Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

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There are plenty of things to discuss within the broad camp of "accepts that climate change is real and a potential problem." For example, the severity, the cause of individual events, the best responses, the potential dangers in the future, etc.

Instead, we just get these condescending posts completely dismissing any notion of climate change at all.

I do not see this phenomenon with other fact-based topics discussed here. When there's a story about vaccine, we're not flooded with people telling us how vaccines are full of toxins and don't prevent disease. When there's a story about genetics, we're not flooded with people telling us that evolution is a hoax. Physics stories don't get flooded with comments pushing Time Cube or whatever. Yes, we do get some comments like that, but not many.

Sure, something like Signal is controversial, but that's something that's naturally based on opinion. Dissent about the tradeoffs of something like Signal is quite different from dissent about the reality of climate change.

So if I just say that whatever I believe is the 'reality of _", the conversation should switch to the potential ramifications of the ideas I believe? It seems like you are just saying that we should discuss the issues you (or some arbitrarily selected group of your choice) believe to be contentious issues.

If you have some non-viewpoint-based standard for what is a legitimate topic of debate, I would be happy to see it.

He's saying that discussing a scientific theory requires more than just "my opinion is that it's all bunkum."

What type of refutation is expected when debating the validity of a theory? What is the standard for a qualifying theory?

Even if you have a high standard in the first case, and a low standard in the second, I can find a citation for almost any proposition, but there's usually no point to doing so because the people you argue against will just find a different paper to support their prior beliefs.[1]

My basic issue is that it seems mikeash is trying to impose their arbitrary standard on others.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume

Ultimately it doesn't matter because equating opinions to actions is like debating the difference between a recipe and a steaming plate of risotto.

If you want to help prevent climate change, put up solar panels, get an electric car and hook it up to a renewable grid, eat less meat, fly less, whatever, just do something, because arguing with strangers over the Internet changes nothing at all.

My comment has no effect on climate change either.

I guess more than just saying "this is bunkum" - I'm talking about examining the evidence and analytical techniques on both sides and engaging in debate rather than shutting the other side down, etc. Just citing stuff is a superficial level of debate, but for non-experts like us maybe that's all we can muster. In that case, we have to acknowledge that.

I'd like to see more acceptance of the science, and discussion within that framework, rather than jumping straight to "all those stupid scientists are frauds, I know better than they do" every time climate change comes up. It's weird because that doesn't happen for other scientific topics.

The group of scientists who spend their careers studying this stuff is not "some arbitrarily selected group." If you think it is, well, that's a problem.

I look around HN and see that the same people who believe a majority of climate scientists do not believe a majority of economists. Do they then parse it down to 'labor economists', or just look at surveys of all economists? Should you trust anonymous surveys, or those of non-prestigious researchers, or those conducted by organizations with an interest in the result?

It seems to me that all of these decisions are arbitrary, and often practiced inconsistently.

I'd say there's a major difference in that believing a majority of economists is usually mathematically impossible, since there's almost never consensus on anything in that field.

Edit: as proof, I will soon have at least two replies telling me that I'm wrong and that all proper economists agree on idea X, where each comment's X is incompatible with the other's.

Seems like there is a consensus among economists who do research on gun violence, and they agree that guns make people safer.[1] I am certain that you have now been persuaded by this evidence, and believe concealed carry should be permitted worldwide...

Or maybe you dismissed the result because you dislike the conclusions and conveniently believe John Lott is untrustworthy?

I picked this example because I suspect it's an issue you will be extremely reluctant to change your mind on.

[1] http://crimeresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Survey-o...

This may surprise you, but I don't have particularly strong views on gun control. I reject the claims of the pro-gun side that guns are a useful and necessary defense against tyranny, and I do think gun control would probably be useful and good, but I don't argue that side strenuously and don't vote based upon it. Going even further, I think American liberals should abandon their gun control fetish at least for the time being, because it's costing them a lot of votes for no particularly good reason. As far as issues go, this one is way down the list in importance.

Anyway, on to the actual link. My first question is, why is it useful to survey the opinion of economists on gun violence? That doesn't seem like the right field to poll at all. Shouldn't you be asking criminologists?

> Seems like there is a consensus among economists who do research on gun violence, and they agree that guns make people safer.[1]

This is a very "American" focused survey both in content and in responses. I'd be wary that you're oversimplifying. I wouldn't label the survey response to Question 3 "consensus" either.

>> Of the valid email addresses, 43 were Americans, 4 were Canadians, 2 were Australians, and one was Swedish.

>> Yet, while researchers from both the United States and Canada have extremely similar views that private gun ownership makes people safer, the few researchers from Australia and Sweden are much more supportive of gun control.

