How It All Ends

November 25, 2007 2:47 PM

How It All Ends: a physics teacher presents a simple argument in the debate on global climate change, along with followup videos that deal with each criticism individually.

"How It All Ends" is a revised copy of a previous video whose argument it entirely contains.

posted by odinsdream (25 comments total)

This guy could personify both Mac and PCs in commercials. Pretty scary.
posted by KokuRyu at 3:00 PM on November 25, 2007

Heard it before & he's irritating. And the Viking is stupid.
posted by rhymer at 3:04 PM on November 25, 2007

Before I watch it, let me guess: infinite growth forever and nothing bad ever happens! Right?
posted by synaesthetichaze at 3:13 PM on November 25, 2007

thanks for posting this. His arguments are really thorough and, I think, pretty sophisticated. This deserves more than a quick slagging off.
posted by farishta at 3:47 PM on November 25, 2007

Yep, he nailed it. And in a way I can easily understand. Which means it doesn't have a snowball's chance in Hell of making a difference. But that's just my low opinion of people in general, not just Climate Change Deniers.
posted by wendell at 3:55 PM on November 25, 2007

Uh-oh! I've heard about those Deniers. Deniers are bad people, evil, nasty. Good people never deny anything.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 4:05 PM on November 25, 2007 [1 favorite]

Good people never deny anything.

Good people also don't employ logical fallacies in their support of anti-science apologetics.
posted by DU at 4:08 PM on November 25, 2007 [7 favorites]

Interesting. A bit dry but definitely worth a view. At least he's probably done more for the cause than anybody else on this page.
posted by chillmost at 4:15 PM on November 25, 2007 [1 favorite]

As I said, my low opinion of people in general, not just MetaFilter Trolls.
posted by wendell at 4:32 PM on November 25, 2007

Good people also don't employ logical fallacies in their support of anti-science apologetics.

I fully agree. For instance, good people don't assign NewSpeak terms to their opponents with the intent of demonizing them.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 4:43 PM on November 25, 2007

good people don't assign NewSpeak terms to their opponents with the intent of demonizing them.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste
Never used the neologism 'islamofascist', Steven?'
posted by dash_slot- at 4:53 PM on November 25, 2007 [6 favorites]

You're not a good person. You know that, right? Good people don't end up here.
posted by teraflop at 4:56 PM on November 25, 2007 [4 favorites]

Not bad, but the crux of the argument lies in how likely you think the worst-case scenario is (please see space hamster invasion scenario) and there the answer he has is "well, these big scientific organizations believe it, and many of the people who have a vested interest in the status quo also believe it, so it's far more likely that they're right than wrong, yes?" Which will convince everyone who already believes it and no one who believes the opposite.

So in the end, he's wrong about there being a way to choose an action without any idea of what will happen next; that "idea" is encapsulated in your assessment of the probabilities. Which, if you're like most people without a degree in climate science, means you're putting your trust in someone else's conclusions. So your decision still boils down to which side you believe more.

(and I say all this as someone who pretty much agrees with the guy who made the video in non-pyromaniac garb.)
posted by chrominance at 5:00 PM on November 25, 2007 [1 favorite]

Previously on Metafilter
posted by edd at 5:21 PM on November 25, 2007

Please stop being such a pest. Either have a stance or don't, but stop bickering about bickering.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:30 PM on November 25, 2007

teraflop: I think I might need to tattoo that on myself.
posted by agentofselection at 5:32 PM on November 25, 2007

He lost me when he pronounced the "t" in "often." I have a belief that all people who pronounce the "t" in often only do it so they can remember it is in there when spelling it (much the same as people who pronounce theater as "thee-ate-er").

I cannot trust someone to convince me of anything remotely intellectual if they have to perpetually remind themselves how to spell "often."
posted by flarbuse at 5:51 PM on November 25, 2007 [1 favorite]

So in the end, he's wrong about there being a way to choose an action without any idea of what will happen next; that "idea" is encapsulated in your assessment of the probabilities. Which, if you're like most people without a degree in climate science, means you're putting your trust in someone else's conclusions. So your decision still boils down to which side you believe more.

It's unfortunate that he uses the space hamsters as an analogy, in my opinion. With space hamsters, there's two slots: Attacked, and Not Attacked, each with their own probability of occurring. Combined, that probability is still pretty small.

With the GCC graph, you still have two slots: GCC occurs, or GCC does not occur. Even though the probability of each is unknown, the combined probability is 100%, unlike the space hamster scenario, or any other far-fetched, ridiculous metaphor.
posted by odinsdream at 6:00 PM on November 25, 2007

Not to be pedantic, odinsdream, but -- well, I guess I am being pedantic -- if you add the chance that you will be attacked by space hamsters to the chance that you won't, you do indeed get 100%. You're confusing the question of whether they exist at all, which the attack question ignores, with the question of whether an attack will occur.
posted by localroger at 6:36 PM on November 25, 2007

I'm not sure I understand the difference, but I can see what you mean. It seems like with the space hamster scenario, attack/no attack rides on the very existence of space hamsters as one of the components of whether it will occur, while the existence of GCC is built right into the GCC/no GCC. I will try to limit my commentary.
posted by odinsdream at 6:40 PM on November 25, 2007

The expansion pack of videos is a good example of how not to do footnotes and further explanation. Apparently the guy addresses the appeal to authority issue inherent in the "which side do you believe more" question, but I had to watch part of the Menu video just to find that out, and then start scanning through the seven Risk Management videos to figure out when he addresses this point. (It's halfway through the second video.)
posted by chrominance at 7:27 PM on November 25, 2007

(er, and most of the third video, I think. yeesh.)
posted by chrominance at 7:34 PM on November 25, 2007

(and the beginning of the FOURTH video... you see my point.)
posted by chrominance at 7:41 PM on November 25, 2007

dash_slot wrote: Never used the neologism 'islamofascist', Steven?'

He's probably deleting all the pages on his website containing the term "islamofascist" as we speak. Along with some French/Iraqi nukes...

Also, good video (from what I've seen, anyway). I've always thought that risk management is fairly common-sense (or instinctual, even?) but recent experience with other humans have me feeling less sure about that.
posted by Avenger at 8:27 PM on November 25, 2007

Never used the neologism 'islamofascist', Steven?'

Hardly ever, in fact. I found it objectionable.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 8:50 PM on November 25, 2007