Sunday, July 02, 2006

If Only Mustachiod Homophobic Terrorists Drove Gas-Guzzling SUVs into Buildings In San Francisco, The Left Would See the Threat

What the heck... I guess I'll post something anyway. Don't worry--I can stop blogging any time....

Psychology is such a stupid field. You have no idea. A while back I read something to the effect that there were around 250 distinct schools of psychological thought, and my guess is that perhaps 240 of them are utterly frivolous, shallow, and generally silly.

This is especially true of academic (as opposed to clinical) psychology. The adult playground of academia generates kooky ideas in every field for the simple reason that it is so insulated from reality and from the implications of its ideas. This is why, for example, the only place Marxism is taken seriously is in academia. If a small business owner were to toy with the idea of running his business along Marxist lines, he would receive immediate sharp and corrective blows from economic reality.

Today’s L.A. Times features an editorial by a Harvard psychology professor, Daniel Gilbert, entitled If only gay sex caused global warming: Why we're more scared of gay marriage and terrorism than a much deadlier threat.

In it, Gilbert begins with the logically self-refuting claim that “NO ONE [emphasis his] seems to care about the upcoming attack on the World Trade Center site. Why? Because it won't involve villains with box cutters. Instead, [cue Simpsons anchorman Kent Brockman--ed.] it will involve melting ice sheets that swell the oceans and turn that particular block of lower Manhattan into an aquarium." Fully accepting the most hysterical prognostications of agenda-driven weathermen at face value, Gilbert says “The odds of this happening in the next few decades are better than the odds that a disgruntled Saudi will sneak onto an airplane and detonate a shoe bomb. And yet our government will spend billions of dollars this year to prevent global terrorism and … well, essentially nothing to prevent global warming.”

This is the first time I've ever heard someone refer to terrorists as merely "disgruntled." Obviously they are far from gruntled. That goes without saying. But they are also hideously evil beasts of depravity bent on destroying civilization as we know it. For starters. And I'm sure they don't give a hoot about the weather. They're obviously used to warm climates.

In any event, let’s try a little thought experiment. Let’s announce to the world that we are immediately suspending all efforts to stop terrorists from hijacking airplanes. It’s too expensive. It’s just not worth the time and trouble, considering Professor Gilbert's reasoned assessment of the incredibly low odds of an attack. Let’s stop airport security, baggage checks, profiling of any kind. You aren’t a sophisticated psychology professor at an elite university, so you’re probably too stupid to ask, but what do you think would happen? For that matter, what do you think would happen if Israel made no effort to stop suicide bombers from crossing its border?

Gilbert, the brilliant psychology professor, wonders “Why are we less worried about the more likely disaster?” Don’t worry, he has the answer: “Because the human brain evolved to respond to threats that have four features--features that terrorism has and that global warming lacks.”

In other words, we really don’t have free will--except for Gilbert. Somehow, he managed to overcome natural selection and see beyond his genetic programming. Not so the rest of us trousered (as opposed to tenured) apes. We are just Darwinian machines, programmed to see enemies where they don’t really exist.

Professor Gilbert explains. You see, “global warming lacks a mustache. No, really. We are social mammals whose brains are highly specialized for thinking about others.” So the reason why we are concerned with terrorism is simply because it has a human face (although technically it is an inhuman face). On the other hand, global warming has no human face, so we don’t worry about it.

Except for all of the hysterics who do, including Gilbert. Indeed, they even try to give it a human face, a face that looks just like George Bush. And we are presumably "frightened" of gay marriage because it too has a human face and mustache, although in fairness, not all lesbians have mustaches. Hasn't he ever seen Tammy Bruce?

Gilbert claims that “The second reason why global warming doesn't put our brains on orange alert is that it doesn't violate our moral sensibilities. It doesn't cause our blood to boil... because it doesn't force us to entertain thoughts that we find indecent, impious or repulsive. When people feel insulted or disgusted, they generally do something about it, such as whacking each other over the head, or voting. Moral emotions are the brain's call to action.”

