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Acute Grill
Dec 9, 2011

Chomp
There's also the meme that "environmentally friendly" just means "works poorly." Like Bulbs being labeled as energy efficient because they're just dimmer lights, and the standard complaints about low-flow toilets.

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ShadowCatboy
Jan 22, 2006

by FactsAreUseless

Elephant Ambush posted:

Nope. I've worked with people who were pretty miffed about the new light bulb thing. They don't believe that the government knows better than private industry and they believe that global warming doesn't exist because God would make sure that never happens and stuff like that. Plus they hate and fear change of any kind. They will refuse to buy environmentally friendly anything out of sheer spite.

In a lot of ways Conservatives pretty much never grew out of their petulant teenage years. They just shriek and stamp their feet and make terrible decisions even though smarter people give them good advice, all because they want to exercise their individuality and DON'T YOU DARE TELL ME WHAT TO DO.

I suspect that if you consider how an adolescent might behave when their parents try to raise them properly, we might better understand why Conservatives react the way they do when governments try to do the same.

greatn
Nov 15, 2006

by Lowtax
Even though most cfl's are actually obnoxiously bright and harsh light, and low flow toilets have flushed better for a decade because they can have a wider valve.

Monkey Fracas
Sep 11, 2010

...but then you get to the end and a gorilla starts throwing barrels at you!
Grimey Drawer
I've witnessed old people being fooled into buying CFLs because the tube was covered with a diffuser that looked like a frosted white incandescent bulb. And not knowing what "CFL" means. "Why, it's just a new, more efficient kind of light bulb but using the technology from the Good Old Days! Heh, I knew those weird-lookin' "green" bulbs would die out eventually!"

Elephant Ambush
Nov 13, 2012

...We sholde spenden more time together. What sayest thou?
Nap Ghost

ShadowCatboy posted:

In a lot of ways Conservatives pretty much never grew out of their petulant teenage years. They just shriek and stamp their feet and make terrible decisions even though smarter people give them good advice, all because they want to exercise their individuality and DON'T YOU DARE TELL ME WHAT TO DO.

I suspect that if you consider how an adolescent might behave when their parents try to raise them properly, we might better understand why Conservatives react the way they do when governments try to do the same.

Yeah it's textbook insecurity. To be fair, most of America is insecure to some degree but conservatives seem to be way worse off than average in that area.

Intel&Sebastian
Oct 20, 2002

colonel...
i'm trying to sneak around
but i'm dummy thicc
and the clap of my ass cheeks
keeps alerting the guards!
I'd feel insecure too if I was part of an organization that avowed to base it's success on the appeasment of bigots toward a racial minority, and then a person of that minority became president. They feel that way because they know what THEY would do if anyone hosed them the way they hosed black people. They'd take their guns away, they'd put them in FEMA camps, they'd poo poo on all their favorite things and traditions for fun.

It only stands to reason that everyone is like them, there must be some terrible commuppence happening that they can't see or everyone else is ignoring.





That said I think a lot of people, especially on this forum, put way too much into the idea that a lot of this foolishness is due to incredible idiocy or malice. A lot of times it's just people saying "My team is against global warming. What are you guys using to back up this idea? Can I get one of those? Cool. Hey you over there, global warming is fake and you're gay".

Intel&Sebastian fucked around with this message at 19:59 on May 1, 2013

Ivan Shitskin
Nov 29, 2002

Elephant Ambush posted:

They seriously do not believe that anything is wrong. At all. They firmly believe that global warming/climate change is some kind of liberal scam but they can't answer why the scam exists and what these liberal liars are hoping to gain through this scam because their news outlets never tell them. They're also the ones who live in places where it gets cold in the winter and therefore global warming can't possibly be happening because otherwise it would be warm. It's just head-in-the-sand denial of reality.

Why does the scam exist? To scare people into thinking they need BIG GOVERNMENT to save them of course. What do liberals hope to gain from the scam? They hope to gain power, like with Al Gore and Obama. Elect me and I'll save the planet for you. According to Rush Limbaugh, scientists are forced to peddle global warming nonsense because the government is "where they get their grocery money from." I heard Limbaugh say that some time ago. "You know all those scientists? They're all democrats. All of them. That's where they get their jobs from! They get their grocery money from 'The Left.'"

