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posted by cmn32480 on Sunday June 11 2017, @06:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the just-look-at-the-comments-below dept.

NASA chief scientist weighs in

Americans are "under siege" from disinformation designed to confuse the public about the threat of climate change, Nasa's former chief scientist has said.

Speaking to the Guardian, Ellen Stofan, who left the US space agency in December, said that a constant barrage of half-truths had left many Americans oblivious to the potentially dire consequences of continued carbon emissions, despite the science being unequivocal.

"We are under siege by fake information that's being put forward by people who have a profit motive," she said, citing oil and coal companies as culprits. "Fake news is so harmful because once people take on a concept it's very hard to dislodge it."

During the past six months, the US science community has woken up to this threat, according to Stofan, and responded by ratcheting up efforts to communicate with the public at the grassroots level as well as in the mainstream press.

"The harder part is this active disinformation campaign," she said before her appearance at Cheltenham Science Festival this week. "I'm always wondering if these people honestly believe the nonsense they put forward. When they say 'It could be volcanoes' or 'the climate always changes'... to obfuscate and to confuse people, it frankly makes me angry."

Stofan added that while "fake news" is frequently characterised as a problem in the right-leaning media, she saw evidence of an "erosion of people's ability to scrutinise information" across the political spectrum. "All of us have a responsibility," she said. "There's this attitude of 'I read it on the internet therefore it must be true'."

No editorial comment included.


Original Submission

Related Stories

Why Twitter’s Fact Check of Trump Might Not be Enough to Combat Misinformation 116 comments

FiveThirtyEight is covering the efficacy of fact-checking and other methods to combat the spread of misinformation and disinformation. Fact-checking, after the fact, is better than nothing, it turns out. There are some common factors in the times when it has been done successfully:

Political scientists Ethan Porter and Thomas J. Wood conducted an exhaustive battery of surveys on fact-checking, across more than 10,000 participants and 13 studies that covered a range of political, economic and scientific topics. They found that 60 percent of respondents gave accurate answers when presented with a correction, while just 32 percent of respondents who were not given a correction expressed accurate beliefs. That’s pretty solid proof that fact-checking can work.

But Porter and Wood have found, alongside many other fact-checking researchers, some methods of fact-checking are more effective than others. Broadly speaking, the most effective fact checks have this in common:

  1. They are from highly credible sources (with extra credit for those that are also surprising, like Republicans contradicting other Republicans or Democrats contradicting other Democrats).
  2. They offer a new frame for thinking about the issue (that is, they don’t simply dismiss a claim as “wrong” or “unsubstantiated”).
  3. They don’t directly challenge one’s worldview and identity.
  4. They happen early, before a false narrative gains traction.

It is as much about psychology as actually rebutting the disinformation because factors like partisanship and worldview have strong effects, and it is hard to reach people inside their social control media echo chambers from an accurate source they will accept.

[Though often incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain, one is reminded of the adage: “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes”. --Ed.]

Previously:
(2020) Nearly Half of Twitter Accounts Pushing to Reopen America May be Bots
(2019) Russians Engaging in Ongoing 'Information Warfare,' FBI Director Says
(2019) How Fake News Spreads Like a Real Virus
(2019) More and More Countries are Mounting Disinformation Campaigns Online
(2019) At Defcon, Teaching Disinformation Campaigns Is Child's Play
(2018) Why You Stink at Fact-Checking
(2017) Americans Are “Under Siege” From Disinformation
(2015) Education Plus Ideology Exaggerates Rejection of Reality


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @06:48PM (9 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @06:48PM (#523891)

    Fake news arose as soon as trump entered the scene. Coincidence? I think not. Donald is tweeting at 3AM for one reason only. He stays up and writes all of the fake news you see.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @06:55PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @06:55PM (#523893)

      Fake news pointed out those other evil Fake news supported by alternative facts.

      But be assured, I can now announce: Reality is over. You can relax!

      • (Score: 2, Touché) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday June 11 2017, @08:44PM (1 child)

        by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Sunday June 11 2017, @08:44PM (#523923) Homepage

        i.e. "We admit that we have lost control over the narrative."

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:02PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:02PM (#523981)

          I love how things you disagree with are a narrative, and literal fake news and conspiracies get pushed as truth.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:51PM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:51PM (#523912)

      Pffff. Children with a limited grasp of History are a real scream.

      When Roger Ailes founded Fox so-called News in 1996, he had a vision of it becoming the propaganda arm of the Republican Party.
      (Glad he's dead. Wish it had happened in 1966 when he was still a flunky for the Mike Douglas chat show. Evil bastard.)

      ...and Lamestream Media has been heavily filtered since it got into the soap-selling business.
      I'm old enough to remember the way the way Lamestream Media embraced The Warren Commission Report on the murder of my president (Lone gunman; Magic bullet; non-specialists doing the autopsy; etc.).
      ...not to mention the subsequent decades of them propping up that fictitious swill.

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:03PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:03PM (#523928)

        The real powers in the government and business outsourced the job to the mob that sent a goon and then the secret part of government took the opportunity to piggyback the a existing shooter to cover it all up?

        The Warren Commission seems a little too bit similar to the 9/11 Commission.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:27PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:27PM (#524022)

          More likely, a pair.
          They'd want a crossfire to ensure a kill.
          One on The Grassy Knoll and the other in the Dallas Textiles Building. [google.com]

          Both are unmarried Italian orphans (and won't be missed when they disappear).
          After the hit, the assassins are rubbed out.

          Thom Hartmann has written books with Lamar Waldron.
          Thom calls him The Rainman of JFK stuff. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [thomhartmann.com]
          Did the Mob Kill JFK? [google.com]
          Who Killed Kennedy? "The Hidden History Of The JFK Assassination" [conversationswithgreatminds.com]

          -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @08:01AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @08:01AM (#524192)

            So Oswald was #1, but who was #2 at the grassy knoll? since you know he is a Italian orphan?
            And where #2 whacked?

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @11:51AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @11:51AM (#524292)

              Nope. Oswald was the patsy.
              He was employed by the Texas Schoolbook Depository.
              Completely different building from the ideal trajectory.
              ...and at the time of the shooting, he was seen in the cafeteria.
              The photos of him "holding the rifle" in his yard are phony; the shadows are all wrong.
              It was the 1960s version of bad Photoshopping.

              Oswald was a lousy marksman. [google.com]
              Only a fool would have selected him for this job.

              Oswald was never charged with killing the president.
              He was arrested for the murder of Dallas PD Officer J.D. Tippet with a handgun.

              since you know [#2] is a Italian orphan

              Both #1 and #2 were.
              The idea is to have 2 people that no one will miss (foreigners smuggled into the USA; no kin) and make them disappear after the job.
              I'm relaying what Lamar Waldron learned about standard practice in mob hits on high-profile targets.

