Disappointed

[johnridley]

Not surprised, but disappointed. I had hoped the ESR's idiotic post on the GT list would go completely unanswered, but there are people who just can't walk away, even when you know that argument is futile, you're talking to a closed book. I'd think that by now everyone had realized that the pig doesn't want to learn to sing.

Comments

[erikvolson.livejournal.com]

Fuck. I just replied.

*hangs head in shame*

Should have yelled Goglog.

[mbcrui.livejournal.com]

He won't come to Goglog... he did, once... lasted less than 24 hours.

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

Even people who edge upon being social misfits and outcasts need to occasionally throw someone off the island.

(Not that I follow gt-pfrc any more.)

[mbcrui.livejournal.com]

We didn't throw him off. He left. I don't remember why. Probably because Goglog isn't nearly as ... kind... as GT is, if you say something stupid, you get challenged to prove it. If you can't prove it, you get your argument torn apart like a piece of paper... OTOH, if you can back it up, you're fine. Some very pedantic GT members do just fine there... cause they never say something without proof... and they've been around long enough that the goglog folk don't challenge them anymore.

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

It wasn't goglog I was suggesting you throw him out of. :-)

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

True. And some people are so annoying that even social misfits and outcasts can't stand them.

[mbcrui.livejournal.com]

I've kept telling myself "Pig... sing... pig.... sing" since he posted it lasts night. Finally got it out of my system by saying everything to Andy this morning :)

[erikvolson.livejournal.com]

Figures he can't hack the big leagues.

The funny thing is I wouldn't have seen it if someone else hadn't replied. I intend to have a lovely discussion with Sam, and ignore him. I've better things to do, like flossing my cat.

[madtechie2718.livejournal.com]

I was tempted to reply but managed to stop at the last minute; that said, I think Dale's response was pretty much on target.

The thing is: there is some room to discuss just how various apparently-conflicting measurements may be reconciled/interpreted, but a Yah-Boo!!! gleeful snigger probably isn't the way to do it...

His opposition to the global warming debate seem to be primarily idealogically based - and for me, a non-science-based opinion doesn't score any points in a scientific debate.

We wants it my precious.....

[billroper]

Yeah, I won't disagree that ESR presented things badly. This obscures the point.

I understand that a lot of folks want to pronounce the debate on anthropogenic global warming as settled, but I believe that many of them are also operating from an ideological basis. Inconvenient evidence is simply swept out of the way. Are the Martian icecaps melting, suggesting that there may be something going on with insolation? Posh. Are we still cooler than the Medieval Climatic Optimum (which I believe that we are)? Ignorable.

Look, I don't have much doubt that it's gotten warmer lately. I even think that there's a reasonable argument that mankind has contributed to it. But even given that, it's not clear to me that the prescribed cure for the problem is the right thing to do.

And then I'm riding the elevator in my office building and I look up at the news clip screen where it tells me that the "myth" that global cooling was predicted in the 1970s has been debunked, because research has been uncovered that predicted global warming.

Did you know that Gretchen trained as a meteorologist? Do you know that she distinctly recalls discussions of global cooling from her classes at Northern Illinois?

But we have always been at war with EastAsia.

And if the global warming proponents feel the need to rewrite history to support their thesis, that's not a point in their favor.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Hey, stop being reasonable. This is the internet, you're supposed to call everyone that doesn't agree with you something between a sadly misinformed individual and a drooling cretin. Also crow and giggle like crazy when a single non-peer-reviewed data compilation of other people's studies comes out that supports your assertions.

meanwhile, in Australia...

[madtechie2718.livejournal.com]

Of course the CO2 increase problem may be partially self-correcting as supplies are consumed. We hear a lot about 'peak oil' and this report (mentioned on an e-bike list I'm on) raises some interesting points - as much in the comments as in the main article. http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/3657#more

I mention this as I recall (I think) that ESR dismissed any discussion of peak oil with a comment that oil was produced as the result of continuous geological processes and not from a fixed (or at least incredibly slowly augmented) quantity of ancient biomass. Again, this was more on idealogical grounds, rather than scientific ones, IIRC.

I may be damning him unfairly here, but I believe the comments came from him several years back on the GT list.

Re: meanwhile, in Australia...

[billroper]

Try Googling "primordial oil". It's an interesting theory, but not one that I'd consider either proven or disproven at this point.

It seems clear to me that coal is definitely a fossil fuel, given the fossil imprints of plants that are found in it. Oil, being liquid, doesn't work that way. :)

[kevinnickerson.livejournal.com]

It's not about being correct, it's about matching the facts to your preconceived beliefs.

[qnofhrt.livejournal.com]

I've pretty much stopped reading anything ESR posts. I answered one of his rants about AIDs a number of years ago and it was indeed like trying to teach a pig to sing.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think it's a good thing for him that the people that keep hiring him to come speak to them never get to know him well. Clearly he knows to keep on message when talking to the people paying the bar tab.

[isherempress.livejournal.com]

It's posts like this that remind me why I don't subscribe to the GT list. LJ is more than enough, and here I can really pick and choose who I want to see or read...

[mbcrui.livejournal.com]

My whole take on the global warming thing is that I don't have the training or experience to understand the evidence and separate it from the politafication of the data. But it doesn't hurt to be more environmentally aware. We recycle, renew, reuse where we can because it makes sense. We only have one planet (right now) we should be kind to it.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

That's my opinion too. Whether global warming is real or not, we're shitting on the planet pretty badly and it only make sense to stop doing that. When you can't safely breathe the air in many large cities, species are going extinct for reasons that ARE clearly our fault, entire ecosystems are collapsing, the oceans are already half dead, etc, clearly we need to do something different.

[scs-11.livejournal.com]

Yep. My first reaction was to get hot under the collar and respond, but I wasn't going to do so until cooling down. Once cooled, it was clear there was nothing to say. I like Eric; we go back a lot of years. But there are times it's just useless to talk with him.

Not that he's the only one like that, of course. He just so fucking sanctimonious about it. And of course, someone always has to poke his buttons.

We should start up a pool. Assuming next years temperatures are up again, throw in a buck and pick the person you think will bring it up to Eric next year. Pick as many names as you wish, a buck a name. More than one person can pick a given name. When it happens, everybody who picked the right name splits the pot.

If temps keep going down, we buy lots of hot chocolate for Berserker.