Author Topic: Politics, Religion, etc.  (Read 99489 times)

davep

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
« Reply #1260 on: December 14, 2016, 05:42:14 pm »
Not powerless.  But certainly not all powerful.  Civil Service laws still exist and are in effect.

Dave, I worked for a prime contractor to a National Lab for my entire career.  NOT ONCE did I hear the phrase "Civil Service laws".

Perhaps not surprising.  Prime contractors would not be subject to civil service laws, since they are not civil service employees.

I worked in government procurement, where 90 percent of the employees of Air Force Logistics Command were civil service employees.  I heard a LOT about the Civil Service Laws.

Jes Beard

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
« Reply #1261 on: December 14, 2016, 07:12:26 pm »
In other news, Jes challenges the notion that there is consensus on the fact that the world is indeed round.

This IS typical among those pushing Global Warming.  Instead of addressing the merits of an argument, they ridicule those disagreeing with them, claim there is a consensus, and insist that ends any rational discussion.

Jes Beard

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
« Reply #1262 on: December 14, 2016, 07:47:56 pm »
Perhaps not surprising.  Prime contractors would not be subject to civil service laws, since they are not civil service employees.

I worked in government procurement, where 90 percent of the employees of Air Force Logistics Command were civil service employees.  I heard a LOT about the Civil Service Laws.

.... you really would have thought that FDISK would have understood that.  For some reason I would suspect that that the Director of Public Affairs would NOT be a prime contractor but was instead a direct federal employee, meaning the relevant question would be whether that person was covered by the Civil Service Laws or was a political appointee, as you originally suggested.

Jes Beard

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
« Reply #1263 on: December 14, 2016, 08:50:53 pm »
10 of these forum pages ago, that is what I posted.  In the meanwhile, we had 10 pages of proof or denial posts, nature vs. man posts, professional citation posts, but only one, ONE, offering any kind of solution.  Which was my point.

No.  You may have only seen one post which YOU considered a "solution," but part of the reason for that is that you have been looking for the wrong thing to "solve," and would seem to consider as a "solution" the very thing most people in this country believe is a far greater concern that Global Warming represents even if it is real.

method inadvertently made the point very well with this post:
I am not sure why some of you are quoting professional organizations staffed by professionals in their fields as any sort of proof. Not sure if you knew this or not, but 90% is not a consensus its a conspiracy.... its very very easy to see.

The sad part is that no one alive now will really see the brunt of the effects of anthropogenic effects on the climate and our planet... we'll be long gone before the real consequences are felt. Bright side here again, is we wont have to deal with this... we'd rather save 10-15% NOW! thats the best for all of us!
  (emphasis added)

Costs of 10-15% a year would be a massive drag on the economy and on economic growth.  The difference between inflicting that on the economy and avoiding it would be close to the economic difference between no economic growth an an economic growth rate of roughly the same -- 10 to 15% a year, which would be absolutely massive, far greater economic growth that any of us have ever seen in the United States in our lives.

And despite that difference (and I am using method's own numbers in this discussion), Global Warming supporters dismiss the costs of the kind of government controls they support as if the controls would be insignificant, not worthy of concern.

The true "solution" needs to solve the right problem, and the problem of giving the government virtually unlimited control over all economic activity to fight the Global Warming boogeyman is a far greater problems than the Global Warmist predict.


Jes Beard

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
« Reply #1264 on: December 15, 2016, 01:30:11 am »
Curt, the argument against doing anything is that the problem doesn't exist. Trump (and a few people around here) argue that any changes are not needed because Global Warming is a hoax. Trump has appointed an oil state AG to head the EPA.  Trump has already indicated that he will pull out of international agreements on the environment. IF...and this is still an IF...IF man-made global warming exists then it is time for reasonable policy. My impression is that the motivation behind non-reasonable policy is nothing more than greed.

Two points:

1) Trump may argue Global Warming is a hoax, and end his argument there, but many, including myself, have a bit more than that in our position.  I certainly agree that the idea of anthropogenic Global Warming is a hoax, but I go well beyond that, and so do many others.  My position continues to point out that A) even if it is not a hoax, warmer temperatures would likely be good for humans, not bad; B) That even if the effects were to be harmful and not helpful, that the cost of the proposed solutions would be far worse than any harmful effects from Global Warming.
2) Gordon Gekko was right -- Greed is good.

Jes Beard

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
« Reply #1265 on: December 15, 2016, 01:46:03 am »
I think people need to be convinced that there is a possible problem before anything can be done.

I agree.  And the possible problem is giving government control over virtually all economic activity, which is to say to give it control over nearly our entire lives.

