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A comment on Chasing utopian energy: How I wasted 20 years of my life. Parent comment

Re:Chasing utopian energy: How I wasted 20 years of my life by api on Wednesday June 22, 2022 @11:21AM (#31837224)
> Clever writing can let you argue for any viewpoint.

More people should participate in a debate club. A common assignment is to argue eloquently for a position you don't believe in, allowing you to see how eloquent sophistry can be placed in service of any position.

When it comes to technical questions like energy it should be logic, math, and real data or go home.

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Re:Chasing utopian energy: How I wasted 20 years of my life by photochemsyn on Wednesday June 22, 2022 @11:26AM (#31837282)
The source article here uses the rhetorical method of 'once I was a true believer in X, but then I saw the light about Y, let me share the revelation with you' and then tosses out a few highly questionable stats. It's a pretty tedious PR-centric approach.
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Re:Chasing utopian energy: How I wasted 20 years of my life by causi on Wednesday June 22, 2022 @11:54AM (#31837696)
More people should participate in a debate club. A common assignment is to argue eloquently for a position you don't believe in, allowing you to see how eloquent sophistry can be placed in service of any position.

I believe the opportunity for that has passed. Every debate competition I've watched in the last decade was just people trying to be as emotive and loud as humanly possible.

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Re:Chasing utopian energy: How I wasted 20 years of my life by FreqSep on Wednesday June 22, 2022 @11:35AM (#31837406)
> When it comes to technical questions like energy it should be logic, math, and real data or go home.

If those questions have real implications for human beings, you need to consider more than just the technicals.

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Re:Chasing utopian energy: How I wasted 20 years of my life by pessimizer on Wednesday June 22, 2022 @12:59PM (#31838639)
Ignoring the "technicals" when considering questions that have real implications for human beings is usually an rhetorical excuse given to focus on particular implications and ignore other, less favorable ones.
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Re:Chasing utopian energy: How I wasted 20 years of my life by infamouscow on Wednesday June 22, 2022 @11:35AM (#31837408)
There can be more than one logically sound way to approach a problem.

In general people want to solve problems. We just disagree on the implementation because everyone thinks their approach is the only solution.

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