The General Degredation of Society

[Solid Dreams]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

Not even that.

Scientists figured out a way to put an image in PARTICLES. And then pull it back out.

Can you imagine that happening even 10 years ago?

Just because we don't live like the Jetsons isn't an excuse to think that we all suck and fail.

(I thought Al Gore was the pusher for Global Warming.)

I'd like to put it out there that a lot of advancements that we've had have actually come from teenagers. From stretching as far back as the Apollo 13 mission where a bunch of people devo and I's age basically brought back people from the moon without computers, to now, where a freakin 8 year old invented a way to cook bacon healthier AND faster, and yet "our generation" isn't accelerating to meet your needs.

If you think that we should be going further faster harder, then I suggest you go out and do it yourself. Crying that cell phones and video games (what?) ruined children is sort of silly.

Teleportation?

Not our job. Leave that to Star Trek.

Trips to mars?

Not our job.

Moon bases?

Not our job, either.

Cures for cancer.

Last I checked, youth (high schoolers, I guess?) weren't being issued lab equipment. In fact, I would assume that there's a cure for cancer already out. But there's no profit in cures, now is there?
Now that we have stem cell research, I would say that we will have cures for cancer, parkinsons, and a lot of other diseases that we've been struggling with, not to mention small things like paralysis...if the older generation doesn't hide them away.

new ways to rapidly increase our weight and decrease our life expectancy.

You can actually thank the baby boomers for that.

Kids are paying less attention to getting a decent education and more attention to how many space marines they've killed, or when the next binge drinking party is.

Before video games it was football/soccer/baseball/tennis/rugby games. Physical activity=mental acuity?

If humanity continues this trend of decreasing intelligence I fear that we may dig ourselves into a rut that will be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to get out of!

Haha. No, that's the government's fault, going on what Reach said. Promoting laziness doesn't seem to be the best of things, but then, that's not our youth, that's the generation before us.

I think it's sorta amazing that you latched onto cell phones and video games. Saying that those two make people stupid is about as valid as saying that if you play Doom 3 you will become a mass murderer.

In fact, I would argue that even in a non-scholastic way we're smarter, because of the technology we have. We have google and wikipedia, from which you can learn basically anything you've ever been interested in. It's not all lolcatz and dde i ttly gt drnk lst nite and halo warz.


But we're all dumb, I guess, so how would we know? :/

[Vendetta21]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

I think talking about the decadence of society is generally a myopic look at the old paradigm for civilization c. BC400-AD1930 and thinking it applies to the new. It does not. Society's cultural, economic, and ethical decadence is not related to the phase of its technology. And in the new paradigm technological advance tends to trump the previous three. It has been 17 years since the advent of the internet and Mosaic, and we still haven't developed a solid model for how to interact with the technology and make the best use of it. I know 17 years seems like a long time to someone who is very young like yourself, but to be honest in Sumarian culture they lived the same exact way for thousands of years, and their culture was constantly on the rise in a relative outlook. I have no idea what your reference point is for growth, or the sample you are using as a microcosm to interpret the world.

Also, when talking about society what we are often talking about is a sample size of the people we meet in our general area and the things we read in pop culture information sources. Neither of these have a strong correlation for anything about society and its values in general. How a group responds to one isolated incident halfway across a continent is not a great determinant of how their society works. To truly understand anything you must immerse yourself in it in one way or another.

What I'm saying is that I don't feel you have even a nominally sober view of the world.

[Vendetta21]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

Also, when talking about society what we are often talking about is a sample size of the people we meet in our general area and the things we read in pop culture information sources.

You also have to remember something about the past, if you are using it as a reference point for now and the future: the great people of history are the smallest minority of the groups of history. The past of the world is filled in majoram with people who did mindless and repetitive manual labor. History only remembers the highest echelon of those that shined in any given culture, in any given era.

If you are choosing to use the things pop culture inundates you with as your reference point for the current state of your culture, you are talking about the lowest echelon of culture. The people currently moving the world are probably not reading PEOPLE magazine or are obsessed with reality TV, they are probably not wrecked with fiscal irresponsibility and massively overweight out a simple inability to either exercise or eat healthier.

