humanities.philosophy.objectivism

On Mar 2, 7:21 pm, TC wrote:

> On Mar 2, 3:28 pm, David Schwartz wrote:

> > For the same reason I have a prejudice in favor of freedom and against
> > central planning.

> There is central planning and there is the passage of laws
> designed to curb irresponsible behavior.
> The two are rather different.

Absolutely. The problem is when some idiot drives without a seatbelt
and raises everyone else's insurance rates. Or when someone fails to
obtain health insurance, and cannot pay for the emergency medical care
hospitals will give them anyway.

We can justify all sorts of regulations on the grounds that they curb
irresponsible behavior that creates innocent victims and claim that
they are nothing like central planning.

Except we'd be wrong.

> > > Emitting CO2 from digging up and burning fossil carbon is
> > > a huge change.
> > Right, but we have an obvious reason to justify that, to produce
> > energy. It isn't justified by climate engineering arguments.

> Your distinctions really make no sense.

Really? Is freedom (people acting in their own interests) really that
hard to distinguish from slavery (people acting for other people's
purported interests)?

> > The alcohol manufacturers have a good reason to make alcohol. People
> > want it and will pay for it. Now if you want to *regulate* alcohol for
> > a social engineering purpose, *you* have a huge burden of proof to
> > demonstrate that your social engineering is needed and will work.

> An analogy with prohibition. Interesting.
> You may have noticed that the failed experiment of absolute
> prohibition was followed not by alcohol anarchy, but by
> more reasonable regulations.

As I've said, I don't oppose reasonable regulations. That would be
unreasonable. What I did say is that those who advocate them have a
heavy burden in showing that they are reasonable.

> In any case the "huge burden of proof" has been met with
> regard to CO2 emissions.

Well that's a separate issue. But you seem to also disagree with where
I put the burden of proof, so I'm explaining where I put it and why.

> > > > Humans have never done
> > > > anything even remotely like that before.
> > > Huh? Only since about 1800.
> > We've tried to engineer the climate since 1800?

> We've been inadvertantly making significant changes
> in the composition of the atmosphere and thus in climate
> since 1800 whether you want to admit it or not.

Right, but that's people acting in their own interest, not people
being coerced to act in the interests of others or against their own
interests. The social engineering is the change.

People have been making and taking mind-altering drugs for much longer
than people have been regulating them. The burden of proof is heavily
on those who wish to regulate.

> > > Pointers have been given to models without post
> > > 1800 CO2 input and with post 1800 A-CO2 input.
> > > The A-CO2 models are the ones that fit the data.
> > Actually, they both fit the data equally well if you slide the
> > baseline.

> Nonsense.

> > Of course, the baseline was carefully adjusted in the one
> > with A-CO2 and was not adjusted in the one without A-CO2.

> Nonsense. Whose twaddle are you quoting from?

Look at the data. It's mind-bogglingly obvious.

> > Anyone can construct two models, one that fits the data better than
> > the other.

> Not two models. Same model run with different inputs.
> One run with man's CO2 input, one run without.

The model contains numerous parameters whose correct value are only
known within huge error bands. How you choose those parameters
determines the output you get. Slight changes will cause the non-A-CO2
outputs to better match reality. A slight change in North-South heat
flux, for example, still keeping it well within the 95% confidence
interval, will result in the opposite results.

Other parameters are clearly arbitrary and there is no inherent reason
to expect one value to be any better or worse than other. For example,
the model must assume that blocks of a certain size contain air at the
same humidity. (We can't track every molecule.) Small changes in this
size (which is inherently arbitrary) can result in changes in the
output that are about four times bigger than the result with A-CO2 and
the result without it.

DS