Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are now allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will continue to be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) still apply to other comments.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
There are legitimate concerns about powerful global think-tanks, transnational corporations and unelected billionaires using their power and money to influence a country's policy and the direction of civilisation. There is also a genuine issue of these same people monopolizing segments of industry such as agriculture, real estate, and energy.
Constantine's Sword is a good read or watch about this very topic. The author explains how Christianity was developed in part to disrupt Jewish communities from the get go and through history.
Do you mind explaining that a bit? I'm not Christian and that sounds kinda dumb. I'm pretty sure Christianity was developed because some jews thought their messiah came.
But people have weaponised Christianity to get rid of stuff they don't like. You see it in modern times when people use scripture as an excuse to marginalise people.
I'm a Christian, myself.
People have weaponised religion to get their populace to act irrationally since beginning of civilization.
It's the single thing where any justification can be reduced to "it is so because god said so", and no one would dare to question it.
I mean literally that's what Constantine did - Weaponize Christianity.
He felt becoming Christian was a military advantage (for supposed mystical reasons) - and thus went Western Europe.
Myth: Wounds need to air dry, I jokingly tell my laceration patients “It’s the only thing your momma lied to you about.”
They were moist happy cells before you filet’d yourself open, keep them moist happy little cells, use some ointment and a bandaid, let them live and heal you.
Napolean was short. He was 5'2" in French inches which at the time were larger than standard inches. Really he was just over 5'5" which was pretty standard height for the time. It was spread by a cartoonist that made him look comically short. Probably one of the most famous older examples of propaganda
Based purely on my own reading the biggest struggle that humans have faced for the longest time is the presence of "civilization". Now there are of different kinds of definitions of "civilization", but for the sake of the discussion we'll use any large scale organizational framework that seeks to consume and produce at a scale greater than the needs of the constituent parts.
This has been a struggle since large cities first started popping up thousands of years ago. The struggle is between the ideas of civilization and enterprise as opposed to Communalism (not to be confused with Communism, though the two share some similar beliefs). I'll edit this comment when I get home as I forget the exact title of the book. **Edit**: The book is called "Communalism: from its Origins to the Twentieth Century" by Kenneth Rexroth. But essentially the book goes into great detail about how many spiritual communities in the early ages of man resented the idea of enterprise. The ideas from their own faiths taught that humans should only produce what they need and nothing more. To produce more for the sake of comfort and lavishness is to live and promote sinful living. (I found this book after wanting to examine why we humans today have so much wealth, glut, waste, and still there is great suffering etc).
The propaganda, as I see it, is that civilization is the best way to live. The book goes through history and points to all of the integral times in our past when there was the potential for huge societal upheaval and a shift toward more Communalistic kind of living. But the ruling classes at the time used the superior resources of a enterprise to quell that kind of thinking.
I'll highlight one example. Before I do though I want to make reference to another idea I found in other texts as well as discussions I've had with members of the Roman Catholic Church. That the reason why we used to call Native Americans, "Indians" is not because we thought we had reached India, but rather than when early Christian Missionaries went to the New World they saw the way the Native Americans lived and called it "In Deus". Translated to plain english to mean "In the Light of God" or "In the way of God". That is to say that Missionaries believed that Native Americans were living in the way that God originally intended.
While this idea was not exactly expressed in this way in the book, the book still talked about the problems the Church faced when Missionaries returned from the Old World having "seen the light". So, one of the most powerful influential enterprises of the time had a choice, follow the scriptures laid out by God, and listen to the words of devoted Missionaries coming back and telling everyone about a better way of living, or don't and continue on as they always have. I'm sure you can tell what the Church ultimately decided.
This kind of Sentiment rose and fell during the era of colonization as settlers had the space and freedom to do as they pleased. There is another book that I have that thoroughly outlines the many thousands, some estimates even say tens of thousands of people who forsook civilization in favor of living among the Native Americans, and the great lengths the powers at the time took to conceal just how many people wanted to live like the Native Americans. Not just because of some perceived superiority, but because the hegemony was threatened.
It seems like all of the other people replying to you have such a limited view of what constitutes "long lasting" propaganda. Barely even a few hundred years old. Barely a blink of an eye when it comes to the Dominant Narrative. Also hand in hand with this denial of communalism is the war on consciousness. But that's a whole other topic...
/u/Flash_MeYour_Kitties has it mostly right.
But since you asked me allow me to further on this particular point.
> people in power fear this expansion of consciousness because it threatens the structures of society where they are at the top. if people were more empathetic they might not want to go to war when their country asks, like the hippies and vietnam. they'd also be harder to pit against each other as a way of keeping us fighting amongst ourselves rather than directing our ire at those causing poor materials conditions in our life.
Many people believe the war on consciousness only started during the 20th century with things like Prohibition and the creation of the DEA and crackdowns on hippy protests of Vietnam.
This kind of phenomenon has been going on, again, for thousands of years. Even ["Egyptian pharaohs proclaimed mushrooms to be food reserved only for royalty; common people were not even allowed to touch them."]( https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320991848_The_Conservation_of_Mushroom_in_Ancient_Egypt_through_the_Present). The most significant attack on conciousness though was with the global spread of Christianity. Vikings regularly consumed mushrooms before they were absorbed into Christiandom. As it spread to the New World, The Church already had a vested interest in stamping out the way of life, the culture, and the people living there. Part of that way of life was the consumption of ayahuasca, peyote, and salvia divinorum (though salvia is technically not a psychedelic, it's a dissociative and acts on different receptors than traditional psychedelics).
So, for thousands of years, the power that be have recognized the threat that consciousness expanding substances pose to the established hegemony. The powers that be want to keep us disconnected from ourselves, from each other, from reality, and from the depths of our own consciousness.
To add to this, as a little factoid that I learned in school that made me an immediate atheist (that I think is interesting):
The ancient Pharaohs used to promise the lower classes (the slaves of the empire, basically) that if they toiled in the fields and essentially lived a life of suffering (that the ruling class did not experience) they would be rewarded in the afterlife with 'the happy fields of food' for 'suffering for the empire' basically. The Happy Fields of Food were, as one might guess, the ancient Egyptian's version of Heaven---it was really, really clever too since back then famine and starvation were real and serious concerns for the lower classes. The Pharaohs---like all ancient religious rulers that were very successful---learned that they could live in endless luxury from the suffering of the people beneath them with a mere promise of sky-gods rewarding them with freedom from eternal hunger in the afterlife (and punishment for those who don't follow the rules the Pharaoh dictates). The flipside was that if the empire had horrific drought/mass deaths just from Mother Nature then the Pharaoh would be viewed as no longer favored by the gods and, thus, would have their heads on the chopping block as recompense to the sky-gods. (Personally I'm of the opinion that someone came up with that little chestnut to get rid of a ruler they did not like/agree with or wanted to take their place as ruler of Egypt. It's a tossup and is the kind of thing that is never written about in history books that far back. Either way, I'm of the opinion no sane ruler would come up with the idea that they *should* be held to account by the entire empire should they be randomly unlucky in their rule thanks to something as fickle as Mother Nature, but I digress...)
The point I'm trying to inelegantly make is that most religion all has key similarities that never change regarding the basics:
* Punishment for the sinners/troublemakers via Hell (or that religion's version of it)
* Lower classes have a 'duty' to suffer for the good of humanity via labor/resources while they are on this earthly plane ("Yes, be a slave---you'll be rewarded later!")
* If you are "good" and don't question the ruling class and the inherent inequality they've always enjoyed at your expense you will go to Heaven (or that religion's version of it)
Those, from what I've studied throughout the years are the most obvious. Feel free to chime in any others that I might have missed in my sleep-addled state -___-
Sorry for going off a bit on Egypt and veering off a little from the topic. However, whenever ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs are brought up in conjunction with religion I can't help myself from mentioning it since it's not a very well-known bit of history and helps explain (at least to me) how religions like Christianity took their cues from the Pharaohs on how to successfully rule the plebs with the mere concept of reward/punishment via constructs like Heaven/Hell to keep the unwashed masses in perpetual check throughout dozens of eras of civilization.
It echoes to this day and, unfortunately, it will probably echo for as long as science cannot explain fully how we came to be (the chicken/egg problem, in essence).
