Democracies and Mutual Respect

1.) I pointed out some of the ordinary rude actions that exist among friends. How can we expect people who plaster their cars with bumper stickers that read, "my cat is smarter than your honor student," to be civil.

2.) I have pointed out that some of the arguments we hear are poorly constructed. How can a person expect to receive respect if they can not construct a logical argument?

3.) Some of the issues today deal with the safety of the planet in the next three or four years. Sure, it is glib to say that you don't want your grandchildren to be taught sky-is-falling science but I don't want my grandchildren dead because of silly beliefs that have more to do with the flight from personal responsibility than science. Not to confront these beliefs is to accept death . . . and to contribute to the deaths of others.
a.) Recent work has been done on irrational decision making. There is an article in the current edition of Harvard Magazine that discusses how people put off making decisions to help the planet or to save money because they are grasshoppers when they should be ants.
b.) There is a related body of work on how altruism is irrational.

4.) What about people who avoid the rigors of examing their beliefs?

5.) Why have outmoded systems of thought resurfaced?

5.)

Do you understand a little humor?


You can respect anyones right to express a view whether you respect or agree with their view or not.


It is glib to assume the scientific body of evidence is 100% conclusive or anything close that indicates the planet is going to be destroyed anytime soon by greenhouse gases or some other environmental scenario. I think you are just as irrational. Many of us believe it is totally irrational to base important economic decisions on unsound, inconclusive, and questionable computer models.


Practice what you preach.



Does logic ever become outmoded? What systems of thought are you talking about anyway?

From another forum: Date Posted: 04/17/2006 8:58 AM


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The ferocity with which the exploiters of our planet defend their RIGHT to do as they want with our planet is amazing. Krugman writes about it in this op ed piece. Of course, the exploiter-in-chief will never read this or be able to accept it for action.

pril 17, 2006

Op-Ed Columnist
Enemy of the Planet
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Lee Raymond, the former chief executive of Exxon Mobil, was paid $686 million over 13 years. But that's not a reason to single him out for special excoriation. Executive compensation is out of control in corporate America as a whole, and unlike other grossly overpaid business leaders, Mr. Raymond can at least claim to have made money for his stockholders.

There's a better reason to excoriate Mr. Raymond: for the sake of his company's bottom line, and perhaps his own personal enrichment, he turned Exxon Mobil into an enemy of the planet.

To understand why Exxon Mobil is a worse environmental villain than other big oil companies, you need to know a bit about how the science and politics of climate change have shifted over the years.

Global warming emerged as a major public issue in the late 1980's. But at first there was considerable scientific uncertainty.

Over time, the accumulation of evidence removed much of that uncertainty. Climate experts still aren't sure how much hotter the world will get, and how fast. But there's now an overwhelming scientific consensus that the world is getting warmer, and that human activity is the cause. In 2004, an article in the journal Science that surveyed 928 papers on climate change published in peer-reviewed scientific journals found that "none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position."

To dismiss this consensus, you have to believe in a vast conspiracy to misinform the public that somehow embraces thousands of scientists around the world. That sort of thing is the stuff of bad novels. Sure enough, the novelist Michael Crichton, whose past work includes warnings about the imminent Japanese takeover of the world economy and murderous talking apes inhabiting the lost city of Zinj, has become perhaps the most prominent global-warming skeptic. (Mr. Crichton was invited to the White House to brief President Bush.)

So how have corporate interests responded? In the early years, when the science was still somewhat in doubt, many companies from the oil industry, the auto industry and other sectors were members of a group called the Global Climate Coalition, whose de facto purpose was to oppose curbs on greenhouse gases. But as the scientific evidence became clearer, many members ? including oil companies like BP and Shell ? left the organization and conceded the need to do something about global warming.

Exxon, headed by Mr. Raymond, chose a different course of action: it decided to fight the science.

A leaked memo from a 1998 meeting at the American Petroleum Institute, in which Exxon (which hadn't yet merged with Mobil) was a participant, describes a strategy of providing "logistical and moral support" to climate change dissenters, "thereby raising questions about and undercutting the 'prevailing scientific wisdom.' " And that's just what Exxon Mobil has done: lavish grants have supported a sort of alternative intellectual universe of global warming skeptics.

