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Climate experts call for 'dangerous' Michael Moore film to be taken down

38 points by julesnp 6y ago

eloff 6y ago
I disagree with trying to deplatform ideas you don't agree with. Engage with them, show them the error of their thinking, but if you drive it underground you just trap those people in a bubble filled with like minded people and the chance they change their mind approaches zero. Plus there is always the chance you're the one who's wrong - even if you're on the side with the widely accepted viewpoint. All innovation at least begins with a dissenting voice.
- tekstar 6y ago
  What if it's not an "idea", but actually a provably false statement? Sadly, it's beneficial to media companies to give provably false statements airtime because they are controverial, which drives views and clicks which drives revenue. But for society is it beneficial to let false statements have a platform?
  - Cryptophunk 6y ago
    One could also argue that it is profitable to claim global warming will effect us all in, so therefore the need for carbon tax is secured. There's so many profit motives on each side it's hard to say which one is at play.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      How is a carbon tax profitable to climate scientists?
      - EricE 6y ago
        The get more grants to do research re-enforcing the effectiveness of this “solution”. You do realize scientists need salary for food, clothing, housing, health care, etc.? As with anything, follow the money. The grant systems that power our “scientific research” these days are anything but unbiased.
  - jxramos 6y ago
    I guess the point is to actually, perhaps eventually, prove them false no?
  - nathanaldensr 6y ago
    How many times does your tired old argument have to be refuted? Your idea only works if there is a perfect arbiter of "truth." There are nearly no truths in human existence; math probably comes closest, and yet even there look how many things in history were "true" based on knowledge of the time (Earth as the center of the universe is an obvious one). You fail to consider that humans implement rules (e.g., your movie is illegal because it's not true) and humans are fundamentally corrupt, selfish creatures.
    - tekstar 6y ago
      Your comment is a straw man attack, so perhaps cool it with the "tired old". Provably false statements do not require perfect arbtration of truth. For example, the president says something on TV, and a talking head straight-face states "that never happened". This is the current level of discourse in the USA.
      - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
        It'll never stay limited to just provably false statements. The article we're discussing is evidence enough of that.
        p1necone 6y ago
        The article linked cites various rebuttals (by actual scientists) of what seems like a large amount of factually incorrect information in this documentary - are you saying that the documentary actually is factual?
  - twomoretime 6y ago
    The vast majority of controversial statements happen to be difficult to conclusively prove. The fact that they go against consensus does not mean that they are proven. What you're actually doing when you say this is giving a select group of people power to decide what is and is not false. And that's pure, soft political power.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    Yes. That benefit does have to be weighed against the harm - there are good reasons we don't let people make provably false statements to defraud or slander others. But even if we assume an effective arbiter, which should not be taken for granted here, it's very good for society that people can have spirited disagreements without calling for each other to be deplatformed.
  - dbsights 6y ago
    It's too easy to confuse ideas and provably false statements. Many things we hold to be absolutely true may not be so, this has happened with many 'truths' through history, and it would be incredibly arrogant to believe that today there are none of those in the public consciousness. That's the danger in censorship, it starts with the best of intentions, to protect people from being misled by obviously wrong facts, but inevitably the opinions of the censors are confused with fact.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  > Engage with them, show them the error of their thinking This tends not to work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop It takes substantially more time to debunk bullshit than it does to spew it, and you'll generally find they just move onto the next piece of bullshit with no "gee, I was wrong, I should evaluate that..." thinking.
  - padseeker 6y ago
    A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on - Winston Churchill
    - SummerlyMars 6y ago
      I was familiar with this quote due to Terry Pratchett, which made me wonder where it originated. It doesn't appear to have been from Churchill[1], so the irony gave me a chuckle. [1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/
      - jdkee 6y ago
        Jonathan Swift it appears. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/books/famous-misquotations.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/books/famous-misquotation...
  - cameldrv 6y ago
    People need to place more effort on maintaining factual reputation. If someone spews bullshit once, they are on probation. If they do it twice, I don't listen to them anymore. I would really like to have this automated and work automatically throughout the web. If a reporter changes newspapers, or I'm viewing them on a different platform, it should just put a big red X through the article or something to let me know that I've found them untrustworthy. The problem is that not enough people do this, but if you are unconstrained by the truth, you can say things that are much more superficially interesting. This drives engagement, so you will be signal-boosted by social media platforms. All of the comments of people debunking you only add to the engagement, so these articles are the bread and butter of the social media profit machine.
- p1necone 6y ago
  There's probably 10s of thousands of crackpots making documentaries full of falsehoods out there that all sorts of "platforms" choose not to air - is that wrong too? Should we give equal airtime to each individual regardless of the merits of their ideas?
machinehermit 6y ago
There is nothing more disturbing than this poison in the minds of young people that an idea they don't agree with should be destroyed. It just feels like it is a matter of time until we have something as insane as the French Revolution in the US.
- glisom 6y ago
  (I have not watched it yet FYI) It is interesting that if what he is saying is easily debunk-able that they would want it taken down. Why not just release a response pointing out what is incorrect with sources? If they are correct, why are they so threatened by Michael Moore of all people? I totally agree it is insane to say you should destroy ideas you don't agree with, feels like some thought police nonsense.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    I don't think they are particularly threatened. I think they're just in a subculture where it's normal, to respond to people you don't agree with by demanding they shouldn't be allowed to speak.
- ryanwaggoner 6y ago
