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Do you follow the science? Do you have an aversion to the scolds who routinely declare code reds for humanity? Perhaps you’re being driven to despair. But we at Ricochet hope to see you flourish, we want to see you b(j)orn again! Our guest this week is the absorbingly optimistic Bjørn Lomborg, exactly the man to set us straight on the U.N. climate report and the cataclysmic media circus that’s followed. The fellas also get into infrastructure – whatever that means – and the attendant endemic of thoughtless dishonesty. Also, Rob got a smidgeon of hope from some youngsters recently and Peter needs some recommendations for a good binge-worthy TV series: help him out in the comments!
Music from this week’s show: O-o-h Child by The Five Stairsteps
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Maybe only because they have too much time on their hands.
The first TV season of Gunsmoke, which had been a radio program, had 39 episodes.
Several years later, the first season of Star Trek was down to 29 episodes (but each twice as long).
When actors are only being paid to do 6, or 8, or 10 episodes per year, you can’t expect them to remain committed to a project.
I think in the US at least it’s about cost, not quality.
Yeah, these conversations frequently devolve into one of the two participants (usually the more Pollyanna-ish one) getting their hackles up in self-righteous anger (or at least annoyance) and saying some variation of “Well, this is what I did! What are you doing?!”
In other words, somebody makes it personal, and, by doing so, loses sight of the true magnitude of the problem. So you’ll hear lots of variations of “My husband and I don’t put up with that nonsense. When Jimmy comes home from school with his head full of progressive lies, we set him straight!” and “My wife and I are home-schooling.” Etc.
Replies like these will make the speaker feel better (naturally), but they fail to address the enormity of the challenge the West is facing. (And Woke is not — repeat, not — confined to elite institutions anymore. I wish it was.). We’ve got two generations of young people now who have received Wokeness from an IV drip — 24/7/365 — and they are either zealously on board with the Woke agenda (the committed minority) or willing to shrug their shoulders and let Wokeness wash across the culture like a tsunami (the vast majority).
Because Wokeness is not about creating zealots. While zealotry is an integral (but relatively small) part of the phenomenon, Wokeness is mainly about moving the Overton Window to the point where objectively toxic (not to mention racist) ideas that would have been dismissed out of hand 30 years ago … become acceptable to the majority.
No. Emphatically not. That’s a rather parochial way of looking at it. Ireland, for example, is a majority Catholic country and is as Woke as any country in Europe.
Wokeness has displaced organized religion – – or rather, has filled the void left by organized religion – – but let’s not kid ourselves that only Protestant-majority countries are susceptible to it. The problem is much larger than that.
For the record, @filmklassik, I am neither a Pollyanna nor annoyed. I am simply pragmatic and trying to have a dialogue with you.
I mentioned concrete things that are being done to combat this issue. You seem certain that all kids below 30 are simply of one mind. That is how I’m reading what you wrote. They are not. That is based on my experiences with literally hundreds of students under 30 over the last decade. But if they are, then what specific thing do you wish to *do* apart from *saying* that’s not good?
That is not be getting personal. I simply don’t see anything that you’ve posted that addresses the issue.
(Now imagine a woman much older than thirty shrugging.)
Touché.
I totally disagree with Mr. Lomborg. He believes investing in innovation will resolve global warming. Global warming is a hoax that deserves no investment. Each dollar going to global warming is a dollar not going to cancer research, infrastructure improvements, military upgrades, and space exploration. We have enough black holes for our taxpayer dollars, let’s limit what we allocate to an overblown non-issue.
I really haven’t heard many folks who look at the science stuff say that. They usually say stuff like Bjorn Lomborg. Global Warming is a real problem but it’s not a big deal.
It’s happening, but not human caused, nor a problem, since global cooling would be the problem. Warm expands habitable lands and agricultural posbilities.
Whenever four Episcopalians are gathered, there’s always a fifth.
First season of the Beverly Hillbillies (1962/1963) was 36 episodes.
First season of the Fugitive (1963/1964) was 30 hour-long episodes.
Also, US TV networks are trying to get viewer loyalty for their ads and the products therein. You don’t get that from showing maybe 10 episodes with sometimes even a gap of 2 or more years between “series.”
For a while, it was 39 episodes and then there were the summer reruns. I remember when the beginning of the fall season was a big deal.
That is silly. Everything is a finite in a finite time. Unless, you can think of some resource that is infinitely available. Of course if you had an infinite supply of something, were would you put it?
Stupidity.
Then you haven’t looked at the claim. Global Warming is a hoax. It is a set of claims:
1) the earth is warming
2) CO2 increase is causing the warming
3) human are causing the increase
4) the warming is catastrophic
5) there is certainty in all all the claims above
Point 4 is economic and is foolish. Lomborg admits such saying the economic cost of GW is 3% of GDP, but any proposed “fix” would cost more.
Point 2 is based on abusing old data and assuming there are no other causes. That is not science, it is activism.
Point 5 if meaningless, since the previous points are disproved.
The continued claim of something disproved is a hoax.
Same with four Irish Catholics. But the Irish Catholics actually believe in the Trinity.
But what exactly is the problem? It was a long interview with many refutations of alleged problems, yet not one actual problem stated. He is a flip-flopper. He is trying to juggle two incompatible ideas at the same time. It is clear to see, if you look without the perspective of the corporate media.
My view of Bjorn Lomborg is based on actually reading his work.
Labor and innovation are infinite.
I’m just talking about the most logical target for a consumption tax. Theoretically of course you could target some of that money for future alternatives, but we are too stupid and corrupt to pull that off. If oil goes to $250 a barrel, we are going to wish we did something like that.
We would never give up the income tax anyway so this is all theoretical.
Keynesianism and leftism waste all kinds of resources. If those guys wanted to save the environment you would jack up interest rates and shrink the government down to Strait public goods.
One example is maybe, smart contracts and this new defi thing. Block chain. If that stuff actually works it’s going to save tons of resources. This is going to get in the way of all kinds of rent seeking, so we won’t do it until something bad happens and they are forced to do it.
If oil goes to $250/barrel, I hope a lot of people clean up their voting habits, especially those who voted for Biden.
Three facts.
The only reason fracking was cash flowing (which is not the same as profitable) was because the Fed was suppressing interest rates. Now it’s taken over by the big corporations and they aren’t going to use it unless prices stay up. I watched one video where the guy said that it was simply a flow of printed money to whoever owned the land. This is how stupid our system is.
I have heard multiple experts say that we are under invested in capital projects for oil and it’s going to be a problem. This isn’t like fracking where it can be set up really fast. These things take a lot of time.
We aren’t doing a damn thing about the grid and infrastructure if we really want to drive electric cars.
Or about making batteries that don’t rely on China.
Trading with the communist mafia was one of the biggest mistakes this country has ever made. We can import deflation from better places.
It would be terrible for the global economy, but it would be really great if that China imploded somehow.
Maybe that happens when we can’t pay interest on the debt they hold. On the plus side, that also means we stop paying for their military buildup etc.
We are producing the rope that they are going to hang us with so many ways it’s unbelievable. They aren’t even real communists, they are mafia trying to rip off their own people and the whole world.
Also, if you run your society right, capital is effectively unlimited.
The article goes on to explain how inflationism destroys capital, but you can see that all kinds of bad social and government policy destroys capital as defined in this article.
https://mises.org/wire/were-living-age-capital-consumption
If oil goes to $250, there won’t be any voting, because the country will collapse.