This is almost hard to believe.
Genetically engineer cat eyes in humans? Drugs to make you more climate-friendly? Anti-meat patches to activate your immune system against meat? Quotas allowing your family only two children or maybe three kids if they're really small? Drugs designed to stunt your children's growth?
All to save the planet from global warming.
This guy is not some nut from left field. He's a nut from the infield. He's got sterling academic credentials (Princeton, Oxford, now professor at NYU), he's well-published, and he and his Oxford collaborators are publishing this incitement to crimes against humanity in a mainstream philosophy journal.
Don't be misled by his denials. He insists that his measures are "voluntary". Of course they're not voluntary for the kids 'selected' and assaulted by the totalitarian schemes, and he endorses China-style limits on births. None of this engineering of humanity will be voluntary if these demons get their way.
The global warming movement is totalitarian. This creep is only one of many frauds and gangsters and lunatics and megalomaniacs and opportunists and sadists who populate this movement. This is Mengele-level stuff.
Don't say you weren't warned.
 |
| NYU philosophy and bioethics professor S. Matthew Liao |
Genetically engineer cat eyes in humans? Drugs to make you more climate-friendly? Anti-meat patches to activate your immune system against meat? Quotas allowing your family only two children or maybe three kids if they're really small? Drugs designed to stunt your children's growth?
All to save the planet from global warming.
This guy is not some nut from left field. He's a nut from the infield. He's got sterling academic credentials (Princeton, Oxford, now professor at NYU), he's well-published, and he and his Oxford collaborators are publishing this incitement to crimes against humanity in a mainstream philosophy journal.
Don't be misled by his denials. He insists that his measures are "voluntary". Of course they're not voluntary for the kids 'selected' and assaulted by the totalitarian schemes, and he endorses China-style limits on births. None of this engineering of humanity will be voluntary if these demons get their way.
The global warming movement is totalitarian. This creep is only one of many frauds and gangsters and lunatics and megalomaniacs and opportunists and sadists who populate this movement. This is Mengele-level stuff.
Don't say you weren't warned.
Michael,
ReplyDeleteYour headline almost had me thinking that you'd achieved some sanity with your reference to the 'global warming movement'. People who think that AGW is happening want to prevent global warming happening. It's the AGW denialists who are in the global warming movement.
I've challenged you on many occasions to disprove AGW. AGW is based on science and logic.
Greenhouse gases cause global warming by absorbing infrared radiation from the Earth and retaining heat. Without greenhouse gases, and with an albedo of 0.30, the Earth's temperature would be -18C.
Increasing greenhouse gases will increase retention of heat and hence cause global warming over the temperature it would otherwise have.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas (along with methane, which is also increasing due to agriculture), and humans are dumping huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels (currently about 8.5 billion tonnes of carbon per year), and causing the CO2 levels to increase by about 2-3 ppmv per year.
Therefore humans are caused increased global warming over the temperature the Earth would otherwise have.
All you have to do is just disprove ONE of these logical steps and you've disproved AGW. Why don't you try? (Cue Pepe to link to Plant Fossils of West Virginia, written by a coal mine engineer in 5, 4, 3, ... second).
Agreed; the suggestions of the bioethicist are silly. Encouraging a vegetarian diet is a good idea though, if only because feeding crops to meat animals is only 10% efficient. Since we are going to have to feed at least an extra 2 billion humans by 2050, and we are already using most of the arable land available, a meat diet won't do it.
Having a drug to cause severe nausea to meat sounds bizarre. Actually, I went vegetarian over 30 years ago, but mainly due to eating hospital food. The last 'meat' I ever ate was described as 'South Sea Cutlet'; I learned then to distrust any food which is crumbed (what are they trying to hide?) - it turned out to be a solid piece of fat.
All the other suggestions are impossible.
bachfiend,
DeleteYour explanation of supposed GW being caused exclusively by an increase of CO2 due to humans is so simplistic it is almost laughable. You should know that correlation is not causation.
Since I don't care to spend much time educating you (or spoon feeding you) about the real scientific method, I would suggest you read this. In case you won't click the link because it might completely deflate your AGW dogma, here is an excerpt:
First, you have to prove that the increase in CO2 is caused by humans - the venting of CO2 by volcanoes (including those under the ocean) and geysers and other natural sources (and also the natural absorption or sinking of CO2) is a estimate that defies error analysis. To what error band are we certain of the amount of emission of CO2 by natural causes?
