Comments on: A concerned citizen is largely helpless

By: Sam J.

Sam J. — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 12:29:26 +0000

We’ve spent a fortune on “climate science”. Some of it is needed to track changes but over the last five years it s probably over $1 trillion spent. For that amount of money we could build enough nuclear power plants to rapidly reduce carbon output, fertilize the Oceans to sink present carbon and plant enough trees to sink the rest.

Some numbers on the money spent from a quick search. They of course might be all lies too.

https://www.heritage.org/environment/commentary/follow-the-climate-change-money

By: Kirk

Kirk — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 22:19:11 +0000

Voatboy,

I can’t remember where I read it, but there was someone who said that “peer reviewed” was the wrong term to use; more properly, it ought to be something like “peer glanced at and then stuck in the out-box, with the understanding that there would be reciprocal like attention placed on anything we published.”

By: Voatboy

Voatboy — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 10:10:06 +0000

Peer reviewed papers are a ritual for deans and profs and graduate slaves. Peer review seldom works. A lot of mistakes and frauds slide past peer review. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go review another low quality piece of resume fluff.

By: John Dougan

John Dougan — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 04:24:52 +0000

Kirk, I think some of the solution to Scott Adams is by looking to the work of Leo Strauss, particularly his esoteric/exoteric theory of philosophical writing. It comes across stronger in interviews that Scott may not entirely have all the positions he claims for himself.

By: Harry Jones

Harry Jones — Sun, 01 Dec 2019 17:41:33 +0000

The political class do not exist for our benefit. They exist for their own benefit. This is why the state does not wither away.

They see themselves as ranchers, and we are the livestock. We see them as either parents or parasites. They don’t care whether we need them or not.

By: Lucklucky

Lucklucky — Sun, 01 Dec 2019 03:18:15 +0000

“Climate science” has religious protection – Politics being the only religion that people believe in Western Civilization – so they can get away with anything.

Western Civilization has no mechanism to cut the political intensity. When a big war ends the budget goes down but when we need less politics the politics do not go down since they are a proportional to those that vote not to the whole voting age population. In US a President with 20M, 40M, or 60M votes has precisely the same political power. Same for Governor or Mayor.

That is why i say that abstention and blank and null votes should be represented as open seats in parliaments, reducing the quorum of those that are occupied.

If 50% of people don’t vote then there is no urgency. The system as it is favors the fanatics.

By: Felix

Felix — Sat, 30 Nov 2019 22:58:28 +0000

Now that scientific papers are on line and electronic, it might be interesting to include meta-information about whether a paper’s findings have been replicated, and by who.

By: Kirk

Kirk — Sat, 30 Nov 2019 17:24:29 +0000

Scott Adams is one of those annoying people who couples profound insights with sheer nightmare-level WTF reasoning. I can go through his stuff and find myself nodding along, thinking “This guy gets it…”, and then I find other stuff that leaves me going “How is someone this nuts this successful…? Or… Is he really nuts?”.

There’s enough ambivalence there to drive ya nuts trying to figure out what’s up with his ideas.

By: Benjamin I. Espen

Benjamin I. Espen — Sat, 30 Nov 2019 15:18:47 +0000

In my experience, this is exactly what reviewing a peer’s work entails. You check all the data, the calculations, the calibrations on the equipment, and verify the references say that it is implied they say.

Unfortunately, I get the impression that my experience is not universal….