The connection between Religion and Climate Change (Denial) - Page 4 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14689060
Pants-of-dog wrote:@Dr House ,

The fact that you keep ignoring me does not change the fact that you have not presented evidence to support your claim.

Can I assume that you have no evidence?

No, you can just assume that I'm ignoring you because your assertion is a joke. If you can't see the correlation between high energy taxes and tough energy restrictions and people dying of exposure, I cannot help you.
#14689062
Tough energy restrictions would reuire more insulation in your house, thus reducing the number of deaths.

It would also reduce the amount of energy used, thus offseting any costs associated with increased taxes.

--------------

Now, since you have no evidence, we can assume that your reasonable hypothesis is just that: an unsupported hypothesis. It may be true, but it may not be.
#14689063
Thanks for calling it reasonable.

Your arguments are pretty feeble though. American homes are well-insulated, not because of regulations, but precisely in order to minimize the cost of climate control. This allows us to use it liberally.
#14689065
Dr House wrote:Health and safety are things one trades off for living standards -- you can have more of one or more of the other. For example, activities such as oil refinery work and deep-sea fishing are extremely unsafe, and are therefore some of the lucrative professions in America.

Contrary to what you may have heard, I know the definition of a trade-off. But thanks.

What I meant is that they're a part of the living-standards equation, and people choose, based on available alternatives, whether they'd rather have more safety or more affluence. With the economy advancing, more people get to choose safety over affluence.

And you can't choose that if circumstances don't allow it. A clean environment is a prerequisite for making that choice, one individual cannot on their own live within society and create that environment through their choices. From that baseline social level of safety that impacts everyone, yes, then you have choices about ways to live more safely, more affluently, or what have you.

Systems that attempt human needs via suppression of wants lack vision and ultimately are self-destructive, because in reality needs and wants are one and the same -- needs are just generally more urgent.

That's the definition of "needs vs. wants." Urgency. It is not suppression of wants to ensure needs are met so people can then pursue those wants.

Their urgent nature makes fulfilling them lucrative, and therefore guarantees a high supply

Considering the climate crisis, basic safety is not in a high supply in the long-term.


The Gini coefficient among working people is actually remarkably low.

The OECD reports 45.3 for working income, which is higher than the overall inequality one of 37.0. Meanwhile, the Census Bureau's overall figure is the considerably higher 46.9. I don't know what measures they used to arrive at their numbers, but clearly there's a disconnect. And considering how the OECD as an organization exists explicitly to facilitate neoliberal trade policy, the Census Bureau has less incentive to overreport than the OECD does to under.

The main driver of inequality is the increasing number of people who don't work/make an income (who make up nearly 2/3 of people in poverty, due perhaps to the steady decline in entrepreneurship.

In the event that's true, and even the OECD's working-to-overall ratio would indicate it isn't, that would mean: people unable to find a job. People forced out of the job market. That would sound like a combination of Third World shifts in production and credential inflation for the remaining service-sector jobs.
Last edited by Luna on 13 Jun 2016 14:37, edited 2 times in total.
#14689068
Dr House wrote:Thanks for calling it reasonable.


Lamarckism is also reasonable. Like your hypothesis, it is also not supported by evidence.

Your arguments are pretty feeble though. American homes are well-insulated, not because of regulations, but precisely in order to minimize the cost of climate control. This allows us to use it liberally.


So we agree that homes with better insulation use less energy, thus regulations requiring more energy efficient homes would be better insulated.

Now, would a home with better insulation be more or less likely prevent deaths due to cold or heat?
#14689077
It seems we're not going to reach an agreement on climate related issues. In short, I'm optimistic that technological solutions will resolve any problems that arise when they arise -- and there's no need to sacrifice people's present standard of living. Technology has already solved (or is on track to solving) every actually apparent problem we have, and I have no reason to believe that'll change.

I'll still quibble with you about the other stuff though. ;)

That's the definition of "needs vs. wants." Urgency. It is not suppression of wants to ensure needs are met so people can then pursue those wants.

But suppression is exactly how the government "solves" problems, which means it's the solution put forward by socialism.

The OECD reports 45.3, which is higher than the overall inequality one of 37.0. Meanwhile, the Census Bureau's overall figure is the considerably higher 46.9. I don't know what measures they used to arrive at their numbers, but clearly there's a disconnect.

