NO! Nazis Merit No First Amendment Protections

                                                                                      
Neo-Nazi filth - such as these at Charlottesville-  do not merit first amendment protections given if they ever came to power they'd abolish them.

Walk down any city street in Frankfurt, Munich, Cologne or Bonn and you cannot help but notice there is robust free expression. Merely engaging German citizens of any of these burgs for a few minutes discloses it.   But one thing you will never hear is any defense of Nazi memes, nor will you see Nazi flags - unless you can locate a WW II museum. Indeed, even the effort to spread such toxic nonsense can earn the person a year or more in prison, and significant fines.

Have the Germans gone bonkers? Have they gone over the top? No, they merely learned from bloody, barbaric experience after 6 million Jews were dispatched in Hitler's death camps, and tens of millions perished in bloody fashion around the world - with over a million Germans who had to pay for Hitler's insanity. Germans learned enough from their history not to be so daft as to enable toxic memes and mind viruses under the pretentious baloney of "free speech".

In May, 1985, near Bielefeld, Germany, I met with two former Wehrmacht soldiers who themselves had resolutely refused to join the Nazi party. (About 5 percent did join to receive perks the others did not such as extra rations, clothes etc.)

In Teutoburger forest with Dieter, left, and Hans, right - along with our translator Reinhardt

The two former soldiers, Dieter and Hans, were part of a German choral group my wife Janice was then performing with. Anyway, we went to the Teutoburger Forest where one battle was fought near the end of the war.  When I asked Dieter and Hans about the Nazi influence in Germany they responded almost in unison:

"We learned to our lasting shame that the Nazis took advantage of our freedom principles (associated with then Nuremberg democracy) to put themselves in power and stay there long enough to destroy Germany and Europe. We now know much better!"

They were referring to how Hitler and his  Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei  or Nazi party used the democratic process itself to catapult Hitler into power and then used the mechanics of then Nuremberg government and the Reichstag to destroy all principles of free expression using the Enabling Act. See e.g. http://www.dw.com/en/the-law-that-enabled-hitlers-dictatorship/a-16689839

THIS is specifically why the Nazi party, Nazi offshoots or Nazi spokesmen cannot be allowed the privilege of free speech or protections under the First Amendment. Why?  Because we already know from history (in 1930s Germany)  the template they would use against our democratic, constitutional edifice. Simply put, we can't take the chance that history will repeat, ever again.

But Americans, having never undergone what Germany did, simply don't get it. Even the brightest - like fellow members of Intertel, fail to grasp why the Germans are as tough on speech as they are. Back in November last year I cited the words of fellow member Steve Mason writing in an essay: 'Dangerous Ideas', (Integra, Nov.-Dec, .p. 18) :

"Here's a really Dangerous Idea: The Holocaust is a hoax. It must be a Dangerous Idea because simply repeating those five words will get you jailed in  more than a dozen countries, including: Belgium, France, Germany, Romania and Poland."

Mason then made an absurd parallel putting the "holocaust hoax" on the same "dangerous idea" level as the Apollo Moon landings hoax. In the latter case,  citing all kinds of nonsense "evidence", e.g. American flag "rippling" on an airless world, from idiot lunar landing hoax websites.

This analogy showed Mason lacked any balanced rational insight to compare these two. In effect, comparing the claim of hoax for an actually recorded historical genocide to a nonsense claim which is easily refuted by reference to lunar laser ranging experiments - only made possible by the fact laser reflectors were left on the lunar surface....by humans.

Mason appeared to regard both ideas as merely equally "goofy". He scribbled, in regard to the lunar landing deniers (p. 21):

"The last I heard no one was locking them up.  Being goofy isn't against the law, so what is it about questioning the death camps that creates such a stir?"

Totally missing the point of why a serious distinction must be made. The upshot of actual German history, as my German sister-in-law Krimhilde put it, is that even frivolous dismissal of the holocaust plays directly into the neo-fascist platforms, as we beheld in Munich back in 2013, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/what-are-new-german-nazis-really-up-to.html

The Germans today take heed of George Santayana's famous words "those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it." They would rather err on the side of legal heavy handedness than regret it later when a future Fuhrer tries to duplicate the inhuman acts of the earlier one.  Impossible? Then read the Financial Times article below ('Ideas That Fed The Beast of Fascism Flourish Today') on how the same forces active in Europe in the 1930s are also present today:

https://www.ft.com/content/599fbbfc-a412-11e6-8898-79a99e2a4de6

The nations that prosecute holocaust denial do so in order to impose a painful reminder that one cannot just lie about the past as a cynical way to sweep it under the rug to thereby better enable similar horrors in the future.  To put it another way: They already experienced the horrors once,  they have no intention to do so again! Thereby harsh laws punishing the denialists (who effectively diminish the holocaust)  are intended to send an uncompromising message: "You spread this crap - undermining the historical truth- at your own peril. We will not tolerate your lies here!"

The same goes for racial supremacy doctrines such as today's Neo-Nazis spout. They can't be allowed to gain any more of a foothold in a nation already riven by race. The Nazis especially can't be allowed a say - in a park, city town hall or anywhere - because we know they are now also about enacting policy with an ally in the White House. (WSJ, Aug, 17, p. A1)  The Nazis cited in the piece also made it clear they no longer aspire merely to more marches and rallies but policy changes.  These could include everything from limiting immigration, especially of Mexicans and Muslims, to building a border wall using taxpayer money, to fielding a new "security" arm similar to the Nazi Gestapo.