Again, this is demonstrably false. Global warming is a highly charged moral issue to the left. Can anyone listen to Al Gore and not tell in an instant that his blood is boiling and that he's hoppin' mad? Gilbert writes, “Yes, global warming is bad, but it doesn't make us feel nauseated or angry or disgraced, and thus we don't feel compelled to rail against it as we do against other momentous threats to our species, such as flag burning.”

What? Has this man never heard of dailykos? When have they not been angry and nauseated by some abstract fear that somehow never materializes, like the imminent takeover of the country by homophobic gaia-hating theofascists?

Gilbert writes that “The third reason why global warming doesn't trigger our concern is that we see it as a threat to our futures--not our afternoons. Like all animals, people are quick to respond to clear and present danger, which is why it takes us just a few milliseconds to duck when a wayward baseball comes speeding toward our eyes.” But this simply contradicts his earlier statement that we are obssessed with things that pose no real or immediate threat at all, like terrorism. Which is it?

Finally, the fourth reason we don’t care about global warming is that “we barely notice changes that happen gradually, we accept gradual changes that we would reject if they happened abruptly.” I don’t know about that one. I’m not sure if I would notice the one degree increase in global temperature if it had happened in one minute instead of the one hundred years over which it has occurred. Then again, maybe Gilbert is more sensitive than I am.

Oh my: “The human brain is a remarkable device that was designed to rise to special occasions.”

What kind of nonsense is this? It’s the kind of nonsense that is taught in elite universities. The brain is a fancy gadget or “device.” It was “designed,” but not really, because there was no designer. Rather, it’s just a random reflection of the environment it evolved in. And it “rises to special occasions.”

Which begs the question. For me and for approximately half of the country, September 11 was a “special occasion.” But somehow, we are unable to convince the other half of the country--including Professor Gilbert--of its specialness. We see the evil as clear as day, while the other half--including Gilbert--doesn’t see the evil at all, regardless of whether or not it has a human face. Instead, they focus their attention on obscure and abstract future threats from the weather.

I am not an academic psychologist. I am a clinical psychologist. We have a well-worn word that applies to both Gilbert and his kind: denial. It is at the basis of the “culture of conniption,” that is, the hysterical left that is always having a conniption about some vague threat that never materializes, because it is much more comforting than having to face the real thing.

Lileks said it best:

“ABC news has asked viewers to send in evidence of global warming. How is it affecting your life? ABC news wants to hear from you. This is like Life magazine asking readers in 1952 to describe the communists under their beds. Bald?  Slavic? Ruddy? Drunken? Well, I can help. Naked hairless blistered ocelots prowl my yard; mutated day-bats flutter around the eaves, and the other day a polar bear got up on two legs and pushed around a fume-belching two-stroke-engine lawn mower as some sort of ironic protest....

“I am not susceptible to disaster scenarios. I do not believe we have ten years to prevent the inevitable collapse of civilization. As long as I can remember I have been fed end-times scenarios--death by ice, death by fire, death by famine, death by smothering from heaps of clambering humans scrabbling for purchase on an overpopulated world, death by full-scale nuclear exchange, death by unstoppable global AIDS, death by a two-degree rise in temperatures, death by radon, death by alar, death by inadvertent Audi acceleration, death by juju. Doesn’t mean we won’t die of juju. But somehow we survive. The only thing I take away is a vague wistful wonder what it would be like to live in an era when things were generally so bad that the futurists spent their time assuring us it would be better. Say what you will about the past, but at least they had a future. All I’ve ever had, according to the experts, is a grim narrow window of heedless ignorance bliss followed by a dystopian irradiated world characterized by scarcity, mutation, and quite possibly intelligent chimps. You have no future. Oh, and don’t smoke!”

“Bah.”

“I’m a stupid optimist. Either the vehicle that takes me to the boneyard will get six miles per gallon of processed dinosaur, or it will run for ninety days on a milliliter of Sea-Monkey urine. Either way, all in all, we’ll make it.”

*****

Here's an idea for Professor Gilbert. Write an article about why the disgruntled Islamo-fascists are more worried about infidels than the weather. They're almost as crazy as us!

