Ren's Best Rants...

[RDR]

That's a thought provoking show by Rachel, mel.

Hitler ad Nazium and Reductio ad Hitlerum are two names for the logical fallacies involved in the discussion in that segment. They are of a type of logical fallacy, guilt by association. Logical fallacies are not partisan. You'll find them in just about anyone's arguments. What's important is to recognize a fallacy so you won't be inclined to believe what's intended to be believed without some second thoughts. Thus, pointing out the use of a logical fallacy is not truly an anti argument except in a formal debate where a panel of judges might be judging the quality of the arguments. One might get a point from a judge if one points out a logical fallacy in the other's argument. However, in the instance of a "working out" of the public "opinion," such as supposedly occurs in these so-called meetings at "town halls" (another trope-like metaphor hearkening back to a simpler time and a simpler democratic form), recognizing that logical fallacies are being used to manipulate opinion is a self reflective act of awareness relegated to each individual participating. The result is that when one individual does it we get one person in a mob who self reflects. It takes some sort of critical mass of individual self reflection to move self reflection to a point where it can counteract the logical fallacies and the group actions on them.

Much has been written about the actions of crowds and how they can be manipulated. One author I found to be insightful is Elias Canetti. His book, Crowds and Power shared with me some of his insights on the topic many years ago.

Logical fallacies go hand in hand with propaganda. The only real solution to dealing with propaganda is self awareness, in my book. Fighting propaganda with more propaganda is fighting fire with fire, I suppose. But you are still dealing with what I would call the dangers of authoritarianism in which you hope to control the actions of mobs with symbology rather than appeals to reason. It's unfortunate that all the work that Anti has done, complete with his reference thread he used to keep updated so that we can find some of his fine references on these subjects, is gone. But in that body of work, now at the POAC site, are many discussions on propaganda. I'm sure somewhere in it all will be references to some of the following:

Stephen Downes' Guide to the Logical Fallacies

Robert Allen & Lorne Greene: The Propaganda Game

Contents

I. Introduction

II. Instructions [Not included here]

III. Explanations of Techniques

A. Techniques of Self-Deception

1. Prejudice
2. Academic Detachment
3. Drawing the Line
4. Not Drawing the Line
5. Conservatism, Radicalism, Moderatism
6. Rationalization
7. Wishful Thinking
8. Tabloid Thinking
9. Causal Oversimplification
10. Inconceivability

B. Techniques of Language

1. Emotional Terms
2. Metaphor & Simile
3. Emphasis
4. Quotation Out of Context
5. Abstract Terms
6. Vagueness
7. Ambiguity
8. Shift of Meaning

C. Techniques of Irrelevance

1. Appearance
2. Manner
3. Degrees & Titles
4. Numbers
5. Status
6. Repetition
7. Slogans
8. Technical Jargon
9. Sophistical Formula

D. Techniques of Exploitation

1. Appeal to Pity
2. Appeal to Flattery
3. Appeal to Ridicule
4. Appeal to Prestige
5. Appeal to Prejudice
6. Bargain Appeal
7. Folksy Appeal
8. Join the Bandwagon Appeal
9. Appeal to Practical Consequences
10. Passing from the Acceptable to the Dubious

E. Techniques of Form

1. Concurrency
2. Post Hoc
3. Selected Instances
4. Hasty Generalization
5. Faulty Analog
6. Composition
7. Division
8. Non Sequitur

F. Techniques of Maneuver

1. Diversion
2. Disproving a Minor Point
3. Ad Hominem
4. Appeal to Ignorance
5. Leading Question
6. Complex Question
7. Inconsequent Argument
8. Attacking a Straw Man
9. Victory by Definition
10. Begging the Question

IV. The Experts Game [Not included here]

V. Summary

VI. Suggested Answers [Not included here]

VII. Appendix [Not included here]

Twenty-Five Ways To Suppress Truth: The Rules of Disinformation by H. Michael Sweeney

Twenty-Five Rules of Disinformation ~

1. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil
2. Become incredulous and indignant
3. Create rumor mongers
4. Use a straw man
5. Sidetrack opponents w name calling, ridicule
6. Hit and Run
7. Question motives
8. Invoke authority
9. Play Dumb
10. Associate opponent charges with old news
11. Establish and rely upon fall-back positions
12. Enigmas have no solution
13. Alice in Wonderland Logic
14. Demand complete solutions
15. Fit the facts to alternate conclusions
16. Vanish evidence and witnesses
17. Change the subject
18. Emotionalize, Antagonize, and Goad
19. Ignore facts, demand impossible proofs
20. False evidence
21. Call a Grand Jury, Special Prosecutor
22. Manufacture a new truth
23. Create bigger distractions
24. Silence critics
25. Vanish

