"The caravan" is another concrete and more recent example of how a narrow world view can be hijacked via outrage inducing rhetoric, to the detriment of all. — VagabondSpectre

It's the political rhetoric of today. Just like the "mushroom cloud" was earlier. Totally obvious for Trump to start talking about caravans as he has done earlier. And for ignorant simple people it's very effective.

I noticed also that the Mexican media focused on that a policeman was attacked by knife in a riot by the people trying to get into the country (and naturally Mike Pompeo reported it too). That kind of newsclip makes ordinary Mexicans angry, which is basically the intention of the newsclip. A similar agenda? Immediately came to mind that Lopez Obrador is taking power in December and as a typical leftist he has been (at least earlier) open to the idea of immigration. You can find similar political agendas in other countries too.

Disagreements can be reconciled, but outrage prefers revenge. By simplifying and polarizing, we seem to have lost the resolution required to navigate our differences, along with the emotional will to do so. — VagabondSpectre

In American political discourse there is absolutely no desire to achieve any kind of consensus or reconciliation. The main objective is simply to win the argument by taking power.

Actually I'm very worried that similar kind of vitriolic political discourse will happen here (as we tend to mimic things happening in the Big World). Some decency and cordiality still exists here as political parties have to form joint administrations with others.

By 1970? Amtrak was created to take over a ghost of passenger travel. The promise of railroad travel began around 1840. It took about a century to finally become really nice, and then it died (all this only applies to the US.) — Bitter Crank

Even if a bit off the subject, this is a wonderfull example of how American transport policy (and the lack of it) has made a once fairly good transport system very insignificant and weak. Not the cargo and freight sector of it, but passenger rail.

Eisenhower opted for the highways and the focus was automobiles as the method of transportation. Likely a very American choice for the individualist US consumer. And while the railroad network was owned by private companies and they stuck to what was (is) profitable and that's freight, no wonder that passenger rail withered away. Without the government focusing on rail as in other countries, the passenger rail system is now so frail in the US. The niche of high speed passenger rail is now basically filled with passenger aircraft.

You reap what you sow.

I don't believe that's correct. I think there's a massive 'hidden' advantage for fossil fuels in the fact that we've developed and applied the infrastructure - oil rigs, tanker ships, chemical refineries, cars and petrol stations etc, coal mines, railways, power stations - all of which enjoyed vast government support in the early days - that it seems, renewable energy is denied today. — karl stone

First of all, that's not a hidden fact. Secondly, all those factors you mention make fossil fuels cheap and the supply ample. Our transport fleet, ships, aircraft, trucks and personal cars won't immediately be replaced either. One has to count also this to the equation: it's not only that we are adding renewable to the mix, it's that we would be scrapping existing infrastructure that would still work for a long time. It's a huge task to replace and grow the sector when you are reducing energy production simultaneously.

Let's not forget that Germany is already paying the highest price for electricity in the EU (alongside Denmark). In my country (Finland) the price per KW/h is half of that in Germany. The cost has risen all the decade and this does start to have an effect for example on industry:

Power prices are increasing, and that’s turning into a problem for Germany’s huge Mittelstand sector of small and medium-sized companies, many of whom haven’t hedged themselves with futures contracts.

A megawatt hour is currently trading at just over €40 ($46.70) on the futures market of the Leipzig Energy Exchange EEX, well up from below €20 at its lowest point in February 2016 and following sharp rises in world prices for oil, coal and gas. Big companies had locked in low prices for a number of years with futures contracts but many of those contracts are due to expire next year or in 2020 — and scores of Mittelstand firms are now facing the full brunt of the price hikes.“I’m getting queries from a lot of companies whose contracts expire next year and who are shocked by their future energy bills,” said Wolfgang Hahn, director of Energie Consulting GmbH (ECG), which advises firms on their power purchases.

One metalworking company in the western industrial state of North Rhine-Westphalia secured a price of €20-25 per megawatt hour until 2019 and will have to pay over €40 with its next contract. That will increase its annual power bill by almost €100,000. This is a major burden given that its earnings are already under pressure from a decline in demand for the wind turbines it manufactures. “Electricity prices have doubled over the last two years,” Mr. Hahn said. “It’s very painful for a lot of our customers.” Large companies are best-equipped to cope because they can afford energy procurement departments that know their way around the futures market. But even they aren’t always fully hedged.