A recent WSJ interview ('The First Amendment Is For Nazis Too', Aug. 26-27, p. A11)  with legal academic  Richard A. Epstein saw him trying to argue that even Nazis deserve first amendment protections. This coming from a Jewish academic who appears to have unlearned or forgotten the lessons of history, period.   He argues in abstract jargon about the "solipsistic left" and "nonactionable offense" but has no clue what these terms really mean - say as they applied when the Hitlerites used their speech to take over Germany.

He expostulates:

"There are certain harms that are nonactionable and offense is one of them. If I say something that you find truly offensive, you may protest, you may speak - but what you may not do is to sue me in order to silence me, or to get compensation from me. Counter speech is the appropriate remedy under these circumstances, suppressing speech isn't"

Which I can agree with  in nearly all circumstances - but not all.  That includes holocaust denial as well as circulation of Nazi memes and mind viruses including the proposed extermination of all untermenschen (inferior humans) and also the open advocacy of policies that would terminate the very free speech those like Epstein argue for.   Those were the same policies advocated by Adolf Hitler, as evident in his Mein Kampf, as well as promulgated by current Nazis. In Germany these riff raff are sued, fined or locked up and that ought to be a standard applied here too,.

If an ideology (like Nazism)  ultimately seeks to destroy the very  'free speech' it currently claims to use (under the 1st amendment)  we are now in a meta-context.  This is exactly the meta-context Hitler and his bunch methodically employed in the early 1930s to convert Germany to a one-party state with NO subsequent free speech for anyone but the Fuhrer - and certain of his groupies - like Joseph Goebbels and Rudolph Hess.

As my German friend Reinhardt put it, if an ideology has as its ultimate goal the extirpation of the very speech it uses currently to spread hate, it cannot be allowed circulation. It then becomes no different from the smallpox virus - say released by insane people under the doctrine that "all living things or potential living things, like viruses, have the right to survive and compete for existence in our world". 

In his WSJ interview Epstein claims:

"Freedom of speech means that you have the right to use your own resources to advance your own causes. But it doesn't give you, in the name of free speech, the right to take somebody else's telephone, somebody's house or somebody's anything to use for your own purposes"

Thereby making the point that freedom of expression is "embedded in the much larger and comprehensive system of property rights".

And yet Epstein appears to forget, or never processes, that this is exactly what the German Nazis did to the Jews. First, they used the very free speech allotted them by Nuremberg democracy to get enough people to believe in them and vote for them in the 1932, 1933 elections.  (In the elections held in March, 1933, a record 88.8 % of the electorate turned out, and 39, 343, 331 votes were cast. The National Socialists received 17,277,328 or 43.9 percent, entitling them to 288 deputies in The Reichstag.) Then, once in total power- after Hitler became Chancellor -  they terminated all extant liberties and the laws on which the German parliament (Reichstag) was based. (Google 'Enabling Act')  Then, they seized all Jewish property - including businesses, homes and bank accounts. And finally - they dispatched those dispossessed Jews to concentration camps where they were exterminated as "untermenschen", e.g.

Scene outside of Mauthausen concentration camp photographed by Russian soldiers who liberated that camp in 1945

THIS is precisely why NO Nazi ideas or memes must ever be permitted the "oxygen" of free speech to spread, ever again. Like the smallpox virus it must be isolated and kept at bay with a zero tolerance policy. Epstein himself is a blatant fool for even remotely considering modern day followers of this bestial philosophy to air their toxins.

Epstein, vaunted legal guru that he is, is also totally wrong about Google's firing of James Damore, the right wing nitwit who posted a ten page memo trying to tie women's job performance to their biology and innate mental aptitude. He insists (ibid.):

"Google is basically massively intolerant.  Here was a guy a data analyst, wo was not even against diversity. He said he wasn't".

Disclosing a naivete on a par with awarding Nazis free speech.  In fact, any person with more than air between the ears reading Damore's memo saw exactly how opposed to diversity he was, no matter what he "said". (Hitler also "said" he'd lead his countrymen to a greater, more enriched future and 'Lebensraum'. How did that turn out?)

As for firing Damore, Google was perfectly entitled to do so. In the case of 'Waters v. Churchill' the Supreme court made clear that an employee's speech is not protected if the employer  believes the speech might interfere with the efficiency of the employer's operations.  Since it is clear that allowing Damore's presence (after his memo went viral) would definitely undermine Google's efficiency of operations, it was clear Google had to give this right wing troll the heave ho, all the Right's whining aside.

Let me add here, for completeness, that preventing Nazis  "oxygen" for their speechifying need not depend on the feds to achieve it. We've already  shown here in Colorado Springs how a simple boycott can persuade a major resort to ditch plans to provide these vermin a platform. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2017/08/colorado-springs-succeeds-in-barring.html

The beauty of the Springs boycott is that no one was really trying specifically to take away the "speech rights" of the Nazis and white supremacists, merely their platform, their venue. The could have chosen another one but up to now have decided not to.   This may be all the alert and aware citizen can do now to halt the spread of these virulent memes - but in the COS case, it was enough.

Of Dangerous Ideas - And 'Dumb And Dangerous Ideas' From Dr. Steve Mason

Dr. Steven Mason  (left)- unable to distinguish a dangerous idea from a dumb and dangerous idea. Right- Joseph Schmitz, holocaust denier appointed as Trump foreign policy advisor.

In his latest Integra essay 'Dangerous Ideas', (Nov.-Dec, .p. 18) , Dr. Steve Mason outdoes himself with pseudo intellectual nonsense with his endorsement of "dangerous ideas". This would be a terrific essay if only Dr. Steve had managed to discriminate between the truly dangerous, for example - natural selection - which is true, and the merely dumb and dangerous, e.g. holocaust denial.  But alas, he doesn't, instead almost frolicking in the sheer contrarian shock value of the latter.