Eight Traits of The Disinformationalist ~

1. Avoidance
2. Selectivity
3. Coincidental
4. Teamwork
5. Anti-conspiratorial
6. Artificial Emotions
7. Inconsistent
8. Newly Discovered: Time Constant

Excerpts: Psychological Operations Field Manual No. 33-1

(I'll include only the introduction, go to the site for an interesting read)

Appendix I: PSYOP Techniques; HQ, Department of the Army (31 August 1979)

Propaganda Techniques

Knowledge of propaganda techniques is necessary to improve one's own propaganda and to uncover enemy PSYOP stratagems. Techniques, however, are not substitutes for the procedures in PSYOP planning, development, or dissemination.

Re: Robert Paxton: Third Stage of Fascism's Formation.

[RDR]

In this obsession with individualism to the near exclusion of everything else on the planet, making the individual ownership of some vague, and abstractly disconnected concept of property out to be a "right" of some kind, while looking into the issues of the necessary planetary features basic for one's very ability to simply stay alive -- like an appropriate mixture of oxygen for one's body, food, potable water, and so forth -- one finds that, besides the complications of the two historical water rights doctrines found in the different states here in the U.S.,:

Riparian Water Rights

Prior Appropriation Water Rights

We also have an over arching historical civilized doctrinal tradition to consider:

The Public Trust Doctrine

I. Origins of the Public Trust

The origins of the public trust doctrine are traceable to Roman law concepts of common property. Under Roman law, the air, the rivers, the sea and the seashore were incapable of private ownership; they were dedicated to the use of the public.1 This concept that tide and submerged lands are unique and that the state holds them in trust for the people has endured throughout the ages. In 13th century Spain, for example, public rights in navigable waterways were recognized in Las Siete Partidas, the laws of Spain set forth by Alfonso the Wise.2 Under English common law, this principle evolved into the public trust doctrine pursuant to which the sovereign held the navigable waterways and submerged lands, not in a proprietary capacity, but rather “as trustee of a public trust for the benefit of the people” for uses such as commerce, navigation and fishing.3

What this brings out is the systemic interconnectedness issues that private ownership and the ego of ownership often tends to overlook. That connectedness has an important historical lesson to teach about the many variations of societal experiments that have been tried through the eons. Out of all of those experiments, the most crucial elements of common connectedness do have a historical record to peruse. From that record we can see the logic of how the common needs in contrast with the individual, self centered desires, have been solved in the past. That logic is still working itself out. The libertarian ideology is merely another theory along those lines. I think history can tell us a lot about how successful it might be if employed.

http://www.thomhartmann.com/board/viewt ... 02&p=19983

[RDR]

Education is the great transformer (J.K. Galbraith). Ivan Illich was a life-giving iconoclast and philosopher who criticized modern industrial society as a threat to autonomy. The helping professions often help themselves. People are afraid to walk around the block without a doctor's prescription.

In our world, autonomy is often exchanged for dependence. War, greed, corruption, speculation, passivity and hopelessness become normalized.

Through resistance and solidarity, mending our own pockets and renouncing on empire-building and monopoly capitalism, we can begin again. By involving and not distracting one another, we become people of hope.

In our affluent society, the dropout rate for minorities is 50% in metropolitan areas. This is a societal systemic catastrophe that cannot be solved by scapegoating teachers or "under-achievers." We all must be excited with knowledge and discovery and not confuse forced conformity with education.

to read the article by Aram Ziai and Cord Jakobeit, click on
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2009/09/230197.php
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2009/09/230196.php

[RDR]

I've appreciated Ivan Illich's thoughts about industrial society and the challenges it places on each of us to retain our humanity in the face of forces we can only barely begin to recognize before they utterly consume us at an early age. I've never given much thought to his effect on Development Theory, though I can see some potential there. I personally have come to think that his most potentially prophetic ideas could be found in his theories about the Tools for Conviviality, where he explores the humanistic potential in technology and how to individually take command of this potential monster that he (and others) sees as putting humans in an ever spiraling regressive dependency relationship with products of their own collective ingenuity, and the management systems devised to produce them.