              -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:00PM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:00PM (#523980) Homepage
        And in case anyone says "Citation needed!!!!derp!!!", it's in black and white here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3771626/
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
  • (Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @06:58PM (66 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @06:58PM (#523894)

    The average human is as dumb as a pile of bricks, and roughly half of humans are even dumber than that.

    That is why democracy is a terrible idea; it gives equal voices to unequal people.

    Capitalism is the only real solution: The weight of a person's "vote" depends on how productive that person's previous "votes" have been.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:03PM (11 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:03PM (#523897)

      Well then, be prepared to lose *YOUR* vote; but that's ok, right?

      It always surprises me that people who argue for exclusion always argue from the point of view that /they/ will remain in the group of the powerful. They never seem to grasp that -looking back at our history- it will backfire and they will find themselves in the out-group at some point instead...

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:07PM (7 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:07PM (#523898)

        Try again.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @08:37PM (6 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @08:37PM (#523921)

          Sorry, bub. When you say that poor peoples' vote shouldn't count, you are making precisely that argument, with the full expectation that you will be on the 'right' side of the line. So, really, you can bugger off!

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:05PM (5 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:05PM (#523929)

            Your replies are a case in point on the matter of people being unable to scrutinize info!

            Nobody said anything about who should be allowed to vote; rather, the other AC is simply pointing out the nature of decision-making—why democratic decision-making is ridiculous, and why capitalistic decision-making is inherently more sophisticated, fine-grained, expressive, and likely to be profitable for society at large.

            Hint: The other AC puts "vote" in quotes for a reason; it doesn't have anything to do with attaching wealth to the voting within the current democratic system. Get it, yet?

            • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:04PM (1 child)

              by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:04PM (#523982) Homepage
              > Hint: The other AC

              Is you. There aren't 2 ACs in agreement with each other, there's merely one who likes to support his arguments by pretending to be someone else supporting his arguments.

              So sad.
              --
              Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:09PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:09PM (#523987)

                Whether or not that AC is the same person, the argument should stand on its own—it doesn't matter how many people agree or disagree with it.

                More to the point, though, it's difficult to identify various comments quickly when everyone is named "AC", so I see no problem in treating separate comments as separate people.

            • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:04PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:04PM (#523983)

              Read it yourself: That is why democracy is a terrible idea; it gives equal voices to unequal people.

              He wants the rich to have more say. Totally bogus...

            • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:32PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:32PM (#523995)

              The sheer amount of cluelessness with "capitalist democracy" is staggering.

            • (Score: 1) by redneckmother on Monday June 12 2017, @05:51PM

              by redneckmother (3597) on Monday June 12 2017, @05:51PM (#524536)

              ... capitalistic decision-making is inherently more sophisticated, fine-grained, expressive, and likely to be profitable for society at large.

              s/society at large/a handful of powerful, rich individuals/

              That's not to say the a simple democracy is necessarily good:
              "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb debating on what to eat."

              That's why the rule of law is important.

              --
              Mas cerveza por favor.
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Aiwendil on Sunday June 11 2017, @08:28PM (2 children)

        by Aiwendil (531) on Sunday June 11 2017, @08:28PM (#523919) Journal

        Well then, be prepared to lose *YOUR* vote; but that's ok, right?

        Quick: Hillary or Trump which do you want to vote for?

        If either then I can see why you are trying that argument, but if neither the vote is de facto already lost.

        I did it US-centric above but I have the same issue here in sweden - out of the seven or eight big parties I don't want any of them to be in power and I consider all of them to be directly harmful to the country - and since we don't assign seats to blank votes I currently have de facto lost my vote due to the sheeple.

        Just pointing out that unless you agree with the mainstream your vote is already lost and your argument is a wash.

        (As an aside - I wouldn't mind losing my vote if we instead replaced the system with either meritocracy* or by demanding that people had to be educated in relevant areas to vote - at worst it would be more effecient as now and at best we would at least get rid of all the political spam.
        * = however, have a meritocracy for the nominations for the seats in a party and I'd be interested in voting)

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:16PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:16PM (#523945)

          There's a lot of parties in Sweden that too few people vote for:

          De nya svenskarna (DPNS)
                  Direktdemokraterna
                  Djurens parti (DjuP)
                  Djurägarpartiet (Däp)
                  Enhet (ENH)
                  Europeiska arbetarpartiet (EAP)
                  Feministiskt initiativ (F!/FI/Fi) - har ett mandat i Europaparlamentet
                  Framstegspartiet
                  Fredsdemokraterna
                  Frihetliga rättvisepartiet (FRP)
                  Gula partiet (Gup)
                  Humandemokraterna (HumDe)
                  Hälsopartiet
                  Högerpartiet de konservativa
                  Klassiskt liberala partiet (KLP)
                  Kristna värdepartiet (KrVP)
                  Landsbygdspartiet oberoende (LBPO)
                  Nya partiet
                  Piratpartiet (PP)
                  Reformist neutral partiet (RNP)
                  Republikanerna
                  Rättvisepartiet socialisterna (RS)
                  Skånepartiet (SKÅ)
                  SPI Välfärden (SPI)
                  Svenskarnas parti (SvP)
                  Sveriges kommunistiska parti (SKP)
                  Vägvalet (VägV)
                  Borgerlig framtid, 2014
                  Cannabispartiet
                  Försvarspartiet
                  Gröna partiet
                  Medborgerlig Samling
                  Ny framtid
                  Partiet de fria
                  Riktiga Sverige
                  Socialliberalerna
                  Spritpartiet
                  Steg 3
                  Sverigesmultidemokrater

          To eliminate ignorant votes. One could have three questions on the ballot with multiple tick boxes which is then OCR scanned. Only correctly answered questions will make the ballot valid.

          The Schweitzer constitution with citizens initiative to vote in specific matters at anytime is also quite interesting. Maybe something to follow? but then powers that are will not like that. After all the current system is electing a dictator for 4 years. And parties only needs to delude voters for some weeks ahead of the election. After that they can give a shit.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:39PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:39PM (#523998)

          Find similiar voiced people, and rather than trying to fight the system in a country full of idiots, go found your own country somewhere else.

          We are at a point in human history that, while all land anywhere on the planet, is claimed, we have the technological means to recruit people and found nations in places never before accessable. Do that and gather mindshare for your newfound country, and you help influence your father or motherland by showing them a more successful way to live or govern.

          If you aren't willing to do that, then now is the time to sit down, shut up, and act like a good little cog in the system you've chosen to enslave yourself within.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:21PM (12 children)

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:21PM (#523901)

      You're confusing an industrial era financing technology arguably past its prime with a political system.