This is a study of disparity in lifetime earnings. The primary driver of immediate inequality is work experience.

In the event that's true, that means: people unable to find a job. People forced out of the job market. That sounds like a combination of Third World shifts in production and credential inflation for the remaining service-sector jobs.

The third world isn't quite as much of a drain as you might think. It's difficult to estimate exactly how many jobs have gone offshore -- some sources say millions of jobs have cone to China, but the reality is that only 1.3% of America's $4.1 trillion stock of foreign direct investment is actually in China. 75% is in rich countries (Europe, Canada, Japan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Korea, and Hong Kong).

$4.1 trillion, btw, is only about 10% of America's capital stock.

Meanwhile, 5.2% of the private sector workforce works for foreign companies.

To this day America remains a highly competitive hub for industry. In fact, even in 2004, Chinese manufacturing cost 84% as much as American manufacturing, per unit. That's risen to 94% today.

So we agree that homes with better insulation use less energy,

Yes...

thus regulations requiring more energy efficient homes would be better insulated.

No, because people aren't total idiots. Energy-efficient homes are widespread here, because lower utilities bills tend to be a good selling point for home builders.
Last edited by Dr House on 13 Jun 2016 15:00, edited 1 time in total.
#14689082
mikema63 wrote:Fuck biology and medical science, capitalism is what really allowed the invention antibiotics and vaccines. :lol:

fyp.

The repeated failures of state socialism rightly should tell you that an unfree society simply cannot achieve what a free society can.
#14689092
Dr House wrote:It seems we're not going to reach an agreement on climate related issues. In short, I'm optimistic that technological solutions will resolve any problems that arise when they arise -- and there's no need to sacrifice people's present standard of living.

I don't want to sacrifice our present standard of living more than absolutely necessary, for the record. I do think the rate of future growth will almost certainly have to slow some, if the externalities and unintended consequences caused by our prosperity are actually to be dealt with.

I'd also add that these "technological solutions" will also likely come with government-based R&D. Based on economies of scale and there being more long-term political will than short-term market will, they're simply more likely to marshal the necessary resources first and more quickly.

But suppression is exactly how the government "solves" problems, which means it's the solution put forward by socialism.

The solution put forward by socialism is worker control of the means of production, full-stop. If you have a vote proportional to work put in, in how the place you spend half your life in is run, that is socialism. So, it's a system based on meeting peoples' expressed needs.


This is a study of disparity in lifetime earnings. The primary driver of immediate inequality is work experience.

So, the primary driver of immediately-felt inequality is workplace position. That would seem to help a "weak unions and production shifts to the Third World" case.

The third world isn't quite as much of a drain as you might think. It's difficult to estimate exactly how many jobs have gone offshore -- some sources say millions of jobs have cone to China, but the reality is that only 1.3% of America's $4.1 trillion stock of foreign direct investment is actually in China. 75% is in rich countries (Europe, Canada, Japan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Korea, and Hong Kong).

Hong Kong (as part of China) and Singapore are Third World for geopolitical purposes, in that they're neither First World (NATO/Atlanticist powers) nor the now-nonexistent Second (Warsaw Pact). Taiwan is only "First World" in the most tenuous possible sense, Chiang Kai-shek became a puppet leader only with trepidation and resented/feared his imperial masters. Even South Korea has a tenuous history here, considering the shaky relationship between Park Chung-hee and those same imperial masters.

But, from generally neoliberal sources, the latter being one of the two primary Wall Street mouthpieces: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/201 ... n-10-years and http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/artic ... ctory-jobs And this is just the specific country of China. More manufacturing goes to Southeast Asia today, with increased living standards and wage demands in China itself.

To this day America remains a highly competitive hub for industry. In fact, even in 2004, Chinese manufacturing cost 84% as much as American manufacturing, per unit. That's risen to 94% today.

I don't think anyone denies America remains tremendously competitive. I'm just saying, factually speaking, economic development in the Third World is a driving cause of wage stagnation in the United States. Along with ending Bretton Woods' stabilization, and dramatically defanged unions.

The repeated failures of state socialism rightly should tell you that an unfree society simply cannot achieve what a free society can.