Why is this important? Well, because too many of our fellow citizens know too little about the holocaust and WW II in general. This knowledge gap enables hucksters and propagandists to harvest their brains. One of whom is Joseph Schmitz, a recent foreign advisor named by Trump to his administration. Schmitz acquired infamy by proclaiming, in dismissing the holocaust, that:

“the ovens were too small to kill 6 million Jews.”

Leaving out that the Jews were not killed in ovens, but in large gas chambers, as at Auschwitz.  The ovens were used to incinerate the bodies afterwards but because of the mass of victims, the Nazis later went to mass graves. It became too difficult to cremate thousands of gassed bodies at one time. This is why Dr. Steve's remarks bear scrutiny in the context of  his "Dangerous Ideas" theme. Let's return to natural selection as a dangerous idea before going to Steve Mason's example of holocaust denial.

In the case of natural selection which Tufts professor Daniel Dennett covered in his book, 'Darwin's Dangerous Idea', we have a truly dangerous idea, the moreso because it is true. We learn of a 4 -step loop process that amounts to "a mindless algorithm that displays no intent, no design, no purpose, no goal, no deeper meaning. This simple algorithm has been running on Earth for four billion years to produce every living thing, and everything made by every living thing" . A purposeless, algorithmic process - the horror!

It is "dangerous" precisely because it undermines orthodoxy (in this case religious) but also because it has the benefit of being true in the scientific sense - meaning  has been validated a gazillion times.  Then Mason breaks down and blows it with this.  (Even wifey, when I showed her his reference, exclaimed: "What an idiot!"): Mason actually wrote:

"Here's a really Dangerous Idea: The Holocaust is a hoax. It must be a Dangerous Idea because simply repeating those five words will get you jailed in  more than a dozen countries, including: Belgium, France, Germany, Romania and Poland."

Mason then draws an absurd parallel putting the "holocaust hoax" on the same "dangerous idea" level as the Apollo Moon landings hoax. In the latter case,  citing all kinds of nonsense "evidence", e.g. American flag "rippling" on an airless world, from idiot lunar landing hoax websites.

This again shows Mason lacks any balanced rational insight to compare these two. In effect, comparing the claim of hoax for an actually recorded historical genocide to a nonsense claim which is easily refuted by reference to lunar laser ranging experiments - only made possible by the fact laser reflectors were left on the lunar surface....by humans.

Incomprehensibly, Mason appears to regard both ideas as equally "goofy". He scribbles, in regard the lunar landing deniers (p. 21):

"The last I heard no one was locking them up.  Being goofy isn't against the law, so what is it about questioning the death camps that creates such a stir?"

He then speculates it might be because "support for Israel will diminish"

But he's off base in his reasoning. As I showed before, Mason often makes erroneous conclusions in his assorted essays predicated on a solipsistic viewpoint. For example, in his June Port of Call effort he actually questioned whether global warming is real based on: "Clearly I don't know but then who does?" To which I pointed out that Mason is not a climate scientist - like Prof. Gunter Weller- so no surprise he wouldn't know, his specialist training is in psychology not climate science.

The same sort of skewed reasoning leads him to question death camp denial based on something like offending Israel. In fact, it is a dangerous idea because extreme right, pro -fascist parties (like Marine Le Pen's National Front) in France, actually exist in the here and now. Further, they are eager to invoke holocaust denial as an auxiliary means to advance their own justifications for existence and agendas. The upshot of actual German history, as my German sister-in-law Krimhilde put it, is that even frivolous dismissal of the holocaust plays directly into the neo-fascist platforms, as we beheld in Munich back in 2013, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/what-are-new-german-nazis-really-up-to.html

Those "dozen nations" Mason cites, therefore,  do not want a repeat of history, in line with George Santayana's famous words "those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it." They would rather err on the side of legal heavy handedness than regret it later when a future Fuhrer tries to duplicate the inhuman acts of the earlier one.  Impossible? Then read the Financial Times article below ('Ideas That Fed The Beast of Fascism Flourish Today') on how the same forces active in Europe in the 1930s are also present today:

https://www.ft.com/content/599fbbfc-a412-11e6-8898-79a99e2a4de6


The nations that prosecute it, for Steve's information, do so in order to impose a painful reminder that one cannot just lie about the past as a cynical way to sweep it under the rug to thereby better enable similar horrors in the future.  To put it another way: They already experienced the horrors once,  they have no intention to do so again! Thereby harsh laws punishing the denialists (who effectively diminish the holocaust)  are intended to send an uncompromising message: "You spread this crap - undermining the historical truth- at your own peril. We will not tolerate your lies here!"

So Mason has his head and emphasis in the wrong place. Apart from those countries bearing far right parties eager to exploit holocaust denial they were also places whose citizens were packed  into box cars for transport to death camps (Treblinka,  Auschwitz,  Mauthausen etc.)  to be gassed and for which we possess actual visual and other recorded evidence that it happened, e.g. the scene below photographed outside of Mauthausen by Russian soldiers who liberated that camp in 1945:


This is emphatically not the stuff of droll essays in a high IQ journal, or invoking facetious word games.

Poland was among the worst affected nations, featuring the death camp Auschwitz, where over 1.6 million were slaughtered and Dr. Josef Mengele performed hideous experiments on children, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/01/auschwitz-commemoration-why-wasnt.html


Mason, by using a specious basis to compare dangerous ideas  (conflating goofy, stupid ones with serious ones) actually demeans and diminishes the import of the real ones, e.g.  the denial of the factual genocide of 6 million Jews.   Let us also  reference how he earlier chirps: "I should come clean and admit I like dangerous ideas!"  Evidently, both the dumbass and the serious dangerous, like holocaust denial.

