
I don’t suffer fools gladly. As BSJ moves into a new decade, I’ve decided that certain subjects are not worth discussing, just as people who hold certain extremist opinions are not worth debating. Still, there’s no shortage of tin-foil-hatters who like to pretend there is life in their dead-end ideas. The further removed they get from reality, the more their behavior begins to resemble the desperate begging of the religious, praying in vain for help (or acceptance) that will never come.
I get the sense that, birthers, 9/11 ‘truthers,’ climate change deniers, Alex Jonesers and other New World Order nutjobs all have this one thing in common with fundamentalists: They think that wishing will make it so. They feel that if they, “believe” their delusion strongly enough, that if they can somehow convince enough people–or better still–make their case “heard” by the “mainstream media” that there will be a “great awakening” through which their delusion will carry the day. Then they imagine that everything wrong with the world will be ‘exposed’ and put right.
It’s a very, very old story.
So I’ve updated my comment policy to reflect this. Birthers, Truthers, Climate Deniers and fundies are trolls. It’s not merely that some can be trolls, it’s that the very act of posting such opinions defines trolldom. Such posts contribute nothing of value about the subject being discussed, yet shout loudly about the psychology and poor mental skills of the person posting the ‘information.’ They’ve replaced analysis with wishing and willing, proving Hume right when he said (of non-objective thinkers) “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.”
The bottom line is this: I have no interest in debating these subjects, only debunking. If someone has truly new information that has been properly vetted and survives the critical thinking process, then I’m very, very glad to hear from you. I have a lot to learn, and there is much we do not know about many subjects including the climate, the brain, and our government. But I set the bar very high.
What that means is please post nothing less than peer-reviewed data that is properly documented, and would survive rigorous scientific analysis worthy of acceptance by organizations like the NAS, AAAS, or the Royal Society. Lack of certainty about such subjects is no excuse for wild posturing. As I’m fond of saying, you don’t have to know “everything” to know “something.”
If you Google the ‘fact’ you are planning on posting and all you get are a bunch of conspiracy sites, then you ought to plan not to post it here, because I will delete it and block your IP address faster than you can say “Bullshit!”
I’m just no longer interested in spending the finite time I have left on this earth entertaining nonsense. If you wonder why, check out this fruitless exchange I had over the holidays with a former CUT member:
It appears that at least some folks are still deluded with the “Anthroprogenic Global Warming” scam. Haven’t you been following the latest news ? (Google search “Climategate”). The one-worlders hijacked the environmental movement decades ago. They are using it as a Trojan horse to set up their global government to be financed by, guess what,..Carbon Taxes!
Carbon dioxide is NOT a harmful gas and does NOT contribute to the warming of the planet. If anyone is interested in finding out more about the lengths and depths of this scam, look up Lord Monckton, advisor to former British Prime Minister Thatcher. He is probably one of the most knowledgable and articulate debunkers of this man-made global warming hoax. He has posted a detailed report called “Caught Green-Handed” on his website.
Re: Black Sun Journal comment–I delete any comments which say words to the effect that “AGW is a scam.”
I do support an eventual global government. Pollution, people, goods, money flow across borders. We are becoming too interconnected to manage the world without some form of global legal cooperation.
I’m sorry I’ve been down this road too many times and won’t put much time into arguing with anyone about climate change. It is real, documented and accelerating. The information is overwhelming. It’s something close to mental illness to deny it. It’s psychologically very hard to deal with the fact that our lives and industry could be destroying the Earth’s capacity to sustain future generations. But that’s exactly what’s happening, and nature doesn’t give a crap what anyone thinks about it.
America is falling far behind, in no small part thanks to the utter unforgivable willful stupidity of people who would rather ruminate about conspiracies than listen to their scientists and deal with the problem. Fortune favors the bold, and in this era, the boldest thing to do would be to tax carbon, shut down the coal plants and stop importing oil over the next 20 years. Then shift all that capacity to wind, tidal, geothermal and solar power, for both fixed installations and electrified transportation. (Nuclear as currently designed is too expensive).
