Certain subjects are immune to logic?
 

Like ANWR. It is not possible to use logic when discussing it. Facts and the best available data = not applicable in many people's "minds". What up wid dat? :confused:

Same with population and/or population control. ZING!- fly right past rationality and into emotion on that one. :rolleyes:

True. True.

Maybe people have certain things hardwired into their brain (or an approximation of it) and one word is enough to start a do loop which they can't get out of. Which they don't even (want to) know they can get out of. The question is: Who (what) brainwashed them into that state?

Are you just ranting, or would you like to discuss those subjects here? I have nothing against, but discussing those two with me probably wouldn't get very far, as I'm willing to bet that we'd be on the same side.

Frank and Co -

Yeah, I have repeatedly heard that emotional responses are about 1000 times faster than rational thought. This was useful when we were hunter/gatherers, and needed to respond to imminent danger from predators. But nowadays, the dangers are not what they used to be. For example, consumption :

Emotions in purchase decisions - CopperWiki
I think the key is self-awareness. I *know* that I respond emotionally and I try to temper it as needed. I like looking at used cars that I *know* will probably be money pits, but I don't care because I like their design for some reason. I research and research. Finally, someone else buys the car and the fever passes.

CarloSW2

An online article about impending gas price increases prompted the usual "drill baby drill" rubbish, and mention of ANWAR (sic) soon followed. I posted:

Then a fellow came on with the actual data and his post was mysteriously censored away :confused: then I posted:

In that forum people vote yay or nay if they approve of posts. Both of my posts are running about 3:1 nay:yay. Sure the second post could be debateable, but the first one??? The majority opposes the best available facts, data, and evidence?

People: they cease to amaze me. :rolleyes:

Carlos: perhaps I'm wired differently. Actually, I've felt that way all my life. It's like an outsider looking in. Like Spock. :confused:

I like to approach things rationally more than emotionally. Evidently that's unusual.

Heh, like your story about the used cars. I've been getting old and of questionable worthiness vehicles off Craig'slist lately. I guess it is a mix of logic/emotion: I evaluate what I can pre-purchase, mentally calculate how expensive parts will be, then gamble a bit and buy the P.O.S. with the feeling that I can handle it all and stay within/below budget.

But I wasn't thinking of any purchasing process when I started the thread. Although that's legit to discuss i.e. why choose an SUV or a Prius or whatever.

One time, in a letter to the editor, I referred to Limited Liability Corporations as "the Amoral Immortals." The editor picket this up for the header, and most of my radical friends jumped on me for being 'way too critical. It was just a plain fact, easily derived from the charters. "Immoral" would have been a slur, even though companies are clearly required to lie and break or circumvent laws wherever there is opportunity for profit.

Tire pressure vs traction springs to mind. It seems that in the entire world, there is no conclusive data to show this. An exception are the NHTSA documents but they only go to 32 psi or thereabouts. Assumptions are all we have beyond that.

Any time i have brought this subject up outside of Ecomodder i have been met with hostility and derision. What should have been an intelligent discussion turned into name calling etc.
I got an acute sense of being surrounded by schoolyard bullies/thought police and more or less told to go away. Even by supposedly intelligent people.
As Frank said:
Very true.

ollie

I recently read this:

where's my digital watch?

Not knowing much about ANWR I searched it on Ixquick. Just to educate myself about the facts. The Dept. of Energy has a report out on ANWR, it was the first link on ixquick http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicer...af(2008)03.pdf

Page #9 has a graph worth looking at, ANWR is at least an appreciable increase in domestic production. Below the graph the DOE concludes:

The opening of ANWR to oil and gas development includes the following impacts:
• reducing world oil prices,
• reducing the U.S. dependence on imported foreign oil,
• improving the U.S. balance of trade,
•extending the life of TAPS [current alaskan pipeline] for oil, and
•increasing U.S. jobs.

I would assume the DOE has the best available facts at their disposal. Others may just have discovered this report before I did.

facts?
 

Whatever facts the DOE had at their disposal at that time does not mean that anything in this report necessarily reflects the truth. The Bush administration was notorious for manipulating facts to result in a predetermined outcome.

Frank -

Ahhh, but you got the skillzzz to keep your cars running. It's a much bigger risk for me because I don't gots the skillzzz.