If your problem with humanity is that its laypeople are dumb and irresponsible then you have a problem which has unceasingly existed since the dawn of recorded history. I think the code of Hammurabi exemplifies that. If one can get past the fact that the stele seems magical with its reliquary etchings and actually read through the laws it proclaimed, you would realize that the need to proclaim laws so simple indicates something about the culture c. 1790 BC. In gauging the span of 4 millennia, it seems clear that there is some thread in the commoners as a group that has always existed: their stupidity.

Changing that is something that people have been trying to do for hundreds of years, and with some slow but apparent successes. People today are a hell of a lot smarter on average then people hundreds of years ago. In fact, studies have shown students c. 2007 to be significantly smarter in general academic subjects than students c. 1986. That is a span of ONLY 21 years.

I know that as a student still in primary schooling you probably find yourself to be more intelligent then your counterparts and that some of your frustration arises out of the fact that some things that you seem to think are simple and intuitive are not grasped by others. Also, I'm making an inductive leap, but based on your general method of arguing you probably have arguments based on what are generally effective intuitions but are not very good at articulating those intuitions. You probably expect people to have the presence of mind to understand things you feel are simple with ease, and that when people shortfall your expectations you feel that society has an issue with stupidity.

There is no issue. Stupid as we are, society only need survive, and we have the muster to do that in many circumstances with a hell of a lot less intelligence then we have now. The only issue is that you expect to be understood without effort on your part.

Solamente,
V

[dsliscoo]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

lol, Vendetta you are cool.

Now everything has been covered..

nah uhm lol
There is a book I have been reading recently. "Everything Bad is Good For You" by Steven Johnson. Pretty much completely arguing the OP. Everything from television to the internet he argues is creating a more adaptable society. Theres statistics comparing complexity of modern shows to past shows. The difference is phenomenal. He also goes to show that although the extremes of society, the extremely smart and the mentally handicapped may not be getting any smarter but the bulk in american society is becoming smarter. Anyways its a good read for anyone is interested in this topic at all.

To the OP's comments about telecommunications I think it is probably one of the greatest advances since written word. For a leap, unitarian(particularly Transcendental Unitarian, mouth full..) beliefs were that by isolating yourself you could listen to the Greater spirit. Which is essentially everyone being connected together and talking to eachother. The great writers of this transcendental movement said this thing that your intuition is the way it talked to you for the most part anyways. Some of them believed they had dreams and things of the such, but their sanity is not what I want to bring up right now. With communication the way it is( and hopefully will spread and become) you will actually be able to know what the greater good is and determine if thats even what you want to do with a logical mind that doesn't speak in whispers or dreams. Things like the internet, phones, and even books allow a connection and unity in society that is real. Even connecting the past to the future is accompished through this. Humanity will probably find its global identity one day even if it is just some crazy armageddon and nuclear holocaust.

and as for global warming, yeah pretty sure its getting hotter.. but its hard to tell with the cycles of the world averaging out over time to see if we are actually pushing a point of no return.

[Solid Dreams]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

Also, I'm making an inductive leap, but based on your general method of arguing you probably have arguments based on what are generally effective intuitions but are not very good at articulating those intuitions. You probably expect people to have the presence of mind to understand things you feel are simple with ease, and that when people shortfall your expectations you feel that society has an issue with stupidity.

I wouldn't even say that, it's more along the lines of a toddler being told that he can't do something and he lashes out in a temper tantrum. While we may have proven him wrong, he doesn't seem to be capable of going "Okay, you're right, I'm sorry" or further arguing his points.


Which, ironically, pushes his "society is decomposing theory."