Why isn't it already far cheaper? What's the obstacle there? — Jake

As I said, technology, production costs. Take for example solar power. Battery technology has been one thing and the obvious reality that the sun doesn't shine always and the intensity is different around the World, hence there has to be some stop-gap power production nowdays. Then there is photovoltaic effieciency: how much the solar panel can transform sunlight into electricity. Let's remember that the whole technology of silicon solar cells was basically invented as late as the 1950's.

If renewable energy could displace fossil fuels through market mechanisms alone, it would have happened already. — karl stone

I disagree. The reason has been that the technology hasn't been there earlier to make renewable energy like wind and solar competitive compared to fossil fuels. Once it's far cheaper to produce renewable energy than produce energy with fossil fuels, then the market mechanism takes over.
It's as simple as that.

If you'll forgive me for going on at such great length - I want to address again, this question of mortgaging an asset that cannot be used, so has no value. — karl stone

Perhaps the thing is about using oil and coal to produce energy and this is the big issue. Yet there are a variety of other uses for oil like making plastics.

I always assumed that Socialism had something to do with equality — tinman917

Oh yes.

Equal misery for everyone!

Not for some (like in capitalism), but for everyone.

Well seven or eight thousand million of us does seem like too many, don't you think? — Pattern-chaser

No. We fit nicely into our cities. The best way to decrease population growth is to make people to be more affluent. Rich people have less kids than poor people universally. It might happen that in our lifetime we see the peak of humanity, and then a global population decrease.

As the rest of the world - and the remains of its living population - sees us, we are a plague species; a catastrophe for the world and all the creatures in it. — Pattern-chaser

Who sees us like this?

I think that we are just a very successfull very adaptive and resourceful animal species and hence part of life in this planet. Typically the "human haters" see us as not a part of life making a huge divide between "us" and "nature". We can have an influence on events, but we don't pose a threat to life on this planet just as an asteroid hitting the planet won't pose a threat to the existence of life on this planet. The sun in it's end of it's life cycle will cause the death of life in this planet. And that's not something that is going to happen very soon.

I think we're incredibly conscious of the dangers of nuclear power and go to extraordinary lengths to contain it. That's not so with fossil fuels. So, it's not really a fair comparison - or rather, such a comparison only carries one so far. — karl stone

You've nailed it. This is the main problem. Public opinion is prone to scares and ignorance and politicians actually won't go against it. Hence energy policy can be out of touch of reality.

We would need to use existing fossil fuel infrastructure to overcome the need for fossil fuels, that's true — karl stone

That's the whole problem! Nobody is against renewable energy, but just how we get out of using fossil fuels is the question. And why wouldn't we use nuclear energy as a stop gap energy resource rather than coal, which is many times deadlier and is one of the main sources to the greenhouse effect?

Are you accusing me of either wishful thinking or playing upon the ignorance of the masses? — karl stone

No. But energy policies in general can be based on whishful thinking and hence be basically decietful.

What happened in Sweden? — karl stone

Explained it earlier, but I'll tell it again. In 1980s Sweden made a public referendum on it's energy policy and after the anti-nuclear result the goverment vowed to close down all of it's nuclear power plants by 2010 and be using renewable energy. In 2010 Sweden was producing more energy from it's nuclear power plants than in 1980 and the government had silently given up it's agenda of a non-nuclear Sweden.

This is an example of energy policy falling totally flat on it's goals. Especially with coal power this can happen too as the public isn't at all so afraid of coal power as they are of nuclear power. Add to the form that it's typically an domestic resource employing many people on coal mines and you get the picture why people wouldn't be so enthusiastic to drop coal. The real "devil in the details" is what you said: we use existing fossil fuels for the change to renewables. Is there really going to be the change? How long will this change really take? Are here the objectives and goals made realistically or not?

That, or fewer people? :chin: If there were no humans none of the issues we're discussing would have become problematic, would they? So focus clearly on the elephant in this topic: humans are the problem. The topic asks "how to save the world?", and there is an obvious answer.... :gasp: — Pattern-chaser

Antinatalism? :roll:

I'd be willing to bet more people are killed by solar than nuclear energy, installers falling off roofs. I'm not defending fossil fuels, but rather pointing out that total number of deaths is no indication of the inherent dangers associated with any technology. — karl stone

When we factor in time, we can make estimates of the inherent dangers. We have had now for over 70 nuclear energy and in those 70 years we have seen accidents. And yes, when nuclear energy is as dangerous as solar power with it's unlucky installers, that does indicate the inherent danger especially when compared to the massive casualties of coal energy. Chernobyl was a reactor that could blow up, the people there were doing tests with the safety systems off, hence we do have an example of the worst kind of accident.