As a relatively libertarian socialist, I want to agree. Really, I do. But removal of the short-term profit focus of capitalism enables marshaling the resources for qualitatively necessary long-term projects, as opposed to a quantitative system where needs and wants are not distinguished.

On vaccination itself: Cuba has developed a lung cancer vaccine that appears to prevent about 80% of cases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CimaVax-EGF They also oversaw a dramatic agricultural revolution in the wake of the Cold War, when the Soviet oil was cut off, and now have the most sustainable permaculture on the planet. Meanwhile the Soviet Union went into orbit quite a bit before the US, and stamped out alcoholism with the result of generally greater longevity than in the United States.

All you need to prevent said projects from diverting resources from even more immediate human needs is some sort of decentral feedback mechanism, like under the NEP.
Last edited by Luna on 13 Jun 2016 17:00, edited 5 times in total.
#14689100
You keep drawing this distinction between the market as a short-term actor and the government as a long-term actor that simply isn't warranted. Business is, with the exception of financial speculation (facilitated by the inflationary nature of the dollar), actually a medium to long-term affair. Most capital sunk into research doesn't pan out for years. Meanwhile, the government typically cares more about how a project will affect poll numbers than its actual effects, and members of the permanent government (i.e. bureaucrats) only have an incentive to care about either their own benefits and power, or their own untethered conception of the world. They don't have the pressure of actually selling anything, thus no need to actually look at real world results.

Also the government is the biggest polluter by far. No government agency actually meets its own mandates.

As for the concept of worker-run socialism: there's an easy solution to that that's actively impeded by the government, which is simply that all the workers buy stock. Every single one of America's largest corporations is a common-stock company, and anyone can buy an ownership share.

This would be far easier, except the government takes 15% of everyone's incomes (which for lower income people it's basically all that they have for retirement), and force you to put it in a Ponzi scheme.

By the way there's nothing particularly wrong or ahistorical about inexperienced workers getting paid less. People get paid roughly according to their value added and risk factor -- and workers with low experience represent low value and high risk. Attempting to equalize wages by force mostly has the effect of blocking the entry of these workers into the labor force -- inhibiting social mobility. The only way to get into high wage jobs is to work low wage jobs first (or corruption/nepotism).
Last edited by Dr House on 13 Jun 2016 15:54, edited 1 time in total.
#14689111
Because so far there are no human problems that have arisen from climate change. Capitalism has solved general livability problems in the most inhospitable places imaginable, so worst-case scenario it can easily just replica those solutions worldwide.
#14689112
Dr House wrote:You keep drawing this distinction between the market as a short-term actor and the government as a long-term actor that simply isn't warranted.

Sure it is. An exchange-value, profit-based system does draw no distinction, which is exactly why it has a short-term time preference. It's very hard to marshal the resources to get large-scale long-term projects done, when investors are too worried about not seeing a return until 10-20 years later. The government can marshal these resources much more easily, based on political will.

They don't have the pressure of actually selling anything, thus no need to actually look at real world results.

Nor do they have the pressure to sell anything. Having to see short-term results is exactly why you see more innovations in our weapons system than our welfare one. Or why you see R&D investment to make solar more efficient from the state more than private investors.

Generally speaking, the need to see said short-term results isn't a bad thing. Nobody wants boondoggles. But if the political will and perception of public need are observably there, meaning it's conducted in the context of a democratic structure, it's generally much easier to get a large-scale project done via the government which can be pressured in that way. As opposed to private enterprise, which will generally only muster the resources if there is a relatively short-term rise in their profits, which at best makes very large-scale projects harder to coordinate and in some select instances is an active motivation against solving anything (e.g. universal healthcare provision).

Also the government is the biggest polluter by far.

Most of which is military, and the second-most is the Ag Department which largely exists to aid and protect agribusiness.

As for the concept of worker-run socialism: there's an easy solution to that that's actively impeded by the government, which is simply that all the workers buy stock. Every single one of America's largest corporations is a common-stock company, and anyone can buy an ownership share.

Yeah, but no. The workers could not simply buy stock equal to their share in production, even if the managerial class/the labor-aristocracy pitched in.