[Afrobean]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

I don't much care to read all of the posts pointing out how wrong and wacky the platform of the OP is, but Reach said something that I want to comment on:

Please provide even a single iota of scientific evidence that has been replicated on some level and published in a respectable scientific journal that does not support the notion of anthropogenic global warming.

lmao did you really need to say "anthropogenic" when you could just as easily have used a word any one could understand

That said, I've seen charts around on the Internet that indicate that while the average temperature has risen in recent years, this rise correlates with solar activity or something like that and has no correlation on the advancement of industrialization or the technological age.

Basically, I don't believe that it's our fault that the climate is changing, and furthermore, I expect that it's not a problem and merely manifestation of the planet's natural cycle. The issue has merely been sensationalized to an absurd degree, so much so that even if it is entirely anthropogenic, it's still nowhere near as bad as people think. People liken a rather minor shift in temperatures to an enormous emergency, a global catastrophe, when it's nothing of the sort. If it is man-made, then yes, something should be done about it in time, but that time is certainly not urgent. This bull**** green movement is just propaganda that doesn't mean anything. This isn't a ****ing ice age we're talking about here. You know, they're selling movies with "green" keepcases now. You know, the plastic case that a DVD comes in. They just cut out a large portion of the plastic, making the box fragile (and less costly to produce) and claim they're doing it to be green. Or that it's better for the environment. How about bottled water? They sell bottled water in "green" bottles now, but it's the same thing. They make the production cheaper, producing a cheaper product, but charge the same price and pocket the difference. It's just a means to an end for higher profits, you're not helping the environment by buying into this ****.

Sorry, I seem to have fallen into a rant there at the end. Points to take away from this post: using esoteric words when simple words work fine is silly, the shift in the climate is minor and easily not even man-made, people have bought into bull**** as a result of the over-sensationalization of what is at best a part of the natural cycle of the planet and at worst a minor problem that likely won't truly heavily impact any of us in our lifetimes.

[tangomango]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

This bull**** green movement is just propaganda that doesn't mean anything. They sell bottled water in "green" bottles now, but it's the same thing. They make the production cheaper, producing a cheaper product, but charge the same price and pocket the difference. It's just a means to an end for higher profits, you're not helping the environment by buying into this ****.

Well, I definitely agree that there are many industries that are taking advantage of the notion of climate change. Many products are being labeled "green" as Afrobean said, that often reduce the usage of something insignificantly, and at times, not environmentally healthy at all! To be honest, I feel that it's pretty pathetic that there are some people that are actually gullible enough to believe in these products.

However, I disagree that it isn't our fault of climate change. While there are many causes of it from nature, I believe that our increase dependence on cars, as well as industrial production, has caused more pollution, which in turn leads to more greenhouse gases. I admit that some of the effects of global warming projected by some seem a bit unrealistic to me (extreme weather and loss of GDP come to mind). Even if does not impact your lifetime, what about the future? What if lack of responsibility and action damages the the next generation?

To sum it all up, I agree with Afrobean's statement that many products are being labeled as "green" to increase profit. I do disagree that climate change is not our fault, however, there are many factors to take in consideration too.

[Vendetta21]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

lmao did you really need to say "anthropogenic" when you could just as easily have used a word any one could understand

Yes, he did need to say it. It signals that he knows what he is talking about and expects the same in a response. You're right that it can tend to alienate people, but this tactic is not less valid as a rule, and when someone is failing to respond with reasonable points and you need to evade argument-from-analogy fallacies in responses staying technical is the best way to maintain consistency and clarirty.

That being said, also

but that time is certainly not urgent.

The problem is that there is no way of knowing. We do not know how urgent it is. You're arguing from some sort of bias.

I know I often suggest things for you to read, but please, read up on catastrophic risks. I understand it's an imposition on liberties and that the fact that it is a zeitgeist in culture is frustrating, but that does not mean that the concern is worth being contrarian about.

