Unbelievable... I understand the programming thing, and I understand it worked well in the 80s until perhaps the 10s... But now, you just have to pop your head outside your own window to see the climate catastrophe happening in real-time. I mean, it's no longer just Haiti having to cope with floods, or India having to cope with temperatu…
Unbelievable... I understand the programming thing, and I understand it worked well in the 80s until perhaps the 10s... But now, you just have to pop your head outside your own window to see the climate catastrophe happening in real-time. I mean, it's no longer just Haiti having to cope with floods, or India having to cope with temperatures above 45 degrees Celsius. It's no longer, as we call it, a "ver-van-mijn-bed-show"...
Right - it is obvious, and that's why the denial campaign has shifted to delay and distract, rather than deny. It's ingenious but diabolical, and especially cynical since it is so calculated in light of what they know as well as you do what the truth is, based upon the consensus of the most advanced scientific modeling. The totally unfounded claims that offshore wind turbines are killing whales is a perfect example: throw out a baseless claim and let the traditional media struggle to convince everyone it isn't true, which they do, patiently and rationally, meanwhile, the distraction machine is already coming up with new fabrications to tie us down with fighting the lies. The effort should not be so focused on rebutting the lies - that should be a one sentence factual statement that the lie has no basis whatever. Then immediately shift to going after the source - who is saying this, what organizations are they tied to, what is their funding??? It is astounding how quickly how a large percentage of these allegedly unrelated claims from various "grassroots" organizations and media outlets can be tracked back to the funding of a handful of billionaire oligarchs like the Kochs, Scaifes, Mellons, Coors, Devos, etc. Books to read: Democracy in Chains by Nancy MacLean, and Dark Money, by Jane Mayer. It's not like any of this is a secret, but your average reader of traditional media isn't aware of it.
Yeah, the "astroturfing" strategy... Good point, the media should directly shift to the source: what are they saying, why, and who pays them? Would be a good idea for scientific publications, too, to make this aspect more clear in the press.
But still I wonder: to what end are the Kochs et al doing this? It seems they are hell-bent on seeing earth's ecology perish. But why? Do they think they can "ride it out"? Do they think they can make a heap of cash off of civilization's crash, and then "wait out" the climate catastrophe and biodiversity collapse in their bunkers? No one is going to live that long: it will take Earth millions of years to recover. And what kind of outlook is living out the rest of your life in a bunker? If it's even feasible... I mean, there's no way you can stash food for 50 or 100 years (let alone have enough for your children or grandchildren to live on), and it won't be possible to grow new food with earth's ecology gone. They can't be that naive or stupid to see these problems. What future do they envision for themselves then? Escape to Mars? Salvation by the AI God named "Singularity" they are trying to summon? I really wonder...
Without reading minds, it's speculation. My suspicion that, armed with some degree of the psychological defense mechanism of denial, they comfort themselves with any one of the scenarios you suggest - their money and resources will immunize them, technology will advance and solve any CO2 problem, the claims of climate crisis are exaggerated and unrealistic, etc. But their number one goal, as tried and true libertarians, is to dismantle any institutions, governmental or otherwise, that interfere with the business decisions they make based entirely on profit generation. The absolutely feel entitled to do anything necessary to increase their personal wealth, regardless of the effects of this on anyone, or humanity in general. Recall the last scene in Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand's novel about how and why elite business should control everything, where her "heroes" fly away to wherever it is they are escaping to, while below them the electrical grid fails and the lights of civilization progressively go out. If you are interested in getting a small-scale newsletter I send out, let me know at bertrandbartok@gmail.com. This is one section, based upon an AP article, of the most recent one:
Upward social mobility in the U.S. – not as easy as people claim.
As pointed out in this article, only 1 out of 40 black children born into families in the lowest quintile of household income ever reach the top quintile. The chances for a white child are ~four times higher, between 1 out of 9-10.