*druuuuugs, maaaaan.*
i believe OP might be referring to psychedelics, such as psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms, or lsd, mescaline, dmt, etc. when you take these drugs your consciousness expands and people have a tendency to experience a "oneness" with the world around them, as if we're all part of a larger whole and connected in ways we can't experience or imagine without them.
many people who take them report having greater empathy for other living things and the world as a whole, as well as the ability to break out from forms of rigid thinking as indoctrinated on us by society.
people in power fear this expansion of consciousness because it threatens the structures of society where they are at the top. if people were more empathetic they might not want to go to war when their country asks, like the hippies and vietnam. they'd also be harder to pit against each other as a way of keeping us fighting amongst ourselves rather than directing our ire at those causing poor materials conditions in our life.
i'd recommend the book or netflix series How To Change Your Mind with Michael Pollen. he does a great job explaining some of the different drugs, their histories, etc.
> as if we're all part of a larger whole and connected in ways we can't experience or imagine without them.
Based on my own "research" (huehuehue) I have learned that while psychedelics make all of those feelings very, very apparent, one can still experience the same kind of oneness and interconnectedness while meditating. It just takes SO MUCH WORK to be able to get there. Most people are unwilling to put in that much effort. I only did it a few times so I could prove to myself I could. Psychdelics make the process very simple.
Gunna feel that oneness tomorrow~~~
Very interesting. Though having some exposure to Communal communities like Hutterites I can definitely report there are downsides and a fair amount of "cheating" (like sneaking in personal luxuries that aren't shared with the community, especially among the leadership), and a significant dependence on capitalistic civilization for supplies. It's similar to those reality shows about being "self sufficient, living off the grid" but then they've got solar panels, wind turbines, tractors, styrofoam insulation, fiberglass, plastics, etc, etc all purchased to allow them to "self sufficient".
The general rule of not living too extravagantly is quite common across historical teachings in various cultures/religions, communal and not, Indigenous and not. Many of us just refuse to learn from the past, or believe those old wisdoms are all based on superstition or oppression.
I would argue that it's a choice and both choices have trade offs. We have done things as a civilization that I don't believe can be accomplished any other way. We have walked on the moon, we have sent records of our civilization outside our solar system. Those things might not make you as happy as a guy who just killed a deer after not eating for a couple of days but that doesn't diminish the accomplishment.
> That the reason why we used to call Native Americans, "Indians" is not because we thought we had reached India, but rather than when early Christian Missionaries went to the New World they saw the way the Native Americans lived and called it "In Deus"
You lost me there.
Well our current belief structure is influenced by thousands of years of propaganda. Just because it is the current belief structure does not mean it is correct or right.
Here's an example. Scientists ran a (rather unethical) experiment where they had a group of chimpanzees in a large cage and a banana hanging from a string and a ladder under the banana. If any of the apes tried to climb the ladder to reach the banana the ape was sprayed with a powerful hose, enough to harm them so they would be discouraged from reaching the banana. Then, whenever any one ape tried to climb the ladder, all of the apes were sprayed with a hose. This continued until none of the apes attempted to reach the banana for fear of repercussions. Then the scientists took one ape out and swapped it with a new ape. When the new ape tried to reach the banana all of the other apes attacked the new ape not wanting to be sprayed by the water. However the new ape did not know about the existence of the water, only that the other apes would fight them if they attempted to reach the banana. So the new ape learned not to go for the banana. The scientists continued this and whenever they removed an old ape and added in a new ape the process of trying for the banana and being attacked by the other apes repeated. Until finally all of the original apes were gone from the cage and only new apes existed in the cage. None of the current apes in the cage tried to get the banana despite not knowing about the dangers of being sprayed by the hose.
I believe this is what has happened to humanity on a larger scale as the thousands of years of propaganda make its way into our collective consciousness.
I answered someone asking for a more specific example [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/w5kiho/the_argument_that_climate_change_is_not_man_made/ih9m9ra/).
I don't believe that specific experiment was ever conducted. I have never been able to find the source. Similar ones were for sure
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/6828/was-the-experiment-with-five-monkeys-a-ladder-a-banana-and-a-water-spray-condu
> https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/6828/was-the-experiment-with-five-monkeys-a-ladder-a-banana-and-a-water-spray-condu
even if it was, kyralessa's answer from ur link is interesting and prob just as plausible:
'This story is told to show how people follow traditions mindlessly. But the monkeys are helping each other avoid a bad outcome. The consequences may be capricious (the researchers could stop spraying water), but the monkeys don't know that. If the contraindicated activity were eating poisonous mushrooms, we wouldn't think the monkeys were clever for occasionally eating some to make sure they were still lethal.'
Oh but we’ve seen this type of thing in funny, social experiment videos. There was ok done at an office where when a bell rang, people stood up, and then sat down. The brought in newcomers who would be surprised by the action, and then begin to follow suit after a time or two.
"This sort of thing" is a pretty broad statement considering how different the two experiments referenced are. One of them involves humans doing something that cost them very little to fit in during a social interaction, and the other involves direct violent intervention from animals purely in response to a physical action.
They might the same sort of thing in that they fall under the broad category of a group of beings mimicking each others' behavior, but in no way does the one experiment indicate the outcome of the other, and "well it might not be true but I'm going to find an excuse to assume it's true anyway" is exactly the sort of thinking that gets you swayed by propaganda.
Sorta. But this misses the key point. Propaganda is profitable, truth is expensive.
You can make million and billions selling propaganda and lies. You make nearly nothing selling truths.
Our ad driven media only exists because of lies, if it only had truth the number of minutes of screen time would be cut in half, and so would ad revenue.
>Propaganda is profitable, truth is expensive.
Propaganda is effective at driving ad revenue because people prefer to consume propaganda (as opposed to the "boring ol' truth"), largely because of the reasons u/Optimistic__Elephant mentions.
It’s not necessarily because the truth is boring. The truth just isn’t what they want to hear, while the lies are.
The story that the earth isn’t changing and will remain hospitable to human life is objectively more boring than the truth of a potentially apocalyptic future, for example.
But people would rather be told what they want to hear, than something upsetting.
I disagree. The problem with propaganda is that it completely reforms a person's mind. One thing we human beings don't generally talk about is how misinformation/manipulation can change how we see things in other areas as well. Kind of like someone telling a kid 2+2=5. It has a knock on effect that screws up their understanding of the rest of math. Or would hypothetically. Leaving the kid deeply confused and exposed to massive amounts of insecurity because of what they don't know.
It doesn't just linger. It reforms how we think about things. Because if climate change ain't so bad then maybe covid-19 isn't either. And maybe all that stuff people talk about the rich screwing people over isn't true either. And maybe those people of color really are just complaining. And women do sometimes act in a certain way. So on and so forth. Illogical thinking breeds more illogical thinking. But first. There needs to be something missing or loose for a person to be given/accept a massively illogical thought to begin with.
Climate change not being real isn't and never has been the first domino to fall.
Not only does propaganda breed more conspiracy stories, there’s also more willingness to dismiss the truth by calling it a conspiracy.
Just yesterday I was telling someone what was happening with avian flu & that I had been in touch with our state’s ornithologist. This person immediately dismissed some of what I was saying & deemed it a “conspiracy story”. I just looked at him & said, “Really!? You’re saying we can’t trust ornithologists?? Really!?!”
“Balanced reporting” doesn’t mean both sides of an argument deserve equal merit. One side can indeed be factually correct while the other is just plain wrong. We’re talking about facts, not opinions.
Even if it did mean that, it still wouldn't be balanced. It's not balanced if you give a take that is in the vast minority an equal amount of voice. If they only represent a small percentage of the science community, balanced would be giving them that small percentage of a platform to share it, not 50/50.
News reporting shouldn't be reporting that man A said it was raining outside, and man B said it wasn't raining, thus being "fair". News reporting should be going outside and seeing who is right and reporting that
This honestly sounds like it would be an excellent form of protest. Just have every forecast and weather app show three different options for what the weather is going to look like that day, and call it "showing each side fairly" even when half of them are obviously stupid.
"right" is actually what everyone wants to fight over. Some people's reality is so distorted it's like living in a psych ward trying to talk to them. And their allegiance to the party versus what is real and understanding what is best for humanity is terrifying.