It would be the single biggest stroke of genius America could accomplish and it would put us back in a position of global leadership. It would make us a leading exporter of green energy solutions. But we probably won’t because we’ve become a nation of cowards who refuse to change. We’ve elected a series of leaders who’ve failed to confront difficult issues of finance, energy, and effective use of our massive military strength. And many of us want to pretend some evil conspiracy is stealing everything from us rather than realizing we’ve ruined it for ourselves by becoming hopeless fossil fuel addicts. We’ve filled our atmosphere with nearly double the natural concentration of CO2. Clearly you do not understand the carbon cycle if you deny this. Every year the world burns through a million years of stored carbon. Plus we continue to burn rain forests which took thousands of years to grow.
We’re too afraid of owning up to our shadow and joining the rest of the world in a low-carbon economy to be worthy of being its leader. It’s a damn shame. China will kick our ass–both in being green and becoming a 21st century political and economic power. They’ll burn all their coal and simultaneously build out a green economy, because they’re smart, realize what’s happening, and they think long-term. Even if there’s a global carbon treaty, China will delay implementation until the last possible minute. Then they’ll sell us geoengineering schemes to make us pay for fixing the damage they caused.
Or we can just keep trying to negotiate this away from a worst-case scenario. China might change its behavior if the rest of the world moves together with concerted action. They do care about their global image, since their coming dominance is based on their continued trade relations.
Seriously, I don’t want to sound insulting, but this denial BS is just killing me (and the planet). I have ZERO patience for it, OK? Or was that not clear from the article?
Perhaps you’re right. I realized by way of our exchange that I simply don’t know enough about the subject (AGW) to argue about it. I am not a climate scientist. It’s better to let the experts duke it out.
All I know is it looks mighty suspicious. Why would the scientists at East Anglia University be conspiring to manipulate data? Why would they be trying to supress other scientists who disagreed with their theories? Why were they defiant even in the face of a Freedom of Information request, to release their data, computer codes, etc. so that other scientists could check their work?
Thirty-five years ago the scare was global cooling. Now it’s global warming. But wait a minute, they’ve changed it again to “climate change”. They don’t know for sure if the global temps are trending up or down, but it doesn’t matter. As long as they can convince folks that human activity, left unchecked, will ultimately cause an environmental catrastrophe.
I said I wasn’t going to argue about it and here I am arguing.
On other fronts; I’m not sure what you were referring to when speaking of “birthers”. As far as “truthers” go, I, myself, am convinced that the attacks of 9-11, 2001 were a “false flag” operation orchestrated by rogue elements within our own government. As you have repeatedly said, the info is out there. In my view the evidence is overwhelming. What is so frustrating is that the conspirators, and we know the names of the major players, are still out running around free when they should be in jail awaiting trial for treason and mass murder.
Being a former staff member of the Summit Lighthouse, I usually stop by your website to check for any new SL/CUT-related articles. I apologize that I haven’t read and digested all of the material on your site. By the way, I was saddened to learn that your mother passed away a few months ago. I found out when I was browsing through David Lewis’ website. This delusion of ascended masters just goes on and on doesn’t it?
If I attempt any more posts, I will avoid the climate subject. And I will be more diligent to eliminate all typos and mis-spellings before pressing the submit button. It’s embarassing. My eyesight is not what it once was.
Again, a small dose of critical thinking should dispel those rumors. First, the government can’t manage to keep much of anything secret, even the smallest events are subject to leaks. Second, there were again hundreds of scientists and engineers involved in the forensics on the WTC, and a stack of reports several feet thick, documenting the most heavily photographed news event in history. So in order for there to have been a “false flag” attack, every one of those investigators has to be an idiot, a stooge, or both. I don’t like Bush, but to suggest that he or Cheney or someone else sworn to protect the Constitution would knowingly slaughter 3,000 Americans is to defy all reason.
All these conspiracy theories serve a twisted psychological agenda. It’s self-congratulatory and condescending toward those “rubes” like me who accept the “mainstream” explanation.
Sadly, the plain unvarnished truth is we were attacked and humiliated by a few guys with knives who used the element of surprise to turn our own technology against us in a horribly effective way. That’s again, like climate change, a very sobering and difficult reality to face. It puts the responsibility squarely back on us, where it belongs.
