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I had to explain this to a relative who started in with the “the earth has always had climate change” jibberish. They tried to tell me no-one knows how the las

I had to explain this to a relative who started in with the “the earth has always had climate change” jibberish. They tried to tell me no-one knows how the last Ice Age happened. So I explained, but because they didn’t understand any of the concepts involved they thought I was just making it up. It’s a good reminder never to assume malice when plain old stupidity is on the table.

cryptoz 5y ago
> It’s a good reminder never to assume malice when plain old stupidity is on the table. We are only in this mess because of this attitude. Don't let evil people get away with evil things just because you think they are stupid. The current groups that believe climate change isn't real all believe that because of decades of misinformation specifically targeted at them, by Exxon and others. Malice is 100% present and 100% at fault for this. Greedy companies wanted more short term money and knew that it would kill millions of people and cause untold chaos and they didn't care.
- headmelted 5y ago
  Correct. But the reason they believe it is because they’re stupid. The fossil fuel lobby is malicious. Their audience is gullible. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not even saying being a gullible fool on this issue is acceptable. It’s clearly not. I feel the same about this lot as about the anti-vaxxers, which is “read a book before you get anyone else killed”.
  - sherp 5y ago
    I think you're underestimating the role motivated belief (aka 'wishful thinking') plays on the part of the audience. If your livelihood depends on a certain industry, or you simply don't feel like making sacrifices, it's extremely easy and comforting to believe the side of the 'debate' that says the problem doesn't exist, even if their evidence is patently flimsy. This is neither outright stupidity or outright malice, but a pernicious mentality that includes a bit of both. That is why the 'ignorance or malice' question is not a productive framing - the two are not mutually exclusive.
  - gmadsen 5y ago
    you have to plan for the world we live in not the world you want. Gullible people are a fact of life. Blaming them does nothing productive
- iammisc 5y ago
  You're not going to 'win' if you just call people who disagree with you 'evil'. Man... people claim that Christians are bad for judging, but I've found the entire human population to be happy to not just say that an action is wrong but ready to call the sinner literally evil. This is such toxic language, it shouldn't be tolerated.
8ytecoder 5y ago
It’s stupid to not be able to understand something. It’s malice when they don’t want to understand something. Are you sure they want to but can’t?
- headmelted 5y ago
  Fair point
newbamboo 5y ago
You may win the arguments but you will lose the war. Please, as someone who understands the problem, do the planet a favor and learn about psychology too. Arguing with people is counter productive, as is shading the truth. Lastly, have the wisdom to know that you will not be able to change everyone’s thinking. There are people who think iPhones are secure and no amount of evidence will convince them otherwise. Don’t tilt at windmills. Invest your energy towards finding solutions not arguing with the stupid.
- headmelted 5y ago
  I mean, all of this is fair, but I don’t know how we find a solution without getting a substantial majority of people onboard.
lordnacho 5y ago
It's not just ordinary stupid people. I've known people with advanced degrees who ostensibly make a living making predictions who don't believe it. Sometimes their arguments get very very intricate. There's just so many layers to the onion it's impossible to do in a conversation, rather than say an essay. Other friends have CS degrees and don't believe it either. It's particularly hard because there's a lot of little battles that they might win in an argument. In the end it all comes down to secondary source critique, since nobody is ever sitting there with actual data. It's often "I don't believe in this guy, he's made a career out of scaremongering".
- titzer 5y ago
  > Other friends have CS degrees and don't believe it either. I have three CS degrees. Our field has a real problem with hubris and reinterpreting everything through a CS lens, particularly assuming everything is discrete, falls into neat categories, and is not subject to noise. I had a decade long debate with a friend from Chemical Engineering about whether the Universe was continuous or discrete, and also about whether it was deterministic. I recall confidently stating tons of crap about quantum mechanics, and it turns out I was completely full of shit because I did not understand probability theory or wave functions.
  - qorrect 5y ago
    > the Universe was continuous or discrete It's both and neither at the same time.
    - titzer 5y ago
      After many years, I realized that's not even the central question of importance. Rather, is the universe representable with finite information? If so, then its description can be written as a series of digits, and all such series are somewhere in the number π, in fact, and infinitessimally small part π, of which is mind-blowing.
  - skytreader 5y ago
    Out of curiosity, how can one have three CS degrees? Do you mean you went through the (1) undergrad, (2) masters, (3) PhD cycle? > Our field has a real problem with hubris and reinterpreting everything through a CS lens Man, I agree if only because I, too, am guilty of at least having a phase like this. But I think I also observe it in the dev and academic CS community in general. I just don't know if this is a generic intellectual hubris or a type of superiority complex specific to "hackers". Of course my opinion is very biased and maybe even cynical but I'm tending towards the latter. I wonder how that came to be; I can only speak for myself, unfortunately.
actually_a_dog 5y ago
> “the earth has always had climate change” jibberish. This is the worst kind of bullshit, because it starts with something that's technically true. Nobody is ever going to say the Earth's climate hasn't changed. Obviously, we've had ice ages and warmer periods. And, we've had CO2 concentrations much, much higher than today. What we haven't had until is human civilization, and the capability to affect the climate ourselves. But, that's never going to impress someone who starts out their argument with "but the Earth has always had climate change."
- cloverich 5y ago
  i used this recently as an opportunity to focus on one point: five degrees celsius was the difference between us and the ice age. it’s easy to get lost in debates and forget you can’t change minds easily, especially not in the moment. but easy to understand facts are sticky. a person can shut out everything i say but maybe if they realize the difference of temperatures we are racing towards in the next 50-100 years are the same order as between us and the ice age, maybe it will wear them down over time. i hope.