If you want to do something about it then it seems that a reasonable approach would be to limit the possible harm until we understand the problem better.  If Man made Global Warming does indeed turn out to be incorrect then we have done no harm. (Except to the oil industry, that is.)

First, once government assumes a power, it rarely, gives it up, and only after considerable struggle.  Second, you dismiss both the economic costs, and giving government control over virtually all economic activity, as "no harm."  Many of us consider the harm from such economic costs and loss of freedom to be far greater than even what the fear mongering Global Warmists try to scare us with.


ticohans

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
« Reply #1266 on: December 15, 2016, 08:35:39 am »
This IS typical among those pushing Global Warming.  Instead of addressing the merits of an argument, they ridicule those disagreeing with them, claim there is a consensus, and insist that ends any rational discussion.

Your post I responded to wasn't putting forth an argument against global warming. Your post said there is no scientific consensus, which is hogwash. There is scientific consensus. Disagree with it all you like. Many respected scientists much smarter and better informed than you and I do.

FDISK

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
« Reply #1267 on: December 15, 2016, 02:36:39 pm »
Tico, unfortunately the new government has no use for the logic of at least listening to an overwhelming consensus of scientists. And you know what they say about government, once it has power...
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ticohans

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
« Reply #1268 on: December 15, 2016, 03:25:09 pm »
Yeah, these cabinet appointments are terrifying in terms of the direction they signal for the country.

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Jes Beard

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
« Reply #1269 on: December 15, 2016, 05:22:27 pm »
Your post I responded to wasn't putting forth an argument against global warming. Your post said there is no scientific consensus, which is hogwash. There is scientific consensus. Disagree with it all you like. Many respected scientists much smarter and better informed than you and I do.

You are missing the point entirely, so much so that it would appear to be deliberate.

Your response in no way presented anything supporting your claim of scientific consensus.  Your post instead did exactly as I described -- instead of addressing the merits of an argument, you attempted to ridicule me (not even my position, but me directly) as is the playbook norm of ridiculing those disagreeing with you, you emptily claimed there is a consensus, and insist that ends any rational discussion.

Here again is your post to which I made my comment:
In other news, Jes challenges the notion that there is consensus on the fact that the world is indeed round.

And that was in response to this excerpt from one of my posts: "Claiming a consensus exists, does not make it so..."

And now YOU try to take the high ground in this?

ticohans

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
« Reply #1270 on: December 15, 2016, 09:31:30 pm »
Apparently jes missed FD's 17 pages of consensus links, and orgs like NASA are full of ignorant ****.

Jes Beard

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
« Reply #1271 on: December 15, 2016, 09:47:50 pm »
Apparently jes missed FD's 17 pages of consensus links, and orgs like NASA are full of ignorant ****.

You still can't address the merits of either the underlying issue, or of the question of whether your post was ridiculing those disagreeing with you. claiming there is a consensus and insisting that ends any rational discussion.

Is it really that hard to admit what you are doing?

It's Alinsky's rule #5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”

Take pride in how well you stick to it, but, man, at least admit what you are doing.
« Last Edit: December 15, 2016, 10:35:29 pm by Jes Beard »

ticohans

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
« Reply #1272 on: December 15, 2016, 10:20:15 pm »
Jes, there was no need to post anything supporting the notion of consensus given that FD had just exceeded creataforum's hosting bandwidth with page after page of articles and stories and publications and organizations supporting the notion of scientific consensus. I'm not "emptily claiming" anything. Would it make you feel better if I copy/pasted all the stuff you apparently ignored from FD? Why would anyone give you more evidence when you've simply ignored reams of it?

Jes Beard

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
« Reply #1273 on: December 15, 2016, 10:39:14 pm »
Jes, there was no need to post anything supporting the notion of consensus given that FD had just exceeded creataforum's hosting bandwidth with page after page of articles and stories and publications and organizations supporting the notion of scientific consensus. I'm not "emptily claiming" anything. Would it make you feel better if I copy/pasted all the stuff you apparently ignored from FD? Why would anyone give you more evidence when you've simply ignored reams of it?

When you make a claim without offering anything to support the claim, that is actually the very definition of "emptily claiming"... but you still can't acknowledge the degree to which you embrace Alinsky, can you?

ticohans

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Re: Politics, Religion, etc.
« Reply #1274 on: December 16, 2016, 09:29:28 am »
Jes, you're not an idiot. As you very well know, this has been a group conversation on an open internet forum. I did not make the claim with nothing to support it. My comments were clearly within the context of an ongoing thread of communication with any number of participants referencing each others' posts. Again, go back and read FD's stuff. I'm not copy/pasting things for you.