A new book by Chris Booker and Richard North shows how scares such as AGW are nearly always false and costly to the taxpayer. There was a review today in the Daily Telegraph:
quote:
Why, the authors would like to know, are we so susceptible to doomsday scenarios which, on subsequent embarrassed examination, turn out to be a complete load of cobblers? And what, they ask in their longest and most contentious chapter, does this have to tell us about our current obsession with man-made global warming?
For a scare to take flight, they argue, it must fulfil certain basic requirements. It must be based on something true, which is then hysterically exaggerated into a major threat.
Its danger must seem universal (eg eggs, beef, computers). It must contain the right mix of uncertainty and scientific plausibility. And it must be talked up by the media and "remedied" by the government, usually at enormous expense to the taxpayer.
Its danger must seem universal (eg eggs, beef, computers).
Eggs - salmonella problem identified and fixed. Risk weak people get poisoned and some would die otherwise.
Beef - prion problem identified related to feed. Feed changed, disease reduces. Human VCJD peaks and then falls.
Computers - coding, incompatible with 2000 date found, money spent correcting, impact avoided.
May I say 3 poor examples to present as part of such a hypothesis. I shan't be buying the book.
Well said SoM, and I can personally vouch for what happened with Y2k as I was one of many checking code for potential problems. We found a few, fixed them, and tested the programs, all before 31.12.1999.
May I say 3 poor examples to present as part of such a hypothesis. I shan't be buying the book.
It seems you completely missed the point. The book does not say that these weren’t potentially problems - but they were blown so out of proportion so as to further the politician’s propaganda and to waste taxpayer’s money. Similar to what is now happening in the case of AGW. They could have also given the “weapons in 45 minutes” and WOMD claims as evidence of this as well.
However, I suppose that the waste of taxpayers money or the exaggeration and distortion of the truth are trivialities to those posting here such as SoM and True Sceptic.
Well said SoM, and I can personally vouch for what happened with Y2k as I was one of many checking code for potential problems. We found a few, fixed them, and tested the programs, all before 31.12.1999.
I think you both missed the point with this one example and to a lesser degree with eggs and beef, I suggest you re-read the......balls I really should read to the end before posting Well said MB you tell 'em
A new book by Chris Booker and Richard North shows how scares such as AGW are nearly always false and costly to the taxpayer.
quote:
It seems you completely missed the point. The book does not say that these weren’t potentially problems - but they were blown so out of proportion so as to further the politician’s propaganda and to waste taxpayer’s money. Similar to what is now happening in the case of AGW. They could have also given the “weapons in 45 minutes” and WOMD claims as evidence of this as well.
False and costly. I think you're blowing the hype for this book out of all proportion!
Booker and Richard North should have called their book: "The Development Bug"
The pattern running through all these 'terrorisms' (SARS was my personal favourite, hilarious) is a group of people finding a 'bug' (virus, pest, microbe, gas molecule etc) onto which they can displace all their inner, private terror of 'change'. Specifically, change as a necessary consequence of development.
Humans don't develop - it is their nature to develop the environment... and humans have been doing this since pre-history. So, it's hardly surprising that human responses to development have never developed and can remain as raw and irrational now as they have always been. Thus, we have a pattern.
Usually, as can be observed with 'AGW', the bug response involves a fleeing into 'belief' in which a human-group abandons any capacity for objectivity - objectivity being seen as the human response that enables the very development (and 'change') that terrorises them.
Bugs are our secular ghosts. They allow modern man a conduit for all his most primitive anxieties. Whether they hide in machines, in other beasts, or in the air. Perhaps bugs are necessary as a way for man to carry on believing - in the face of a developing world which renders believing obsolete.
The answer we haven't found yet is just to say... 'BOOO!!' But as an antidote to believing, we may prefer to stay with our bugs.
Getting back to the thread though, our bin collections have gone to fortnightly and I couldn't help but notice that the house four doors down from mine has a bin twice as big as everyone else, he's also a boss on the council!!
Don't suppose there is a conspiracy going on is there??????????
The pattern running through all these 'terrorisms' (SARS was my personal favourite, hilarious)
Why is SARS hilarious?
It's an infectious disease that kills 5-10% of people who get it and has killed about 800 people. At the time, noone knew how infectious it was or how likely it was to spread.