Probably no one can be a completely unique and original thinker and also be immersed in a society of any kind. We are in essence our environment to a greater or lesser degree. So it's worth noting Illich's own self acknowledged intellectual heritage and the network of thinkers who awakened him to these issues he developed (pun) so that he could spend the lifetime he did trying to sort them out. I'd like to not that one of those minds was that of Jacques Ellul.

In 1993, Ivan Illich participated in a two day conference in Bordeaux, France To Honor Jacques Ellul.

As a participant, he gave a presentation in which he attempted to give homage to what he had learned from someone he referred to as "Master Jacques." He opened with: "...I have been moved by your comparison of a master with an ox which, in pulling the plow, opens a furrow. I have striven to follow you in a filial spirit, making all the false steps which that implies. I hope you accept my harvest and can recognize some flowers among what might seem a mixture of noxious weeds."

It's not suffficient to try to capture the entire presentation in a few paragraphs, but I felt the following at least helps preface the spirit of the influence on Illich's thoughts that might go with the article about him linked in the first post.

When a half century ago Ellul first published his prophetic analyses, it was evident that the rational integration of Ellul the Calvinist and Ellul the sociologist was beyond the comprehension of a majority of his colleagues. But now, at least, many understand that his profound rootedness in faith enables him to confront the darknesses that the rootless habitually gloss over.

Already in his study of propaganda, he made us see that modern men are so terrorized by the flight from reality that they surrender themselves to atrocious debaucheries of images and representations in order not to see. They manipulate media to simulate an even more sombre pseudoworld, using this to construct a protective veil against the darknesses of the constructed world in which they find themselves. Over the years, this absence of reality has become even more stupefying. This situation - the obscurity engendered by the media - has been well studied by my friend, Didier Piveteau, who proclaims himself Ellul's student.

More and more, people live their lives as in a nightmare: They feel themselves ensnared in unspeakable horrors, with no means to wake up to the light of hope. As in certain nightmares, the terror transcends the expressible. Ellul's recognition of the established status of globalizing technique allowed him to foresee in the 1950s what today is palpable but now irremediable. What surrounds us today is implicit in his analysis of la technique. Before this assembly, made up of attentive readers of Ellul, and at the conclusion of two days' intense exchanges, it would be absurd for me to elucidate this notion, original and of capital importance in his work. I prefer to narrate some circumstances in which the notion has furnished a decisive help to one Ellul reader - and, if he accepts me as such, his student.

La technique entered my existence in 1965 in Santa Barbara, the day when, at Robert Hutchins's Center, John Wilkinson gave me a copy of The Technological Society that he had just translated, following up on the strong recommendation of Aldous Huxley. Since then, the questions raised by the concept of la technique have constantly reoriented the examination of my relation to objects and to others.

I have adopted this Ellulian concept because it permits me to identify - in education, transport, modern medical and scientific activities - the threshold at which these projects absorb, conceptually and physically, the client into the tool; the threshold where the products of consumption change into things which themselves consume; the threshold where the milieu of technique transforms into numbers those who are entrapped in it; the threshold where technology is decisively transformed into Moloch, the system.

During ten good years after my meeting with Professor Ellul, I concentrated my study principally on that which la technique does: what it does to the environment, to social structures, to cultures, to religions. I have also studied the symbolic character or, if you prefer, the "perverse sacramentality" of institutions purveying education, transport, housing, health care and employment. I have no regrets. The social consequences of domination by la technique, making institutions counterproductive, must be understood if one wishes to measure the effects on the specific hexis - character formation, and praxis - possible actions, de facto defining the experience of modernity today. It is necessary to face the horrors, in spite of the certain knowledge that seeing is beyond the power of our senses. I have successively analyzed the hidden functions of highly accelerated transport, communication channels, prolonged educational treatment, and human garaging. I have been astounded by their symbolic power. That has given me empirical proof that the Ellulian category of la technique, which I had originally employed as an analytic tool, also defines a reality whose origin is found in the pursuit of an "ideology of Christian derivation."

Research on the symbolic function of technique in our time, begun by Ellul, continues to provide clarifying insights. Here I am reminded particularly of his reflections on magic and religion. Among modern thinkers, Jacques Ellul has always been one of a select few who understand that the place of the sacred is now occupied not by this or that artifact, but by la technique, the black box we worship.

