Hey look, it's a climate change thread!

[masterpanthera_t]

(01-18-2017, 02:04 PM)hollodero Wrote: @ mr. masterpanthera - sorry in advance for cherrypicking. Some points, while interesting, don't really demand a response.

As for the nuance thing - I didn't really mean to tag black and white thinking as "wrong". In fact I try to be more distinct sometimes. Which doesn't mean not hearing out other sides, trying to grasp their viewpoint and be open for what they say. I might be more open minded than others, not gonna lie, I see it like that too sometimes. But it's way easier for me. I am an outsider and not part of your everyday colliding partisan stances and your whole machinery. If In were an American, I probably would be a distinct blue factionist, that's just how it is. But never mind that, for I'm not and hence I don't care on that level. Hence I'm more "open minded" strictly due to my outside position. There's not much more to it.

The lack of nuance, now, is a "bad" thing regarding social or other issues where there is no clear-cut "truth" to be reached. To things like gay marriage there is no "truth", I happen to believe they should be granted every right, but that's a stance and not a "truth". How to fight drugs, how to deal with immigrants, what social policies should be reached or if health care should be state-run or if colleges should be free, these are all questions without an obvious "truth" to be reached. There I prefer nuance and compromise and seeing both sides, democratic processes, reaching a consensus or at least a broader support and all that.

And now back to the topic. The more "true" and "wrong" there is, the less I like the middle ground and the more I'm willing to be black and white. What taxes are necessary or how high they should be is a nunanced issue. That taxes are necessary in principle is not. They are necessary in principle, an other view is "wrong" to me. 2 + 2 = 4, that I consider a truth, and if 10% of people think it's five, I don't give a damn. I don't compromise in saying, ok, say it's 4.1 then and everyone's happy. I don't move an inch. Black and white. True and false. Climate change to me is similar, as soon as I believe the scientists that there is a problem and measures need to be taken, I don't bother about the other side's stance (unless science finds another "truth", which I suppose won't happen). The mere existence of an opposing view doesn't mean I need to acknowledge or respect it. I think it's a misleading narrative to even define the two sides of the argument as being equally valid and equally important just because both sides exist. Because there is a "truth".

You say you have no idea which side you're on? Choose the side of overwhelming evidence. You don't really see enough opinions on both sides. You have the side of the experts and the side of the doubters, and you either pick one side or stay indifferent and ignorant. Which is ok, for as you rightfully said - you have your own job and stuff to do, you can't know everything about every other topic, no time no proper education no insight. (Which in fact would be an argument for joining those who have these things due to their profession.)
But if you choose a side, I deeply believe there is just a right side and a wrong side here. The deniers' arguments can be debunked and exposed as knowledge-free in most of the cases (whenever there's a half-decent point, I still try to acknowledge that, sure. There just aren't many). In fact, how this could even be a major argument for you and others amazes me. Again, almost all the experts in the field agree. They have the data, the concept, the basic understanding, the lifetime to devote to that very topic. The opposing side claims (has to claim) that scientists are greedy and lie for the money - or that they are incompetent as no other profession. Which is kind of absurd. Just take a look at what the deniers say. They use their "common sense" to disgrace science (see the bizarre outings of Reps in Congressional hearings, snowballs and icecubes in a glass and global wobbling and all that nonsense). They claim a volcano has way more impact than we ever could have - because they simply "see it". They use debunked arguments like sun spots. They are wrong, plain and simple.
Nuance is to be applied when science admits they are not so sure about stuff either, or when some claims leave the grounds of hard facts, or when policy changes are demanded that would be devastating for the economy. One can regard with nuance wheter doomsday predictions are fair or exaggerated and to be opposed. There are all kinds of approaches regarding severity of CC, rightful reactions, policies, and they are mostly sustainable talking points. But the stance "it's a hoax" simply is not. 

Now that's my take, I won't be mad if you take another one and believe the doubter nonsense, I just will tell you that it's nonsense. I won't tell you that there are nuances to the "true or hoax" debate and as a compromise between the two sides we need to do a little, but not too much or that I try to find middle ground and your opinion is just as valuable as the one of the experts. I will be very black and white on that one and believe that this is the right way to regard these problems.