That is why I don’t allow birthers, truthers, or climate deniers any leeway. That stuff is the product of weak and twisted minds, a total corrosion of knowledge. Sorry.
A dose of critical thinking. If the world trade center buildings collapsed because of fires, then why was explosive residue found in dust samples from ground zero?
You don’t hear much about this in the mainstream media. NIST never even checked for explosives. It took the research efforts of independent scientists to expose it. Google search “Active thermitic materials discovered in world trade center dust”.
Thermite and thermate are explosives. Nano-thermite is even more energetic as the particles in the mix are ground down to microscopic size, thus increasing exposed surface area, accelerating the reaction. How did nano-thermite, a high-tech explosive, get into the dust samples? Maybe those few guys with knives pre-planted it there to throw us off.
False flag attacks are nothing new. Governments have used this tactic to further their agendas for a long time. The U.S. sunk the Maine so that we could enter a war with Spain. Hitler had the Reichstag torched so he could blame it on his political enemies and further consolidate power. Look up the “Northwoods” documents. A plan was on the table for President Kennedy to approve where we were going to kill Americans so that we had an excuse to invade Cuba. Even the Gulf of Tonkin incident which helped get us into the Vietnam war is now understood to have been a staged event. And still some people say our government would never do such horrible things. As Peter Josephs said in his film “Zeitgeist”, ‘If 9-11 was not a false flag attack, it would be the exception to the rule.’
I don’t give the slightest credibility to any of these theories. There’s any number of reasons those chemicals could have been there (if they were), with the collapse and burning of two 110 story buildings, complete with a shopping mall and train station underneath. See, conspiracy theories are not falsifiable. This takes them out of the realm of evidentiary investigation.
You bring up those chemicals as if it were conclusive. Really, if there were chemicals, all it proves is that there were chemicals. Then the difficult work begins of figuring out why they were there. It’s not enough to say thermite –> therefore explosive demolition –> therefore false-flag attack. Those are leaps of logic not even the Golden Gate Bridge could span. But when you’re working backward from your preferred conclusion, none of that matters to your broken brain. (Ooooohh. NIST didn’t check for explosives. Ooooohhh, they whisked away the steel beams. That PROVES it.)
Critical thinking is the key. Break the addiction to delusion. Start today.
Zeitgeist, Loose Change and the like are pandering fantasy stories. Fairy tales for the modern tin-foil hat crowd. This stuff is so patently absurd as to be offensive. I won’t even talk to anyone who spouts this drivel. I’ve tried, and I can’t watch for more than about 20 minutes. The logical fallacies, non-sequiturs, guilt-by-association tactics, historical misrepresentations and lies pop out of the screen at such a furious rate it defies description. These are propaganda films of the worst kind. You should be ashamed of yourself for even quoting this horseshit. Did you ever stop to think why expert historians and political scientists avoid it like the plague?
Did you really read the NIST report? Or are you just taking these charlatans’ word for what it says and what it doesn’t say. Here’s a direct quote from the NIST site:
12. Did the NIST investigation look for evidence of the WTC towers being brought down by controlled demolition? Was the steel tested for explosives or thermite residues? The combination of thermite and sulfur (called thermate) “slices through steel like a hot knife through butter.”
NIST did not test for the residue of these compounds in the steel.
The responses to questions number 2, 4, 5 and 11 demonstrate why NIST concluded that there were no explosives or controlled demolition involved in the collapses of the WTC towers.
Furthermore, a very large quantity of thermite (a mixture of powdered or granular aluminum metal and powdered iron oxide that burns at extremely high temperatures when ignited) or another incendiary compound would have had to be placed on at least the number of columns damaged by the aircraft impact and weakened by the subsequent fires to bring down a tower. Thermite burns slowly relative to explosive materials and can require several minutes in contact with a massive steel section to heat it to a temperature that would result in substantial weakening. Separate from the WTC towers investigation, NIST researchers estimated that at least 0.13 pounds of thermite would be required to heat each pound of a steel section to approximately 700 degrees Celsius (the temperature at which steel weakens substantially). Therefore, while a thermite reaction can cut through large steel columns, many thousands of pounds of thermite would need to have been placed inconspicuously ahead of time, remotely ignited, and somehow held in direct contact with the surface of hundreds of massive structural components to weaken the building. This makes it an unlikely substance for achieving a controlled demolition.