In relation to the Development theme of this thread, in his closing remarks of his above linked paper: Tools for Conviviality Illich says the following, which I thought had some prophetic resonance with the circumstances we are facing even in our own nation today:

When business is normal, the procedural opposition between corporations and clients usually heightens the legitimacy of the latter’s dependence. But at the moment of a structural crisis not even the voluntary reduction of overefficiency on the part of major institutions will keep any of them functioning. A general crisis opens the way to social reconstruction. The loss of legitimacy of the state as a holding corporation does not destroy, but reasserts, the need for constitutional procedure. The loss of confidence in parties that have become stockholders’ factions brings Out the importance of adversary procedures in politics. A loss of credibility of opposing claims for more individual consumption only highlights the importance of the use of adversary procedures when the issue to be decided upon is the reconciliation of opposing sets of society-wide limitations. The same general crisis that could easily lead to one-man rule, expert government, and ideological orthodoxy is also the great opportunity to reconstruct a political process in which all participate.

The structures of political and legal procedures are integral to one another. Both shape and express the structure of freedom in history. If this is recognized, the framework of due procedure can be used as the most dramatic, symbolic, and convivial tool in the political area. The appeal to law remains powerful even where society makes access to legal machinery a privilege, or where it systematically denies justice, or where it cloaks despotism in the mantle of show tribunals. Even when he who upholds the formal structure of ordinary language and procedure earns the scorn, ridicule, and persecution of his fellow revolutionaries, the appeal of an individual to the formal structure embedded in a people’s history remains the most powerful instrument to say the truth and denounce the cancerous domination of the industrial dominance over production as the ultimate form of idolatry. I feel almost unbearable anguish when faced by the fact that only the word recovered from history should be left to us as the power for stemming disaster. Yet only the word in its weakness can associate the majority of people in the revolutionary inversion of inevitable violence into convivial reconstruction.

Reconstruction for poor countries means adopting a set of negative design criteria within which their tools are kept, in order to advance directly into a postindustrial era of conviviality. The limits to choose are of the same order as those which hyperindustrialized countries will have to adopt for the sake of survival and at the cost of their vested interest. Such social reconstruction cannot be supported by a high-powered army, both because the maintenance of such an army would foil reconstruction and because no such army would be powerful enough. Defense of conviviality is possible only if undertaken by the people with tools they control. Imperialist mercenaries can poison or maim but never conquer a people who have chosen to set boundaries to their tools for the sake of conviviality.

[RDR]

I just want to clear up some misconceptions about what libertarianism is and isn't. I'll limit myself to minimal government libertarianism, sometimes called minarchy. Zero government libertarianism or voluntaryist is easy to define but requires much more explanation than is possible here.

The first thing to understand is that libertarianism is a political philosophy. It does not inform a person on how they should live their life. Libertarianism addresses the proper role of government in a free society.

1) Libertarians believe that the initiation of force is immoral. Force can only be deployed by individuals or governments in the defense of individual rights.

2) Libertarians are political individualists. Only individuals can think, act or choose. There is no entity called society or the common good.

3) Libertarians are anti-war. War is state-sponsored mass murder. We opposed conscription which we view as slavery.

4) Libertarians believe that there is no crime without a victim. And society can't be a victim. (See #2) All victimless "crime" laws should be repealed.

5) Libertarians oppose welfare for corporations and individuals.

6) Libertarians believe that goods and services should be provided voluntarily, i.e. on the free market.

7) Libertarians support free trade between Americans and between Americans and non-Americans. However, we do not support managed trade like NAFTA and GATT.

Most libertarians view taxation as theft. However, minarchists support enough taxation to support a minimal government.

9) Government should be as local as possible.

The problems lie with what passes for libertarian economic policy. See the Ludwig v. Mises Institure website" as to the supposed "Austrian School" version of "classical liberalism" supposedly reconciled with "libertarian political theory". For example:

The Ludwig von Mises Institute was founded in 1982 as the research and educational center of classical liberalism, libertarian political theory, and the Austrian School of economics.

http://mises.org/about.aspx

It's that "Austrian School" that really becomes the whole enchilada, and it ain't about individual liberty except as that is falsely and categorically equated to so-called 'free trade' capitalism.

Just as the Randian "libertarians" fixate on the injustice of what they call "redistribution" (somehow pictured apart from some hypothetically just "distribution"), so do v. Mises school "libertarians" fixate on the idea that all good flows from the unrestrained and unregulated flow of capital. In both cases, the fundamental idea is based on circular definitions, with the end result that there is no questioning of underlying premises from which all else proliferates.

