fwungy

A debate in real time between qualified adversaries. Treat these things like you're making a major investment. Make both sides answer hard questions from each other.

For example have RFK and Fauci put together teams of MDs and PhDs to debate in a live event.

Corrupt government officials get a commission on big contracts. It happens all the time. Why do you think people spend so much campaigning for low paying political offices? They can be quite lucrative investments. There are NDAs and other threats to shutdown whistleblowers.

I really don't trust any of the numbers on covid. A vaccine for a dangerous illness that can affect billions of people is a very big payday. There's lots of money to spread around to politicians, corrupt scientists, and corrupt media.

I'd like to see a real scientific debate with adversarial inquiry so we could know if numbers are being fudged and which ones they are.

I trust science, but not greed driven capitalists corporations. Having a measure of distrust for pharmaceutical companies given their historical record is prudent.

Reddit: Dumb acting smart. 4chan: Smart acting dumb. HN: Smart acting smart.

It would cost them a lot of money and have no impact on CO2 levels. Chinese and Indians will not magnanimously sacrifice their money to lower their CO2, and if they don't then it doesn't matter.

You made the politicians who signed off on this very wealthy. Government programs mean big contracts, and the people who decide on those contracts always get their slice.

If they were serious about decarbonization they'd be pushing next gen nuclear to the point that electricity was so cheap that fossil tech couldn't compete.

What we're doing now is subsidizing cheap oil for China, while soaking American and European consumers, but the politicians are getting their slice, so why not?

You wouldn't drive a 15 year old car. Why read a 15 year old book?

I like looking at the Tesla rechargers standing around in the back of my local supermarket parking lot.

Slippery slope only applies as a critique when the its spurious. In this case the precedent of government required reporting leading to regulation is very well established.

X: We are a common carrier Government: You must censor X: OK, we'll remove content deemed highly offensive Government: You're not a common carrier now.

Russia and Opec will take the western fuels and sell them to the developing world at lower cost because western demand has left the market. That will increase demand and usage in those markets.

They have to make decisions. That's how things are accomplished.

Did you ever see a politician run seriously on "I didn't get anything done?"

Little people select politicians by their feelings about the information the media presents about them. Big people look at the politician will make or cost them money. They do this by acting, and they often want "science" to validate and cover for them as being wise.

Not my point.

Politicians always push for a scientific consensus they can act on, whether it's there or not.

What explains massive shifts in the climate? Why do we have ice ages? Why do they end?

The climate is millions of years old. We have at best 200 years of data.

If we are wrong about this Putin wins big time as Russia is sticking to its fossil fuel revenue sources and keeping the majority of the developing world on fossils.

Russia is turning Africa as we speak. Do you have any idea of what the implications are of Russia achieving global dominance, in alliance with China?

Elon Musk owns the biggest EV company. If that doesn't make you suspicious I don't know what will.

Policy makers are rewarded for making decisions. Scientists are rewarded for being accurate.

It's a constant battle. A politician with a science report has official CYA for whatever they do, as they were making the decision based on scientific estimates.

Large models, such as climate models, which are among the largest are highly vulnerable to high variance because of the high dimensionality of their parameter sets.

Say you have n continuous parameters to your mode. This equates to an n dimensional polygon. Unless you a high iteration Monte Carlo technique the output of your model is going to depend on where exactly your estimator point in n degree space lands, and its accuracy will depend on its distance from the actual (unknown) point in the set.

Now, many of the parameters in large models have never been measured. They are averages from the literature, or in cases where there is no literature, which is common in cutting edge science, the investigators guess.

If you look at the meta studies of climate models, which is what the IPCC uses to make projections, they come out all over the place. These models really aren't great prediction tools. They are best thought of as tools for understanding a the components of a complex system.

Covid was a perfect example: modeling was suggesting devastating impacts from covid, to which localities responded differently, some were aggressive, some were lax. It didn't seem to matter. Yes, one can find statistically significant instances where different covid responses led to higher mortality rates, but nothing substantial enough for any group to want to change what they did.