Now, to be fair, Mason is not a stupid guy by any means. He can't be to have become a doctor in psychology or a member of Intertel. However, he does have a habit of becoming overly enchanted with his own peculiar, idiosyncratic ruminations. This solipsistic fascination leads him to wander off the rational reservation at times,  writing idiotic essays in Intertel's media.

Recall Mason is the same character who wrote several months ago (in the June Port of Call NL):

 "How can I believe anything when what I believe changes?"   This is actually a misrepresentation of his stance when what he really meant was "How can I believe anything when the science behind it changes?" And seen in this light, one wonders if Mason was ever a genuine scientist at all, because the very nature of the scientific enterprise is to mount new discoveries, via new findings obtained from ever more refined instruments and techniques. Hence the change from the old epicycles-based Ptolemaic solar system to the heliocentric one. Or, the change from Bohr's simple 'planetary' model atom to the wave model of Schrodinger, Born et al. Or the change from Newtonian gravitation to general relativity (though the former is still used for space trajectories, missions).

In the current essay, after ruminating on Darwin's dangerous idea,  he recycles  similar nonsense to that  he opined in the June PoC, writing (p. 19).:

"The world of science - if you wait long enough - is always wrong anyway!"

If he really, truly believes this codswallop I'd like him to explain to me how it is we can reliably use celestial mechanics to send space craft (like Curiosity Rover) to Mars, and the Horizons probe to Pluto.  If science is "always wrong" how can that be? Well, ok, maybe he's thinking 5 billion years in advance when orbits likely shift for a variety of reasons. But, in that case it isn't the (current) science that's wrong, it's the fact orbital elements would have changed.

Same thing with quantum theory, one of the most complete we have, which enables us to correctly predict the spectral line emissions of atoms as well as the working of solid state devices.

It seems clear based on these examples that Mason's glib takes on physical science disclose he really doesn't know much about it. I would bet he actually thinks that because Einstein's theory of gravity is used, Newtonian gravitation is wrong or passe.  If so, he'd  probably be amazed to learn that Newtonian gravitational theory is what enables our celestial mechanics to get space craft to Mars, the Moon, or Jupiter.

The point is that a real scientist - even a psychiatrist or psychologist- would know and understand science HAS to change for our understanding of the cosmos, nature to evolve. It is unscientific and naive to expect findings to remain static. At the same time, the true expert in science has to know that changes in a scientific discipline - like physics - don't necessarily mean the former theory is chucked. Again, look at Newtonian gravitational theory and Newton's laws of motion.  These still have applicability at macro-scale levels, and at speed much less than the velocity of light, c.

Other Mason examples in his essay are more clearly and rationally chosen, and articulated. For example, the dangerous idea that "religion is a WMD". (Though I would have phrased it as a "mind virus of mass destruction")  Another plausible choice is that "our system of government causes us to elect the worst candidates".  (Say like Donald Trump) To support that dangerous idea he cites evidence from evolutionary psychology, to wit, "groups work best only when they get behind a leader, to put him in that position".  This contrast with our money-graft  system where candidates aspiring to be leaders must incessantly beg for money and votes, so "are probably the least well qualified for command" - again from an evolutionary psychology standpoint.

These are "dangerous ideas" to be sure, like Darwin's natural selection, but based on a record of data, investigations and historical experience. They are worthy of consideration in an essay aimed at  people in the upper 1 percent of IQs, in other words. But holocaust denial and fake lunar landings are not in that same category. The first is indeed dangerous, and not merely as an idea.  The second is too stupid and easily disproven to be considered truly dangerous.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/thom-hartmann/69871/the-big-trump-media-story-bannon-and-a-crew-of-dangerous-propagandists-are-in-the-cockpit-of-national

The Intelligent Irrationalists: Why So Many High IQ Folks Deny Sound Science

A recurring problem for discussion in many professional scientific organizations is how to get out ahead of pseudo-science and in particular denial science: the denial of scientific legitimacy (or mocking it with facetious putdowns). The classic example is for human-induced global warming and what most concerns many climate scientists is a specific subset of intellectual critic referred to as "intelligent irrationalists".

These people, often in high IQ societies like Mensa and Intertel,,  fancy themselves "debunkers" but fail to perceive they are, in fact, sophisticated "bunkers" : the disseminators of bunkum and rubbish thanks to their own intellectual blind spots (especially in the critical thinking capacity) and also their irrationality.

What has often irritated and puzzled me - not necessarily in that order- is how so many of these denizens feel so confident to spout off at length about topics like global warming - despite the fact they've likely had the most passing acquaintance with thermal physics. The thread I have seen through all their assorted critiques - say like Intertel's Kort Patterson - is they lean almost entirely to Libertarianism or some entrenched and unquestioning belief in market economics. The upshot is that their adulation of the latter leads them to craft a counter narrative in the guise of real science (but more analogous to creationist "science") to attack genuine climate science.

There may be some psychological and sociological ballast to this. We've already seen, for example, the thesis of Stanford historian of science Robert Proctor who correctly ties global warming denial to the trend of pseudo-skepticism sown deliberately and for political or economic ends . In other words, the agents of agnotology - whoever they may be- are all committed to one end: extolling economic profit over human habitability of planet Earth.  Some disgusted climate scientists have even referred to this breed of economically dominated denizens as "Homo Economicus" to distinguish it from Homo Sapiens.

But a another side to this has been articulated by Yale Law school prof and science communication researcher Dan Kahan.  He has concluded that most information processing - especially by the intelligent irrationalists -is determined by their own deep-seated political values and cultural identities. Thus, a white libertarian member of  Intertel, for example, will see global warming science as just one more vehicle of  subversive force backed  by the "untermenschen"  to be used against his precious economic values and Eurocentric ideals. All of this then attributed to "global warming alarmism". At this point, his thinking is already so corrupted and contaminated it's almost impossible to break through on any rational or critical thinking level.