      You're better off with a nice monarchy, neoreactionary style. Like the brits but with teeth.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:32PM (7 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:32PM (#523903)

        How does a monarchy have anything to do with ensuring that future decisions are likely made by people who have had a history of making profitable decisions?

        Indeed, a monarchy (especially one with "teeth") is based on the principle of coercion, rather than on voluntary agreement in advance of interaction; that's a principle that capitalism rejects, and that has no place in civilized society.

        • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:42PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:42PM (#523909)

          Exactly! I propose an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We should take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week, but all the decisions of that officer should have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs or a two-thirds majority for diplomatic affairs.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:09PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:09PM (#523935)

            That's not capitalism. Fail.

        • (Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:50PM (4 children)

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:50PM (#523910)

          How does a monarchy have anything to do with ensuring that future decisions are likely made by people who have had a history of making profitable decisions?

          Successful monarchies have stable internal opposition keeping on their feet.

          Decrepit disaster monarchies have no internal opposition keep them in line, turn their countries into hellholes until the revolution violently deposes them.

          That's why you want something more like a constitutional monarchy and less like a 3rd world dictatorship.

          Make the right decision or end up dead. Seems a fair tradeoff, absolute power to rule, but if you screw up its off with your head.

          Much better than our current system of corporations have absolute power to rule, and if they mess up, too bad for us they certainly aren't getting punished.

          that's a principle that capitalism rejects,

          Again this weird fixation on "all the world's a marketplace" and if you found a hammer that works really well at pounding down financial problems then it somehow miraculously is also the best and only hammer for diplomatic alliances and treaties, or comically the government regulation of itself as a market LOL. Its weird, by analogy its like latching on to a well understood and successful technology like double entry bookkeeping or thermodynamics and declaring thats how the supreme court should rule itself or thats how treaties should be negotiated. Sort of a relativity principle, like law of physics A works over location X so moving it to location Y should continue to work much as a financial industrial corporate funding mechanism works, so using it to define social policy, lets say health care or national defense, must by definition continue to work, right?

          Certainly, England in the 1800s is a better model of political governance than Somalia today, or the USA today.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:13PM (3 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:13PM (#523940)

            Both involve governance on the principle of coercion "Do as I say", rather than on the principle that interaction follows rules to which the parties agree in advance.

            Indeed, Somalia is the result of a failed communist state, and the warlords that have taken over are just another form of the governmental mindset ("do as I say"); however, it should be noted that in the absence of a strong government, the quality in life among Somalians has skyrocketed, and this mainly due to people being allowed to pursue their own self-interest according to the capitalistic markets that naturally evolve around flows of resources.

            Capitalism is what makes a society productive, even if people don't realize it; governments are merely parasites on this productivity.

            • (Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:45PM

              by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:45PM (#523971)

              The only disagreement I have with your otherwise pretty good post is the mischaracterization of a constitutional monarchy as being purely coercive and not following agreed upon rules.

              There's a big difference between a military dictatorship and a constitutional monarchy for example. Although superficially both my involve some dude declaring himself "king". In some constitutional monarchies the king is not technically self declared.

            • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:34PM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:34PM (#524024)

              Indeed, Somalia is the result of a failed communist state, and the warlords that have taken over are just another form of the governmental mindset ("do as I say"); however, it should be noted that in the absence of a strong government, the quality in life among Somalians has skyrocketed, and this mainly due to people being allowed to pursue their own self-interest according to the capitalistic markets that naturally evolve around flows of resources.

              I dare you to say that to a Somali person. It's hard for me to predict if they would fall to the floor in paroxysms of laughter or try to kill you. I could see it going either way.

              • (Score: 2) by Wootery on Monday June 12 2017, @08:24AM

                by Wootery (2341) on Monday June 12 2017, @08:24AM (#524196)

                Got a source, AC?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:34PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:34PM (#523905)

        Hmm, informal list of attributes the king should have:

        • Philosopher
        • Healing hands (this one is important! you have to have healing hands to be king, you know)
        • In-depth knowledge of swallows
      • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday June 12 2017, @12:35AM (1 child)

        by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Monday June 12 2017, @12:35AM (#524050)

        You're better off with a nice monarchy, neoreactionary style. Like the brits but with teeth.

        Which is what the Brits had as soon as the Romans left.

        What they wound up with was 15 centuries (more or less) of war.

        • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 12 2017, @11:45AM

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 12 2017, @11:45AM (#524287)

          What they wound up with was 15 centuries (more or less) of war.

          The fault of the Danes and Franks. Internally they had some impressive civil wars but proportionately very small amount of time.

      • (Score: 3, Touché) by Wootery on Monday June 12 2017, @09:19AM

        by Wootery (2341) on Monday June 12 2017, @09:19AM (#524226)

        Like the brits but with teeth.

        Can't tell if that's a dig at my country's dentistry, or international influence. Not wrong on either count.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:37PM (13 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:37PM (#523906)

      The average human USian is as dumb as a pile of bricks

      FTFY

      • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:40PM (12 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:40PM (#523908)

        Bullshit.

        Stupidity is universal. Just look at the political turmoil in the EU as one example.

        • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @08:55PM (9 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @08:55PM (#523926)

          Also remember, if not for US occupation, Europe would still be in its continual state of war that goes back thousands of years. Let's not mince meat on who the peacekeepers are.

          • (Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:12PM (8 children)

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:12PM (#523937) Journal

            Also remember, if not for US occupation, Europe would still be in its continual state of war that goes back thousands of years.

            Well, I admit: war is a continuous preoccupation of US [wikipedia.org]; sometimes it just happens to be on the right side; a number game, can't be always wrong.

            Let's not mince meat on who the peacekeepers are.

            I'm sorry, I tried my best, I simply cannot "Grin Out Loudly".
            Would a LOL be good enough for your effort?

            --
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:35PM (7 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:35PM (#523962)

              Laugh it up, monkey boy. Just try to understand what would happen to Europe if the US were ever to pull out. You would call it world war 3. I see it as the end of a 71 year old truce. Granted the 'peace' I am talking about was the same kind enjoyed in the Soviet client states before the fall, a 'peace' only maintained by an irresistible force. But for Europe it's peace, something that never has lasted this long before. A collapse of the US empire will completely devastate them, and all the old bullshit would flare right back up again.

              As for the US iteslf, in most cases , especially in the middle east right now, they are mostly just muscle, money, and weapons. The policy is definitely British. It has always been their story of their relationship (along with Italy and France) with the region.

              • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:14PM (6 children)

                by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:14PM (#523990) Journal

                Just try to understand what would happen to Europe if the US were ever to pull out.

                Oh, but it will happen soon. Trump already reneged on a treaty.

                Result? Merkel started to establish a closer relation with South America: "walls will not solve the problem of illegal immigration" Mexico; "Merkel discussed bilateral commerce and efforts to strike a deal with the Mercosur grouping of South American countries" - Argentina.