Part 2: Write an article about what motivates an, ahem, sane and sober man such as Al Gore to produce a propaganda film about the weather that contains so many easily verifiable distortions and exaggerations that almost seem calculated to alarm?. Why does the left habitually sacrifice truth to activism? Is this distortion consciously or unconsciously motivated?

38 comments:

Gagdad Bob said...

If you call propagating the myth of heterosexual AIDs "education," then yes, the Left did a superb job.

Lisa said...

Truly amazing that parents are willing to spend over 40 grand a year to send their kid to be educated by a hysterical bafoon! Thanks for the laugh today!

Gecko said...

You do have an original way with words, Gagdad. Especially for us "simple minded readers" that are too lazy to push the preview button vis a vis mistakes. .
Which ten distinct schools of psychological thought do you give the nod to?
Check out Vanderleun's massage video.

Anonymous said...

What "easily verifiable distortions and exaggerations" are in the Al Gore film about global warming?

Gagdad Bob said...

Don't be afraid--exit the leftist echo chamber and find out for yourself!

Anonymous said...

"Exit the leftist echo chamber" and go where and conclusively find out what?

Anonymous said...

Bob, please don’t take this question as a challenge, but it would be helpful if you did point out where the film has verifiable exaggerations and distortions. I can only suspect the intent behind anonymous’s question but mine is a genuine request to be edified. I’m not playing troll here.

Or can you at least point me to a direction out of “the leftest echo chamber” where I can get some genuine scientific data on global warming?

Anonymous said...

Why would you "suspect" that my intentions are to "troll"? My intentions are the same as yours. I want to know the truth about global warming. Al Gore claims to have the truth. Gagdad Bob claims that Gore exaggerates and distorts the truth. I want to know how Gagdad Bob knows this. I want to know where he goes for the truth, and how he, as a clinical psychologist and not a physical scientist, is qualified to know that it's the truth.

Gagdad Bob said...

Seriously, you just need to expose yourself to non-leftist sources of news and analysis. It's like asking how to find dissenting opinions on Farenheit 9-11.

Gore's film is literally a propaganda film. I don't mean that in the pejorative sense, but in the literal sense. He has a point of view, and cherry-picked just the evidence needed to support his worst-case scenario nightmare. Not only is there no alternative point of view presented, but he claims that none is possible--that all scientists agree with him except for those who have been paid off by oil companies. That is obviously a bald-faced lie, which is not surprising, coming from such a serial liar.

And stop commenting on your own comments.

Anonymous said...

Gore's film may be propaganda. I don't know. I haven't even seen it. Have you? But how do you know that its claims about the threat of global warming are false? Because you've consulted sources that disagree with Gore? How do you know that these sources are any more reliable than the ones that agree with him? On which sources have you relied to conclude that Gore's film about the threat of global warming consists of exaggerations and distortions about that threat, and are you certain that they aren't to be found within a rightest echo chamber?

Anonymous said...

To anon,
for starters google, mars warming,
then google, ice age cycles,

Lurker

Anonymous said...

I'm not asking about Mars. I'm asking about planet Earth. I'm asking Gagdad Bob to tell us which unbiased, reliablly scientific sources he studied before he told us in no uncertain terms that global warming is not the threat Al Gore says it is. So far, he hasn't shared any with us. Can you? Can anyone reading this? Or is this blog the mirror image of a "leftist echo chamber"?

Gagdad Bob said...

Alan--

Precisely. To suggest that Gore's extremist view represents settled science is intellectual dishonesty of the lowest order, and necessarily casts everything else he says in doubt. He is a passionate advocate, exactly what he accuses his opponents of. But this is no surprise. "Projection" is what leftists do.

Ignore the troll. He has an obvious agenda masquerading as curiosity.

Anonymous said...

Alan, I haven't seen the film because I'm waiting for it to come to DVD. Has Gagdad Bob seen it?

I don't claim that it speaks the truth about global warming. I don't know if it does or not. Bob claims that it doesn't. I want to know how he knows this. If he's right, I want to know it. If he's wrong, I want to know it.