In general, according to Kahan's theory, these high IQ skeptics - or who fancy themselves such, don't really have the time to evaluate every piece of evidence that comes before them (say ice cores containing CO2) so basically punt. Instead of rationally and objectively evaluating the evidence they side with the top bananas in their political group  - in this case folks like Charles Murray- and use their generic  economic arguments (i.e. against taxes as "theft" and "force")  to attack climate science or more precisely the climate science consensus that human induced warming is real, e.g.

http://sciencepolicy.agu.org/files/2013/07/AGU-Climate-Change-Position-Statement_August-2013.pdf

Driven by this short cut mental modality, they then seek out those oddball contrarians (like Willie Soon) who do sound off against the climate consensus, even though they are dead wrong, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/02/another-climate-scientist-fake-exposed.html

Thus, the stage emerges for the next phase: cherry picking only the data which conforms to the economic or political values of one's identity group, in this case, libertarianism. It is also by now become a self-reinforcing mechanism: the more one gets exposed to the faux science that  supports one's economic and political stance the more one continues to adopt that position and related ones further out. These include far out, paranoid ideations that one's opponents "demand that Western Industrial Civilization commit cultural suicide by adopting the crippling constraints sought by the global warming conspirators."  in the words of Kort Patterson.

In other words it's not that much of a jump from the irrational rationalizations underpinning one's position based on a group identity, to conjuring conspiracy theories targeting the out groups (real scientists and citizens - government officials who support them)

Related to the cherry picking of data, there is also the noisome tactic of mischaracterizing research methods and results, for example mocking the 'hockey stick" ansatz of Michael Mann.  In the words of one Intertel AGW denier Carol Dane:

"One hundred and twenty eminent scientists here, some Nobel laureates with impressive credentials, denounce Michael Mann and his hockey stick chart on which so much fraudulent global warming argument is based."

No mention that the bulk of those "eminent scientists" were economists, former NASA engineers, chemists, geologists, biologists and psychologists. Also that a number of climatologists  subsequently published their own reconstructions of global temperatures from independent lines of research that vindicated Mann's research by showing similar if not identical trends in temperature..

But again, this is the nature of the criticism from the intelligent irrationalists, who also comfort themselves (as members of Intertel, say) that few mortals will be able to take them on and dismantle their nonsense.

Another key attribute of their irrationality which especially stands out in Kort Patterson's tirades against AGW is focusing on perceived implications rather than examining the evidence itself. Thus Patterson leaps to the hysterical implication that climate scientists who've published in support of anthropogenic warming "demand that Western Industrial Civilization commit cultural suicide ".

In its irrational extremism it is really not much different from an anti-evolutionist who might assert: "well, if evolution is true and we all descended from a common primate ancestor we could as well kill ourselves because we don't have souls and life has no purpose".

Again, an unhinged,  hysterical implication. (Though I am sure Kort would disagree with the comparison)

Another  recurring irrational tactic of the economic obsessives in the high IQ societies is to make personal attacks on the scientists themselves, or their methods - say like Michael Mann and his hockey stick.  Thus, instead of focusing on the science (which admittedly most of these people are weak in) they claim the scientists have "rigged'" or "fudged" their research or data to support a scientific consensus. All it takes by this time is the slightest news or hint of subterfuge (say like the overblown climate gate brouhaha) to establish a specious confirmation bias and make them believe it's true and there really is a global conspiracy.

The most depressing aspect, as Kahan observes, is there may be little that can be done by the genuine rationalist or scientist to convince these intelligent irrationalists of their folly. That may have to await the extreme unfolding of multifold climatic disasters in real time, in whatever form - e.g.

http://video.pbs.org/video/1108763899


to finally turn this lot into believers or at least accepting the plausibility of the premise.. Even then they are just as likely to write off the effects, i.e. "That  51-day  heat wave leading to monster fires was just a meteorological disturbance".

As Kahan and others observe, all this discloses humans are hard-wired for irrational thinking. Science in its legitimate practice can certainly help to abate such tendencies but if the afflicted persons distrust even science (as "rigged") , there is little that can be done. That critique also applies to the superficial, frivolous lot of 'so what?' skeptics such as Intertel's Steve Mason - unprepared to invest mental capital in anything.. Hence, willing to believe anything even codswallop from the likes of Kort Patterson.

In the end the lack of any discrimination in the latter may pave the way for even more expressions of irrationality, based on "why accept anything when science is always changing" or to use Mason's words: "How can I believe anything when what I believe changes?"  

Those like Mason  are probably convinced they are the ultimate "rational"  AGW critics  using a meta-template to ascribe any risks of  climate change  as "inflated". But in the end they are just as irrational as the outright irrationalists - only adopting a less discernible cover to the superficial observer. But for those of us who've been fighting this lot for over 40 years in different forums, they aren't fooling anyone - at least not us!

Have Humans Really Never Had It "So Good"?

A current meme making the rounds - especially amongst academics- is that modern day humans have "never had it so good". While they may be getting ground under by the one percenters and corporations, and many can barely make ends meet - never mind- they can still get to Walmart for a new DVD, video game or whatever.

One part of this meme is that humans are too attuned to "look for trouble" rather than be grateful and appreciate what they've got. Why are they bellyaching, for example, about Confederate flags no longer being sold at Walmart when  - compared to a Middle Ages serf - they are basically living like Kings with their own home ("castle") and even enough money to buy HDTVs, guns and even swimming pools?

One strong advocate for this put on the happy face and be thankful for what you have is Dr. Steve Mason in his Integra (June, p. 21) article, 'A Happy Face'.  But before we get to Steve let's deal with another powerful meme related to it, promoted by another Steve named Pinker. This is that compared to past eras human violence has decreased qualitatively and quantitatively. Pinker frames it as a "decline of evil".