Whenever I bother reading online global warming arguments that's usually where it seems to end up. Nobody understands anything about the science, although they like to pretend that they do from articles fed to them by the Drudge Report or whatever. Then everyone just starts labeling each other as team Red or team Blue and they start questioning each other's motivations.

BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.

Elephant Ambush posted:

They firmly believe that global warming/climate change is some kind of liberal scam but they can't answer why the scam exists and what these liberal liars are hoping to gain through this scam because their news outlets never tell them.

Yes they do. Every day.

They tell them that it's part of the left wing plot to take over and overthrow private enterprise (suppress freedom) in order to make everyone dependent on and beholden to the government (overthrow capitalism) so they can stay in power and reward their liberal cronies. Take Solyndra for example. That's probably the best example of the mindset.

See also: offshore drilling conservatives think we'll be energy independent if we drill everywhere), their utter contempt for Al Gore, the Keystone pipeline (destroying jobs), the BP oil spill (government shakedown/media overreaction).

Conservative talk show hosts get their listeners to feel persecuted and shift the blame for what's really holding them back onto a liberal, liberal straw man while they soak the rubes for every dime and vote possible.

edit: a couple of posts late post late, but yeah. What those two dudes ^^^ said.

Intel&Sebastian posted:


That said I think a lot of people, especially on this forum, put way too much into the idea that a lot of this foolishness is due to incredible idiocy or malice. A lot of times it's just people saying "My team is against global warming. What are you guys using to back up this idea? Can I get one of those? Cool. Hey you over there, global warming is fake and you're gay".

How is that not malice and willful ignorance?

BiggerBoat fucked around with this message at 20:08 on May 1, 2013

mr. mephistopheles
Dec 2, 2009

Elephant Ambush posted:

They seriously do not believe that anything is wrong. At all. They firmly believe that global warming/climate change is some kind of liberal scam but they can't answer why the scam exists and what these liberal liars are hoping to gain through this scam because their news outlets never tell them.

Actually they claim it's an excuse to push green energy which liberal officials have heavily invested in so they can make money.

ShadowCatboy posted:

In a lot of ways Conservatives pretty much never grew out of their petulant teenage years. They just shriek and stamp their feet and make terrible decisions even though smarter people give them good advice, all because they want to exercise their individuality and DON'T YOU DARE TELL ME WHAT TO DO.

I suspect that if you consider how an adolescent might behave when their parents try to raise them properly, we might better understand why Conservatives react the way they do when governments try to do the same.

I came to this realization a few months ago when I was thinking back about how I used to call myself "fiscally conservative" when I was in high school and mostly be an insufferable jackass complaining about the unfairness of things like Affirmative Action. Then I grew up and went out and experienced the world and realized how stupid my beliefs were. My sister, on the other hand, who is 25 and has never held a real job or lived anywhere that wasn't a college dorm/apartment and just finished a double Masters degree and is two years from a PhD in Engineering practically worships Ayn Rand and still complains about things like Affirmative Action all the time. If you continue to live in your insulated upper middle class (mostly white) bubble, whether it be by circumstance or because you choose to, then it's really easy to never progress beyond the social beliefs you had when you were 15.

I think this only describes the well-off conservatives, though. Poor conservatives are an entirely different situation. Well-off conservatives hold their beliefs because deep down they're selfish assholes who just want everything they can get out of the world and have no interest in putting anything back in or helping others. Life is just a competition for them. Poor conservatives, on the other hand, are almost completely driven by fear of the other. For the time-being, well-off conservatives have done a really good job of convincing poor conservatives that the others causing all their problems are immigrants, poor black people, gays, abortion doctors, atheists and any other minority group you can think of that conservatives generally try to denigrate.

I think the strategy to changing the future is to recognize the two groups and try to otherize the upper middle class or wealthier into a greater enemy than any other group that poor conservatives fear. If you watched the media reaction to Occupy Wall Street, you know the idea that this could even vaguely be possible terrifies the ruling elite. They constantly downplay the idea of class warfare as a negative, liberal idea, when it's the only real tangible force oppressing the population. The entire reason whites were given rights that blacks weren't was to create division so they wouldn't rise up and demand better treatment.

