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talkpolitics2013-09-07 06:55 pm
sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com) wrote in talkpolitics2013-09-07 06:55 pm
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An open letter from a dinosaur
Dear Progressives,
Turn-about being fair play, I figured that I'd write a mirrior of Bean's post But where to start?
A couple months back Johnathan Korman wrote an excellent post on the poles of american politics. In it was the following line ...the correct social order is natural but not effortless — without devotion to the correct social order, conservatives believe we devolve into barbarism.
Do you genuinely believe that if you'd been transported back to fifteenth-century London as a baby, you'd realize all on your own that witch-burning was wrong, slavery was wrong, that every sentient being ought to be in your circle of concern? If so I'd like to know why,because as far as I can tell Homo Sapiens today are no more mentally capable than the Homo Sapiens of 500 years ago. I assert that our current high quality of life has more to do with culture and technology than it does with any inherent superiority to those who came before us. The fact of the matter is that we live in a civil society where, for the most part, people raise their kids to obey the law, pay their taxes, and generally not kill each-other without a damn good reason. It is this state of civility that conservatives seek to conserve.
The majority of these conservation efforts focus on individual and family responsibilities/virtue. They operate on the theory that if you want innovation you need to reward innovation. If you want virtue reward virtue. If you want stable kids reward stable families, because barbarity is never more than a generation or two away. If you want good social order we must reward virtue and punish vice.
It is in this space that intent runs head-long into perceived intent, and I start to turn into my grandad...
Using anfalicious' recent example, I am simply flabbergasted that a "post-gendered society" is even a topic of discussion outside of science fiction. Feminism has moved from arguing that women should be treated equal and have the same rights as men, etc... To that that men and women should be interchangeable. I am expected ignore the fact that the burden of reproduction is carried disproportionately by the female of the species. I am expected to ignore the differences in biology. To ignore the different strengths and weaknesses of both and how they compliment each other. I am expected to be genderless. I am not therefore I am a misogynist.
Global warming is based on computer models that keep failing. Catastrophic predictions are constantly proven wrong and (surprise, surprise) the only solution ever proposed is higher taxes and greater regulatory powers. I suspect that a dog is being wagged therefore I am a "denier".
I don't want to live in a world of "Honor Killings" and medieval torture and I refuse to coddle or kow-tow to those that do therefore I am a Islamiphobe.
I oppose gun control therefore I want children to die.
I support voter ID laws therefore I am a Racist.
Fascist.
Terrorist.
Killer.
I could go on...
These are labels that have been applied to me by my so-called intellectual and moral "betters" in an effort to shut me up.
I am a dinosaur. Hear me roar.
Turn-about being fair play, I figured that I'd write a mirrior of Bean's post But where to start?
A couple months back Johnathan Korman wrote an excellent post on the poles of american politics. In it was the following line ...the correct social order is natural but not effortless — without devotion to the correct social order, conservatives believe we devolve into barbarism.
Do you genuinely believe that if you'd been transported back to fifteenth-century London as a baby, you'd realize all on your own that witch-burning was wrong, slavery was wrong, that every sentient being ought to be in your circle of concern? If so I'd like to know why,because as far as I can tell Homo Sapiens today are no more mentally capable than the Homo Sapiens of 500 years ago. I assert that our current high quality of life has more to do with culture and technology than it does with any inherent superiority to those who came before us. The fact of the matter is that we live in a civil society where, for the most part, people raise their kids to obey the law, pay their taxes, and generally not kill each-other without a damn good reason. It is this state of civility that conservatives seek to conserve.
The majority of these conservation efforts focus on individual and family responsibilities/virtue. They operate on the theory that if you want innovation you need to reward innovation. If you want virtue reward virtue. If you want stable kids reward stable families, because barbarity is never more than a generation or two away. If you want good social order we must reward virtue and punish vice.
It is in this space that intent runs head-long into perceived intent, and I start to turn into my grandad...
Using anfalicious' recent example, I am simply flabbergasted that a "post-gendered society" is even a topic of discussion outside of science fiction. Feminism has moved from arguing that women should be treated equal and have the same rights as men, etc... To that that men and women should be interchangeable. I am expected ignore the fact that the burden of reproduction is carried disproportionately by the female of the species. I am expected to ignore the differences in biology. To ignore the different strengths and weaknesses of both and how they compliment each other. I am expected to be genderless. I am not therefore I am a misogynist.
Global warming is based on computer models that keep failing. Catastrophic predictions are constantly proven wrong and (surprise, surprise) the only solution ever proposed is higher taxes and greater regulatory powers. I suspect that a dog is being wagged therefore I am a "denier".
I don't want to live in a world of "Honor Killings" and medieval torture and I refuse to coddle or kow-tow to those that do therefore I am a Islamiphobe.
I oppose gun control therefore I want children to die.
I support voter ID laws therefore I am a Racist.
Fascist.
Terrorist.
Killer.
I could go on...
These are labels that have been applied to me by my so-called intellectual and moral "betters" in an effort to shut me up.
I am a dinosaur. Hear me roar.
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As I have posted before, energy consumption and production (watts per capita if you will) maps almost directly to quality of life. It is what prevents us from freezing and starving in the dark. Obama's opposition to energy availability makes him either a dupe or a devil.