Nuclear power doesn't produce carbon emissions, but it takes half the energy a nuclear power station will ever produce - to build a nuclear power station. — karl stone

Really? And how much energy one has to need for the steel plant in Sweden using hydrogen you referred to? Energy infrastructure needs energy to be built, yet 90 percent of the carbon emissions from electricity generation in the United States come from coal-fired power plants.

On the whole however, I think we're pretty much on the same page here. I agree fossil fuels are a massive problem. I just don't believe nuclear power is the answer, and designed my solar/hydrogen approach with these ideas in mind; not some overblown fear of radiation, but environmental costs of construction, running costs, and nuclear waste storage costs - against the type, amount and utility of the energy it produces. Solar/hydrogen is the best all round solution. — karl stone

My basic point is that our energy policies have to be tuned to reality and not wishfull thinking or the ignorance of the masses. The basic line is that when Coal power far kills hundred fold more people (basically counted in the millions) than nuclear and nuclear power emits no greenhouse gases, why are we then giving up first on nuclear? And taking off a energy source that doesn't emit greenhouse gasses has meant that then fossil fuels are used because the renewable energy infrastructure is not there yet. Sure, there are risks, but these risks have to put in some kind of rational scale to the danger of others. The problem is that environmental friendly administrations in many countries (perhaps with the exception of the US) can make too ambitious goals like Sweden did, and then fall totally flat on those goals as those goals simply were not realistic in the first place. Then as the energy policy has basically failed, we use the old energy resources, namely fossil fuels.

I don't have anything against a hydrogen economy, yet that still begs the question of where the electricity to produce hydrogen fuels comes from. Nowdays global hydrogen production is 90% done by fossil fuels.

As I recollect, people worried about radiation, but we didn't think we were doomed, and no one was getting sick from radiation. We didn't drink less milk (strontium-90 or not). Minnesota has the best overall health outcomes of all the other states, except Hawaii and Massachusetts, with whom we trade off first place position. Good health outcomes are not owing to more radiation, of course, but to social policies and community norms which have brought about less smoking, less drinking, less fried food, better dentistry and better health care. — Bitter Crank

Usually higher than average radiation people get is when flying and in medical imaging. And most of the radiation we get is from the natural background radiation, either from cosmic or ground radiation. Here the capital Helsinki is built upon ground that has a lot of radon gas. Hence when building basements one has to provide enough ventilation. The average household here in this country gets 2 millisieverts of radiation from this background radiation annually. Now to put this into context with the Chernobyl accident in 1986, we here in Finland will suffer radiation until 2036 (50 years) of 2 millisieverts of radiation. Hence the Chernobyl accident gives in 50 years the average annual radiation that we get from natural radiation annually. And to put this into context, when I was scanned this year by a modern medical scanner, I got instantly 8 years worth of background radiation. From a dose of 1 sievert (not millisievert) of radiation there's a 5% change you get cancer. But how many people know about background radiation and how many of them can put into perspective the radiation from nuclear accidents?

As annoying as the facts are, animals do seem to be able to tolerate more radiation than I thought. There are some adverse effects on animals living in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, but nothing approaching catastrophic consequences. Wolves--the top predator--seem to be doing well there, despite feeding at the top of the food chain. Some birds have, if I remember correctly, developed a mal-aligned beak, not a beneficial mutation. The wolves may not be attaining the same upper age as they would elsewhere. — Bitter Crank

The reason for animals to prosper in Chernobyl exclusion zone is very natural: life in the wild is short and radiation effects in the long term. Hence the animals can reproduce before radiation effects kick in. This is btw the similar reason NASA basically opts for older astronauts for long term space missions: younger one's could fall ill to radiation during their lifetime, older astronauts die naturally.

And lets remember that the Chernobyl accident's radiation was equivalent to the radiation of 500 nuclear weapons being detonated. The exclusion zone itself basically shows how wildlife springs back once humans are taken out of the environment.

American politics has become so partisan that facts don't matter.

I'd agree there's widespread ignorance and fear - but that fear is not entirely baseless. Radiation is dangerous, and in the event of a nuclear accident - can be carried a long way by the wind, contaminating vast swathes of land with a toxin that continues to be hazardous for a long time. — karl stone

And how many people have been killed due to nuclear accidents compared to the hundreds of thousands being killed every year by coal power plants and fossil fuels? Fukushima? 0 deaths. Chernobyl? Here's the conclusions that the United Nations, WHO and IAEA among other came to:

A total of up to 4,000 people could eventually die of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) accident nearly 20 years ago, an international team of more than 100 scientists has concluded.