Second, the elevation of CO2 needs to be shown to be historically real, but there were no analytical tools to measure even crudely thousands of years ago - the best work has been done with ice samples, but there is a great problem with how to calibrate such measurements. What size should the error bands be? I believe that man is responsible for a small increase in CO2 - this is supported by a lot of historical data.
Third, there has to be a hypothesis that can predict the past (only then can we start guessing about the future) including the temperatures in the upper atmosphere. Any model that can't fit past data has to be called wrong.
Fourth, as this is an open system where we can't build several earths and vary only one constant, any conclusion at best is still just a theory - a educated guess - it is not scientific fact. Science is more than looking scientific; just because things are measured to several decimal points means naught when there is no control or false logic.
Fifth, to look at the past temperatures honestly, one would have to show no past periods of higher temperature. The idea that we 'know' the inferred data - is simply wrong. We only have accurate records of solar output from the recent past and we are ignorant of the magnitude of long term historic variations that are possible. Explaining the small drift (less than what appears to be the noise in the system) can be accomplished with confounding variables. It might help to remember that 10,000 years ago Milwaukee was under 40' of ice, so we really do know that temperature can vary on its own. See this. We also have reason to believe that glaciers world wide have been shrinking for the last 300 years - this means that things other than CO2 change our climate.
Solar output has been shown as a link in weather. Also see a rigorous paper that clearly links changes in climate to sunspot activity: Linkages between solar activity, climate predictability and water resource development.
Six, one really has to subtract the effects of variations of solar output, and changes in land use (irrigation) from any temperature trends. There is no way to do this with any meaningful accuracy.
As you can see (I hope) it is not as simple as saying CO2 levels increase by about 2-3 ppmv per year and it's our fault!
Bach,
DeleteThe temperature increase you cite began BEFORE the industrial era, and is cyclical.
That fact alone destroys the AGW hypothesis.
The effect has arrived PRIOR to the cause.
Could the emissions be slowing it's declination (cooling)? Maybe. The jury is out.
Could they be counter acting a cooling in our Sun? Maybe. Is that bad?
The problem here is hubris.
We see ourselves as 'masters' of nature. We are not. We are shepherds at best, and abusers at worst. But, we cannot hope to control nature through the 'science' or politics suggested by the quacks in the field.
Any such thinking is not only arrogant, but is exactly what LEADS us to the mess we are in now.
CNTD
DeleteOn a personal note, I do not eat much meat either. I began with eliminating veal and lamb (not mutton or beef), then game (that I have not personally hunted), and recently eliminated pork (my favourite and hardest so far).
To save the earth? No. That is beyond my power.
To please God? Not really, although I hope it does.
I don't think He would judge me for feeding on what I can, or for the evil practices of the society in general. But perhaps He would view my compassion towards my fellow living creatures as 'good' or 'worthy' of a human.
I have done so primarily because I abhor cruelty and killing of any sort. Secondly, and more selfishly, because I do not want to consume horribly abused flesh. I want no party to such horrors as battery farming and GM (with HUMAN genes, no less) modified animals.
Murder and killing (of HUMANS) is the single most preventable sin in my book. As a soldier, I have seen enough of it to last a life time. I have done my best to limit that sin in my capacity.
No doubt I will see more death and killing.
But, I have decided to take it a step further.
Animal life is also important to me.
The meat, eggs, and milk that I now consume comes from farms I can literally visit, and have done so.
They are local, low intensity operations that allow the animals a full and healthy life. They are not fed the remains of their own dead, they are not pumped with steroids and 'pre-emptive' treatments/courses of volatile drugs, and they are not killed cruelly or before they have lived to reproduce.
I also have cut back on everything that requires petroleum (where possible) in my own personal conservation effort. I purchase LESS gadgets (i-this and that, e-readers, music players etc), less non recyclable goods, and use recycled pulp products.
Again, not to save the world but as a form of economic conservatism.
I SPEND less and consume less resources - thus removing myself almost entirely from that little part of the 'rat race' (apologies to rodentia).