Analysis of the WTC steel for the elements in thermite/thermate would not necessarily have been conclusive. The metal compounds also would have been present in the construction materials making up the WTC towers, and sulfur is present in the gypsum wallboard that was prevalent in the interior partitions.[Italics added]
How can people really believe that scientists are that stupid that they would miss controlled demolition in a forensic analysis? I think it’s a way of a lot of dumb people make themselves feel better about their low intelligence, i.e. taking the piss out of ‘high and mighty’ scientists.
Someone’s making money off of other people’s gullibility. Nothing at all new, of course. There’s a sucker born every minute. The worst part is, these types of delusions play the same role as religion in keeping people stupid, off-track and out of the way of the real and ongoing machinations of power. In this sense, the conspiracy theories serve two purposes, one intentional (making money for the purveyors) one accidental, (they become tools of mass consciousness control, a diversion that actually preserves the status quo). Did you ever think of that??
Lenin was on to something when he talked about “useful idiots.” Now please don’t bother me with any more of this nonsense. It’s neurological abuse. I had to figure out if you were really that naive, your brain really that dysfunctional, and based on the fact that you’re still not dropping the conspiracy charade, it seems that you are.
Sorry to be blunt, but after all the bullshit conspiracies I put up with in my life, I tell it like it is. Remember, I was born to my delusional parents. You followed them intentionally. Big difference. And it seems people who fell for the Ascended Masters are more likely than average to uncritically accept conspiracy theories.
17 comments
Yeah, I deliberately engaged two of the "AGW scam" folks myself, but there's no talking sense with them. They're so confused by the noise that they accept a petition as proof that CO2 is not a danger at any level. They say bring on 1,000 ppm. And they're working a lot harder than we are at convincing people. So depressing…
stone,
And wouldn't it also be great if all this energy and time could be devoted instead to devising solutions? That's my aim of refusing to participate in dead discussions.
Great article Sean , I don't think anything will happen with global warming until we see dramatic changes like the complete melting of the artic ice cap. Any of our polititians who tell us the truth will be voted out of office. PS Interesting that the Northwest Passage is opening up. For hunreds of years shipping companies have been looking at this as a shortcut to the Pacific saving about 5000 nautical miles and to save money.
Oh they'll save money alright, but what the world will have to spend to rebuild coastal infrastructure will make people's hair curl. It could approach double digit percentages of world GDP, potentially for decades. Whereas if we spent 1-4% now on adaptation, it could be mostly over in 20 years.
These figures are wild ass guesses based loosely on the Stern report, but the point is, fixing this now would have tremendous economic leverage.
Fan-freakin-tastic post, Sean.
I suddenly find myself in need an icon for standing and cheering like a drunk college football fan until my lungs bleed. In lieu of such an icon, I chimed in over on TCOE:
http://www.grinzo.com/energy/index.php/2010/01/02/it-ends-here/
Thanks, Lou!!! That's high praise. For me it's about drawing a line in the sand, not that it may mean much in the scheme of things. But clearly, being nice and avoiding insults hasn't gotten through to people, so maybe it's time for a good old-fashioned shaming.
Shame, shame. That's what these people deserve, and I don't mind giving it to them. Every single insult in this article is deserved. And I've already deleted several comments, so you can imagine. Even some of my friends on the left are saying "you're shutting down debate." That's a sacred cow if I ever heard one. Because debate is only meaningful if both sides follow protocol and evidentiary rules.
It seems the polarization will get worse before it gets better. Even when things start to really unravel, I can see the deniers and the Right still claiming we should just get back to business as usual. "Make 'merica great agin." Yeah, right.
It's going to take personal catastrophe to wake some people up. Not that I wish that on them, because it will hit everyone. But to use the AA metaphor, we have to hit bottom as a society before we are ready for the twelve steps.
That means my gloves are off from now on. I don't care how much people criticize me, I'm going to keep talking. The sooner we hit bottom, the better off we'll be.
You have really proven what an intellectual coward you are by deleting my posts. You, like Al Gore and other statists have no real argument so you cut off debate. At this point you are a pure propagandist by not allowing dissenting views be seen on your website.