As of mid-2005, however, fewer than 50 deaths had been directly attributed to radiation from the disaster, almost all being highly exposed rescue workers, many who died within months of the accident but others who died as late as 2004.

See from UN homepages, CHERNOBYL: THE TRUE SCALE OF THE ACCIDENT

How can 4000 deaths in all compare to hundreds of thousands killed annually? After all, with Chernobul you did have radiation equivalent of hundreds of nuclear weapons detonated. But then of course you have the anti-nuclear claiming totally other kind of figures (that basically put the worst accident to be in it's entirety equivalent to a scale of deaths in one year in China by coal power). But here alternative facts are cherished and hence I'm not convinced that scientific facts will win in the end. Yet the fact is that even if we take the WORST estimates that surely are propaganda, the simple fact is that nuclear power doesn't produce carbon emissions (which actually not many do know), and still is far safer than coal.

I disagree. In Germany, the share of renewable electricity rose from just 3.4% of gross electricity consumption in 1990 to exceed 10% by 2005, 20% by 2011 and 30% by 2015, reaching 36.2% of consumption by year end 2017. They are not reverting to coal. — karl stone

Wrong. They are building new coal power stations. Period. That the share renewable electricity has grown doesn't at all refute this fact. See from June of 2018 this article: Germany still constructing new coal power stations. Naturally the German government and it's media doesn't want to highlight this. And of course one thing they have turned to is to import electricity from Poland. Germany still has alongside Poland a huge coal power plant infrastructure and some of the biggest polluting coal power plants in Europe, that can be seen from the emissions.

CO2 emissions value=gCO2eq/kwh. (Data extracted January 8 2017. Source: electricitymap.tmrow.co)
Belgium 174
Bulgaria 438
Czech Republic 518
Denmark 399
Germany 597
Estonia 664
Ireland 477
Greece 464
Spain 254
France 105
Italy 325
Latvia 289
Lithuania 251
Hungary 289
Austria 358
Poland 746
Portugal 385
Romania 347
Slovenia 329
Slovakia 389
Finland 189
Sweden 60
United Kingdom 388
(Btw, the electricity map is interesting to see from the above link)

Or as one article puts it:

Wind, solar and other forms of green energy now regularly fulfill over a third or more of Germany’s electricity demand. However, the country remains the world’s largest lignite (brown coal) miner and burner. Overall, coal produces some 40% of the nation’s electricity while employing around 30,000 workers. Moreover, this cheap, domestically sourced lignite also produces 20% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. If Germany is serious about its pledge to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to half of what they were in 1990 by 2030, then lignite simply has to be phased out. That’s not politics, economics or wishful thinking: it’s simply physics.

See article "Mixed Mandate: Germany’s new coal commission struggles to balance environment and jobs" from June 2018.

Making a movie which poked fun at Jews, blacks and gays would get a movie producer in big trouble these days, but we have to make fun of somebody, so the trailer park folks receive our attention. — Jake

And that condescending attitude also has given us Trump as a backlash.

Whopee.

It's just modern discourse in the age of tweets and simplified communication.

It's not that everybody has gotten to be more angry and less tolerant. With outrage you make the case that there's nothing to discuss here, your side is right and the other totally is not only wrong in every kind of way, but simply goes against simple reasoning or basic morals.

Hence you don't say that many people disagree. You make it into a bigger thing by calling that people are outraged.

True, there may be tiny bits of gold, tin, zinc, silver, rare earths, aluminum, nickel, and so on scattered around the globe, but if they were not concentrated a billion years or two ago (or more) then the chances of us getting our hot little hands on lots of it are exceeding small. We aren't going to run out of iron or aluminum tomorrow, but the reachable supply is by no stretch of the imagination inexhaustible. — Bitter Crank

Don't forget the sea floor. There are quite a lot of raw materials there too. I can just imagine how a big of a ecodisaster we can make to ocean life once we start to mine the ocean floors at an industrial pace.

It's quite difficult to explain, but it's an example of how - for ideological reasons, we cut across the grain of nature. I express the argument very poorly, but solar/hydrogen is implied by the grain of nature in a way that nuclear power is not. — karl stone

The opposition to nuclear energy is exactly that: an ideology. And this ideology can drive us to worse energy policies than otherwise.