You argue that Gore claims in his film that "the scientific community has achieved consensus and agrees with him," that this is demonstrably false, and, therefore, that Gore is lying, and, therefore, that global warming is not a threat. I argue that even if Gore does claim that there is this consensus and there really isn't one, he isn't necessarily lying. A lie is a deliberate falsification, whereas Gore may believe what he claims about this consensus.

I further argue that even if Gore claims what you say he does about this consensus and even if this claim is false or even a lie, it doesn't necessarily mean that global warming is not the threat he says it is. That is, the fact that some scientists doubt or dimiss global warming doesn't necessarily mean that they're right and that the scientists who believe in global warming are wrong. Maybe the scientists who doubt or dismiss global warming are doing bad science and the ones who disagree with them are doing good science. Or maybe the reverse is true. Again, I don't know. But doesn't Gagdad Bob claim to know, and aren't we entitled to ask how he knows?

Anonymous said...

Gagdad Bob, I am not "masquerading" as being curious. I am curious to know how you know what you claim to know. If you can cite good, reliable scientific sources for your dismissal of the threat of global warming, I'd really like to know what they are. Why don't you share them with us?

On the other hand, if you're basing your dismissal solely on the argument that Gore has falsely claimed that there's a scientific consensus on the matter, isn't this a little like saying that Bush is wrong about everything he says because he appears to have been wrong about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

Anonymous said...

Gagdad Bob, we've run somewhat afield of my original question. I'd like to return to it now. What are the many "easily verifiable distortions and exaggerations" in Gore's film? You say that one of them is his claim of a scientific consensus. OK. What are the others?

Also, have you seen the film?

Tamquam Leo Rugiens said...

Well it's all perfectly simple. The Left thirsts for the victory of Islamofascism (and other socio-political dystopias) not as an end in itself, but as a means to a greater good. We all know that the triumph of these malevolisms will ultimately result in the destruction of Western civilization (a good thing in itself, but there's more). The demise of Western civilization will invevitably result in the collapse of the Western economies that power the greenhouse gas producing Western industries. And with that, we have an end to global warming! It's brilliant, cunning and sophisticated. Best of all, its for our own good.

Anonymous said...

Alan, again, I haven't seen Gore's film. But if you're correct in saying that he argues that global warming is "100% proven, verifiable, scientific fact without any controversy," I share your skepticism toward this claim. It seems to me that we just don't know for sure at this point. I think your position is quite reasonable, and I think my position is rather similar to yours: Try to keep an open mind to the facts and be skeptical of strong claims on both sides.

Again, my original question to Gagdad Bob was what are the "easily verifiable distortions and exaggerations" in Gore's film. I agree with you that he isn't obligated to answer me, but I hope that he will.

Thanks for the junkscience link.

Gagdad Bob said...

Alan--

I agree with you entirely. Of course it's possible that Gore is correct. However, the blatant dishonesty puts me on guard. Plus the gamble that he is correct would be absolutely catastrophic to the world's economy, and probably result in millions more deaths than envisioned in his worst-case weather scenario. Not to mention preventing undeveloped countries from becoming developed and therefore reducing pollution. And Gore doesn't get into the many known benefits of global warming.

Even if the Kyoto protocols were enacted today--which would have dire consequences for the world's economy--it would delay the earth's projected warming by only five years.

Meanwhile, Gore's model is entirely linear and one-dimensional and takes no account of unimaginable technological breakthroughs that will occur in the next 50 years. Perhaps another Al Gore will come along and invent a weather-control machine that will be as revolutionary the internet....

Anonymous said...

There will be a simple answer to the threat of global warming in the same way there has been a simple answer to the threat of second hand smoke.
The government imposes further restrictions on individual freedom, and extorts huge amounts of money from big business. All for your own good, of course. Problem solved.

JWM

Anonymous said...

Gagdad Bob, Could you quote anything Gore said in his film that is so "blatantly dishonest" that it reasonably leads you to be "on guard" against everything he says about the threat of global warming? Again, I asked for a specific quote and not your interpretation of what he said. It's easy enough for anyone to misinterpret what someone else has said.