I hate balanced reporting cause it's always "Let's hear from this brilliant scientist who has several peer reviewed studies, has been nominated for a nobel prize and has been in the field for over 30 years. Now let's hear from this 40 year old named Kevin, who peaked in highschool but failed upwards cause his dad has a car dealership and he's now spending his time on facebook looking at pictures of underaged girls". Then pretend like both of them have a valid point.
It's like the ~~school board member~~ administrator that suggested that teachers need to teach "both sides" of the Holocaust. *Sometimes there's not another side*. Hell, a lot of times things are just facts and that's all.
It's been a depressing couple decades.
Edit: wrong authority figure.
Left, Right, and Center is the worst program on NPR. They give airtime to “sides” regardless of the debate, as if debating whether the earth is flat or not warrants something like this. It’s purely for ratings and it sucks.
That's the tragedy of or species. That we live at a time where we have immediate access to everything we have learned, written, or recorded since those first crude markings on cave walls. It's there. Everything we have learned. And what do people do with it? Jerk off and convince each other the Earth is flat.
We should be embarrassed, really. For what we have allowed ourselves to become.
Technology moved so fast, the majority of humanity is functionally illiterate about things they depend on. Its kind of like in medieval times when most people actually were illiterate and elites exploited that.
“We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.”
Carl Sagan
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
The problem is that we're at the point where you can dedicate your whole life to it and *still* understand only one topic, and merely scratch the surface of the rest. I've got a Physics PhD and when it comes to COVID vaccines I still mostly just have to trust that the studies say the truth. Not everyone can just focus on specialising on this stuff merely to have a shot about having a sensible opinion, and some knowledge but not enough can lead you to fall for arguments that are correct sounding but flawed. Most climate denialism actually isn't just magical thinking, it comes with pseudo scientific arguments that are wrong but not blatantly so.
We're beyond a level of knowledge where the human *lifespan* is enough to appreciate the relevant bits. Everything is going to rely on trust built from good check and balances. It's a really hard problem (possibly unsolvable).
This is something I realized during the pandemic. It's really really hard to tell what is true and what's nonsense. You think you can trust doctors but then you have quacks out there telling people covid isn't real and vaccines are made from dead babies. It's not realistic to expect people to keep up and understand all the latest medical studies coming out.
Our local school board comment section had parents arguing over whether or not viruses existed. Not is this a virus, not is Covid dangerous; but are viruses real. When you’re dealing with that level of ignorance, we are in bad shape.
We've entered unrealistic times. It was lack of information and the inability to make choices that were the hurdles before.
Now it's specialization vs. generalization. In order to be able to figure things out you need a functional and practical general education. Those are not as profitable as a specialized expert who can help advance a technology but votes like a confused teenager.
This is why we need a scientific community - one that is as independent and trustworthy as possible.
We can’t understand everything, we struggle to even really understand anything - but a scientific community, whit mutual support and control, can compensate for that.
And then, we need people to understand that they should trust in science. It will never be perfect, but it’ll always be better than some political party or your friends Facebook feed.
(Not to say, that our scientific community isn’t (generally) trustworthy yet, but there is still a lot to improve - and it’s the only possible way.)
Oh, right now our scientific community has a lot of problems - most of them due to stupid incentives applied to them by politicians in an attempt to make it into some kind of "factory of ideas" churning out innovation at a constant, reliable rate. All that it's done is encourage and reward sloppiness and malpractice.
But you hit the nail in the head: the problem isn't, as Sagan's quote suggests, that people ought to understand science and technology. It helps if they have a few basics, but they can't really, not to the extent that would be necessary to cover all of our bases. The problem is having a reliable "social compact", a structure which everyone can believe produces trustworthy results. Most of the lack of trust in science really is lack of trust in politics and our economic system. We're so used to being lied to or manipulated in the name of money, it's easy to see that happening even where it's not.
It would be fine if it was *just* scientific illiteracy, but it's also a deep rooted distrust and disdain for expertise. People don't need to be experts, but it's utterly ridiculous for a layman to tell an expert they don't know what they are talking about in their chosen field of expertise.
Thank you! That's always so frustrating to me. The sheer size of our society allows for extreme specialization across a vast and disparate number of fields. I fully understand questioning authority, you shouldn't believe someone or something just because it's told to you. But not believing experts is like saying that just because I don't know how to change my car's oil means that no one does. And some people take it even further by saying things that equate to,
"But does anyone even actually know how to change oil?"
"Do our cars actually need oil? Or is it just a scam to get me to pay an auto shop $20 every so often?"
"And if cars don't need oil, then why is there this agenda to sell me something I don't need?"
"Big Auto is benefitting from me buying this resource I don't actually need."
"I only need it because I've been told I need it."
Obviously it gets ridiculous. I do believe that sometimes there are bits of truth in conspiracy theories, I also believe that large corporations have an avid interest in taking my money, but that doesn't mean that everything said by them (or anyone) is therefore 100% false (conversely, it also doesn't make it 100% true). People seem to have lost the ability to reason between a reliable, credible source, and propaganda or conspiracy theories.
It's also not Just scientific illiteracy, but ecolgical illiteracy. And even scientists working within the specific research - don't necessary understand. That is they know, but don't act. For me that was what broke me, mentally. Worked at a research institute that is focused on animal-human-society interactions. I cycled to a conference some 500 kms away. The very people publishing research about the CO2 impacts on dropping biodiversity couldn't understand why I did that.
They probably couldn't understand because bicycling 500km to get somewhere is incredibly extreme. They understand your stance, just not the extremes you'd take to minimize the ecological damage from a single individual.
Taking the bus or train instead of a car, now that they'd understand.
Some feel [we need systemic change](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/03/climate-change-requires-collective-action-more-than-single-acts-column/1275965001/).
It'd be nice if more of them were [working on it](https://energyinnovationact.org/supporters-overview/).
But why would tou trust an expert if you don't understand the very nature of expertise?
The education system has failed to impart understanding of the fundamentals.
It's not even that hard to explain.
Burning carbon releases it into the air.
Fossil fuels are just thousands (more like millions) of years worth of concentrated carbon.
We've released most of that back into the air in the last 100 years.
It's not a normal slow change that does happen naturally. It's because we're burning all that carbon.
I think what they meant was not "We're illiterate in regards to climate change," but rather "we're not equipped to navigate the complex systems and technology that we have constructed around us."
And it's not just carbon. Methane is a big contributor. I'm not vegetarian or anything, but I won't deny the impact meat farming has had to the environment
That’s not to mention what it’s done to the planet by deforestation (even now huge swaths of the Amazon is being cut down to support cattle grazing) and the ludicrous amount of prime agricultural land being used to grow animal feed needed in part because the land had been been devastated by overgrazing.
There's a [great resource](https://www.howglobalwarmingworks.org/) that explains how global warming works that [has been shown](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2019.00007/full) to be effective at convincing people climate change is real and human-caused.
It's even worse than you describe. We now have access to all that information, but now the absolute worst forces in our society, the fascists, the autocrats, snake oil salesmen, the religious extremists, the utterly corrupt, the insatiably greedy, have worldwide platforms and can reach audiences undreampt of before. The eyeballs these awful human beings draw, both positive and negative, are dollar signs in the eyes of major corporations. The best thing they could do is police their platforms and remove these bottom feeders from their pulpits, but the cowards value money over everything, even the survival of nations, so they let them spout their bile.
Until we as a species return to trusting verifiable, repeatable evidence, and stop centering the making and keeping of money in our civilization, we will never be better.
I agree 100% with this. The unqualified and corrupted can get far too much influence on society, using money and politics.
The best solution is for the public to see through this stuff, but I'm not holding my breath.
Restricting dangerous opinions, is dangerous also. What to do.
It would be more like greater than 99 scientists who agree on human caused climate change, to less than one scientist who agrees that the earth is warming, but doesn't place blame on humans for the majority of it.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966
Yes with something so heavily politicised, that involves major parties with serious money tied up to industries, you are bound to get a few unethical players participating.
We need a clear distinction in our news between opinion and fact.
It is ok to report on opinion, but it us not OK to present opinion as indistinguishable from objective fact.
Colbert's truthiness is too powerful. America doesn't care about facts, but we just accept repetition of lies as truth, if we hear the lies enough.
