I blame this thread on the example being set by the Hollywood Rich Set. They are extremely Vocal about How Others Should be Generous while they are very selfish and non charitable in their own lives.
Hollywood is full of Hypocrites and Horrible People.
__________________ Banned 30 days for the Crime of "ETC"... and when I "ETC" I do it HARD!!!
I'm really puzzled at the arguments you seem to be making in regards to this particular subject. I know from past interactions with you that you strive to be an intelligent, logical, independent thinker, but in this particular case you really seem to be falling victim to cognitive bias based on the dreaded Argument from Authority. Please if only for a moment, take a step back from the conclusions other people have put forth, and examine how those people reached those conclusions and what actual hard evidence exist to support each step of their calculations.
1. What is the number of species that the scientist cite as living on the planet, and does it match the number of species we've actually documented. If not, how/why is there variance in that number.
2. How many individual animals from all species that currently exist do scientist say there are? Did they actually count all those individuals or is the number achieved by using a relatively small sample number taken from relatively small areas and assuming that those numbers will accurately scale up to measure extremely large numbers of animals in extremely large areas?
3. How many animals do the scientists say existed 5,000 thousand years ago? Is there actually hard evidence to support their number like data/writing that's been passed down from people from that period or remains from those animals, or are they somehow basing their number upon their estimates of animals that currently exist?
4. How many animals do they say existed before humans had the ability to document things via writing/drawing? Is their number based upon things like the fossil record, or are they too projections based upon estimates of modern day animals?
5. In any of the previous questions where it turned out things were based upon an estimation, are the scientist in agreement about the numbers? Keep in mind that if different people are coming up with different numbers based upon shared data... they're not actually in agreement with the other persons calculation. For instance, if one person says things are dying out 100x faster and one person says that they're actually dying out 10,000x faster, those guys haven't actually reached a consensus in regard to how fast things are dying out. The only real thing they're really in agreement about is that animals are dying out faster now than they were before.
You can not layer estimates upon estimates and claim that the end result is FACTUAL. Here's the thing about scientists, they feel the need to explore the unknown and answer the questions that plague us. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that, that type of mindset is what took us out of the dark ages. But scientist are still human and are therefor still subject to the same types of logical fallacies that plague us regular people and their intense desire to figure things out has often driven them to make declarations of truth based upon limited evidence that turned out to be false. The thing driving this is the notion that there HAS to be a way to figure all these things out. But in reality, No... there doesn't have to be an objectively good way to figure out how fast animals there were a million years ago and there damn sure doesn't have to be an objectively good way to figure out at what rate extinction rate occurred. Some things are just beyond our ability to figure out definitively at present, and there is very little in the way of empirical data to support these scientist's conclusions. I can easily believe someone who says that humans are having a huge negative impact upon the numbers of animals, because that actually is a fact and there is plenty of evidence to support the notion. But trying to assign actual numbers to it and then acting as if the numbers are gospel is a ridiculous thing to do. And it's even more ridiculous to do it in regards to animals that existed before we existed on the planet.
This article that was published at Yale that talks about the wild variances in estimates of global extinction rates that supports the idea that extinction rates are high, but specifically notes "But nobody knows whether such estimates are anywhere close to reality. They are based on computer modeling, and documented losses are tiny by comparison."...
Re: Have the rich and powerful lost their altruistic instincts?
As much as I'd love a revolution, the fact is revolt never makes things better in the long run. Look at it in terms of Game of Thrones: The Lannister clan had a very good man leading them. All the bad men laughed at him, and took advantage of the Lannisters.
Then Tywin stepped up, and slaughtered all the very bad men, and a lot of innocents.
The ideal isn't a good rich man. It's a great sociopath who can get what he wants, and keep all the would be tyrants at bay. He does that, and the public won't need to worry, because no one destroys what's theirs.
Bottom line, when great men fight, it's the regular people who suffer.
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
You shouldn't be. I've made my points very clear. Part of our disconnect is I just do not care what you think about this subject nor am I willing to be persuaded by anything you (specifically, you) have to say on this subject.
With that, I'm done talking to you (specifically, to you) on this. As I do not feel my time is being spent in any type of satisfactory way engaging you (specifically, you) on this subject.
If you feel insulted by this, take a step back and recognize that this is more about my arrogance than it has to do with your incompetence (specifically, any views you perceive from me about your incompetence).
Unlike others, I am unwilling to engage walls of text of mostly what I consider to be rubbish. I'm not the type of person you can engage with your unscientific rubbish.
__________________
Last edited by dadudemon on Dec 2nd, 2018 at 08:53 PM
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Nov 30th, 2018 04:27 PM