CO2 makes up 0.04% of the atmosphere and humanity is only responsible for 3% of its creation. We are making very fine grained estimated using a macro model. It's a bit like carving toothpicks with a chain saw.

As someone who doesn't fall squarely into the corporate left or corporate right bins I'm used to being attacked for not getting my news from the approved corporate media organs.

How can people think that someone is producing free news and research without an agenda? Do you think Elon Musk gets his information from reading blogs and $2/month NYT subscriptions? Musk, and people like him, have teams that research current events for them, and Musk has a platform on which he can influence the free information that people get and manipulate them for his benefit.

If you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear from an audit by armed goons.

I wonder how many people wouldn't love a chance to live on an organic heirloom farm in tune with the seasons, surrounded by old friends and family? The serfs also had about one third of their time off for feast and holidays.

Governments are basically becoming organized crime syndicates who use their state monopoly on violence to enforce taxes on their subjects. Yes, they do some legitimate good at times, but even mafia gangs support their community and police it.

Yes. EROEI. Very familiar with that. This is an anonymous forum so you won't believe my credentials ( as is wise!), so I'll put it this way: do you think that the idea that oil is a precious and rare resource is good or bad for the major producers (i.e. state producers)?

The oil supply chain is logistically demanding. Once oil is pumped out of the ground it's got to go somewhere, and once it's there it has to move or be burned, because storing oil gets expensive. What oil producers care about is predictability of demand, price is important but it's secondary to that. If the whole world knows that there's plenty of oil it's much harder to set the price where you want it. If the world thinks oil is a rare and precious commodity the price is natural.

Gun control gets liberals writing checks. Abortion bans get conservatives doing the same.

The skirmish lines move back and forth but they never really change ( oh yes they do! shout the stirrers of pots ).

Our society is akin to rats in a shadow box. We are poked and prodded to act as the minders see best for themselves.

Tell that to Putin. There's plenty of oil. They've been saying its going to run out for 50 years. Dead fields have replenished themselves.

Brazil is making ethanol from its vast sugar plantations. They are a special case, and ethanol isn't great on a full lifecycle basis. It doesn't make sense without agricultural surpluses or subsidies, as there are in the USA.

China is the world's mass manufacturer. They will happily make whatever they can sell. If the West is demanding solar panels and windmills due to top down energy policy directives China will happily make and sell them.

There is plenty of fossil fuel available and a huge installed base of ICE's around to use them, especially in the developing world and BRICS. If the West stops buying fossil fuels it only makes them cheaper for those who will happily consume them.

The West needs to use its technological edge to develop market winning sustainable technologies and cheap, safe, electricity production. Crippling itself with unrealistic sustainable energy policies is going to be counter productive to climate change solutions.

The rising BRICS dominate hydrocarbons and they aren't giving them up, selling or using.

We should be focused on mitigation strategies and superior technology that wins conversion based on market forces and not government mandates and long term subsidies.

The Green Suicide of the West isn't going to help climate change, and will probably make it worse.

The much reviled Global Interpreter Lock(GIL) slowed python down, but also made it really easy to write libraries for.

If you wanted to do something there was probably already a Python lib for it. Nothing else had such a rich library ecosystem. If you really need python to perform it is usually easy enough to write the needed routines in a lower level language link it in.

Python grew because it was so easy and powerful enough. Now that python loads are getting into substantial computing the efficiency is becoming an issue.

What is the sun was smaller and closer than we think?

One could sew the same result in that instance.

How can they sequence a thing that does not exist?

It's the only way that 2023 Gender Science can be true, and all good community members know that it is true.

All Glory to the Commune Leader!

/s

When I sense I'm being informationally interviewed by a recruiter or discussing a job I realize I'm not interested in I offer up high salary expectations to push up the overall pay expectations for filling the position.

I kind of figure the market knows what my skill set is valued at and gambling for an outsized payout isn't likely to work unless you're interviewing at the top tier. When discussing a job I am interested in taking I push my tier to the upper end but leave room for discussion.