Unfortunately all liberal media seems to be interested in doing is saying "heh, look at these dumb caveman conservatives :smug:" and just deepening the division. They're just otherizing conservatives the same way they otherize minority groups. They should be appealing to their sense of fairness and the fact that Joe John can barely feed his family while his boss had to build an extra garage on his property to store all of his cars in is bullshit. It actually worked with Mitt Romney too. I fully believe the reason he lost is because he was too out-of-touch Richie Rich for the core voting base of the party, and yet the punditry just goes on about how he wasn't conservative enough. No, you assholes, he was too much of an embodiment of conservative principles: an entitled, out-of-touch, FYGMer, and it bit him in the rear end on election day.

Elephant Ambush
Nov 13, 2012

...We sholde spenden more time together. What sayest thou?
Nap Ghost
Alright, thanks for the explanation on the "scam". I don't listen to talk radio and none of the people I ever asked about it could tell me why. That's definitely another hilarious example of projection.

mr. mephistopheles
Dec 2, 2009

Elephant Ambush posted:

Alright, thanks for the explanation on the "scam". I don't listen to talk radio and none of the people I ever asked about it could tell me why. That's definitely another hilarious example of projection.

Yep. All those oil companies getting massive government subsidies and pushing for less regulation so they can drill gently caress the Earth? Heroes of capital. All of those companies investing in technological advancements in an effort to not destroy the planet we all share? Greedy socialist scum lying to the American people.

Soviet Commubot
Oct 22, 2008


This article from Fox News last year gives a pretty good view of how warped the conservative point of view regarding environmentalism is. I bring it up and read it every couple of months are so and it still boggles my damned mind.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/04/22/earth-day-reminder-benefits-industrial-progress/

Sir Tonk
Apr 18, 2006
Young Orc

Kalos posted:

There's also the meme that "environmentally friendly" just means "works poorly." Like Bulbs being labeled as energy efficient because they're just dimmer lights, and the standard complaints about low-flow toilets.

Pen & Teller didn't help with this either. Their recycling episode poisoned the well quite nicely and I still get people telling me that it is a waste of money and we have SO MUCH room for landfills that it doesn't matter anyway.

edit

Monkey Fracas posted:

I've witnessed old people being fooled into buying CFLs because the tube was covered with a diffuser that looked like a frosted white incandescent bulb. And not knowing what "CFL" means. "Why, it's just a new, more efficient kind of light bulb but using the technology from the Good Old Days! Heh, I knew those weird-lookin' "green" bulbs would die out eventually!"

This actually did work quite well. Giving the appearance of familiarity helps with new tech and when the bulb is visible it looks better in the traditional casing to quite a few people.

Soviet Commubot posted:

This article from Fox News last year gives a pretty good view of how warped the conservative point of view regarding environmentalism is. I bring it up and read it every couple of months are so and it still boggles my damned mind.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/04/22/earth-day-reminder-benefits-industrial-progress/

Ugh, I remember this. Holy poo poo do you have to have a warped view of reality to get behind Epstein's argument. It's like the people that go out of their way to use electricity on Earth Day, or will buy as much as possible on Black Friday to stick it to all the anti-consumption leftists. It's all so childish.

Sir Tonk fucked around with this message at 20:27 on May 1, 2013

agarjogger
May 16, 2011

Soviet Commubot posted:

This article from Fox News last year gives a pretty good view of how warped the conservative point of view regarding environmentalism is. I bring it up and read it every couple of months are so and it still boggles my damned mind.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/04/22/earth-day-reminder-benefits-industrial-progress/

The current conservative position on the environment is as follows: There is no such thing as the environment. Liberals made it up. So let them worry about it.

They really can't help getting pushed and pulled into the most extreme position (outright denial), because they hate their enemies so much and their enemies tend to be decent, concerned people.

Intel&Sebastian
Oct 20, 2002

colonel...
i'm trying to sneak around
but i'm dummy thicc
and the clap of my ass cheeks
keeps alerting the guards!

Soviet Commubot posted:

This article from Fox News last year gives a pretty good view of how warped the conservative point of view regarding environmentalism is. I bring it up and read it every couple of months are so and it still boggles my damned mind.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/04/22/earth-day-reminder-benefits-industrial-progress/

quote:

One rationalization is that industrial life is “unsustainable,” since we will supposedly run out of resources. But the amount of available resources has dramatically increased, not decreased (and no resource has ever been exhausted) over the last 200 years, thanks to the kind of human ingenuity that can turn once-useless rocks into iron ore, once-useless oil deposits into gasoline, and once-useless uranium into electrical power.

