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Comment by carlmr | Hacker News Reader

"A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." - Max Planck

The same effect, but the good side of it.

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The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn is essentially a book-length version of this quote.

This is what’s happening with Greta Thunberg and young climate activists, and explains why the boomer generation is so upset about it.

That’s only part of it. She is also a woman and a foreigner and she is reasonably well-educated. Americans spend more on the war efforts of other countries than we do to our own public schools. Fear, xenophobia and intellectual insecurity are part of this phenomenon as well. She is also economically privileged and Americans are increasingly divided by income and income-related health factors like physical fitness and addiction. Taking advice from a wealthy, educated European female is simply not an option without opening the door to some uncomfortable observations.

These people make take some unscientific ideas to their graves but they will also take a lot of fear and hatred with them.

Don't forget that a Facebook glitch a few days ago accidentally doxxed the person updating her Facebook posts, revealing that it's her father, Svante Thunberg, authoring her posts.

https://pluralist.com/greta-thunberg-facebook-bug-dad-svante...

I acknowledge climate change is a thing and should be taken seriously, but the left does itself no favors by manufacturing a petulant child as its messenger. You need messengers that are credible and aren't just preaching to the choir if you want to make progress in convincing people.

Her primary audience is teenagers. She seems to be doing a good job of convincing them globally.

It's more like the right picked a "petulant child" as their archenemy, rather than the left picked her. It's not a leftist scheme that Trump is engaging in a twitter feud with Thunberg.

The right ignored IPCC scientists, they laughed at Al Gore (for having a private jet - yeah I get that it's a very easy thing to hate), but somehow they can't do a thing to a teenager largely repeating the points already made (and ignored) by IPCC and Al Gore, all their usual propaganda tactics do nothing against her, and somehow that makes the right frothing mad.

I guess tasting one's own medicine feels awful. Shrug.

“Petulant child”

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