  Hmm...does this story about a letter signed by climate scientists and activists actually have anything to do with the "poisoned minds of young people"?
- leephillips 6y ago
  Who are these "young people"? The climate scientists, some of whom are libeled in the film, pointing out that's it full of crap? How are they advocating destruction? The letter asks the film's creators to volunteer to retract the film and apologize.
- happytoexplain 6y ago
  On the perfectly opposite side, personally, I feel that the encouragement to think of any content removals and user bans, regardless of context or platform, as "censorship" and "destroying ideas you don't agree with" is easily the most disturbing social trend of any significant popularity that I've seen in my life. I think it may be extremely poisonous to the minds of the young, and this trend, if any, is the one I think could lead to violence - especially when proponents frequently like to throw out such ironic phrases as "this can only end via a French Revolution" and "they (the bad guys! not us!) want a civil war".
Cryptophunk 6y ago
I think it would be a great cultural event if scientists made a documentary as a rebuttal. I've seen this before where they rather deplatform than confront. Maybe they don't want to confront certain facts. Should be interesting to watch.
- leephillips 6y ago
  Should a planetary scientist spend her time making documentaries to rebut the flat earth people? Who is "deplatforming"? They are asking for the film's creators to face up to their mistakes, retract the film, and apologize. Nobody can take Moore's platform away.
  - petre 6y ago
    Yes. Carl Sagan did it. He wrote a book. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World
  - thu2111 6y ago
    Er, a film distribution company already dropped the movie and refused to distribute it further. Moore's platform is film. That's actually people taking his platform away.
    - leephillips 6y ago
      They (regrettably) decided to continue to distribute it after all, even though they say they know it is garbage, so as not to seem to be censors. Also, it was far from the only platform that the film had. This is not analogous to actual deplatforming, that goes on on college campuses, for example.
      - thu2111 6y ago
        Glad to hear it! I don't actually like Moore, not being a left leaning activist type myself. But he should be able to speak if people want to listen. As for deplatforming, come on. There is more than one college campus in the world. If it's deplatforming to kick people out of colleges it's definitely deplatforming to bully film distributors into dropping films.
baron_harkonnen 6y ago
If you claim your film is a “full-frontal assault on our sacred cows” and the immediate reaction from the 'priesthood' is that this work is heresy and must be banned... then it looks like you've really hit the mark.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  Maybe. "Cancer can be cured by drinking methylmercury." "That's dangerous and you should stop saying it." "Looks like I hit the mark!"
  - baron_harkonnen 6y ago
    My point is that the film claims to challenge sacred cows and that the reaction alone is enough to show that that claim is correct, not that all or any of the specific claims in the film are. There are likely many films that make ludicrous claims about climate change but even absurd ones rarely get called out as dangerous enough to warrant being banned. When films/books/etc get this strong of a reaction there is usually something in there that is worth understanding why it hit such a nerve. ...or it could just be good marketing.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      > My point is that the film claims to challenge sacred cows and that the reaction alone is enough to show that that claim is correct And it's a bad point. People who claim to be "challenging sacred cows" are often just making provocative, misleading, or downright false claims. This has been Moore's shtick for decades now, in fact. A strong reaction is not always proof of "sacred cows". Sometimes it's just warranted.
    - danShumway 6y ago
      > challenge sacred cows What do you mean when you say sacred cows? There are a lot of reasons an idea might make you mad, some of them very warranted. If you don't have an emotional reaction about at least a few topics, you probably aren't thinking seriously about the practical consequences of getting those topics wrong. To be clear, society-wide censorship is rarely if ever a good idea. But I am similarly unsympathetic to the idea that being able to make someone mad means that your arguments have more merit. Being able to troll people and rile them up is a different skill than arguing. It doesn't mean Moore has hidden insight, it means he knows what buttons to push. I wager that I could make some pretty stupid programming claims on HN that would get downvoted to oblivion, and the fact that I knew which buttons to push to get a reaction out of commenters here wouldn't have anything to do with whether or not they were true. I mean, I know exactly what buttons I would press to make someone like tptacek mad at me about encryption, but those buttons don't really have any correlation to the areas where I agree or disagree with tptacek's general approach to security. In other words, there are a lot of reasons someone can be angry about a public claim -- they can be angry that it's common and they need to respond to it over and over again, they can be angry that the arguments are being accepted by a large portion of the population, they can be angry because the arguments are based on a faulty or fundamentally wrong understanding of how science/research works, they can be angry because they think the arguments are being made in bad faith. > but even absurd ones rarely get called out as dangerous enough to warrant being banned It's not the content, it's the source. It's that Moore has a large public following and people know about him. Lots of people deny climate change, but climate scientists get more worked up about Trump doing it than fringe researchers, even though on average the fringe researchers are probably making more nuanced, more insightful, better arguments against climate science than Trump is. People do need to be careful about falling into ideology traps, but if you want to claim that someone has a mental area where they can't even consider adversarial evidence or question their own beliefs, I feel like I need to see more evidence of that than, "this highly public person made people mad when they said something stupid to millions of viewers." Because that's just not a hard thing to do. If the head of the FDA walked out on a stage tomorrow and announced that actually we got it wrong, and drinking bleach is a really good cure for COVID-19, lots of scientists would be mad about that, and I don't think that would inherently mean that bleach is one of their "sacred cows".
globular-toast 6y ago
I disagree with censorship in principle so don't support these "climate experts". I am no climate change sceptic. It's easy to see that our way of life is far beyond sustainable and has developed in ways which are now harmful to us individually and as a species. It's easy to see and I will support any change which is driven by sustainability first. But I'm now beginning to see why people are against the "green" movement. They are not starting with sustainability. They are simply trying to profit from giving people the same conveniences but with a "green" badge slapped on it. If it was about sustainability it would be easy to debunk a film like this, but instead they just want to silence it.
