Inserting climate science into public policy

I wonder if we need to enclose what we have learned from climate science in a sort of meta-science. For example, we can probably establish a number to represent the smallest probability of each category of damage due to climate change. Let us agree that Category II represents the extinction of many species according to their habitats and the displacement of many humans depending on their location. Let the probability of Category II be not less than 0.14. If we have complete tables of such data, we can easily decide how aggressively we wish to mitigate these circumstances. Personally, I would not tolerate any of them, as I have often dreamed of the Earth as a Garden in which industrial activity is sharply curtailed and fossil fuels are no longer used. I have written voluminously on the social changes I consider necessary and desirable. I would actually like to see the end of the automobile culture with the beautiful autos of yesteryear in museums.

Best wishes to all,

Tom

My Answer to a Complaint about Last Election

It strikes me as an opportunity to get rid of this absurd idea of a president and this corrupt and obsolete practice of elections. I have noticed that many people, regardless of education, demonstrate remarkably good sense in ordinary conversations. It occurred to me that democracy could be preserved if the old-fashioned town meeting could be revived with membership extended to every adult citizen who chose to attend such neighborhood or town meetings. Then, when a special representative was needed to convey the consensus of the neighborhood to the next highest collection of neighborhoods, whether it be the city or the county or whatever is convenient, the practice of sortition should be employed. This is the way we choose jurors, except that people who have served recently are excluded, to avoid the rise of demagogues. Elections may still be employed to recall a representative who does not carry out the will of the council that chose him.im.him.

Imre Lakatos

I wonder if the author of the recent article in Aeon has discovered that the following strange tale is not true; and, therefore, there is no reason to retail it.  It seems that shortly after World War II the man we know as Imre Lakatos found a box of shirts with the name Imre Lakatos on them where you would normally find a monogram.  Since his initials were IL and the shirts were his size, he adopted the name!   Amusing if true.

In any case, I am disappointed that the author did not mention the great little book by Lakatos called Proofs and Refutations, which is devoted to an imaginary study of Euler's formula about the sides, edges, and vertices of polyhedra in which exceptions to the formula (referred to as "monsters") are found and returned to respectability by amending the formula, which program is repeated at greater and greater levels of complexity (or "monstrosity").  I don't remember how the book ends; but, I wished it hadn't been thirty or forty years ago when I read it.

Some Recent Titles from Aeon (hyperlinked to their texts)

The people’s prince

Beyond reason: the mathematical equation for unconditional love 

Dispatches from a cowboy past: a one-room classic country radio station (barely) holds on

How the Inkas governed, thrived and fell without alphabetic writing

Christopher Given-Wilson

 Why the Enlightenment was not the age of reason

Henry Martyn Lloyd

Algorithms are opinions, not truth machines, and demand the application of ethics

3 minutes

 

 

Comment on "Religion is about emotion regulation, and it’s very good at it."

One wonders how the effect upon the consumers of religion can be entirely beneficial if it is necessary to believe in an all-powerful supernatural being to experience it.  But what is the effect upon the purveyors of religion if they are required to employ falsehoods to sell it?  In particular, why do we provide tax breaks for churches if they are based upon sales fraud?  What is an atheist to think about the benefits of religion claimed by Professor Asma?   I shall have to consider these questions.  As I said earlier, Aeon is a good magazine.

Come, let us reason together!

Many scientists and other critical thinkers accept the notion that we have embarked upon a path toward catastrophic climate change caused by man's industrial activity; therefore, it is reasonable to assume that there is at least a ten percent chance that anthropogenic climate change is real. If we power down unnecessarily, we will nevertheless have an Earth as a Garden, which appeals very much to many people, but prevents capitalists from adding to their already swollen fortunes. Thus, we have a 10% chance of ending human life as we know it unless we power down as discussed in my energy papers.  The Earth as a Garden will frustrate people who love capitalism, high-tech gadgets, urban sprawl, and environmental destruction; but, the low-probability outcome is so horrible that only an idiot or a fool would take the chance.

What is Aeon?

Aeon is a newsletter dealing directly and indirectly with the most important issues that affect us most in these times.  The articles are short, interesting, and well written.  It appears in my email inbox from time to time - at least once a week.  Here is the website with a hyperlink for those who wish to subscribe:


https://aeon.co/ 

The link to subscribe to the newsletter is on the right under the heading photo.