Imagine thinking that American fascism is the work of "a few bad actors" and not a deliberate, systemic outcome of tens of millions of Americans who simply like fascism and despise women. This is not "a few bad actors". This is who and what the US is, and it will only continue to get worse. — Streetlight

The anti-abortion agitation began in earnest when Roe vs. Wade was passed, 50 years ago. It was primarily conservative Roman Catholic for at least 30 years, but then came to include very conservative Protestants. (Conservative catholics and conservative protestants have more politics in common than liberals and conservatives within dominations.)

I'm never quite sure where conservatism fades into fascism, but rolling back abortion is another significant retrograde movement.

The anti-abortion movement has demonstrated exemplary consistent persistence--not doubt with the help of conservative Catholic hierarchy. It has been implacable.

The Court isn't finished with its agenda. Barring an outbreak of plague on the bench during liberal presidencies, we can expect to see other rulings overturned. It is quite possible that the legality of homosexual activity and gay marriage (at the federal level) will be repealed. Rulings in favor of the environment (over commerce) are also likely to be overturned. And more.

A core of conservatives have never reconciled themselves with New Deal programs, and if social security is offensive (they would like to privatize it) not much else is safe. (And it isn't just the SCOTUS we have to worry about.)

when I'm creating a work, I'm not examining — Noble Dust

The 'flow' of creativity is best not interrupted.

As well you should. That most of Greek and Roman literature has been lost is the judgement of classics scholars, not mine.

What we do have is a much larger body of what we call art, what they called craft - sculpture, friezes, mosaics, painting (Pompeii, for instance). The dining room wall decoration from a Pompeii house is likely to end up in an art museum, but we'd likely agree -- this is craft, not art. It's decor, like wallpaper. It is thought that Greco-Roman sculpture was painted--shocking! What? The Winged Victory of Samothrace a painted lady! Much of what survives are copies--very good copies, but still.

As far as the unexamined life goes, our good fortune is that Hogarth found the lives of louts worth examining in pencil and paint.
'

What are your thoughts on the Woody Guthrie video? — Clarky

Guthrie sang the homespun virtues of the common folk. "He captured the heart of hard economic times and war while struggling with poverty and personal demons." He wasn't famous for his voice not in the way that Pete Seeger was. Malvina Reynolds wrote some memorable songs -- among them "Little Boxes" Her voice is even less attractive than Woody Guthrie. Reynolds was a PhD in English / Communist / protest song composer / wife / mother.

One of her songs was used for a charming Kodak commercial back in the 60s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKOPwEk6m4w

Expert artists and connoisseurs are not the only or the primary audiences for most art. — Clarky

Quite so. But they have expert music teachers (for musical performance).

Technically perfect art without vision and feeling are sterile. — Clarky

I'm not sure what "technically perfect art" looks or sounds like. Or that perfection leads to blind sterility. Here's a demo of Isaac Stern teaching students in China (1979) how to get vision and feeling from their violins.

To make good art, you have to have an experience worth conveying. — Clarky

The unexamined life isn't worth painting.

Skeptical — Clarky

For what it's worth, Collingwood was a philosopher as well as a practicing historian and archeologist. Skeptical or not, I think what he says is worth listening to. — Clarky

Quite so. It's not Collinwood's fault that the Greeks and Romans used media that rotted in dampness instead of baked clay tablets. Our civilization's output will vanish in the entropy of magnetic storage, as well as from our libraries turning into fungal farms. Who will save a fragment of our thought? The Mall of America's hulking big boxiness will remain, but without the great art it inspired (he said sarcastically).

Good thread!

It takes a lot of practice, practice, practice to get to Carnegie Hall--to perfect one's artistic performance to a level where expert musicians and connoisseurs will say, "Well done!" What is true for music is true for other arts; no great novel is a first draft; no great painting is the first sketch; one's home videos will never make it to Cannes or the Oscars.

A professional pianist commented that Haydn's piano scores are more polished than Mozart's. Of course: Haydn had tenure in the Esterhazy court; Mozart had to get out and hustle to maintain an income stream. Plus, Haydn died at 77; Mozart died at 35. I'd be hard pressed to say which one made a bigger splash.