                Stay tuned for more and we'll see what Macron does, he's a globalist, he's bound to try something.
                I'm betting for some Africa relations, perhaps Morocco/Algeria for a start, an attempt to stabilize Libya later?
                It's only a "loser buys a beer" bet, but it will be interesting.

                --
                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:41PM (5 children)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:41PM (#523999)

                  South America? Please! You think they can settle a European dispute the way the US does? And besides, South America, with all its corruption, certainly has no ideals to look up to. Sorry, for peace in Europe, the US is truly the indispensable nation. Nobody else comes close. The numbers speak for themselves.

                  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:58PM (3 children)

                    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:58PM (#524012) Journal

                    Sorry, for peace in Europe, the US is truly the indispensable nation.

                    European disputes? Whatever you are smoking, I don't want any of it.

                    The single problem there is the access to Black/Mediterranean sea and "no man's land" Putin wants around Russia. For the latest, it has Moldavia and (de facto) has East Ukraine.

                    --
                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @04:13AM (2 children)

                      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @04:13AM (#524115)

                      See? Already you people forgot what had to be done less than 20 years ago (and who had to do it) in the old Yugoslavia to keep that from spreading. Without the USA Austria/Hungary would spring back to life. Europe has always been a powder keg, and the only thing keeping the lid on, and the Russians at bay is the USofA. This, and Asia (Japan is also occupied territory) is why the defense budget has to be so huge.

                      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @09:01AM

                        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @09:01AM (#524217)

                        Definitely, you are USian and stupid.

                      • (Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday June 12 2017, @10:09AM

                        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 12 2017, @10:09AM (#524246) Journal

                        See? Already you people forgot what had to be done less than 20 years ago (and who had to do it) in the old Yugoslavia to keep that from spreading

                        Without the USA, Kosovo would not have happened [huffingtonpost.com]:

                        Throughout most of the 1990s, the oppressed ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo waged their struggle almost exclusively nonviolently, using strikes, boycotts, peaceful demonstrations, and alternative institutions. The Kosovar Albanians even set up a democratically elected parallel government to provide schooling and social services, and to press their cause to the outside world.

                        Indeed, it was one of the most widespread, comprehensive, and sustained nonviolent campaigns since Gandhi’s struggle for Indian independence. This was the time for Western powers to have engaged in preventative diplomacy. However, the world chose to ignore the Kosovars’ nonviolent movement and resisted consistent pleas by the moderate Kosovar Albanian leadership to take action. It was only after a shadowy armed group known as the Kosovo Liberation Army emerged in 1998 that the international media, the Clinton administration and other Western governments finally took notice.

                        By waiting for the emergence of guerrilla warfare before seeking a solution, the West gave Serbia’s autocratic president Slobodan Milosevic the opportunity to crack down with an even greater level of savagery than before
                        ....
                        It’s a tragedy that the West squandered a full eight years when preventative diplomacy could have worked. The United States rejected calls for expanding missions set up by the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Kosovo, or to bring Kosovo constituencies together for negotiations. Waiting for a full-scale armed insurrection to break out before acting has also given oppressed people around the world a very bad message: Nonviolent methods will fail and, in order to get the West to pay attention to your plight, you need to take up arms.

                        If it is something that US has done in Yugoslavia, it is creating a Putin unwilling to accept NATO close to Russia border [sldinfo.com] - this is why today's situation in East Ukraine.

                        --
                        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
                  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by MostCynical on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:47PM

                    by MostCynical (2589) on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:47PM (#524030) Journal

                    So, who exactly is the US presence deterring?
                    Turkey?
                    Russia?

                    What exactly did the US do when Russia moved on the Crimea?
                    How is Erdogan going?

                    --
                    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
        • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:02PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:02PM (#523927)

          Stupidity is universal.

          Its distribution is not uniform, some geographies claim a higher proportion.

          Just look at the political turmoil in the EU as one example.

          Are you stup.. errr... USian?
          I'm looking there and, with the exception of UK, all the other countries are doing fine on this front.

          France rejected LePen, Angela Merkel holds well, I don't hear anything unusual from Spain, Netherlands (who ejected some Turkish govt persons for campaigning for Erdogan) is fine, no political turmoil in Scandinavian countries (monarchies, no less), no political churning in Italy or Poland, Austria and Switzerland have never been quieter (in spite of Richard Hammond hitting his head again), the Czech chicks are gorgeous as usual, even Greece and Balkans are quiet. Possible eyebrows raising... Romanian president meets Trump; doh, that's stupid!

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:59PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:59PM (#523978)

            France - Had a close call. But it won't matter because if Macron won't deal with the problems. More terror will deal with him.
            Germany - CDU is uneasy by the growth of AfD which has grown like 14% in 2 years.
            Netherlands - PVV is growing. And "Denk" growing at all will upset many and be the proof that their country is under siege.
            Scandinavia - Finns Party, Sweden Democrats, Progress Party, Danish People's Party etc all of them are historically successful in the elections.
            Italy - Five Star Movement on the move according to polls ~30% ?
            Poland - Law and Justice, majority
            Austria - Austrian People's Party on the way up according to polls ~32%
            Switzerland - Swiss People's Party, majority and "In its immigration policy the party commits itself to make asylum laws stricter and to reduce immigration."

            So immigrants cause a lot of violence and costs. Immigrant critical parties are gaining ground on the continent. There IS turmoil. It might not just be so visible, yet. It's like a pressure cooker where very little happens during the heating phase.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @08:06PM (11 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @08:06PM (#523915)

      > Capitalism is the only real solution

      We should first implement it, to test your assertion. The problem being, as soon as a player in the free market gets strong enough, wants the freedom to end, and succeeds.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:16PM (10 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:16PM (#523946)
        • As soon as a player acts in such a fashion, then that is no longer an example of capitalism.

        • If a monopolistic player is so dangerous, then why are you so eager to make government a monopolistic player? It makes no sense!

        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:04PM (9 children)

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:04PM (#523985) Journal

          As soon as a player acts in such a fashion, then that is no longer an example of capitalism.

          Ah, so that's where I misplaced my true Scotsman, thanks for bringing it back.

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:12PM (8 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:12PM (#523989)

            The outcome given does not match the definition of capitalism; it is an example of behavior that is forbidden under capitalism.

            There has been no implicit re-statement of capitalism or moving of the goal posts, or whatever.

            • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:23PM (7 children)

              by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:23PM (#523994) Journal

              it is an example of behavior that is forbidden under capitalism.

              Without a guarantor, there's nobody to forbid that behaviour.
              With a guarantor strong enough to forbid it, you slide back into "violently imposition monopoly" (or "corporatist war", much worse than "state war" - for corporations, humans are just resources).