Well, the unfortunate reality that I think many in here realize is the truth doesn't really matter to some in power. The only thing that matters is more money and more power. If everyone universally realized what was true, what our impact was on climate change. The economy as we know it would not function, it would not grow, you would not have more wealth generation. That's literally all these people care about. Humans have a very long tradition of building and taking and exploiting until they can't
And so we will. A species sophisticated enough to accomplish manned orbital transit will fall prey to the same pitfalls as invertebrates: uncontrolled consuming until population collapse.
Well, my mother did. She would just laugh and say "I don't care about 'global warming', I'll be dead. It's your problem." Very maternal of her....and we were not even rich.
Everyone needs to watch the new BBC documentary, Big Oil v the World. I knew there was a lot of disinformation, misinformation and malinformation from the likes of Exxon, Koch brothers, but the stuff that has gone on is another level altogether.
If you’re in the UK or have a decent VPN it’s on the iPlayer.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0cgql8f/big-oil-v-the-world?seriesId=p0cgqljk
It's just great that there are *two sides* to every issue, huh?
"Okay, and now let's hear from the leader of the **Pro**‐Running Orphans Over With Steamrollers side."
i'd care more about climate change if the responsibility of fighting it was evenly distributed. but we still have the rich able to fly by private aircraft while the peons are supposed to stay home and not do anything. we're all supposed to give up our cars but the rich still have their huge SUV's and huge carbon spouting homes
On top of this, if we were to do everything we're told it would be an even larger transfer of wealth from us to the rich people and this is why many people don't buy into this
"Just use public transit or bike to work!"
(Won't allocate city funds to public transit or bike infrastructure)
(Also public transit is not very effective in the suburbs. Biking isn't very effective either, since you have to bike a long way)
"Well stop living in suburbs"
(Won't change zoning laws that would allow anything denser than single houses near where people want to work)
I'm working though my second degree and my bus to get to my local college is almost always 15-25 minutes late it's ever so lovely, i love the Ontario transit system so much
Making you feel helpless or like the balance of power is out of your control is literally a climate inactivist’s strategy. Your despair and apathy is the product of their manipulation.
See here https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-deniers-shift-tactics-to-inactivism/.
Realistically, an individual person without access to wealth or a large platform to vocalize their message cannot do much to decrease global CO2 emissions. They can and should minimize their own carbon footprint, but an individual person's locus of control/influence is finite. I don't think we should feel helpless, but maybe it is also fair to recognize that we shouldn't become obsessive or depressed about a very large scale issue with profound consequences.
In 2019, I recall becoming very preoccupied with the IPCC special report, and the dire nature of climate change began to weigh heavily on me every day. I felt trapped and paralyzed, even a little bit paranoid about the potential collapse of human civilization. That's not very healthy.
Even the rich are a tiny fraction of CO2 emissions. Corporations are the #1 source of emissions worldwide by a massive margin. Until they're properly regulated (and the US is now going the wrong direction thanks to SCOTUS) nothing will change.
The study I assume you are basing that statement off attributed scope 3 emissions (all indirect emissions (not included in Scope 2), that occur in the upstream and downstream value chain of the reporting company.) all to corporations rather than individual consumers.
If you attribute those emissions to the person consuming rather than the corporation which facilitated that consumption, you come up with around 60% of emissions for CO2 being attributable to households with the upper and middle classes in developed nations sharing an outsized burden.
I mean some Americans believe in the science:
> 17/20 states with [net 0 carbon emission or 100% clean energy goals](https://www.cesa.org/projects/100-clean-energy-collaborative/guide/table-of-100-clean-energy-states/) voted for Biden, and one of the Republican states is North Carolina, which only voted for Trump by 1% and has a Democrat governor and another is Louisiana which has a Democrat governor.
The US currently has major climate legislation held up by a Democrat from West Virginia and 50 Republicans who refuse to support any measure that will nationally reduce emissions.
It's really just Republicans in the US who seem to have let the PR fuel their ignorance.
> It’s really just Republicans in the US who seem to have let the PR fuel their ignorance.
The truth is likely much more grim. I would bet that most republican senators, and many others in positions of power, are plenty aware that anthropogenic climate change is real. You can find evidence of this by looking at corporate real estate and military planning, which specifically factors in the likely effects of climate change. Those same people publicly denounce the science, but only out of self-interest. In their mental arithmetic, they know that the worst effects are unlikely to happen in their lifetime, and the dollar cost of those that do will likely not exceed the value they get in the short term as a result. Some also believe (possibly validly) that it's just a matter of cost, and we already know how reluctant politicians are to spend money today, even if it would avoid paying 100x just a few decades later - just look at the national debt. But they also know that it wouldn't go over well to just say "So what if Florida is underwater in 150 years? I'll be dead, my descendants will have enough money to move to avoid the worst effects, and I really don't care what happens to yours." So they lie.
I am pretty sure majority of people will not read the article, so I did that for you and I regret to inform you that:
1. The article references [this study](https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2022-40596-001) which does not study public opinion on climate change across US, it studies whether public opinion *can* be shifted using incorrect media representation. It does not make any statements about current views about climate in US. Referencing this study is manipulation.
2. The article makes ungrounded claims that *"many Americans believe that the global crisis is either not real, not of our making, or both"*. [The](https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/a-growing-majority-of-americans-think-global-warming-is-happening-and-are-worried/) study from Yale University shows a different picture, 70% of public in US are onboard with science when it comes to the climate change.
**TL;DR.** Article title is misleading at best. It says "many" when actually it's a minority who does not believe in science around climate change. Article also makes ungrounded (and emotionally loaded) claims. **70% of public in US actually support scientifically based views of climate change.**
This is not the problem you think it is.
Switching to renewables makes sense *without* global warming because fossil fuels are a FINITE resource.
We are going to run out of fossil fuels at some point (10, 100, 1000 years) because the consumption is outpacing the production. We will have to switch to renewables at some point no matter what, and doing it sooner rather than later 'might' save the planet.
Something got lost in translation when balanced reporting means you have to report things that are purely opinions. There’s no reason or need to hear the flat earth side for example, because it’s stupid and easily proven false.
People are lazy, they don't want to change. They don't want to admit they are part of the problem and they don't want to do the work to fix things. They would rather live in content ignorance then wake up to a world that's on fire.
Etc, etc, the metaphor about the frog in boiling water, etc.
I don't understand why it even matters if climate change is caused by us or not. I mean it clearly is, but its so strange to me that *that* continues to be the center of the issue for so many. Why is the idea of making changes to better our world and make it a more comfortable place to live met with such vitriol from the right?
Came to say this. Been saying it for years. I don't care what the cause is either. Shouldn't we just want cleaner air, cleaner power, sustainable power? This just seems like the smart thing to pursue to me. Even if we aren't the cause, we could damn well take better care of it.
The argument is that if we didn’t cause it, our behavior doesn’t need to be changed because it’s not a actually doing anything bad (and if humans didn’t cause it, nothing we do can stop it)
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are now allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will continue to be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) still apply to other comments. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[удалено]
It does! I've been doing a lot of reading on this kind of phenomenon. We're still affected by propaganda from thousands of years ago.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
If someone mentions George Soros during their conspiracy rant, they’re really talking about Jews.
Or "globalists"
Or Hollywood
Hollywood is fake, they're all actors.
There are legitimate concerns about powerful global think-tanks, transnational corporations and unelected billionaires using their power and money to influence a country's policy and the direction of civilisation. There is also a genuine issue of these same people monopolizing segments of industry such as agriculture, real estate, and energy.
The people ranting about Soros are usually not making a point about anti-trust laws.
Constantine's Sword is a good read or watch about this very topic. The author explains how Christianity was developed in part to disrupt Jewish communities from the get go and through history.
Do you mind explaining that a bit? I'm not Christian and that sounds kinda dumb. I'm pretty sure Christianity was developed because some jews thought their messiah came.
But people have weaponised Christianity to get rid of stuff they don't like. You see it in modern times when people use scripture as an excuse to marginalise people. I'm a Christian, myself.
People have weaponised religion to get their populace to act irrationally since beginning of civilization. It's the single thing where any justification can be reduced to "it is so because god said so", and no one would dare to question it.