emilecantin 6y ago
One thing I see parroted often and that the article alludes to, is the "fact" that electric vehicles pollute almost as much as regular cars because the electricity they use is generated in coal-firing plants. What I hate the most about this argument is that it's often presented as a universal fact, and while it may be true in some areas in the world, it's definitely not true everywhere. A lot of Europe has nuclear electricity, for example, and here in Canada we're mostly on hydro power. The overall numbers start to look very different when you assume hydro power instead of coal, for example, and I bet the film doesn't mention that (haven't seen it, though). EDIT: I found a source describing my province's electricity mix: https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/nrg/ntgrtd/mrkt/nrgsstmprfls/qc-eng.html https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/nrg/ntgrtd/mrkt/nrgsstmprfls/qc-en... Turns out all fossil fuels combined contribute less than 1% of out electric capacity. A significant part of that 1% is in remote communities such as the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, which uses a diesel plant. This means that the percentage is even smaller in the "general" mix outside of these communities.
- soperj 6y ago
  Said as someone who lives in a hydro power province. Hydro is incredible harmful. It ruins whole ecosystems in ways that an oil spill never could.
  - jbob2000 6y ago
    That is hilariously wrong. There’s no “right” way for an ecosystem to be. A hydro dam changes the landscape and the ecosystem re-adapts. Natural dams form all the time in nature as well, should we go around breaking these up to “save” the ecosystem?
    - NotAnAccountNO 6y ago
      Well no, building a dam fully destroys a valley's ecosystem. A point of comparison: Chernobyl also has a new ecosystem around it, where re-adaptation has occurred. We know the radioactivity is too high around it for a 21st century's human lifespan of ~80 years. Boars and birds are having a ball. Does it not follow that your accepting the environmental damage from a dam means also that you accept the environmental damage from an early generation fission clusterfuck?
chomp 6y ago
I found a more substantial rebuttal to the film than "we need to deplatform this ASAP" https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/skepticism-is-healthy-but-planet-of-the-humans-is-toxic/ https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/skepticism-is-health...
- NotAnAccountNO 6y ago
  Very informative thank you. From this rebuttal I see that the movie probably packages true information, some of it outdated, in a provocative way. The only fully scientific rebuttal is to run the experiment: run the whole economy without fossil fuels or nuclear, and see how much it looks like the middle-ages, how much it looks like utopia. My guess is 80/20 on the middle-ages side, but who know.
- throwaway_me_ 6y ago
  The rebuttal is in the beginning stating that Germany's renewable electricity production is important and not it's total energy consumption, at the end they claim that we need to shift all of our energy consumption to renewable electricity. This is a fundamental contradiction.
say_it_as_it_is 6y ago
I'm definitely going to watch it, now. Heterodoxy is more important than ever in society. I'm capable of disagreeing with an argument and want the freedom to do so. If what Moore presents is taken out of context, which is probably what is happening here, it doesn't matter what he presents.
clairity 6y ago
wow, this is great marketing for the film. now i want to see it to see what all the controversy is about. i've seen a couple michael moore docs before, and while i often sympathize with his position on a given topic, i'm rarely impressed by his persuasive documentary powers.
centimeter 6y ago
As someone who disagrees with Moore 99% of the time, this is absurd, and tells you more about the state of institutional "experts" and "science" than it does about the contents of Moore's movie. Moore can publish (obvious!) bullshit for years and never really get called on it by "experts" or popular media. Now, he publishes something that goes against the dogma of a highly cathedralized and politicized field with such low predictive power that it hardly qualifies as a science at all, and there's a huge (and very successful) censorship effort. I wonder, is the divergence between the predictive power of the field and the strength of its dogma enforcement an anomaly, or is it to be expected that fields with low predictive power will more aggressively defend their orthodoxy?
- leephillips 6y ago
  'Moore can publish (obvious!) bullshit for years and never really get called on it by "experts" or popular media' He gets called on it constantly. His reputation is so bad that it would never occur to me to bother watching this film. 'goes against the dogma' Or, contains objective falsehoods and libels.
  - centimeter 6y ago
    When's the last time the publisher canceled a release of one of his films? > Or, contains objective falsehoods and libels. All of his movies have this, and they still don't provoke this kind of reaction.
- blablabla123 6y ago
  Michael Moore represents the very unusual combination of being left-leaning and populist. He points out flaws in western governments/corporates that get ignored most of the time and puts them into a narrative. (I don't agree with everything but Bowling for Columbine is very good, I think) It gets problematic how he exaggerates things, doesn't seem to be ashamed of distorting ("enhancing") arguments by stringing together unrelated - though concerning - topics. FWIW I think one needs to differentiate between Climate Science and the narrative of the Climate Movement. The former is more than 100 years old, the latter kind of under-developed and easy to attack. It's surprising though that Moore does it...
hindsightbias 6y ago
Perfect is the enemy of the good.
jxramos 6y ago
Describing itself as a “full-frontal assault on our sacred cows” temporarily took down the film after describing it as “full of misinformation” “trades in debunked fossil fuel industry talking points” that question the affordability and reliability of solar and wind energy. the film includes “various distortions, half-truths and lies” It is written, therefore it must be true. They crossed my accusation threshold, no more thinking required, case closed. But seriously I'd love to see their actual rebuttals to the film. In the meantime I'll check out the free YouTube link they include in the article.
- leephillips 6y ago
  "I'd love to see their actual rebuttals to the film" Then all you have to do is follow the link in the article to the letter that contains those rebuttals.
  - jxramos 6y ago
    Good eyes, I definitely glossed over the linkage in the parent article. Nice stance they're taking with all the transparency about their decisions. Pretty level headed public response. > Ultimately, we decided to put it back up because we believe media literacy, critique and debate is the best solution to the misinformation in the film. https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/michael-moore-presents-planet-of-the-humans/ https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/michael-moore-presents-... I can't tell if that's the climate experts they refer to but these film advocates breath of freshair response is equal to or more newsworthy than the original article. I'm really digging their tone and open invitation.