For example, I was practicaly stalking a used 2007 Saturn Ion with 23K miles on it. I determined that it would have all of the Chevy Cobalt GM Delta platform problems. It would have the steering problem, front control arm bushing problems, ignition switch problems, and other assorted issues. All of these seemed workable to me, with the only dangerous one being the steering issue. It was being sold by a dealer at private-party KBB price, so I figure the original owner panicked with the death of Saturn, traded for a Ford, and the dealer was unloading it. I Carfaxed it and it was clean as a whistle. If I were to buy one new, it was the exact model and features I would buy. On the emotional side, it was the first (of many last?) chances to get a white plastic-paneled car with suicide doors that was manufactured by UAW factory workers. It was used, so they weren't really benefiting, but I think you get the idea.

In terms of consumerism, I wasn't trying to go off topic, but it was the least politically charged example I could find that supports your hypothesis of human behavior.

I actually have a conscious consumerism stress relief mechanism. Sometimes when I've had a bad day, I go into a 99 cents store or a Big Lots and impulse shop. The idea is, even if I buy worthless junk, at least it's cheap medicine. I think it goes back to when I used to go to the Thrift store with my Mom.

CarloSW2

But couldn't that response be extended to any discussion ruling out any facts, dissolving a logical discussion into an emotional one (I don't like the source so the facts must be false), which is what Frank Lee started the thread by (100% right-on) criticizing.

I'm all ears if someone has facts that contradict the DOE report, it was just my attempt to add fact-based logic to a thread (correctly) criticizing knee-jerk emotional responses.

Maybe I haven't made myself clear.

I'm not saying that any facts are false. I'm saying that whoever you are, if you predetermine what the end result will be, you can find legitimate facts that will support your predetermined outcome. And you can ignore all legitimate facts that contradict your predetermined outcome. That a predetermined outcome is based on hand-picked facts doesn't mean that it's not factual, but it certainly doesn't mean that it's the whole truth and nothing but the whole truth. And that doesn't make it emotional.

What would the trade-offs be? Which aspects weight more, and from what perspective?

Remember folks, you can always find a source out there that will prove any point. What really matters is the general concensus amongst studies.

I'd say this holds true for forum postings too. I often write and then ask myself the question whether or not I really need to post this, whether or not this will help someone or provide some insight. Incidentally, I also often delete messages just before hitting the submit button.

For starters, it should be obvious that these "conclusions" are predictions of the future, and any predictions of the future are not factual.

I couldn't agree more! In my mind, this is a corallary to Barnum's Law (There's a sucker born every minute.)
I have to disagree. What really matters is the truth. I'm not trying to split hairs here either. If you had polled the scientists of the 12th century, the "general consensus" would have suggested a flat earth.
Predicting the future is a messy business. Two groups, working from the same data, can arrive at vastly different results. Just look at the tsunami predicted for Hawaii after the Chilean earthquake. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii predicted major problems, while the prediction made by the Center for Tsunami Research in Seattle was much closer to the real result. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center was using the method and model that was generally accepted. What happened? Although they had the same data, they operated from different base assumptions (re: depth, wave speed, wave interval, dispersion, etc). The "general consensus" methodology appears to be deficient in this case.

Regarding ANWR, I have uninformed opinions, so I'll keep quiet. But on population controls, I'll say this: when someone comes to enforce their policy by forcibly cutting my n$%s off, I'll meet them with a shotgun. That's my emotional response. People are often for population controls until it gets personal. "Not in my backyard." Solar panels in the Mojave, anyone?

Truth must be proven. Few things in life can be considered absolute truth, most things rely on theories, which by definition have yet to be proven. The strenght, or acceptance of those theories depend on the general concensus.

What we believe true today that has not yet been proved might very well be false tomorrow, but that's all we have.

Not sure if you're intentionally trying to push emotional buttons here, but if you're referencing scientific theories, there really is no way to explicitly and unquestionably prove a scientific theory true. Rather, there is a collection of evidence (test results, observations, etc) which will support a theory and if there's enough supporting data then it's accepted as true. But even then, it's not absolute truth since it's certainly possible (though in some cases not very probable) for someone to devise an experiment that either modifies or completely disproves the theory.

Gravity is considered a theory by the scientific community still, even though I'd guess most of us layfolk consider it absolute truth.

Re: ANWR: I had a "sorta" preconceived notion about it but not a real strong opinion one way or the other before I looked into it. So I looked into it.

I found the DOE data, which is SUPPOSED to be objective (guitarguy: the new administration hasn't come out with any refuting data have they???). I also found info from both pro and anti drilling organizations. tim: what else can one do? I presume geologists are supplying the most accurate estimates possible based on the state-of-the-art science. Is there a better option?

