rebellion specifically. I think it's entirely understandable that people take to the streets in desperation after decades of inaction on climate change. It certainly has helped to get the problem more firmly embedded in people's heads.

Why do you act in ways that are contrary to human rights like freedom of conscience and freedom of expression? — counterpunch

Some left-wing people might. The left has it's share of authoritarians, neither side has a monopoly on those. But personally I believe in the things I believe partly because I think they'll increase freedom. Of course I understand freedom as more than "being left alone" and include actually having the freedom to act because you're not starving or homeless etc.

Why do you pursue a "have less-pay more" approach to sustainability? — counterpunch

It's a bit of a Truism that having less stuff is more sustainable. If we were more frugal with our resources, that would free up a part of said resources for investments into the future. The "western" consumer economy is extremely wasteful and certainly not sustainable. So having less seems a very obvious first step to take. And most people only actually use a portion of the stuff they own. I'd rather invest that portion into a Mars mission or something.

The pay more part mostly comes from trying to accurately price the environmental impact, which seems to me a perfectly fine market-based approach, if difficult to do accurately in practice.

You may not think you want eco communist authoritarian government and genocide, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. — counterpunch

Sure, but the same is of course true of your own good intentions. So that can't be the difference between your good intentions and mine.

We agree on a lot of things. That science is the way to gain knowledge about reality. That this knowledge shows us some obvious priorities (cheap, clean energy can solve a whole bunch of our problems). That failing to recognise those priorities could lead to disaster (via climate change, environmental degradation or simply not having an asteroid defense system when you need it). We also broadly agree that market based solutions are often good, that concentrating too much power in few hands is very dangerous, and that freedom is valuable.

So why are we bogged down in an ideological conflict about left and right?

it was wide open for the Church to embrace Galileo — counterpunch

The irony is that the book that triggered Galileo's second trial -- the Dialogue Concerning the Two Main World Systems -- was written at the request of no other than pope Urban VIII aka Maffeo Barberini, a Florentine humanist and a friend of Galileo (who was from Pise and worked in nearby Florence much). Galileo had publicly stayed out on heliocentrism since his first trial circa 1615. The new pope asked him to present the two systems comparatively in a neutral manner, so Galileo tried to do that but apparently the resulting book was quite slanted in favor of heliocentrism. Maybe Galileo saw his revenge at hand and mocked his past prosecutors a bit too much...

The Jesuits hated it and used it against Urban VIII whom they branded as weak against heretics and Protestants. Geopolitics weren't too good for the Church, thirty years war and all... Urban VIII had to deny any association with Galileo and agreed to a trial, although he commuted the ultimate prison sentence for his ex friend into house arrest.

It begins with massive, base load clean energy from the molten interior of the earth. — counterpunch

You have a plan, huh? Any funders yet?

It's kinda weird to assume a bunch of things about my opinions after I just asked you why you think everyone on the left is alike, or why you think they are inherently less rational. But in the hopes of getting this conversation somewhere: — Echarmion

It is kinda weird that you identify with the left - and when I challenge prominent left wing ideas, you say "How dare you assume what I, personally believe?" Suddenly, you're not a collectivist - supporting a dictatorial dogma. Suddenly, you're a lone wolf - as is everyone on the left!

Political correctness is useful insofar as it keeps ad-hominem and poisoning of the well at bay. — Echarmion

Is that so? It's not an incoherent and unjust philosophy, in direct contradiction of human rights like freedom of conscience and expression? It's not a basis for de-platforming academics, shutting down people's opinions, controlling the internet and avoiding discussions you find uncomfortable?

It makes sense to take care that our language doesn't unduly label and marginalize people who might have important opinions to contribute. — Echarmion

You don't think political correctness unduly labels and marginalizes people? Or is it that, because it only does it to white people, that's okay in terms of your identity politics hierarchy of victimhood?

It plays into the whole "culture war" thing, which as far as I am concerned is a distraction from actual problems. — Echarmion

It IS the whole culture war thing. It's the left's war against our culture!

Having responded to your first paragraph - it occurs to me that you've shown elsewhere, that attempting discussion with you is pointless. You will not engage with the points raised, but just directly contradict them by repeating your dogmatic position. I find that deeply depressing and I'd rather not waste my time responding to the rest of your post. But I can't resist this:

It's a bit of a Truism that having less stuff is more sustainable. — Echarmion

No. That's profoundly wrong. But what it is, is confirmation that you are in the mainstream of left wing thought, on everything from political correctness to climate change, and yet would deny it. Either you are blisteringly lacking in self awareness, or radically dishonest. Either way - I'm not banging my head against that brick wall. So thank you, and fare thee well.

Either you are blisteringly lacking in self awareness, or radically dishonest. Either way - I'm not banging my head against that brick wall. — counterpunch

And here you have the answer why noone will seriously engage with your ideas: it's because you already think anyone who disagrees with you is either an idiot or a liar. Why would anyone talk to you, given that attitude?

But good luck anyways, you'll need it.