Of all the black children in that bottom quintile, 75.4% never reach above the 4th quintile. For white children, this percentage is 53.4%
These statistics are taken from “Race and Economic Opportunity in the United States: A Intergenerational Perspective”, from the Opportunity Insights project based at Harvard.
The socioeconomic status is, not surprisingly, a pretty good predictor of victimhood, criminal justice involvement, deficient health care and educational outcomes.
The author of the article uses a metaphor of the Apollo missions – for the launch to be successful, everything has to go right, and if even one thing goes wrong, there is failure. (He even uses the phrase “escape velocity” to denote being able to move away from an economically depressed neighborhood to a better life.)
Similarly, for a black child to be successful everything has to go right – family, education, jobs, friends, neighborhoods, adult interventions, hard work and good luck. For wealthier households, one or two of these pieces may be shaky or unhelpful, but success can still be achieved.
This is the backdrop of facts that puts the lie to the glib claim that people who are poor are 100% to blame, which is then the justification for denying government assistance to help them.
Let’s take one example.
Hunger disparity is an example of a barrier to success. Studies show that performance by children in a variety of spheres is worse if they are hungry.
The Governor of Iowa announced 3-days before Christmas that the state would not participate in an available U.S. food assistance program this coming summer.
The program is the 2024 Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children (Summer EBT), and it provides $40/month for each poor child to help with food costs while school is not in session.
The governor offered these reasons [to which I have added an observation]:
Too expensive [despite that Feds pay half]
Doesn’t constitute a long-term solution [Being hungry today is a short-term problem]
Does not “promote nutrition” [Calories are part of “nutrition”; perhaps apply a punitive BMI qualification?]
Childhood obesity is an epidemic [Hunger would be better for the state’s poor children?]
Investment should go to other programs that are more flexible [Sadly means the funds
would likely get siphoned off and not go to poor children’s needs]
Compare this concern with the following headline from the Iowa Capital Dispatch 2/1/2023: “Billions in federal farm payments flow to a select group of producers, report shows.” The top 10% of recipients took in 79% of the funds over the last 25-years.
Unbelievable... I understand the programming thing, and I understand it worked well in the 80s until perhaps the 10s... But now, you just have to pop your head outside your own window to see the climate catastrophe happening in real-time. I mean, it's no longer just Haiti having to cope with floods, or India having to cope with temperatures above 45 degrees Celsius. It's no longer, as we call it, a "ver-van-mijn-bed-show"...
Right - it is obvious, and that's why the denial campaign has shifted to delay and distract, rather than deny. It's ingenious but diabolical, and especially cynical since it is so calculated in light of what they know as well as you do what the truth is, based upon the consensus of the most advanced scientific modeling. The totally unfounded claims that offshore wind turbines are killing whales is a perfect example: throw out a baseless claim and let the traditional media struggle to convince everyone it isn't true, which they do, patiently and rationally, meanwhile, the distraction machine is already coming up with new fabrications to tie us down with fighting the lies. The effort should not be so focused on rebutting the lies - that should be a one sentence factual statement that the lie has no basis whatever. Then immediately shift to going after the source - who is saying this, what organizations are they tied to, what is their funding??? It is astounding how quickly how a large percentage of these allegedly unrelated claims from various "grassroots" organizations and media outlets can be tracked back to the funding of a handful of billionaire oligarchs like the Kochs, Scaifes, Mellons, Coors, Devos, etc. Books to read: Democracy in Chains by Nancy MacLean, and Dark Money, by Jane Mayer. It's not like any of this is a secret, but your average reader of traditional media isn't aware of it.
Yeah, the "astroturfing" strategy... Good point, the media should directly shift to the source: what are they saying, why, and who pays them? Would be a good idea for scientific publications, too, to make this aspect more clear in the press.