Anonymous said...

JWM, are you suggesting that second hand smoke is not a threat and that government should not step in to protect people from second hand smoke when smokers won't take it upon themselves to do this?

Anonymous said...

JWM--

My advice is to ignore the troll's clueless comment about second hand smoke.... some people just are not susceptible to truth.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

anonymous - tech central station. Come back after digesting about a dozen of their articles.

Hammer - working in a public psychiatric hospital, I have been on the AIDS education thing since 1984. We might have done more research into treatment if we hadn't spent so much on "changing people's attitudes about AIDS." I'm not sure, but just maybe.

To the article: I will go farther than your refutation. I think on some of the article's points, the opposite is true, and the finger points back at the speaker.

In general, he paints a picture of people who respond to threats in the more primitive way our ancestors learned to. In contrast to this, we need to learn to respond to threats that look different in the modern world. When we learn this we will respond to the world - like liberals! Well, Shazaam! Conservatives are apparently still trying to master the opposable thumb.

Whatever he learned about flying baseballs, primitive many also believed in a lot of faceless malevolent forces. Chakras, cancer from power lines, treating headaches with magnets, alternative medicine, and other modern superstitions have no moustaches, but instead look a lot like animist and pantheistic beliefs. I think these fears are found more among the global warming crowd. So the faceless = sophisticated fear, faced = primitive fear seems to fall apart pretty quickly.

He did get one part of that right. Because the Bush opponents had no understanding of the sophisticated surveillance techniques, they put a face on them (the government "looking through your checkbook," or "listening in on your calls") and got afraid.

As for impiety and repulsion, he's right again - about his own folks, though, not his opponents. From the religious language used to describe the earth and nature, to the anger at people driving big cars, to the sad-eyed anthropomorphised animals they use to play on the emotions of schoolchildren, the environmentalists are entirely about impiety and revulsion of religious, aesthetic, and social sorts.

As to the future, it's backwards again. It is an embarrassing secret in the environmentalist and animal-rights activist crowds that when these young people have children, they melt away and are no longer useful to them. People with children are interested in passing on their culture and civilization. It is people with no children who hanker for the planet of the past, and want to set aside parts of it to be untouched by man. Theme parks to the year 1000 AD. No rides, though. It is the environmentalists afternoons that are in danger, as they try to recapture the faux nature experiences of summer camp.

Gradualism. Dunno. I'd think that the people teaching Bible stories and building democracies look more like they're playing for the long haul than the people who think that ice sheets and floods are going to do us in in the next few decades.

The author, in all fairness, does make some interesting points about fear and our responses. He just misses the bulk of the data, because it points against his tribe.

Anonymous said...

Awww Petey...
Just for that I'm gonna end it all. I'm going down to Starbucks and I'm going to find a smoker on the patio-

and sit right next to him!

It was nice knowing you all. Say goodbye to Dilys for me.

JWM

PSGInfinity said...

anon @ 6:43

Smoke Linky:
Straght Dope Smoke Linky

Second Smoke Linky:
EPA Study Debunking

Another Enviro Linky:
Penn & Teller's EnviroTake

Major Enviro Linky:
Michael Crichton speech

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
"I'm not asking about Mars. I'm asking about planet Earth."

Hmmmm, let's study this statement a little more closely.
Rather than a thoughtless, out of hand dismissal, a truly curious, seeking person, when presented with information that Mars is also warming might ask: What common heat source does the Earth and Mars share which might be a likely cause of them simultaneously warming?
Uhhh, maybe the Sun? That same Sun which is now in a period of increased solar activity and is expected to continue?
Nah, couldn't be, algore assured me there is no connection.

Kerry said...

Don't the "easily verifiable distortions" begin with the title and continue through the credits?

The Global Warming predictions are not predictions, but models. If this and this and this, then maybe that. Would you put real money into a pyramid scheme? Did you pass on the letter in three days to "receive the luck" or were you Pedro in Venezuela who died before he could, but then came back to life when his mother found the letter and mailed it to 141 others? Al Gore's 'mooooovie' seems about as credible. Are you old enough to recall the 1970's predictions of a coming ice age, the "we've got about 20 years left" from the same era? Junk movie does not Algore a scientist make.

