Belief and what drives it

[Schmelzer]

No, it's not. CO2 is positive for plant growth sometimes, neutral some times, and negative some times.

LOL. In some situations, it may be more positive for the growth of bad plants than of good plants, thus, may harm the good ones in the competition. Fine, you have found an exception. Now you summarize this, and it looks like 33% positive, 33% neutral, 33% negative. And that's why the mass media can present this as 99% negative, simply because the remaining 66% are not that interesting for the readers, we suppose.

Again, that would be a mistake, of course. You have no reason to expect anything like an even balance between good and bad news.

I have. If there are a lot of very different, independent plants which compete, and every news may be 50% positive, 50% negative (because the direction of the change is yet another independent variable, and if one direction is negative, the other is positive) then I can expect a balance.

Of course, there is the correction, namely that every big change requires costs for adaptation, thus, has a negative aspect in above directions. And, then, a single question may be the decisive one, making all other news simply uninteresting in comparison. On the other hand, if a weed obtains greater advantages than a useful plant, this may harm the crop in wild nature, with free competition, but not in agriculture.

From a sudden massive buildup of a waste product of industrial civilization in the air and water everywhere, good news might be expected to be rather scarce, actually.

An out of context example. But what is waste for humans is not necessarily waste for animals and plants. Remains of sunken ships are in some areas full of life, while their "clean" environment looks like to a desert.

 

[wellwisher]

Negativity in the media is connected to fear, and the flight/fight mechanism. If you see only negative news around you, you become more defensive because of all the threats. Some people will get angry and lash out. Others keep watching for advice, by experts, so they can cope.

Positive information is different because it will empowers you. It reduces the fear and create a better sense of security. This will make the media experts less needed, therefore they can't sell as much soap. If little Johnny makes $1000 for charity, you feel good and can go about your business with a good feeling. If a little Johnny is shot in a drive by shooting, people stay tuned. This allows more exposure to soap commercials.

Fear is preferred because fear is connected to the lowest level personality firmware, associated with animal instinct. Because this is so low level firmware, this induction is easiest and can maximize an audience. The higher level firmware is harder to induce, and thins the herd.

If you use animal instinct to analyze data, the right brain conclusion will still find a center of conviction, but this tool is not the best tool, such that the belief that appears, may be out of line with a more extended version of reality. For example, say I am outside and I need to urinate. Instinctively, the natural thing to do is go where I stand, like a dog. To the dog, he feels a need and a conviction this is proper, so he goes.

Although this is natural for instinct, this is taboo in culture and terms of how I am supposed to relate to others in terms of showing my privates. So what I will do is use the firmware of relationship. I may still go, since nature is calling, but I will try to be more discrete, so I am not offending anyone. If I up the firmware level and use the firmware of meaning, I will think even wider at the overall situation, not only do I try to be discrete and not offensive to others, but I also pick a large tree, away from any house, which can use my high strength fragrant fertilizer. All path have conviction, but not all path lead to the same place.

The fear induction is designed to use the lowest and narrowest center of belief. The fear induction is not about building up each other with a feeling of good will, nor is its about resolving the issue. It is about piss where you stand; same thing over and over creating fear.

 

[river]

Fear is preferred because fear is connected to the lowest level personality firmware, associated with animal instinct. Because this is so low level firmware, this induction is easiest and can maximize an audience. The higher level firmware is harder to induce, and thins the herd.

Agreed

fear and drama are what the mainstream media are all about

 

[arfa brane]

Here is my probably bannable riposte:

Schmelzer, river, and wellwisher, you seem to enjoy being facile idiots. I can't explain why I believe this, really, except that your posts evoke in me a sense of revulsion, or something.

What I can't believe is that there are people who believe the kinds of ridiculous things that you all do.
Holy shit, the world really is going down the gurgler!

 

[river]

Here is my probably bannable riposte:

Schmelzer, river, and wellwisher, you seem to enjoy being facile idiots. I can't explain why I believe this, really, except that your posts evoke in me a sense of revulsion, or something.

What I can't believe is that there are people who believe the kinds of ridiculous things that you all do.
Holy shit, the world really is going down the gurgler!

Its not easy being aware

 

[Daecon]

Its not easy being aware

How would you know?

 

[river]

river said:
Its not easy being aware

How would you know?