The real people killer is coal. Just in China annually coal power plants kill about 300 000 people. Yet somehow the facts and especially the magnitude of difference on the impact is many times not understood. The simple fact is that we have been using for ages coal ...and firewood. How dangerous smoke from fire can be isn't something that rattles peoples minds like the "invisible death" from radiation. And who understands radiation? Simply when nuclear power is discussed, the first image that comes to many peoples mind is Hiroshima. Unfortunately the misinformation (or basically disinformation) has taken root in this area, hence people believe whatever fictional statistic on the perils of nuclear energy.

Globally we get roughly 40% of electricity from coal and in places like China it's still roughly 60%, which has come down from 80% in 2010. Their plan has it's problems: even if China is making a huge investment in alternative energy resources, it is basically using energy from coal (and other fossil fuels) to catch up the industrialized West. The idea simply is to use the coal now to transform to other energy resources. That's the idea. Yet the reality is that coal power plants are still built (see Satellite intelligence shows China in a vast rollout of coal-fired power stations) and what better thing is to sell the coal power plants to other countries when they come to be too dirty in China (see here and here).



However much we build solar and wind power, it's still problematic. For example in 2016 in Germany (one of the leaders in Photovoltaic Power) increased solar power production as it has done year after year, yet the actually gigawatts produced fell. There was a natural reason: it wasn't so sunny as the year before. And the main point is the following. The real danger is that if we run down nuclear energy, we in the end and out of the media limelight, replace nuclear with fossil fuels and especially coal. The ugly fact seems to be that Germany in it's Energiewende, of going off nuclear, has exactly done this.

Germany’s plan is to shutter all of its nuclear units by 2022 and to have renewable energy provide 40 to 45 percent of its generation by 2025 and 80 percent by 2050[ii]—up from 30 percent in 2025. Replacing nuclear power with renewable energy has proven difficult, however, mainly due to the intermittency of wind and solar power. When wind and solar are not available to generate electricity, German power buyers turn to coal. In fact, Germany opened over 10 gigawatts of new coal fired power plants over the past 5 years.

(See article)

In 1980 after a referendum Sweden made a policy decision to go off nuclear by the year 2010. In 2010 they were producing more energy from nuclear power than in 1980 and the government had silently withdrawn from the planned target. Hence many times energy policy isn't in the end what you wanted.

Renewable energy technology doesn't need to be subsidized - it needs to be funded. An infrastructure that needs to be built like the rail network, or the canals, or the Romans and their roads. Only then will it be a fair comparison. — karl stone

True. Some technological hurdles have to be done, but I'm optimistic. Especially solar power has become dramatically cheaper. Renewable energy goes down in manufacturing price as it gets more popular, whereas fossil fuel becomes more expensive as it gets more rare.

I assume that the biggest challenge is aircraft and ships as these need to have long endurance and powerfull motors.

Is it really true to say "all math is quite logical"? Within mathematics in general, there are numerous contradictions such as Euclidean vs. non-Euclidean geometry, imaginary numbers vs. traditional use of negative integers. — Metaphysician Undercover

Have been away (so this is an answer to page 4)

Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry simply starts from different premises (or should I dare to say axioms). The geometry on a blank paper and the geometry on a sphere are different, but their existence doesn't make one or the other illogical. The only mistake is if you assume that all geometry is, let's say Euclidean (and that the parallel postulate is universal). That argument is wrong, but it doesn't make either geometry illogical. Especially in set theory you can choose your axioms and have different kinds of set theories with different answers, but that in my mind don't make them illogical.

You might argue that it is just different branches of mathematics which employ different axioms, but if one discipline (mathematics) employs contradictory premises, can it be true to say that this is logical? — Metaphysician Undercover

Premises (axioms) can make the math to seem contradictory, but can be totally logical. Only if you prove that something that we call an axiom is actually false, then is the statement simply wrong.

I think the answer to Rovelli is simple: we never can escape our own subjectivity, we will allways do mathematics from our viewpoint and to get utility from it. Does this then wreck objectivity in mathematics or refute Platonism? In my view, no.

There being rational and transcendental numbers or Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry doesn't mean that mathematics isn't linked together. Some have just assumed a long time ago that all numbers are rational or that Euclidean geometry is the "only geometry". Yet mathematics isn't an invented social construct that we can bend to whatever we want. All math is quite logical. The only thing is to be humble and understand that we can even now understand something wrong, just like the earlier Greeks who thought that all numbers had to be rational. It's even more easier to understand that we may have not discovered many new ways how math can be used, which will in the future opens new fields to us. To understand this doesn't in my view refute Platonism.