You may enjoy this book

http://www.global-catastrophic-risks.com/book.html

Or the earlier postings of Eliezer Yudkowski on this website

http://www.overcomingbias.com

Or the postings on this website

http://www.lesswrong.com

Or really anything done by this school

http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/

And no I'm not going to play your game, Afro. Do not argue back, I don't care what you have to say until you've read up on global catastrophic risks. It is worth looking at them as a whole to understand the need to take serious preventative actions. It opens your eyes to the impact and importance, and it often lays it out for you in a Bayesian decision theory format to make it resonant with you that it is in our best economic interests to be proactive. I'm not going to give you an abstract because my suspicion is that you'll pick it apart because of it's lack of comprehensiveness, which is exactly what an abstract strays from.

To be perfectly clear, I know better than to argue with you by now because you will pick at the small things and misunderstand what I'm trying to explain and it's better to just suggest a resource for the topical study of what I would impart to you otherwise. And you have a particular method of antagonizing me in to keeping going, which is a frustrating ordeal, so I'm cutting it right here before we go on for 2 pages and I basically just reiterate chunks of things from the above four resources.

[Afrobean]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

The problem is that there is no way of knowing. We do not know how urgent it is. You're arguing from some sort of bias.

Based on my own understanding of the word "urgent", it is not urgent. You might consider something that'll cause trouble in the next 10 years urgent, you might consider 100 years urgent. Some might even consider the problem to be urgent merely because we may be able to reverse it with science, even if it wouldn't affect us in a negative way in the near future.

But that said, yeah, bias. I care if it affects me directly and I don't think it'll be happening any time soon.

To be perfectly clear, I know better than to argue with you by now because you will pick at the small things and misunderstand what I'm trying to explain and it's better to just suggest a resource for the topical study of what I would impart to you otherwise.

lol you claim to know better, but then bring statements against me anyway

Luckily I don't feel like putting forth that much effort and really being annoying and also I agree with a lot of what you said so whatevs

ps i only even pointed out reach saying anthropogenic because it felt more like he was dropping vocab words to try to dissuade anyone from arguing back and I personally feel that that's a worse tactic than my own tactic of just throwing gobs of words until my opponent just stops trying.

[Reach]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

That said, I've seen charts around on the Internet that indicate that while the average temperature has risen in recent years, this rise correlates with solar activity or something like that and has no correlation on the advancement of industrialization or the technological age.

Basically, I don't believe that it's our fault that the climate is changing, and furthermore, I expect that it's not a problem and merely manifestation of the planet's natural cycle. The issue has merely been sensationalized to an absurd degree, so much so that even if it is entirely anthropogenic, it's still nowhere near as bad as people think. People liken a rather minor shift in temperatures to an enormous emergency, a global catastrophe, when it's nothing of the sort. If it is man-made, then yes, something should be done about it in time, but that time is certainly not urgent. This bull**** green movement is just propaganda that doesn't mean anything. This isn't a ****ing ice age we're talking about here. You know, they're selling movies with "green" keepcases now. You know, the plastic case that a DVD comes in. They just cut out a large portion of the plastic, making the box fragile (and less costly to produce) and claim they're doing it to be green. Or that it's better for the environment. How about bottled water? They sell bottled water in "green" bottles now, but it's the same thing. They make the production cheaper, producing a cheaper product, but charge the same price and pocket the difference. It's just a means to an end for higher profits, you're not helping the environment by buying into this ****.

Sorry, I seem to have fallen into a rant there at the end. Points to take away from this post: using esoteric words when simple words work fine is silly, the shift in the climate is minor and easily not even man-made, people have bought into bull**** as a result of the over-sensationalization of what is at best a part of the natural cycle of the planet and at worst a minor problem that likely won't truly heavily impact any of us in our lifetimes.

I wouldn't say it's an esoteric word. 'Esoteric' is probably just as elite and uncommon, so please.

Anyone that knows anything about global warming knows what it means, hence its use. Yes, it is a field specific word, but I would use the same technical terminology if I was discussing physics, biology etc. Also, the meaning of this word is relatively easily inferred (Anthro-).


Anyway, to address your points:

The solar activity hypothesis was essentially disproved years ago. Experts in the field have ruled out dozens of other explanations at this point, and there is relatively little doubt about the fact that humans are, by a large factor, the largest contributor to global warming. There are undoubtedly any number of other factors, but the magnitude of the human factor is so great that the others are...irrelevant.

