Words fail.
The following TIME article, which an American relative sent me today, is strictly for the strong of stomach. Most distressing, for me, is the association of Prof Mark Maslin with this story. It breaks the heart that such a great scientist—and human being—would sully himself with this pure, Unsullied eco-snuff reality-porn.
I would say “Enjoy,” but that hardly seems the right verb.
UPDATE: Commenters, please stop asking for the link. Our spam-sac is swollen at the sutures! Unfortunately: (a) it was ink-on-barely-readable-glossy-paper, and (b) our policy is not to give skeptic-bashing dinosaur-press outlets like TIME a massive spike in readers. Remember, attention is like oxygen to these scum. Thanks for understanding.
‘Meet the Americans Who Are Choosing Not to Have Grandkids’ —18 May, 2017
To reproduce or not to reproduce: could any dilemma be more existential? On one side of the scales is the incomparable joy of bringing a new life into the world; on the other, the guilty awareness that that world is already at capacity.
As parents, none of us want our children to face the same gruelling decision we had to make.
“Which is why we’re increasingly opting to make it for them,” says respected Los Angeles surgeon—and father—Don Barenbaum, MD.
“This is the best gift anyone could give him,” say the parents of little Desi Kovacz, who was just wheeled into Dr Barenbaum’s anaesthesia bay. The remark is an act of self-reassurance more than anything. Their 19-month-old son is being prepped for his elective castration as we speak, but Mom and Dad are the ones suffering the nerves.
Like so many history-changing memes before it, the grandchildless movement has its epicentre in southern LA—not for nothing called the early-adoption capital of the world.
Speaking to Time in a tasteful Cedars-Sinai waiting suite, the Kovaczes admit they were leaning towards the less radical option of vasectomy at first. But it would have meant Desi wearing a plastic collar to keep him from licking himself afterwards—just at the crucial time he was auditioning for local preschools.
“Getting into a decent one is insanely competitive, and [success or failure] will affect his entire life,” says mom Elisel Mitchell, the jewelry entrepreneur. “In the end we decided we’d never forgive ourselves if Desi didn’t make the cut because of a silly bucket over his head.”
In California’s trendiest, most eco-informed zipcodes it’s fast becoming a faux pas to forget (or refuse) to desex your kids. While it’s not a hanging offence on the scale of, say, smoking—not yet at least—residents here are keenly aware that a failure to family-plan ahead has its social penalties. Many of LA’s hottest restaurants won’t even seat grandchildren. And they’re as fully-booked as ever—a reflection, it would appear, of Angelenos’ growing demand for grandkid-free spaces.
…
MARK MASLIN IS A climate biologist at University College in London, England. He also happens to be a world authority on the dangers of human population.
Professor Maslin says the anti-grandkid movement is “a laudable one that’s [come along] just in time, I hope, to give the planet a future—not only for our children but for our children’s children.”
With fingers in a veritable empire of businesses catering to the ecological crisis, Maslin isn’t bragging when he boasts he’s “[extremely well] paid to know what I’m talking about here.”
And he refuses to mince his words.
“Unless we drastically reduce our numbers on this planet, and do it immediately, people are going to start dying. Sooner than you think. Heck, sooner than I think.”
Maslin has met countless couples who choose to forgo grandkids, and says he envies their strength of principle. “What sacrifice could be greater than knowing you’ll never fast-bowl a cricket ball at your granddaughter in the back yard?”
These are ordinary people, he emphasizes—not monsters.
“Nobody enjoys making decisions like this. And with the cost of a hospital stay these days, especially in your country, parents are hardly jumping up and down with enthusiasm to book their little boy or girl in.
“But the very fact that they’re malthusiastic,” he adds, “only makes them more heroic, in my books, for taking the leap.”
…
THE MAJORITY OF PREGNANCIES in America are still caused by a white man, so it should be no surprise that most of Dr Barenbaum’s young patients are the sons of Caucasian couples.
Still, females are almost a third of the equation.
On the other side of the Valley, pediatric surgeon Henrick Wan says tubal ligations are now the mainstay of his busy roster. But he’s also bound by ethics to inform prospective customers about a range of less invasive options, most of which target their daughter’s vulva or vagina.
A technique called total infibulation—once associated mainly with Islamic Americans—is a popular alternative, explains the urogenital guru. The operation, which he says makes intercourse “prohibitively painful,” can safely be performed at any age from 12 months, when a child’s labia are strong enough to hold stitches.
“In medical terms, [infibulation] is deterrent, not definitive, surgery,” says Dr Wan. “But parents tell me they’re very happy with the peace of mind it’s given them.”
Like most States, California authorizes non-Muslim parents to consent to the procedure only if it would spare them ‘economic or emotional hardship.’ But that’s not exactly a high bar to meet in a country that seems to grow more anxious about overpopulation by the day.
…
SEVEN DAYS POST-OP, Desi is making a good recovery, and appears to be pain- and trauma-free already. (His little brain isn’t capable of forming long-lasting memories and resentments yet, father Gary Kovacz explains.)
But older brother Corey, 4, who is reproductively intact, hasn’t done quite so well. He had a rough time processing Desi’s alteration at first, says mom Elisel.
“He even started wetting his bed again—which is understandable. These are big themes for a child to handle.”
The Kovaczes tried every explanation they could think of. Then, at breakfast yesterday, Gary jokingly compared the situation to that of Game of Thrones’ Grey Worm, one of the nine or 10 leading characters who’ve been neutered in the HBO series.
“Theon Greyworm [sic] is Cor’s favorite,” says his dad. “I was just making a throwaway comment, but it did the trick. All of a sudden he thought Dez was the coolest baby brother ever.”