I find your post very difficult to respond to. I don;t wish to be rude, but it's so wordy - I can't identify the points you're trying to make. Might I suggest, it's in part a matter of writing style. You seem to go for the stream of consciousness approach. It would be helpful to the reader if you could summarize, then elaborate. Because it's not like you don't pass through some interesting territories on this long rambling journey. I enjoyed reading your post. I just don't know how to respond except to say, that's interesting, thanks! — karl stone

Summary: One can get a profound change through the market mechanism when a new alternative is cheaper and better to the old one. Yet the typical solution is only to believe in regulation, restrictions and international agreements and not that the free market could (or would) change supply and demand itself. Hopefully I'm not confusing here.

Your thread argues for the science religion dogma, the "more is better" relationship with knowledge. That dogma is the cause of the problems you are trying to solve. — Jake

Usually humanity has gotten into trouble when it hasn't had the science and technology to overcome it's problems. "Globalization" has then turned backwards and a highly complex society has turned to a less complex society, which has eradicated whole professions and basically scientific and technological knowledge itself. This can be seen how from Antiquity we got to the Middle Ages. For example Rome got to be as big as it had been only in the 1930's. Or that industrial production came up to the level of Antiquity only in the 17th Century.

SSU asked - 'How would they have value if they are not used?'

It's something known as the 'Stranded Asset problem' - and I can't give a definitive answer, but argue that, in acceptance of a scientific understanding of reality as a basis to apply the technology necessary to secure the future, the surety is inherent in the long term viability of civilization. Essentially, sovereign debt owned by the world. There are a great many variables - not least, who gets the money, I don't want to weigh in on. Big can o' worms. — karl stone

Perhaps the problem is that people simply dismiss the most obvious sources how changes happen: through the market mechanism and through technical development. If we can produce energy far cheaper than we get from fossil fuels, we simply won't use those fuels as we earlier did. It surely isn't a political correct idea, relying on the market, but we should think about it.

Let me give a historical example: whale oil.

Early industrial societies used whale oil for oil lamps, lubrication, soap, margarine etc. During the 19th Century this lead nearly to the extinction of whales in the seas and fewer whales meant that the rise the price of whale oil went up. By technological advances the role of whale oil was taken over by the modern petroleum industry and also vegetable oils, which could provide far more oil with a far cheaper price than the whaling industry could. Kerosene and petroleum were far more reliable and became more popular than whale oil and basically could provide energy to the combustion engine revolution, which never could be supplied by whaling. And the whales? Their numbers actually bounced back by an unintensional act of environmental protection by the World's most famous vegetarian: Adolf Hitler. By starting WW2 and by unleashing the German Kriegsmarien in an all-out war on the Atlantic, Hitler (and the Japanese) unintensionally saved the whales as this stopped whaling for a few years and gave the whales a well needed chance rebound in numbers even before banning of whaling was introduced. That a lot of countries have banned whaling simply shows the marginal importance of whale oil and whale meat in these countries.

Hence when we try to make up legislation and create complex mechanisms which the industry and the consumer has to adapt to, perhaps we should first look at how we can steer market forces in the right direction that they themselves can make the change. And this steering can be done by technical innovation. Oil companies do understand that they are in the energy business and if fossil fuels cannot compete with other energy sources, that's it. Then there simply is no future for them in the oil and coal business. If they don't make the change, they'll go the path as Kodak. Hence oil companies can even themselves make the hop to alternative energies. They have already changed from the conventional oil fields for example to shale oil, which basically is a totally different operation. Let's not forget that Peak Conventional Oil has already happened.

Above all, once there are far cheaper energy sources than fossil fuels and the recycling of plastics is done on a massive scale, then indeed can the last remnants of fossil fuel reserves be left underground. Then the eco-friendly policy is quite easy to adapt.

If the US is going to make it's critical reduction in CO2 and other green house gas emissions, it will be because the central government and centralized corporate powers decided to do it. — Bitter Crank

Perhaps start with repealing Citizens United vs FEC?

The truth is that facts can be replaced with alternative facts and if the story is believable enough and fits into people's World view, falsehoods prevail. And people tend to listen to the argument they want to hear. Politics can be an obstacle. Discourse about energy policy can get ludicrous very quickly.

