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I don't know anything about this particular propaganda site but I have done research in the past that showed there are a lot of just pure propaganda machine org

by bfe 15y ago

I don't know anything about this particular propaganda site but I have done research in the past that showed there are a lot of just pure propaganda machine organizations that get funding from the likes of Exxon Mobil and who all write off all their budgets and funding for tax-free "education" purposes, that just spew out the stupidest and most unscientific bullshit you could possibly imagine. I have interviewed scientists who are quoted in press releases by these propaganda mills who vehemently protested to me about how terribly their research had been misrepresented. There is literally nothing to the entire worldwide "global warming skeptic" movement that is not completely based on and funded by these well-funded and completely unscientific propaganda campaigns. I found out the people running these propaganda mills, who are by the way total morons, are paying themselves in the quarter-million-dollar range for annual salaries for their Exxon-Mobil and Mellon / Scaife Foundations funded "educational non-profits". And the reach of their propaganda bullshit machines is at least enough to brainwash a whole lot of dupes even on Hacker News to place downvotes in the past eight hours to anything that discusses global climate without saying that every single scientist in the entire world is party to a global conspiracy to smother john fucking galt. And by the way there are an astonishing number of exactly the same organizations and exactly the same people in the propaganda machine against global warming who also raked in millions of dollars in the failed campaign to convince the world that smoking cigarettes was totally awesome and completely harmless to human health. Get a fucking clue people. TO YOU HACKER NEWS DOWNVOTERS: IF YOU THINK GLOBAL WARMING IS NOT REAL YOU HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY DUPED BY A NOT EVEN VERY SMART PROPAGANDA MACHINE AND YOU ARE NOT A COOL REBEL SMARTER THAN MOST PEOPLE, YOU ARE A DUMB AND COMPLETELY BRAINWASHED PAWN. Deal with it. EDIT TO ADD, funny how nothing I've ever posted on HN before has ever been downvoted into negative territory except calling out global warming "skeptics". Good job, you clever and not at all duped rebels who can't be bothered to try to propose any actual rational thought or commentary in the process! EDIT AGAIN to say I am astonished by the sheer volume of downvotes being rained down on every post in this one HN page without one single comment of explanation by the downvoters, which is like nothing I've ever seen on Hacker News. Where are your ovaries and/or balls to explain yourselves, downvoters?

sorbus 15y ago
You don't think that the downvotes are due to your tone, or the fact that you're not really adding anything to the conversation? I enjoy insulting people who don't believe in climate change as much as anyone, but never in the context of trying to present my research (note that you claim that your first paragraph is the result of your research) and never on HN, since it adds nothing to the conversation and weakens arguments. Complaining about being downvoted and insulting anyone who downvotes you also tends to be a good way to get downvoted - adds nothing to the conversation, doesn't make people think that you're a level-headed person they should listen to. EDIT: And your comment is now in the positive. Which lets me point out that a really standard pattern on HN is for comments to be downvoted before being upvoted - since the first people who get to comments tend to be those who blindly downvote anything they dislike, and are then followed by the ones who actually look at comments. Complaining and freaking out about it can only make it worse.
- bfe 15y ago
  Yeah, the tone was not ideal for persuasive writing. I just found myself astonished to witness a volume of downvotes, not only on this post but also on my original post on this page which did not have the same exasperated tone, that across the board was orders of magnitude greater than anything I've ever seen on HN, but without a single comment from the downvoters to try to explain themselves, which really called into question why there are so many people on HN who have managed to accumulate enough karma to downvote but who are also both (1) dumb enough to be hostile to every post on the topic of global warming that doesn't treat it as a made-up conspiracy, and (2) ovary-less and/or ball-less enough not to offer any explanation why they are downvoting.
glenra 15y ago
You seem to be reciting a bunch of talking points from "your side", some of which are clearly false and others of which you couldn't possibly know are true. You have jumped to conclusions beyond that suggested by the data. When you say you "did research in the past" what you appear to mean is that you googled up a couple of pages from places like SourceWatch and ExxonSecrets and read what the propagandists on your side say about the propagandists on the other side. That's not research. You have to look at both sides to reach valid conclusions. For instance, you say "There is literally nothing to the entire worldwide "global warming skeptic" movement that is not completely based on and funded by these well-funded and completely unscientific propaganda campaigns." That is pretty obviously not true. The skeptics who post at, say, http://climateaudit.org http://climateaudit.org are not funded by companies like Exxon or getting any conclusions from them. Steve McIntyre's work (Or Craig Loehle, or...) isn't "completely based on" or at all based on the work of Exxon-Mobile, Mellon/Scaife or, heck, the Illuminati / Trilateral Commission / Church of England. Meanwhile, some of the sources on your side of the issue - advocating climate alarmism - are actually funded by energy interests. For instance, CRU was funded by British Petroleum. ( source: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/ http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/ ) "I found out the people running these propaganda mills, who are by the way total morons" If you want to say something like that, you need to be specific. What organizations are you calling propaganda mills, who are "the people" you claim are "running them", and what is your evidence that these people are "total morons"? Absent any of that info, you're just making an unfocused and uninformative rant that should be downvoted in favor of comments in which people say things that are actually, well, things. You're accusing several vast vaguely-defined groups of people of having been "COMPLETELY DUPED" - not partly, but completely - by several other vaguely-defined groups of people who are controlled by other vaguely-defined groups of people. And going on to make specific nasty assertions about all these entirely undefined groups. This isn't even information. It's just incoherent rambling.