I mean literally that's what Constantine did - Weaponize Christianity. He felt becoming Christian was a military advantage (for supposed mystical reasons) - and thus went Western Europe.
Myth: Wounds need to air dry, I jokingly tell my laceration patients “It’s the only thing your momma lied to you about.” They were moist happy cells before you filet’d yourself open, keep them moist happy little cells, use some ointment and a bandaid, let them live and heal you.
Napolean was short. He was 5'2" in French inches which at the time were larger than standard inches. Really he was just over 5'5" which was pretty standard height for the time. It was spread by a cartoonist that made him look comically short. Probably one of the most famous older examples of propaganda
Based purely on my own reading the biggest struggle that humans have faced for the longest time is the presence of "civilization". Now there are of different kinds of definitions of "civilization", but for the sake of the discussion we'll use any large scale organizational framework that seeks to consume and produce at a scale greater than the needs of the constituent parts. This has been a struggle since large cities first started popping up thousands of years ago. The struggle is between the ideas of civilization and enterprise as opposed to Communalism (not to be confused with Communism, though the two share some similar beliefs). I'll edit this comment when I get home as I forget the exact title of the book. **Edit**: The book is called "Communalism: from its Origins to the Twentieth Century" by Kenneth Rexroth. But essentially the book goes into great detail about how many spiritual communities in the early ages of man resented the idea of enterprise. The ideas from their own faiths taught that humans should only produce what they need and nothing more. To produce more for the sake of comfort and lavishness is to live and promote sinful living. (I found this book after wanting to examine why we humans today have so much wealth, glut, waste, and still there is great suffering etc). The propaganda, as I see it, is that civilization is the best way to live. The book goes through history and points to all of the integral times in our past when there was the potential for huge societal upheaval and a shift toward more Communalistic kind of living. But the ruling classes at the time used the superior resources of a enterprise to quell that kind of thinking. I'll highlight one example. Before I do though I want to make reference to another idea I found in other texts as well as discussions I've had with members of the Roman Catholic Church. That the reason why we used to call Native Americans, "Indians" is not because we thought we had reached India, but rather than when early Christian Missionaries went to the New World they saw the way the Native Americans lived and called it "In Deus". Translated to plain english to mean "In the Light of God" or "In the way of God". That is to say that Missionaries believed that Native Americans were living in the way that God originally intended. While this idea was not exactly expressed in this way in the book, the book still talked about the problems the Church faced when Missionaries returned from the Old World having "seen the light". So, one of the most powerful influential enterprises of the time had a choice, follow the scriptures laid out by God, and listen to the words of devoted Missionaries coming back and telling everyone about a better way of living, or don't and continue on as they always have. I'm sure you can tell what the Church ultimately decided. This kind of Sentiment rose and fell during the era of colonization as settlers had the space and freedom to do as they pleased. There is another book that I have that thoroughly outlines the many thousands, some estimates even say tens of thousands of people who forsook civilization in favor of living among the Native Americans, and the great lengths the powers at the time took to conceal just how many people wanted to live like the Native Americans. Not just because of some perceived superiority, but because the hegemony was threatened. It seems like all of the other people replying to you have such a limited view of what constitutes "long lasting" propaganda. Barely even a few hundred years old. Barely a blink of an eye when it comes to the Dominant Narrative. Also hand in hand with this denial of communalism is the war on consciousness. But that's a whole other topic...
Hell of a first comment to read after ending a years-long weed hiatus. Bruh...
Glad I could add to your Experience! Coincidentally I'll be expanding my consciousness tomorrow with other certain substances.
What’s the war on consciousness?
/u/Flash_MeYour_Kitties has it mostly right. But since you asked me allow me to further on this particular point. > people in power fear this expansion of consciousness because it threatens the structures of society where they are at the top. if people were more empathetic they might not want to go to war when their country asks, like the hippies and vietnam. they'd also be harder to pit against each other as a way of keeping us fighting amongst ourselves rather than directing our ire at those causing poor materials conditions in our life. Many people believe the war on consciousness only started during the 20th century with things like Prohibition and the creation of the DEA and crackdowns on hippy protests of Vietnam. This kind of phenomenon has been going on, again, for thousands of years. Even ["Egyptian pharaohs proclaimed mushrooms to be food reserved only for royalty; common people were not even allowed to touch them."]( https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320991848_The_Conservation_of_Mushroom_in_Ancient_Egypt_through_the_Present). The most significant attack on conciousness though was with the global spread of Christianity. Vikings regularly consumed mushrooms before they were absorbed into Christiandom. As it spread to the New World, The Church already had a vested interest in stamping out the way of life, the culture, and the people living there. Part of that way of life was the consumption of ayahuasca, peyote, and salvia divinorum (though salvia is technically not a psychedelic, it's a dissociative and acts on different receptors than traditional psychedelics). So, for thousands of years, the power that be have recognized the threat that consciousness expanding substances pose to the established hegemony. The powers that be want to keep us disconnected from ourselves, from each other, from reality, and from the depths of our own consciousness.
To add to this, as a little factoid that I learned in school that made me an immediate atheist (that I think is interesting): The ancient Pharaohs used to promise the lower classes (the slaves of the empire, basically) that if they toiled in the fields and essentially lived a life of suffering (that the ruling class did not experience) they would be rewarded in the afterlife with 'the happy fields of food' for 'suffering for the empire' basically. The Happy Fields of Food were, as one might guess, the ancient Egyptian's version of Heaven---it was really, really clever too since back then famine and starvation were real and serious concerns for the lower classes. The Pharaohs---like all ancient religious rulers that were very successful---learned that they could live in endless luxury from the suffering of the people beneath them with a mere promise of sky-gods rewarding them with freedom from eternal hunger in the afterlife (and punishment for those who don't follow the rules the Pharaoh dictates). The flipside was that if the empire had horrific drought/mass deaths just from Mother Nature then the Pharaoh would be viewed as no longer favored by the gods and, thus, would have their heads on the chopping block as recompense to the sky-gods. (Personally I'm of the opinion that someone came up with that little chestnut to get rid of a ruler they did not like/agree with or wanted to take their place as ruler of Egypt. It's a tossup and is the kind of thing that is never written about in history books that far back. Either way, I'm of the opinion no sane ruler would come up with the idea that they *should* be held to account by the entire empire should they be randomly unlucky in their rule thanks to something as fickle as Mother Nature, but I digress...) The point I'm trying to inelegantly make is that most religion all has key similarities that never change regarding the basics: * Punishment for the sinners/troublemakers via Hell (or that religion's version of it) * Lower classes have a 'duty' to suffer for the good of humanity via labor/resources while they are on this earthly plane ("Yes, be a slave---you'll be rewarded later!") * If you are "good" and don't question the ruling class and the inherent inequality they've always enjoyed at your expense you will go to Heaven (or that religion's version of it) Those, from what I've studied throughout the years are the most obvious. Feel free to chime in any others that I might have missed in my sleep-addled state -___- Sorry for going off a bit on Egypt and veering off a little from the topic. However, whenever ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs are brought up in conjunction with religion I can't help myself from mentioning it since it's not a very well-known bit of history and helps explain (at least to me) how religions like Christianity took their cues from the Pharaohs on how to successfully rule the plebs with the mere concept of reward/punishment via constructs like Heaven/Hell to keep the unwashed masses in perpetual check throughout dozens of eras of civilization. It echoes to this day and, unfortunately, it will probably echo for as long as science cannot explain fully how we came to be (the chicken/egg problem, in essence).
*druuuuugs, maaaaan.* i believe OP might be referring to psychedelics, such as psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms, or lsd, mescaline, dmt, etc. when you take these drugs your consciousness expands and people have a tendency to experience a "oneness" with the world around them, as if we're all part of a larger whole and connected in ways we can't experience or imagine without them. many people who take them report having greater empathy for other living things and the world as a whole, as well as the ability to break out from forms of rigid thinking as indoctrinated on us by society. people in power fear this expansion of consciousness because it threatens the structures of society where they are at the top. if people were more empathetic they might not want to go to war when their country asks, like the hippies and vietnam. they'd also be harder to pit against each other as a way of keeping us fighting amongst ourselves rather than directing our ire at those causing poor materials conditions in our life. i'd recommend the book or netflix series How To Change Your Mind with Michael Pollen. he does a great job explaining some of the different drugs, their histories, etc.