But still I wonder: to what end are the Kochs et al doing this? It seems they are hell-bent on seeing earth's ecology perish. But why? Do they think they can "ride it out"? Do they think they can make a heap of cash off of civilization's crash, and then "wait out" the climate catastrophe and biodiversity collapse in their bunkers? No one is going to live that long: it will take Earth millions of years to recover. And what kind of outlook is living out the rest of your life in a bunker? If it's even feasible... I mean, there's no way you can stash food for 50 or 100 years (let alone have enough for your children or grandchildren to live on), and it won't be possible to grow new food with earth's ecology gone. They can't be that naive or stupid to see these problems. What future do they envision for themselves then? Escape to Mars? Salvation by the AI God named "Singularity" they are trying to summon? I really wonder...
Without reading minds, it's speculation. My suspicion that, armed with some degree of the psychological defense mechanism of denial, they comfort themselves with any one of the scenarios you suggest - their money and resources will immunize them, technology will advance and solve any CO2 problem, the claims of climate crisis are exaggerated and unrealistic, etc. But their number one goal, as tried and true libertarians, is to dismantle any institutions, governmental or otherwise, that interfere with the business decisions they make based entirely on profit generation. The absolutely feel entitled to do anything necessary to increase their personal wealth, regardless of the effects of this on anyone, or humanity in general. Recall the last scene in Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand's novel about how and why elite business should control everything, where her "heroes" fly away to wherever it is they are escaping to, while below them the electrical grid fails and the lights of civilization progressively go out. If you are interested in getting a small-scale newsletter I send out, let me know at bertrandbartok@gmail.com. This is one section, based upon an AP article, of the most recent one:
Upward social mobility in the U.S. – not as easy as people claim.
As pointed out in this article, only 1 out of 40 black children born into families in the lowest quintile of household income ever reach the top quintile. The chances for a white child are ~four times higher, between 1 out of 9-10.
Of all the black children in that bottom quintile, 75.4% never reach above the 4th quintile. For white children, this percentage is 53.4%
These statistics are taken from “Race and Economic Opportunity in the United States: A Intergenerational Perspective”, from the Opportunity Insights project based at Harvard.
The socioeconomic status is, not surprisingly, a pretty good predictor of victimhood, criminal justice involvement, deficient health care and educational outcomes.
The author of the article uses a metaphor of the Apollo missions – for the launch to be successful, everything has to go right, and if even one thing goes wrong, there is failure. (He even uses the phrase “escape velocity” to denote being able to move away from an economically depressed neighborhood to a better life.)
Similarly, for a black child to be successful everything has to go right – family, education, jobs, friends, neighborhoods, adult interventions, hard work and good luck. For wealthier households, one or two of these pieces may be shaky or unhelpful, but success can still be achieved.
This is the backdrop of facts that puts the lie to the glib claim that people who are poor are 100% to blame, which is then the justification for denying government assistance to help them.
Let’s take one example.
Hunger disparity is an example of a barrier to success. Studies show that performance by children in a variety of spheres is worse if they are hungry.
The Governor of Iowa announced 3-days before Christmas that the state would not participate in an available U.S. food assistance program this coming summer.
The program is the 2024 Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children (Summer EBT), and it provides $40/month for each poor child to help with food costs while school is not in session.
The governor offered these reasons [to which I have added an observation]:
Too expensive [despite that Feds pay half]
Doesn’t constitute a long-term solution [Being hungry today is a short-term problem]
Does not “promote nutrition” [Calories are part of “nutrition”; perhaps apply a punitive BMI qualification?]
Childhood obesity is an epidemic [Hunger would be better for the state’s poor children?]
Investment should go to other programs that are more flexible [Sadly means the funds
would likely get siphoned off and not go to poor children’s needs]
Compare this concern with the following headline from the Iowa Capital Dispatch 2/1/2023: “Billions in federal farm payments flow to a select group of producers, report shows.” The top 10% of recipients took in 79% of the funds over the last 25-years.
All this while poor children are left hungry.