The frustrating part is that one doesn't even have to accept AGW to recognize that changes in how we get our energy would be great.
That person who doesn't buy "Using so much oil is damanging the environment" might be more convinced by "The less oil we use, the less money we're sending to Johnny Raghead."
Unfortunately, people don't react to "things might be bad in 20 years". Using as many different prods and carrots as possible should be an integral part of getting popular support.
I agree LEP. People associate this change in where we get our energy from, with pain. People are motivated to avoid pain and seek pleasurable feelings and situations. We need a "feel good" campaign to encourage change.
I agree with your policy – sometimes it doesn't make sense to engage – it just drains energy and even gives energy to those we engage with. So, many of those holding rigidly to conspiracy theories hold to the theory as if it were their life raft. Quite some delusion when you consider they are on dry land.
And yet getting more good critical thinking going is also vital. The big thing for me – figuring out how to reach those who can be reached, and also saving my breath when I come up against The Wall, people with a rigid inner block where facts, information, reason have no more impact than a grain of sand against a tank.
Anyway, I've done lots of thinking and writing on trying to get better thinking going – motivated by the frustration I've felt, coming up against those with massive inner blocks:
http://www.elsas-word-story-image-idea-music-empo…
http://www.elsas-word-story-image-idea-music-empo…
No Sean. It is you who are deluded. 9-11 WAS an inside job. The new world order IS a genuine threat. Man-made global warming IS a scam. Perhaps your state of denial has something to do with the fact that your parents advocated conspiracy theories. Now that your parents have been thoroughly discredited, you have rejected anything and everything they ever stood for.
It is amusing to watch how this has unfolded. The global warming scam has been completely exposed. Al Gore could be facing attempted rape charges. He's finished.
Recognizing that they were losing steam with the global warming hype, the globalists have had to look to some other crises to make sure their carbon tax credit scheme is implemented. Enter – the gulf oil spill. It is not yet clear whether or not Halliburton deliberately sabotaged the rig (That will come out in the criminal investigation.), but one thing is evident. The fed is doing everything it can to allow the crises to worsen. (Never let a good crises go to waste.) It is absurd to believe that Obama is going to be tough on BP. BP was one of the major contributors to Obama's presidential campaign. BP also stands to make $$$$$$ in the carbon tax scam. Their loses in the oil business as a result of the spill will be dwarfed.
Jonathan, maybe Thorazine would do the trick for you?
Sure. Let's all take drugs. Who cares if the constitutional republic of the United Sates is going down the drain? That's a good thing. We want a one-world government. We want a two class society: the ruling wealthy elite and the poor serfs. We want population reduction, and we are willing to kill off as many as we can with poisoned vaccines. Our heroes are folks like con-man Al Gore and eugenicist Ted Turner. We need to make sure that the general population has been dumbed down sufficiently by introducing fluoride into their water supply. On top of that, we need to sponsor scientific reports that say that fluoride is good for you. We will need a strong police state in place to deal with the uprising that is sure to come. But maybe we can keep enough people asleep by bombarding them non-stop with frivolous entertainment media. Then they will never know that they are being robbed blind until it is too late. Ha ha.
"I don’t like Bush, but to suggest that he or Cheney or someone else sworn to protect the Constitution would knowingly slaughter 3,000 Americans is to defy all reason."
No to defy all reason is to think that just because someone has sworn an oath to the constitution, wouldn't be able to be guilty of treason. It's a good example on how naive your thinking is. You even admit you can't fathom the idea that any American official could have been involved so any evidence you're presented with that has an opposing view to that is going to be judged by you from that pre-determined perspective.
"See, conspiracy theories are not falsifiable."
The problem with you thinking is that you, without realizing it, also believe in a conspiracy (the government version's). Thus making your viewpoint equally non falsifiable. And thus making your argument completely pointless. Which obviously is what you have to do since you seem to have no arguments.
I am sorry your parents were douchebags, and you feel the need to rebel against everything they believed in. But that doesn't mean that they were wrong about everything.
Prove it or STFU.
"it's very obvious" "convenient excuse" Hmm. Nice proof, Shifu.