This is all fascinating to me. But the Granny I told you about didn't get any pain and suffering money. She just got the money to pay some of her medical bills, and she had to split that (50/50 I think) with her lawyer, so she just ended up getting a little bit to help out.

It's like saying a football team was immoral because it threw a trick play and won the game. If it's all a game, it's all a game. You may want it to be something else, but there are billions of dollars driving this industry and if you think it about something other than the billions of dollars, it's just because you don't know. — Hanover

You're misunderstanding me. I realize that Granny should expect the insurance company to screw her. This is all normal. This is how it works. What I'm saying is that the people who sign up to do the screwing are doing something monstrous.

At this point, I think you're not capable of focusing on a specific individual that you've hurt. You just refuse to accept that you have done this. All the explanation of the "trick plays" tells me you have. You need an epiphany.

What each side does is try to represent the interests of the other, regardless of whether you think their interests are worth protecting. If that lawyer didn't try to reduce the liability of his clients, then his clients would end up paying amounts that were beyond what they owed. — Hanover

The fact that there are people who want to scam the system does not make it ok for insurance companies to do the same thing. And they do. They try to get our of paying what they owe. They use the court system to intimidate people.

This is how morality works: If there was one single time when you attempted to or succeeded in screwing someone over, you have done something monstrous. That person was struggling, and you either tried to make it worse, or you succeeded in doing so. It doesn't matter that it was legal for you to do this. It was a terrible thing to do to someone else, and it wasn't the "system" hurting them. It was you. You could have done something else with your talents, but instead you worked it out in your mind that using the court system to intimidate and harass someone was ok.

You know in your heart whether you've done this or not. If you haven't, then that's great. I'm not sure if you're intentionally twisting my words to strawman me, or what. This is not about the system. It's about that person you either tried to hurt, or succeeded in hurting. If there is no such person, then great. Only you know the truth of that.

:up:

Three, plus post-grad certification for the USAF (and USWB) 1958-59 as a meteorologist. — jgill

That's cool. Did you do weather reports for the Vietnam war?

How many degrees do you have, if I may ask?

The cloud problem is about modeling them for long term predictions. Clouds have a huge impact on the climate, but they aren't sure if future clouds will be more flat or more columnar.

I'm wondering if quantum computers would make it possible to model it?

I'm amazed at the lack of skepticism from the average person towards both media and government. It's not like they do not have clear record of nefarious and outright deceptive behavior. Why do people so easily keep trusting them with so much shit? Where is a speck of suspended judgment to be found? It is insane. — Merkwurdichliebe

So true. :clap:

Granny was in a car accident. She hasn't been able to turn her head side to side since then. She hires a lawyer to sue because the other driver's insurance company doesn't want to pay for any of her medical bills. She won, by the way. This is a true story.

There's a lot of litigation in the US. Companies need to be able to defend themselves. Of course. And at the end of the day, the insurance company's lawyer was trying to screw over the little old lady. He was trying to keep his client from having to pay out what they owed. This lawyer does this everyday. It's what he does for a living. He tries to screw people over.

If that's not you, then great. I misunderstood.

Is that what you're saying I said? — Hanover

My impression is that sometimes you hurt people who don't deserve to be hurt, and these people you've hurt don't have the resources your clients do. Do I have it all wrong? Are the people you defend against all rascals?

Sure, there are people who want to play the system. You're there to stop them. That's great. And everyone you direct your skills against is a rascal. Is that what you're saying?

Banno and I are moral realists who recognize that moral truths have an effect via belief. — Leontiskos

That's not a thing.

You and Michael are attempting to speak about the effects of truths independent of belief, which is an especially odd approach when it comes to morality. Morality is about how humans should act, and humans act in light of their beliefs. Therefore a moral truth is brought to bear on reality via belief. — Leontiskos

What you're saying is in line with moral antirealism. Michael was asking about moral realism, specifically whether it makes any difference if it obtains. I think we all pretty much agree that it doesn't.

