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I find this "self-interest" kind of argument very common among conservative friends and family. They also say "follow the money". I have had great difficulty in
by heurist 9y ago
I find this "self-interest" kind of argument very common among conservative friends and family. They also say "follow the money". I have had great difficulty in understanding why they choose to apply these conspiratorial standards to those who promote addressing climate change but not to the massive oil cabal in plain sight that all but controls the global economy.
- humanrebar 9y ago> I have had great difficulty in understanding... Well, as a thought exercise, imagine that there exist people who apply the "follow the money" standards to military spending, oil cabals, lobbyists, and sugary drink manufacturers but not to green energy companies, abortion providers, unions, etc.
- mikeash 9y agoAbortion providers? Really? Who’s getting rich in that space?
- humanrebar 9y agoThe Planned Parenthood story about the fetus parts was entirely about monetary incentives. It doesn't have to be about people getting rich necessarily.
- mikeash 9y agoAre you talking about the debunked, misleadingly edited video? If PP’s goal were to make money from abortions, they’d stop offering contraceptives. The fact that essentially nobody argues for abortion but against contraceptives is an easy proof that essentially nobody favors abortion for monetary reasons.
- humanrebar 9y agoSure. Abortion providers have no incentives to make sure abortion is subsidized and lightly regulated. Besides, the inability to entertain the thought experiment is basically my point. The result of the skeptical deliberation is beside the point. Everyone is subject to cognitive dissonance and perverse incentives. Money is just a particularly easy to quantify incentive.
- mikeash 9y agoI entertained it. The result is above. I imagine lots of people are capable of entertaining it. That they don’t reach the bizarre conclusion you seem to think they should doesn’t mean they haven’t tried. It’s true that everyone is subject to these things. That does not mean that facts don’t matter, that every opinion is equally valid, or that every belief is due to them.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> The Planned Parenthood story about the fetus parts was entirely about monetary incentives. Well, sure, but the story wasn't true so what it was or was not about had no bearing on reality.
- notyourday 9y agoWhoever is getting to charge money/get paid to provide them.
- undersuit 9y agoSo are you saying the abortions cost too much?
- notyourday 9y agoNope but someone clearly makes money doing them otherwise they would not do those. Unit economics dictates that those who make money on them would like to do more of them.
- mikeash 9y agoAnd yet most abortion advocacy is done by groups which try very hard to reduce the number of abortions, so it doesn’t add up.
- heurist 9y agoThere's a lot more money and power in the first group of industries than the second group, so I can't take that as a fair equivalence.
- FullMtlAlcoholc 9y agoYes, let's not forget about those fat cat abortion tycoons
- incompatible 9y agoI have an alternative conspiracy theory. There's a cabal of scientists who want to encourage CO2 emissions because of the endless research projects that global warming will enable. It's a massive global climate experiment. They are only claiming that it's a problem because they know that human society will do the exact opposite to what they recommend.
- stuaxo 9y agoWe are doing the experiment, it's marketing departments encouraging us but we are mostly doing exactly what they recommend.