              You are advertising an utopia, in the best case.

              --
              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:43PM (6 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:43PM (#524001)

                Your answer makes no sense; if a monopoly is so dangerous, then why would you ever want to bless and ordain an organization ("government") with a monopoly on violence??? That's insane!

                Your solution depends upon men (specifically, governmental bureaucrats) being angels: "a corporatist war is much worse than a state war, because for corporations, humans are just resources". You have no basis for assuming that dependency will be met—you've pulled it right out of your arse; you are advertising a utopia, in the best case.

                Clearly, the solution is (as always) checks and balances; when it comes to providing the service of contract enforcement (or being a "guarantor", as you put it), then there must be competition, not an ordained and blessed monopoly. That is one of the reasons why there is not (and never will be) One World Government; the world is a much safer place when there is competition among the governments.

                • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:48PM (2 children)

                  by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:48PM (#524006) Journal

                  Clearly, the solution is (as always) checks and balances; when it comes to providing the service of contract enforcement (or being a "guarantor", as you put it), then there must be competition, not an ordained and blessed monopoly.

                  Ah, so you reckon corporatist wars are better.

                  --
                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:06PM (1 child)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:06PM (#524014)
                    • I'm recognizing that a "corporate war" is no worse than a "governmental war".

                    • War is at its worst when it is not restricted by any kind of agreement; a war that breaks out between organizations that are founded on the "do-as-I-say" principle of coercion is likely to be much worse than a war that breaks out between organizations that have arisen under the "do-as-we-agreed" principle of capitalism.

                    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:53PM

                      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:53PM (#524033) Journal

                      a war that breaks out between organizations that are founded on the "do-as-I-say" principle of coercion is likely to be much worse than a war that breaks out between organizations that have arisen under the "do-as-we-agreed" principle of capitalism.

                      I doubt that. When an agreement breaks down, usually the parts invoke "you tricked me..." or "you forced me into a result that's detrimental".
                      When it happens, if violence is an option, at least one of the parties will try to use it. The stronger party (i.e. the one capable of most violence or the one that can afford the best mercenaries - your "private enforcers"), wins.
                      Guess what? Next time the winner will try the same course of actions - its prev experience and reputation pushes it towards.
                      Even if it's a Pyrrhic victory, others will do the same - because the annual shareholders meeting lets them no choice - in a dispute, it's either win or die trying.
                      At least govts can capitulate to spare its citizens, the corporates cannot.

                      --
                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
                • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:44PM (1 child)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:44PM (#524029)

                  "a corporatist war is much worse than a state war, because for corporations, humans are just resources"

                  You are clueless about today's military and your ignorance of recent history is just plain astounding.

                  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by MostCynical on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:52PM

                    by MostCynical (2589) on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:52PM (#524032) Journal

                    Governments get voted out, if the people don't like the war/overseas incursions/whatever, it happens quite suddenly (UK after WWII, Australia sith Vietnam)

                    Who votes the corporations out, when the war gets too ugly for the citizens? The shareholders (not if there is profit and dividend!)

                    --
                    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @05:45PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @05:45PM (#524529)

                  Your solution depends on all men being angels instead of some men.

    • (Score: 2) by Weasley on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:06PM (5 children)

      by Weasley (6421) on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:06PM (#523930)

      Capitalism is the only real solution: The weight of a person's "vote" depends on how productive that person's previous "votes" have been.

      Except that this system inevitably leaves the people at the top with the only vote that matters. Those people are self serving and don't care about the dumb as bricks people and exploit them. All of the knowledge, science, goods, and infrastructure is created by (or directly sprouts from) dumb as bricks people. That is why democracy is important; it gives a voice to the dumb as bricks people. The elite are parasites that live of the fruits of the dumb as bricks people. They're not actually needed. There's always someone new from the dumb as bricks class to replace them.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:19PM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:19PM (#523948)

        You are confusing two groups:

        • The people who become elite through the "do as I say" coercion of governmentalism.
        • The people who become elite through the "do as we agree" markets of capitalism.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:39PM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:39PM (#523997)

          Have you not had enough modern examples of corporations turning monopolistic the very moment they can get away with it? Jeebus you're one of the bricks huh?

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @01:24AM (2 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @01:24AM (#524075)

            See the thread here. [soylentnews.org]

            • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @05:30AM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @05:30AM (#524131)

              So when it fails you'll claim that the people in power dropped capitalism and thus it wasn't the ideologies fault... Wow. Just. Wow.

              Humans will never respect an ideology "just cause", and so you will always end up with people trying to game the system. So we must try and set upa system that makes it difficult for one person to gain too much power. We aren't there yet, but democracy is the first step.

              Oh ya, and you're either old and crazy or young and naive, anything else is stupid.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @02:05PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @02:05PM (#524398)

                Governments cannot be further reformed; democracy is the last step in governmentalism.

                The next step is market competition in those sectors of society that have come to be viewed as the purview of government.

    • (Score: 2) by letssee on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:09PM (2 children)

      by letssee (2537) on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:09PM (#523934)

      Hell yes, capitalism is the way to go! Lets just abandon the idea of democracy altogether and just appoint Donald Trump as dictator for life because he is *rich* so he must be smart. /s

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:21PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:21PM (#523949)

        Neither "appoint as dictator" nor "rich implies smart" has anything to with what was said about voting, or with capitalism.

        So... what the hell are you banging on about?

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by isostatic on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:25PM

        by isostatic (365) on Sunday June 11 2017, @11:25PM (#524020) Journal

        Trump isn't rich, that's the whole point

    • (Score: 2) by vux984 on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:48PM (4 children)

      by vux984 (5045) on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:48PM (#524005)

      Capitalism is the only real solution: The weight of a person's "vote" depends on how productive that person's previous "votes" have been.

      This is just stupid on so many levels. You'd have to institute a 100% estate tax, and abolish all sorts of wealth transfers, trust funds, not to mention charities just to begin to have a system that doesn't weigh your vote on how productive someone ELSES previous votes have been. Then you'd need to wait a generation to start. And all that to prop up a system that rewards profiteering over any sort of intelligence... the person who gets away with stealing the most is the most important voter? the biggest pollutor? the shadiest casino operator? the slummiest landlord... they get the most votes?

      That is why democracy is a terrible idea; it gives equal voices to unequal people.

      You are actually quite right there. But *any* system of trying to assign weights to those voices to solve the problem is catastrophically worse.

      The best we can do is try to raise the average humans education level; and ensure they have enough free time and comfort to take more of an enlightened interest in politics.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @01:39AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @01:39AM (#524081)

        Nope. Inheritance is a legitimate bet/vote on the heir.

        If a self-made billionaire becomes incapacitated due to illness, he may transfer control of his capital to his son until he recovers—that is a bet that the billionaire makes on his son; he bets that his son will be a good steward of the decision-making power that such capital provides... but he could be wrong. This is no different than when the billionaire dies, and transfers that capital to his son as an inheritance.