I do think Banno correctly noted your allusion to the original sin myth. Not that the religious story can't be correct metaphor, but you do have to pause if you find yourself reciting the mythology of your culture to ask it's valid of or if its just bias. — Hanover

I was talking about babies. They're innocent. They learn about morality through experiences of all sorts. It's a life long progression.

It's not the case that we stumble about making countless serious ethical violations until we right ourselves. Most make missteps now and again, but we're mostly morally abiding folks. — Hanover

When you first described to me what you do for a living, I was a little shocked because you seemed kind of nonchalant about it. To me, it sounded horrible, though. You stand with a large company against people who are struggling. I didn't wonder: how does Hanover not see that what he's doing is against some objective moral code? I wondered how you sleep at night. To me, morality is visceral. What is it to you?

But the other 99% looked forward and didn't ever commit the crime because they knew it immoral. — Hanover

Well, you're a monster. What's your excuse?

Sounds like you really bought in to the Garden of Eden stuff. — Banno

I get the feeling you don't know what innocence and guilt are. All you know is that you ought to because you ought to? Hmm.

No, not even that, not yet.

Here's the poverty of empiricism, naturalism and so on, when it comes to ethics: in looking at how the world is, nothing is said about what to do about it. — Banno

I think you have it backwards. Morality is mostly about looking backward, not forward. You only feel guilt and grief about what's already been done. We only try the criminal for what she did, not what she will do.

Every person starts out innocent and covers themselves with wrongdoing as they grow and learn. This is what redemption is: to stand back up after having fallen and putting foot to path to try again, having learned what every generation learns anew. You can't hear the moral code handed down to you until you've made the mistakes that bring it home to you. Then it becomes a touchstone that you'll pass to the next generation, but they'll make the same mistakes again on their way to learning it. That's how it has to be.

I agree, grift is a major part of it. Like all good scams there is a small element of truth involved. — Agree-to-Disagree

I agree.

Back then it was mostly statistical studies. Then after that period atmospheric physicists joined in and made it a real science. — jgill

I read that in the 1970s, climatology was described as a science of wild guesses. A huge amount of progress has been made, but there are still problems, like the cloud problem:

"In addition, climate models have difficulty incorporating certain information about clouds. Most climate models map features over areas of 100 kilometers by 100 kilometers, though some cloud models may have grids of five kilometers by five kilometers; but even within five kilometers there is a lot of variation in cloud cover. Allegra LeGrande, adjunct associate research scientist at Columbia Climate School’s Center for Climate Systems Research, said, “Sometimes there are processes that are just too small, too complicated, too hard to measure. And you just can’t explicitly include them in the climate models. These tend to be processes like the ephemeral, little wispiness of the clouds. How are you going to translate these tiny ephemeral cloud bits into a climate model of the whole world?”"

I just take note of typical grifty tactics, like narrative shifting, and as the list grows my trust shrinks. — Tzeentch

I'm coming around to the whole grift theory. I think you're exactly right.

Ha! That's weird.

The fact that nobody just answers his question is a sign that he's right.

I just take note of typical grifty tactics, like narrative shifting, and as the list grows my trust shrinks. — Tzeentch

I don't think it changed. The word climate has been central to it the whole time, like from the 1980s onward?

Did anyone ever wonder why they changed their brand from "global warming" to "climate change"? — Tzeentch

Did they? I hadn't noticed.

A big volcano in the S Pacific blew up this year. Volcanoes usually cool the climate (like during the 1990s), but this one is making it hotter because it's under water and it's blowing water vapor into the atmosphere.

Are moral truths the product of empirical scientific research? Do we go to the physicists with our moral questions? In many ways this whole thread is an ignoratio elenchi, and you've highlighted that fact with this post. — Leontiskos

Kripke agrees with you. There is no fact about what a moral realist intends at any given time.