by bfe 15y ago

sorbus 15y ago

You don't think that the downvotes are due to your tone, or the fact that you're not really adding anything to the conversation? I enjoy insulting people who don't believe in climate change as much as anyone, but never in the context of trying to present my research (note that you claim that your first paragraph is the result of your research) and never on HN, since it adds nothing to the conversation and weakens arguments. Complaining about being downvoted and insulting anyone who downvotes you also tends to be a good way to get downvoted - adds nothing to the conversation, doesn't make people think that you're a level-headed person they should listen to. EDIT: And your comment is now in the positive. Which lets me point out that a really standard pattern on HN is for comments to be downvoted before being upvoted - since the first people who get to comments tend to be those who blindly downvote anything they dislike, and are then followed by the ones who actually look at comments. Complaining and freaking out about it can only make it worse.

bfe 15y ago
Yeah, the tone was not ideal for persuasive writing. I just found myself astonished to witness a volume of downvotes, not only on this post but also on my original post on this page which did not have the same exasperated tone, that across the board was orders of magnitude greater than anything I've ever seen on HN, but without a single comment from the downvoters to try to explain themselves, which really called into question why there are so many people on HN who have managed to accumulate enough karma to downvote but who are also both (1) dumb enough to be hostile to every post on the topic of global warming that doesn't treat it as a made-up conspiracy, and (2) ovary-less and/or ball-less enough not to offer any explanation why they are downvoting.

glenra 15y ago

You seem to be reciting a bunch of talking points from "your side", some of which are clearly false and others of which you couldn't possibly know are true. You have jumped to conclusions beyond that suggested by the data. When you say you "did research in the past" what you appear to mean is that you googled up a couple of pages from places like SourceWatch and ExxonSecrets and read what the propagandists on your side say about the propagandists on the other side. That's not research. You have to look at both sides to reach valid conclusions. For instance, you say "There is literally nothing to the entire worldwide "global warming skeptic" movement that is not completely based on and funded by these well-funded and completely unscientific propaganda campaigns." That is pretty obviously not true. The skeptics who post at, say, http://climateaudit.org http://climateaudit.org are not funded by companies like Exxon or getting any conclusions from them. Steve McIntyre's work (Or Craig Loehle, or...) isn't "completely based on" or at all based on the work of Exxon-Mobile, Mellon/Scaife or, heck, the Illuminati / Trilateral Commission / Church of England. Meanwhile, some of the sources on your side of the issue - advocating climate alarmism - are actually funded by energy interests. For instance, CRU was funded by British Petroleum. ( source: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/ http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/ ) "I found out the people running these propaganda mills, who are by the way total morons" If you want to say something like that, you need to be specific. What organizations are you calling propaganda mills, who are "the people" you claim are "running them", and what is your evidence that these people are "total morons"? Absent any of that info, you're just making an unfocused and uninformative rant that should be downvoted in favor of comments in which people say things that are actually, well, things. You're accusing several vast vaguely-defined groups of people of having been "COMPLETELY DUPED" - not partly, but completely - by several other vaguely-defined groups of people who are controlled by other vaguely-defined groups of people. And going on to make specific nasty assertions about all these entirely undefined groups. This isn't even information. It's just incoherent rambling.