In the first place, there is talent. I could practice till doomsday and would not be asked to perform on so much as a kazoo.

I hear about "fast fashion" (fast turnaround clothing design); It's not haute couture, not that I know much about that either, other than a lot of it looks like ready-made trash. Art might help fashion, but fashion doesn't help art so much.

As for this Collinwood ("the best known neglected thinker of our time"), I tend to be suspicious of statements like "The Greeks and Romans had no conception of what we call art as something different from craft." Perhaps, but what the Greeks valued as "craft" was pretty damn great. Collingwood is to classics the very opposite of what I am to quantum mechanics [zero] but still, there are not many extended texts from the classical era. Generalizations tend to be supported on slim pillars. Besides, we go round and round trying to decide what we will call art.

Thanks for the Animal House snippet.

Mine was a zinger. Your response was just sour grapes.

Focus on my argument — Bartricks

Reading your arguments, such as they are, entails suffering we do not deserve.

But you just made a fact-based argument for AN, no? — schopenhauer1

Yes. In response to Bartricks response to my post.

I am supposing that unpleasant pain is a fact of life, not a personal judgement. The innocence of children (as a matter of Grace) and infants not deserving punishment is a personal judgement -- one to which I have no objection. As I said, I don't believe people (many at least) become antinatalist on the basis of logic. This being the kind of place it is, logic assumes a bigger role than it actually has in matters of belief.

One can toss logic into the air till the cows come home (at milking time, late afternoon - early evening), but chances are strong that whatever one believes, logic didn't lead one to it. Are apples better than oranges? Logic doesn't help.

Who is being tedious?


I am not against antinatalism. From a practical POV, it would help our environmental problems a great deal if far fewer people had been born in decades past. But arguing the merits of antinatalism is a bit like arguing the merits of homosexuality. One IS a homosexual or one is not. Logic has nothing to do with it. One IS an antinatalist or one is not. I do not believe people embrace antinatalism because of compelling argument. They embrace antinatalism because of compelling experience.

The logic of antinatalism has to begin with some assertion that life is too unsatisfactory to bring more people into the world. Yes, I do think that life is unsatisfactory in many ways, which a personal judgement. "Too unsatisfactory to bear children" is a also a personal judgement call and the logic follows from there.

Shouldn't logic begin with a fact rather than a personal judgement? Unpleasant Pain is a necessary part of life. Existence means painful unpleasant experiences. Not bearing children prevents more humans from painful unpleasant experiences.

What is more compelling: One's nightmare experiences in childhood and adolescence that led one to decide to not parent a child, or a logical argument?

To procreate is to create an innocent person. They haven't done anything yet. So they're innocent. — Bartricks

You are simply declaring that a procreated person is "innocent"; perhaps, perhaps not. One does not need to be a Christian (or of any religion) to recognize the possibility that a procreated person may be capable of great wrong-doing, even if they do not actually wreak havoc.

An innocent person deserves to come to no harm. Thus any harm - any harm whatever - that this person comes to, is undeserved. — Bartricks

You are again declaring that the innocent procreated person deserves no harm. This hinges on your definition of innocence (which is a kind of religious concept, as well as a legal concept). "No harm whatsoever" is a sweeping generalization.

Furthermore, an innocent person positively deserves a happy life. — Bartricks

How do you (or anyone else) know what a happy life is, and why the arbitrarily defined innocent person deserves it?

It is wrong, then, to create an innocent person — Bartricks

I think you began with "It is wrong, then, to create an innocent person" and then built the support.

There is no outside agent that defines innocence, or what a person--innocent or otherwise--deserves. There is no agency that guarantees a happy life to anyone. All of which makes your new approach unsuccessful.

The world is, in fact, a fairly harsh arrangement which guarantees a certain amount of pretty rough experience (for all creatures, great and small), while at the same time allowing for a measure of delight. Antinatalism comes down to one preferring to not have children for various reasons, from personal inconvenience (children are inconvenient) to an imbalance of suffering and delight -- like the universe had ever suggested one would get a a fair share.

Logic can't solve the problem.