The people and institutions Exxon Mobil supports aren't actually engaged in climate research. They're the real-world equivalents of the Academy of Tobacco Studies in the movie "Thank You for Smoking," whose purpose is to fail to find evidence of harmful effects.

But the fake research works for its sponsors, partly because it gets picked up by right-wing pundits, but mainly because it plays perfectly into the he-said-she-said conventions of "balanced" journalism. A 2003 study, by Maxwell Boykoff and Jules Boykoff, of reporting on global warming in major newspapers found that a majority of reports gave the skeptics ? a few dozen people, many if not most receiving direct or indirect financial support from Exxon Mobil ? roughly the same amount of attention as the scientific consensus, supported by thousands of independent researchers.

Has Exxon Mobil's war on climate science actually changed policy for the worse? Maybe not. Although most governments have done little to curb greenhouse gases, and the Bush administration has done nothing, it's not clear that policies would have been any better even if Exxon Mobil had acted more responsibly.

But the fact is that whatever small chance there was of action to limit global warming became even smaller because Exxon Mobil chose to protect its profits by trashing good science. And that, not the paycheck, is the real scandal of Mr. Raymond's reign as Exxon Mobil's chief executive.

Okie -- First, humor is a sign of intelligence. But that cat bumper sticker is not humorous, it is the sort of rudeness that my elementary school teachers labeled the sound of an empty tin can rattling down a road.

Second, given the fact that I read science constantly, my beliefs are constantly re-examined.

Third, outmoded belief systems include the Bible. Even St. Augustine decried people who took it literally.

Fourth, if you want to debate, construct a rational argument. That species bit about raping 12 year old girls was absolutely ridiculous.

The EXACT same type of computer modeling is done for important economic decisions all the time. Lots of people are making lots of money using those models and sometimes losing lots. You create a computer model, test it with historical data and then if it correlates to that historical data you use it to predict future data. Every major hedge fund uses computer modeling to run its strategy. I would argue that economic computer models are more questionable since they really are more subject to the vagaries of human interference. (ie sudden unrest in Nigeria can affect oil prices in a way completely unforseen by modeling.)

Computer models don't show the planet will be destroyed. Computer models show an increase in warming. What the ultimate effects of that warming will be are not predicted in the models. If you bothered to actually look at the composite graphs of those computer models you would see that the mean actually shows less warming than has actually occurred. Even the models that predicted less than actual warming also show an increase of another 1-2 degrees in the near future.

I think its very humorous. You are taking your own perceived intelligence way too serious. I've known Phds that did not know diddly about simple things, yet they could solve complicated mathematical formulas. Do you know the first thing about plumbing a house to the building standards? Do you know how to drive a garbage truck? Do you know anything about drywalling a new house? Do you know the first thing about how to build an oil refinery? Do you know how to run a dairy or till a field, plant a wheat crop, and so on? The point of the cat sticker is to tell people not to get too proud of their superior intelligence, which may be way over-rated, and they may not know much about anything just because their kid happened to make the honor roll.

Do you read conflicting opinions and presentations of facts?


So loving God and loving others as yourself is outmoded? Do you have something better? Such as save the planet? I doubt it.


??? What are you talking about? Are you rational?

Lastly, I am sick of libs that demonize corporations. If you don't like oil companies, quit buying their gas. Nobody is holding a gun to your head forcing you to buy it. If the government was doing it, it would probably cost $10.00 per gallon by now. Wake up to reality and quit your whinin about people that are actually doing something to supply your cushy lifestyle. If you don't like it, go back to the caves.

Okie wrote:I think its very humorous. You are taking your own perceived intelligence way too serious.

How he ever got to that conclusion is beyond me.

This, thanks to okie, is an example of a non sequitor:

Do you know the first thing about plumbing a house to the building standards? Do you know how to drive a garbage truck? Do you know anything about drywalling a new house? Do you know the first thing about how to build an oil refinery? Do you know how to run a dairy or till a field, plant a wheat crop, and so on? The point of the cat sticker is to tell people not to get too proud of their superior intelligence, which may be way over-rated, and they may not know much about anything just because their kid happened to make the honor roll.