The ironic thing is that I began all this long before the trend was popular with the lefty-lib hipster types. They were personal choices, and I am in no way preachy about them.
Nor do I think that by engaging in this behaviour it now becomes, by extension, my right to demand the killing of HUMANS in order to further reduce societal consumption (or emissions etc).
Quite the opposite.
There is no point in my exercises in control if the population of mankind culls it's young, old, and infirm. Saving a lamb means nothing, if a human baby is killed in it's place. To be for saving the lamb and to be for aborting a child is utter madness.
There is no point if all this conservation is just so we can make MORE and MORE oil bases gadgets and junk to fill the landfills and thereby 'tweet' about how green we are to our 'eco-friends'.
CNTD II
DeleteAnd so I find myself in a fight with two fronts:
The first is to convince conservative minded people it is in the best interests of all to consume less resources (of all types); and morally wrong to abuse animals (and nature in general)and further to kill them on an unprecedented scale massive scale just to let them rot on a shelf, in order to provide a cheap, chemically drenched cut of meat or fish.
The second is to expose the completely counter-productive faux-green nature of the progressive movement who see this resource/food issue as a means to advance horrible new levels of social engineering and eugenics. Save the whales or forests and kill our own children is again, MADNESS.
The truth is we can save BOTH, but we need MORALS to do so. Not simply politics or science, activism or commentary; but an objective and real moral stance that encompasses and distinguishes (discriminates) between all living things with mankind's (people, that is) well being as it's end goal.
There can be only one source for such a morality, and it is not in the subjective minds of individuals.
That source is God, the creator, the Prime-mover, the Universal mind, the PURE act...whatever you want to call Him.
CrusadeRex,
DeleteCongratulations on adopting a less materialist view of consumption.
I didn't actually cite a temperature increase from before or after industrialization. All I noted was the way greenhouse gases work, and that increasing greenhouse gases must increase global warming OVER THE TEMPERATURE THE EARTH WOULD OTHERWISE HAVE just based on the physics.
The Earth is complex. Climate is complex. We have very good understanding of the factors driving climate, but not sufficiently precise to be able to make accurate projections of climate. For a start, we don't have a good model of the Sun. We don't have any way of predicting the strength of future solar cycles and the resulting solar output. We also can't predict future volcanic eruptions. The supervolcano under Yellowstone could erupt tomorrow (all we know is that it's overdue) tipping the Earth into another glaciation.
No one, in particular Michael with his multiple threads, has attempted to disprove the logic based on simple physics of AGW.
Climate change is cyclical. Over the billions of years, the Earth has gone from icebox to hothouse conditions. For the past 3 million years, the Earth has been in an ice age (ice at both poles which is the definition of an ice age), divided into 50 or so glaciations and 50 or so interglacial periods (we are currently in an interglacial) determined by the variations in the Earth's orbit and tilt resulting in the Milankovich cycles.
William Ruddiman in 'Plows, Plagues and Petroleum' argues that humans have been altering climate much longer than since industrialization. Since the time of development of agriculture in fact, with land clearing (mainly due to burning of forests) and wet agriculture of rice releasing methane, about 10,000 years ago.
The Little Ice Age was partly or largely due in this view to the Black Death starting in the mid 14th century and the collapse in human population in the Americas due to introduced infections following Columbus in the late 15th century, allowing reforestation and a drop in CO2 levels.
It's not hubris thinking that we can affect climate. It's hubris thinking that we can do anything we want and get away with it. We might want to retain our present lifestyle with its many devices, but we have had them for only a short time. They're not a natural or even necessary component of our lives. We have to decide what's important and what isn't.
Personally, what I'd like to retain is my bicycle (for short trips), decent public transport (for longer ones) and my Kindle to read books to fill in my time usefully. Printed books are just too expensive. Even just transporting them takes a lot of energy. I have a car, but it's hardly used (around 1000 km per year).
I don't like the idea of compulsion in order to achieve desirable outcomes. I think that changing public expectations is a much better way. Instead of having a very large SUV parked in the driveway of a large McMansion (containing a very small family) to impress the neighbors who are hardly known, living a modest lifestyle should be regarded as more desirable.