LSD, Psilocybin, Mescaline, Cannabis. MDMA; all have yielded insight — Janus

Philosophical insights are a fine thing, but did the drugs help you get laid as often as and by whomever you wanted? If not, perhaps they provided a satisfactory substitute?

When Churchill stayed at the White House for a long conference with Roosevelt, the staff was given a schedule to provide his preferred drinks from morning to night. I don't know whether he qualified as an alcoholic. I don't care if he was. Some people can be productive and drink. Count me out of that group; 2 beers and I become jolly and sociable. 2 more, a bit sloshed; 2 more and I fall off the bar stool.

The guys in MAD MEN and everyone on Apple TV's FOR ALL MANKIND drink a lot--beer, of course, but many shots of bourbon, whisky, vodka, etc. They drink a lot without falling off the bar stool. The astronauts also smoked a lot -- how they maintained fitness is beyond me.

Freud was said to be a regular cocaine user. — Jackson

In the 1880s some thought it a miracle drug -- something that would give one an extra big bounce in one's step. It was legal to use. Wasn't he addicted to an opioid as well? He had cancer of the jaw for which he had 30 surgeries, suffered from excruciating pain, and from which he died. He smoked a lot of cigars. Would that addicts could all be as productive as Freud!

a frame of mind which is conducive to insight — hypericin

- Recreational drugs, including gin and tonic, may produce a frame of wind which is "conducive to insight" but so might other things.

- Religious rituals that are part of your personal culture (as opposed to grabbing any old ritual).
- Great art (drama, film, music...) might lead one to new and significant insights.
- Falling in love (deeply -- more that a passing infatuation. Nothing wrong with passing infatuations, but... they pass too soon.
- Great sex? Probably. At the very least, insight into what makes great sex great.
- Intense positive interaction with other people.
- Thinking, for sure. Reading and writing help one think.

Unfortunately, all the things that have produced insights have also produced heaps of straw.

The world's allowable number of deep insights is fixed. So, if you have never had so much as a feeble lightbulb moment, rejoice and be exceeding glad. Your doltish brain has granted a brighter bulb the opportunity to have one or several insights, for the good of mankind.

I did not remember the project name: it's the Jesus Seminar. Thanks to @wayfarer

Whether you "could debauch and murder through life and get to an eternal paradise via deathbed conversion" is not something one can attribute to Jesus. This is more the approach of a corrupt bureaucracy (aka holy mother church).

There are, indeed, so many points on which one can / should wonder about the veracity of the gospels. After all, the gospel writers were separated from the time and place of Jesus' life by many years and many miles. I assume there was somebody named Jesus, but was he really JESUS or was he a character imagined into existence?

You've heard of the Jesus Project? A group of scholars sifted through the gospels trying to nail down what, with certainty, could be attributed to Jesus. There wasn't a lot left when they finished. It isn't that they found the Sermon on the Mount of little value; it was just that there was little there that would connect it specifically to one particular man.

The Church needed foundational documents, and it produced them. Did Jesus say to Peter, "On this rock I will found my church"? I wasn't there, so I don't know. BUT if he didn't, it was inspired writing on some editor's part to put those words in Jesus' mouth. Peter, Paul, and the other disciples were long dead, so who would complain?

The seeds of what became Christianity were first scattered among the Jews by a Jew -- Jesus Christ. We are told that Jesus preached, healed, and performed miracles. Apparently his brief active ministry (just 3 years) was quite compelling. Jesus died at the hands of the Romans by crucifixion. We are told that he was resurrected from the dead.

What began as a small circle of friends who knew Jesus grew and came to include people who had only heard about Jesus through the efforts of his disciples and Paul. The number of people who believed that Jesus was a prophet/savior/Son of God was at first very small. There was for the first decades no specific formal beliefs, no institution to speak of, no formalized ritual, no scripture.

Apparently the people who were first attracted to Jesus found his story very compelling. These first Christians are the people you should (if you could) ask "Why did you become a Christian?"

Eventually the church developed beyond the Jewish community and became large and well enough established that it began to need staff, organization, formalized ritual, specific beliefs, and scripture (foundational documents). By a century after Jesus' death, these elements were coming into being. The Christian Church became another among many competing religions. A major break came their way in 312 when the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and decreed it the official religion.