Now, the cat sticker does nothing but illustrate how crude and boorish the creator of said sticker is and how crude, boorish and sheeplike the person who put the sticker on the car is.

I am certain, okie, that you are among those who are convinced that American education is going to hell in a hand basket. Frankly, I do not approve of the my-child-is-an-honor student stickers. However, I am not a, to use Barbara Bush's phrase, a "rhymes with rich" woman nor am I a creep nor am I rude nor am I small minded. I would never insult those parents who are doing an exemplary job of raising their kids and who are in school districts that promote their own work by passing out those stickers.

Second, given the fact that I read science constantly, my beliefs are constantly re-examined.
Do you read conflicting opinions and presentations of facts?

Okie, I will refrain from what I was going to say, but it is pretty obvious that you did not read the column I posted nor did you read the response made to your modeling statement. Geez! save us from your self-righteousness.

Quote:
Fourth, if you want to debate, construct a rational argument. That species bit about raping 12 year old girls was absolutely ridiculous.

??? What are you talking about? Are you rational?

Lastly, I am sick of libs that demonize corporations. If you don't like oil companies, quit buying their gas. Nobody is holding a gun to your head forcing you to buy it. If the government was doing it, it would probably cost $10.00 per gallon by now. Wake up to reality and quit your whinin about people that are actually doing something to supply your cushy lifestyle. If you don't like it, go back to the caves.

Okie -- Look at what your friend posted above to know what I am talking about.

As for the cost of gas, consider the cost of housing or the cost of food or the cost of a wool sweater today and the cost of all those items when you were in high school, and again when you were in college, and again in the mid-1970s. Do you see a pattern? Gas is cheap! I bet the cost of gas hasn't kept up with inflation or the shrinking dollar -- to use the standard Robert Kyosaki uses.

Okie -- PLEASE STOP IT WITH THE NON SEQUITORS. Corporations are what is wrong with America. We have less choice today when we go to buy clothes (than we did when I was in college) because of corporations. There are fewer opportunities to launch small businesses.

Okie, if corporations had there way, we would all be unemployed. . . and starving and the water would be worse than it is.

Okie, I WAS GOING TO POST A NOTE HERE TO LITTLEK THAT WOULD HAVE SAID WE ARE IN GREATER DANGER FROM AN UNINFORMED CITIZENRY THAN WE ARE FROM RUDE BEHAVIOR.

What have you done? You've approved that ultra-rude and stupid bumper sticker decrying kids who do well in school. YOU HAIL RUDENESS!!!!

And, you've illustrated my point.

the rich and varied mutual respect of the republican party as demonstrated by Richard Nixon when he said:

Dyslexia -- I vaguely remember that quote from Nixon (she writes, refraining from using the name she called Nixon during the years of his presidency -- but willing to remark on how happy she is that he made a mess of it!).

I have always said that it was the left in the 1960s that had the concept of family life. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, life was pretty good for the blue collar class in Michigan. All we wanted was to have the same standard of living our parents had had: a house we could afford and vacations. All, but, we also wanted to exercise our minds and use our educations -- and, of course, in the humanist tradition of the labor union movement (esp. the late Victorian British edition of the movement), we wanted to be truly educated -- that is, in the liberal arts, not in business.

We saw a world in which both husbands and wives worked part-time and truly shared in housekeeping and child-rearing. Had we had our way, we would have had no need for NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND and other fictions.

I don't have to add anything to your statement to illustrate the silliness of your arguments. What do you propose in the place of corporations to produce what you consume every day. Rich individuals running a business? Government? What is your answer as an alternative to evil corporations? Corporations, I might add, are owned by people.

Didn't the corporation provide you with reading glasses okie? :wink:

Corporations are owned by people--people who have no constitutional guarantee of a right to soak their fellow citizens for evey penny they can squeeze out of them; people who have no constitutionally guaranteed freedom from regulation and strict oversight. One of the most popular presidents who ever lived, the Republican Theordore Roosevelt, Jr., understood that, and made it the centerpiece of his career. When he abandoned that, in 1912, he lost the only election he ever lost. Pity modern Republicans don't understand the principle.

