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Comment Re:How perfectly appropriate - (Score 1) 341

You will find plenty in each of those fields who have written papers on each side of the debate.

Actually, you won't. 97% of the papers that took a position on global warming between 1991 and 2011 support it. Out the 11,944 papers published between 1991 and 2011 that mention climate change or global warming, only 83 rejected the central premises of AGW, while 3894 supported the premise (the remaining 7967 mentioned climate change or global warming but did not expressly support or deny it). So if you consider 0.7% to be "plenty", then I question your mathematical abilities.

Comment Re:The Pope's doubling-down on irrelevance, I see (Score 3, Informative) 341

Skeptical Science is neither. It is a propaganda website, run by the innermost clique of fraudsters accused of manipulating data, "hiding the decline", and suppressing all dissenting evidence.

Actually, that's just wrong. Skeptical science was started by a cartoonist, and the people involved there are mostly not climate scientists, so your first claim is obviously false.

Of course they publish work that supports their own opinions.

The link from above is merely an explanation of why the claim that warming stopped in 1998 is wrong with actual links to the peer reviewed science to back up the facts used in the explanation.

Those idiots actually still support Mann's Hockey Stick - what may be one of the most thoroughly disproven claims in modern science.

Actually, it may surprise you but is has not been disproven at all. In fact, "[m]ore than two dozen reconstructions, using various statistical methods and combinations of proxy records, have supported the broad consensus shown in the original 1998 hockey-stick graph".

It's be more remarkable if Skeptical Science ever admitted to error, or allowed dissent.

If have seen both, what they don't allow is people to post demonstrably false information, go off topic or dip into personal insults.

The fact is that every single climate model predicted major increases in temperature that have not occurred. Yet somehow these models are still supposed to be correct?

That's a claim, not a fact, and Skeptical Science has a debunking of that claim too.

Comment Re:Media blackout (Score 1) 556

The "corruption" angle of this is far more pervasive than just games or game reviews.

As far as I can tell, GamerGate claims to be about gaming journalism ethics and not any media that matters in any significant way.

It was an interesting coincidence that a Jewish reporter in Israel was complaining about media corruption from a different angle when this story was being broken.

No, it really isn't.

Her perspective was that inconvenient facts and stories are not published. Things that don't support the dogma that your editors want to push are suppressed.

You must be either be clueless or a teenager, if you didn't already know that. It's the most prevalent side effect of the commercialization of the news media. I think Slashdot even covered at least one such scandal in the mainstream media and that was many years ago. In that case, a Fox channel in Florida fired two reporters who refused to edit out parts of their news story that were critical of an advertiser (Monsanto). They sued Fox for wrongful dismissal, but lost the case because the courts ruled that Fox had no duty to tell it's audience the truth.

I'm not sure if it's shared ideology driven by the state of journalism academia or if it's mainly more crass corporate considerations but there's a definite group think at work.

I don't think it journalism academia, they despair for the state of the news media. I think it's simply the corruption of mixing profit-seeking in with the activities that are supposed to create the informed electorate. When the news is bought and paid for by the very same people the news is supposed to investigate, is it any wonder that there is corruption? In America, the government can manipulate the media by simply threatening to take actions that will reduce the profits of the news organization unless they carry the news the government wants them to carry. Because the news is a profit center, it's rasy for the government to manipulate these corporations by such simple means as denying access to media scrums or government officials. Things that won't get the average citizen riled up, but could cost the news organization ratings and thus money. Additionally, it's easy for the news corporation to be manipulated by their sponsors because all the sponsor has to do is threaten to move their advertising to a competitor to lobby for certain stories to be softballed. Even worse as time goes by and these tactics are more common, the news organizations learn to take these actions without even be prompted.

Professional journalism at this point can be at best described as a form of political propaganda.

In many ways the words "at this point" make that sentence less true. The term yellow journalism was coined in the 1890s, after all. The corruption of the news media waxes and wanes with the regulation imposed on it. That regulation is pretty loose right now in the name of free speech, which necessarily leaves a lot of room for corruption. There are worse things, for instance, most of the Russian media is pretty much owned by the Russian government so they repeat uncritically everything they are told to repeat which leads to worse media and worse governance.

Unfortunately, I really have no idea how you would go about making the news media less corrupt, other than maybe banning anything that claims to be news from accepting any sponsorship. If they aren't beholden to make a certain amount of profit for the sponsoring organization it becomes much more difficult to manipulate the editors, and through them the reporters.

Comment Re:r g (Score 1) 688

He's not talking about that kind of disparity. The disparity he's talking about is the gap between the fortunes of the "rich" and the "poor". Wealth is accumulating rapidly on the "rich" side of the scale and we're not even sure if the "poor" side is accumulating anything. Now the rich will always have it better than the poor, so the real question is does it matter if the rich are one thousand, one million, on billion, or one trillion times better off than the poor? It seems to me the evidence, so far, indicates that the larger that gap, the worse off our society as a whole is. At furthest extreme it becomes easy for individuals to buy the votes to get the legislation which protects their interests passed. If you think that's already a problem, that might be an indication that the current inequality is already exceeding a reasonable threshold.

Comment Re:AI + organisations will be the real problem (Score 1) 688

As far as I know, it isn't illegal to ride a horse (or drive a horse and buggy) on most roads (the exception being high-speed closed access roads like highways and interstates) in most countries. I suspect in 50 years time driving your own car will be considered a lot like horse riding or driving a buggy is today. It probably won't be illegal, just very expensive and thus out of reach for the majority of people.

Comment Re:Makes sense if you understand NASA's real missi (Score 1) 200

Actually, with James Inhofe in charge of the Senate committe on commerce sceince and transportation, it might be the case that anything science-related or any actual accomplishments in space is a defect of the intended process of funnelling vital money to the people who fund senatorial re-election campaigns.

Comment Re:Umm, I thought your country promotes freedom? (Score 1) 1051

I don't see the distinction you're trying to make. They're directly helping you and you're indirectly hurting people? They're injecting you with an inactive harmless version of the disease that will protect you, while you're infecting other people with an active harmful version of the disease that may kill them. In either case, the sanctity of someone's body is being violated and it seems to me that what you're doing is worse in every way that matters. Therefore, if they deserve death, you deserve it more.

Also what's your stand on inhalable vaccines? If you're not injected, but instead required to breath in the vaccine does that make a difference to you? Are you still allowed to murder people for violating your body or is it hunky-dory because it's not "piercing someone else's skin"?

Comment Re:Umm, I thought your country promotes freedom? (Score 1) 1051

There is no way in hell that any government is going to demand that I stick anything into my body, let alone my child's body. And, if anyone were to try to pierce my skin, or the skin of my loved one, self-defense will cover my tearing them limb from limb.

Am I allowed to pre-emptively kill you and your unvaccinated disease-machine children before you infect me and mine? I really want to know, because according to your philosophy, "self-defence will cover tearing [you] limb from limb" afterwards, but I'd rather do it before I get sick.

Comment Re:No (Score 1) 1051

But our body is our own. Period. We cannot cross this line. If someone conscientiously objects to a treatment, it is their natural right to decline it.

That works as long as you're not infectious. However, as soon as you become ill you are now violating those rights for everyone you come into contact with. You might think you would just avoid other people while you're sick, however, some diseases like the mumps (The second M in MMR), are infectious for days or weeks before you show symptoms.

If we take the road your propose what is your responsbility to those who died because of your choice? Do you owe their families a life time of financial support for the victims of your pathogens?

Comment Re:Personal inviolability (Score 1) 1051

No, that's anarchism.

Libertarianism eventually boils down to "Fuck you, I've got mine and your taxes are going to help me keep it."

After all, the primary things that libertarians actually think taxes should be used for are police and armies, which both happen to be useful in protecting their property from other people. Effectively, they're just too cheap to pay their own way, even when it comes to protecting their own property.

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