Press2forEN 6y ago
Instead of censorship, perhaps we should codify universally acceptable ideas and put them into a book. This book would be distributed to everyone that wants one and once a week we would gather and read a portion of it together and receive guidance from an expert on the subject. Over time this should lead to a more virtuous society. I think this would be preferable to the clumsy "whack-a-mole" system we currently use to silence unacceptable ideas.
- theandrewbailey 6y ago
  What happens when one of your "universally acceptable ideas" aren't acceptable anymore, or gets proven wrong? More importantly, who gets to decide what's included in the first place?
  - wafn 6y ago
    The Council of Niceties obviously
- lurquer 6y ago
  Would we get to sing songs before the readings? I'd like that.
allemagne 6y ago
From the letter "calling for [the film] to be taken down" that the article is based on: https://twitter.com/joshfoxfilm/status/1253572812591247360 https://twitter.com/joshfoxfilm/status/1253572812591247360 >Summary: The new movie Executive Produced and promoted by Michael Moore, Directed by Jeff Gibbs and distributed by Films for Action, PLANET OF THE HUMANS is unscientific, flies in the face of decades of renewable energy science, engineering and research and is counter productive in the age of urgent need for Climate Action. Because the film is based in misinformation and not in truth, we request that the film be retracted by its creators and distributors and an apology rendered for its misleading content.
sleepysysadmin 6y ago
Michael Moore is ultra-leftist environmentalist.I watched the video entirely because climate experts are so angry. The video starts off explaining that he is an environmentalist. Certainly makes the video provocative. The actual video seems to suggest what the right-wing has been saying for 20 years. VERY interesting to see Michael Moore agreeing with the right-wing folks. Makes you wonder if perhaps that he is right here.
zelienople 6y ago
Everyone is so angry at Michael Moore because they are terminally anthropocentric. The point of the film is that we need to achieve fewer humans, and this makes the anthropocentrists rabidly angry. Moore makes an excellent point: creating solar panels and wind farms requires fossil fuels. Doing so in such a way as to accommodate perpetual growth is unsustainable. We need to prune the human species to a sustainable level and keep it there. We need forced sterilization, now. We need to limit waste and useless economic activity, now. Or else we will become extinct. COVID-19 is clear and unequivocal evidence that population density has reached unsustainable levels. We are looking at The Great Filter. We can have innovation, technical progress, and a good life. But we can only do that on a smaller scale.
- mythrwy 6y ago
  Got any ideas besides forced sterilization? Because I don't see a chance of that one being adopted.
- lowdose 6y ago
  Are you running for office?
- morninglight 6y ago
  Millions have viewed the video, yet so few understand its message. "Growth is Good", but population growth without limits is suicide. Forced sterilization is not the only answer. Fifty years ago, Paul Ehrlich explained the problem in considerable detail, and he has offered numerous solutions. Today, most people have never heard of him. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich ) Perhaps Covid-19.is too tame. Just wait. If we are unwilling to live in harmony with nature, the problem will soon be resolved - one way or another. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWMyWr9_CVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWMyWr9_CVo )
  - cbnotfromthere 6y ago
    "Fifty years ago, Paul Ehrlich explained the problem in considerable detail, and he has offered numerous solutions." All of them wrong, tho. "Today, most people have never heard of him. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich)" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich)" For good reasons, since he failed miserably at his grand predictions and his anti-humanistic "solutions.
cybert00th 6y ago
I see dangerous is in quotes - having read the article and seen the vitriol and scorn heaped on this movie, that fact begs the question, who is actually in harms way here?
WheelsAtLarge 6y ago
I think Moore makes some really good points that need to be addressed by environmentalists but taking down the film should not be the first form of action. 3 points that are absolutely true. 1) that most green power is backed up by fossil fuels. 2) that solar and wind power hardware needs to be replaced on a regular cycle and that every cycle deals with adding pollution to the environment. and 3) that the real problem is the size of the human population. There are too many people overpowering the planet's available resources. They are uncomfortable issues but they need to be addressed rather than swept under the floor because we don't like them. If we don't address them they will never be fixed.
- valuearb 6y ago
  What good points? 1)Duh. Green power (except nuclear) cant just scale whenever it is needed, sun is there during the day only, wind is there when wind is there, etc. Why is this even an issue? Over time green power and power storage technologies will get cheaper and flexible, allowing us to use green power as higher and higher percentages of our power needs. 2) Who ever said that green power hardware had some magical resistance to wear and obsolescence? Obsolescence is great because it means newer hardware works better and can have lower environmental impacts. 3) Something that’s been a mainstream topic for over 50 years, so what’s the point? what’s their and your solution? We know that increasing living standards and empowering women leads to lower birth rates, the US and Japan are supposedly already below replacement level birth rates. What else do you propose?
  - ttonkytonk 6y ago
    The first two points are under-appreciated and it shouldn't be assumed that the environmental cost is negligible. As for the third point, I don't think the film comes right out and says there are too many people, though it is implied. Specifically the film claims that in the last 200 years the population as well as the consumption rate per person has increased tenfold, for a total increased impact of 100 times.
    - valuearb 6y ago
ykevinator 6y ago
But we all agree even if true, this is less bad than global warming right?
ohiovr 6y ago
High energy civilization is not a birth right. Just thought I would put a line out there for both leftists and right wingers to censor. And I will be happy when they do and they will.
ttonkytonk 6y ago
The main thesis of the film, that the essential issue is not climate change but runaway consumption, is hard to deny.
artur_makly 6y ago
this doc illustrates the enormous realities of energy challenges with sober clarity often exposed by Jancovici https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wGt4XwBbCvA&feature=share https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wGt4XwBbCvA&feature=share