Owing to vast wealth disparity, that would never happen. You could at most buy 50%, the share offer Benito Mussolini gave. Are owners half the population? If not, that isn't workplace democracy.
Last edited by Luna on 13 Jun 2016 16:29, edited 1 time in total.
#14689118
Pretty much every project that's supposed to save us from a catastrophe that's supposedly a generation off is going to be a boondoggle. Humans simply don't have the tools to forecast that far ahead, and if we did capital would still be a more effective solution to long-term problems than the government. There is such a thing as early-adopter speculation, where you guess that a given industry is going to be much more important in the future than it is now, and set up infrastructure for it at a discount. That's the whole basis of venture capital, which is the most farsighted sector of the economy and typically solves problems far better than the government can.

As for worker ownership: Yeah, it's unequal, but why does that matter? Wealth in the stock market builds exponentially, so if people were investing in the market, their net worth would balloon dramatically, to the point that it perhaps wouldn't even matter to them (over the course of a working life, an average worker can earn up to a million dollars in the market from compounded returns). However, I tend to think that wealth in a society with high savings occurs in a bell curve rather than being concentrated at the top -- because income distribution itself is a bell curve.
Last edited by Dr House on 13 Jun 2016 16:41, edited 1 time in total.
#14689119
Dr House wrote:Pretty much every project that's supposed to save us from a catastrophe that's supposedly a generation off is going to be a boondoggle.

Examples: Cuba's cancer vaccination, sustainable permaculture. The Soviet anti-alcoholism campaign. Industrialization in almost any country. These are large-scale projects, often with occasional lapses, that have taken political will and government resources and have seen positive results.

Humans simply don't have the tools to forecast that far ahead, and if we did capital would still be a more effective solution to long-term problems than the government.

I don't share this dogma. I think, like most economists, economies of scale apply to the government as well.

There is such a thing as early-adopter speculation, where you guess that a given industry is going to be much more important in the future than it is now, and set up infrastructure for it at a discount.

And this is generally a small-scale investment, because investors are usually risk-averse with long-term plans. Government-level resources speed this up exponentially.

That's the whole basis of venture capital, which is the most farsighted sector of the economy and typically solves problems far better than the government can.

Venture capitalists can do quite a bit of good work at funding innovative and helpful projects, and shaking up bureaucracy. Most will tell you they won't muster the same kinds of resources long-term that government R&D divisions will. Most of them even spend a considerable amount of their time trying to persuade the government to pour money into projects they see value in.

So long as what those R&D divisions are funding has been decided on democratically, using peoples' money to respond to an actual need they demonstrably want addressed rather than some unaccountable jackoff's pet project (which is how you get Lysenkoism), it is a very effective tool at getting there.
#14689124
I don't think you get bonus points for citing Cuba as a positive example of anything. Cuba is a shithole. The rationing book doesn't have enough calories per month to keep people alive, and you pretty much don't survive unless you do something in the black market. The grocery stores are empty, the only thing you can get at the cafes are the famous Cuban sandwiches, which at any rate are better in Miami (and for that matter the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, where I'm from). Cabbies in the partially deregulated tourist industry make more money than state-employed doctors.

The USSR wasn't much better. It was a brutal place to live, and it probably stamped out alcoholism either by force or just by running out of booze.

The government can achieve some of the long term results of private industry, but due to its sluggish nature it can't achieve them without either violence, or crowding out significant quantities of private sector innovation and gains.

Nor does the government ever really achieve equality. Apples to apples, big-government welfarism and regulation actually somewhat promotes income inequality, and in state socialist systems even though on paper the incomes are more equal, the political elite have enough control and marginal benefits to render that moot (example: Party officials had their own private lanes in Soviet cities).
#14689129
Dr House wrote:Because so far there are no human problems that have arisen from climate change. Capitalism has solved general livability problems in the most inhospitable places imaginable, so worst-case scenario it can easily just replica those solutions worldwide.