But this issue doesn't answer the OP. You're pointing to the practical outcome of believing in moral realism, not the practical outcome of the existence of objective moral rules.

In that post I was arguing that the intention of the moral realist differs from the intention of the moral non-realist, for the moral realist understands themselves to be responding to a real reality. — Leontiskos

Could we verify this empirically? What sort of research project would we construct?

This is the answer you were looking for:

The change in climate over last 150 years or so (since start of industrial age) do not fit into any known previous pattern and cannot be accounted for by any theory or hypothesis that involves natural processes only. When you factor in the additional C02 and CH4 the numbers work out. — EricH

There's no fact about which rules anyone follows anyway.

You're arguing that moral realists behave differently from anti-realists. Even if that's true, it doesn't answer the OP. It's not the reality of the moral rules that matters, it's the psychology of believing realism. That said, I don't think it's true that moral realists behave differently. Again, it's all psychology.

I feel safe in predicting that Biden will again win the popular vote... But it remains to be seen if he can carry the swing states he needs to win. Biden's unpopularity may lead many to stay home rather than vote. Biden barely won some states in 2020, so it wouldn't take much of a shift. — Relativist

I predict low voter turnout. I think that will help Trump. GOP voters are old and reliable.

hen a regular guy cannot get a straight answer about why human activity has superseded natural causes as reason for climate change, — Merkwurdichliebe

You could get the straight answer if you felt like reading a wikipedia article about it.

I did not. And I never atttibuted any of the changes in the earth's climate to human activity. I'm just curious about why the prehistorical pattern of climate change is attributed to natural causes in every instance except for the present one — Merkwurdichliebe

I asked because you keep saying the cycle from the 800,000 year graph is happening now. It's not. You're overlooking the massive difference in scale between the glacial/interglacial cycle versus the few centuries of anthropogenic climate change.

I'm just saying, when I first started looking into climate change it was because of a book I read about Egypt. If you read about ancient Egypt, you find out that during the last glacial period, the Sahara was a prairie, not a desert. There were people living there. The history of Egypt starts when the glacial period was finally finishing, but there were still big rivers and lakes where now, there's only desert. And all this is just looking at changes over the last 12,000 years.

The graph that shows the milankovitch cycle covers eight hundred thousand years. That's gigantic. Our species has only been around for maybe 300,000. It's kind of mind blowing to get the scale of geological time. I found it that way, anyway.

I have to ask you: did you think the earth's climate had pretty much always been the way it is now?

what explanation does IPCC give us for the occurrence of the pattern of climate change over the past 800,000 years (which the current trend fits into perfectly on time), in which all prior events occurred in the absence of human industrialization and modernization? — Merkwurdichliebe

I don't even know what you're asking, but I have a feeling you're going to ask again, in spite of the video. :grimace:

So then, what explanation does IPCC give us for the occurrence of that pattern in the absence of human industrialization and modernization? — Merkwurdichliebe

It's partly the earth's axial wobble, and partly the way the earth's orbit changes from circular to elliptical. I haven't read a book about the climate in a couple of years, and that's long enough to get out of date. So, don't take my word. Look it up.

Nevertheless, it shows an obvious pattern. — Merkwurdichliebe

Yes.

That graph covers 800,000 years in 4 inches. You're just a tiny speck at the end.

And what is the IPCC explanation for why the current climate change is being blamed on human industrialization when the same pattern has occurred many times prior to the modern age? — Merkwurdichliebe

I don't know what you mean by "the same pattern." We're in a interglacial period. The glacial periods are the dips.

Why do you think current climate change is being blamed on human industrialization when the same pattern has occurred many times prior to the modern age? — Merkwurdichliebe

Basically a shit ton of computer modelling by a shit ton of scientists all over the world. It's called the IPCC.

Are you suggesting that there may be causal factors beyond the human? — Merkwurdichliebe

For climate change? Of course. The climate has been changing since there's been a climate.

milankovitch cycle?