The bottom line is, one can take the lowest and the highest resource estimates from all rational sides and reasonably assume the truth to be somewhere in the middle (that's what I do for everything I come across that has much ambiguity. At least that gives me a range to work with). Still with me? When even the HIGHEST estimate is compared to U.S. usage, if the oil were to be accessable at the rate we use it (I know, it ain't gonna happen, but this is just for illustrative purposes OK?) it would be gone in about 2 1/2 years. Yes. 2.5 years. MAX. All other values were lower. The obvious conclusion is that this whole ANWR thing being any sort of energy supply solution is a joke. I'm pretty sure I didn't inject anything predetermined into that.

And yet, the monkeys vote against a fact-based presentation 3:1. :rolleyes:

chuck: re: pop control: My stance on that is it's not critical enough yet to go around cutting nads off. HOWEVER, it is clear that government policies subsidize excess (i.e. resulting in growth) reproduction while it is painfully clear there is no human shortage. I want all financial incentives to excessively breed to be removed, and see what effect that has before going more extreme.

I'd say many predictions of the future are factual:

-You pull over for flashing lights predicting he/she wants to get by you, or give you a ticket. Either way, based on past events (and general consensus, which is correct in this case), you predict you are supposed to pull over.
-You take off when the light turns green predicting that conflicting traffic has yielded for a red light on their side. You can't see their red, but from past events you predict your green light means its safe.
-I can predict a tank mpg of 42.7 mpg +/- in the Civic for next week based on past tanks trending towards that range. Its a prediction of the future, based on observations of the past.

As far as tradeoffs (ie ANWR drilling), there are many, most of which I am not aware of. The DOE report simply details the economic/transportation benefits, it does not (nor does it claim to) be all-encompassing. It simply presents a fact-based analysis that differed from an argument above.
The goal of a trial is not to convict the accused, but for both sides to compare facts and try to discern who has a greater body of facts to tip the scales their way (of course each side would only produce facts that support their point, if both parties do that then each acts as a "check" of the other parties' argument anyways).

As tasdrouille said Agreed. If something is true, which source it came from shouldn't really matter, the consensus from multiple (honest) studies would have to converge anyways. If it doesn't someone's conclusions may be subject to emotional bias.

Great talking to you all, I'm reading some logical arguments here. I just like being a pain :D

....mmmm-m-m-m-m sounds suspiciously like "...rule by majority ignorance/consensus..." and nothing else?

Sorry, wrote my post while you were writing yours..

As a single source, nope, there probably isn't any one source that could deliver that kind of consumption. As an addition to current sources it does contribute some additional production. Whether thats valuable versus opposing facts, tradeoffs, financing foreign enemies, etc, I'm not arguing either way here. Just that the DOE study reported additional supply (some 700,000 barrels/day). Based on the situation you just described above (single source) it wouldn't last long. But would any supply (Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, Texas, etc) last long as the sole source? I like the context of your calcs (what if it was the only source?) but not knowing the basis for ( which contradicts the DOE report led me to post. A 2.5 year supply as the single-source is still a 2.5 year supply as the single-source of billions of barrels of oil to the majority of a continent. I politely disagree with "mere pittance" ;). Thanks for the clarification on the single-source context though.

That quantity of oil doesn't meet criteria as being any sort of solution, does it?

The best reason to stay out of the ANWR is for the caribou breeding grounds. However, if we burn all the other available oil, we may destroy their habitat anyway. A friend of mine has been watching temperatures on Baffin Is, and they are about the same as here, where it has barely felt like winter. The eskimos say that there is so much meltwater around that dead seals sink instead of floating.

There is a very interesting book about resistance to reason, etc, at Index of /jeanaltemeyer/drbob You can hack the URL down a bit to select shorter download sections.

No, I was just setting the preamble for my main idea, which simply is that predictions produced by theories today, might be proven incorrect, or untrue, tomorrow.

When the "Drill, baby, drill" chant was echoing in the Republican convention, the facts were that by the time offshore drilling production actually produced any usable product, it wouldn't amount to 1% of our consumption. That's an amount we could save today, simply by inflating the tires of our nation's car fleet to their door jamb values.

...how does that old saying go? "...You can lead idiots to intellegence, but you can't make them accept or use it..." or something like that?

I haven't been looking for a reason to like climate change, but that can't be all bad...