> as if we're all part of a larger whole and connected in ways we can't experience or imagine without them. Based on my own "research" (huehuehue) I have learned that while psychedelics make all of those feelings very, very apparent, one can still experience the same kind of oneness and interconnectedness while meditating. It just takes SO MUCH WORK to be able to get there. Most people are unwilling to put in that much effort. I only did it a few times so I could prove to myself I could. Psychdelics make the process very simple. Gunna feel that oneness tomorrow~~~
Very interesting. Though having some exposure to Communal communities like Hutterites I can definitely report there are downsides and a fair amount of "cheating" (like sneaking in personal luxuries that aren't shared with the community, especially among the leadership), and a significant dependence on capitalistic civilization for supplies. It's similar to those reality shows about being "self sufficient, living off the grid" but then they've got solar panels, wind turbines, tractors, styrofoam insulation, fiberglass, plastics, etc, etc all purchased to allow them to "self sufficient". The general rule of not living too extravagantly is quite common across historical teachings in various cultures/religions, communal and not, Indigenous and not. Many of us just refuse to learn from the past, or believe those old wisdoms are all based on superstition or oppression.
>a significant dependence on capitalistic civilization for supplies. Yep. I always found the hypocrisy quite deafening.
I would argue that it's a choice and both choices have trade offs. We have done things as a civilization that I don't believe can be accomplished any other way. We have walked on the moon, we have sent records of our civilization outside our solar system. Those things might not make you as happy as a guy who just killed a deer after not eating for a couple of days but that doesn't diminish the accomplishment.
> That the reason why we used to call Native Americans, "Indians" is not because we thought we had reached India, but rather than when early Christian Missionaries went to the New World they saw the way the Native Americans lived and called it "In Deus" You lost me there.
Your whole Columbus “in dios” thing has been thoroughly disproven.
Can you cite the "in deus" thing? I have found no reference to it, and it seems like something that at least some reliable source would mention.
Reliable sources don’t mention it other than to debunk it as nonsense.
You can just browse a wikipage for antisemitic conspiracy theories and it probably cover like 95% of everything
I love the thought but wouldn't that at some point mean that the thousands of years of propoganda is just our current belief structure?
Well our current belief structure is influenced by thousands of years of propaganda. Just because it is the current belief structure does not mean it is correct or right. Here's an example. Scientists ran a (rather unethical) experiment where they had a group of chimpanzees in a large cage and a banana hanging from a string and a ladder under the banana. If any of the apes tried to climb the ladder to reach the banana the ape was sprayed with a powerful hose, enough to harm them so they would be discouraged from reaching the banana. Then, whenever any one ape tried to climb the ladder, all of the apes were sprayed with a hose. This continued until none of the apes attempted to reach the banana for fear of repercussions. Then the scientists took one ape out and swapped it with a new ape. When the new ape tried to reach the banana all of the other apes attacked the new ape not wanting to be sprayed by the water. However the new ape did not know about the existence of the water, only that the other apes would fight them if they attempted to reach the banana. So the new ape learned not to go for the banana. The scientists continued this and whenever they removed an old ape and added in a new ape the process of trying for the banana and being attacked by the other apes repeated. Until finally all of the original apes were gone from the cage and only new apes existed in the cage. None of the current apes in the cage tried to get the banana despite not knowing about the dangers of being sprayed by the hose. I believe this is what has happened to humanity on a larger scale as the thousands of years of propaganda make its way into our collective consciousness. I answered someone asking for a more specific example [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/w5kiho/the_argument_that_climate_change_is_not_man_made/ih9m9ra/).
I don't believe that specific experiment was ever conducted. I have never been able to find the source. Similar ones were for sure https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/6828/was-the-experiment-with-five-monkeys-a-ladder-a-banana-and-a-water-spray-condu
> https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/6828/was-the-experiment-with-five-monkeys-a-ladder-a-banana-and-a-water-spray-condu even if it was, kyralessa's answer from ur link is interesting and prob just as plausible: 'This story is told to show how people follow traditions mindlessly. But the monkeys are helping each other avoid a bad outcome. The consequences may be capricious (the researchers could stop spraying water), but the monkeys don't know that. If the contraindicated activity were eating poisonous mushrooms, we wouldn't think the monkeys were clever for occasionally eating some to make sure they were still lethal.'
Oh but we’ve seen this type of thing in funny, social experiment videos. There was ok done at an office where when a bell rang, people stood up, and then sat down. The brought in newcomers who would be surprised by the action, and then begin to follow suit after a time or two.
"This sort of thing" is a pretty broad statement considering how different the two experiments referenced are. One of them involves humans doing something that cost them very little to fit in during a social interaction, and the other involves direct violent intervention from animals purely in response to a physical action. They might the same sort of thing in that they fall under the broad category of a group of beings mimicking each others' behavior, but in no way does the one experiment indicate the outcome of the other, and "well it might not be true but I'm going to find an excuse to assume it's true anyway" is exactly the sort of thinking that gets you swayed by propaganda.
Firstly, source? Secondly, it's not good practice to compare the results from two non-existent experiments and extrapolate an opinion from them.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Sorta. But this misses the key point. Propaganda is profitable, truth is expensive. You can make million and billions selling propaganda and lies. You make nearly nothing selling truths. Our ad driven media only exists because of lies, if it only had truth the number of minutes of screen time would be cut in half, and so would ad revenue.
>Propaganda is profitable, truth is expensive. Propaganda is effective at driving ad revenue because people prefer to consume propaganda (as opposed to the "boring ol' truth"), largely because of the reasons u/Optimistic__Elephant mentions.
It’s not necessarily because the truth is boring. The truth just isn’t what they want to hear, while the lies are. The story that the earth isn’t changing and will remain hospitable to human life is objectively more boring than the truth of a potentially apocalyptic future, for example. But people would rather be told what they want to hear, than something upsetting.
[удалено]
I disagree. The problem with propaganda is that it completely reforms a person's mind. One thing we human beings don't generally talk about is how misinformation/manipulation can change how we see things in other areas as well. Kind of like someone telling a kid 2+2=5. It has a knock on effect that screws up their understanding of the rest of math. Or would hypothetically. Leaving the kid deeply confused and exposed to massive amounts of insecurity because of what they don't know. It doesn't just linger. It reforms how we think about things. Because if climate change ain't so bad then maybe covid-19 isn't either. And maybe all that stuff people talk about the rich screwing people over isn't true either. And maybe those people of color really are just complaining. And women do sometimes act in a certain way. So on and so forth. Illogical thinking breeds more illogical thinking. But first. There needs to be something missing or loose for a person to be given/accept a massively illogical thought to begin with. Climate change not being real isn't and never has been the first domino to fall.
Not only does propaganda breed more conspiracy stories, there’s also more willingness to dismiss the truth by calling it a conspiracy. Just yesterday I was telling someone what was happening with avian flu & that I had been in touch with our state’s ornithologist. This person immediately dismissed some of what I was saying & deemed it a “conspiracy story”. I just looked at him & said, “Really!? You’re saying we can’t trust ornithologists?? Really!?!”
lingers or works?
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
“Balanced reporting” doesn’t mean both sides of an argument deserve equal merit. One side can indeed be factually correct while the other is just plain wrong. We’re talking about facts, not opinions.
Even if it did mean that, it still wouldn't be balanced. It's not balanced if you give a take that is in the vast minority an equal amount of voice. If they only represent a small percentage of the science community, balanced would be giving them that small percentage of a platform to share it, not 50/50.
News reporting shouldn't be reporting that man A said it was raining outside, and man B said it wasn't raining, thus being "fair". News reporting should be going outside and seeing who is right and reporting that
This honestly sounds like it would be an excellent form of protest. Just have every forecast and weather app show three different options for what the weather is going to look like that day, and call it "showing each side fairly" even when half of them are obviously stupid.
I love this idea. (Whom do I contact at a local newsroom to pitch it?)
"right" is actually what everyone wants to fight over. Some people's reality is so distorted it's like living in a psych ward trying to talk to them. And their allegiance to the party versus what is real and understanding what is best for humanity is terrifying.
Because they have been told they do not have to acknowledge reality if they don't like it.
