Funny because it’s true.
Category Archives: Social Commentary
A Tesla Model S Review
Slightly not safe for work.
Michael Mann
Boy, Mark Steyn is really asking for it:
So Mann’s work “did not fall within the remit” of Lord Oxburgh’s investigation …but somehow it “exonerated” him anyway. Mann lies easily, smoothly, glibly, using small, sly lies to support bigger, bolder ones. But his entire career is a pile-up of contradictions like these.
Mann might sue him for this.
Oh, wait.
A New Space-Settlement Initiative
…will be announced on FridaySaturday. I’ll probably be there, since I’m speaking the day before.
Death At Sea
…is never very far.
I discuss this in the book. It’s even closer in space.
The Antarctic Ice Sheet
OK, there seems to be a Twitter panic going on, so I went and read Alan Boyle’s story about it. That was the first time I heard that (even if the models are valid) the problem is two hundred years off.
Isn’t there anyone out there who understands discount rates?
[Update a while later]
Here’s more detail from John Timmer:
Even in the short term, the new findings should increase our estimates for sea level rise by the end of the century, the scientists suggest. But the ongoing process of retreat and destabilization will mean that the area will contribute to rising oceans for centuries.
Sorry, but I’m not going to worry about “rising oceans for centuries” today. Even the end of the century is effectively discounted to zero. It’s economically insane to reduce economic growth now to prevent something that won’t happen for decades.
[Late afternoon update]
As I noted on Twitter earlier:
Not sure that the warm-mongers realize that the ice-sheet story completely obliterates their argument for CO2 reduction. #Inevitable
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) May 12, 2014
If the sea rise is really inevitable, then it makes no sense to mitigate carbon to prevent it, when we'll need the future wealth to deal.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) May 12, 2014
Hobbies
Some thoughts from Joel Achenbach, with some bonus advice on writing.
Cognitive Biases
The top ones that prevent us from being rational.
Rape On Campus
It belongs in the courts. It does seem like a quaint idea:
The lefty stuff always leads to the same place. But you’re crazy to go to these schools if you’re a man. And women don’t want to go to schools that men avoid. So I predict either an eventual equilibrium, or a collapse.
His predictions have been playing out pretty well, so far.
I Checked My Privilege
“…and it’s doing just fine.”
Call: “Check your privilege!”
Response: “What you call ‘privilege’ is just me being better than you.”
They won’t like it. It will make them angry. Good. Because tactics like “Check your privilege” are designed to make us angry, to put us off-balance, to baffle us and suck us down into a rabbit hole of leftist jargon and progressive stupidity.
Don’t follow them. Mock them. Accuse them of adhering to a transphobic cisnormative paradigm and start shrieking “Hate crime!”
Don’t worry about not making sense. They’re college students. They are used to not understanding what people smarter than they are tell them.
It’s just the latest stupid thing to come from the campus loons.
[Update a few minutes later]
Link is fixed now. Sorry!