Complicity and Sympathy for Comforting but False & Dangerous Ideas

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Comment on:

http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/455387977/i-think-we-can-get-past-the-lie-and-it-was-a-lie

When dealing with someone so bugfuck crazy like RPJr or Bjorn, you practically have no choice but to abstract away these bad actors into fake-controversy-creating-automatons, and focus on those who allow these trolls to be heard.  And, practically everywhere from practically everyone, you find complicity and sympathy for these comforting but false & dangerous ideas.

There is no evidence that humanity likes science or the burden of responsibilities that pay out decades in the future.  Humanity does not mind playing with some the end products of both, like consumer electronics or the body of modern medical knowledge, but humanity really doesn't like either science or the responsibility of the very long view.

Our only tools are to consciously move the Overton Window as quickly as possible to something compatible with humanity continuing to exist, and, in the mean time, remember "[Our] basic function [is] to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable." (a quote from Milton Friedman, speaking about something other than climate change, but the idea applies).  Obviously, that means our last, best hopes will be way past their shelf life, and we will only be left crude largely ineffectual measures for cooling the globe and dumping antacid into the ocean.  It also means making the best arguments for the alleged "Conservatives" and "Libertarians" for them, because their mental failure modes mean they themselves cannot; because those bodies of thought, reasonably applied, have something to offer to guide towards sensible policy.

[Edit 3/18/10]

Consider RPJr's strange book review in Nature - he is reviewing 4 books, none less than 300 pages, and his review could fit comfortably on 2 sheets of college ruled paper, even though the books are competing for space with RPJr's opinions.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7287/full/464352a.html

It is a perfect example of concern trolling.  Quoting:

> Incremental approaches to climate mitigation that can be modified by experience offer a chance that realistic and democratically grounded actions might rise to a challenge that will be with us for decades to come.

In other words, don't yell "Fire" in a crowded theater, especially if the theater is actually on fire.  Eventually, enough of the patrons will catch on fire to allow a rough consensus to take hold. Poppycock.

The piece is self-refuting, but the issue is that it was allowed to be published.  We should hold the editors of Nature up to ridicule.  If those editors wish that the issue is taken away from the facts of science and into the realm of political science and economics (as they must plainly feel), then print articles papers from publishing political scientists and economists.  Instead of concern trolls without any stake in substantive argumentation.

[Edit 03-26-10: see comment by Marion Delgado]

Patron Saint of Lost Causes - Cause for Hope

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[ Jude the Apostle: Patron Saint of Lost Causes ]

Very interesting article in the Economist Jan 28th 2010

Scarcity and globalisation
A needier era
The politics of global disruption, and how they may change

The 2010s, it is sometimes said, will be an age of scarcity. The warning signs of change are said to be the food-price spike of 2007-08, the bid by China and others to grab access to oil, iron ore and farmland and the global recession. The main problems of scarcity are water and food shortages, demographic change and state failure. How will that change politics?

[...]

[... A] report for the Brookings Institution, a think-tank in Washington, DC, and the Centre on International Co-operation at New York University looks at international politics in an age of want.

[ "Confronting the Long Crisis of Globalization". By Alex Evans, Bruce Jones and David Steven. Brookings/CIC. ]

[...]

The authors say that what is needed is not merely institutional tinkering but a different frame of mind. Governments, they say, should think more in terms of reducing risk and increasing resilience to shocks than about boosting sovereign power. This is because they think power may not be the best way for states to defend themselves against a new kind of threat: the sort that comes not from other states but networks of states and non-state actors, or from the unintended consequences of global flows of finance, technology and so on.

 I liked the quote at the end very much:

Milton Friedman: "[Our] basic function [is] to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable."

With potential for securing a vibrant future being cast aside for so many short-term-thinking distractions and pathetic succour, to keep alive the key tools for the future is a heartening purpose.