 If indeed the aggregate indices and totality of human-instigated evil have declined,  it means nearly all the apocryphal tales of religious books and literature are wrong or at least exaggerated. It means in addition, that the entire meme of Eschatological Messianism is defunct and debunked. The latter, of course, refers to the period of glorious dominion presumed to follow the last period of world history, after Armageddon, when the "Antichrist" ( the ultimate Evil-doer) is due to briefly reign, followed by a Second Coming of Christ. This is all according to evangelical-fundamentalist Christians in the U.S.

Countering the Armageddon bafflegab is the strong evidence that violence in toto appears to have declined around the world relative to other eras. If this is valid, and not merely a statistical quirk, it means at least one element of human evil is in decline. These propositions, or their derivatives, are implicit in Stephen Pinker's recent book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. I am deliberately associating violence with manifest human evil as at least a proxy indicator of its extent. Pinker's arguments are essentially based on two propositions that he sets out to prove:

1) The past was far more beastly and vicious than presumed to be, and

2) The present is vastly more peaceful, contrary to appearances.


 In a way these propositions are fairly sound. For example, in the immediate past rationalism was virtually non-existent and when rationalists did emerge, they were rapidly eliminated. Not only their minds, but bodies too, as well as property and often any offspring. Most of this was done via the Inquisition which lasted for nearly seven hundred years. Though they’d never admit it in a million years, the Vatican and Roman Catholic Church actually harbored one of the most malignant forms of human evil, in that same Inquisition.

 In his excellent monograph The Inquisition of the Middle Ages, Henry Charles Lea, in his chapter Subjection of the State  notes how papal bulls and direct threats were used to subvert and co-opt all state, civil authorities. This was to render them useless to oppose the will of the Inquisition. One such bull issued by Pope Innocent IV on May 15, 1252, is described as[1]: a carefully considered and elaborate law...to establish machinery for systematic persecution as an integral part of the social edifice in every city and every state

Each ruler or magistrate thereby became the extension of the Church itself, and could apply bans, imprisonment, property confiscation or outright punishment to those deemed heretics and do it in the name of the Holy Inquisition. In this way, a civil metastasis of the physical evil embodied in the Inquisition could be spread far and wide.

 Ad extirpanda ensured that the vicious violence perpetrated under the guise of protecting dogmatic or doctrinal purity was applied to a vastly larger population than it otherwise might have been. Because of its violent extent, especially in relation to seizure of property, it's estimated that by the middle -1300s half the population of then western civilization had been subjected to it, an unheard of proportion.

 By comparison, the most recent outbreak of  mega-magnitude violence was World War II in which some 73 million are estimated to have been slain, either in direct combat, or in brutal purges and  mass exterminations such as the Nazis perpetrated in their concentration camps, including at Mauthausen, Treblinka and Auschwitz. Even so, 73 million dead would not even comprise 10% of then populated western civilization, say ca. 1944-45. Meanwhile, the proportion butchered or with property seized by the Vatican’s Inquisition represented a far greater proportion than 10% of the then human population.

Thus, although modern era evil and violence appears more extensive and vile, it really isn't. It's a trick of our perception and historical selection bias. Pinker himself argues that "murder rates in England peaked in 1300 and in New England in the late 17th century. Afterwards, both fell dramatically."

 Pinker also accurately notes that in the modern era (from late 19th century through today) wars rather than tribal - religious wars or crimes, accounted for the lion's share of violence, and hence evil. But even given greater numbers killed in such conflicts, this form of mega-violence has been in marked decline for the past two decades. And while we may see genocides in these conflicts, such as in Rwanda in 1994, they pale beside the disproportionate genocides conducted by ancient Israelite Tribalists. These were all.in the name of Yahweh, i.e. against the Canaanites, if Genesis is to be believed. Indeed, if those accounts are true, it means some 500 -1000 times more humans were wiped out (as a proportion of then population), never mind the justification for it.

In this sense, Pinker's excellent graphs tell a lot of the story. For example, as expected. World Wars I and II show highly peaked points, then there's a bumpy but consistent trailing off following World War II. In terms of statistical frequency, the twentieth century naturally stands out for the sheer scale of the destruction of human life, including via atomic bombs, gas chambers and other devices.

However, when one normalizes the graphs to the actual populations present in the key eras, one finds that the past was actually far more vicious as well as the violent deaths - including being carved open by an Inquisitor with entrails removed and fed to the fires - much more common than the vile acts in 20th century or even the present (including mass shootings, terror attacks and beheadings). Is dying by Zyklon B in a Nazi gas chamber worse than an inquisitor using his knife and pliers to extract your intestines while you're awake and cook them in front of you? I'm not sure I even want to go there. But the fact is, by proportion of the respective populations, many more humans were dispatched in the latter mode than the former.

 Pinker also expatiates on the neuro-plasticity of the human brain and its ability to change in response to experience. He implies from this that people are less likely to resort to violence in their daily lives than their forbears, and that other behavioral changes and strategies work better. Of course, this assumes all factors are equal and they may not be. For example, verbal violence using computers (say on social network sites) now often takes the place of physical violence. However, the consequences can be just as terrible with the victims taking their own lives. Is this a retrenchment of evil? I would argue, no, only casting the evil in a different guise.

 Then again, there’s no assurance any current epoch for relatively less evil will continue. As a case in point there is the catastrophic approach of Peak Oil. Indeed, one issue of MONEY magazine actually warned[2] that “global oil supplies are near or past their peak, while demand for energy product shows no signs of abating”.