cryptoz 5y ago

> It’s a good reminder never to assume malice when plain old stupidity is on the table. We are only in this mess because of this attitude. Don't let evil people get away with evil things just because you think they are stupid. The current groups that believe climate change isn't real all believe that because of decades of misinformation specifically targeted at them, by Exxon and others. Malice is 100% present and 100% at fault for this. Greedy companies wanted more short term money and knew that it would kill millions of people and cause untold chaos and they didn't care.

headmelted 5y ago
Correct. But the reason they believe it is because they’re stupid. The fossil fuel lobby is malicious. Their audience is gullible. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not even saying being a gullible fool on this issue is acceptable. It’s clearly not. I feel the same about this lot as about the anti-vaxxers, which is “read a book before you get anyone else killed”.
- sherp 5y ago
  I think you're underestimating the role motivated belief (aka 'wishful thinking') plays on the part of the audience. If your livelihood depends on a certain industry, or you simply don't feel like making sacrifices, it's extremely easy and comforting to believe the side of the 'debate' that says the problem doesn't exist, even if their evidence is patently flimsy. This is neither outright stupidity or outright malice, but a pernicious mentality that includes a bit of both. That is why the 'ignorance or malice' question is not a productive framing - the two are not mutually exclusive.
- gmadsen 5y ago
  you have to plan for the world we live in not the world you want. Gullible people are a fact of life. Blaming them does nothing productive
iammisc 5y ago
You're not going to 'win' if you just call people who disagree with you 'evil'. Man... people claim that Christians are bad for judging, but I've found the entire human population to be happy to not just say that an action is wrong but ready to call the sinner literally evil. This is such toxic language, it shouldn't be tolerated.

8ytecoder 5y ago

It’s stupid to not be able to understand something. It’s malice when they don’t want to understand something. Are you sure they want to but can’t?

headmelted 5y ago
Fair point

newbamboo 5y ago

You may win the arguments but you will lose the war. Please, as someone who understands the problem, do the planet a favor and learn about psychology too. Arguing with people is counter productive, as is shading the truth. Lastly, have the wisdom to know that you will not be able to change everyone’s thinking. There are people who think iPhones are secure and no amount of evidence will convince them otherwise. Don’t tilt at windmills. Invest your energy towards finding solutions not arguing with the stupid.

headmelted 5y ago
I mean, all of this is fair, but I don’t know how we find a solution without getting a substantial majority of people onboard.

lordnacho 5y ago

It's not just ordinary stupid people. I've known people with advanced degrees who ostensibly make a living making predictions who don't believe it. Sometimes their arguments get very very intricate. There's just so many layers to the onion it's impossible to do in a conversation, rather than say an essay. Other friends have CS degrees and don't believe it either. It's particularly hard because there's a lot of little battles that they might win in an argument. In the end it all comes down to secondary source critique, since nobody is ever sitting there with actual data. It's often "I don't believe in this guy, he's made a career out of scaremongering".

titzer 5y ago
> Other friends have CS degrees and don't believe it either. I have three CS degrees. Our field has a real problem with hubris and reinterpreting everything through a CS lens, particularly assuming everything is discrete, falls into neat categories, and is not subject to noise. I had a decade long debate with a friend from Chemical Engineering about whether the Universe was continuous or discrete, and also about whether it was deterministic. I recall confidently stating tons of crap about quantum mechanics, and it turns out I was completely full of shit because I did not understand probability theory or wave functions.
- qorrect 5y ago
  > the Universe was continuous or discrete It's both and neither at the same time.
  - titzer 5y ago
    After many years, I realized that's not even the central question of importance. Rather, is the universe representable with finite information? If so, then its description can be written as a series of digits, and all such series are somewhere in the number π, in fact, and infinitessimally small part π, of which is mind-blowing.
- skytreader 5y ago
  Out of curiosity, how can one have three CS degrees? Do you mean you went through the (1) undergrad, (2) masters, (3) PhD cycle? > Our field has a real problem with hubris and reinterpreting everything through a CS lens Man, I agree if only because I, too, am guilty of at least having a phase like this. But I think I also observe it in the dev and academic CS community in general. I just don't know if this is a generic intellectual hubris or a type of superiority complex specific to "hackers". Of course my opinion is very biased and maybe even cynical but I'm tending towards the latter. I wonder how that came to be; I can only speak for myself, unfortunately.

actually_a_dog 5y ago

> “the earth has always had climate change” jibberish. This is the worst kind of bullshit, because it starts with something that's technically true. Nobody is ever going to say the Earth's climate hasn't changed. Obviously, we've had ice ages and warmer periods. And, we've had CO2 concentrations much, much higher than today. What we haven't had until is human civilization, and the capability to affect the climate ourselves. But, that's never going to impress someone who starts out their argument with "but the Earth has always had climate change."

cloverich 5y ago
i used this recently as an opportunity to focus on one point: five degrees celsius was the difference between us and the ice age. it’s easy to get lost in debates and forget you can’t change minds easily, especially not in the moment. but easy to understand facts are sticky. a person can shut out everything i say but maybe if they realize the difference of temperatures we are racing towards in the next 50-100 years are the same order as between us and the ice age, maybe it will wear them down over time. i hope.