Of course the only true way for fossil fuels not to be used is that alternative energy resources come to be truly far cheaper. Rich countries, if they want, can artificially make this happen by subsidies and taxes, but to get true change to happen happen, this should happen in the free market.

The way that solar power is getting more efficient and less costly is a positive trend.

the solution I devised is very simple, and entirely consistent with the principles of our economic system. Basically, fossil fuels are commodities, and commodities are assets. Assets can be mortgaged - and in this way, fossil fuels can be monetized without being extracted. The money raised by mortgaging fossil fuels would first go to applying sustainable energy technology. — karl stone

If they aren't going to be used, now or in the future, how can the fossil fuels be an asset? There's no revenue stream.

See my last post for a link showing how in Computer Science some guys were able to develop a bot that got hundreds of fake papers on nonsense into CS journals. Is that proof Computer Science will accept anything "provided the paper's politics are perceived to be correct"? — MindForged

What it shows is that Computer Science journals also have lax publishing requirements or standards. Hence basically this is a question of a general problem in the World of Academia. Hence just to sideline the success of getting nonsense published as a politically motivated hitjob to certain disciplines doesn't refute the facts. Of course some might (and will) use it to push their political views and/or agenda, but the basic fact still is there. The layman just can notice the absurdity of a statement like "dog parks are petri dishes for canine ‘rape culture’", but have difficulties to understand total nonsense in CS journals... as even an exceptionally good and informative article can look like jibberish to the ordinary person.

The Peer review system should work, but obviously in todays academic life has it's problems. And perhaps the reason is that the whole academia has indeed become such a massive industry that high standards simply cannot be maintained everywhere.

I do doubt some of these fields should even exist as academic departments. I have absolutely nothing against advocating for disadvantaged people. But advocacy isn't the appropriate reason d'être for an academic department. — Bitter Crank

In academia it's quite normal that people studying something that isn't clearly part of existing disciplines want to start their own. Enough researchers on some specific field it's an issue of organization. Once you have an apartment for the field, then there's the biggest prize of them all: academic career positions.

What is a touchy subject is how 'academic' the studies are in one field or another. The most typical critique is that basically the "humanities" aren't science or scientific enough, which typically just shows the ignorance of the (usually) natural scientist promoting this idea. And of course Americans push this to the outrageous with "Science Wars", which Sokal and this topic come very close to. Of course the proposed rift between 'sciences' and 'humanities' goes to C.P. Snow's book about "Two Cultures" in the 1950s. There is a point in that if you don't have even the basics of mathematics and statistics, your research might be very simplistic. I remember from Snow's book his extremely naive take about science solving the biggest disputes of the time, namely the Cold War, with some panglossian ideas.

Perhaps the issue is that because there simply is so much academic research going aroung these days, it's inevitable that there is also a lot of lousy research. That there would be research advocating some agenda isn't hard to imagine either.

So I take creation of threads like this more as OP signaling their political/ideological affiliation rather than them actually caring about the integrity of academic papers. I'm gonna guess (probably accurately) that this is more about getting a dig in at left wingers from a right winger. — MindForged

Yes, Bitter Crank has been for years the voice of conservatism and right-wing ideology on this forum and has fiercely opposed leftist thinking and especially marxism. Along with Maw, they are the life-long Republicans here now turned Trump supporters on this forum. :razz:

And this opposition is part of that general alignment of views that folks refer to with 'left' and 'right'. — unenlightened

I'm not so sure if that's so true. Left-wing or right-wing media discourse can be far from what ordinary people who just happen to vote either left or right think of the issues. Typically in both political movements the ardent ideological agenda is narrow and can be far from what the grass roots supporter thinks. Especially in gender issues or when the issue is women or minorities in the workplace, I don't think that the thinking goes so between political fault lines.

fraudulent publishing is not debunking. — unenlightened

I agree. What is only debunked is that all journals are strict in their publishing requirements. It doesn't mean that the academic fields themselves are nonsense.

It's important to understand the motives of people's actions and not just put them into a broader context of an ongoing discourse in the media.

Good example about this was a little newsclip of a CERN researcher professor Strumia, who got fired after claiming at a seminar that physics was “invented and built by men”, that fewer women than men in physics largely because of innate differences in intelligence between the sexes and that women were preferred on the field. The reason for his outburst can be actual seen from his strange and whimsical paper as he gives as proof of the favouring of women that he didn't get a position that he applied for and the position was given to a women that (ghasp!) had far less citations than he did.