Consumption for consumption's sake doesn't lead to happiness. I looked at buying the new iPad 3, but actually the iPad 1 is completely adequate, so I've decided to wait for the iPad 5 (knowing the planned obsolescence, the iPad 1 will probably have malfunctioned permanently by then).
Bach. Water vapor is a much more effective retainer of heat than either CO2 or methane. You have a program in mind to control water vapor?
ReplyDeleteYou view the atmosphere as a static system in which something added is never removed. Plant growth is removing carbon and adding oxygen all the time.
And who are you to decide whether it is too warm or too cold? Which of the endless variations of climate the earth has experienced is the optimum?
There is a very real problem of resource depletion. It is unwise to burn up all our fuel in a grand orgy of consumption lasting only two or three generations. Crying "Wolf!!" about 'climate change' only diverts attention from real problems and leads people to think that there are no problems.
Kudos, David.
DeletePeak oil is a REAL issue and is already causing political polarization, strife and conflict. Deforestation is a real issue. The wanton waste of water resources is a real issue.
AGW is a straw man designed to distract.
David,
ReplyDeleteWater vapor is one of the positive feedbacks of global warming. Without greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and with an albedo of 0.30, the global temperature would be -18C. That is, the Earth would be frozen, there'd be no water vapor in the atmosphere and the albedo would be higher than 0.30 (because the increased snow and ice would reflect more of the Sun's radiation), so the temperature would be even lower than -18C.
CO2 causing global warming results in more water vapor which increases the global warming in a vicious cycle, as the warming oceans cause a degassing of dissolved CO2.
You're making Pepe's mistake of only looking at inputs to the atmosphere. We are burning enormous amounts of fossil fuels containing carbon which hasn't seen the light of day for at least 100 million years and which took tens of millions of years to form. If new fossil fuels were currently forming at the same rate we are burning them, then we wouldn't have any problems, but they're not.
Your question about the 'optimum' global temperature is a good one. The answer is, the current temperature. The current climate largely is very good for humans. We've gone from 1 billion in 1800 to almost 7 billion now. With global warming, it's a moot point as to whether the farm land we gain in high latitudes will compensate for the farm land we might lose in low latitudes, particularly since as you move towards the polar caps, the amount of land decreases sharply (the standard Mercator projection gives a distorted picture).
Resource depletion is a different problem. However solving one problem will solve the other.
I read something about this 'shrink the people' stuff in one of the major dailies yesterday. You're right, Mike: It is almost unbelievable that people would even consider this madness.
ReplyDeleteThis little fascist should have been LAUGHED out of his position and tenure for making such suggestions. Even if the engineered crisis was proven, real, and correctable - these 'solutions' are of a nature that would make a hardened Nazi blush (with pride, that is).
I cannot begin to say how deeply suggestions like this bother me on a moral level.
Utterly wicked, and arguably INSANE.
I suggest that Matthew Liao tries each and everyone of his ideas on himself first as Proof Of Concept.
ReplyDeleteI would further suggest he changes his name to Dr. Muto.
This guy is completely bonkers!
Good call, Pépé!
DeleteI would suggest he begins with KW, however. His mind is already small, and he is most likely sterile anyway (judging by his comments about us 'breeders'.) If can shrink even KW then he should, ethically, be his own subject for phase two: Eugenics and euthanasia.
Screw the future. God wants us to be dumb fecund monkeys until we collapse the ecosystem and bring about Armageddon. Follow your leader’s examples and keep pumping out babies until you get one with Down’s syndrome or Trisomy 18.
ReplyDelete-KW
"Screw the future."
DeleteWhat about the right to 'screw'? What if we use a condom?
"God wants us to be dumb fecund monkeys until we collapse the ecosystem and bring about Armageddon."
You may want to read something. Anything.
Maybe start with Dick and Jane, then work your way with patience towards topics like prophetic vision, philosophy, or science - you know, once you have the whole 'Dick throws the ball to Jane' bit down.
"Follow your leader’s examples and keep pumping out babies until you get one with Down’s syndrome or Trisomy 18."
Pumping out babies? Such compassion for children must be your motive for supporting efforts to literally breed untermensch slave classes for the elite.