Experience

 

[Schmelzer]

The problem with ideological science is that its "experts" are not people one can simply believe. If you are an optimist, you may believe their claims are not outright lies. But scientists are not heros, and scientists without permanent position, who have to hope for their next grant, are the opposite of brave warriors for truth. (With a few exceptions, which, after two years, are no longer scientists and even less "experts".) The typical reaction of scientists to political pressure is (1) to switch into another domain of research without such pressure, (2) not to study questions where the outcome predictably contradicts the political dogma, (3) Hide the results which contradict the political dogma behind professional language.
...
Scientific journals. The media simply distribute lies. Scientific journals distort the presentation under political pressure, but rarely lie openly. So, what distortions you have to expect? First of all, it will be much easier to publish a politically correct study than a politically incorrect one. Then, the politically incorrect parts of the studies will be hidden inside - title, abstracts, and conclusions tend to be much more politically correct than the other parts of the paper.

But, at a first level, to identify the direction of political pressure it is sufficient to compare what the media write (these lies are so penetrant and so often repeated that you know them even if you don't read them) with what the abstracts of scientific articles write. Then you can expect that the content is a further shift in the same direction, and truth is yet another big shift in the same direction.

How such a comparison of what the media write, scientific abstracts, and the actual content looks like, can be seen in another example of politically distorted "science", research about child labor. The test example was "The Economics of Child Labor" by By Kaushik Basu and Pham Hoang Van, evaluated in
http://www.sciforums.com/threads/indianas-freedom-to-discriminate-law.145520/page-18#post-3308652

The choice was not my own - the article was presented against me, as providing support for my opponents, unknown to me before, in particular, at the time I have written the comments above. Thus, it is a quite independent test, with full support of several of the claims I have made:

1.) The abstract contains only a very moderate criticism of what is proposed by the media (the media argument "loses much of its force", conditioned by an "if").
2.) The content provides a further shift, describing the effects as harmful for the children and guided by protectionism as the hidden agenda.
3.) Then, I was able to identify serious flaws in the main content, which claims that in some situations forbidding child labor may be not harmful but even useful. The argument itself has not yet been refuted, thus, is evidence for the hypothesis that toward truth we have yet to expect another shift in the same direction.

Note also that all three points are not based on some conspiracy theories, but on elementary economic considerations. The basic assumption is that scientists want to find the truth and distribute it, but, on the other hand, have to care about their career interests, which are endangered if they openly confront the positions of those in power. The incremental increase of truth content from media (0) to titles/abstracts (1), content (2), informal talks (3) and the own opinion is what has to be expected here, as well as that many scientists simply choose other research directions because such political pressure is unacceptable for them, so that the scientists remaining in the field are probably those which support the ideology behind the political pressure (which distorts the research itself).

 

[iceaura]

No, it's not. CO2 is positive for plant growth sometimes, neutral some times, and negative some times.
LOL. In some situations, it may be more positive for the growth of bad plants than of good plants, thus, may harm the good ones in the competition. Fine, you have found an exception. Now you summarize this, and it looks like 33% positive, 33% neutral, 33% negative.

That's not me summarizing, that's you pulling percentages out of your ass - percentages that are critical to your argument.

So far, the benefits of CO2 boosting in most plants seem to be temporary and problematic - in growth, for example, researchers have been seeing a spurt of less ecologically beneficial (nutritious, etc) vegetative growth, and then back to baseline. It's just not a limiting nutrient for very many plants.

And that's why the mass media can present this as 99% negative, simply because the remaining 66% are not that interesting for the readers, we suppose.

The media haven't bothered with this aspect at all, for whatever reason - maybe because they've been distracted by the influence of AGW on agricultural water supplies, an influence which is shaping up to be dramatic and almost completely negative.

1.) The abstract contains only a very moderate criticism of what is proposed by the media (the media argument "loses much of its force", conditioned by an "if").
2.) The content provides a further shift, describing the effects as harmful for the children and guided by protectionism as the hidden agenda.
3.) Then, I was able to identify serious flaws in the main content, which claims that in some situations forbidding child labor may be not harmful but even useful.

So your entire objection to this paper was that 1) it did not adequately criticize the media coverage of the issue its research addressed and 2) it reported data and findings which indicated that forbidding child labor might be useful and not harmful in some situations.

And that is your basis for rejecting it and all the related research literature handed to you as ideological nonsense.

 

[river]

Lack of Knowledge and the lack of the faculty to question .

 

[arfa brane]

Or having an ideology that adheres to the rejection of perceived ideologies, particularly those portrayed by the media. Masterful.

If you don't have to examine the reasons you reject something, all you need is that sense of disgust, you nearly puke, that makes it feel right for you, who needs critical thinking? What does that even mean?