Hey, in case you haven't heard the term 'brownlash', read this:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1374/is_n6_v56/ai_18844577/

I can't stand the disservice they do the world and science.

How funny. I'm not AyeYo.

It's expected and encouraged that you will spend all of your time investigating and evaluating the contracts and regulations of countless participants in this 'free society', remaining ever vigilant and aware of the differences and changes to the policies enforced, and be hopeful that as ownership of one domain transfers to another, that the policies won't change. But if they do, you will need to keep abreast of those changes, their new subscription fees, tolls, regulations, and so on.

You will relish the prospects of engaging in all these evaluations and research, being free to make your own decisions at all times, because you will be living the dream of the libertarian society.

You know those libertarian seasteads? The first thing that will happen will be the organization of some type of HOA - a homeowner's association - and the required payment of a fee (tax).

You're a moderator?

And your theory is overly simplistic. Study ecology.

I guess your beliefs are safer if nobody disagrees with you.

It's tough for him to swallow that truth. It's much more fun for him to think of himself as a rebel and an independent thinker.

EDIT: bitcoin2cash, now you can see what he said, as I quoted it for you.

There's your fixation on property ownership again. The world is more complex than your simplistic paradigm allows for.

Please contribute.

Next up is the Heartland Institute's publication Environment & Climate News. Tell me, exactly, how and why the Heartland Institute is an authority on climate science? Perhaps, if you would like to pride yourself on being a bit of a skeptic, as I'm sure the Heartland Institute and Bast himself would encourage you to be, the first thing you should be skeptical of is the motive of an institute funded in large part by Exxon Mobil and believers in property rights, a self proclaimed libertarian "Think Tank". Why have they taken it upon themselves to publish a periodical entitled Environment & Climate News?

Seriously. Where are the credentials? Let's see who the editor of Environment & Climate News is. His name is James M. Taylor:

http://heartland.org/james-m-taylor

The first paragraph from the above link states:


Note the term "sound science". Is James M. Taylor's work regularly published in the scientific community and peer reviewed? Perhaps the Heartland Institute should be a little more careful when employing the term "sound science".

It's really rather funny. We can see that he has a degree in law. Here is some further information on him:

http://www.desmogblog.com/james-taylor

It states the following:


We can see that he has been quoted in some Forbes articles. Forbes, by the way, is also known to be a brownlasher. And apparently, Taylor did a little stint at the Cato Institute. Surprise, surprise.

I'm sure we could go on all day. Let's take a look at how James M. Taylor likes to be interpret some data:

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/james_m_taylor_hides_the_decli.php

Correct! And in your fabled libertarian society, the citizens will band together and organize and create laws and build a government and agree to be taxed, sooner or later - just like you've agreed to be taxed by your HOA.


Incorrect. Land existed before government. Property (meaning land which is owned) didn't exist until there was collective recognition of property lines, and enforcement of ownership, which implies a lot of things, such as laws, rules, defense, social contracts, etc. In the specific instance of your ownership of property in the United States, it is not what you believe it should be, but what the federal and local governments have decided it is. You can cry a river the rest of your life that it isn't working the way you think it should, but there is no magical book which states that your interpretation is "The Interpretation".

In general, you could say it does. At its discretion, it can assign a property deed to you that will grant you certain rights to the land, and you can reassign that property deed to another and receive payment in doing so. As I was telling bitcoin2cash, you are mistaken if you believe land ownership means quite as much as you think it does.

Here's a thought experiment for you. Assume that land ownership means that you own the surface dirt of your property to a depth of fifty feet. Now, when you stand upon your property's dirt, you are standing on something that you own. However, your physical self is occupying the space above the dirt, and thus residing in the atmosphere of the host nation. By doing so, you are occupying their space, and subject to their laws.

It's irrelevant whether the above thought experiment is actually true or not. The point is, it serves to illustrate that land ownership is not exactly what you think it is.

You keep saying things like this. You seem to have this notion that having title to some land means that you have immunity from the rest of the Universe while within the boundaries of your property line. You have this sense that a property deed (which is a piece of paper and perhaps a digital record on file in a county recorder's office) confers upon you some fundamental physical law.

That is where you are wrong. Land ownership is nothing more than a social contract that does not necessarily give you the complete set of rights that you believe it does. To put it bluntly, the neurons inside your head have one interpretation of what it means to own property in the United States, and the neurons inside other people's heads quite possibly all have slightly different interpretations of it. Your best bet is to see what the neurons inside a judge's head believe.

