Re:Debubble
by laughinghan on Monday July 06, 2020 @07:48PM
(#23754096)
I think a global warming debate could be quite enlightening. I am not a climate scientist, so if I were to discuss global warming with someone else who wasn't a climate scientist, the questions I would be most curious about are: do they acknowledge that there's a scientific consensus? If they don't believe a consensus exists, that's a present-day, non-forward-looking fact that someone could be convinced of. If they believe they know better than the consensus, I'd at least be interested in learning why in more detail than just "they're irrational".
I don't believe for a second anyone would actually admit to believing that "my convenience is more important than the certain loss of your life". There are situations where I would agree my freedom is more important than your life, self-defense being the obvious example. Even if that's logically what they're saying and don't realize it, I believe that for the overwhelming majority of people, if delivered in the right context, in the right tone, by the right person, they could be lead to empathize and see why that's not right.
I may regret this, but the gold standard of intellectual coherent denialism is https://wattsupwiththat.com/ ; I see they're still obsessed with Michael Mann and the hockey stick.
Coronavirus in particular has brought out a lot of the usual arguments about the value of human life versus economic value. But an even bigger problem is "if we do X, then Y" where the causality is anything less than perfectly individual and clear. Hence a lot of the global warming dispute.
A surprising amount of the most vicious arguments are power-relations driven and collapse to "my convenience or freedom is more important than your or someone else's life". You can't rationalise your way out of that one.