Yes, was aware of that, but didn't feel like adding this considering I had already written a long post to begin with.  Yes, it's easier to maintain a more objective and/or detached view when you're not directly affected.  I will try to keep this post fairly brief.  And focus mostly on clarifying my earlier post that I don't feel were understood the way it was meant.

To touch on the root of the "no middle ground", I would attribute that to the two party system, which limits people's choices to a party based on one or two of the selector's core issues, whereby, even potentially drastically differing views on non-core issues don't affect party affiliation.  The two party system and some of its flaws and alternatives have been discussed in other threads, and maybe warrants another revisit by most of us in this forum to add more layers, but I digress...

The problem when I say I am not able to choose a side is not from the perspective of picking a technical argument vs. "common sense", it's picking between two technical arguments, which, based on my unfamiliarity is not possible.  You allude to one side not really having a technical argument, which may very well be true (my view leans this way also), but the crux of the problem for me, of picking sides is not so much only the scientific validity, it's all the policy decisions that need to be properly vetted.  That is, I have the luxury of being employed in a sector which is not financially affected by choosing to move forward with "clean" energy (other than possibly relatively "smaller" issues like the cost of goods, utilities etc., that is it doesn't affect the way I make my living).  Your example of 2 + 2 =4, is a bit simplistic or I don't think applies to what I mean about my picking sides.  If I don't have the technical know how, to me, "2" doesn't make any sense, therefore, "4" doesn't make sense either.  If, I knew what "2" and "4" were, based on this analogy, then yes, I mustn't compromise to "4.1".  Personally, I would lean towards the scientists, but that isn't enough for me to make policy choices, unless I was certain that I understood it, to the point that I could start arguing for these policy choices.  Maybe this is just a poor reason to not pick sides.  But picking sides still means we have to talk about the nuances of policy decisions - what is the 5 year plan, ten year plan, how much "polluting" can we live with over the short term, long term, what is irreversible, what is the cost to Americans in terms of health and also financial well being etc.

A nuanced approach, as referenced in my earlier post would have to involve a clear discussion on how to transition from unclean energy to clean energy in places where the economy is driven by fossil fuel extraction.  It would be easy for me to say that "these places have to figure it out and that's that", when I'm not the one facing the immediate burden of those decisions -- objective view/detachment and all that.  But yes, ultimately not changing may very well affect the nation as a whole, and therefore this is a national issue.   Anyways, I will touch on the other part of my post which I think was understood differently than intended.  When I spoke of nuance, and its absence in the U.S political spectrum, I'm talking about the fact that there are so many vested interests which make it impossible to address "polarizing" issues in complete honesty.  This is the "truth" I'm talking about.  Any attempt to have a middle ground is squelched by vested interests which want to paint any position as "completely for" or "completely against", instead of being able to pick stances on particular details of an issue.  Also "truth" in the context I used in the post you referenced was to mean full knowledge (maybe not perfect knowledge but a reasonable level to do stuff) of a topic which it seems is easier to muddy up in our political spectrum by misinformation from vested interests.  IMO, this "truth" context doesn't really apply to a topic like gay marriage because as far as I'm aware we're not dealing with two sets of "facts", but people's views only.  On other issues like climate change (here I'm talking about the larger umbrella of environmental issues to include things like fracking, coal mining, preventing forest cutting etc.) it seems there is a lot of (mis)information which takes away from the "truth".  I'm not really talking about scientists doing the misleading, but things like "if this is done, then it means so and so hates the coal miners of West Virginia", or whatever, instead of saying "does this make sense, if so, what are the immediate costs, how do we mitigate this over the long term", etc.  Or something like, this person simply wants to implement this policy because he wants you to be poor, without any explanation to support that statement.  The sad thing is, neither side's affiliated really demand explanations from their own leaders, it's only demanded of the other.

Hopefully that clarifies it more, or maybe not.