Search The Quotable Mises webpage --
http://mises.org/quotes.aspx?action=subject&subject=Socialism

on "accumulation of capital" and you will find that the term is basic to v. Mises' thinking and can be used in many contexts to justify all sorts of things -- globalized "free" trade of the WTO variety comes to mind -- that result in the dilution and destruction of individual liberty. For example:

v. Mises: "The prerequisite for more economic equality in the world is industrialization. And this is possible only through increased capital investment, increased capital accumulation."

The idea couldn't have been better expressed by the Communist masters of Animal Farm People's Republic of China!

Or how about Lysander Spooner's idea about what constitutes the legitimate function of government --

v. Mises: "All that good government can do to improve the material well-being of the masses is to establish and to preserve an institutional setting in which there are no obstacles to the progressive accumulation of new capital and its utilization for the improvement of technical methods of production."

That last amounts to a statement as to the proper function of government: everything that furthers greasing the rails for the movement and growth of capital is the function of government! And nothing else!

My problem with the v. Mises school of thought is that it concentrates on a few economic principles, building an ideology from them, and loses sight of the original thinking of Henry Simons that inspired libertarian ("classical liberal") economics by basing everything not on any question other than "How can government structure or support an economy that makes for the greatest possible individual liberty?"

It's one thing to start with the premise, never really evaluated against reality, that 'free' trade --unrestrained movement of capital -- equates to maximal individual liberty and something else again to observe and test what actually maximizes individual liberty and what actually perpetuates conditions of slavery.

Of course, the v. Mises School has some good points to make, especially as to monetarism (NOT, btw, anything like a gold standard, which fact should be noted by followers of Ron Paul). I advise any who are truly interested in a melding of classical liberal economics and libertarian political thought -- along the lines originally explored by J.S. Mill -- should check out in detail the little remembered work of the founder of the Chicago School, Henry C. Simons. See:

A Positive Program for Laissez-Faire (1934)

In Defense of Henry Simons' Standing as a Classical Liberal by J. Bradford De Long (available as free download PDF)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Calvert_Simons

The Papers of Henry C. Simons
by Clara Ann Bowler
Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Apr., 1974), pp. 7-11
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/724740

http://homepage.newschool.edu/het//profiles/hcsimons.htm

http://homepage.newschool.edu/het//essays/monetarism/mpolicy.htm#chicago

I hate to see "libertarians" goose-stepping to a uniform statement of what they believe to be their own individuality!

BTW: Although Lysander's list is pretty good and I can agree to some extent with most of it, the idea that because there are individuals, there is no such thing as society and no such thing as the common good -- that's one of the silly circular-definition things that some "libertarians" like to claim as premises for their supposedly logical thinking. Unfortunately, there is such a thing as "libertarian" group-think.

http://www.thomhartmann.com/board/viewt ... 17&p=20773

[RDR]

I am not sure the reason for the problems with the Austrian School, Grandpa.
Do you think they follow a strict one doctrine ideology? Otherwise I see them sprouting up at the most unlikely places:

The heterodoxy includes (but is not limited to) Austrian economics, Behavioural economics, Black political economy, Ecological economics, Evolutionary economics, Feminist economics, Georgist economics, Historical economics, Institutionalism, Marxism, Post Keynesian economics, Postmodern economics, Postcolonial economics, Rhetorical economics, Social economics and Sraffian economics.

Just as the Randian "libertarians" fixate on the injustice of what they call "redistribution" (somehow pictured apart from some hypothetically just "distribution"), so do v. Mises school "libertarians" fixate on the idea that all good flows from the unrestrained and unregulated flow of capital.

In your own opinion, how do you suppose to come up with a "just distribution"? What criteria would you use to come to an ethical outcome? I am not sure if Austrians or Libertarians ever acknowledge any market failures outside of government interference but reading this short passage makes me think that the role of government is still there.

"All that good government can do to improve the material well-being of the masses is to establish and to preserve an institutional setting in which there are no obstacles to the progressive accumulation of new capital and its utilization for the improvement of technical methods of production."

That definitely would not be my stated goal {if I was to write such a piece} but if there are identified market failures outside of government interference then that would be assumed a role for government in the market place. Most Libertarians attribute most market failures to government actions and as such they consider it a minimalist approach when needed.