Another rationalization is that our lifestyle causes too much pollution. But our air and water quality are better than ever, thanks to the wealth and technology of our modern industrial civilization. What about the “pollution” by CO2 emissions impacting climate? Observe that those who spread Hollywood horror scenarios about a “climate change catastrophe” are utterly indifferent to the fact that fossil fuels have made all climates far more livable for humans.

That's a beautiful run right there. We're doing great! Who cares! No resource ever runs out! The air and water in LA are perfectly fine for consumption! Lets all take a swim in the Hudson river! And those people who say "yeah but in a few decades the parties over"? Well they don't even like to party so gently caress em!


I don't think I could pen a more trollish earth day article if I tried. That is hilaaaaaaarious. If someone handed that to me on 3 ring notebook paper and told me it was a 14 year olds debate class paper where they were forced to argue the issue from that position I wouldn't flinch at all.

paranoid randroid
Mar 4, 2007

Intel&Sebastian posted:

That's a beautiful run right there. We're doing great! Who cares! No resource ever runs out! The air and water in LA are perfectly fine for consumption! Lets all take a swim in the Hudson river! And those people who say "yeah but in a few decades the parties over"? Well they don't even like to party so gently caress em!


I don't think I could pen a more trollish earth day article if I tried. That is hilaaaaaaarious. If someone handed that to me on 3 ring notebook paper and told me it was a 14 year olds debate class paper where they were forced to argue the issue from that position I wouldn't flinch at all.

I feel like we should be taking names down, so that when we're all living in the prologue to A Canticle For Lebowitz we know who to use as bait to distract the cannibal hordes long enough to escape.

BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.

mr. mephistopheles posted:

Unfortunately all liberal media seems to be interested in doing is saying "heh, look at these dumb caveman conservatives :smug:" and just deepening the division. They're just otherizing conservatives the same way they otherize minority groups. They should be appealing to their sense of fairness and the fact that Joe John can barely feed his family while his boss had to build an extra garage on his property to store all of his cars in is bullshit. It actually worked with Mitt Romney too.

Which "liberal media" are you referring to, precisely? I'm not sure what you posit is entirely accurate anyway but I'm curious if you mean CNN liberal or Thom Hartman/Stephanie Miller liberal.

greatn
Nov 15, 2006

by Lowtax
I have a friend whose literal argument is the human race is going to die out soon anyway, so it's good to put things in landfills because whatever sapient race follows us will be able to use them as mining sites and advance in technology faster.

Intel&Sebastian
Oct 20, 2002

colonel...
i'm trying to sneak around
but i'm dummy thicc
and the clap of my ass cheeks
keeps alerting the guards!
Conservatives are being "otherized" as cavemen in that situation because of things they publically believe and people they elect, I want them to stop believing these things and stop electing people we can QUOTE DIRECTLY and embarass, but I would still welcome the person if they didn't have abhorrent views. gently caress I'd accept them if they'd just learn to keep hurtful abhorrent views to themselves for the most part.

Minorities are being "otherized" because they were born and there's nothing they could do or say short of blowing the GOP in public to be accepted by their set, after which they can look forward to being used as a token, walking on eggshells lest they offend the racists.

If you're being a poo poo to conservatives because you hate white folks or the south, then you're just as bad. But there is a demonstrable difference in making GBS threads on someone for what they've put out into the world as their opinion, versus doing it because of their skin color.


Think of it like this: I go out into the world everyday and meet people I didn't know. I'm not an rear end in a top hat to any of them. Sometimes I get to know them better and find out they want gays put in jail for being gay. From then on out I'll probably be a bit of an rear end in a top hat to them. Do you think Ted Nugent waits to see if the Mexican he's just met actually literally jumped the border fence to sell drugs before he's an rear end in a top hat to them?



I happily deepen my and my countries division with out and out racists, bigots, sexists, homophobes, adult bullies and people who are too stupid to get through life without harming people they don't even know. The faster we rid those mindsets from the public square the better.