After Constantine, Christians didn't merely compete with other religions, they worked towards shutting them down, closing their temples, and demanding conversion. So, a lot of people converted because it was the safest course to follow.

Guanyun, where your question becomes cogent again is over the long history of Christianity when individuals have decided to leave their pagan beliefs behind and become Christian. There may be advantages available to converts, but apparently previously uninformed people still find the story of Jesus compelling.

You can ask the same question about Karl Marx: It's not surprising that many people in China think Karl Marx is very important. What is VERY surprising is that some Americans read Marx (who is very unpopular in the USA) and decide that he is right. Apparently they find his narrative compelling. The same can be said for people who adopt a belief that is very different than what they had previously believed. The new belief gives their life new meaning, more meaning.

Another answer to your question, why, is that when and where Christianity became the cultural norm, there was virtually no alternative to being Christianity. One was born into it. No decision was necessary.

It isn't clear to me how deep human morality is, a good share of the time, never mind morality among non-humans.

Some animals are capable of making judgements about fairness and can decide to work cooperatively with another of its kind for mutual benefit. These are examples of animal morality observed and filmed in labs.

A dog, for instance, who has been cooperating with an experimenter, will cease and disease if it observes another dog getting rewards for the same behavior for which it is not getting rewarded. It's pretty clear: the dog being unfairly ignored stops cooperating.

Primates who had been cooperating with other primates and an experimenter, will quickly stop cooperating if they see some primates getting better quality rewards than they received. For instance, if two primates get apple slices as rewards, and two other primates get slices of cucumbers, the cucumber primates will abruptly stop cooperating.

Primates will spontaneously cooperate to get a mutual benefit (they both get apple slices). Dogs have been observed cooperating on some task in order to get a mutual reward.

What these experiments reveal is that animals can recognize fairness/unfairness, and in some cases judge the quality o the reward. They can also recognize how to cooperate in some task in order to get something desirable (like a food reward).

My take on human behavior is that what we do is possible because other animals (in our evolutionary lineage) have made ever more complex behaviors possible. Perhaps we were subject to an evolutionary leap, but the ground still had to be prepared for that leap -- be it the way we see, hear, feel, think, or decide to complain to the management.

I lack a theologian’s understanding of heaven and hell.

So what? — Art48

Your lack of theological understanding (unsubtle thick-headed, never a nuance thinking) might be of zero importance. It depends.

What is most important: Being a believer? Are you happy with what you believe? Are you a doer? Do you perform what you believe--eg, do you follow the plainly spoken teachings of Jesus?

If you somehow manage to follow the plainly spoken teachings of Jesus, my guess is that Jesus doesn't care what you believe. On the other hand, if you do not follow Jesus' teachings, it also doesn't matter what you believe.

The way I look at it, our job is here on earth. We can be good, bad, or indifferent and who gets into heaven or hell is above our pay grade. Some people seem more concerned about who they can consign to hell than who than can encourage into heaven.

I have found some theologians to be a delight; others to be a bore. It seems to me the best, most useful theologians help us shift our thinking from narrow doctrine to broader, more humane thought. Harvey Cox, a leftist Baptist, is one of my favorites.

The People, the folk, add the homely touch to religion -- like the idea that their dog (cat, parrot, gerbil, ...) will be happy to see them when they get to heaven. There's nothing in the religious record that suggests dogs are going to be in heaven in any way, shape, manner, or form, but some people find it a comforting idea. At least one Hound ended up in Hell, so that is a possibility people should think about. Nasty dogs deserve a spell in hell along with their nasty owners. Just my opinion.

The more doctrine I throw overboard the better I feel.

@karl stone When I read the Communist Manifesto, I don't find any inspiration or justification for the gulags, purges, mass executions, genocides, etc. that arose under the banner of Marxist Leninist rule. Still, it happened. Very similar events occurred in the Chinese iteration of Marxism.

In Russian, Chinese, and other totalitarian regimes the model followed was the centuries long despotism of the preceding regimes, and the character of the people who led the respective revolutions. There is not too much that is admirable in Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Fidel, et al.