        From here [soylentnews.org]:

        • People don't just hand resources to wealthy individuals; it must be maintained.

          If some playboy inherits wealth, then his bad bets means he will squander it away—which happens all the time! Good riddance to the fool! His decision-making power is being stripped away, saving the rest of society from enduring his idiotic allocation of resources.

          More to the point, though, what if he lives on the interest from his bank balance? Well, that interest money doesn't just come from nowhere: It comes from the fact that skilled people at a bank are making good bets with the capital that is made available by the playboy; if the playboy remains profitable in this fashion, then he is making a decent bet! Society is benefiting from his stewardship of that wealth, no matter how indirect that stewardship might be.

        • Poor people are not just potentially wealthy people who have happened to fall on hard times; for one, you'll notice that poor people tend to have a whole lot more children than wealthy people, and they tend to be much more obese, and suffer from indulgence-induced medical troubles (obesity, alcoholism, lung cancer, etc.); this seems totally backwards until you realize something: The vast majority of poor people are pretty damn stupid. Guess what? IQ testing bears this out; poor people are significantly dumber than even the middle class.

          This is why Democracy is a terrible idea: The fool's vote carries as much weight as the scholar's; the more that the dregs participate in decision-making, the more a society descends into socialism, and the quicker the whole machine goes tits up. It happens over and over and over throughout history. Keep the proles away from the controls.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @04:29PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @04:29PM (#524475)

          More insanity from the clueless department!

          "People don't just hand resources to wealthy individuals; it must be maintained."

          Once you get rich enough you can invest your money in pretty safe stuff and hire people to run everything. All the rich person has to do is make sure there bank balance matches reality close enough so they can catch embezzlement.

          #2: you're just a bigot who likes imagining that science has validated your bigotry. There have been plenty of smart people who fucked up and plenty of dumb people who have made the world a better place. Wisdom and intelligence are not always correlated. It doesn't take a genius to choose how to live, or how to set up government. Example: the current idiots trying to run things. Get your perversion of Natural Selection out of here! Go back to your basement and measure the brain capacities of dead people with some walnuts or something.

      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday June 12 2017, @08:16AM (1 child)

        by kaszz (4211) on Monday June 12 2017, @08:16AM (#524194) Journal

        the person who gets away with stealing the most is the most important voter? the biggest pollutor? the shadiest casino operator? the slummiest landlord... they get the most votes?

        The one that can publish the most valued scientific articles in a science that can stand up to deterministic falsification?
        Inventions?
        Plain IQ test?

        Ie there could be other ways than money to assign influence weight.

        • (Score: 2) by vux984 on Tuesday June 13 2017, @03:26PM

          by vux984 (5045) on Tuesday June 13 2017, @03:26PM (#524953)

          Of course there could be "other ways" to assign weight to a vote, but they're all terrible.

          "The one that can publish the most valued scientific articles in a science that can stand up to deterministic falsification?"

          Who decides the most valued scientific articles? And science is already often very political; if being deemed 'valuable' by some sort of 'valuation process' gave your votes more weight (ie power) it would be extremely competitive ... not to produce good science, just to produce more 'valuable articles', 'influence the valuation rules', etc...

          "Plain IQ test"

          Who writes the test? Who approves which questions are on it? Who decides when its free enough of cutural or racial biases? Political biases? Which languages can it be taken in? (ie are we testing your english fluency or your IQ? -- they aren't the same thing.) How high should the weighting on abstract maths be vs linguistic prowess? Who administers the test? Will their be a national holiday to take the test or will poor people need to take time off work and risk losing their job to travel to testing sites chosen to be difficult to reach by public transit, where they will be required to present a valid passport and two letters of reference? Can you go to any test center, or do you need to preregister, and then visit a specific center? How will the test content be kept secret and how will it be updated to prevent people from just memorizing the test or teaching to the test... will the administrators of the test be disallowed from voting since they will have access to the recources to the answer keys...? How do you deal with cheating?

          The *concept* of a voter test, to assure that people are some how qualified to vote isn't bad... but any implementation of that concept is such a minefield of implementation issues that one misstep results in massive disenfranchisement; and there will be lots of interest groups actively seeking to tilt things for or against various other groups.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @03:06PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @03:06PM (#524431)

      Capitalism is the only real solution: The weight of a person's "vote" depends on how productive that person's previous "votes" have been.

      As some have already implied, 'productive' is not really capitalism, profit is. But in either case you run into bad incentives, at least from my perspective. The end goal of being the most 'productive' is using up all resources as fast as possible and wasting as much as possible. On a global scale that is not only stupid, it is also insane. The end goal of actual capitalism is just like the game monopoly. One person has all the money and everyone else loses. Goto sentence four.

  • (Score: 0, Troll) by VLM on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:29PM (4 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:29PM (#523902)

    the US science community

    My guess is they're not who they say they are.

    The problem with a bunch of scientists becoming a mere mouthpiece of one political party is last century they ended up causing a mixture of destruction and laughing stock.

    to the potentially dire consequences of continued carbon emissions

    We know the effect of ending them is even worse, mass death on a global scale at best. Mixed with a large dose of feel good that does nothing to solve the problem.

    Speaking of

    dire consequences

    there's a large cultural gap in how the political parties prep for "dire consequences" so asking the right wing to basically suicide the country and give the world economy to someone else not dumb enough to suicide (China, Russia, take your pick) isn't going to sell well to the right. Meanwhile the left none of whom took any STEM classes in college sees symbolic acts as being more important than scientific results, so the natural response to global warming is to brag on twitter about how you bought a new Prius and thats all you need to do, to show your superiority at social status signalling on the topic of global warming. It won't actually help the situation at all, which for the left is good because that means more meaningless status signalling.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:07PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:07PM (#523931)

      Mass death on a global scale would be best! Man! Nothing would be better than to be able to prune about 6 billion off the planet. Just keep the Aussies, Canadians (except this time let's grant Quebec its separation) and Americans (well, the better ones anyway) and Germany and Scandinavia... okay, and a few Brits, Scots, and Irishmen, what the hell. But that's it!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @03:09PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @03:09PM (#524434)

        But only the true irishmen?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:28PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:28PM (#523955)

      An entire post of partisan bullshit.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @04:32PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @04:32PM (#524476)

        Yup, that's VLM for you.

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:33PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:33PM (#523904)

    I can't believe there's so much disinformation out there against climate change! Don't these people know that there's already scientific consensus? As we all know, once a bunch of scientists agree on something, it's fact and you can't argue anymore. So if Al Gore tells us that the polar ice caps are going to melt by 2011, then THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED! No, shut up, you didn't see any ice. It's all gone. When the New York Times predicts that "snow" is just a story that you can tell your children about, and that very same year they are blanketed in a gigantic blizzard, you have to hit yourself in the head until you no longer remember this. It's the best way and keeps Gaia appeased.