It couldn't possibly be that you, yourself are a willing slave to collectivist dogma and will support ANY measure - no matter how CRAZY or evil- to forward it...could it?
If people want to genetically engineer their children I say let them. If you can afford it, why not give your kids cat’s eyes that work much better in low light?
ReplyDeleteOf course there are risks that something will go wrong, but we’re probably not going to start our tinkering with something as ambitous as cat’s eyes. If the risk of a problem can be managed to a level equivalent to the risk that Palin took when she conceived Trig, I don’t see how conservatives can complain.
Of course I’m not suggesting that any of you good conservatives be forced to do anything. As always, I’m only arguing for the liberty of those who don’t share your parochial views.
-KW
What was the 'risk' involved in Sara Palin having a child, KW? That he or she would be 'deficient' or 'inferior'? That there would be an effort involved in raising the child? Expenses?
DeleteThe only risk I see is a new life and all the love that comes with it.
Now what is the risk of genetically engineering unborn human beings? The answer is we have NO IDEA. The science is in it's infancy, and the very concept is immoral. Do you think breeding humans like cattle or horses for pedigree (or the opposite) is desirable?
If not, how can you possibly condone the genetic equivalents.
This cuts to the point. You are hostile to any notion of a creator or God, because YOU want to play that role.
Better to reign in Hell, eh?
"Of course I’m not suggesting that any of you good conservatives be forced to do anything."
DeleteNo of course not. They might bite back.
Unborn children, however, you see fit to be forced into ANYTHING so long as it pleases their 'parents' (designers).
"As always, I’m only arguing for the liberty of those who don’t share your parochial views."
The liberty to experiment with innocent and utterly defenceless human children.
“The only risk I see is a new life and all the love that comes with it.”
DeleteGreat, because your being sent to Afghanistan to lead a Company of Down’s syndrome soldiers. Good Luck.
"Great, because your being sent to Afghanistan to lead a Company of Down’s syndrome soldiers. Good Luck."
DeleteI have done two full tours and worked as an advisor in SWA. Afghanistan was the end of my field service.
My nation has since withdrawn from a combat role in that nation and region.
I am not getting 'sent' anywhere unless there is the condition of TOTAL war, or I volunteer.
You? Have you seen service?
Are you eligible for a draft or conscription? Would you volunteer?
Are you even aware that your hypothetical/joke is a reality? That the enemy USES such people as human bombs? Maybe not. Maybe your vision is just parallel to theirs, but unrelated.
But to the substance of your hypothetical: Do you see civilian society as a mere resource for the military? Do you imagine that a nation who allows free, uncontrolled breeding of it's citizens are weak and easily toppled? Maybe you think we need an army of 'supermen' to beat our sub-human enemies.
Do you envision that we (in the west) will end up trying to fight an expeditionary war with people who have disabilities? A company of the congenitally blind perhaps? Serious suffering diabetics?
Unless you have some sort of realistic and well meaning answers to these questions I see your response as meaningless and fascistic agitprop.
Uh oh. Looks like a troll just picked on the wrong fellow to make an Afghanistan snark. Nice move, troll.
DeleteFYI, I volunteered for the US Navy and served for 6 years. I was a nuclear reactor operator on the U.S.S. Enterprise. During my last year on the ship I was the bridge “damage control phone talker” responsible for communications with the damage control organization and plotting damage on the ship schematics. My GQ station was directly behind the Captains chair. I loved it.
DeleteHere’s an old Navy Story for you. In 1985 we where exercising off the coast of Hawaii with Australian and Canadian forces. The Canadians where playing the part of the Red force. We where running with emission controls, no radio or radar, on a moonless night trying to approach Hawaii undetected when one of the lookouts spotted a ship on our port side. The Captain was surprised and asked if it was the Charles F Adams class destroyer assigned to our battle group. Having pent hours studying Jane’s Fighting Ships, I knew it wasn’t an Adams Class, and I said I thought it was a Canadian destroyer. The Captain said “That’s impossible” moments before we where informed that the ship on out port side had just hit us with six torpedoes. The judges running the exercise declared us sunk a couple of hours latter. Sneaky Canadians!
When it’s all said and done, I’m glad you guy’s are on our side.
