Why the global-warming debate doesn't matter

The debates about whether global warming is anthropogenic, and about whether we can do anything to stop it, are phony arguments that just detract from the real debate, which is: do we care enough to do anything about it? The odds are stacked on the side of "No."

Consider this: If mankind could stop global warming through a collective effort, would it?
What if everyone accepted that global warming was caused by man?
What if global warming kills on average 500,000 to a million people per year over the next century?
What if global warming could be stopped instantly if everyone agreed to do it?

Would any of these things surely make us stop it? If you think "yes", then please explain why we still have wars. Why do we still have a problem that is entirely man-made, killed 70 million people in the last century, and is only sustained through intentional action? Why would we put in the effort to stop global warming -- a massive, coordinated effort that could only be done through unprecedented cooperation among all countries --and yet continue to have groups of people killing each other while we accept it as something inevitable that we don't even bother to think about that much? Clearly, the motivation to stop global warming has to be something a little more than just "people's lives will be overwhelmingly affected by it and many many people will die."

When the world is affected by war, we put up with it, we don't end it. Why would it be any different with global warming? Perhaps in the future we'll all be affected, and we'll all complain about it, but only a few crazy hippies and idealistic high school students will think that anything can be done about it -- people who haven't yet surrendered to civilized society and accepted our motto: "Who cares."


...


But then again, the question "Who cares?" has an answer, and that is another motto: "I care! (about me)." Global warming will be dealt with, one way or another (whether that means stopping it or completely ignoring it). I'm sure the way that mankind deals with it, or with war in general, or with any problem for that matter, we will stay true to our mottos.

What we've got here is... failure to communicate

Fido calls me up and says they want to reward me for being a loyal customer by locking me into a contract for another 24 months. Well they didn't use those words exactly...

I goes I says I don't want a contract. He says he goes, "It's not a contract it's an agreement."

con·tract

n. 1. An agreement between two or more parties, especially one that is written and enforceable by law.

So it's an agreement for 24 months. I axe the guy if there's any penalty for leaving Fido during that period. He tells me there's a "cancellation fee." So I repeat my desire to not be locked in. He goes he says, "You won't be locked in; you can change your service details any time you want." Confused, I axe if there is no cost for switching to another provider. He repeats that there is of course a cancellation fee.

Vendor lock-in

In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in, or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products and services, unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs.

Thanks for nothing, but no thanks, please, thank-you.

It's funny how they will use semantics to make it seem that they're giving you a gift. The gift of an offer to buy something from them. Well, I get that they would use different words to try to make the sale more appealing. What I don't get is saying "It's not the old word, it's the new word that means the same thing as the old word."

Here's an offer I'd like to see:

Fido would like to offer you a 24-month complimentary gift of service. This cellular phone plan has no monthly charges! Instead you'll only receive the Fido Happiness Convenience Bonus invoice, which will be automatically withdrawn from your bank account once a month. And, you can cancel this offer at any time, with no penalties! Instead of penalties, you will be charged a one-time Loyal Customer Farewell Gift fee of $200.


You can steal this if you want to, you sneaky Fido bastards.



Source for definitions: thefreedictionary.com

I can't hear ya. I say what's cooler than bein' cool?

Edmonton has now entered its period of polar night. We won't see the sun come up again until maybe February.

These days the temperature dips so low that our furnaces stop working. We try desperately to get them started again by shoving wads of newspapers into the coals, only to watch in desolation as the flames freeze into ice crystals right before our eyes, and turn to a cool dim blue light before fading out and falling from the air, shattering with a tinkle. Food is scarce as most of it has by now congealed into Bose–Einstein condensates, and has been rendered inedible.

Our only refuge is to crawl into the relative warmth and safety of our refrigerators, and try to balance shivering to stay warm, with staying completely still to conserve energy. Then we wait it out there until spring.

a pig in a cage on antibiotics

Skip reading this if you think ignorance is bliss when it comes to processed meat products.