My problem with the v. Mises school of thought is that it concentrates on a few economic principles, building an ideology from them, and loses sight of the original thinking of Henry Simons that inspired libertarian ("classical liberal") economics by basing everything not on any question other than "How can government structure or support an economy that makes for the greatest possible individual liberty?"

It's one thing to start with the premise, never really evaluated against reality, that 'free' trade --unrestrained movement of capital -- equates to maximal individual liberty and something else again to observe and test what actually maximizes individual liberty and what actually perpetuates conditions of slavery.

It should be pointed out that "free trade" and "unrestrained movement of capital" are not equal concepts and the IMF has addressed many of these issues in their papers. One aspect is that during "liberalization", sequencing may be very important and building a regulatory capacity to handle the transitional costs. But aside from that, I see no problem that free trade and freeing up capital movement as anything less than expanding negative liberties.

[RDR]

=.ren

=jeffbiss

At some point, we'll either have to come up ways to enable the planet to continue sustaining us...or we'll keep destroying it so it can't.

As you may have picked up I don't think that people will do what's necessary to avoid collapse because we've been deluded into thinking that we can't collapse the earth's systems simply because we haven't collapsed them.

Indeed. I also think people in general have to go through some effort to try to understand their world, and that effort is not a natural one, especially so with modern civilization which is so thoroughly insular to the natural processes it would like to pretend it does not depend upon.

One of the most powerful experiential processes I've been involved with was working with inner city gang members brought to Northern Minnesota while in "reform detention" where they were put through a survival training course as an experimental form of reform therapy. That was in the late Seventies and was the predecessor to what has come to be called "ecopsychology." Many of those kids were changed by that experience. Here is a page with lots of links to some off-shoots of those early experimental programs: Adventure Therapy and Wilderness/Nature therapy.

Though the policies of the U.S. towards the environment took a decided anti environmental turn after Reagan was elected, the environmental awareness movement did not die. Though significantly and consciously marginalized by policy makers, It continued to evolve, though not as part of the corporate culture, which we can see has come to own and dominate this nation... and the world. I have a lot of different links available in this area of interest. It's out there, alive and well. I find it hopeful to know about. Overall though, I am not that hopeful it will beome a national policy. That's why I've turned my hope towards developing local awareness.

We now have the tools to see the total destruction of what we (humans) are doing to this planet. We also have visionaries willing to use some of those tools.

This is one of the most powerful and haunting uses of those tools, a 2009 documentary titled: HOME.

Here is a link to a youtube video of the entire documentary. If you have the access speed, you can watch it at 720i in full screen on a good sized monitor. If you have Realplayer installed on a decent and upgraded operating system, you can download the documentary and watch it at your leisure, and share it with friends. That's what I've done. It's a powerful learning tool.

The documentary is shot entirely from above, a perspective we have only had of the earth in the last hundred years. A tool that is both part of this culture of destruction and at the same time a tool that can be used to help save ourselves by allowing us to visualize and more clearly imagine what we do. If only we can extract ourselves from the eco and socio pathology of our institutions, and our generally unquestioning role in our part of what those institutions do. A daunting task. A pathological private tyranny called a "transnational corporation" is just one of those institutions. Our governments can certainly be other examples.

[quote=jeffbiss]However, as can be seen by conditions such as Lake Erie we have the capacity to collapse systems. Luckily systems appear to have a certain resiliance that permits us to change our behavior and allow them to heal, as we did with Lake Erie. Therefore, there is the possibility that more people will recognize that our capacity to collapse systems is limited only by the boundaries of those systems and so can extend globally, as can be seen with greenhouse gas emissions and the currents that now carry the oil to the Atlantic and onwards to the Pacific, and make the necessary changes in their lives to help avoid collapse. That said, I tend to doubt it.

I am dubious too. I believe most people will not move past the first stage of facing inevitable loss, which is denial. My efforts to talk about this catastrophe taking place in the Gulf and it's extensive implications have alienated me, I hope temporarily, from some friends. Most of them are progressive and believe somehow this civilization can be saved. My biggest concern is we may cause a sudden release of methane in the methane crystals as the arctic and the ocean warms. I can imagine a global warming that may be irreversible, on the order of taking us towards a Venus atmosphere. Hopefully I'm just too imaginative.