-KW
Canadian soldiers/sailors have long distinguished themselves in combat. General Currie was one of the most effective generals on the Western Front in WWI, distinguishing himself in Passchendaele. He is considered on a par with Monash. Canadian soldiers were highly over-represented (by population) in the Entente forces in the West, and fought with exceptional valor.
DeleteMust be all of that hockey playing.
KW,
DeleteCool story. I have had the pleasure of land games with US forces in Alberta and small unit TF's at Meaford range. We were 'allies' in both cases, and tarred the German and Danish forces in the latter, while soundly beating the Brits and Germans in Alberta.
Thanks for the kind words.
"When it’s all said and done, I’m glad you guy’s are on our side."
Right back at you. For all our differences, we share many common goals, even more enemies, and a continent rich in resources.
Mike,
We have a very strong cultural pro military ethic.
I live in one of the regions of the country that has the highest enlistment rates, and there is not an oak (or maple or walnut!) in town without a yellow ribbon on it for some loved one who is deployed somewhere, even now that we are technically at peace.
Little things like forgetting to wear a poppy on the WEEK surrounding Remembrance Day (11/11) is simply unthinkable, and refusing to do so is almost criminal.
We are a nation born in the theatre of war(s), and with limited human resources - so we do the best with what we have and tend to rely on the human rather than the technical side of warfare; but we certainly dabble in both.
This ethic has served us well since the 18th Century through to the Boer War, WWI, WWII, Korea to the present conflicts. Regimental loyalty is big part of it, but the emphasis is on flexibility of roles.
The closest comparison I could make in terms of organization and concept (from my own experiences) is with the Israeli IDF; but with a very strong Loyalist twist and an utterly volunteer force. The latter being a luxury the Israelis cannot afford. We have been blessed with a large land and good neighbours (at least since Lincoln buried the hatchet).
We our very proud of our lads and lassies in uniform.
Again, thank you for the recognition. There is no higher compliment you can pay a member of the Forces in this country.
"Must be all of that hockey playing."
LOL
I am almost positive the winter has something to do with it, but the hockey is just what we do to relax and wind down :P
Fascism requires a state of crisis in order to justify sweeping away normal checks and balances and allowing the government to seize more and more control. It's no surprise that honest climate scientists out there have become encrusted with hysterical doom-mongers who advocate the statist possible solution to (imaginary) existential threats.
ReplyDeleteKT,
ReplyDeleteI like to compare AGW to eugenics. With eugenics, we had policy put into place, including compulsory sterilization, just years after genetics was rediscovered in 1900. We didn't know enough about genetics then. We still don't, not even 111 years later. We still don't know how exactly the 23,000 genes in the human genome manage to form a human being.
We had the choice of instituting a considerably premature eugenics program, with uncertain outcomes, or doing nothing. Doing nothing would have been the sensible course, because that had done humans well for at least 100,000 years.
Regarding AGW; we know the physics of greenhouse gases. The science is definite that increasing CO2 levels will cause global warming. We don't have absolute certainty as to what the effects will be.
Should we wait until we have complete certainty, and just do nothing? Well, actually doing nothing in this case is actually doing something, with unpredictable consequences. That is, doing nothing in this scenario means continuing to burn fossil fuels at increasing rates to supply the world's insatiable appetite for energy. An appetite that has developed only within recent times, since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
We've got into the present situation more or less by chance, with many people making separate decisions almost independently. I think we should reconsider and decide what's important and what isn't. People might like being able to drive large SUVs, and to be able to continue to drive them, but they weren't an option 50 years ago, and they're becoming less of an option, with the price of gasoline increasing now due to increasing demands for oil in the developing world.
The status quo has never existed. Change is the only constant. If you expect your life to be unchanging forever, you are going to be disappointed. Get ready for change, and look forward to it with anticipation, because it's going to happen.
When I was born in 1955, the global population was around 3 billion. It's now 7 billion. My ambition is to stagger on to 2060 and see Halley's Comet a second time, when the global population will be at least 9 billion. So, I expect to have seen enormous changes in the world. What I don't expect is to see 2012 continued indefinitely, because 2012 is completely different to 1990 or 1970. I also don't think that there's going to be continuous steady progress, if progress is the right word.