Tzadeck wrote:

uisukii wrote:

This is a pretty interesting discussion. Would be more interesting if it were in Japanese.

Is it interesting?  I think it's like watching five year olds talk on a bus.  They talk at each other, but there's no actual conversation because they don't listen to each other.

Not that I'm blaming people really.  People just have too much of their own ideas--or, perhaps, baggage--to bring to the conversation so they end up talking past each other.  Perhaps some are more guilty than others.

Sarcasm doesn't work very well in text. I tried to qualify the sarcasm with the quip: "Would be more interesting if it were in Japanese"- but this wasn't enough, as it seems.

uisukii wrote:

Sarcasm doesn't work very well in text. I tried to qualify the sarcasm with the quip: "Would be more interesting if it were in Japanese"- but this wasn't enough, as it seems.

I wasn't so sure whether you were serious (actually, I kind of meant to phrase my post to reflect that, but I didn't succeed.  I guess the "Is it interesting?" implies that I took you more seriously than I did).  The possibility that it was sarcasm did cross my mind, so it's not like I'm 100% oblivious, haha

Last edited by Tzadeck (2012 November 18, 7:00 am)

nadiatims wrote:

@vix86
I think it's worth point out at this point that CO2 is not a pollutant, it's a naturally occurring gas that is necessary for life on earth.

This I realize, but burning fossils adds more to the atmosphere than just CO2. Coal for instance is loaded with sulfur and various heavy metals.

vix86 wrote:

nadiatims wrote:

@vix86
I think it's worth point out at this point that CO2 is not a pollutant, it's a naturally occurring gas that is necessary for life on earth.

This I realize, but burning fossils adds more to the atmosphere than just CO2. Coal for instance is loaded with sulfur and various heavy metals.

ok. But the main arguments for emissions policy is that increasing CO2 will lead to destructive climate changes. Would you support subsidies for the development of clean coal/oil/gas?

Well, that depends on your definition of "pollutant".  But I have no real interest in arguing with climate-change denialists (about as much interest as I do in arguing with creationists or flat-earthers)

nadiatims wrote:

I was just saying that whether individuals/groups steal is a separate issue from their being capitalists, and is probably linked to their views on the morality of theft. So in that sense it is a moral issue, whether I consider morality relevant or not.

So you’re saying acting like a capitalist and stealing are not necessarily the same thing, and you weren’t mentioning your view on stealing? All right.

nadiatims wrote:

Also, perhaps you've noticed, I don't consider human beings or human society as being divorced from the natural world, so I don't really see what your point is.

I was just trying to say that you can’t really debate the morality of animal actions because the animals can’t debate. Suppose I say, “If a lion kills a man, it is only doing what comes natural and other lions shouldn’t punish it. If a man kills a lion, he is only doing what comes natural and other people shouldn’t punish him.” I can’t convince the other lions to accept the first statement, but I can convince other people to accept the second view because humans can communicate with each other.

nadiatims wrote:

I never accused you of hypocrisy. I wasn't aware you even disagreed with me, because so far as I can tell you haven't actually taken sides on any of the issues being discussed. Instead you've focused on the manner in which people should argue their case.

I wrote my actual moral views in Reply #366 so everyone can see that the logical consequences of me holding those views are in direct opposition to the actual moral views of everyone here. For example, many people don’t care if their actions are hypocritical, but it drives me crazy and I feel obligated to point it out to them and get them to stop. You would probably just call those people “sheeple” and ignore them. I can’t ignore them if they are willing to debate because that would go against my other view that “it is immoral for a person to punish someone (in this case, by ignoring him and letting his views bring about his own destruction) while not allowing the debate with him to continue”. You probably strongly oppose my view that “it is morally good for a person to work hard at work” because I didn’t mention anything about pay. No pay for anyone = no stock market.

uisukii, vix86, vileru, Tzadeck: none of you found flaws in my thinking. I wish you would try to point them out so I might change my mind and agree with all of you. I don’t actually want to be mistaken. I don’t actually want to misunderstand your statements.

