I wonder how many people in the world would read this report of a Chrysler executive poo-poo'ing Europeans' concerns over Global Warning, going so far as to call the threat "way, way in the future, with a high degree of uncertainty," and not question why someone in that position would do everything he could to discredit environmental concerns that threaten upheaval to his industry? I could've sworn I'd blogged awhile back about my feeling that, when you're not sure what to believe in a debate, then start examining the motivations of each side, as well as the ramifications for one side being wrong versus the other. I've tried about a dozen keyword searches and all have come up empty, so either I imagined that I wrote that blog or software is letting me down once again. Anyway, the gist was: how impartial do we think an auto exec is going to be on a topic that is threatening his livelihood, and what's the worst case scenario to us if he's wrong (or misleading)? Conversely, if environmentalists are wrong, and we end up doing all of this conservation and finding replenishable energy sources when we really didn't need to, how bad is the downside? Those sorts of evaluations can often swing the scale for me. I'd rather be wrong and not-much-worse-off than wrong-and-dead, personally.
P.S. 10 Blog Points (totally useless, by the way) to anyone who can find the blog entry of mine that talked about this earlier.
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9 comments:
well i would have looked it up but then you mentioned the totally useless part
"Another Inconvenient Truth" from Nov 2nd:
http://kimota94.blogspot.com/2006/11/another-inconvenient-truth.html
I have always found fascinating how some members of the traditional oil industry say things like "Kyoto will harm the economy and our business" but ignore the companies that have changed. Shell did some pilot projects where they altered the process used by a refinery or some other related item. They reduced "bad stuff output" by a substantial amount (40% or more) and, lo and behold, spent less on input fuel to run the place.
The downside of listening to the conservationists is greater efficiency at initial capital outlay. Guess business doesn't like making money...
To Jimmy: Nah, that's not the one I mean. There's nothing in that entry about evaluating the debate by considering what the debaters' motivations are, or considering the worst case scenario if each is wrong.
Ah, wait, I did Hinckley a disservice. What I was looking for was in the COMMENTS of that post, which is why I couldn't find it.
Damn him, he's right again! 10 Blog Points are now in the mail to the Hinckley home.
At least now I know I'm not losing my mind. Or at least, not on this particular topic!
Ahh.. I can almost taste those points now.
Wow that Jimmy has an interesting mind or else he really wanted those 10 blog points!
All this talk about blog points has me craving for some... You should hand out more blog points and have a leaderboard indicating who's got the most. Of course they are still totally useless, unless you're willing to buy the winner a PS/3 or something. :D
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