Aaand this is why I hesitate to suddenly generalize the American solution to other parts of the world. I'd like to see the opinions of a statistically significant number of non-american economists before coming up with non-american answers.

> I picked this example because I suspect it's an issue you will be extremely reluctant to change your mind on.

My mind hasn't changed here - but my views already align roughly with the "consensus" you've pointed out - although with the additional, gigantic caveat, that these views apply to gun policy in America, where among other things, I believe there's no possibility of putting the genie back in the bottle with regards to widespread firearms availability.

I feel it would be jumping the gun to try and apply the same approach to violence and crime in, say, Japan - based on only the above survey.

>I look around HN and see that the same people who believe a majority of climate scientists do not believe a majority of economists.

Does that make the majority of economists actually wrong?

The economic dynamics of human civilizations with billions of intelligent, autonomous individuals and rapidly changing technology are far more difficult to accurately understand and predict than long term climate trends.

Of course, this doesn't mean climate science is at all easy or that we have figured it all out.

Interesting how the climate change skeptics were losing the argument here and so they diverted the topic to economics.

Empirical topics should be debated with empirical evidence. To the degree to which an objective reality exists, we consider scientific facts to be objective. At this point the empirical evidence for climate change and AGW is beyond debate; we have ruled out alternative theories. Similarly, gravity and the germ theory of disease are settled science; they are not going to ever be overturned in any meaningful way. If you are not willing to concede that objective facts exist, that must be your own business, but otherwise I'm afraid you're going to have to accept that AGW has been conclusively proven.

I am what you would call a "denier". By the way, when you people use that term, it makes you sound very cultish, especially the calls from leftists for the death penalty for deniers.

I actually don't "deny" that there could be anthropogenic climate change, but until the left wants to have an honest debate on the costs (economic, freedom), and also when the left stops "denying" that it fits conveniently into their ideological economic model, then there can be no honest conversation.

There are plenty of things to discuss within the broad camp of "accepts that climate change is real and a potential problem." For example, the severity, the cause of individual events, the best responses, the potential dangers in the future, etc.

So you really don't want to discuss it? It's either your reality or the highway, as your other respondent alluded to.

Perhaps if you didn't equate "denier=the right", "non-denier=the left" and didn't make swiping statements like "until the left wants to have an honest debate on the costs", and refer to "you people", you might find that others might be willing to discuss.

You want honesty? Scientific discovery doesn't care about economic models. The chemical properties of CO2 are not affected by politics. You don't get to vote on thermodynamics. There is no debate regarding the existence of AGW, except outside of science.

What is this leftist ideological economic model you speak of?

right... nothing valid to say...

I don't understand. Do I understand correctly that you accept that anthropogenic climate change is happening? If so, then you're not a denier and none of this applies to you.

You didn't me understand correctly.

Could you elaborate? Specifically, what did you mean by "I actually don't 'deny' that there could be anthropogenic climate change" if not that?

I'm not absolute in saying that there isn't anthropogenic climate change. I'm saying politics are a big factor in the whole debate.

Of course they are. It's a scientific question that has somehow turned into a political debate.

But that's separate from the question of your position on the thing itself. Do you think anthropogenic climate change is a thing, or not? If not, then you're kind of dancing around it. If so, then I don't get why you're so upset.

I thought I made my position pretty clear on the last post. When someone is presented with a theory, do you expect them to think it's a thing or not? I don't believe it's a binary option. Effects of global warming aren't even close to consensus even among believers.

I wasn't upset, but was pointing out that there's many things that you believe in that other people don't. I'm not sure what's so hard to understand.

For example, I believe that there's a huge political motivation on the left to believe in global warming that is separate from the science. I'm assuming you disagree. That's fine. You won't change my mind, and I won't change yours.

There is no consensus of agreement, so I'm not sure why you would assume that there would be on HN

I was just thinkng of the butterfly effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect

So the question isn't whether anthropogenic climate change is a thing. The questions are to what extent are the effects? What are the costs and efficacy of combating climate change?

>but until the left wants to have an honest debate on the costs (economic, freedom)

Twenty years ago when this debate was starting, the right said the left want to destroy the economy by forcing everyone to use renewable energy that costs twenty times what fossil fuel energy does.

Nowadays, renewable energy is as cheap as fossil fuels for many applications, and rapidly getting cheaper, and so it is being voluntarily adopted all over the world. But the right continues to assume it is just as expensive as it was twenty years ago. In fact, Donald Trump has said he loves solar, but its problem is it is very, very expensive.

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