The irony is that the book that triggered Galileo's second trial -- the Dialogue Concerning the Two Main World Systems -- was written at the request of no other than pope Urban VIII aka Maffeo Barberini, a Florentine humanist and a friend of Galileo (who was from Pise and worked in nearby Florence much). Galileo had stayed out on heliocentrism since his first trial circa 1615. The new pope asked him to present the two systems comparatively in a neutral manner, so Galileo tried to do that but apparently the resulting book was quite slanted in favor of heliocentrism. Maybe Galileo saw his revenge at hand and mocked his past prosecutors a bit too much... — Olivier5

You seem to know more about Galileo's trial(s) than I do, which is also quite ironic. I do know that in Dialogue, Galileo put the argument for geocentrism in the mouth of Simplicio - a pun on 'simpleton' in the common Italian. That was probably a mistake. He was dealing with ideas that were very serious in their sacred and political implications, particularly at the height of the Protestant rebellion against the authority of the Church. He would have been much better offering the Church a way out - not least by refencing St Augustine, and construing science as man's understanding of the word of God made manifest in Creation.

The Jesuits hated it and used it against Urban VIII whom they branded as weak against heretics and Protestants. Geopolitics weren't too good for the Church, thirty years war and all... Urban VII had to repudiate Galileo and agreed to a trial, although he commuted the ultimate prison sentence for his ex friend into house arrest. — Olivier5

Therein lies the problem. The Jesuits, and the Papal Court of the Inquisition. No-one expects the Inquisition!

It begins with massive, base load clean energy from the molten interior of the earth.
— counterpunch

You have a plan, huh? Any funders yet? — Olivier5

I have plans. I know what needs to be done and how to do it. But I don't have funds. I've communicated my ideas to a few people who say they're interested in this area, but I get nothing back. It's like, they're offering funds for innovative technologies, but they've already decided - and it's just a publicity stunt and/or a tax write off.

Thanks for wishing me luck. Short of omniscience, we all need a little luck. That said, I don't think everyone who disagrees with me is an idiot or a liar. I recognise people who have intelligent, informed, conscientious viewpoints - and if they disagree with mine, I challenge them to justify those opinions. You don't rise to that challenge. You just repeat yourself. And I know what you think. It's bog standard left wing doggerel. Whereas, I have something to say.

Recently, I showed that the subjectivist, post modernist, anti-truth position of the left is false, with numerous examples, in an argument peppered with literary and philosophical references, and ran into an ideologically indoctrinated brick wall of direct contradiction. — counterpunch

If you've already decided that everything you believe is necessarily true and any contradiction must therefore be ideologically motivated irrespective of its content and justification, you're still, in philosophical terms, a bug under a rock. All you're doing here is proving what everyone already knows: you are incapable of rational discussion. You get the reaction you deserve.

It also doesn't help that these beliefs you hold to be beyond contradiction lean heavily toward the racist, homophobic, transphobic, fascistic and, in the case of your ideas for environmental science, utterly batshit insane. Maybe acquiring some decency and humanity will make people want to engage with you, and maybe some light reading on the subjects you wish to proclaim on will give them something to work with if and when they do.

I'm joking, of course.

I have plans. I know what needs to be done and how to do it. But I don't have funds. I've communicated my ideas to a few people who say they're interested in this area, but I get nothing back. — counterpunch

You're not the only one with plans, sweetheart... But consider that, whatever the technology you use, putting CO2 out of the atmosphere will probably cost us more energy than it would cost us not to pump it in the atmosphere in the first place. We are not capable of the latter, and we will most probably never afford the former. These ideas of sucking out CO2 from the air make no economic/energetic sense. Not pumping CO2 INTO the atmosphere is what we need to do. Hence taxing carbon emissions is a good idea.

I am not the only one with plans, that's true. But mine will work - whereas, producing slightly less carbon isn't an answer. It's a hell of a lot of money to spend on greenwash - and just when the window of opportunity to prevent disaster is closing. Let me give you some facts and figures.

East Anglia ONE off the UK coast, 102 turbines producing 714 megawatts - enough to power 600,000 homes. Cool right? Wrong. It took 10 years to build, cost £2.5bn, and in 25 years it will be scrap.

We would need 6000 windmills of this size to meet the UK's current energy demand - and that's without factoring in plans, from 2030, to begin adding the energy demand of 30 million electric cars to the national grid. So that's 10,000 windmills - minimum, roughly costing £2500bn, to provide energy for 25 years, and then, the same again. That's not a plan - it's a disaster.

By drilling into hot volcanic rock, close to magma chambers beneath volcanoes, and at subduction zones where one continental plate meets another, lining the bore holes with pipes, and pumping water through the pipes, to produce steam, to drive turbines - I believe we can produce virtually limitless amounts of electrical energy. It would require significant investment, but it wouldn't need replacing in 25 years, and it would produce more than sufficient energy to meet our needs. Sufficient in fact to extract carbon from the air, and desalinate water to irrigate land for agriculture, recycle everything - and genuinely provide for a prosperous and sustainable future for humankind.

It would require significant investment, but it wouldn't need replacing in 25 years — counterpunch

Yes, it would need replacing. Everything does after a while. Geothermic energy has been tried in places, and if it was some kind of magic bullet, I think we'd know already.