Maggie's Farm

Being in the industry, I actually interviewed there once whenI was looking for work.

I never did watch it. All I had to do was read the information describing the program and it was usually enough to turn me off.

Good reason? Maybe you're bought and sold, but most people aren't as naive.


Gore's impact on the internet isn't much more than mine, in reality. And I've spent the last 16 years working in it. Even when I was at AOL in the late 90's, we all laughed at the nonsensical banter that nitwit was spewing about the internet, regarding his role. For the sake of clarity, he may have been "the first political leader" who recognized what many business people and academics realized long before. But that is not a good thing.

The way they twisted his impact, and history, to make that paper is clearly designed to support the nonsense he promotes.

And given Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, the value of this junk is now exposed.

His association with both will, in the long run, be a punchline.

People pursue political goals. These two, who I agree had much to do with the DEVELOPMENT of the internet, also had an agenda. Cleaning up Gore's image played to that agenda. It's still stuff and nonsense.
When you're trying to get stuff done, having a handsome and well-known politician to be the face of your agenda is sometimes useful. Frankly, I think it's worthless, but that's me. I've seen guys like Kahn and Cerf do far more on their own than trying to get politicians involved, and usually the politicians are more a problem than a help. Gore's best quality was, when the internet actually started being commercially successful, sitting back and being a mouthpiece and nothing more (even though as a mouthpiece he was still pretty silly).

As for climate change - we all know where you stand on that. Having Gore as a mouthpiece for this BS is something similar. He's won many awards, all politically slanted crap like the now-devalued Nobel prize.

You know, I got my first job because of encouragement I got from a friend.

I suppose he should get credit for me getting the job.

That is, perhaps, the lamest of lame support theses I've ever read in my life.

May, Might, Could.
Suggests.

Nowhere does it ever say we definitely are, nor does it ever provide clear and evident linkages between human activity and climate change.

Science is not suggesting anything, it's about providing evidence and proof.

The term "support for claims" is proof, except in rare cases.

Are you implying that gravity remains an unproven hypothesis, but rather an idea which has a consensus of support behind it, much like the lamebrain AGW?

I sincerely doubt you can make a strong case saying that this is the case, and your semantics and willful ignorance of other attributes (such as those put forth by another commenter here) indicates either a level of naivete or simply lack of care in the pursuit of knowledge.

In every - yes EVERY - back and forth you have engaged in here at Maggie's, you've put forth concepts which ignore vast swathes of evidence to the contrary, and then refuse to discuss that evidence when others have raised them as points.

At least I know that the people here are aware of the supporting claims for AGW (though we mostly reject it due to lack of strong evidence) and we accept those claims at face value - the work was done in many cases with a confirmation bias. Work which has been done refuting these claims is rarely admitted for peer review, and what small amount is admitted is only done so with the purposes of trashing the work.

Do you deny this completely? And if so - would you be willing to comment on the evidence that this took place, clearly provided in the East Anglia emails?

While there is a cultural refutation of AGW taking place, there is most certainly a very strong scientific one, even if it is currently ignored. That you have consigned it to a cultural phenomenon alone is akin to how the Church handled Galileo. I suppose you would say there is no cultural phenomenon surrounding AGW. Well, actually no, I'm wrong. Based on your politically motivated language, I'll recraft how you'd frame the AGW cultural phenomenon - 'a justified change in behavior across society supported by a consensus of belief on a particular scientific viewpoint'.

Which I perceive as "an unjustified attack on the natural rights of people to choose how they'd like to lead their lives, based on a consensus of belief which has refused to engage in an open dialogue with the opposition of skeptics within the scientific community and has instead sought to shame them into submission."


While I recognize the potential for change regarding my position regarding AGW, I have yet to see enough evidence to make me change my position. There remains no conclusive evidence to lead me to change. It seems to me, you have no doubts about yours, and from the standpoint of science, that's frightening, and backs up my view that AGW is a cultural phenomenon.