    • (Score: 5, Touché) by theluggage on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:13PM (1 child)

      by theluggage (1797) on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:13PM (#523939)

      So if Al Gore tells us that the polar ice caps are going to melt by 2011

      Ah, yes, that famous climate scientist Professor Al Gore. Yes, lets take his "inspired by real scientists" speeches as the yardstick by which to judge the actual scientific evidence. I mean, its 2017 and the ice caps are still there. OK, they may have retreated to a record extent, and even archive sites specifically chosen for their permafrost [slashdot.org] have turned out to be not so perma after all . ...but, hey, a leading after-dinner speaker said they'd be gone so global warming must be wrong.

      So, lets not do anything to avert a possible catastrophe until the scientists can guarantee that it will happen on October 15 2024, just before teatime (GMT) - while they're at it, why don't we have them predict the next 5 years baseball results so we can place some bets and raise a bit of cash to tackle the issue. Because, if its a false alarm, we'll end up with all of these leftover irreplaceable fossil fuels that can only be used for making plastics, drugs, agricultural chemicals etc. when we could have burned them instead.

      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 12 2017, @12:05AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 12 2017, @12:05AM (#524037) Journal

        OK, they may have retreated to a record extent

        Larsen C [abc.net.au]

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by julian on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:54PM (20 children)

    by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:54PM (#523913)

    None of this bullshit propaganda would have worked if people hadn't been primed for it. The Right has spent the last several decades nurturing a culture of illiteracy and skepticism of the utility of science itself among their base. These chickens are finally coming home and we see the complete collapse of anything we used to call "conservative" values. The Right in this country is bankrupt; epistemically, morally, politically, ideologically.

    There's a reason the more educated you become the more liberal you tend to be. It has little to do with any inherit great attractor that liberalism has for smart people. The effect is actually a repulsive force coming from the other direction. A culture that demeans education and rewards credulity will not produce many individuals destined for great academic achievements.

    Climate change is real. It's at least heavily influenced by human activity. We have the ability to reorganize our economy and our civilization to fight it. There's so much doubt about this because that doubt has been deliberately implanted in parts of the population by people who stand to lose the most from this societal reorganization away from fossil fuels.

    Thankfully, the political winds are changing. Support for the Paris Accords is above 50% in every state--even West Virginia. And even if our Federal Government has been temporarily hijacked the individual states are taking up the task of implementing the agreement.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by digitalaudiorock on Sunday June 11 2017, @08:02PM (1 child)

      by digitalaudiorock (688) on Sunday June 11 2017, @08:02PM (#523914) Journal

      Not sure why someone troll modded you on this one...it probably hit a little too close to home. I only see one party here with guys spewing apocalyptic shit about how God will fix this if it's meant to get fixed etc. I mean ffs already.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @07:14AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @07:14AM (#524172)

        Yes "ffs already" describes the majority of US citizens. We are still trying to convince supposedly intelligent people about climate change, but the propaganda is so strong that it is a very difficult task. I'm tired of dealing with uneducated angry people, but giving up doesn't help anything either.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by VLM on Sunday June 11 2017, @08:09PM (3 children)

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 11 2017, @08:09PM (#523916)

      We have the ability to reorganize our economy and our civilization to fight it.

      OK, with you so far.

      Support for the Paris Accords

      Whoops, we're doomed. The Paris Accords accomplish nothing other than slightly increasing poverty and suffering.

      As a religion, progressivism is past its best use date. It wasn't necessarily always that rancid, but it is now. So when a challenge appears, the indoctrinated religious response is idiocy like the Paris Accords.

      Just like no one likes sick cows, and if your religion is dysfunctional, you end up with the Salem witch trials. What, don't you care about sick cows? We all do, don't we? We gotta kill more witches, and fast!

      Now rather than discussing the real problem or various solutions, we can discuss how we need to increase indoctrination levels because elimination of "wrong" religious beliefs is the new American constitution and if all of us were true believers then, um, the problem still wouldn't get fixed, but at least we would all believe the same thing.

      Obviously we need more progressive indoctrination to "fix" global warming. Isn't that how our grandparents got to the moon, they checked their privileges and stack ranked their relative victimhoods and status signalled their devout belief, all the way to the moon. I mean isn't that how the real world of astrophysics and rocket science and shit works? I mean if that works, wouldn't checking my privilege really hard magically fix a leaky faucet?

      • (Score: 2) by julian on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:11PM (2 children)

        by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:11PM (#523936)

        Your conception of the left seems to be based on YouTube rage bait videos of idiot college kids embarrassing themselves. I can't take you seriously.

        • (Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:36PM (1 child)

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:36PM (#523963)

          They're the uncensored future... and they're not much of a break with the past. So if I agreed with the observation, which I don't necessarily do, then they'd be admissible anyway.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @07:33AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @07:33AM (#524183)

            Ugh, you are simply portraying a caricature of how the "right" views the "left". Only a miniscule number of people actually play out the "check your privileges" crap, and I'd bet 99% of that shit is on college campuses where people are figuring out how to be adults. Progressivism isn't a religion unlike the "right" which actually pushes a real religion. Try again, your projecting needs therapy.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @08:10PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @08:10PM (#523917)

      > The Right has spent the last several decades nurturing a culture of illiteracy and skepticism.

      Probably. Meanwhile the left says exactly the same thing no matter who, where or when. Which means that what they say is self evident truth or groupthink propaganda. Self evident truth means they are never wrong. They are (see "terrorists are desperate outcasts, that's why they hit us"). QED

      I can count the leftists that actually use their head on a single hand, in my country.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @08:30PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @08:30PM (#523920)

        Yeah not a lot of liberals in Mother Russia huh?

    • (Score: 2) by Lagg on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:38PM (3 children)

      by Lagg (105) on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:38PM (#523965) Homepage Journal

      I'm quickly losing energy to try to keep up with the politics discussion and be the "So yeah I'm rural and trying to empathize with other rural people" guy so forgive this if it's short and rambling. I didn't develop the political and philosophical mindset I have from "liberalism" (I don't know what it means anymore beyond textbook definitions). I developed it by co-existing with the target audience of conservative republicans my whole life.

      It is indeed a repulsive force, and you fucking hit the hammer on the head by terming it that way and in your overall point. Having a seed of critical thinking or doubt is often all it takes to turn people towards a more progressive mindset because that is simply how densely suffocating the manipulation is.