Guess What’s in The Picture [Foodlike Substance]

Don't let the mouth-watering title seduce you into clicking the link!

Favorite lip-smacking quote: "USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) ruled that beef could no longer be processed this way, because testing showed that parts of the bovine central nervous system ended up in the meat." Well, I'm sure that, you know, not too much of a chicken or pig central nervous system ends up in food-like processed meat products due to this method. Maybe just enough to enhance the flavor of all the delicious pork rectums.

Nummy!

The truth is bendy

I was thinking about how people seem to make any side of a story true, if they want it to be. X is worse for you than Y because of blah and Y is worse for you than X because of other blah. So I tried it out. It's surprisingly easy to do!

This is true:

Did you know that cars actually generate water when you drive them? People think cars are evil or something, but they actually create this life-giving fluid that is required by all life as we know it. Meanwhile, trees, which people think are wonderful things for our planet, literally destroy much of the water that they use, breaking down its very molecules. By driving your car, you can help restore water into the atmosphere to replace the water destroyed by trees. Not only that, but people think that trees create oxygen; they DON'T.

IT'S TRUE!!!

You can steal this if you want to, you sneaky anti-environmental bastards.

Next Season on True Blood

The following is a transcript of a montage-style preview of season 4 of True Blood.

---

Next season on True Blood...

What are you?

I'm a zombie!

Cut to:

What are you?!

I'm a wizard!

Cut to:

What are you?!

I'm a Hobbit!

Cut to:

What are you?

I'm a Jedi Knight.

Cut to:

What are you?!

I'm a Level 20 Half-orc Dual-class Rogue/Druid.

Cut to:

What are you?!

I'm a Crystalline Entity.

...

I'm a Cyborg from the year 2029.

I'm a Were-giraffe.

I am... a normal boring human. Obviously the last of my kind.

Prelude to a God Post

In a future post I will prove that god exists. The proof is pretty much the same as the proof that Santa Claus exists, which I will present here. It is a "proof by redefinition", which I am finding very useful in a world where more and more of what we experience can be shown to be subjective or relative.

Proof of the existence of Santa

First, there is evidence that Santa Claus exists. Every Christmas morning, millions of children wake up to find presents that are addressed from Santa. If you axe the parents of these kids, "From whom are these presents?", many or most will say "They're from Santa Claus."

Who then is this clearly existent Santa Claus? Every Christmas, millions of parents take on the role of Santa, buying the presents, signing his name. If you allow a definition of Santa that doesn't have to be "one person", you can call this collective group of parents "Santa". In the way that Santa matters -- bringing toys to millions of kids on Christmas Eve night -- this group of parents fits the definition. They also label themselves with this definition.

You can equally easily prove that Santa doesn't exist. If you define Santa as a magical fat human who lives at the North Pole and delivers millions of toys by sleigh, sequentially all in one night, you will not find much evidence of his existence. In fact you can easily find evidence of "impostors" (parents) planting false evidence of his existence.

And so, whether Santa exists or doesn't, or can be proven or not, depends completely on how you define "Santa". Fortunately, we're given plenty of opportunity to make such definitions. Santa is based on St. Nicolas, an apparently real human who did in fact deliver gifts individually. The idea of a flying sleigh, elves, and a North Pole toy shop are all part of a myth, built around St. Nick. The myth need not have anything to do with the actual definition of Santa. Whether you define Santa as St. Nick, or as the myth, or simply as a label to describe the role that parents take on at Christmas, is up to you.


Clearly, the same idea applies to "god". There is plenty of myth surrounding the concept of god, and we choose which myths to accept and which to ignore (Does god look human? Are there multiple gods -- a god of the sun, a god of the sea, a god of lightning?). Everyone has a different (if even just slightly) definition of the meaning of "god". Most of us are free to choose what god means to each of us as individuals, and many of us incorporate what we "think" into what we believe. And, we can choose to define god as something that clearly exists, or something that doesn't, or something that is not provable either way.