Intel&Sebastian fucked around with this message at 21:11 on May 1, 2013

Jerry Manderbilt
May 31, 2012

No matter how much paperwork I process, it never goes away. It only increases.
My dad always gets on my case for "judging Republicans based on their extremists" and saying that "I need to grow up and respect their views" even if they're completely outlandish, asinine or outright detrimental to society.

He's just so invested in this sense of false equivalency and living in this bullshit fantasy world where "the truth is always in the middle" that it's just so frustrating to talk to him about politics, especially since he's your typical engineer dad who thinks he knows everything.

Devour
Dec 18, 2009

by angerbeet

greatn posted:

I have a friend whose literal argument is the human race is going to die out soon anyway, so it's good to put things in landfills because whatever sapient race follows us will be able to use them as mining sites and advance in technology faster.

Your friend should meet my step-dad. He's a conservative, but unlike most of them he actually believes in global warming & overpopulation but doesn't believe in pursuing clean energy because he thinks the rapture will happen in the next 30 years.

HackensackBackpack
Aug 20, 2007

Who needs a house out in Hackensack? Is that all you get for your money?
I love how even CNN will bring Ted Nugent on to talk about the gun debate. I know when a news story happens, my first thought is, "I wonder what the guy who recorded Wango Tango thinks about this."

Then again, I guess a lot of celebs like to insert their politics into things. Most of them don't talk about wanting to shove guns into the orifices of political opponents, though.

ProperGanderPusher
Jan 13, 2012




Sir Tonk posted:

Pen & Teller didn't help with this either. Their recycling episode poisoned the well quite nicely and I still get people telling me that it is a waste of money and we have SO MUCH room for landfills that it doesn't matter anyway.

The more I look back, the more I've come to think that Bullshit! did more harm than good in the long run. I've met so many libertarians (and others) who love quoting the episodes on recycling, global warming, and organic food as if they're the definitive responses to environmentalist grievances. Granted, they've taken back some of the claims made on the global warming episode, but still went with a wobbly lame "We're not totally sure, maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle" stance around the last season or so when they revisited the issue briefly.

Political Whores
Feb 13, 2012

mr. mephistopheles posted:


I think the strategy to changing the future is to recognize the two groups and try to otherize the upper middle class or wealthier into a greater enemy than any other group that poor conservatives fear. If you watched the media reaction to Occupy Wall Street, you know the idea that this could even vaguely be possible terrifies the ruling elite. They constantly downplay the idea of class warfare as a negative, liberal idea, when it's the only real tangible force oppressing the population. The entire reason whites were given rights that blacks weren't was to create division so they wouldn't rise up and demand better treatment.

Unfortunately all liberal media seems to be interested in doing is saying "heh, look at these dumb caveman conservatives :smug:" and just deepening the division. They're just otherizing conservatives the same way they otherize minority groups. They should be appealing to their sense of fairness and the fact that Joe John can barely feed his family while his boss had to build an extra garage on his property to store all of his cars in is bullshit. It actually worked with Mitt Romney too. I fully believe the reason he lost is because he was too out-of-touch Richie Rich for the core voting base of the party, and yet the punditry just goes on about how he wasn't conservative enough. No, you assholes, he was too much of an embodiment of conservative principles: an entitled, out-of-touch, FYGMer, and it bit him in the rear end on election day.

I think you're a little off on this pronouncement. Institutional racism and marginalization of minorities isn't a social engineering strategy of the elite, though it has been used to that effect at times (such as the Southern Strategy). There's no mendacity to the statements Newt Gingrich makes about black people, he really believes what he says, because the culture he exists in has taught him to. Attributing otherization purely to social elites is wrong, it permeates every structure of our society. Furthermore, even assuming we could usher in a worker's paradise, oppression of marginalized groups like black people or LGBT people would not just end, and their current oppression certainly doesn't just come at the hands of the rich elite. I do appreciate the usefulness of historical materialism to explain certain patterns in history, but it can be extremely reductivist, especially when discussing the plight of historically marginalized populations.

As for appealing to fairness, that might work, but poor whites would have to also lose some of their entrenched racist/sexist/homophobic views for that to function. I'm talking in generalities here, but you can't just ask minority groups to tolerate violence towards them until the socialist revolution enlightens everyone. Calling people out for holding terrible opinions is absolutely necessary, and I don't really care if that alienates people who would otherwise have been on board with wealth redistribution.