HiiroYui wrote:

Irixmark, you are unique. You don’t agree completely with any other libertarians. Whether passing on wealth to the next generation is contradictory or not depends on your specific definition of “to undermine individual responsibility” (and whether that’s morally bad). If I leave my wealth to my heir and he works hard and doubles it, does that mean if I had burned my wealth so that he had to start from scratch, he would have ended up with more than double the inheritance? Did I spoil him by giving him a head start?

No, it's actually a very common position taken by classical liberals (the predecessors of the libertarians) that a society in which inheritances are not heavily taxed tend to create a class of rich people who have done nothing special or worked particularly hard to deserve their wealth. In other words, letting people pass on their wealth to the next generation undermines meritocracy.

Anyway I never said I supported libertarian views. On the contrary I think that market economies have a tendency to create such extreme inequality that a welfare state is needed to counteract that. But to me a having a welfare state does not imply strong labour unions or many (or even any) restrictions on starting a business, and I believe in meritocracy.

yudantaiteki wrote:

But I have no real interest in arguing with climate-change denialists (about as much interest as I do in arguing with creationists or flat-earthers)

suit yourself.

Eikyu wrote:

@nadiatims If you start to doubt every credible source, including Wikipedia, including the IPCC, including academics, probably also including the "liberal" media and only trust people who run denialist blogs and such, than there's not much I can do to convince you. But maybe at some point you'll have doubts and start questioning things.

I don't doubt every credible source. I just don't discount credible sources on the other side. And the IPCC is a political body. Google it and you can find plenty of information suggesting the IPCC is rather dodgy, and the figure of thousands of scientists is inflated (some even suggesting real numbers of less than a hundred). I have no idea of the numbers, as an actual list of IPCC scientists cannot be found through simple googling, which is pretty amazing a fact considering how much weight the IPCC is given. On the denier side, here's a list of notable (at least they have wiki pages) scientists disagreeing with the mainstream opinion:
scientists disagreeing with mainstream consensus
There are plenty more scientists opposed to the consensus, but I don't want to start a link war, so that's all I'll post. But google anything related to climate change, and you can find plenty of opposing views.

Eikyu wrote:

Clean coal/oil/gas doesn't really exists. Coal is almost pure carbon, oil and gas are hydrocarbons. If you burn them you can't avoid releasing CO2.

Yes. But CO2 is not a pollutant and there is debate on whether human created CO2 emissions are causing any harm relative to the benefits that cheap energy bring. I meant clean in the sense of not releasing other substances (heavy metals and things).

Eikyu wrote:

I think it's truer than you imagine. The Heartland Institute is a big source of denialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_Institute). Before, they did that, they were busy denying the effects of tobacco.

There are vested interests on both sides of this debate.

Icecream wrote:

Yeah, the whole point of a carbon tax is to make it more expensive so we switch to alternative methods.

Meaning that energy prices will rise and global wealth will decrease. You can't just make green energy viable by throwing money at it. The more money you throw at green energy companies, the less necessary it becomes for them to actually produce economically viable solutions. The government doesn't need to create incentives. Any company that actually comes up with viable green solutions can make a killing on the free market.
Instead of giving subsidies to green energy, why not use that capital to build proven wealth providing infrastructure that can actually help poor people now?

Icecream wrote:

I'm still not sure what level of consensus between scientists you would require about this before you would make decisions based on it. Certainly the balance of evidence is not on the skeptics side, even if they weren't in the pay of oil companies...

I probably can't sway anyone's opinions on these matters. But I would recommend everyone to give at least a surface level glance to some of the sceptic arguments before reaching their own conclusions.

nadiatims wrote:

You can't just make green energy viable by throwing money at it. The more money you throw at green energy companies, the less necessary it becomes for them to actually produce economically viable solutions. The government doesn't need to create incentives. Any company that actually comes up with viable green solutions can make a killing on the free market.

This makes sense if you're talking about subsidizing an already developed and thriving industry. However, green energy is still a nascent, struggling industry. Subsidizing it now, so it can compete, may give it the boost it needs to surpass other energy sources later. This scenario would be similar to using trade barriers to protect developing industries.

