- Capitalism and Alternatives -

tiresome but then, thats why we post here

Posted by: Gee ( si ) on July 13, 1999 at 18:11:33:

In Reply to: Here we go again posted by Samuel Day Fassbinder on July 13, 1999 at 16:59:51:

: SDF: Let's avoid the assumption that scientific truth is produced with certain types of money.

You aswell? ok.

: SDF: That's why you provide links to the Greening Earth society, which starts from the premise that "CO2 is beneficial to humankind and all of nature."

It is, want to try earth without it? That premise leads to no conclusion about how much. Hence that is a worthwhile focus for any study and simply saying 'its more thus its bad' is a blind leap. Venus is a non sequiter.

: SDF: No, it's a reductio ad absurdum of Simon's logic.

By employing same.

: SDF: This is a misconception of the notion of entropy.

I include second law thermodynamics in the 'bundle'. The other spheres losing more order than is gained by the first.

: This is meant to puncture the balloon of Simon's assertion that human society is already a utopia of ever-increasing cornucopia.

with a time limit of, ooh, a few billion years at least. Unless you see mankind tied irrevocable to earth with no chance of adaptation either elsewhere or on earth. then limit it to millions, there being no 'doomsday' dates offered except for cataclysmic fantasies about oil.

I am glad daly took care to personalise his conclusion as his personal wish.

: Putting aside the idea that Daly's article is a call for "restrictions," which are mentioned nowhere in his conclusion (thus one can conclude that Gee's characterization of it is spurious

you can if you wish

, I'd like to know which simple declarative sentence Gee thinks is "spurious," since he has already declared that he thinks so.

That he concludes from the universe being finite to 'We should learn to be good stewards of what is already under our dominion'

from is to ought.

: SDF: We decide things by vote because we have to work together. We don't decide what to believe by vote because we believe separately. Having trouble with this? Apparently so.

You do, because if someone believes seperately when supposedly engaged in democracy you would have that 'outvoted' by a large number, suppressing the belief into impotence.

: SDF: An example that would disprove the notion that significant increases in CO2 content create global warming would be an example from natural history where some other animal increased the CO2 content drastically, without any significant change in global climate. That wasn't what was provided in your article. Try again.

No SDF an example is for you to PROVE that human activity is certainly responsible for climate changes, and then to show that said changes are more destructive to mankind that what is created by the human activity, its not to push it out into the open and then say "there, disprove that!" and a bag a load of legal directoves from it.

Do you believe that what I am saying is that the worls is fine, who cares - or that before we enforce masses of regulation we actually bother to explore all the possibilities and to show across the board that there can be no doubt that such and such activities are more objectively demonstrably destructive than they are constructive with the standard of value being agreed upon by all concerned?

I can well understand if you think thate there is no time 'for all that shit' but that doesnt make acting now the correct thing to do.

: SDF: What is behind this true premise? The fact that 1998 was the hottest year (for aggregate temperatures) in recorded history (and much further back) perhaps, as correlated with increasing CO2 atmospheric buildup?

And no definitive evidence, rigerously attacked skeptical scientists endeavouring to disprove it and failing, that it is human activity that causes it and that its 'more destructve etc etc above'.

: SDF: If this is indeed your logical speculation as to why people think global warming is anthropogenic, you should set about disproving it by showing that SOME OTHER FORCE is increasing global atmospheric CO2. Given the enormous effluent of global oil consumption, one might be hard-pressed to find it. This Newt Gingrich stuff about volcanoes has already been shown to be a wash. Solar radiation changes can only account for a portion of global warming, as shown previously.

but has all of this been explored, including all down the line effects on tiny solar increases in temperatures to co2 released 'naturally', is it sufficiently well understood to take such action as you are doing - and to, for once, drop the assumption that "its all bad" and see what needs to be given up to make the changes possible, see what the opportunity cost it.

I do understand that these are your personal values and goals though.

: Meanwhile you can go respond to Gideon Hallett's further demolition of your premises.

Funny idea about what constitutes a 'demolition', a news article claiming that something like OPEC might happen again in a few years.

: : Mankind - guilty unless proven innocent?

: SDF: The oil industry, long may its profits and propaganda flow.

January 14th 2028 : A billion barrels produced today, industry is happy, abundance grows, yippee lets carry on.

January 15th 2028 : Shit its all dried up overnight, we couldnt adapt, no one saw it coming, aaaargh.

Care for any predictions? Care to explain why, however entrenched oil use is in western civilisation, its slow slow dissapearance over the next several decades will devastate mankind, why - if adaptation to its use took only a few decades, we will not be able to adapt to its non-use in the future without losing all that was gained from it?


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