charliem wrote:You know, I was a global warming skeptic too, until about ten years back (a bit after reading Michael Chichton's novel, State Of Fear, in which climate change activism plays a big part), what I have never been is very interested in persuading anyone else, neither before nor after.
Interesting you should say that. I read the novel too back in 2005 and what I remember form it is was about data manipulation by the AGW proponents to create the "State of Fear" that will allow authorities to get away with things they normally could not. I just checked Wikipedia entry on that book and that is pretty much what it says. Wikipedia says that the book has:
"Numerous charts and quotations from real world data, including footnoted charts which strongly suggest mean global temperature is, in this era, lowering"
And you are saying that the book convinced you AGW is real?
How odd.
The "State of Fear" is a standard tactic exercised by authority, especially in totalitarian regimes to control the society. In Soviet Union they believed that Fear was the best motivator and brought the State of Fear to a new level by creating State of Terror.
State of Fear throughout history is competing with Financial Incentive as the 2 most efficient mechanisms to run a society.
The fearists believe that people are stupid an lazy and the only way to get any results is to coerce them. They preferred social order is slavery, where they completely eliminate the Financial Incentive and fear of punishment is the only driver. Financial Incentive promotes a libertarian state. Most likely those two are also on the opposite ends of speed of technological progress, where the progress is slowest in slavery with most restrictions and quickest in a libertarian state with no restrictions.
charliem wrote:
I'm not trying to be derogatory here, just attempting to explain my perception, but to me it sounds weirdly similar to religious convictions; I wonder if there is a common psychological mechanism at play.
Are you saying AGW is a religion? BINGO!
I think there is an important mechanism why people believe in stuff and go to lengths such as making data falsification (euphemism: Policy Based Evidence Making) an official policy just to fit their world view.
The reason is that we evolved to believe in a higher purpose as believers have more children so they can live for that purpose. This is usually a religion, but in these areligious times people have to find substitutes.
Imagine that there was a 2 competing theories/religions where one spells doom and gloom, and the other that paints a bright future. The pessimists are more likely to go for the first one while the optimists for the second. In the long run the pessimists die out since they don't believe as much in having children or doing much of anything, as they see downsides to everything.
The dominating ideology in the West today is pessimism, which manifests itself in falling birth rates and depression pandemic. This creates fertile ground for all kinds of false ideologies that spread fear:
- AGW is going to kill us
- vaccines are going to kill us
- ... is gong to kill us
- we need to coerce everyone to our belief system or otherwise there is no escape of the doom and gloom
- if the government doesn't act nobody will. Only be heroic and coordinated effort pf the entire society can save us!
It is pretty hard to escape this mental state, but is usually done by a new generation that rebels against the old ideas at the same time as the old generation dies out. This is slowly happening as people get tired of the doom and gloom same old stuff.
On the other hand we may be heading for Universe 25:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-sci-fi-dy ... r-animals/
charliem wrote:
What DOES interest me is studying how we think. This is why I'm so curious about why people without any evident interest in a topic that I can see [financial, fame, prestige, etc.], are so much into convincing others.
Are you suggesting that is me? I can't identify myself with the group.
First I don't want to convince anyone for the sake of convincing. I just want to be left alone and not taxed or regulated especially not for the sake of other people totalitarian fantasies. If that involves convincing people coercion is bad, so be it. It that involves convincing people a religion is false, so be it. If they want to believe in Dark Matter, Dark Energy or fairy tales, let them do so, it is harmless.
Second, I do have financial incentives not to be excessively taxed especially to pay for other people's false beliefs, and I want to work for companies that are successful and can pay me more instead of paying for overregulation to keep hordes of bureaucrats fed.
charliem wrote:
Another thing that I find interesting. It seems there is very little correlation between the level of knowledge a person has in a certain area, and his/her desire to spread their ideas.
That statement is false. People spread ideas they believe in. How much they need to know about something to believe in it, that depends on their environment but it is largely driven by the desire for inclusion in a group. That depends how ideologically motivated the group is and how they tolerate dissent. The more a group beliefs become a religion the less they are willing to tolerate dissent.
The letter from Judith Curry that Diogenes posted
https://judithcurry.com/2017/01/03/jc-i ... more-22651
indicates that the AGW academia are growing pretty fundamentalist and tolerate no dissent.