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For sake of argument, is there any evidence that people voted differently before catastrophist framing? It seems to me that Republicans have always voted again

For sake of argument, is there any evidence that people voted differently before catastrophist framing? It seems to me that Republicans have always voted against addressing climate change. I guess what I'm saying is that I agree with you that the discourse of many activists isn't great, but I think that's because they have lost confidence that the other side will argue in good faith or even can be reached.

mistermann 7y ago
> For sake of argument, is there any evidence that people voted differently before catastrophist framing? Perhaps one could find some "evidence" that hints at it, but the unfortunate reality is that some things are beyond our ability to know. However, it does not logically follow that we should then assume one way or the other and categorize that conclusion as true or false. An objective approach would be to classify the idea something along the lines of: "Status": "Uncertain - needs further investigation", "Importance":"Potentially High". Of course, this isn't how we evolved to be, but it's worth pointing out. > It seems to me that Republicans have always voted against addressing climate change. This may be true (or "true enough", to be pedantic), but is it useful? It's likely useful sometimes, but at other times might thinking and speaking in such terms be harmful (counter-productive to our goals)? These seem like worthwhile questions to me, and the point the author is trying to make if I'm not mistaken. > I guess what I'm saying is that I agree with you that the discourse of many activists isn't great, but I think that's because they have lost confidence that the other side will argue in good faith or even can be reached. If you speak to the other side and you are not reaching them, it may be worthwhile to examine the manner in which you are speaking to them and consider new strategies. The fields of psychology, psychiatry, communication (conflict resolution), etc have a fair amount of expertise in this area, yet I don't recall any of them being consulted on this matter.[0] [0] EDIT: Based on voting, I infer that my theory above is not considered popular by readers. Perhaps this style of thinking is common across those who have influence over what disciplines shall be included in the public persuasion initiative that has been underway for several years now, which would explain why the initiative is limited to only a subset of the plausibly relevant intellectual disciplines, which may in turn be a root cause of why the initiative seems to be falling well short of the desired success rate, that logic indicates should be an expected outcome. Oh well, what can ya do! I'm probably taking this whole climate change thing way more seriously than the circumstances call for.

mistermann 7y ago

> For sake of argument, is there any evidence that people voted differently before catastrophist framing? Perhaps one could find some "evidence" that hints at it, but the unfortunate reality is that some things are beyond our ability to know. However, it does not logically follow that we should then assume one way or the other and categorize that conclusion as true or false. An objective approach would be to classify the idea something along the lines of: "Status": "Uncertain - needs further investigation", "Importance":"Potentially High". Of course, this isn't how we evolved to be, but it's worth pointing out. > It seems to me that Republicans have always voted against addressing climate change. This may be true (or "true enough", to be pedantic), but is it useful? It's likely useful sometimes, but at other times might thinking and speaking in such terms be harmful (counter-productive to our goals)? These seem like worthwhile questions to me, and the point the author is trying to make if I'm not mistaken. > I guess what I'm saying is that I agree with you that the discourse of many activists isn't great, but I think that's because they have lost confidence that the other side will argue in good faith or even can be reached. If you speak to the other side and you are not reaching them, it may be worthwhile to examine the manner in which you are speaking to them and consider new strategies. The fields of psychology, psychiatry, communication (conflict resolution), etc have a fair amount of expertise in this area, yet I don't recall any of them being consulted on this matter.[0] [0] EDIT: Based on voting, I infer that my theory above is not considered popular by readers. Perhaps this style of thinking is common across those who have influence over what disciplines shall be included in the public persuasion initiative that has been underway for several years now, which would explain why the initiative is limited to only a subset of the plausibly relevant intellectual disciplines, which may in turn be a root cause of why the initiative seems to be falling well short of the desired success rate, that logic indicates should be an expected outcome. Oh well, what can ya do! I'm probably taking this whole climate change thing way more seriously than the circumstances call for.