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It's weird you bring up global warming when there is scientific consensus that it is not only happening but man made. Doesn't seem like a good analogy for somet

• jfengel 7y ago
  I believe they're using it as an example of a thing that people have very strong, immovable opinions about, making it difficult to discuss. It just so happens that in the case of climate change one side is just objectively wrong, and its opinions are factually incorrect... but that just underscores the OP's use that it's impossible to discuss in public with them. They hold strong opinions in spite of overwhelming evidence against them, indicating strong feelings that will dominate any conversation you try to hold.
  • lukifer 7y ago
    I accept the reality of global warming (I'm almost a single-issue voter on the subject), but I look at it from a Bayesian point of view: if we compared two universes, one where AGW was real, and one where the scientific consensus was mistaken (not exactly unprecedented), popular opinion would probably vary by no more than 1% between the two. Humans tend to start with moral intuitions and tribal affiliations, and then cherry-pick data to support them; that irrational force is at work even in the cases where tribal values-signaling happens to align perfectly with reality.
    • RobertRoberts 7y ago
      Have you ever wondered why it became partisan to begin with? Lots of other issues are not partisan like "smoking causes cancer", everyone generally agrees that it does, even many years ago before the "science proved it". There is some science that is so obviously manipulated by power and money everyone knows something is wrong, but can't do anything about it.
      • aleister_777 7y ago
        I believe in this case the partisanship comes from less from the topic itself, but if you look into the proposed solutions, they all tend to shift money and power in a single direction and don't have much to offer in regards of actually changing the climate.
        • lukifer 7y ago
          I suspect that's a product of anything that becomes political: whether it's climate change or border security, the incentives are more towards theater than results, creating an attack surface for economic exploitation. At this point, I think the most efficient (and least corruptible) solution is a carbon tax + dividend [0], AKA a Pigovian tax [1]. It's not as though markets don't work; the problem is that externalities, ecological ones in particular, are not priced into the system, meaning we're just passing the bill to our descendants, at a phenomenally high interest rate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fee_and_dividend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fee_and_dividend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax
          • RobertRoberts 7y ago
            Do you think corrupt governments, that also happen to be the largest polluters in the world will participate with a carbon tax honestly and in good faith?
            • lukifer 7y ago
              Yes, I suppose that is a risk; as with our (allegedly) progressive-taxation system, a carbon tax could invite loopholes and creative accounting, both in public and private sectors. It would take a significant groundswell of grassroots political will to apply a carbon tax fairly and universally; perhaps the dividend would make it a little more salient and less abstract, making it easier to calculate that company/department X is taking $Y out of each citizen's pocket, as opposed to more convoluted federal spending, regulatory capture, etc.