tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7099099432720184584.post2309076416604944380..comments2023-10-28T19:42:01.039+01:00Comments on Going fast, getting nowhere: Science Fact?Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15743685798068014455noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7099099432720184584.post-41247294032286398262010-11-28T16:55:39.198+00:002010-11-28T16:55:39.198+00:00/blush/
Thank you for those kind words. Seriousl.../blush/<br /><br />Thank you for those kind words. Seriously, I think I am quite lucky with my readership. This is not a high-traffic blog, and there are only half-a-dozen or so who comment regularly, but the standard of debate is always good. I often shoot from the hip in my posts - usually from frustration or stupidity - but my commenters usually bring me back to earth.<br /><br />I find that motorcyclists tend to share a certain independence of mind and don't like being nannied. The comments are full of intelligent thinking and writing because I have been lucky enough to attract some good minds. As for nobody saying anything stupid - they leave all that to me, kniowing it is in capable hands.<br /><br />Thanks for the nice words, much appreciated.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15743685798068014455noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7099099432720184584.post-25619634953191947162010-11-28T14:28:33.377+00:002010-11-28T14:28:33.377+00:00I've said before, Richard, but this blog is fu...I've said before, Richard, but this blog is full of intelligent thinking and writing! Are you lot bikers or bloody philosophers? I mean, nobody says anything stupid, to laugh at!Zaphodnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7099099432720184584.post-20889986930013664282010-11-23T18:46:37.095+00:002010-11-23T18:46:37.095+00:00Cock-up, rather then conspiracy?
Maybe so. There...Cock-up, rather then conspiracy?<br /><br />Maybe so. There are plenty of historical precedents, after all.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15743685798068014455noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7099099432720184584.post-36536129472442813062010-11-23T14:39:27.097+00:002010-11-23T14:39:27.097+00:00I rather think some sort of world government would...I rather think some sort of world government would be inevitable for mankind to survive in it's current form, and that the dystopians are broadly correct in their definition of the form it will take. There again, that's not much of an extrapolation to make - seems to me that we're sleepwalking into that right now, at least in the developed world. Look at the relentless mission creep of the EU from trading bloc to federated superstate for a fairly clear example of the way central regulation is an inevitable consequence of being driven by a global market economy. And, as that's where the money is, that's where the power collects. The people grumble about it, from time to time, before settling back to watch their prime-time celebrity TV, not realising they already have ultimately purposeless and trivial lives...<br /><br />I also believe that, whilst climate change could be the catalyst that allows the formation of some sort of benevolent world steering committee which will eventually become the kernel of world government, it probably isn't an issue with enough weight behind it to overcome the disparity between nations at this time. It would require too great a subsidy from the wealthy to drag everyone up to a level where there is enough commonality to work. (Interestingly, cheap, sustainable power could be the catalyst that actually would enable third world development to take place and make global equality possible).<br /><br />Whether there is an actual agenda, rather than just a repeat of the drift towards hegemony that all empires have demonstrated in the past is another question. I doubt it, somehow. Our leaders simply don't demonstrate that kind of vision, or capability of setting genuine social direction. There are, of course, plenty of dickheads shouting from the sidelines, as per these quotes - and no doubt at least some of them see themselves as Illuminati-like manipulators steering mankind towards some ideal state. Evidence suggests, though, that they're more like greedy bastards furthering their own personal wealth.<br /><br />Driven or not, though: without some sort of rapid spiritual evolution for humanity, any New World Order would simply be a repeat of the same brutish, hierarchical Old World Order, but bigger. And that really is the issue: too many people, expanding in a finite environment. The shape of society may be a source of discomfort to some of the individuals within it, but it's the size of it that will trigger the next limiting factor. Unless there is some sort of random global extinction event, or space colonisation becomes possible, the choice comes down to centralised resource management or waiting for a catastrophic tipping point. (The latter may, of course, creep up on us before the former is ever a viable possibility). I'm not an AGW believer, so I tend to view climate change as falling in the random extinction category, but there are plenty of variants of the four horsemen that could easily be kicked off just by human action or inaction. Every closed-system ecological experiment shows that, sooner or later, if overcrowding fails to lead naturally to mass starvation or disease, the dominant population will eventually turn on itself to thin out the numbers. No need for active population reduction in those circumstances - all we need to do is nothing for a while longer.endemoniada_88https://www.blogger.com/profile/13636529919686267714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7099099432720184584.post-64213132320456081842010-11-22T22:20:21.275+00:002010-11-22T22:20:21.275+00:00Still not with you Richard. What remedies are bein...Still not with you Richard. What remedies are being proposed, apart from one nut talking about licensing parenthood? (Not the same as taxpayers refusing to pay for it if parents can't pay themselves which I suspect we might agree on).