With a temporary inconvenience and a small cost, the outbreaks have been eradicated.
After the fact you can smugly state that it was over the top, but what were you saying in the early days of AIDS, and what are you saying now that the disease is having a severe impact on millions of people?
Originally posted by mufcdiver: Oh TS 'COBOL' isn't so much a language, more of a list.Right up there with BASIC
I don't know what you mean by "a list". It is a computer programming language. From Wiki COBOL (pronounced /kəʊbɒl/) is a Third-generation programming language, and one of the oldest programming languages still in active use. Its name is an acronym for COmmon Business-Oriented Language, defining its primary domain in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments.
Do they mention cigarettes in the book? You used to see people smoking everywhere, all the time. Look at TV interviews and discussion shows from the 50s and 60s, or films of people going to visit the doctor and the doctor offers them a cigarette. Then along came all these scare stories about how cigarettes are bad for you, how they can cause a disease in which cells refuse to die, which you would think would be a good thing, wouldn't you? Of course there was never conclusive proof that cigarettes caused this disease, and there was never a scientific consensus, but still the government tried to get people to stop smoking, presumably so they could get more taxes off people.
but still the government tried to get people to stop smoking, presumably so they could get more taxes off people
Yes and they did. It was also admitted by a Government health official recently that to say that pregnant women shouldn't drink any alcohol at all was based on no evidence, but was a noble lie.
It is a similar case with passive smoking - there is and was absolutely no evidence that passive smoking was deadly or affected thousands of people in the UK. However, the Government considered this 'noble lie' was justified in order to bring in a smoking ban in public.
but still the government tried to get people to stop smoking, presumably so they could get more taxes off people
Yes and they did. It was also admitted by a Government health official recently that to say that pregnant women shouldn't drink any alcohol at all was based on no evidence, but was a noble lie.
It is a similar case with passive smoking - there is and was absolutely no evidence that passive smoking was deadly or affected thousands of people in the UK. However, the Government considered this 'noble lie' was justified in order to bring in a smoking ban in public.
It is a similar case with passive smoking - there is and was absolutely no evidence that passive smoking was deadly or affected thousands of people in the UK. However, the Government considered this 'noble lie' was justified in order to bring in a smoking ban in public.
I was talking about active smoking and I used the word proof rather than evidence, though since you mention passive smoking, do you not consider the BMJ study conducted a couple of years ago that estimated 11,000 a year die from the effects of passive smoking to be evidence? Not proof, but evidence.
And why did the government bring in the ban? Doesn't discouraging smoking reduce their tax revenue?
And what about active smoking? Is there in your opinion strong evidence that active smoking is harmful?
I don't know what you mean by "a list". It is a computer programming language.
Sorry TS, next time I want to make funny I'll do something like this [joke] __________________________________________________ A funny thing happened to me on the way to the forum tonight............... __________________________________________________ [/joke]
then you know not to look it up in Wikiland
BTW I think whom ever wrote that wiki was using "programming language" in its loosest possible meaning
I suppose you could change "a list" for "an essay"(bit of program snobbery lol)
but still the government tried to get people to stop smoking, presumably so they could get more taxes off people
Yes and they did. It was also admitted by a Government health official recently that to say that pregnant women shouldn't drink any alcohol at all was based on no evidence, but was a noble lie.
It is a similar case with passive smoking - there is and was absolutely no evidence that passive smoking was deadly or affected thousands of people in the UK. However, the Government considered this 'noble lie' was justified in order to bring in a smoking ban in public.
That's rubbish. There's plenty of evidence.
I think you're dealing with the Nannies Army here MB. Alcohol will be next... wait and see!
Yeh yeh yeh - but what would you be saying now if the government had done very little about BSE, for example, and the initial predictions of potentially hundreds of thousands of people being affected had come true?
It seems to come down to whether you are willing to lose a few of your so-called liberties for the sake of a more secure future. If these liberties (or luxuries) have been hard won, then I suppose people are less willing to give them up, even if the future consequences are that we are likely to lose a lot more.
You complain about a small amount of nannying now, but if the world did decend into catastrophy, we'd probably lose the vast majority of the liberties we have gained during the past century or so - and not just the right to drink and smoke and pollute.
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