Here are some of the worst current Dead Zones in the aquatic biosystems of this planet:

Worst Dead Zones

* Black Sea
* Chesapeake Bay
* Gulf of Mexico at mouth of Mississippi River
* Lake Erie
* Long Island Sound
* Mouth of Yangtze River, China

Here are some of the causes:

Dead zones can occur for several reasons, such as more phytoplankton, restriction of natural water flow, fertilizer run-off, other pollutants and rising sea temperatures.


* An increase of phytoplankton means more organic matter, which leads to an increase of bacterial respiration. This takes more oxygen out of the water forcing other marine life to find oxygen elsewhere or die, hence, creating a dead zone. Fertilizer run-off and other pollutants contain high levels of nitrogen, which is a nutrient for phytoplankton and contributes to an increase in their numbers.
* When natural water flow is restricted, the levels of oxygen are not replenished as quickly; therefore, the oxygen is used by bacteria and marine life faster. Water flow restriction is usually caused by natural disasters, like drought or hurricanes, or man-made obstructions, such as dams.
* Rising ocean temperatures can also cause dead zones because oxygen dissolves slower in warmer water Red Orbit: Fish at Risk From Ocean Dead Zones (September 30, 2008)4

They all can be traced back to the activities of fossil fuel based industrial civilization that expanded exponentially on the planet during the Twentieth Century.

And as poly duly notes, industrial agriculture, formerly misnomered as "the Green Revolution" is the heart and soul of this fossil fuel based anomaly known as "civilization."

People who want to live in cities (the basic concept in "civilization") need to ask themselves if their cities are sustainable. That's going to cause a lot of confusion and the ones who profit from extraction and production processes are not going to want to give up on their access to their wealth. They also own the media. The very instruments of public programming and propaganda.
More on Gulf of Mexico ""Dead Zone"[/quote]

Misc:
[JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ] Skewed rewards for bankers, CEOs

[RDR]

=.ren

=douglaslee

http://www.skepdic.com/ is also a great resource. http://www.skeptic.com is Shermer's and both are on my toolbar with quick click icons. It is one label I am comfortable with.

Critical Thinking Mini-Lessons

Has some exercises to keep in shape.

Critical Thinking Mini-Lessons

Induction and Deduction

The Concept of Validity

The Wason Card Problem

The Wason Card Problem, Part II

Fallacies

Replication of Studies

Fallacy of Suppressed Evidence

Replication Revisited

The Straw Man Fallacy

Control Group Study

False Dichotomy

False Implication

Perception deception

Hindrances to Critical Thinking: Ignorance

Opinions

further reading

Skeptimedia

http://www.skepdic.com/news/ is a newsletter if anyone wants to subscribe [it's free]

One of the reasons I keep returning to Thom's is to "keep in shape," doug. Most of our old friends from three or four years back have gone, a few, like Jason, return from time to time to "keep in shape.". I suspect Jason's kept in shape after going off to walk his path in the forward looking land of Vermont (it is Vermont, isn't it, Jason?), to explore the reality of democratically participating in his economic/social life. Nice to see him when he comes by like this.

One of the more common and important excercises in your list is the The Straw Man Fallacy. I've dealt with it in my threads over and over. The masters of the fallacy have been banned over and over, and their absence is now becoming somewhat noticable as the discussions are once again beginning to have a thread of thoughts connecting rather than a shred of thoughts disconnecting. Maybe one day we'll see something like those mythical days of yore with Chris, Usha, Andger, Tricia, Lawrence, Howard... so many I've forgotten them all.

It's an important fallacy in terms of the topic of this thread, because it can be employed with both conscious intentionality and as a subconscious form of avoidance distraction -- in other words, as a kind of denialist tactic. Here's the beginning of the lesson that provides a description I find easily comprehendable from the link (the rest of the lesson is worthy reading, even for experts who've struggled consciously to deal with the straw man fallacy):

straw man fallacy

One of the characteristics of a cogent refutation of an argument is that the argument one is refuting be represented fairly and accurately. To distort or misrepresent an argument one is trying to refute is called the straw man fallacy. It doesn't matter whether the misrepresentation or distortion is accidental and due to misunderstanding the argument or is intentional and aimed at making it easier to refute. Either way, one commits the straw man fallacy.

In other words, the attacker of a straw man argument is refuting a position of his own creation, not the position of someone else. The refutation may appear to be a good one to someone unfamiliar with the original argument.