38 points by julesnp 6y ago

I disagree with trying to deplatform ideas you don't agree with. Engage with them, show them the error of their thinking, but if you drive it underground you just trap those people in a bubble filled with like minded people and the chance they change their mind approaches zero. Plus there is always the chance you're the one who's wrong - even if you're on the side with the widely accepted viewpoint. All innovation at least begins with a dissenting voice.

tekstar 6y ago
What if it's not an "idea", but actually a provably false statement? Sadly, it's beneficial to media companies to give provably false statements airtime because they are controverial, which drives views and clicks which drives revenue. But for society is it beneficial to let false statements have a platform?
- Cryptophunk 6y ago
  One could also argue that it is profitable to claim global warming will effect us all in, so therefore the need for carbon tax is secured. There's so many profit motives on each side it's hard to say which one is at play.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    How is a carbon tax profitable to climate scientists?
    - EricE 6y ago
      The get more grants to do research re-enforcing the effectiveness of this “solution”. You do realize scientists need salary for food, clothing, housing, health care, etc.? As with anything, follow the money. The grant systems that power our “scientific research” these days are anything but unbiased.
- jxramos 6y ago
  I guess the point is to actually, perhaps eventually, prove them false no?
- nathanaldensr 6y ago
  How many times does your tired old argument have to be refuted? Your idea only works if there is a perfect arbiter of "truth." There are nearly no truths in human existence; math probably comes closest, and yet even there look how many things in history were "true" based on knowledge of the time (Earth as the center of the universe is an obvious one). You fail to consider that humans implement rules (e.g., your movie is illegal because it's not true) and humans are fundamentally corrupt, selfish creatures.
  - tekstar 6y ago
    Your comment is a straw man attack, so perhaps cool it with the "tired old". Provably false statements do not require perfect arbtration of truth. For example, the president says something on TV, and a talking head straight-face states "that never happened". This is the current level of discourse in the USA.
    - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
      It'll never stay limited to just provably false statements. The article we're discussing is evidence enough of that.
      - p1necone 6y ago
        The article linked cites various rebuttals (by actual scientists) of what seems like a large amount of factually incorrect information in this documentary - are you saying that the documentary actually is factual?
- twomoretime 6y ago
  The vast majority of controversial statements happen to be difficult to conclusively prove. The fact that they go against consensus does not mean that they are proven. What you're actually doing when you say this is giving a select group of people power to decide what is and is not false. And that's pure, soft political power.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Yes. That benefit does have to be weighed against the harm - there are good reasons we don't let people make provably false statements to defraud or slander others. But even if we assume an effective arbiter, which should not be taken for granted here, it's very good for society that people can have spirited disagreements without calling for each other to be deplatformed.
- dbsights 6y ago
  It's too easy to confuse ideas and provably false statements. Many things we hold to be absolutely true may not be so, this has happened with many 'truths' through history, and it would be incredibly arrogant to believe that today there are none of those in the public consciousness. That's the danger in censorship, it starts with the best of intentions, to protect people from being misled by obviously wrong facts, but inevitably the opinions of the censors are confused with fact.
ceejayoz 6y ago
> Engage with them, show them the error of their thinking This tends not to work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop It takes substantially more time to debunk bullshit than it does to spew it, and you'll generally find they just move onto the next piece of bullshit with no "gee, I was wrong, I should evaluate that..." thinking.
- padseeker 6y ago
  A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on - Winston Churchill
  - SummerlyMars 6y ago
    I was familiar with this quote due to Terry Pratchett, which made me wonder where it originated. It doesn't appear to have been from Churchill[1], so the irony gave me a chuckle. [1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/
    - jdkee 6y ago
      Jonathan Swift it appears. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/books/famous-misquotations.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/books/famous-misquotation...
- cameldrv 6y ago
  People need to place more effort on maintaining factual reputation. If someone spews bullshit once, they are on probation. If they do it twice, I don't listen to them anymore. I would really like to have this automated and work automatically throughout the web. If a reporter changes newspapers, or I'm viewing them on a different platform, it should just put a big red X through the article or something to let me know that I've found them untrustworthy. The problem is that not enough people do this, but if you are unconstrained by the truth, you can say things that are much more superficially interesting. This drives engagement, so you will be signal-boosted by social media platforms. All of the comments of people debunking you only add to the engagement, so these articles are the bread and butter of the social media profit machine.
p1necone 6y ago
There's probably 10s of thousands of crackpots making documentaries full of falsehoods out there that all sorts of "platforms" choose not to air - is that wrong too? Should we give equal airtime to each individual regardless of the merits of their ideas?

machinehermit 6y ago

There is nothing more disturbing than this poison in the minds of young people that an idea they don't agree with should be destroyed. It just feels like it is a matter of time until we have something as insane as the French Revolution in the US.

glisom 6y ago
(I have not watched it yet FYI) It is interesting that if what he is saying is easily debunk-able that they would want it taken down. Why not just release a response pointing out what is incorrect with sources? If they are correct, why are they so threatened by Michael Moore of all people? I totally agree it is insane to say you should destroy ideas you don't agree with, feels like some thought police nonsense.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  I don't think they are particularly threatened. I think they're just in a subculture where it's normal, to respond to people you don't agree with by demanding they shouldn't be allowed to speak.
ryanwaggoner 6y ago
Hmm...does this story about a letter signed by climate scientists and activists actually have anything to do with the "poisoned minds of young people"?
leephillips 6y ago
Who are these "young people"? The climate scientists, some of whom are libeled in the film, pointing out that's it full of crap? How are they advocating destruction? The letter asks the film's creators to volunteer to retract the film and apologize.
happytoexplain 6y ago
On the perfectly opposite side, personally, I feel that the encouragement to think of any content removals and user bans, regardless of context or platform, as "censorship" and "destroying ideas you don't agree with" is easily the most disturbing social trend of any significant popularity that I've seen in my life. I think it may be extremely poisonous to the minds of the young, and this trend, if any, is the one I think could lead to violence - especially when proponents frequently like to throw out such ironic phrases as "this can only end via a French Revolution" and "they (the bad guys! not us!) want a civil war".

