8 ms·

It's an old truth: most people choose their own facts to make themselves feel better, then hunt down the justifications they need a posteriori. When people are

It's an old truth: most people choose their own facts to make themselves feel better, then hunt down the justifications they need a posteriori. When people are worried about jobs and imagine that helping the environment would take extra effort that could be spent on the economy, they will convince themselves that the environment isn't that big of a deal. To realize that alleviating climate change would actually create new work, even new industries, takes more mental effort than the casual observer is prepared to expend. That's normal people - the hacker set will generally seek out the unvarnished truth in more of an evidence-based way.

waterlesscloud 15y ago
I don't think a person can understand politics until they realize that your first sentence applies to everyone, including themselves.
J3L2404 15y ago
>It's an old truth: most people choose their own facts to make themselves feel better See copyright violation.
jdminhbg 15y ago
"most people choose their own facts to make themselves feel better, then hunt down the justifications they need a posteriori." ... "alleviating climate change would actually create new work, even new industries" Yup.
krupan 15y ago
"...alleviating climate change would actually create new work..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window Not to say that the window should simply be left unrepaired.
- vannevar 15y ago
  The parable cuts both ways, which in my view makes it generally worthless as a rhetorical instrument. Excessive CO2 emissions might be costly in the same invisible ways that repairing the broken window is. In the parable itself, the complaint is that the money going to the glazier might have gone somewhere more productive. Perhaps, but it might also go somewhere less productive. Arguing the economics is a fool's errand. No one knows the optimal economic path forward. But we do know that our current climate supports an overall healthy, growing human population as it is. We also see many barren planets in the solar system and beyond that lie outside the narrow band of habitability the Earth resides comfortably in. On this basis alone, we should take climate change very seriously.
kbutler 15y ago
It's an even older truth that people believe those who disagree with them are wrong (and less intelligent, less careful, misled, etc.). It's far too easy to fool yourself and then believe others are the fools. See Feynman's discussion of confirmation bias in the measurement of the charge of the electron: http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm and remember that this is scientists doing experiments and publishing results.
- moldbug 15y ago
  I'm always kind of astounded that HNers reflexively believe Michael Mann over Steve McIntyre. Of course it's simply because they don't know. And where would they find the time? What we call "science" is what Washington calls "science." If Washington funded astrology and laughed at astronomy, astrology would be "science" and astronomy would be for crazy people on the Internets. Mind always submits to power.
  - rvkennedy 15y ago
    What I call "science" is the corpus of knowledge accumulated by the scientific method over the history of knowledge since Francis Bacon. There's nothing reflexive about believing Mann over Steve McIntyre - as with all such judgments we look at who's saying what, who they are, where they're coming from and why, and make a call. Within limitations, we also look at the evidence. Why do we believe Hubble (expanding universe) over Hoyle (it's static)? Hoyle is a much more impressive figure than McIntyre, but his ideas have been tested over and over in many different ways, and found wanting. You could say that the expanding universe is just a theory, that it's unproven, because you could construct an elaborate static universe model that creates the red shift in some arbitrary manner, and causes distant stars to dim sufficiently that space is black and not white, and so on. You could create an elaborate theory that explains why things fall to earth but rejects both Newton and General Relativity. But it seems to me that the reason this doesn't happen is that it doesn't affect the bottom line of well-capitalized companies in the energy sector. You are correct that we appeal to authority for most of what we know of science. But it's not Washington that's the authority, it's the corpus. And we trust it because it's constantly subjected to self-scrutiny. Voices like McIntyre's are heard, and either the whole of one single branch of science is engaged in a massive conspiracy to not listen, or he's probably wrong. But we keep our minds open.

waterlesscloud 15y ago

I don't think a person can understand politics until they realize that your first sentence applies to everyone, including themselves.

J3L2404 15y ago

>It's an old truth: most people choose their own facts to make themselves feel better See copyright violation.

jdminhbg 15y ago

"most people choose their own facts to make themselves feel better, then hunt down the justifications they need a posteriori." ... "alleviating climate change would actually create new work, even new industries" Yup.

krupan 15y ago

"...alleviating climate change would actually create new work..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window Not to say that the window should simply be left unrepaired.

vannevar 15y ago
The parable cuts both ways, which in my view makes it generally worthless as a rhetorical instrument. Excessive CO2 emissions might be costly in the same invisible ways that repairing the broken window is. In the parable itself, the complaint is that the money going to the glazier might have gone somewhere more productive. Perhaps, but it might also go somewhere less productive. Arguing the economics is a fool's errand. No one knows the optimal economic path forward. But we do know that our current climate supports an overall healthy, growing human population as it is. We also see many barren planets in the solar system and beyond that lie outside the narrow band of habitability the Earth resides comfortably in. On this basis alone, we should take climate change very seriously.

kbutler 15y ago

It's an even older truth that people believe those who disagree with them are wrong (and less intelligent, less careful, misled, etc.). It's far too easy to fool yourself and then believe others are the fools. See Feynman's discussion of confirmation bias in the measurement of the charge of the electron: http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm and remember that this is scientists doing experiments and publishing results.

moldbug 15y ago
I'm always kind of astounded that HNers reflexively believe Michael Mann over Steve McIntyre. Of course it's simply because they don't know. And where would they find the time? What we call "science" is what Washington calls "science." If Washington funded astrology and laughed at astronomy, astrology would be "science" and astronomy would be for crazy people on the Internets. Mind always submits to power.
- rvkennedy 15y ago
  What I call "science" is the corpus of knowledge accumulated by the scientific method over the history of knowledge since Francis Bacon. There's nothing reflexive about believing Mann over Steve McIntyre - as with all such judgments we look at who's saying what, who they are, where they're coming from and why, and make a call. Within limitations, we also look at the evidence. Why do we believe Hubble (expanding universe) over Hoyle (it's static)? Hoyle is a much more impressive figure than McIntyre, but his ideas have been tested over and over in many different ways, and found wanting. You could say that the expanding universe is just a theory, that it's unproven, because you could construct an elaborate static universe model that creates the red shift in some arbitrary manner, and causes distant stars to dim sufficiently that space is black and not white, and so on. You could create an elaborate theory that explains why things fall to earth but rejects both Newton and General Relativity. But it seems to me that the reason this doesn't happen is that it doesn't affect the bottom line of well-capitalized companies in the energy sector. You are correct that we appeal to authority for most of what we know of science. But it's not Washington that's the authority, it's the corpus. And we trust it because it's constantly subjected to self-scrutiny. Voices like McIntyre's are heard, and either the whole of one single branch of science is engaged in a massive conspiracy to not listen, or he's probably wrong. But we keep our minds open.