Re:The sky's gone dark
by ChuckMcM on Thursday October 01, 2015 @12:00PM
(#10312110)
The trick there is that most things are systems, rather than point variables. Just like you can't push down just one place in a bowl of water, you can't expect that the system will not respond to the change in variables. Whether it is Peak Oil, Kessler Syndrome, Global Warming, or Free Markets. People use extrapolation to scare others into some action, rarely are the predictions correct because other parts of the system have adapted.
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Re:The sky's gone dark
by TheSpiceIsLife on Thursday October 01, 2015 @03:13PM
(#10313830)
I never was very intelligent, just smart enough to quote intelligent people, so I'll invoke Steven Pinker from his book 'The Better Angels of Our Nature':
Also distorting our sense of danger is our moral psychology. No one has ever recruited activists to a cause by announcing that things are getting better, and bearers of good news are often advised to keep their mouths shut lest they lull people into complacency. Also, a large swath of our intellectual culture is loath to admit that there could be anything good about civilization, modernity, and Western society.