Cryptophunk 6y ago

I think it would be a great cultural event if scientists made a documentary as a rebuttal. I've seen this before where they rather deplatform than confront. Maybe they don't want to confront certain facts. Should be interesting to watch.

leephillips 6y ago
Should a planetary scientist spend her time making documentaries to rebut the flat earth people? Who is "deplatforming"? They are asking for the film's creators to face up to their mistakes, retract the film, and apologize. Nobody can take Moore's platform away.
- petre 6y ago
  Yes. Carl Sagan did it. He wrote a book. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World
- thu2111 6y ago
  Er, a film distribution company already dropped the movie and refused to distribute it further. Moore's platform is film. That's actually people taking his platform away.
  - leephillips 6y ago
    They (regrettably) decided to continue to distribute it after all, even though they say they know it is garbage, so as not to seem to be censors. Also, it was far from the only platform that the film had. This is not analogous to actual deplatforming, that goes on on college campuses, for example.
    - thu2111 6y ago
      Glad to hear it! I don't actually like Moore, not being a left leaning activist type myself. But he should be able to speak if people want to listen. As for deplatforming, come on. There is more than one college campus in the world. If it's deplatforming to kick people out of colleges it's definitely deplatforming to bully film distributors into dropping films.

baron_harkonnen 6y ago

If you claim your film is a “full-frontal assault on our sacred cows” and the immediate reaction from the 'priesthood' is that this work is heresy and must be banned... then it looks like you've really hit the mark.

ceejayoz 6y ago
Maybe. "Cancer can be cured by drinking methylmercury." "That's dangerous and you should stop saying it." "Looks like I hit the mark!"
- baron_harkonnen 6y ago
  My point is that the film claims to challenge sacred cows and that the reaction alone is enough to show that that claim is correct, not that all or any of the specific claims in the film are. There are likely many films that make ludicrous claims about climate change but even absurd ones rarely get called out as dangerous enough to warrant being banned. When films/books/etc get this strong of a reaction there is usually something in there that is worth understanding why it hit such a nerve. ...or it could just be good marketing.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    > My point is that the film claims to challenge sacred cows and that the reaction alone is enough to show that that claim is correct And it's a bad point. People who claim to be "challenging sacred cows" are often just making provocative, misleading, or downright false claims. This has been Moore's shtick for decades now, in fact. A strong reaction is not always proof of "sacred cows". Sometimes it's just warranted.
  - danShumway 6y ago
    > challenge sacred cows What do you mean when you say sacred cows? There are a lot of reasons an idea might make you mad, some of them very warranted. If you don't have an emotional reaction about at least a few topics, you probably aren't thinking seriously about the practical consequences of getting those topics wrong. To be clear, society-wide censorship is rarely if ever a good idea. But I am similarly unsympathetic to the idea that being able to make someone mad means that your arguments have more merit. Being able to troll people and rile them up is a different skill than arguing. It doesn't mean Moore has hidden insight, it means he knows what buttons to push. I wager that I could make some pretty stupid programming claims on HN that would get downvoted to oblivion, and the fact that I knew which buttons to push to get a reaction out of commenters here wouldn't have anything to do with whether or not they were true. I mean, I know exactly what buttons I would press to make someone like tptacek mad at me about encryption, but those buttons don't really have any correlation to the areas where I agree or disagree with tptacek's general approach to security. In other words, there are a lot of reasons someone can be angry about a public claim -- they can be angry that it's common and they need to respond to it over and over again, they can be angry that the arguments are being accepted by a large portion of the population, they can be angry because the arguments are based on a faulty or fundamentally wrong understanding of how science/research works, they can be angry because they think the arguments are being made in bad faith. > but even absurd ones rarely get called out as dangerous enough to warrant being banned It's not the content, it's the source. It's that Moore has a large public following and people know about him. Lots of people deny climate change, but climate scientists get more worked up about Trump doing it than fringe researchers, even though on average the fringe researchers are probably making more nuanced, more insightful, better arguments against climate science than Trump is. People do need to be careful about falling into ideology traps, but if you want to claim that someone has a mental area where they can't even consider adversarial evidence or question their own beliefs, I feel like I need to see more evidence of that than, "this highly public person made people mad when they said something stupid to millions of viewers." Because that's just not a hard thing to do. If the head of the FDA walked out on a stage tomorrow and announced that actually we got it wrong, and drinking bleach is a really good cure for COVID-19, lots of scientists would be mad about that, and I don't think that would inherently mean that bleach is one of their "sacred cows".

globular-toast 6y ago

I disagree with censorship in principle so don't support these "climate experts". I am no climate change sceptic. It's easy to see that our way of life is far beyond sustainable and has developed in ways which are now harmful to us individually and as a species. It's easy to see and I will support any change which is driven by sustainability first. But I'm now beginning to see why people are against the "green" movement. They are not starting with sustainability. They are simply trying to profit from giving people the same conveniences but with a "green" badge slapped on it. If it was about sustainability it would be easy to debunk a film like this, but instead they just want to silence it.

