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We cannot do anything about climate change because of the pseudocertainty effect: "what is at issue..are competing claims of expertise and prophecy in human aff

We cannot do anything about climate change because of the pseudocertainty effect: "what is at issue..are competing claims of expertise and prophecy in human affairs. An expert posseses the truth in a particular domain (in this case climate science). The problem, he believes, is how to transmit the truth to the rest of society. This is a problem of "communications." The prophet (politician for example), for his part, believes that there is no truth independent of the way in which it is transmitted. For him, the objectivity of cognitive mechanisms or of crowd phenomena is no less important than the objectivity of climate science. The falut of the IPCC (Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change) - if in fact it is at fault - lies in its failure to decide between these two attitudes." (The Economy and the Future - JP Dupuy 2014). This sounds very complex, but this short book helps move these circular debates around using logic. Which means hope. .. the goal: "to devise, by means of scientific modeling and philisophical inquiry into the aims and purposes of mankind, an image of the future that is sufficiently catastrophic to be repellent and sufficiently credible to produce behavior that will prevent it from being realized, barring an accident."

perl4ever 5y ago
>to devise, by means of scientific modeling and [philosophical] inquiry into the aims and purposes of mankind, an image of the future that is sufficiently catastrophic to be repellent and sufficiently credible to produce behavior that will prevent it from being realized, barring an accident. Trying to avoid the end of everything, can justify any actions, up to and including destroying the world in some other way. This would be suboptimal if the alternate fate was exaggerated, on purpose or not. I think this is the basic reason why people are skeptical of prophets of doom and not ready to give them true power.
- curation 5y ago
  I realized it's hard to understand the quote outside of the book; but the quote says what you are saying. The way human subjectivity works is far too complex to be directly effected. It is not an argument for exaggeration but rather to work with the reality of Climate change being between 1 and 0 and not Yes or No. Reducing a complex argument to doesn't work; but I repeat it to convince the idiot that is myself so please excuse me.

perl4ever 5y ago

>to devise, by means of scientific modeling and [philosophical] inquiry into the aims and purposes of mankind, an image of the future that is sufficiently catastrophic to be repellent and sufficiently credible to produce behavior that will prevent it from being realized, barring an accident. Trying to avoid the end of everything, can justify any actions, up to and including destroying the world in some other way. This would be suboptimal if the alternate fate was exaggerated, on purpose or not. I think this is the basic reason why people are skeptical of prophets of doom and not ready to give them true power.

curation 5y ago
I realized it's hard to understand the quote outside of the book; but the quote says what you are saying. The way human subjectivity works is far too complex to be directly effected. It is not an argument for exaggeration but rather to work with the reality of Climate change being between 1 and 0 and not Yes or No. Reducing a complex argument to doesn't work; but I repeat it to convince the idiot that is myself so please excuse me.