I don't believe that it's our fault that the climate is changing

And thus you become one of the reasons it currently is the biggest problem our species faces, given our ignorant attitude and lack of response. I don't care about what you 'believe', nor does any other scientist - beliefs are nothing - support your claims with evidence. The problem with democracy is non experts can believe anything they want to and it will have weight in the decisions that are being made.


Let me put it this way. The climate on this planet is the way it is because of its composition and the interplay between the climate and other factors here on the planet. It's natures elegant dance of physics in all it's beauty. Do you seriously believe that altering the composition of the very atmosphere we depend on will not have future consequences?


However, I'll agree with you on one point - people are cashing in on the climate problem in some respects. The problem is ...these things don't address the real cause of global warming. Some of the things like the recent 'Earth day' where people turned off their lights, for example, was a joke.

The real problem with addressing global warming is no one wants to do it, because it's inconvenient. It's easy to turn off your lights for an hour, but it's not so easy to completely reshape an industry.

[Afrobean]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

the meaning of this word is relatively easily inferred (Anthro-).

lol to be totally honest, i figured it out what it meant just because of that 8)

The solar activity hypothesis was essentially disproved years ago. Experts in the field have ruled out dozens of other explanations at this point, and there is relatively little doubt about the fact that humans are, by a large factor, the largest contributor to global warming.

Contributing doesn't necessarily mean causing. And what say you of the fact that pollutants first began being pumped into the atmosphere in the 1800s, but this global warming is a relatively new phenomena. Hell, back in the 70s, the temperature was going down and doomsayers were proclaiming an ice age was on the way. It's not as though temperatures have been steadily on the increase since we began industrialization, which is what I would expect if we were solely to blame here.

There are undoubtedly any number of other factors, but the magnitude of the human factor is so great that the others are...irrelevant.

Things like distance from the sun and the potency of the sun are irrelevant? I happen to recall from elementary school that it is the distance on the elliptical orbit that causes the difference between summer and winter, and yet you claim these things have that minor affect on this particular issue? What about the fact that the sun causes such drastic differences in climates between the arctic and the tropics? How can you so easily write the power of the Sun off?

How much has the average temperature actually risen? How does this change in climate truly correlate with industrialization? And this change in the climate in the last 30 years or whatever it's been, how much total change has there been? How does this compare to other variances in temperature recorded throughout history?

Let me put it this way. The climate on this planet is the way it is because of its composition and the interplay between the climate and other factors here on the planet. It's natures elegant dance of physics in all it's beauty. Do you seriously believe that altering the composition of the very atmosphere we depend on will not have future consequences?

Altering it can affect it, I'll admit, but if anything what we've done is augment what would be a normal cycle. Even without human interference, the climate is going to shift little by little over time. Sometimes it'll get cooler, sometimes it'll get warmer. Just in this case, it got hotter, probably hotter than it would have otherwise, and people with a bug up their butt grabbed on the opportunity to push agendas.

Our action on the planet isn't helping the planet get any cooler, but I think you overestimate the pull we have over this rock we inhabit.

The real problem with addressing global warming is no one wants to do it, because it's inconvenient. It's easy to turn off your lights for an hour, but it's not so easy to completely reshape an industry.

I think another problem aside from the fact that its not economically feasible to do what needs to be done to fix the pollution situation is that while the temperatures have been empirically proven to be increasing in recent years, causation has not and cannot be definitively applied. You say "pollution caused it", but I just think back to the fact that history says the temperature was heading down from the 40s to the 70s, and there was plenty of curb stomping for the environment back then too. This is a case where you can only point to correlation and hope you have the cause, but frankly, because of all the variables, it'd be impossible to pin this on one thing.

ps oh i just remembered something. You said something about correlations with solar activity having been disproven...? This is something I would be interested in seeing, particularly when it makes a lot more sense for me to hear "solar activity cycles and it's on a high cycle lately" than "even though industrialization began a long time ago, pollution only just began causing global warming in the past 30 years and now it is a global catastrophe!"

pps they used the word "esoteric" on family guy, so it's not that esoteric, buddy

edit: oh crap please dont rip this post apart because i honestly dont think i could will myself into giving a serious reply back

edit: lol was stumbling around the wikipedia article for "global cooling" (lol) and came across a chart that I think is pretty funny:


In other words, it's about ONE HALF degree celsius warmer now than it was in 1940. Yes, one half degree increase over 70 years prior is SUPER URGENT haha.

