[FRIAM] Murdoch and Trump

Tue Jan 21 14:53:56 EST 2020

Could we develop a FRIAM convention?  In any first use of an acronym in any individual email, the user spell it out.  

AGW?  I know I should know, but 'should-knowing' something is a long way from knowing it. 

Nick 

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2020 11:31 AM
To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Murdoch and Trump

While your argument *seems* reasonable, I've often found that soft influence fails to meet any well-specified objectives [†]. So by pursuing your larger (AGW + other global risks) system of issues, you run into a problem definition issue. Good engineering is said to be 1/2 good problem formulation. If your target system (AGW + other global risks) is too large, then you will most likely produce vaguely formulated problems. And soft influence toward vague solutions to vaguely stated problems is not good engineering.

It would be better to identify the "edge cases" ... which conditions, if they obtain, will catastrophically destroy everything we know ... and mitigate those. You can be specific and well-formulate the problems for the edge cases.

Those making AGW a huge political play-ball are doing that. That is good engineering. And the side effects of solutions for that edge case are, yay!, a boon even if the edge case never would have obtained in the first place. One need NOT have to agree with everything in an organization to contribute and reap benefits. You don't want to contribute because you don't think the edge case will obtain. Fine. But why try to convince those who *do* want to contribute *not* to contribute?

E.g. I wouldn't hang around the Apple campus trying to argue Apple employees into quitting their jobs. Why do those who don't believe AGW is a risk keep trying to argue AGW workers to quit their work?

[†] And I say that as a person whose been specifically hired because of my "soft skills", for whatever that's worth.

On 1/21/20 9:57 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
> I plead guilty as charged. My reasoning is fragile because the way I see it there are significant uncertainties. My (granted fragile) point is that there are empirical data that casts serious doubt on the accuracy of the climate models. It seems to me that in the real world, as opposed to in the modelling world, we are not heading towards a climate disaster.
> 
> In concept I agree with your second point. Rather safe than sorrow. But, I'd like to extend it to other global risks as well, not only climate change. So, rather than just "buying insurance" for climate change, why not do a study of other global risks and solutions and analyse how we can get the most bang for our "do good for the world"-buck? Like the work done by https://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/ I quote from their website "The Copenhagen Consensus Center is a think tank that researches and publishes the smartest solutions to the world's biggest problems. Our studies are conducted by more than 300 economists from internationally renowned institutions, including seven Nobel Laureates, to advise policymakers and philanthropists how to achieve the best results with their limited resources."
> 
> Just a last point. I'm all in favour of moving away from fossil fuels. But, if you make it such a huge political play-ball, you run the risk of doing stupid things in the name of doing good. An example:
> I live in Mossel Bay in South Africa and from my house I have a view 
> of the bay. One evening a month or so ago we saw what looked like a small island in the bay. We inquired and it turned out to be an oil platform that was manufactured in China and is being towed for use in the North Sea and there was bad weather in the open sea and they took temporary refuge in the bay. Just think about this - Iron and steel is produces huge amounts of CO2. Europe, as a proud sponsor of the Paris agreement, are serious about reducing their CO2 emissions. So they let China do the dirty work, pay them for it and just buy the manufactured oil platform. My point is - I just don't join in the fearmongering. I say recognize the uncertainties and be realistic about the actions.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove