In the 18th century the standard anti-democratic propaganda pushed by monarchists was "People are too stupid to govern themselves. Don't try."

In the 20th century the standard anti-democratic propaganda pushed by totalitarians was "All your choices are the same. Don't participate."

It's getting old. In the US alone, there are many easily-observed and well-documented differences between the policies of the two parties at the federal level alone, all three branches. Yeah there's some stuff that's the same too and that's annoying, but anti-democratic propaganda makes the problem worse and is also annoying.

Yes that indicates most people who view don't write comments, but if a lot of people read through comments when watching a video then that's part of the media experience and they're maybe influenced by that.

If 500 people show up to a town hall event and only 20 speak, many of the others are still presumably engaged. I'd still call that "social."

Or another angle, if someone spends an hour every day on facebook but only posts content of their own every week or so, how much of their time should we say they're spending "on social media"?

It's a pretty nasty disease that has killed a lot of people, hardly non-lethal.

The infection is not treatable. Supportive care is all we have.

It's true there aren't a lot of deaths in the US from measles. Because we still have a good vaccination rate. No thanks to misinformation like yours. Really, spreading blatant misinformation about serious topics doesn't make you look good. At least have the self-respect to post AC if you're going to behave this way.

I don't see it being equated to a civil war, just an insurrection.

The "1 afternoon" argument reminds me of the time the father of that rapist Brock Turner complained his son was being punished for a mere "20 minutes of action." I guess the idea is that any crime you can get done in 20 minutes or 1 afternoon is no big deal?

And before you complain that I'm equating the Jan 6 people with rapists, I'm not. For example, Turner's misdeeds didn't get anybody killled.

Agreed. My point was that people who have the resources will make it through, and those who have less resources will suffer. These are the probable scenarios. There are some less probable scenarios around extinction and "humanity's demise" which get too much attention and Gates was speaking out about that. He says this right at the top of his blog entry, the one I believe you were quoting "thrive" from:

https://www.gatesnotes.com/hom...

You chose to summarize his message as follows:

Sounds to me like you're saying because of his use of one word "thrive" we shouldn't talk about climate change because it's a non-issue. And that is light years both from the truth and from what he is saying.

He made a whole list of claims there, I do wish he'd cited some sources. Though you can easily google "Climate change in spain" or "desertification in spain" and get some specific data on what has happened, and what is projected in the next couple of decades. You can learn about specifically what the processes are and how human activity (global production of greenhouse gasses, and local activity like agriculture) contribute to the expansion of deserts.

My point is that it's possible to learn about the cause and impact of these very real climate change processes that are going on, by looking at aggregate data. For one person to say anecdotally "I do not see a new desert from where I am sitting" is not wrong but is far from the best way to have meaningful discussion on a topic that affects us all.

It will always be flawed. "Untrustworthy" I guess depends on what you're trusting it to do.

Well I agree. There are and always will be bad actors in science like anything else. I've never heard a scientist deny that this can happen.

I'm just not understanding this conclusion though. It's quite a jump.

of course I forgot the link because that's the kind of guy I am: https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/a...

of course I forgot the link because that's the kind of guy I am: https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/a...

The beauty of personal anecdotes on a planet of 8 billion people is you can say just about anything and maybe it's true for you but it has little bearing on the situation. Have you looked at any aggregated data for your region? The EU has lots, for example here's a simple picture showing an increase of about .3-.5 C per decade since the 60s. And we know from other evidence that that number is accelerating. And we know that with that increased average comes even higher peaks like some days we saw last summer.

The beauty of personal anecdotes on a planet of 8 billion people is you can say just about anything and maybe it's true for you but it has little bearing on the situation. Have you looked at any aggregated data for your region? The EU has lots, for example here's a simple picture showing an increase of about .3-.5 C per decade since the 60s. And we know from other evidence that that number is accelerating. And we know that with that increased average comes even higher peaks like some days we saw last summer.

I'm guessing you have AC at home?

Have you forgotten that billionaires have bunkers?

Thrive is relative. If we depopulate significantly, without triggering a nuclear war, it may "not lead to humanity's demise" (to use a few more of his exact words). Extinction is always possible but there are perhaps too many people throwing that word around. The probable scenarios all involve significant human suffering though.

Because avoiding mass suffering is important to some people, and the topic of TFA that you clicked on.

The power-that-be at that time was an institution that was part church, part international political power broker. Galileo simultaneously stepped on both of those feet, by both questioning religious dogma and publicly thumbing his nose at authority figures.

Your suggestion that 17th century religious dogma is comparable to modern "peer-reviewed" scientific "consensus" seems a bit of a stretch.

In the world of scientific thought, an enormous amount has changed since the Renaissance.

In the world of political games, no not so much.

It's true that when you build a broad consensus over years through research, theory refinement, and accumulation of a wealth of supporting data, and then someone comes along out of the blue with a single study or other idea that contradicts all that, you're going to immediately question it. If it's a politically charged topic or you have other reason to think the newcomer has an agenda around deliberately sowing uncertainty, you might look into their credentials and evidence of bias. That's all part of the process. It's intelligent human behavior.

It's also true that the newcomer might be right. Sometimes the consensus is wrong. The bar should be higher but there should be some way to surmount it, and that way is evidence. It's all part of the scientific process.