Because it was buried in its own little grave of the bureaucratized, stale, moldy Socialist Labor Party (SLP) and capitalist repression, the democratic model of American socialism faded into oblivion. De Leon, Debs, and others held that democratic processes (union organizing, political campaigning, education, voting, legislation, etc.) were the route that should be pursued to socialism. It was tried in the early 20th century.

Did it succeed? No, obviously. Why not? It was repressed the same way that unions were repressed: long campaigns of negative propaganda, laws blocking organizing activity, covert infiltration and disruption, and so forth. The democratic model remains, however, and option where democratic life occurs. Socialist prospects in the United States? Poor to DOA.

Good OP and thread.

The red brick school house use to be in charge of shaping citizen / worker behavior and thinking. In that role, schools did a fairly decent job of producing literate, numerate workers who fulfilled the social expectations. A Marxist Classics prof at the U of Minnesota thought that the reason public education has been degraded is because capitalists had found better tools to shape consumer/worker behavior: Mass Media and the PR manipulators.

Advertising got underway in the 1920s, actively encouraging consumers to acquire stuff, (Your average householder back then, and later, lived in a small house with minimal closet and storage space. Ordinary people used to own a lot less 'stuff' so they didn't need lots of storage.

Democracy has always been a some-time thing: Here, there, now, then, this issue, that issue. But the public has mostly NOT been left to make policy without pretty heavy guidance from the elite, in one form or another.

Sauce Béarnaise über alles.

The problem with writing engineering solutions on toilet walls is that the bandwidth is so narrow, and you have to get into the right toilets in the first place. The best toilets in the various towers of power scattered around the world are generally locked. These days one is very lucky to find a toilet for ordinary purposes that isn't locked or permanently closed. Then people are arrested for urinating in alley ways.

You have fought a good fight, though you may not have finished your course, yet, you have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for you a crown of righteousness.

Of course, you don't want to just fight the good fight, you want to succeed -- to see good results. But you stand-in a long lie of people who have 'fought the good fight" and didn't see success in their time.

Question: Are you banging on in the right places? TPF is a good place to bat around ideas, but as a starting point for industrial change, it's a terrible place to bang on about anything,

I can sort of understand why you think I've been dodging your question about "how do I know that". OK: I'm speculating. But it's speculation based on experience about how decisions get made. There is a lot of human thinking and behavior that is just not very rational. People in groups have even more problems making decisions rationally. Then there are the problems of implementation--another can of worms.

Samuel Johnson said, "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." That lots of people know we are facing an existential threat hasn't done the trick of concentrating our minds. Yet anyway; hopefully soon.

Look at this shit: — karl stone

Stupid, idiotic proposals are made and actions taken that defy human reason. As H. L. Mencken said (allegedly) "No one ever went broke underestimating human intelligence."

How do you know this?

You didn't answer. I prodded you - this isn't a rhetorical question. — karl stone

It is as good as a rhetorical question, and it depends on various factors. You know that.

Read enough history and sociology and you will see patterns in how decisions get made.

You shut up.

How much hypocrisy can one maintain without being rotten to the core? Everyone is a hypocrite to some degree (excepting thee and me, of course), so are they rotten just in spots?

How to distinguish between rotting and fermenting? She's rotting into slime; I'm fermenting into wine.

Boris should resign post haste.

Karl, I've agreed several times that geothermal (magma) is a good idea. I'm convinced.

What I have been laying out is an explanation for why the rest of the world hasn't gotten their act together and started working on it. People do not do a lot of things they should and could do, whether that is giving up tobacco, exercising more, avoiding war, or demanding magma wells NOW.

addicted to carbon! This is the reason why we're unable to effect a transition, smooth/bumpy, from fossil fuels to (say) electricity. — Agent Smith

Wrong. I've explained over and over how to transition from fossil fuels — karl stone

Agent Smith was not rejecting geothermal; he was offering a suggestion as to why it hadn't happened.

There might be an argument against geothermal, but I am neither a geologist nor a heat transfer engineer. I haven't, and I can't offer any technical objection.

it's the dumbest thing you've ever written — karl stone

I beg to differ. I've written dumber things.