 Even before the MONEY article appeared, warnings have been repeatedly sounded though one wonders how many have paid attention. For example, Peter Tertzakian[3] has used a somewhat different term – the break point- to describe an analogous phenomenon for which oil prices continue to rise as more efficient forms of oil (e.g. light sweet crude) continue to go down, forcing deep sea drilling, access to tar sands oil and oil shale fracking.

T. Boone Pickens, one of the most famous oilmen and the ultimate pragmatist, has asserted that[4]:  “We’re now at the point where demand for oil is 87 billion barrels a day, while only 85 billion can be produced.”  This is acknowledging Peak Oil by any other name. The Financial Times article further noted that the world’s premier energy monitor was “preparing a sharp downward revision of its oil supply forecasts”[5]. The full formal report pointed to “global oil supplies plateauing even as demand continues.”

 The article also noted[6] that a growing number of people in the industry “are endorsing a version of the ‘peak oil’ theory: that oil production will plateau in coming years, as suppliers fail to replace depleted fields with enough fresh ones to boost overall output.”

The drastic consequences of energy supply and infrastructure  collapse in the face of exponentiating demand have been well described. The data show a disturbing gap by 2009 of nearly 2.1% between the total energy actually produced from around the world, and that consumed[7]. Much of this can be traced to the inability of fossil fuel production to keep up with population growth and energy demand[8]. Many experts, indeed, are convinced Peak Oil occurred in 2005.

 Why the concern? Because we will face perhaps the most intensive external agent driving masses toward human evil in our history. Many may not buy this so we perhaps need to delve deeper and one can cite Richard Heinberg[9] who has laid the case out in crystal clarity by using the primary quantifier of EROEI or energy return on energy invested.

Oil in the U.S. used to have an EROEI as high as 18 fifty years ago[10]. It only took one barrel of oil to extract eighteen barrels of oil. This was such a fantastic ratio that oil was practically free energy. But the latest data show this fallen to around 9 is still falling[11], a sure sign we are in energy trouble, since the minimum EROEI required for the basic functions of an industrial society is in the 5-9 range[12].

 More critical is the food component of oil that's hardly mentioned except by the inner circle cognoscenti. To be blunt, oil = food given that it provides the primary bulk of fertilizer to support the green revolution  or what's left of it. Take away the oil fertilizers, not to mention the petrol to run farm machinery, and famine follows on a mass, global multi -billions level scale.

In his essay Thoughts on Long-Term Energy Supplies: Scientists and the Silent Lie, physicist Albert Bartlett pinpoints the failure to name human population growth as a major cause of our energy and resource problems[13].  Bartlett avers that scientists display a general reticence to speak out on this issue which stems from the fact that it is politically incorrect to argue for stabilization of population, at least in the U.S.

To put the numbers in more stark relief, Bartlett, in a follow-up extended letter in Physics Today[14], noted that in the 1970s there were about 2.2 liters per person per day of oil. Of this, one could estimate that just over half or nearly 1.3 liters went to food production, processing, preparation or distribution. This was in a world with nearly 2.7 billion fewer people! Today, we are down to a production level of barely 1.6 liters per person per day while the consumption level approaches 4 liters per person per day. After Peak Oil, the latter will continue to increase, while the former will diminish by about 2-3 percent per year.

 It doesn’t take a math genius to ascertain that this is a recipe for catastrophic crash of the human population![15]


Obviously, if the food supply is inadequate, we can expect violence will become commonplace as each person fights for whatever energy resources are available.  The gist of it is that as the oil to support our energy-intense civilization ebbs, it will become harder to obtain water, affordable food as well as other amenities now deemed basic for living a civilized life. Power availability, say merely to stay cool in a scorching greenhouse world, will be scarce. Since power is also needed to preserve foodstuffs, and run furnaces or air conditioning the catastrophe isn’t difficult to decipher.

  When the old energy order finally breaks down, with power grids kaput because of excessive demand during global warming heat spells, and food in too short supply, it will literally be every man for himself. In such a brutish world, it’s difficult to imagine brain neuroplasticity saving the day or spontaneously encouraging any better angels of our nature. The available useful energy will be too low to do such! More than likely, as the final food stores vanish, most of that brain neuroplasticity will be needed to mount defenses against marauding gangs, anarchists, cannibals and assorted other two-legged predators.

One must conclude then that given the cumulative harrowing facts and statistics, Pinker’s concept of diminishing evil being permanent or sustained is more a pipedream than a credible aspect for modern  human affairs. The most generous take for Pinker’s thesis is that he managed to capture a fraction of a cycle of human history within which violence did retreat from earlier epochs. However, he didn’t factor  in the energy parameters far enough into the future to see that ultimately human civilization, predicated on moral order can't be sustained without resources.

Steve Mason (op. cit.) portrays more modern concerns in the realm of inflated worries. He insists he's "not some Pollyanna nitwit bent on banning the death penalty and passing the chicken soup" but he does then appear to dismiss global warming as any real or abiding concern by naming it explicitly  after writing "human beings perceive as threats the silliest things".  Well, hate to break it to him, but global warming is not about some tiny little elevation of one's discomfort zone, it's about real, life threatening upheaval, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/06/separating-real-threats-to-human.html

Hence, people's concerns about this threat are not simply misplaced, or inflated, and one can argue such concern drives activism and practical response.

It is thus well to "ease the minds of the masses" as he proclaims his objective to be,  but not to have them blinded to real threats, or dismissing them as idle ones.  Mason also jumps a bit too rapidly into the claim that "famines and plagues are a thing of the past". Not really! They are only in hiatus. When our population exceeds the critical threshold that the narrow margin for resource support  provides, we will again see plagues and massive famines. It is as certain as the Sun rising tomorrow morning.