<br /><br />Is anyone advocating mass murder? No. That will come though, although it will be called 'war', if things go on as they are.<br /><br />Take Turner. The world population must be reduced by about 95%. Whether there is going to be another ice age or runaway warming he is right. Is he suggesting killing people? Or sterilising people? It's just an observation. It won't happen. He knows that. <br /><br />No, we'll sort it out in the same old way: war like you've never seen, famine, and pestilence. Much better eh? Natural.Jim Baxterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10817293012642419524noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7099099432720184584.post-32621815335152579212010-11-22T21:59:11.066+00:002010-11-22T21:59:11.066+00:00I don't buy into the theory that lizards, maso...I don't buy into the theory that lizards, masons, etc are running the world, either. But worldgov is an attractive idea, superficially. I understand why well-meaning people desire it. They're wrong.<br /><br />In the haystack of scifi, there are many shiny needles that warn of potential future problems. For entertainment, I prefer the optimistic authors like Larry Niven, but we owe a great debt to the dystopian authors.<br /><br />It may be true that humans are at plague proportions, way beyond the planet's capacity in the long term. But if we reduced the population to one thousandth, and survived five hundred times longer, that wouldn't actually be a gain. And the power needed to achieve it in less than twenty generations, would scar our humanity horribly. You can fiddle with the numbers, but my point is valid, I think.<br /><br />Personally, I think something will turn up. And anything that would actually drive us extinct, well, no amount of population engineering would protecet against that.Zaphodnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7099099432720184584.post-59399593536378001382010-11-22T21:51:30.666+00:002010-11-22T21:51:30.666+00:00I haven't suggested anything has a basis in fa...I haven't suggested anything has a basis in fact - quite the reverse. Comment 4: "What I would like to do is to track down every one of those quotes and get a proper reference so they can be verified and put into context. "<br /><br />If you have read the original post as promoting any conspiracy theory, then you have misunderstood. Gist of the post: these quotations are superficially alarming. <i>If true</i>, then people need to be more aware of what is being plotted for them. Verification needed.<br /><br />And the stuff about overpopulation may be sane observation, but I find the remedies being proposed more than a little unacceptable. Enforced sterilisation and state-approved breeding licences come straight from Huxley's nightmare.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15743685798068014455noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7099099432720184584.post-80872950686425344642010-11-22T21:37:39.873+00:002010-11-22T21:37:39.873+00:00I sse nothing in what you quote to suggest that an...I sse nothing in what you quote to suggest that any of the dafter theories have any basis in fact. A large number of very different people with very different backgrounds and personal circumstances (are expressing the view that neither our current energy consumption or population level is sustainable. Are Ted Turner $worth - forget it- and a post-doctoral researcher, Monika Kopacz, on a salary of $Crud - - really working together?<br /><br />We have never been so fragile. What they say is mostly sane observation. How does that support any conspiracy theory or make any such theory look less daft?Jim Baxterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10817293012642419524noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7099099432720184584.post-4016433686011678402010-11-22T21:13:22.271+00:002010-11-22T21:13:22.271+00:00I'd agree with your second paragraph, although...I'd agree with your second paragraph, although perhaps not with the word 'crisis'. The planet is heading for some big changes, but then it always has and always will, whatever we trivial humans do or don't do. It's only a crisis from the point of view of our feeble and somewhat recent occupation of it. We see the occasional high (or low) temperature, the odd unexpected 'weather event', and we think there's permanent and catastrophic trend, because we are thinking in terms of our lifetime and (perhaps) recorded history. We forget that we are in a brief interglacial period, that Antarctica was once equatorial, that the atmosphere was once filled with sulphur and not oxygen - all of which adds a bit of perspective to the debate.<br /><br />You object to my suggestion of a conspiracy. Not sure I actually did that - I was just expressing surprise that some of the dafter theories appear to have more of a basis in fact than I had realised.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15743685798068014455noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7099099432720184584.post-61254533826911205862010-11-22T20:59:59.674+00:002010-11-22T20:59:59.674+00:00I see no reason to believe in the world governmen...I see no reason to believe in the world government NWO Bilderberger meme. As one of the Bilderberger group said, if we are running the world we should be bloody ashamed of ourselves.