Dealing with a straw man can be a very frustrating exercise. I often find what appears to be someone who is suddenly simply uncomprehending of simple and clear logic, and all that I say with great and exacting care is being retranslated through their screen of thoughts, which, if I'm encountering such persons for the first time, could set the tone for what I expect from them in any future discussion -- essentially, very little.

With others, who I know from experience not to be of obvious sub par intelligence, I've characterized their behavior with this strategy as "studied stupidity." The latter characterization is one of the ways I use to gauge if a person might be a troll, intent on derailing discussions. This is a pattern recognition kind of thing for me. Pattern recognition is a somewhat different way of working with the world than dealing with objective, so-called "facts."

I use pattern recognition as part of a hypothesis making process, which I try to use in coming up with theories about things. Figuring out who is going to derail my discussions is worth my effort because I want to maximize the number of people with good ideas involved, but I also want to minimize the intentional distractions from those who really don't care to explore ideas. I've learned to keep my process to myself, and I simply now try to avoid the emotional messiness of dealing with those who aren't interested. I do that by simply trying to be clear and revelatory with my explanations. I admit it doesn't always work. That's why we need good moderators. Many of those I've figured to be trolls with that gauge have in fact been banned from Thom's. Some numerous times, under numerous sock puppet names.

All of this seems like good existential exercise to keep thinking processes in shape.

[RDR]

.ren wrote

meljomur wrote:

Thanks ren, but for specific reasons I cannot discuss, I believe he is.

However, if they want to let him back, than as a newbie, I am not going to fight it.

Hope you will be back, you have been missed. We really need people like you back on this board, we seem to be a bit lopsided with the amount of cons. here.

Our intent is to try to bring back some more strong, progressive voices. I know it may take awhile, and no doubt some battles ahead. But I wouldn't have taken the job as moderator if I wasn't up for the challenge.

Look forward to seeing you more here.

I appreciate the sentiments. What you folks in management do is up to you. I've been there and I know you have a lot more to work with than we mere peons. I consider this a privately owned board, thus it works on the principles of private property, same as if it were Thom's home. Whether I'll post here much I can't say. I'm doing a lot in my 3D life, and my esoteric interest in national politics has been fading for some time. The games here at Thom's have become predictable and repetitious, so that has its own predictable effect on my interest, which also has to do with my perception of the spirit of the board, if anyone wants to use such terms descriptively. Nothing negative intended towards the community or Thom. It's just me, where I am now.

I wish (Eric) Reed(9-99-999) the best. I got accused of starting an "interboard war" once. I was briefly banned. That was the explanation when I pursued the matter. Another time I was charged with the contempt of site rule. Nobody's perfect and the rules get interpreted subjectively. How else can it be? Interpretation of the rules in all societies keeps everyone busy, busy, busy. I suggests it's all just words here. No need for ego involvement, avoid as best you can the efforts to engage personally and you'll have better luck avoiding deleterious rule interpretations. Your name does not need clearing.

I'm not going to say anything to, or about the others who mentioned me while posting in this thread, other than to say I'm not going to. And that is how you keep your nose clean. I intuit that the Poor Richard poster you mentioned was an elaborate fraud, including his website. His style and words reflect those of someone else's I've come to know. But that's just me, my existential, phenomenological perception, not objective science. I simply ignored him. That's how I deal with it now. By banning people, a condition is created that becomes something of an elaborate game situation. Disguise is as simple as a changed log-in and a proxy program with fake ISPs. I don't know what can be done about it, but I for one have grown tired of the guessing game that's a part of the condition.

For my part, my name is Ren. It's a nickname for Warren. I once linked my blogs, and I suffered some childishness in return for it. But that's the nature of the internet. You accidently piss people off with your ideas, they think they need to piss you off in return, and they'll go to great lengths. Maybe that's better than watching television and eating Cheetos. Who can say. It's at least one of the characteristics of the human species. So one adapts. If people would come here straight up and just be their genuine decent human selves, I think the board would be more interesting for me. Some people prefer games and argumentation. That gets old for me. But that's just me.

Now that is as funny as shit!
You are so self absorbed and narcissistic that you can clearly not see how others might see your actions. You continually throw the rocks in your glass house, so don't blame us, start with yourself.

And by the way, the games only came after my original personas was rejected by the powers to be. Blame them as their actions just became more amusing than anything. You are also the one to get Poly to stop any intellectual discussions- - -especially the ones you looked like a fool.

http://www.thomhartmann.com/forum/2010/ ... ation-matt