Political Whores fucked around with this message at 21:43 on May 1, 2013

The_Rob
Feb 1, 2007

Blah blah blah blah!!

mr. mephistopheles posted:

Actually they claim it's an excuse to push green energy which liberal officials have heavily invested in so they can make money.

And even if true ( which there very well could be some truth in that argument) that's capitalism. This is the poo poo they fight for every day. They don't like it because it's not their side.


I

Raskolnikov38
Mar 3, 2007

We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

Sir Tonk posted:

Pen & Teller didn't help with this either. Their recycling episode poisoned the well quite nicely and I still get people telling me that it is a waste of money and we have SO MUCH room for landfills that it doesn't matter anyway.

Its been years since I've seen an episode of their dumb show but I thought the conclusion of the recycling one was only metal recycling brought in more money than what was spent to recycle it.

Of course in retarded libertarian land I'm sure this is proof that recycling doesn't work despite the entire goddamn point of it being to reuse materials so we didn't destroy the planet making new poo poo like plastics all the time.

Elephant Ambush
Nov 13, 2012

...We sholde spenden more time together. What sayest thou?
Nap Ghost

Raskolnikov38 posted:

Its been years since I've seen an episode of their dumb show but I thought the conclusion of the recycling one was only metal recycling brought in more money than what was spent to recycle it.

Of course in retarded libertarian land I'm sure this is proof that recycling doesn't work despite the entire goddamn point of it being to reuse materials so we didn't destroy the planet making new poo poo like plastics all the time.

Yeah their arguments were pretty bad. Most of them were focused almost strictly on profitability without regard to the cost/benefit of not cluttering up the planet with recyclable garbage. My favorite part though was the argument that while recycling created jobs, they were lovely jobs that nobody would enjoy doing so we shouldn't even bother. :laugh:

I still like Penn & Teller's live act and I like that they debunk psychics and dog whisperers and expose frauds and other poo poo that takes advantage of gullible people for money, but they really should stick to doing only those things.

Orange Devil
Oct 1, 2010

Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

Elephant Ambush posted:

I still like Penn & Teller's live act and I like that they debunk psychics and dog whisperers and expose frauds and other poo poo that takes advantage of gullible people for money, but they really should stick to doing only those things.

The problem is that they think that they are sticking to that.

Zuhzuhzombie!!
Apr 17, 2008
FACTS ARE A CONSPIRACY BY THE CAPITALIST OPRESSOR

Raskolnikov38 posted:

Its been years since I've seen an episode of their dumb show but I thought the conclusion of the recycling one was only metal recycling brought in more money than what was spent to recycle it.

Of course in retarded libertarian land I'm sure this is proof that recycling doesn't work despite the entire goddamn point of it being to reuse materials so we didn't destroy the planet making new poo poo like plastics all the time.

Only motivation is profit.

Mc Do Well
Aug 2, 2008

by FactsAreUseless
Adam Curtis' 1992 documentary on DDT shows some of the roots of conservative environmental policy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERLtyaugzw4

Calls to ban DDT were part of a radical leftist plot to kill jobs and weaken America.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

ProperGanderPusher posted:

The more I look back, the more I've come to think that Bullshit! did more harm than good in the long run. I've met so many libertarians (and others) who love quoting the episodes on recycling, global warming, and organic food as if they're the definitive responses to environmentalist grievances. Granted, they've taken back some of the claims made on the global warming episode, but still went with a wobbly lame "We're not totally sure, maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle" stance around the last season or so when they revisited the issue briefly.

To give them their due, P&T wanted the final episode of "Bullshit" to debunk the show itself, and tell people to take everything they said with a grain of salt also. I think on the balance it was positive, if only for the attacks on funeral homes and alcoholics anonymous -- they really seem to have shifted the narrative on those and that needed to happen.

ProperGanderPusher
Jan 13, 2012




Hieronymous Alloy posted:

To give them their due, P&T wanted the final episode of "Bullshit" to debunk the show itself, and tell people to take everything they said with a grain of salt also. I think on the balance it was positive, if only for the attacks on funeral homes and alcoholics anonymous -- they really seem to have shifted the narrative on those and that needed to happen.