Yes, the government does do some R&D investment. Out of the US Federal budget of 2.3 Trillion Dollars, 106 Million Dollars was allocated to the Geothermal Office. What they do, actually, I don't know. Clearly Congress is not excited about geothermal. They devoted 250 Million Dollars to nuclear energy, not a huge vote of confidence either.

The members of the House and Senate also live their lives with one eye on the markets, and the other eye on on Bureau of Labor statistics, Treasury reports, Government Budget Office reports, and polling survey results. The thought of millions of redundant workers in the petrochemical sector or a collapse of the trillions of dollars petrochemical industry horrifies them, as well it should.

One of the points of which I have been trying to convince you is that a transformation of the energy sector (particularly concerning fossil fuels) cannot occur without severe dislocations in the world economy. Economic dislocation, collapse, destruction, etc. isn't merely inconvenient -- it will be fatal to a lot of people whose livelihoods disappear.

Supposing that we can just switch from a trillion dollar fossil fuel system to geo and hydrogen is a non-starter. It can be done, but it will take time--not a couple of years, not even a couple of decades. more like 50 years to get it all put together.

Your ideas are good, but they are not improved by monomania.

frack with one hand and carbon tax with the other; how could such obviously contradictory policies be enacted, and be accepted by lawmakers, scientists, protest groups, businesses and individuals. — karl stone

Capitalism, as Karl Marx pointed out, is chock full of contradictions.

You don't have to be a Marxist to see that. Humans, with rare exceptions, are the very model of modern, major, contradictions. Cue Gilbert and Sullivan.

Groups of "lawmakers, scientists, protest groups, businesses and individuals" have disparate interests, within the group and between the groups. Not just one or two disparate interests, but numerous disparate interests.

That's why preserving the plant's ecosystem is only partly a technical problem. It's largely a human behavior problem, and an obstacle that human behavior has so far not been very successful at solving,

Sorry you missed the big meeting where all of this was decided. Your gold plated invitation and all-expense-paid ultra-luxury hotel reservation must have been lost in the mail.

Relatively few major decisions about economies are made by governments. Most economic decisions in the capitalist sphere are made by investors (the stock markets), corporate boards, private capital, investment banks, very rich individuals, and the like. The Federal Reserve (in the US) makes big decisions, but the Fed is only a quasi-government organization. It's mostly a creature of the banking industry with a mandate to maintain liquidity and keep inflation around 2% and the official unemployment rate as low as possible.

So, millions of large investors vote semi-second by semi-second on all sorts of economic questions. One question they have voted on is whether to invest in geothermal power. Again and again, big money has shied away from that -- and other -- unfamiliar or risky kinds of projects. In most places, nuclear power has gotten a cold shoulder from investors as a result of 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima.

Investors are a nervous lot -- bent on buying low, selling high, and maximizing profits. Nervous and a bit fickle. They live their lives with at least one eye on the market's ticker tape. They are mostly risk averse.

"Hey, everyone. Invest in International Magmatron! We'll drill into mostly quiet volcanos in the Pacific Northwest and power up Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia. It's your can't-lose opportunity to get in on the ground floor of this futuristic thermorama."

Investors read the prospectus and got clammy hands, hyperventilated, and required medical attention.

In the meantime, there is the big multi-trillion dollar petrochemical industry that is in place, predictable, and cranking out billions of dollars in profits. Well, sure... it's wrecking the planet, but it IS very profitable, and everybody likes profits. The planet might die in a century but our Dynamo Energy Fund could go broke in 15 minutes, if we're not careful. We just hate going broke!

S0, Karl, that's how decisions about magma energy, and many other worthwhile projects are made. It's not nice, I hate it, but that is, unfortunately, the way the system works.

They don't seem that devoted — karl stone

No, they don't. Not in Washington, nor in most capitols.

It isn't that they are so much opposed to geo-thermal as they are opposed to risking their economies, as currently operated. This is not a mistaken danger. A sudden switch away from fossil fuels to any other system could not be done overnight, and the transition is more likely to be wrenching and wrecking rather than smooth and pleasant--whether the destination is geothermal, hydrogen, photovoltaic, wind, or hydro.

Yes, global warming is going to be maximally wrenching and wrecking, so much so that we (collectively, everybody) are well advised to take the risks involved in dramatic change, now.