Anonymous said...

the inimitable Bill Whittle:

" Even better, you can save six billion trillion tons of silicon, nickel and iron in the third orbit around the sun – a sphere that has endured 5 billion years of asteroid impacts, volcanoes, ice ages, and having its core knocked out and into orbit -- by holding up a piece of wood with some lettered cardboard on one end and by marching down the street chanting two-line political philosophies!
What's not to like?"

Hammer wrote:

"Er, when you say, "we survive," we hope all of your simple-minded readers/patients don't misunderstand your optimism and assume that, "we all survive."

As the simplest-minded reader, let me say: of course not. Because we have sense enough to know that even with the most concerted efforts of everyone on earth to "green up", climatic bad things are going to happen. Now that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do what we can, within reason. But unlike the left, we don't expect Utopia. Nor do we subscribe to cures that are worse than the problem.

Technology will help. It already does. Which is why hundreds, not thousands, died from Katrina compared to say, the Galveston Flood of 1900.

Anonymous said...

Once again, Gagdad Bob, Could you quote anything Gore said in his film that is so "blatantly dishonest" that it reasonably leads you to be "on guard" against everything he says about the threat of global warming? I'm asking for a specific quote and not your interpretation of what he said. It's easy enough for anyone to misinterpret what someone else has said. And then, could you share with us what "distortions and exaggerations" Gore is guilty of in his film other than his allegedly saying that there's a scientific consensus about global warming? And what is a "consensus" anyway? A unanimity of opinion, or a preponderance of it? Clearly, some scientists don't believe that global warming is a threat or has been sufficiently established by the available evidence as a threat. But is it not true that preponderance of qualified scientific opinion is that it IS a threat that should be taken very seriously and that serious measures should be taken to minimize it? If so, was Gore's alleged statement "blatantly dishonest" after all?

Gagdad Bob said...

It is much, much more difficult to wrestle with a weak mind than a strong one. Sometimes it's impossible.

Anonymous said...

Anon.,

How about if you go watch Gore's farenheit 911 and come report to US why it's all true.
I find it unbelievable that you would treat such a serious matter with such a flipant attitude by waiting crucial months for the DVD to come out.
TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE, THE EARTH IS WARMING TO A SAUNA AS WE SPEAK AND YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE YET !!!!!!!!!!!
Do your duty commrade!

Anonymous said...

Hey, I got back from Starbucks. I found some tattooed woman smoking Marlboro lights, and I sat downstream from her for twenty minutes or more. Well- make a long story short- thank God for paramedics! So I'm still here, but darn it's hot! And you know, it's been getting steadily warmer ever since April...

We're doomed, I tell ya- doomed!

JWM

Lisa said...

You are sooo brave, JWM!

Anonymous said...

JWM,

Had you sat downwind of an old man smoking unfiltered camels you wouldn't be here now to tell the tale.

Anonymous said...

This might help.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2004/06-14-2004/science.htm

Anonymous said...

If anonymous is truly interested in understanding the issues associated with anthropogenic global warming (AGW) I suggest the following websites:

Pro AGW:
http://www.realclimate.org/
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/index.html

AntiAGW:
http://www.climateaudit.org/
http://www.cei.org/gencon/030,05331.cfm
http://greenspin.blogspot.com/
http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/ice_ages.html
http://antigreen.blogspot.com/
http://markbahner.50g.com/index.htm
http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/

After you have digested a few of these sites I'm sure you will have a better feel for how strong Gore's consensus of scientific opinion is.

I haven't seen the movie, nor will I. I saw Al interviewed on the Daily Show and was amazed by his opinion that he knew as much about this subject as any living man because he's been studying it for 30 years. Gosh, when did he have time to invent the Internet?

Anonymous said...

I will say this once and for all time.

God help the person who screws up MY LIFESTYLE for this leftist global warming LIE.

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