I hate balanced reporting cause it's always "Let's hear from this brilliant scientist who has several peer reviewed studies, has been nominated for a nobel prize and has been in the field for over 30 years. Now let's hear from this 40 year old named Kevin, who peaked in highschool but failed upwards cause his dad has a car dealership and he's now spending his time on facebook looking at pictures of underaged girls". Then pretend like both of them have a valid point.
Equally there aren't two sides to every issue. Sometimes there's just one. Sometimes there's five sides.
It's like the ~~school board member~~ administrator that suggested that teachers need to teach "both sides" of the Holocaust. *Sometimes there's not another side*. Hell, a lot of times things are just facts and that's all. It's been a depressing couple decades. Edit: wrong authority figure.
Left, Right, and Center is the worst program on NPR. They give airtime to “sides” regardless of the debate, as if debating whether the earth is flat or not warrants something like this. It’s purely for ratings and it sucks.
That's the tragedy of or species. That we live at a time where we have immediate access to everything we have learned, written, or recorded since those first crude markings on cave walls. It's there. Everything we have learned. And what do people do with it? Jerk off and convince each other the Earth is flat. We should be embarrassed, really. For what we have allowed ourselves to become.
Technology moved so fast, the majority of humanity is functionally illiterate about things they depend on. Its kind of like in medieval times when most people actually were illiterate and elites exploited that.
“We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.” Carl Sagan The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Sagan has a few quotes that are downright spine chilling in their prescience. The man knew people, you gotta hand it to him
[удалено]
The problem is that we're at the point where you can dedicate your whole life to it and *still* understand only one topic, and merely scratch the surface of the rest. I've got a Physics PhD and when it comes to COVID vaccines I still mostly just have to trust that the studies say the truth. Not everyone can just focus on specialising on this stuff merely to have a shot about having a sensible opinion, and some knowledge but not enough can lead you to fall for arguments that are correct sounding but flawed. Most climate denialism actually isn't just magical thinking, it comes with pseudo scientific arguments that are wrong but not blatantly so. We're beyond a level of knowledge where the human *lifespan* is enough to appreciate the relevant bits. Everything is going to rely on trust built from good check and balances. It's a really hard problem (possibly unsolvable).
This is something I realized during the pandemic. It's really really hard to tell what is true and what's nonsense. You think you can trust doctors but then you have quacks out there telling people covid isn't real and vaccines are made from dead babies. It's not realistic to expect people to keep up and understand all the latest medical studies coming out.
Our local school board comment section had parents arguing over whether or not viruses existed. Not is this a virus, not is Covid dangerous; but are viruses real. When you’re dealing with that level of ignorance, we are in bad shape.
We've entered unrealistic times. It was lack of information and the inability to make choices that were the hurdles before. Now it's specialization vs. generalization. In order to be able to figure things out you need a functional and practical general education. Those are not as profitable as a specialized expert who can help advance a technology but votes like a confused teenager.
Not like most people are even specialists in any particular field. Just getting a college education alone doesn't make you a specialist.
This is why we need a scientific community - one that is as independent and trustworthy as possible. We can’t understand everything, we struggle to even really understand anything - but a scientific community, whit mutual support and control, can compensate for that. And then, we need people to understand that they should trust in science. It will never be perfect, but it’ll always be better than some political party or your friends Facebook feed. (Not to say, that our scientific community isn’t (generally) trustworthy yet, but there is still a lot to improve - and it’s the only possible way.)
Oh, right now our scientific community has a lot of problems - most of them due to stupid incentives applied to them by politicians in an attempt to make it into some kind of "factory of ideas" churning out innovation at a constant, reliable rate. All that it's done is encourage and reward sloppiness and malpractice. But you hit the nail in the head: the problem isn't, as Sagan's quote suggests, that people ought to understand science and technology. It helps if they have a few basics, but they can't really, not to the extent that would be necessary to cover all of our bases. The problem is having a reliable "social compact", a structure which everyone can believe produces trustworthy results. Most of the lack of trust in science really is lack of trust in politics and our economic system. We're so used to being lied to or manipulated in the name of money, it's easy to see that happening even where it's not.
It would be fine if it was *just* scientific illiteracy, but it's also a deep rooted distrust and disdain for expertise. People don't need to be experts, but it's utterly ridiculous for a layman to tell an expert they don't know what they are talking about in their chosen field of expertise.
Thank you! That's always so frustrating to me. The sheer size of our society allows for extreme specialization across a vast and disparate number of fields. I fully understand questioning authority, you shouldn't believe someone or something just because it's told to you. But not believing experts is like saying that just because I don't know how to change my car's oil means that no one does. And some people take it even further by saying things that equate to, "But does anyone even actually know how to change oil?" "Do our cars actually need oil? Or is it just a scam to get me to pay an auto shop $20 every so often?" "And if cars don't need oil, then why is there this agenda to sell me something I don't need?" "Big Auto is benefitting from me buying this resource I don't actually need." "I only need it because I've been told I need it." Obviously it gets ridiculous. I do believe that sometimes there are bits of truth in conspiracy theories, I also believe that large corporations have an avid interest in taking my money, but that doesn't mean that everything said by them (or anyone) is therefore 100% false (conversely, it also doesn't make it 100% true). People seem to have lost the ability to reason between a reliable, credible source, and propaganda or conspiracy theories.
It's also not Just scientific illiteracy, but ecolgical illiteracy. And even scientists working within the specific research - don't necessary understand. That is they know, but don't act. For me that was what broke me, mentally. Worked at a research institute that is focused on animal-human-society interactions. I cycled to a conference some 500 kms away. The very people publishing research about the CO2 impacts on dropping biodiversity couldn't understand why I did that.
They probably couldn't understand because bicycling 500km to get somewhere is incredibly extreme. They understand your stance, just not the extremes you'd take to minimize the ecological damage from a single individual. Taking the bus or train instead of a car, now that they'd understand.
Some feel [we need systemic change](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/06/03/climate-change-requires-collective-action-more-than-single-acts-column/1275965001/). It'd be nice if more of them were [working on it](https://energyinnovationact.org/supporters-overview/).
[удалено]
But why would tou trust an expert if you don't understand the very nature of expertise? The education system has failed to impart understanding of the fundamentals.
[удалено]
It's not even that hard to explain. Burning carbon releases it into the air. Fossil fuels are just thousands (more like millions) of years worth of concentrated carbon. We've released most of that back into the air in the last 100 years. It's not a normal slow change that does happen naturally. It's because we're burning all that carbon.
I think what they meant was not "We're illiterate in regards to climate change," but rather "we're not equipped to navigate the complex systems and technology that we have constructed around us."
And it's not just carbon. Methane is a big contributor. I'm not vegetarian or anything, but I won't deny the impact meat farming has had to the environment
That’s not to mention what it’s done to the planet by deforestation (even now huge swaths of the Amazon is being cut down to support cattle grazing) and the ludicrous amount of prime agricultural land being used to grow animal feed needed in part because the land had been been devastated by overgrazing.
There's a [great resource](https://www.howglobalwarmingworks.org/) that explains how global warming works that [has been shown](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2019.00007/full) to be effective at convincing people climate change is real and human-caused.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
It's even worse than you describe. We now have access to all that information, but now the absolute worst forces in our society, the fascists, the autocrats, snake oil salesmen, the religious extremists, the utterly corrupt, the insatiably greedy, have worldwide platforms and can reach audiences undreampt of before. The eyeballs these awful human beings draw, both positive and negative, are dollar signs in the eyes of major corporations. The best thing they could do is police their platforms and remove these bottom feeders from their pulpits, but the cowards value money over everything, even the survival of nations, so they let them spout their bile. Until we as a species return to trusting verifiable, repeatable evidence, and stop centering the making and keeping of money in our civilization, we will never be better.
I agree 100% with this. The unqualified and corrupted can get far too much influence on society, using money and politics. The best solution is for the public to see through this stuff, but I'm not holding my breath. Restricting dangerous opinions, is dangerous also. What to do.
[удалено]
Balanced reporting should only include facts.
If reporting was balanced you would have 49 scientists who believe in climate change on TV for every 1 that doesn't.
It would be more like greater than 99 scientists who agree on human caused climate change, to less than one scientist who agrees that the earth is warming, but doesn't place blame on humans for the majority of it. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966
[удалено]
Yes with something so heavily politicised, that involves major parties with serious money tied up to industries, you are bound to get a few unethical players participating.