Mason's take on the "pesticide threat" is also dismissive, despite  the fact there's now good evidence that the death of one third of all honeybee colonies can plausibly be traced to a form of pesticide from a family called neonicotinoids—“neonics” for short—developed a decade or so ago to replace organophosphates and carbamates, which are also highly toxic but dissipate far more quickly. In case anyone forgot, the humble honeybee is responsible for the pollination of nearly half our food crops.

Mason writes: "I suppose the American Cancer Society can supply figures to support significant  increases in cancer deaths" - but he shouldn't expect that given the ACS is part of the problem!  See e.g.  http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/02/cancer-industial-complex-biggest.html

As noted therein, citing research from Breast Cancer Action:

"The Cancer industry consists of corporations, organizations, and agencies that diminish or mask the extent of the cancer problem, fail to protect our health or divert attention away from finding the causes of breast cancer...this includes drug companies that, in addition to profiting from cancer treatment drugs, also produce toxic chemicals that may be contributing to the high rates of cancer in this country and increasing rates throughout the world. It also includes the polluting industries that continue to release substances we know or suspect are dangerous to our health, and the public relations firms and public agencies who protect these polluters.

The Cancer industry includes organizations like the ACS that downplay the risk of cancer from pesticides and other environmental factors and which have historically refused to take a stand on environmental regulation".

Mason does aver:

"I'm not saying that we're out of the woods for good, that a stray comet's not headed our way, but for the time being at least, why not relax and enjoy?" 

Well, because too many parameters for  species survival criticality don't allow it!  Hence, one must resist the temptation to dismiss pessimistic emotions as pathological.  This is a point also reinforced by Barbara Ehrenreich in her book: 'Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America', Her book is worth it just to see the skewering of Stephen Covey's "Who Moved My Cheese?" crap in Chapter 4 and doing pretty much the same with Martin Seligman's "Authentic Happiness" poppycock in Chapter 6.

Seligman tries to make us believe that pessimism can have only adverse effects on one's thinking - but in fact, as Chris Hedges shows ('Empire of Illusion') pessimism can be a useful ally and antidote to the manifestly unreal and BS culture we inhabit - where most citizens' brains have already been colonized by "smiley face" bunkum and PR piffle. (Explaining why too many no longer know their own history.)  This leaves them more likely to be relentlessly exploited by capitalist elites and political predators: purchasing crap goods and services from the first, and buying empty promises from the second.  None of which is consequence free.

In my book, 'Atheism: A Beginner's Handbook' I tried to explain in the last chapter why Americans were almost universally distrustful of atheists (ranking them below Islamic terrorists and homosexuals in terms of respect).  I wrote that:

"Two factors drive this: 1) a brain architecture that favors an optimism dynamic and “hope” even when reality testifies to the contrary, and 2) a pernicious culture of “positivity” that reinforces this brain defect, recently highlighted by Barbara Ehrenreich."

Ehrenreich noted that American mass culture is saturated by a saccharine “cult of positivity,” with children brainwashed from an early age that they can do anything, and adults brainwashed to believe if they just work hard and long enough they’ll become super millionaires like Donald Trump. That no one has slain the insipid “Horatio Alger” myth up to now is really a testament to America’s  individualist hubris and false optimism.

 

 

The takeaway from all this is there is a decent literature in support of not fleeing from pessimism, negative thought or even from mild depression at the state of the planet (especially the extent to which we're trashing it). As one respondent to a Science News piece put it: "These emotions can be just another source of information".   (Science News, Dece. 14, 2013, p. 30).

Thus, I SHOULD  rationally evince pessimism if I learn about the CIA and its insidious tortures and what it has done to the reputation of our country  - even rendering us hypocritical when we squawk to  North Korea or China about human rights. If we don't practice them uniformly ourselves how do we have a moral leg to stand on? We don't. And that IS depressing!
 

Those who shut such emotions out are consciously limiting key sources of information and internal response - and perhaps putting themselves in the same place of too many hopeful Jews just after Hitler came to power in Germany. As one Holocaust survivor put it in one of the presentations in The Holocaust Testaments: "It was the pessimists who left the country early. It was the optimists who stayed and got sent to the camps."

---

[1] Lea,,op. cit. 33.

[2] MONEY magazine (December, 2011) 'Making A Bet on Scarcity',   70.

[3] Tertzakian, A Thousand Barrels A Second, 246-47.

[4] Pickens,: The Financial Times. May 21, 2010,  A1.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Op. cit.  A12.

[7] The World Almanac and Book of Facts: 2013, 142.

[8] See the site: www.dieoff.org which has a wealth of information, statistics for Peak Oil indiciators.

[9] Heinberg: The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies.

[10] Inman: Scientific American, (308), 59.

[11] Op. cit., 60.(chart)

[12] Op. cit., 61.(inset information)

[13] Bartlett: Physics Today,: 2004 (July) , 53.

[14] Bartlett: Physics Today.  2004  (November), ,18.

[15] At the heart of these considerations is the net energy eqn. (cf. Physics Today, Weisz, July 2004, p. 51):  Q (net) = Q (PR) – [Q (op) + E/T].  In effect, for break-even oil one would find Q(net) = 0  Thus, there is no net gain in energy given the quantity that must be used to obtain it. For the last 700 billion barrels, of hard to obtain oil (which we are fast approaching): Q(net) = negative quantity = -Q.  Since the rate of energy production (Q (PR) must be debited by the energy consumed for its operation Q(op), and the energy E invested during its “lifetime” T.  Thus its Q(PR) will be small in relation to the bracketed quantity. Thus, the problem in a nutshell is not “running out of oil’ but running out of cheap, accessible oil.  Bottom line, we need not run out of the stuff before the world economy runs into problems of untold, unspeakable proportions!