https://noharm-global.org/sites/default ... Health.pdf

    Can current effects be estimated, if not yet directly observed? The current burden of disease attributable to climate change has been estimated by WHO as part of the Global Burden of Disease (2000) project, a comprehensive standardised risk assessment exercise that underwent critical review.133 The estimation of the attributable burden was a statistical exercise that entailed three steps: (i) estimation of the baseline average annual disease burden in 1961–90; (ii) specification (from published work) of the increase in disease risk per unit increase in temperature or other climate variable; and (iii) estimation, by geographic region, of the current and future global distributions of population health effects of the change in climate. The extent of climate change (relative to the 1961–90 average climate) by the year 2000 is estimated to have caused in that year around 160 000 deaths worldwide and the loss of 5 500 000 disability-adjusted life-years (from malaria, malnutrition, diarrhoeal disease, heatwaves, and floods).34
    This exercise was conservative in several respects, including being limited to quantifiable health outcomes. Nevertheless, is it reasonable to attribute a proportion of global deaths from malaria, malnutrition, or other such outcomes in 2000, to the global warming that has taken place since around 1975? The fact that equivalent estimations are routinely made for other such relation- ships involving a disease with known multivariate causation—eg, the proportion of all stroke deaths in 2000 attributable to hypertension134—suggests that, in principle, wherever a well documented exposure-effect relation exists, the incremental change in health outcome can legitimately be estimated for an incre- mental exposure (eg, temperature).

160 000 deaths is definitely a negative impact, and that is just looking at deaths. If we add in increases in diseases, famine in the developing world, and other impacts that are not deaths, then yes, negative impacts are already a reality.

Capitalism is turning the world inhospitable now because it is probably the single greatest impediment to acting on climate change.
#14689130
Dr House wrote:I don't think you get bonus points for citing Cuba as a positive example of anything. Cuba is a shithole.

Preventing according to the Canadian health service likely around 80% of future lung cancers and a good chunk of prostate cancers is a pretty heavy accomplishment.

As is far-reaching agricultural reform to keep the farms alive sans foreign oil, with the nifty bonus of being sustainable production. When and if the climate crisis gets bad, Cuba will have a lot to fear from rising sea levels, but their economy will be fine.

The rationing book doesn't have enough calories per month to keep people alive,

Their population seems pretty alive, as far as I know they're still breathing. And you're not hearing of their hospitals, which the WHO ranks just barely below the US and that's after our meager reforms under Obama, filled with malnutrition cases. So I do have to wonder what your source is on that. Because like, if it's "there's this one place where some guy ate all the bagels in the truck"...

Cabbies in the partially deregulated tourist industry make more money than state-employed doctors.

Doctors in a relatively highly-regarded healthcare system. They seem well-paid enough to do their jobs competently.

The USSR wasn't much better. It was a brutal place to live, and it probably stamped out alcoholism either by force or just by running out of booze.

They raised prices on them, penalizing their purchase. It worked at the goal of reducing crime and improving the life expectancy. Its impact on the state budget was a little shaky.

The government can achieve some of the long term results of private industry, but due to its sluggish nature it can't achieve them without either violence, or crowding out significant quantities of private sector innovation and gains.

And can achieve them faster. If the democratic will is there for said projects, if it's a demonstrable need for the public, how is it worse than whatever private sector "gains" you could use those resources on instead? Both are meeting some desire, and generally the ones pushed for politically will be qualitatively greater and larger in scale. Otherwise the government usually isn't called on by the public.

Nor does the government ever really achieve equality. Apples to apples, big-government welfarism and regulation actually somewhat promotes income inequality, and in state socialist systems even though on paper the incomes are more equal, the political elite have enough control and marginal benefits to render that moot (example: Party officials had their own private lanes in Soviet cities).

So are you focusing on the topic, or just preaching the Market Gospel? Because like, if it's the latter, that's what blogs are for.

Scandinavian social democracies have significantly less income inequality than the US though, for the record. Same level of socioeconomic development, the only difference is one has strong labor laws and strong (but more decentralized than the Anglo model) public provisions.

Also, the ZIL Lanes were Brezhnev-era ridiculousness, symptomatic of a highly ossified and bureaucratic system totally disconnected from any sort of bottom-up democratic procedure. A trend that started with shutting down the soviets/worker councils, sped up under Stalin, and reached a crescendo under Brezhnev when internal reform became incredibly difficult. It ultimately accomplished capitalist/bourgeois development and, owing to external pressures like numerous foreign powers invading in the Civil War necessitating top-down stabilizing measures, failed at socialist development.

As for worker ownership: Yeah, it's unequal, but why does that matter?

I think being able to democratically manage your workplace is at least as important as being able to democratically manage your state. You should have a say in the place spend about half your life. You don't if your class, collectively, even with managers included has only 50% of a say.

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