emilecantin 6y ago

One thing I see parroted often and that the article alludes to, is the "fact" that electric vehicles pollute almost as much as regular cars because the electricity they use is generated in coal-firing plants. What I hate the most about this argument is that it's often presented as a universal fact, and while it may be true in some areas in the world, it's definitely not true everywhere. A lot of Europe has nuclear electricity, for example, and here in Canada we're mostly on hydro power. The overall numbers start to look very different when you assume hydro power instead of coal, for example, and I bet the film doesn't mention that (haven't seen it, though). EDIT: I found a source describing my province's electricity mix: https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/nrg/ntgrtd/mrkt/nrgsstmprfls/qc-eng.html https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/nrg/ntgrtd/mrkt/nrgsstmprfls/qc-en... Turns out all fossil fuels combined contribute less than 1% of out electric capacity. A significant part of that 1% is in remote communities such as the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, which uses a diesel plant. This means that the percentage is even smaller in the "general" mix outside of these communities.

soperj 6y ago
Said as someone who lives in a hydro power province. Hydro is incredible harmful. It ruins whole ecosystems in ways that an oil spill never could.
- jbob2000 6y ago
  That is hilariously wrong. There’s no “right” way for an ecosystem to be. A hydro dam changes the landscape and the ecosystem re-adapts. Natural dams form all the time in nature as well, should we go around breaking these up to “save” the ecosystem?
  - NotAnAccountNO 6y ago
    Well no, building a dam fully destroys a valley's ecosystem. A point of comparison: Chernobyl also has a new ecosystem around it, where re-adaptation has occurred. We know the radioactivity is too high around it for a 21st century's human lifespan of ~80 years. Boars and birds are having a ball. Does it not follow that your accepting the environmental damage from a dam means also that you accept the environmental damage from an early generation fission clusterfuck?

chomp 6y ago

I found a more substantial rebuttal to the film than "we need to deplatform this ASAP" https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/skepticism-is-healthy-but-planet-of-the-humans-is-toxic/ https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/skepticism-is-health...

NotAnAccountNO 6y ago
Very informative thank you. From this rebuttal I see that the movie probably packages true information, some of it outdated, in a provocative way. The only fully scientific rebuttal is to run the experiment: run the whole economy without fossil fuels or nuclear, and see how much it looks like the middle-ages, how much it looks like utopia. My guess is 80/20 on the middle-ages side, but who know.
throwaway_me_ 6y ago
The rebuttal is in the beginning stating that Germany's renewable electricity production is important and not it's total energy consumption, at the end they claim that we need to shift all of our energy consumption to renewable electricity. This is a fundamental contradiction.

say_it_as_it_is 6y ago

I'm definitely going to watch it, now. Heterodoxy is more important than ever in society. I'm capable of disagreeing with an argument and want the freedom to do so. If what Moore presents is taken out of context, which is probably what is happening here, it doesn't matter what he presents.

clairity 6y ago

wow, this is great marketing for the film. now i want to see it to see what all the controversy is about. i've seen a couple michael moore docs before, and while i often sympathize with his position on a given topic, i'm rarely impressed by his persuasive documentary powers.

centimeter 6y ago

As someone who disagrees with Moore 99% of the time, this is absurd, and tells you more about the state of institutional "experts" and "science" than it does about the contents of Moore's movie. Moore can publish (obvious!) bullshit for years and never really get called on it by "experts" or popular media. Now, he publishes something that goes against the dogma of a highly cathedralized and politicized field with such low predictive power that it hardly qualifies as a science at all, and there's a huge (and very successful) censorship effort. I wonder, is the divergence between the predictive power of the field and the strength of its dogma enforcement an anomaly, or is it to be expected that fields with low predictive power will more aggressively defend their orthodoxy?

leephillips 6y ago
'Moore can publish (obvious!) bullshit for years and never really get called on it by "experts" or popular media' He gets called on it constantly. His reputation is so bad that it would never occur to me to bother watching this film. 'goes against the dogma' Or, contains objective falsehoods and libels.
- centimeter 6y ago
  When's the last time the publisher canceled a release of one of his films? > Or, contains objective falsehoods and libels. All of his movies have this, and they still don't provoke this kind of reaction.
blablabla123 6y ago
Michael Moore represents the very unusual combination of being left-leaning and populist. He points out flaws in western governments/corporates that get ignored most of the time and puts them into a narrative. (I don't agree with everything but Bowling for Columbine is very good, I think) It gets problematic how he exaggerates things, doesn't seem to be ashamed of distorting ("enhancing") arguments by stringing together unrelated - though concerning - topics. FWIW I think one needs to differentiate between Climate Science and the narrative of the Climate Movement. The former is more than 100 years old, the latter kind of under-developed and easy to attack. It's surprising though that Moore does it...

hindsightbias 6y ago

Perfect is the enemy of the good.

jxramos 6y ago

Describing itself as a “full-frontal assault on our sacred cows” temporarily took down the film after describing it as “full of misinformation” “trades in debunked fossil fuel industry talking points” that question the affordability and reliability of solar and wind energy. the film includes “various distortions, half-truths and lies” It is written, therefore it must be true. They crossed my accusation threshold, no more thinking required, case closed. But seriously I'd love to see their actual rebuttals to the film. In the meantime I'll check out the free YouTube link they include in the article.

leephillips 6y ago
"I'd love to see their actual rebuttals to the film" Then all you have to do is follow the link in the article to the letter that contains those rebuttals.
- jxramos 6y ago
  Good eyes, I definitely glossed over the linkage in the parent article. Nice stance they're taking with all the transparency about their decisions. Pretty level headed public response. > Ultimately, we decided to put it back up because we believe media literacy, critique and debate is the best solution to the misinformation in the film. https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/michael-moore-presents-planet-of-the-humans/ https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/michael-moore-presents-... I can't tell if that's the climate experts they refer to but these film advocates breath of freshair response is equal to or more newsworthy than the original article. I'm really digging their tone and open invitation.

