Message: 4
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2014 12:17:57 +1100
From: "Lev Lafayette"

> Arendt's general principle, and one that I agree with, it is societies
> that do not discuss politics, that destroy their public sphere of critical
> debate and disagreement, that end up sliding into totalitarian and
> simplistic authoritarian societies. Even with the trappings of a
> trivilised happy consciousness where any disturbing matters are pushed
> out-of-sight, out-of-mind, and preferably somewhere else.

> Lev Lafayette

Excellent post Lev. The question is how do we have such discussions in a way that generates more light than heat?

One can exclude people who don't play by the rules of civil debate but the resisting the temptations of the power of censorship seems beyond most people. You often end up with a boring echo chamber.

I had some success with a fervent but poorly informed global heating sceptic by agreeing to do a deep dive on some specific aspects of the question.. Issues such as the alleged bad faith of scientists lusting after grant money$ and the alleged bad faith of carbon industry lobbyists lusting after profit$ at any cost were out of scope. We worked through things like the history of the global climate and the temperature record, including things like the heat island effect, the effect of CO2 on the earth's albedo, etc. After a few rounds he went quiet on the issue.

Tim Josling (with a J)