[devonin]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

L2biology, Afro. There are whole swaths of plant and animal life that find even a 1 degree increase in the average to make life pretty unsustainable. There are reef areas where the entire ecosystem has basically died off because the water got about 1 degree warmer on average over the whole year.

The biggest worry isn't that there's change, it's that if it's going to take adaptation and evolution to deal with an increase of even 1 degree, 2 degrees, the fact that it's .5 degrees in 60 years means if the growth remains linear, it's 1 degree in 120 years, and 10 degrees in 1200 years. This is not urgent for -you- but on Earth Time, that's pretty damn fast, certainly a lot faster than many species are going to be able to easily adapt.

[qqwref]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

On the other hand, devonin, you could argue that if a species can't deal with a one-degree increase or decrease in temperature, it "deserves" to be extinct (in a Darwininan sense). Considering that an ice age - a perfectly natural and periodic quirk of Earth's weather - can affect temperatures by something like 9 degrees Celsius, I would have to say that any species that dies out because of a tenth of this is just really bad at adapting to new environments. I don't want more species to die out, but I also don't think that it's fair to expect humans to protect such fragile species from extinction when nature would give us no such sympathy if we were in trouble.

[Reach]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

Contributing doesn't necessarily mean causing. And what say you of the fact that pollutants first began being pumped into the atmosphere in the 1800s, but this global warming is a relatively new phenomena. Hell, back in the 70s, the temperature was going down and doomsayers were proclaiming an ice age was on the way. It's not as though temperatures have been steadily on the increase since we began industrialization, which is what I would expect if we were solely to blame here.

Certainly - the problem with your original claim about Solar radiation was the graph you looked at was fraudulent. There was a documentary going around a few years ago (Great global warming swindle was the name, possibly one of the most deceitful documentaries ever aired) that took real data from a scientific paper showing solar radiation could not be a driving factor in warming, and they edited the graph to show a correlation that was nonexistent before =/ There are numerous papers published on this issue - you can look them up yourself. Be very careful when checking the sources of graphs, though.

Greenhouse gas levels have been going up exponentially since the 1800s. How that effects the temperature can be complicated, but the trend is that it has been rising faster as levels in the atmosphere rise.

You wouldn't expect them to rise linearly with industrialization, there would be a lag. Heating of the planet does not happen instantaneously with the introduction of a greenhouse gas. It takes some time for the heat to build up and raise the temperature.

Things like distance from the sun and the potency of the sun are irrelevant? I happen to recall from elementary school that it is the distance on the elliptical orbit that causes the difference between summer and winter, and yet you claim these things have that minor affect on this particular issue? What about the fact that the sun causes such drastic differences in climates between the arctic and the tropics? How can you so easily write the power of the Sun off?

How much has the average temperature actually risen? How does this change in climate truly correlate with industrialization? And this change in the climate in the last 30 years or whatever it's been, how much total change has there been? How does this compare to other variances in temperature recorded throughout history?

Distance from the sun - absolutely - that changes all the time and has little to no relevance with respect to our current rise in temperatures. Rather, the reason we get seasons is because of the tilt of the Earth. It has nothing to do with the sun itself per say, so you might want to check your facts there. 'Orbital forcing' with respect to Milankovitch cycles can cause variations in the temperature (Ice ages) but this isn't one of them.