Hmmm I see appeals to emotion on both side of the ANWR issue. It is I think nearly impossible to remain impartial and unjadded by preconceived notions. Best thing you can do is evaluate yourself and see what propaganda is coloring your judgment of an issue try to learn the facts and make your own choices based on what you value, and what the perceived risks are and how likely they are.

The other issue I see with emotional issues is that it is very easy to dismiss as evil, misled or stupid anyone who does not happen to hold your same ideological view. That may even be potently embarrassing when it may be that they may actually be the one holding the high ground of reality.

As far as if we should be drilling in ANWR a good starting point may be to look at similar environments where development has taken place, see what the direct and indirect results of that development and take what we learned from that and make a value judgment of the effects of that action and build from that.

Not saying it solves anything. But its a lot of oil to rule out as insignificant.

There is something else worth looking at if you want to educate yourself about the facts. You ought to look at the preface and see that this document was initiated and requested by Ted Stevens who was convicted of 7 felonies concerning accepting bribes from oil companies.

I suppose none of those convictions were overturned or that they weren't politically motivated and the trials timed to change the makeup of the senate?

Yep he was convicted, but yet he is not now a convict. Two facts that can be used to color how one looks at any data from that report. Regardless of who initiated the report Stevens did not create the data in it.

Many people do behave as if it solves something. Like, if it's drilled, we can then take a victory lap around the U.S.A. in our SUVs and forget about conservation in our lifetimes. I think not.

The significance of it is for the players who stand to make money from it. As far as I can tell, besides some new jobs, that's about it.

I think you all are missing a major point here. The arguments aren't about logic at all, they're about values. If you happen to put a higher value on having cheap gas so you can drive your SUV around an urban landscape than on Arctic landscapes, you probably favor drilling in ANWR. Once that value judgement is made, you might apply logic to figure out how to do the drilling, what the costs will be, and whether the result is cost-effective, but that logic doesn't affect the initial value judgement.

I'd say most, if not all of those things, are suppositions, and not predictions. There is a difference.

I'm not ready or willing to get involved in an ANWAR (sic) discussion. Probably never will be. I always suggest that by the time anything is done about ANWR's oil supply, it won't matter anyway. Fuel consumption will have increased to the point that by the time ANWR becomes feasible to extract, the oil/energy consumed during the extraction will outweigh the amount of usable oil/energy that can be extracted.

There are supposedly over 800 billion barrels of shale oil in the US, though. Mostly in the mid-west. Currently, a large portion of the NE is suffering drilling operations right in their back yards, and falling into the "spend it now" way of life.

Marcellus Shale can be naturally found in the NE portion of the US in large quantities. An additional byproduct of Natural Gas welling is the upheaval of shale oil from Marcellus Shale, which gives an even greater ROI for the initial energy expenditure.

From something I've read, the best proved stores in Saudi Arabia are just over 300 Billion barrels. While consumption in the world has gone up, so has US importation of foreign oil.

With all the oil we "have" in our own back yards, and the dwindling supply of other oils, maybe we're suffering through this "recession" of ours (which I still don't personally see at all...) just to come out on top of yet another market?

When we can provide oil to the world cheaper than OPEC can, who will be the rich ones? (Obviously, someone other than the "people" of this country, since the Status Quo will never actually change, mostly due to the lack of economic and fiscal sense trained into and passed on in our culture.)

Of course, that's all based on a few things I've read, which I can't prove one way or the other, and have only feigned interest in.

It seems most folks think with their emotions or preconceived notions first. Then, after much pain caused by emotion or stereotype, do they think about the topic at hand. ANWR, tire pressure, oil change interval, all are governed by emotion and habit despite logical folks bringing reams of evidence and experience to the discussion. Unfortunately all the logic and evidence is buried under the effluent of emotion and habit.

Some people do dig up those nuggets of evidence and put them to good use, marvel at how much better/easier/nicer something is that way, and wonder why nobody else on whatever board they're on does it that way. Then the cycle begins again...

Dead Seals
 

The arctic was not littered with floating seals when the water was saltier. The eskimo hunters are loosing their game if they can't get to it quickly.

99LeCouch -

Oh, without a doubt. We spend all our lives filtering out information that doesn't agree with our world view. We get pretty good at it, too!

CarloSW2

you are not alone. forums like this help that along..

adding education and life long mission is alot more stress than say someone in my poor hillbilly stereotyped locale.

I won't say anymore, but primitive and reaction action is extreme sometimes...with no rationale to back it up all the way to court rooms.:rolleyes:

staying alert and immune at the same time is a powerful thing.