The Glade 4.0

[youtube]cf-fzVH6v_U[/youtube]

I'm not sure which is more digusting: the way Gore casually dismisses the question without answering it (because who needs to answer a question about something so proven and with such severe consequences?!) or the way the other journalist (Society for Enviromental Journalists) is being a Grade A douche-nozzle nuthuggers.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

"...shut down the journalist and protect the politician."

Bullseye.

"treat big environment the way you treat big buisness"

word.

pour in 800 billion dollars and cross your fingers that it'll sort itself out?

The environment is too big to fail!

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^ That's...actually quite an apt parallel.

For instance, from this thread:


In other words, this theory makes really big, scary predictions. Therefore, we should do what is says even if it hasn't been proven. The same "logic" was used to cram trillion-dollar bailouts down the taxpayers' throats. We can't afford to do nothing!

It's a jedi mind trick based the brain's inability to truly grasp probability and make accurate expected gain calculations. We just suck at it. Among other things, it explains why people play the lottery (sure it's unlikely, but just think of the huge payoff if you win!), and why people are afraid of an imminent asteroid collision with the earth.

It's just Pascal's Wager by any other name. If you don't know how this goes, this is the gist of it:

If God exists, and you don't believe in him, the expect payoff is -INFINITY
If God exists and you do believe in him, the expected payoff is +INFINITY
If God doesn't exist, there's no payoff either way.

Therefore, the expected gain for believing in God is always higher than the expected gain for not believing in God, regardless of the specific probability of God's existence. Therefore, the smart wager is to believe in God.

Phrased this way, most people will get an immediate sense that there's something wrong with this argument, even if they can't immediately put their finger on exactly what it is. But dress it up scientifically or political and get it repeated a whole bunch of times on TV by people who are supposed to be smart, and the sense of wrongness tends to go away.

Scare tactic politics always follow this same formula, whether it's financial bailouts, global warming, terrorism, or some new horror du jour. It sounds very convincing -- your brain is so dazzled by the infinite consequences that it completely overlooks the obvious flaws in the argument, not least of which is that it's almost always a false dilemma.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

The expected payoff of believing in myself is +endless glory.

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"The map is not the territory."

Yeah, I think I can smell it from here.