4 ms·
Understanding something often means asking basic questions. This forum has many folks who value questioning like a skeptic, something like a Socratic dialog. Ki
by lebean 3y ago
Understanding something often means asking basic questions. This forum has many folks who value questioning like a skeptic, something like a Socratic dialog. Kind of unfair to call people deluded just because you and many others have reached a conclusion long ago.
- kibwen 3y agoI'm exercising skepticism to be skeptical of the people who exercise skepticism over this topic given the preponderance of evidence. If one were being skeptical, one might wonder if skepticism over climate change was irrational and emotional rather than rooted in the pursuit of truth.
- BoGoToTo 3y agoAbsolutely man!! I've been trying to tell my neighbor this for ages. I keep taking shits on his lawn and he's getting all upset about it saying that it's ruining his lawn. I tell him I value questioning like a skeptic, something like a Socratic dialog. Kind of unfair to call me deluded just because he and many others have reached a conclusion long ago.
- ruszki 3y ago> Skepticism, also spelled scepticism in British English, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. Questioning anthropogenic climate change is not skepticism.
- LesZedCB 3y agodeniers do believe climate acceptance is dogmatic, that our modern epistemology is a deviation and largely a political ideology.
- ruszki 3y agoThey don’t have anything like that. Just like flat earth believers don’t have anything like that. They specifically don’t care what is reality. They pretend to care, but even if they themselves prove otherwise, even then they won’t change their mind, because it’s not about truth, or what is dogmatic. We just create these explanations, because we try to make it logical. The answer is probably way closer to “try to belong to a group”, and “being alone”, than anything like thinking about what is dogmatic, or whether the current concept of knowledge is all right or not.
- sgift 3y agoSkepticism: Taking a look at the available evidence and following it to the result. Denial: Taking a look at the available evidence and then arguing against the it ad nauseam because you don't like what you see. If you've never heard anything about global warming before (no idea how that should have happened, but let's give you the benefit of the doubt here) you can be skeptical. Then you look at the available evidence and well, that's that. The conclusion is clear. From then on it's denial to run around "sorry, I haven't reached the conclusion yet, please convince me".
- lebean 3y agoHi, sorry I've got an effect on some folks. I'm not a climate change denier, and that climate change is real and that we've caused it are things I consider uncontroversial. I've not seen people like that in this thread nor on HN. They were likely flagged in this thread before I've seen it, and I can't see them. I had the skeptics of imminent climate catastrophes in mind, or in general, folks who don't straight up deny climate change but still question some of the literature. It bothers me that these are lumped in with fringe deniers, and what's with the "deluded optimism" jab anyway? I don't agree with them either but cmon, that I'm sure have rubbed some the wrong way.
- flir 3y agoAlso known as sealioning.
- lebean 3y agoI mean, you have good heuristics, rereading what I wrote.
- flir 3y agoI ask dumb questions to tease out useful responses all the time, I don't think you're wrong in the general case, and an exhortation not to rush to judgement can only be good. But these guys have been at it at least twenty years. Every time they pop up with "what about the Mediaeval Warm Period/Little Ice Age/Roman Climatic Optimum?" someone explains that they're comparing local phenomena with a global phenomenon and they go quiet until the next time. There has to come a point where you are forced to assume bad faith.
- defrost 3y agoI see Little Ice Age I assume bad faith and as much as possible politely reply to point out the irrelevance - not so much as to give them a response but to reply for the sake of young minds wandering by who might wonder about that sink hole. I'd encourage all the genuinely curious to ponder all the angles, is it * sun fluctuating, * heat from below, * can a gas in parts per million (PPM) really insulate enough to make a difference, * biased data from urban heat islands, * .. etc, etc, etc. and for them to realise that all these things have been given honest consideration and found wanting .. decades ago in most cases.
- hotpotamus 3y agoI wasn't aware of the Little Ice Age being much of a denier talking point. It actually does seem fairly relevant to this story since these sponges lived through that time period. But I'm mostly just looking at the XKCD temperature timeline https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/