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/economic_surveys/003102.html

And this just today:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/business/3800925.html

I don't mean to be rude, but frankly quit whinin everybody. And Plainoldme, it seems to me to complain about the "lack of choice in clothing" makes me ask where you live? There are so many stores and products available most everywhere, it makes my head spin. Frankly, the reason most stuff is made in China is because they are willing to work for less money than most of us spoiled, coddled Americans that are living better than ever.

And as far as some commercial activities, can a small business build an oil refinery or conduct drilling operations on a drilling platform in the Gulf, or manufacture high tech automobiles by the thousands, or manufacture ships, or aircraft? My congratulations and admiration go to corporations that provide the capability and hard work to produce the things that make our lives pretty comfortable at affordable prices. They deserve respect.

If you think a corporation is making too high of profits, go buy a few shares of their stock and share in the rewards. And if you think you can do it cheaper, its a free country, you are free to produce the products at a lower price if you think you can, and then you will become a rich fat cat too.

"As I would not be a slave, I will not be a master"
-Abraham Lincoln

Working Americans are not spoiled. We are treated the way all workers should be treated and corperations don't like that. Corperations like slaves. Thats why they outsource so they can go where cheap labor is inforced by gun point on the working people by corperate/government partnership instead of the working people perserving their god given rights against the corperate/government willingness to exploit all and everything for money. That is the simple plan truth. Anything else is bullshit smoke and mirrors. -amigo



"In China, it is illegal for workers to organize independent unions and to strike, and independent union efforts and protests against unfair conditions are often strongly suppressed. Furthermore, workers' rights violations - such as forced labor, child labor, excessive overtime, substandard wages, and hazardous working conditions - are commonplace. While Chinese labor law provides strong protections for workers' rights, these laws are poorly enforced. As unemployment and poverty mount in China, workers will sacrifice more of their rights to keep their jobs, making it ever more crucial that China enforce fair labor standards and protect its workers"

http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/workers_rights/wr_china/wr_china.htm

I think some of us are spoiled. If we weren't, how come immigrants are willing to take jobs when we won't? I admit I'm spoiled. I won't go pick vegetables at minimum wage because first of all, I don't have to, but if thats all I had as a choice, I would.

As far as working at gunpoint in other countries, I don't think that is the case in the majority; I think it is rather a case of people willing and glad to work for corporations at wages better than what they had before. If they don't wish to work, they are likely free to return to their pre-existing way of life if they think that is far better. The living conditions are improving in those countries where corporations come in and do business there. What you are labeling "exploitation" is viewed by many of them as an "opportunity" that they are very grateful for. You are correct, there are not as many laws and protections for workers in other countries, but frankly we are so over-protected and over-regulated, it has driven many industries to other places.

I also believe the records will show that entrepreneurship and new business start ups are at historic highs. Many of these are one or two-man operations many of which expand rather rapidly to hiring many more. Most new jobs in the United States are provided by small business of this type.

Many if not most of these small businesses are also incorporated. So how big does a corporation have to be before it becomes evil?

And if the big corporations are so evil with their health plans, matching 401Ks, stock options, profit sharing, etc., why is leftish America so gung ho to demand that small business emulate them? At the same time, many of us prefer working for really small business where everybody knows our name and we are personally appreciated even if we do earn lower salaries and enjoy fewer benefits and there is no corporate ladder to climb. The large organizations are usually less personal but do provide opportunities and excellent benefits for their employees that small business can't. Some prefer the latter.

I think mutual respect requires tolerance and appreciation that everybody doesn't have to be the same and it doesn't have to be done according to my preference in order to be acceptable.

Foxfyre, its trendy to blame "multi-national corporations" right now. I blame alot of this on out of touch professors and teachers, that really do not have a clue as to who is producing the wealth. I agree, I personally applaud big business and corporations and I am going to speak up in defense of them. Without them, what would our lifestyle be? Growing poppies and living in a mud hut?

I posted this already, but again, I post again because I love news like this:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/business/3800925.html