With respect to potency, sure, that can have an effect, just not in this scenario, since we've ruled it out. At least as a driving factor. It has probably contributed to some degree - there is some evidence that solar radiation could be contributing to recent global warming, but it is in no way the whole picture.

Extreme models positing upper limits of contribution from solar radiation say about 50% contribution, but even the authors admit that is ridiculous and severely overestimated. At the same time they rule out volcanic factors entirely and most other options. So, there really isn't any evidence that I have seen to suggest that human factors are not, by far, the largest single contributing factor to global warming, which is what I'm arguing.


How much the temperature has actually risen and the predictions for the future can be found in various reports on the internet, IPCC etc. There's a ton of information on this out there.

Altering it can affect it, I'll admit, but if anything what we've done is augment what would be a normal cycle. Even without human interference, the climate is going to shift little by little over time. Sometimes it'll get cooler, sometimes it'll get warmer. Just in this case, it got hotter, probably hotter than it would have otherwise, and people with a bug up their butt grabbed on the opportunity to push agendas.

Our action on the planet isn't helping the planet get any cooler, but I think you overestimate the pull we have over this rock we inhabit.

Normal cycles don't occur at this speed. The planet has never seen anything of this magnitude before, and rightfully so given we're the first species to alter the composition of the atmosphere directly.

Sometimes it does get cooler, and sometimes it does get hotter. I think what you're failing to take into account here is that when this happens species go extinct.

And you might think I'm overestimating it, but there isn't a lot of published scientific research that suggests anyone is 'overestimating' anything - rather, most IPCC etc reports are incredibly conservative and the trend has been, if anything, that new research continues to predict more and more extreme future outcomes.

Usually when data is collected there are what are called 'confidence intervals', which express statistically how confident we are in the outcome being somewhere between a value x and y. There is a lot of pressure to present in public announcements the value on the lower end of that confidence interval, but that doesn't necessarily reflect reality, as changes are continuing to happen faster than these lower bound estimates predict.

causation has not and cannot be definitively applied. You say "pollution caused it"

When you've ruled out essentially every other factor that could be the driving force in this problem, yes, causation can be applied. No scientists studying this problem are debating this. It is very, very clear, and debating this reminds me of evolution vs creationism. Misinformation can go a long way.

Also, our behavior is amplifying all of the other factors you continue to mention, hence my use of the word 'driving force'. Greenhouse gas effects everything.

(When I say causation, I'm applying the word causation to being the cause of the driving force - There are probably other factors contributing to global warming other than us, but we're certainly the main one and the cause for our future problems, and as such I'll use the word causation.

it's about ONE HALF degree celsius warmer now than it was in 1940

You underestimate the balance of nature. One half a degree celsius is a large change, but ok, assuming it is irrelevant when it isn't, predicted changes for the next century are several degrees in magnitude.

pps they used the word "esoteric" on family guy, so it's not that esoteric, buddy

lol. Probably, but I think I've only seen it a few times, ever, in written published work, and usually by old fart scientists with pompous vocabularies. It's a pretty uncommon word, but whatever, obviously we both have larger than average vocabularies so this is a non issue ;p

if a species can't deal with a one-degree increase or decrease in temperature, it "deserves" to be extinct

Lol, I suppose, but the problem is it's going to be every species on this planet eventually if this trend continues, and that includes us (Well, to be fair extremophilic bacteria and viruses probably aren't going anywhere, but still).

Things aren't just going to magically stabilize if we continue to pump larger and larger and larger amounts of green house gas, among pollutants etc into the atmosphere. It's not just going to be a few species dying off, we're talking about mass amounts of extinction, and don't think for a minute humans are exempt from this. We depend on this planet for resources just like everything else - we are just as much a product of evolution as any other animal, and we only get what the planet gives us.

[kommisar[os]]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

should the average citizen be concerned about every single specie going extinct? probably not all of them, but it's happened before and nobody really seems to care as it has no short term effect on humanity. its not like the food we raise and cultivate is going extinct since they're under controlled environments. people aren't aware however of the importance of some species going extinct; they're simply not educated enough to care.