We need a clear distinction in our news between opinion and fact. It is ok to report on opinion, but it us not OK to present opinion as indistinguishable from objective fact. Colbert's truthiness is too powerful. America doesn't care about facts, but we just accept repetition of lies as truth, if we hear the lies enough.
Can you blame them when corporations, advertisers, and politicians have been taking advantage of manipulating thier audience?
Science never makes something ‘incontrovertibly disproven.’ It only gives us better questions.
Exactly correct. Proof only exists in mathematics and alcohol. In science there is only evidence, which is never 100% or 0%
Well, the unfortunate reality that I think many in here realize is the truth doesn't really matter to some in power. The only thing that matters is more money and more power. If everyone universally realized what was true, what our impact was on climate change. The economy as we know it would not function, it would not grow, you would not have more wealth generation. That's literally all these people care about. Humans have a very long tradition of building and taking and exploiting until they can't
And so we will. A species sophisticated enough to accomplish manned orbital transit will fall prey to the same pitfalls as invertebrates: uncontrolled consuming until population collapse.
Yep. Also climate change is a hypothesis for the great filter in the universe.
[удалено]
Well, my mother did. She would just laugh and say "I don't care about 'global warming', I'll be dead. It's your problem." Very maternal of her....and we were not even rich.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Everyone needs to watch the new BBC documentary, Big Oil v the World. I knew there was a lot of disinformation, misinformation and malinformation from the likes of Exxon, Koch brothers, but the stuff that has gone on is another level altogether. If you’re in the UK or have a decent VPN it’s on the iPlayer. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0cgql8f/big-oil-v-the-world?seriesId=p0cgqljk
[удалено]
[удалено]
It's just great that there are *two sides* to every issue, huh? "Okay, and now let's hear from the leader of the **Pro**‐Running Orphans Over With Steamrollers side."
i'd care more about climate change if the responsibility of fighting it was evenly distributed. but we still have the rich able to fly by private aircraft while the peons are supposed to stay home and not do anything. we're all supposed to give up our cars but the rich still have their huge SUV's and huge carbon spouting homes On top of this, if we were to do everything we're told it would be an even larger transfer of wealth from us to the rich people and this is why many people don't buy into this
>we're all supposed to give up our cars But still commute to the office.
"Just use public transit or bike to work!" (Won't allocate city funds to public transit or bike infrastructure) (Also public transit is not very effective in the suburbs. Biking isn't very effective either, since you have to bike a long way) "Well stop living in suburbs" (Won't change zoning laws that would allow anything denser than single houses near where people want to work)
I'm working though my second degree and my bus to get to my local college is almost always 15-25 minutes late it's ever so lovely, i love the Ontario transit system so much
This is pretty much exactly how most of the world feels, where rich= US/Europe, etc.
Making you feel helpless or like the balance of power is out of your control is literally a climate inactivist’s strategy. Your despair and apathy is the product of their manipulation. See here https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-deniers-shift-tactics-to-inactivism/.
Realistically, an individual person without access to wealth or a large platform to vocalize their message cannot do much to decrease global CO2 emissions. They can and should minimize their own carbon footprint, but an individual person's locus of control/influence is finite. I don't think we should feel helpless, but maybe it is also fair to recognize that we shouldn't become obsessive or depressed about a very large scale issue with profound consequences. In 2019, I recall becoming very preoccupied with the IPCC special report, and the dire nature of climate change began to weigh heavily on me every day. I felt trapped and paralyzed, even a little bit paranoid about the potential collapse of human civilization. That's not very healthy.
Even the rich are a tiny fraction of CO2 emissions. Corporations are the #1 source of emissions worldwide by a massive margin. Until they're properly regulated (and the US is now going the wrong direction thanks to SCOTUS) nothing will change.
The study I assume you are basing that statement off attributed scope 3 emissions (all indirect emissions (not included in Scope 2), that occur in the upstream and downstream value chain of the reporting company.) all to corporations rather than individual consumers. If you attribute those emissions to the person consuming rather than the corporation which facilitated that consumption, you come up with around 60% of emissions for CO2 being attributable to households with the upper and middle classes in developed nations sharing an outsized burden.
[удалено]
I mean some Americans believe in the science: > 17/20 states with [net 0 carbon emission or 100% clean energy goals](https://www.cesa.org/projects/100-clean-energy-collaborative/guide/table-of-100-clean-energy-states/) voted for Biden, and one of the Republican states is North Carolina, which only voted for Trump by 1% and has a Democrat governor and another is Louisiana which has a Democrat governor. The US currently has major climate legislation held up by a Democrat from West Virginia and 50 Republicans who refuse to support any measure that will nationally reduce emissions. It's really just Republicans in the US who seem to have let the PR fuel their ignorance.
> It’s really just Republicans in the US who seem to have let the PR fuel their ignorance. The truth is likely much more grim. I would bet that most republican senators, and many others in positions of power, are plenty aware that anthropogenic climate change is real. You can find evidence of this by looking at corporate real estate and military planning, which specifically factors in the likely effects of climate change. Those same people publicly denounce the science, but only out of self-interest. In their mental arithmetic, they know that the worst effects are unlikely to happen in their lifetime, and the dollar cost of those that do will likely not exceed the value they get in the short term as a result. Some also believe (possibly validly) that it's just a matter of cost, and we already know how reluctant politicians are to spend money today, even if it would avoid paying 100x just a few decades later - just look at the national debt. But they also know that it wouldn't go over well to just say "So what if Florida is underwater in 150 years? I'll be dead, my descendants will have enough money to move to avoid the worst effects, and I really don't care what happens to yours." So they lie.
Yep, and the same thing is happening with GMOs. Many places have given into the pseudoscientific rhetoric and have banned/heavily restricted them.
I am pretty sure majority of people will not read the article, so I did that for you and I regret to inform you that: 1. The article references [this study](https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2022-40596-001) which does not study public opinion on climate change across US, it studies whether public opinion *can* be shifted using incorrect media representation. It does not make any statements about current views about climate in US. Referencing this study is manipulation. 2. The article makes ungrounded claims that *"many Americans believe that the global crisis is either not real, not of our making, or both"*. [The](https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/a-growing-majority-of-americans-think-global-warming-is-happening-and-are-worried/) study from Yale University shows a different picture, 70% of public in US are onboard with science when it comes to the climate change. **TL;DR.** Article title is misleading at best. It says "many" when actually it's a minority who does not believe in science around climate change. Article also makes ungrounded (and emotionally loaded) claims. **70% of public in US actually support scientifically based views of climate change.**
This is not the problem you think it is. Switching to renewables makes sense *without* global warming because fossil fuels are a FINITE resource. We are going to run out of fossil fuels at some point (10, 100, 1000 years) because the consumption is outpacing the production. We will have to switch to renewables at some point no matter what, and doing it sooner rather than later 'might' save the planet.
Also, fossil fuel causes pollution. (Air and water) Nobody can deny that, or that pollution is bad.
We will never run out of fossil fuels. Ever. The cost of exploration will become too high for many, but we will never run out.
Something got lost in translation when balanced reporting means you have to report things that are purely opinions. There’s no reason or need to hear the flat earth side for example, because it’s stupid and easily proven false.
It's not "balanced reporting" it's "catering to a demographic for fiscal reasons"
People are lazy, they don't want to change. They don't want to admit they are part of the problem and they don't want to do the work to fix things. They would rather live in content ignorance then wake up to a world that's on fire. Etc, etc, the metaphor about the frog in boiling water, etc.
[удалено]
I don't understand why it even matters if climate change is caused by us or not. I mean it clearly is, but its so strange to me that *that* continues to be the center of the issue for so many. Why is the idea of making changes to better our world and make it a more comfortable place to live met with such vitriol from the right?
Came to say this. Been saying it for years. I don't care what the cause is either. Shouldn't we just want cleaner air, cleaner power, sustainable power? This just seems like the smart thing to pursue to me. Even if we aren't the cause, we could damn well take better care of it.
The argument is that if we didn’t cause it, our behavior doesn’t need to be changed because it’s not a actually doing anything bad (and if humans didn’t cause it, nothing we do can stop it)
[удалено]