Again this is speculation and I might be wrong, but being disgruntled for not getting a position at CERN sounds like a very good motive for making an intentionally outrageous outburst that you know from the start (and actually make it clear to people) that it will get you into trouble. (Also it looks like that CERN obviously did the correct decision of appointing someone else than Strumia for the postition.)

Naturally those having an agenda to promote won't come to the conclusion that Strumia is a disgruntled crank, but either that he talks the 'truth that is politically incorrect' (example The Washington Free Beacon's catch on this) or that Strumia is an example of widespread attitudes among males in physics.

Where did you read me saying anything about a right wing conspiracy? — unenlightened

Here.

Well my darlings, it is very easy to find and mock contradictions in human endeavours of all kinds, and such mockery is not without purpose. - Have a nice simple little piece about identity politics that even you might understand. — unenlightened

The authors of the hoax hailed from the left, not the right. None of them are members of the power elite. — Bitter Crank

And turkeys often vote for Christmas, but that doesn't make it vegetarian. — unenlightened

But I don't think that is the aim and purpose of these people, to improve the journals and weed out the incompetent. — unenlightened

The Guardian article, which you referred that we (or Bitter) even might understand says "The right denigrates equal rights campaigns as ‘grievances’ while cornering the market in victimhood" and that "It’s not difficult to see why the right has a problem with this. Their agenda is centred on preserving and extending privileges that already exist. Denigrating equal rights campaigners as “grievance politics” practitioners, the irony is that they practise the very methods they lampoon. Railing against liberal elites, feminists, migrants and Muslims, they have cornered the market in victimhood."

Hence I thought this purpose of railing against these kind of studies in this fashion is similar. Of course I can misunderstood you.

Unfortunately, the clearly intended intention of such scams is to devalue all the legitimate pieces in the journal. Or am I being paranoid again? — unenlightened

Yes, you are being paranoid. Especially thinking this is some kind of right-wing conspiracy.

Because academic journals, especially those that are peer reviewed, should really have a higher bar than oh... a philosophy site where total amateurs (like me and others) can discuss philosophy or math. It's not "refreshing new ideas" if it is nonsense. And lets not forget that there were those journals that didn't publish the nonsense rubbish articles, but put the articles where they should go, to a dustbin.

. Since gold has no intrinsic value and is sought after solely for its exchange value, we could also call it money. — DuRondeuil

Have metals no intrinsic value? At least they are quite useful. Gold as a metal that is inert, never rusts and is very malleable and is resistant to most acids would have many more uses than today, if it wouldn't be so rare. And this rarity makes it expensive (as there would be that demand). Hence if gold would be as common as lets say aluminum, there would be a multitude of things where we would use gold.

The idea is that every day another conservative justice is not sworn in is a good day. — Hanover

If that's their thinking, I wonder from what party they have copied this strategy.

A somewhat bad event just doesn't have enough drama to it. — Bitter Crank

Above all, a somewhat bad event lacking that drama simply doesn't sell.

Is this responsive to something? — Hanover

This.

if someone accused me of a rape I didn't commit and it was damaging to my reputation and family, I might say something other than "I'd prefer the fine gentlewoman from Maryland to refrain from her misstatements as they are quite distracting.To be sure, I'd expect a volatile reaction from a legitimate accuser if she should be attacked as a liar and should her past be brought before the world to evaluate. — Hanover

Me and others have explained that you can make convincing, credible denial calmly.

So what does Bart Kavanaugh do? He whines about being a victim of a "calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled by the anger of president Trump and the 2016 elections" and a "revenge on behalf of the Clintons"? Is that a response of a supreme court judge? Nope. It's the response of a political hack that is basically licking the ass of Trump so that Trump wouldn't give up on him and find another candidate.

When a human produces a child, the child is subject to the will of the parent, sometimes even the state. Why would it be different for this android? — DingoJones

Your children aren't your property. They as humans have rights from birth. Machines tend to be someone's property.

Knowing humans and history, basically androids would have to be in a position to fight for their rights. Human rights and the abolition of slavery didn't happen without a long political fight. Philosophical views did play a part, but in the end these have been political decisions.

My point was, IMO, however he responded it would have been incorrect by those doing all they can to prevent his nomination. — Rank Amateur

At least he got a hearing.

(And anyway, if it would be character assassination, far better would have been allegations of pedophilia. Like Pizzagate... assuming you can make it more credible.)

Yep. Machines need machine rights. Of course. Those are evil bigots who think otherwise. Obviously you need to put androids to jail if they kill someone. You simply cannot scrap them. That would be so inhumane.