As for gravity - certain aspects are being questioned, but you've used the term "proof" in a lock-down fashion, whereas I've utilized more as a legal term, which means overwhelming evidence that something exists beyond a reasonable doubt. Since I'm not flying off the face of the earth, gravity is proven. From a philosophical, and even theoretical standpoint, no such proof may exist but I am not worried about that until I simply fly off the face of the earth.
I'll apply that same approach to AGW. Barring a biased judge, the current amount of information remains inconclusive, and the IPCC more or less said so before Congress on more than one occasion.

Actually, since I am in the industry, I'll say this about Gore making money on a failure - it's not that uncommon.

What IS uncommon is how much of a failure Current was, and how much he still managed to make on it. His contracts are worth something, assuming he sold to someone who could actually USE the contracts effectively. Al-Jazeera is going to have problems doing that, so they overpaid for junk.

In that sense, Gore is just plain silver-tongued, convincing these idiots from the Mid-East to pay a price his network is not worth. From a business standpoint, good for him. Though I'd like to see him try and defend this business decision with all his lefty buddies.

Except, of course, his lefty buddies are all about making themselves rich at the expense of everyone else. So they probably would slap him on the back and say go find another sucker - you've found plenty already.

You don't know much about media, so I'll simply say that your responses are 'correct' insofar as they leave open the possibility for alternative outcomes.

I gave Gore credit for making money, which is (after all) the goal of business. What I think he failed at, ultimately, was proving there is an audience for the politically slanted crap he was having produced. His radio network failed and his TV network failed. But nevermind, the MSM is holding up their end of the grand bargain, so who needs Current now?

What makes Gore so hypocritical is that while he is very good at business (clearly...I should be so silver-tongued with my assets), he is clearly behaving in a style which he has, many times, called socially irresponsible.

You are known best by your behaviors. His behaviors are rarely reconciled with his words.
Global Warming? His house is a freaking Carbon juggernaut, and his Carbon footprint his massive.
Reduce market impact? No, utilize carbon offsets (basically a market for carbon trading, which he alternately abhors or supports, depending on the day).
Use the media to produce socially aware programming? Nah, sell it off to the Arabs when you convince them to pay more than it's worth.
Start a left-wing Radio Network to compete with the strong conservative voices? Well...that was just a massive failure. Nevermind.

Gore is, as his detractors point out, really in it for the cash. And he found a great way to spin his nonsense into money. Snake oil salesmen around the world are jealous of his promotion of the man/bear/pig. (if you don't get what I'm alluding to, then you are seriously out of touch with adolescent culture)

It's really not worth it. I keep forgetting this person (or persons, I can never tell LOL) deliberately shifts the discussion points to things they want to discuss, rather items of original discussion (and sometimes greater importance).

They regularly avoid anything which easily refutes their point of view, instead citing "findings" which have come under attack as suffering from confirmation bias and sometimes even fraud.

Quite a while back, I'd made a decision to stop responding to this commenter, but during the months between his/their disappearance and reappearance, I'd forgotten. You cannot debate somebody who first alters the agenda, then shifts the discussion, and refuses to accept there are opposing viewpoints.

I don't think anybody here on Maggie's is ignorant of any of the "evidence" which this commenter continues to present. Rather, we are all well aware and quite familiar. We simply don't find it to be compelling due to several factors:
1. confirmation bias
2. modelling dictating the potential outcomes, and leading those who believe the modelling to dictate oppressive 'solutions'
3. history, which indicates the 'evidence' still conforms to standard cycles and while current trends sometimes seem out of the norm the time frames remain far too short for a judgement of this sort
4. acceptance that even if AGW is true, there is little we can do to reverse it, and the likelyhood that AGW may actually benefit the earth as a whole since models are rarely correct and we cannot predict the future (but we can review the past, and warm cycles in the past have not shown any indication this would be a devastating turn of events).

This commenter simply turns a blind eye to all these points because they have a political agenda (which has come out in other posts regarding their views on economics) that is in line with those who seek to reduce individual liberty and the right to choose one's own direction in life.
They utilize a right to free speech effectively - credit where it's due - but in the long run if their agenda proves to be successful I have no doubt they will alter their stance on this because it will run counter to their goals.
I'll respect their right to an opinion, though I don't respect their desire to strip people of their right to live their lives as they see fit.