<br /><br />The planet is facing a crisis. It is very near in geolgical terms, except that in geolgical terms it doesn't matter. It only matters in human terms. We are nearing the end of an interglacial and the present level of human population, if that level still exists when it bites, will be wiped out. I don't believe for a second that anything will be done about it by democratic governments, unless their constituents demand it, and decide that they no longer wish to replace themselves. The can still have fun practising.<br /><br />One totalitarian government has been trying to do something about it fro a while now but for its own immediate political ends, not for the sake of the planet.<br /><br />It may not be imminent, in the sense of something that will happen as near as in our grandchildren's lifetimes, but it will happen. Maybe we should just let rip and to hell with the consequences. Let it find its own level.<br /><br />But there is no conspiracy. There are only warnings. Suggesting otherwise is what I object to about your post, Richard.Jim Baxterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10817293012642419524noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7099099432720184584.post-46402005841215831502010-11-22T20:24:55.755+00:002010-11-22T20:24:55.755+00:00I agree that a lot of the quotes above are opinion...I agree that a lot of the quotes above are opinion, and the list is a very mixed bag, ranging from the anti-human comments of unknown Malthusians, right up to remarks by well-known politicians. What I would like to do is to track down every one of those quotes and get a proper reference so they can be verified and put into context. After that little exercise, it might be easier to sort the wheat from the chaff.<br /><br />However, my main reason in posting was not the climate change thing, or the population thing; it was the 'world government' thing, which to me was a bit of a surprise. Perhaps I am too innocent, but I thought that NWO was a conspiracy theory - many of the quotes here rather suggest that, to the people at the top, it's more than that. It opened my eyes a bit, in the same way that they would if I read a secret email from Bush to Blair saying "bringin' down them thar twin towers was the best thing we ever did, and thanks for the Semtex". Well, maybe not quite, but you get the picture. The admissions about how the climate 'evidence' is being deliberately exaggerated/invented for political reasons is quite revealing, too.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15743685798068014455noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7099099432720184584.post-63082399884468243722010-11-22T19:57:54.970+00:002010-11-22T19:57:54.970+00:00'The whole thing has been hijacked by scientis...'The whole thing has been hijacked by scientists chasing easy funding'<br /><br />But what if they find, with their funding, that there is no climate change? Strangely, almost none of them do.<br /><br />There is a differnece between (most) climate researchers and 'greenies; I agree about the latter, 100%. Those people who are supposed to love the planet are some of the most aggressive people-hating people you will ever meet. According to them we are not part of the planet. I still maintain, just for the record, that an oil refinery is one of the most beautiful sights in nature. What the ecofascists forget is that everything humans do is part of nature. My point above is about the soundness of arguments. My own argument above has some unsound arguments in it.<br /><br />But change is coming, and it will kill most of us off. That point I do not shift on.Jim Baxterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10817293012642419524noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7099099432720184584.post-29041333184804147492010-11-22T19:45:25.304+00:002010-11-22T19:45:25.304+00:00The general public have swallowed the climate chan...The general public have swallowed the climate change nonsense so far. They are sure that it's someone else's fault and someone else will have to pay for it.<br /><br />When the price of energy really starts to rise, to pay for the subsidies for windmills and solar rubbish, they will turn nasty.<br /><br />The irony is that there is a little bit of truth in the greenhouse gas idea. But it's totally discredited by the lies and hysteria.<br /><br />The whole thing has been hijacked by scientists chasing easy funding, salesmen flogging ecotrash, and greenies who hate the human race.<br /><br />We all know the result of crying "Wolf!"Zaphodnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7099099432720184584.post-39343881393455337732010-11-22T19:07:53.140+00:002010-11-22T19:07:53.140+00:00Let's leave aside any nitpicking about selecti...Let's leave aside any nitpicking about selective quoting of opinions - opinions mind - and context.<br /><br /><br />Let's say that with some exceptions those opinions they break down roughly into two themes. 1) climate change is with us - we probably contribute to it and whether we do or not we can certainly make it worse - and people need to believe it. 2) The world is overpopulated. That a fair enough, if (Brent) crude summary of all that stuff?<br /><br />Now, the first only becomes objectionable if climate change isn't happening. Me, I reckon it's an ice-age we're looking at. Isn't it the case that the arctic is free of ice during an ice-age? But, never mind me. If climate change isn't happening after ten thousand years of relative stability it will be the first time.<br /><br />The last time it happened we got by because there were so few of us and we all lived off the land. Which brings us to point two. How the sweet fuck do you think we're get by this time?Jim Baxterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10817293012642419524noreply@blogger.com