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[ED NOTE: Editors discussed whether we should even run this story. I decided to take a chance. BUT, it's up to the community how this goes. Feel free to downmod comments that attack the *commenter* rather than *add* something to the discussion.--martyb]
Growing extremism can and has turned almost anything into a political struggle in which people pay diminishing attention to the topics and more to the 'tribal' group that they may be associated with. We've seen the effects on the functioning on the US congress, as well as in how laws on various topics have been playing out lately.
But the idea that without a center, things fall apart, may be more real than we thought, as this article at ScienceBlog about a Cornell study describes: https://scienceblog.com/527200/tipping-point-makes-partisan-polarization-irreversible/
It seems that up to a point, it is possible to reverse the polarization. Beyond that tipping point, it cannot. From what I've seen, the US is probably in the vicinity of that tipping point. The pattern described here sounds an awful lot like the period-doubling path to chaos, a mathematical construct in which a function that has a single stable state in one range of numbers starts developing two stable states, and then four, until stability is lost and the set devolves into chaos. If this reflection has any validity in the political or social realms, then we should also have seen the same pattern play out within discussions that turn to chaos.
Is there predictive power in this observation by the researchers at Cornell? If so, can anything be done to head it off, or are we all doomed to watch it play out?
Journal Reference:
Michael W. Macy, Manqing Ma, Daniel R. Tabin, et al. Polarization and tipping points [$], Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2102144118)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Sunday December 12 2021, @06:21PM (10 children)
this is dwarfed by non-climate factors like idiots building in harm's way
Can you name a single spot on Earth that is immune to natural disasters? The tornadoes weren't a flood in a flood plain, your statement is like Reagan saying "a rising tide lifts all boats" when only those who paid capital gains taxes had their boats lifted. Yes, people build in flood plains but these people didn't build their houses somewhere like Oklahoma where you can expect tornadoes. THIS WAS A HISTORIC EVENT, with the longest track and the most tornadoes in history. There is no way to prepare for tornadoes except to make sure you have a basement, which will save your life but not your house or its contents. Global warming is, in fact, what is causing the record breaking weather events almost annually for the last decade, Mr. Ostrich.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 13 2021, @02:54AM (5 children)
>Global warming
Thanks to the polar oscillation, which is causing record lows to be set in North America and Europe, we don't call it that anymore.
Now it's Climate change.
And, yes, those record lows are caused by unprecedented (in recorded human history) amounts of energy trapped in the atmosphere by CO2 and other factors.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday December 14 2021, @07:31PM (4 children)
Climate change is caused by global warming, which is the rise in the Earth's average temperature. To speak of one is to speak of both.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 14 2021, @09:00PM (3 children)
But, to call it warming when record low temperatures are being recorded is to invite idiots' derision and give them more fodder to yuk it up with their fellow idiots about how "dem scientists don' kno' nuttin!"
Climate change, due to increased retention of heat energy, is the less easily lampooned and more complete description.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday December 18 2021, @08:50PM (2 children)
Yes, that is indeed why they don't want to say "global warming" even though both the mean and median temperatures are rising, but I don't say or refrain from saying something just because people are stupid and ignorant. Stupidity is to be pitied, not kowtowed to.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 19 2021, @05:32AM (1 child)
Making it harder for idiots to ignore the facts is far from kowtowing - it's edjamuhkashun.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday December 19 2021, @06:04PM
Education is explaining the facts to them. Yes, idiots are hard to teach, but it ain't rocket surgery.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday December 13 2021, @04:36AM (2 children)
And when Antarctica melts completely, sea level will rise to something like 90 metres.
I'm in Montreal. I thought I was on high ground. Guess not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 13 2021, @01:02PM
There has to be a joke about Montreal and high ground hidden in there . . .
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday December 14 2021, @07:34PM
By the time it's that bad, everyone will be long dead.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 13 2021, @10:58PM
Bunches. Most of the American Southwest and Northern Mexico, for example, excluding California, obviously.
No risk of major earthquakes. Little tiny ones happen sometimes.
Not enough trees for a wildfire.
Much too far from the ocean for a hurricane or tsunami.
Tornadoes really only happen farther east.
There are no deadly diseases, like malaria.
Too warm for a destructive winter storm.
Too dry for a flood.
No active volcanoes nearby. Even the Yellowstone supervolcano is out of range if you go far enough south, not that it's a realistic threat on the timescale of a human lifetime.
The only major thing that might happen is an asteroid strike. Obviously, that can happen anywhere, but the risk of it happening in any particular place is extremely small.
Beyond that, your biggest risk is getting bitten by a rattlesnake.