There are 1.3 billion people who have no electricity at all. If we give these people a quarter as much electricity as we have, a pathetically low goal IMHO, you'll have added the equivalent of the United States' greenhouse gas emissions to the environment.
You can have your AGW environmentalism or you can help a billion people get out of grinding poverty, but you can't have both.
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Any one who values polar bears more than they do their fellow humans they can go fuck themselves as far as I am concerned.
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Or maybe the only humans that matter are us, go fuck the Inuit I guess...
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The problem is that denying working, reliable energy sources to a planet that needs them leaves the entire world worse off on average. Trying to shift to solar en masse when it's not affordable enough nor viable enough is a terrible idea that actively hurts people.
Jeff, we point out that giving everyone what we want them to have, using existing technology. will inevitably result in an unmitigated disaster for all of humanity - far worse in terms of scale than the current tragedy that is modern day Africa. Your response is not to get onboard with new technologies and science that will help avoid or ameliorate this effect, but to shoot the messenger, put your head in the sand and deny there is a problem.
And we disagree with you. And we're willing to get on board with new tech and science when it's responsible to do so. You're inadvertently doing exactly what's being accused here. You realize this, right?
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It was an example. The point being that there really isn't a viable alternative available (nuclear excepted, but we can't have that), and the continued push to make it happen anyway is actively hurting people more than leaving things be and offering existing, viable, proven tech.
I have no idea what the connection you're trying to make here, actually, because saying "we disagree" doesn't really mean anything. In light of the fact that your objection above is addressing something other than the actual point I was making, I'm gonna have to ask you to read my comment again and try to respond to it more pertinently, if you want to be taken seriously.
You claim we're not willing to get on board, we are. That we're putting our heads in the sand, etc.
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More seriously, Africa is currently experiencing an improvement in their lives by bypassing the IR. MPesa is a good example, allowing people without wired infrastructure to transfer money. Smart Cards were developed in France, but Africa has employed them successfully to deal with rampant counterfeiting and allow other transactions. When the power requirements of these technologies is considered, it should be obvious that their lives will improve with only modest infrastructure, meaning the price per watt falls greatly.
Let's also consider the resurgence in managed pastoralism to produce more food with fewer industrial inputs while increasing soil health (and avoiding the inevitable IR-induced soil crisis and desertification). We in the west can learn a thing or two from African experiences.
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You can have environmental regulations in the industrialized parts of the world without denying basic amenities to people in non-industrialized parts of the world. I don't know where you get the idea that we can't have both. Part of the search for alternative sources of energy involves providing the impoverished with access to energy.
Why am I even arguing this? All this is, is talking about the extremes of ideology vs practical application. Oh, so like, if someone is for environmentalism at all, they are for denying amenities to the poor? How about a big flat no.
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No, you can't. The math simply does not add up. You'd have an easier time using a tea-cup to empty the black sea.
Part of the search for alternative sources of energy involves providing the impoverished with access to energy.
Except where those proposals involve, you know, actual access.
If this were well and truly the case we wouldn't be strip-mining china for cadmium, and LNG and Nuclear plants wouldn't be facing so much opposition from the environmentalist community.
Deeds speak louder than words.
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Citation needed, I fail to see how driving electric cars and recycling our cans are causing people to starve.
"Except where those proposals involve, you know, actual access."
Citation needed again, because I even remember a thread posted here talking about building a power system that runs trough Europe and Africa. And it's just basic logic to deduce that finding alternative sources of power can help provide power in areas where it simply would not be practical to just build a fossil fuel plant.
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The problem is not so much "the environmentalist community" but the tech you cite. Steam-based solid-fuel nukes are a problem, (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1624509.html) a holdover from a failed US policy position. LNG is a desperate attempt to monetize fuel in a coming crunch when fuel prices will be sky-high, when reducing fuel needs would pay off in the long run. Cadmium is a trickier issue, but there is another tech out there that can help (That's the post I've been putting off).
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But hey, there's nothing wrong with electricity. Ever hear of alternatives? You know, those things the deniers want to keep taking away funding from researching and implementing? Why are the only solutions offered by deniers "No electricity, back to nature!" or "Fuck the earth, let's live it up while we can?" There's a middle ground between the two strawman scenarios there. Why be so unimaginative? Whatever happened to that entreupreneurial spirit? We have machinery in Equador right now that is pulling moisture from the air and delivering it - real life Star Wars moisture vaporators, bringing clean water to people who've never had it before. You're telling me we can't come up with a way to meet the electricity needs of a growing world without destroying it in the process?
I take exception to the idea that environmentalists "like polar bears better than people." What's better? Trying to conserve the world, or blindly screaming "HUMANS ARE BETTER! HUMANS ARE BETTER!" while steamrolling forward so knee-jerkedly that we end up destroying it even for humans?
"Well, we're all going to die now, but at least we didn't make the mistake of CARING ABOUT POLAR BEARS. Whew."
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You've got your attributions backwards, it's the AGW "proclaimers" that are forcing us into that dichotomy not the "deniers".
What we should be doing is embracing natural gas.
What we should be doing is building dams, and sinking wells, into every aquifer that can support one.
What we should be mass producing MSRs and RTGs rather than using them only for submarines and NASA missions.
But we aren't because every tome someone suggests such alternatives the environmentalists get their panties in a twist. To steal a line from UL, They don't give a tinker's damn about alternative energy except as buzzwords.