      Most religious households here already preach a culture of ignorance. Because it's good to have blind faith in God. For whatever reason is convenient to the person saying it at the time. Also, every school I went to up until 9th had kids that would make fun of each other for being smart. And I had a teacher that said that in society you are either a wimp or a barbarian with nothing in between (sound familiar? snowflakes/turrists, cucks/badhombres, liberals/isis). Arizona. Murika. Land of fucking mouthbreathers.

      --
      http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:44PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:44PM (#524002)

        But what is often ignored is there is a *HUGE* amount of similiarly ignorant Conservativism here, and that neither side realizes that they are both being led by financially established players for the gain of the ruling socio-economic class, not their own.

        It is sad to think that after the fighting of the 60s that intellectualism in both the Liberal and Conservative circles has declined to such a level that it better represents the Raiders and Giants fans booing and jeering at each other rather than the conflicts of two dissenting intellectual parties.

        • (Score: 2) by Lagg on Monday June 12 2017, @12:35AM

          by Lagg (105) on Monday June 12 2017, @12:35AM (#524051) Homepage Journal

          This is true. And the ugly politics that lead to Trump and the current situation were created by the most hardcore "liberals" and "democrats". They're the same as each other just with different sets of gross prejudices that they refer to as "values".

          Problem is though, it's easy for me to utterly loathe Obama for what he did to expand surveillance and any number of steps that were then utilized by Trump to continue the slow march to fascism. But he was stealthy about it. Just like Clinton would have been. They have good PR. And their cult base prefers to let passive aggressiveness, exclusion masked as inclusion, elitism masked as open mindedness and intelligence as a virtue define their character.

          Per the above, the people I grew up around and still deal with are generally of the religious disposition. Trump and the republican party encourages faith over thinking on a very active basis. His cult has already been doing that for a long time. They don't like different people because they've only ever experienced Cholos trying to pick fights with them. Because places like this aren't exactly cultural centers of acceptance and progressiveness. The latinos and blacks that are smart either had friends before or used this state like it should be: Flyover fodder. The ones remaining have given up on life as a whole and have nothing left in their life but spite to fill their day.

          I hate identity politics and those utter retards in california and co. that will never in history take responsibility for what they did to us this election. Don't get me wrong. I hate the blatant racism towards acceptable targets. I hate rare skin colors being used as stage props. But I would rather deal with elitist pricks thinking they're smarter than me and looking at me like I'm crazy than people who wear their ignorance and obedience to the Jeebus while Fox News easily manipulates them [foxnews.com] with a centuries old play performed in the format all modern theater is (Kevin Spacey with Gadafi shades for the fucking win).

          --
          http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday June 12 2017, @08:25AM

        by kaszz (4211) on Monday June 12 2017, @08:25AM (#524197) Journal

        every school I went to up until 9th had kids that would make fun of each other for being smart

        That is to ensure we have as many smart people as we can ;-)

        Hopefully more parents will take a dim view on this and act decisively.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:42PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @10:42PM (#524000)

      Climate change is real.

      A snowfall in June does cast a doubt on the change being a warming ;) but OK.

      It's at least heavily influenced by human activity.

      The multiple previous changes weren't, for lack of humans ;) but OK.

      We have the ability to reorganize our economy and our civilization to fight it.

      Wildly optimistic given our total failure to "reorganize" for any other cause ;) but OK.

      But now - WHAT gives you idea that pouring our limited resources into "fighting it" on our present tech level, instead of into raising that level to do it more efficiently later, would result in a "win" and not in a fatal failure?
      Please explain.

      • (Score: 2) by KGIII on Monday June 12 2017, @12:58AM

        by KGIII (5261) on Monday June 12 2017, @12:58AM (#524059) Journal

        No. A snowfall in June doesn't mean AGW is falsified. AGW is about trends and is global.

        Sort of related, the changing climate can mean all sorts of neat things. Some areas will, likely, end up cooler than they used to be, as currents and wind patterns change. Someone claiming the CA drought was due to AGW is wrong, and someone saying a specific hurricane is due to AGW is also wrong.

        --
        "So long and thanks for all the fish."
      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 12 2017, @10:26AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 12 2017, @10:26AM (#524252) Journal

        A snowfall in June does cast a doubt on the change being a warming ;) but OK.

        That snowflake in June is the icecube in the Arctic melting down and sending cold water your way.
        When that ice cube finishes melting, you'll be lucky to have rain in winter, say goodbye to it on summer and hope you'll enjoy your fire season in Montana.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @04:42PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @04:42PM (#524483)

        The multiple previous changes weren't, for lack of humans ;) but OK.

        This is true, but those previous changes occurred over a longer period of time and have different characteristics. None of that precludes human industry from being a major factor today.

        There is a tipping point where the atmospheric changes accelerate and our problems become much worse. It is like cancer, if you wait for the miracle cure instead of starting chemotherapy you will likely be dead before it is ready. At some point you can not fix the problem. If we get massive shifts in weather patterns we could have a global food shortage, droughts, and potentially flooding of high population areas near sea level. We have had the tech, there is no need to raise it to a new level. What we need is for the obstructionist greedy turds to get out of the way and stop spreading propaganda that gets people to fight against their own interest!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @05:49PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @05:49PM (#524535)

        Snowfall? It didn't happen here so you're lying. We're having a heat wave right now, which by the same logic proves global warming.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 12 2017, @12:11AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 12 2017, @12:11AM (#524040) Journal

      The Right in this country is bankrupt; epistemically, morally, politically, ideologically.

      What's more - the fact that USian "left"** is not much better doesn't help either, only another aroma of the same shit.
      You really should hit that reset button, a pity it's not so easy to find.

      ---

      ** USA doesn't actually have a political left. Sanders would have been a centre-left (but I don't think the political swamp would have let him step so far, probably he'd have succeeded a centre at the best).

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 12 2017, @02:55AM (1 child)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday June 12 2017, @02:55AM (#524098)

      Bullshit propaganda has been around forever. The pirate/swindler Gregor MacGregor comes to mind, taking a well manned fort without firing a shot by spreading disinformation that he had a huge army ready to invade, getting the garrison to abandon the fort then taking it with his much smaller force - once inside they could easily hold off the force that had just abandoned it. This happened almost 200 years ago today, using gossip spread in a bar.

      Both sides of any major issue play the game, there is no "high ground" only posturing and targeting. Those who are truly holding the high ground (impossible to identify in most major fracas) are drowned out by the well-intentioned "on their side" doing whatever it takes to win the political war.

      Climate change, environment, toxins, health care, economics, finance, international intrigue - you can spot the liars: they are the ones whose lips are moving.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday June 12 2017, @08:28AM

        by kaszz (4211) on Monday June 12 2017, @08:28AM (#524199) Journal

        Public people needing propaganda money, fame or screaming as in local protests too often have nothing to say. So looking for speakers force multipliers tend to be a good sign of the lips that moves..

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