Also, I'd be curious to know how deep you believe your land ownership goes. Assuming your parcel of land is square, do you naively believe your ownership is an inverted pyramid with its apex at the center of the Earth?

The point is, you don't really know what land ownership is. You only think you do, based on your ideal interpretation of it.

Tell me, do you fantasize all the time that you are that farmer? Do you fantasize that you were here before the US government? Or wait - maybe I have it wrong! Let me guess - that home you own, the one with the HOA - you've owned it for several centuries.

You see, you aren't that farmer. When you bought your house, not only did you enter into an agreement with the HOA, you decided to continue to be a US citizen and resident of the US in addition to being a resident of the HOA. And you decided to continue to pay your taxes, instead of moving out of the country.

By opting to not leave the nation upon, say reaching the age of 18, are you not agreeing to an implicit contract by virtue of your residence and use of its services?

Here's an example for you: let's say you were born in my household. Even better, let's say you are my child and were born in my household, and I demand payment from you to continue to live there. You counter by stating that you own your own bedroom because you bought it from me. That's fine, I say - you own the space inside the walls, but that doesn't really mean you can act with impunity and not pay me a fee to continue to live there.

You are free to leave.

Basically, you're over interpreting the concept of land ownership to mean that you can operate your own sovereign domain within another sovereign domain. Life does not really work like that - unless you're the Catholic Church and your host is Italy.

My interpretation is more accurate. Your payment of the fee to the homeowner's association is not voluntary, unless you opt to not reside within the geographical boundaries of their domain.

Irrelevant.

What are you not understanding? I'll summarize:

An organization requires you to pay a fee on a regular basis based on your footprint within the boundaries of a geographical region in which you live and which provides services to you and your fellow residents within that geographical region. You may or may not agree in totality with the efficiency or results of all those services. You can try and change things through meetings, votes, etc. In the end, if you are dissatisfied and don't care to pay those fees anymore, you will have to move.

Now, am I talking about a homeowner's association, or a government? To be honest, I can't tell.

Now let's take a look at the Oregon Institute petition. Joseph Bast writes in the third section, first paragraph:


First, Bast claims that a climate change scientist, who is trying to tell the audience that 95 percent of climatologists stand behind Global Warming, was shouted down by the audience. How is being shouted down significant and relevant, given the venue? Answer: it is not significant.

But Bast claims it is significant, because of the Oregon Institute petition. What is that, exactly? Well, apparently, it is 17,000 (actually 31,000 by the latest count) scientists making the claim that Global Warming research and its results show no real indication of actual global warming. That would sound like a pretty compelling document, don't you think? Unless of course, we can call into question the integrity of the petition. If we can, then it would seem to be pretty damning for those using it as a vehicle to undermine Global Warming research.

We can start by actually looking at the names of those who signed the petition. It stands to reason that if the signers of the petition are climatologists and well published, any Google search of their names would turn up published research by them. Certainly, there main call to fame wouldn't be their appearance on the petition, would it?

Do your own random Google searches, if you will. Here's the list:

http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p333.htm

What did Scientific American have to say about the petition? ( source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Petition )


Apparently, the deeper you want to dig, the more you'll find that the Oregon Institution petition was a sad and misguided attempt (and obviously dishonest) to create an official sounding document which would hopefully show that there is significant disagreement amongst climatologists in regard to anthropogenic global warming. That's bad enough. But then we have individuals and "institutes" (such as Bast and Heartland) who wish to trot it out as being the final say so.

Just imagine: organizations like Heartland (which we will continue to expose as being a propaganda machine which disseminates false and misleading information), can and will provide their mailing lists of fervent anti-believers in real science to petition creators, encouraging signatures of PhDs - never mind that it's a PhD in veterinary science, who happens to be a supporter of organizations like Heartland, as an example - so that a document such as the Oregon Institute petition can then be cited in their propaganda.

If you wish to see how another organization (Science Magazine) interprets whether there is a consensus on Global Warming, you can read this article:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686.full

It's not at all clear to me what organization you are being coerced to join, nor is it clear to me how you think I implied that organization is about coercing others to join organizations.

To be clear, if you opt to be part of an organization, it is because you want to benefit from the power that the organization can bring to bear on problems that an individual cannot. By virtue of being part of that organization, it is virtually inevitable that it will make decisions that all members of that organization are not in favor of. Once the organization acts on those decisions, those that weren't in favor of those decisions might feel coerced.