I can't help but wonder what issues they would have gone over. Both of them are hardcore wealth-worshiping Randroids to this day, and at best would have admitted that their recycling episode is out of date and reiterating that global warming and the dangers of secondhand smoke probably weren't entirely bullshit. I highly doubt they would have taken back their extremely flawed episodes on taxes (the pie analogy Penn gave was beyond retarded) or fast food (we're just giving the customers what they want! Free market!).

sexpig by night
Sep 8, 2011

by Azathoth

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

To give them their due, P&T wanted the final episode of "Bullshit" to debunk the show itself, and tell people to take everything they said with a grain of salt also. I think on the balance it was positive, if only for the attacks on funeral homes and alcoholics anonymous -- they really seem to have shifted the narrative on those and that needed to happen.

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You don't get to do, what three seasons of "HMMM MAYHAPS RECYCLING AND THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT SUCK?!" and then do "Well we may not know anything so always be skeptical" that doesn't fix the damage, fixing the damage is going 'yea we were wrong about that, also why are you taking complex advice from loving sideshow acts?'

Guilty Spork
Feb 26, 2011

Thunder rolled. It rolled a six.

ProperGanderPusher posted:

I can't help but wonder what issues they would have gone over. Both of them are hardcore wealth-worshiping Randroids to this day, and at best would have admitted that their recycling episode is out of date and reiterating that global warming and the dangers of secondhand smoke probably weren't entirely bullshit. I highly doubt they would have taken back their extremely flawed episodes on taxes (the pie analogy Penn gave was beyond retarded) or fast food (we're just giving the customers what they want! Free market!).
I really wonder who they thought they were fooling with the pie thing. "Oh no! He got to take a slice of my pie! Luckily since in this analogy I'm the rich guy, I actually own several warehouses full of pies, far more than I could ever even hope to eat."

Quixotic1
Jul 25, 2007

Anyone catch Hannity today? Was only able to liste for a few minutes before work and he sounded so bitter talking to a college professor or scholar, felt like he had an inferiority complex next to the guy. Saying he was more qualified than most professors due to his books being bestsellers and no one reading the professor's books.

Gynocentric Regime
Jun 9, 2010

by Cyrano4747

ProperGanderPusher posted:

I can't help but wonder what issues they would have gone over. Both of them are hardcore wealth-worshiping Randroids to this day, and at best would have admitted that their recycling episode is out of date and reiterating that global warming and the dangers of secondhand smoke probably weren't entirely bullshit. I highly doubt they would have taken back their extremely flawed episodes on taxes (the pie analogy Penn gave was beyond retarded) or fast food (we're just giving the customers what they want! Free market!).

Not to mention the guy in the tricorn repeatedly yelling "No Taxation Without Representation!". Just because you don't like Harry Reid doesn't change the fact he represents you.

Darkman Fanpage
Jul 4, 2012

Quixotic1 posted:

Anyone catch Hannity today? Was only able to liste for a few minutes before work and he sounded so bitter talking to a college professor or scholar, felt like he had an inferiority complex next to the guy. Saying he was more qualified than most professors due to his books being bestsellers and no one reading the professor's books.

:laffo: The ol' "I'm more qualified than you because I'm more popular!" line. Love it.

Generic American
Mar 15, 2012

I love my Peng


Quixotic1 posted:

Anyone catch Hannity today? Was only able to liste for a few minutes before work and he sounded so bitter talking to a college professor or scholar, felt like he had an inferiority complex next to the guy. Saying he was more qualified than most professors due to his books being bestsellers and no one reading the professor's books.

But he's completely right; just like how prosperity means virtue in a free market, popularity is completely equivalent to actual knowledge on any given subject.

In other words, Stephenie Meyer 2016, baby! :swoon:

Wolfsheim
Dec 23, 2003

"Ah," Ratz had said, at last, "the artiste."
I love the "more popular = better than" argument because it can easily be flipped to apply to that guy they hate, the President of the United States. He must be incredible because he won the biggest popularity contest in the country.

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Best Friends
Nov 4, 2011

Elephant Ambush posted:



I still like Penn & Teller's live act and I like that they debunk psychics and dog whisperers and expose frauds and other poo poo that takes advantage of gullible people for money, but they really should stick to doing only those things.


For all their career of hating on charlatans posing as sages, they seem to have completely missed the irony of being two Vegas magicians insisting that climate science is wrong.

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