Press2forEN 6y ago

Instead of censorship, perhaps we should codify universally acceptable ideas and put them into a book. This book would be distributed to everyone that wants one and once a week we would gather and read a portion of it together and receive guidance from an expert on the subject. Over time this should lead to a more virtuous society. I think this would be preferable to the clumsy "whack-a-mole" system we currently use to silence unacceptable ideas.

theandrewbailey 6y ago
What happens when one of your "universally acceptable ideas" aren't acceptable anymore, or gets proven wrong? More importantly, who gets to decide what's included in the first place?
- wafn 6y ago
  The Council of Niceties obviously
lurquer 6y ago
Would we get to sing songs before the readings? I'd like that.

allemagne 6y ago

From the letter "calling for [the film] to be taken down" that the article is based on: https://twitter.com/joshfoxfilm/status/1253572812591247360 https://twitter.com/joshfoxfilm/status/1253572812591247360 >Summary: The new movie Executive Produced and promoted by Michael Moore, Directed by Jeff Gibbs and distributed by Films for Action, PLANET OF THE HUMANS is unscientific, flies in the face of decades of renewable energy science, engineering and research and is counter productive in the age of urgent need for Climate Action. Because the film is based in misinformation and not in truth, we request that the film be retracted by its creators and distributors and an apology rendered for its misleading content.

sleepysysadmin 6y ago

Michael Moore is ultra-leftist environmentalist.I watched the video entirely because climate experts are so angry. The video starts off explaining that he is an environmentalist. Certainly makes the video provocative. The actual video seems to suggest what the right-wing has been saying for 20 years. VERY interesting to see Michael Moore agreeing with the right-wing folks. Makes you wonder if perhaps that he is right here.

zelienople 6y ago

Everyone is so angry at Michael Moore because they are terminally anthropocentric. The point of the film is that we need to achieve fewer humans, and this makes the anthropocentrists rabidly angry. Moore makes an excellent point: creating solar panels and wind farms requires fossil fuels. Doing so in such a way as to accommodate perpetual growth is unsustainable. We need to prune the human species to a sustainable level and keep it there. We need forced sterilization, now. We need to limit waste and useless economic activity, now. Or else we will become extinct. COVID-19 is clear and unequivocal evidence that population density has reached unsustainable levels. We are looking at The Great Filter. We can have innovation, technical progress, and a good life. But we can only do that on a smaller scale.

mythrwy 6y ago
Got any ideas besides forced sterilization? Because I don't see a chance of that one being adopted.
lowdose 6y ago
Are you running for office?
morninglight 6y ago
Millions have viewed the video, yet so few understand its message. "Growth is Good", but population growth without limits is suicide. Forced sterilization is not the only answer. Fifty years ago, Paul Ehrlich explained the problem in considerable detail, and he has offered numerous solutions. Today, most people have never heard of him. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich ) Perhaps Covid-19.is too tame. Just wait. If we are unwilling to live in harmony with nature, the problem will soon be resolved - one way or another. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWMyWr9_CVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWMyWr9_CVo )
- cbnotfromthere 6y ago
  "Fifty years ago, Paul Ehrlich explained the problem in considerable detail, and he has offered numerous solutions." All of them wrong, tho. "Today, most people have never heard of him. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich)" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich)" For good reasons, since he failed miserably at his grand predictions and his anti-humanistic "solutions.

cybert00th 6y ago

I see dangerous is in quotes - having read the article and seen the vitriol and scorn heaped on this movie, that fact begs the question, who is actually in harms way here?

WheelsAtLarge 6y ago

I think Moore makes some really good points that need to be addressed by environmentalists but taking down the film should not be the first form of action. 3 points that are absolutely true. 1) that most green power is backed up by fossil fuels. 2) that solar and wind power hardware needs to be replaced on a regular cycle and that every cycle deals with adding pollution to the environment. and 3) that the real problem is the size of the human population. There are too many people overpowering the planet's available resources. They are uncomfortable issues but they need to be addressed rather than swept under the floor because we don't like them. If we don't address them they will never be fixed.

valuearb 6y ago
What good points? 1)Duh. Green power (except nuclear) cant just scale whenever it is needed, sun is there during the day only, wind is there when wind is there, etc. Why is this even an issue? Over time green power and power storage technologies will get cheaper and flexible, allowing us to use green power as higher and higher percentages of our power needs. 2) Who ever said that green power hardware had some magical resistance to wear and obsolescence? Obsolescence is great because it means newer hardware works better and can have lower environmental impacts. 3) Something that’s been a mainstream topic for over 50 years, so what’s the point? what’s their and your solution? We know that increasing living standards and empowering women leads to lower birth rates, the US and Japan are supposedly already below replacement level birth rates. What else do you propose?
- ttonkytonk 6y ago
  The first two points are under-appreciated and it shouldn't be assumed that the environmental cost is negligible. As for the third point, I don't think the film comes right out and says there are too many people, though it is implied. Specifically the film claims that in the last 200 years the population as well as the consumption rate per person has increased tenfold, for a total increased impact of 100 times.
  - valuearb 6y ago

ykevinator 6y ago

But we all agree even if true, this is less bad than global warming right?

ohiovr 6y ago

High energy civilization is not a birth right. Just thought I would put a line out there for both leftists and right wingers to censor. And I will be happy when they do and they will.

ttonkytonk 6y ago

The main thesis of the film, that the essential issue is not climate change but runaway consumption, is hard to deny.

artur_makly 6y ago

this doc illustrates the enormous realities of energy challenges with sober clarity often exposed by Jancovici https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wGt4XwBbCvA&feature=share https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wGt4XwBbCvA&feature=share