PoMo didn't invent relativism, of course, but to whatever extent relativism is a feature of PoMo, I find it useful. Different groups of people hold different moral systems, and to negotiate working arrangements, one must practice flexible diplomacy. Never mind settling disputes between Hindus and Moslems. One own siblings can present chasms of difference.

One need not abandon the standards that reliably guide one's own behavior to negotiate with others whose standards are quite different. Still, under the friction of interacting with both congenial and uncongenial people, one's own certainties may be weakened. For instance, uncongenial Christians and uncongenial religious people in general had a part to play in my distancing myself from religion. The less stake I have in theism, the easier it is to deal with theists.

Then too, I think everyone is a relativist whenever it is convenient. We may be against war, for instance, until our favorite ox is gored. Ukraine's ox excused arm sales that were not enthused about when the destination was Syria and other places.

If anything is permissible — Banno

If anything is permissible, then God is dead? per Jack Karamazov's brother, Ivan.

Optimistic perhaps, but I see no magical thinking in these proposals — karl stone

The 'magic' isn't in the basic technology. There's no 'magic' in the physics and chemistry of using hydrogen instead of hydrocarbons. The 'magic' lies in the human part of the equation, in supposing that the truly massive investment in fossil fuels can or will be switched to an equally massive investment in hydrogen or geothermal (magma) in a relatively short period of time. Oil companies have sunk petawads of money in drilling holes in the ocean to suck up toxic sludge; it takes a lot of magic to suppose that the whole fossil fuel industry and its millions of investors and billions of consumers can or will switch to anything else in the near future.

My reading of the global warming situation is that time will run out before we can make sufficient adaptation (like using hydrogen, reducing population, sequestering CO2, etc.). "Time running out" means that the heat gains will begin to unravel the economic fabric of the world's economies. Without robust economies, we're pretty much dead in the water.

Major industrial or technological changes take time to implement, usually 40 years, +/-. In the 75 years since it's arrival, nuclear fission has has not been fully implemented. The infrastructure for ever higher volume data transmission through the Internet is still being implemented, never mind fully developed. Computers, in all their various and sundry forms are still being developed and integrated, and that's around 75 years.

If it takes 50-60 years to implement hydrogen, along with geothermal, we are out to 2070-80, by which time the chickens of global warming will be home and roosting. There is absolutely no guarantee that we will convert to hydrogen. Supposing that we will have done so is where the magic comes in.

Demographers have said the 2100 population will be around 11 billion. Gaining 3 billion people, coping (or not coping) with at least a 2ºC global temperature rise, and the consequent increasing competition for food, water, and livable environment looks to me more like an end game than anything else.

Look, I hope we get our collective acts together to solve our various big problems. It just doesn't seem like we are going to be successful or quick enough.

"Magical thinking" is from Kunstler's book, "Too Much Magic". Kunstler and Smil both warn us away from solutions which require 'magic' of some sort to work. Replacing petroleum with hydrogen is an example. Hydrogen is a far, far less dense energy source than oil, and it takes energy to get it. If transported, it has to be liquified and kept under cold pressure until it is fairly close to the end user, This can be done, BUT it can not be done without using considerable energy apart from the energy in the hydrogen gas.

Capturing tidal energy is possible, but claiming that it will be a significant source of energy requires a bit of hocus locus, because (as far as I know) tidal energy research is in an early stage. Announcing that in 40 years, everyone will use public transit sounds like a good idea, but it is just more magic if one can not explain how that happy event is going to be brought about.

Fusion is another piece of magical thinking, The magic isn't in the fusion; the magic is in the prediction that it will work, will work well, and will be on line within a few years.

The most magical piece of thinking is that without coal and oil, we will go on our merry way, living as we have been living--plastics and all--just using different sources of energy.

In his "world made by hand" novels, Kunstler illustrates what life would be like after an abrupt break with our energy past. Life goes on, but it is far more difficult. Whether the break is abrupt or more gradual, we should stop thinking about doing things like magically replacing 1 billion gas powered cars with 1 billion electrical cars. (There are about 1 bn cars on the world's roads now,).

I nunc intellegite.

Quomodo stultus pertinax sapiens efficitur?