On a related note, what do you think of trade barriers to protect new industries? Without them, American automakers would have had an oligopoly on automobiles and I doubt Japan's auto industry would have grown so big. In the short-term, it certainly reduced wealth and inflated prices. However, in the long-term, wealth has increased and prices have dropped. Is this a rare case in which interferring with the markets has worked or is it just wishful thinking?

I can't help but find it amusing how some people are so quick to dismiss scientifical research/data and, on the other hand, seem to have a completely religious-like dogmatic belief in such an abstract (and man-made) concept as "free market", supposedly contaning all positive elements and solutions the world will ever need.

Last edited by franciscobc84 (2012 November 19, 9:28 am)

nadiatims wrote:

Yes. But CO2 is not a pollutant and there is debate on whether human created CO2 emissions are causing any harm relative to the benefits that cheap energy bring. I meant clean in the sense of not releasing other substances (heavy metals and things).

I can respect your opinion but this is false. CO2 is a pollutant, just because its natural does not make it not a pollutant. Its just a natural pollutant as opposed to man made.

nadiatims wrote:

You can't just make green energy viable by throwing money at it. The more money you throw at green energy companies, the less necessary it becomes for them to actually produce economically viable solutions. The government doesn't need to create incentives. Any company that actually comes up with viable green solutions can make a killing on the free market.

The idea is that by throwing money at green energy companies, they will improve their products and make them viable without subsidies. Green energy is a, relatively, new technology and its efficiency and cost are improving very fast. But we need subsidize it in the meantime until it becomes competitive with fossil fuels. By the way, oil companies, even tough they shouldn't need them at this point, receive a massive amount of subsidies. Here, they talk about 70B$, though that seems a bit high compared to what I've heard before: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ … ax-gusher/  According to the International Energy Agency, fossil fuel subsidies are six times higher than renewable energy subsidies around the world. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-0 … y-iea.html

Now, concerning the scientists opposed to the consensus on global warming. First, there are not a lot of scientists on the Wikipedia list. I count 37 names in total. Of that, only about 20 are actually studying something related to climatology. Some, like Fred Singer, are known for having defended second-hand smoking when paid by the tobacco industry. And they usually disagree about a specific part of global warming: for one it's the sea level rise, the other thinks that the clouds will stop global warming. But overall, they disagree on different parts of the theory. That's not a lot of people, compared to the list of organizations, countries and scientists who agree on global warming.

And I wonder if any doubt that CO2 can warm the planet, as you seem to do.

nadiatims wrote:

I'd argue that society finds ways of destroying the fortunes of those who don't deserve their wealth. Gambling, 'gold digging,' expensive hobbies, etc. Not necessarily within a generation, but in time. The wealthy will live more lavishly and unless they continually find new and innovative ways to make money their income streams will dry up.

Actually, not really. If you have a fortune of 5B$ and make an investment income of 3% (very low), that's 150M per year. Unless you really try hard, you will never be able to spend all of that money, much less lose your fortune. Of course, there ARE ways of losing your fortune, but spending 1, 10 or even 100M$ a year in luxury goods won't make a difference.

Edit: By the way, World Bank report on climate change came out today: "Globe Risks ‘Cataclysmic Changes’ From Warming, World Bank Says" http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-1 … -bank-says http://climatechange.worldbank.org/

Last edited by Eikyu (2012 November 19, 10:35 pm)

vix86 wrote:

If you want people to engage you in discussion, then you will have to write in terms that are easier for people that haven't had philosophy class.

I was a philosophy major and have no idea where he's coming from with the way he's using language.  Ethics wasn't really a specialty of mine since I found it pretty stupid, but I did take environmental ethics, contemporary ethics, and my thesis was on an ethical dilemma (Foot and Thompson's Trolly Problem).  And of course most courses cover ethics in small doses (for example, I took a class on Kant, Ancient Greek Philosophy, the Early Modern Period, etc., which included the relevant ethics).  I guess at least some of his ideas feel early modern, and by that I mean the period from Descartes to Kant.  For example, I guess he's saying that scientific facts and moral beliefs are ultimately completely independent, an idea from that time.  But he's bad at explaining himself so I don't know what to think.

Last edited by Tzadeck (2012 November 19, 8:22 pm)