“Corey’s actually a bit jealous now,” his mom adds.
“At bath-time last night, he was waddling around the house, [genitals] tucked between his legs, insisting he was a ‘unicorn,’” she says, laughing at the adorable malapropism.
Elisel, who is expecting again, was so happy with the experience of working with Dr Barenbaum’s team that she’s already booked her next boy or girl for surgery. Despite this foresight, the family still faces a long wait. In a sign of the times, Barenbaum’s services are so popular that he won’t be able to fit the child in before its sixth birthday.
But all’s well that ends well. The Kovaczes’ favorite preschool just called back: Desi starts terrorizing the sandpits in 2019. ■
Climate Scepticism 
Do you have a link?
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Robert, please see the Update above the Time article. Thanks for your understanding.
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Well, guess who’s going to no more than a footnote in history?
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Bill, could you try rephrasing? I’m not sure I follow.
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Brad, the reason I asked is that the search engines I use (Bing and Yahoo) cannot find the article. In this age of ‘fake news’ one must be increasingly skeptical. What search tags would you suggest?
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Robert, good question. Let me know if the search term ‘parodic sicko behind climate nuremberg’ helps at all.
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Only in California?
Parents treating their offspring like pets.
All the way through the piece I thought the punchline was going to be that Maslin and Barenbaum were going to be vets, especially after reading the Kovacz patient was to be fitted with a collar.
Sick doesn’t cover it.
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A hint of Modest Proposalism, underpinned by Extrapolationism, expressed with Much Flairism. Brad’s back! Hurray!!
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My mum did ask if it was too late to get an abortion but the doctor said she’d passed the time restrictions at 24 years and she was stuck with me. Apparently adoption was out of the question too. With climate change, perhaps the doctor would have been more sympathetic?
You do realise that your story is an old one don’t you Brad? It was first published back in 2004, at the height of climate hysteria. Subsequently little Desi hit… err didn’t hit puberty and he realised his crown jewels were just for decoration. Due to the unfortunate metabolic effect of his operation he is now known as enormous Desi and while he had a magnificent singing career it has be recently cut short by the INCIDENT.
It was an obvious side effect of reproductive loss that Desi should be a bit peeved at his parents. Add too his diva nature from his meteoric castrato career that when his parents finally put their foot down when he asked for the roast sweetmeats of the entire WWF endangered Red List, he suffered a sanity failure and ate the Kovaczes instead. Apparently Mrs Kovacze’s last words were ‘for Gaia’s sake don’t use the ebony chair’s on the BBQ, use the pine in the kitchen, it’s more sustainable.
The judge was sympathetic of Desi’s actions and commented how by cuttiing his parent’s lives short, he had followed their wishes in reducing CO2. He was found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity however he was returned to prison to face further charges of mass arson attacks on the Amazon, which is said to have wiped out an area the size of Texas.
Desi vows to lead a life of extreme CO2 emissions when he is finally released.
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I hope this is a parody. Surely, no sane human being could be this deranged.
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Will there be pressure an James Hansen to update the title of his book, Storms of My Grandchildren?
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[Censored. Yes, censored—let’s not quibble.
Why? Either I’m an intellectual coward, or you made one of your trademark statements of the obvious in such a way that they seem to cost great cognitive effort, which is just depressing for everyone.
—B.K.]
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Just like anthropogenic global warming then, right Rice?
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You may need to also censor Cat’s comment if you don’t want what I said to be in a comment on this post.
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Wow. That’s two for two, Ken!
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Clever, you just deleted the relevant bit of Cat’s comment and made it seem that it was never even there. Why are you so reluctant to let me point out that the reason you’re not linking to the original article is that it doesn’t actually exist?
[ATTP, are you OK? You TOLD me to censor Cat’s comment, and now you’re describing me as ‘clever’ for doing what you requested?? Trust me, it took zero cleverness on my part. —BK]
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“it doesn’t actually exist?”
Just like AGW then isn’t that so, Rice?
But that doesn’t bother you – in fact, you’re probably making money out of it, so why are you whining about the article?
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Ken,
You are a very boring
personcommenter.[Edited after Alan Kendall called unnamed posters out for ad-hominism. Point taken, Alan. —B.K.]
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This does not exist anywhere on the internet except on this site. Fake news.
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Gosh, thank you “Brad.”
Thank you for scouring THE ENTIRE INTERNET to ascertain that.
Another genius, folks. What did we do to deserve 2 in 1 thread?
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There are laws to protect young persons, even from their parents, even in California. There is an oath taken by doctors to “do no harm”, especially in California – land of hyper-litigiousity. aTTL’s view, for once, seems reasonable.
Brad, are you conducting some sort of social experiment upon gullibility?
Is Robert Pollock a stooge or even fictitious – used to explain why you will not provide a link? The multiple failure of my googling attempts, finally resulted in suspicion and then outright disbelief.
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Brad why did you censor aTTP? Was it because you didn’t want your experiment/ruse exposed? Wonder what will happen to my contribution above (4.47am), or this one?
Interesting that some immediately rushed in to oppose aTTL, regardless of whatever he wrote. Interesting results from your experiment – if it is one.
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Alan,
I abridged ATTP’s moral right to self-expression on stylistic grounds, exactly as I explained at the time. There is a certain standard we expect of comments here, and I’m afraid the ponderous, plonktonkerous, tin-eared sentences ATTP tried to inflict on his fellow commenters fell several kilometres short of it.
Thank you, by the way, for raising a very interesting (potential) interpretation of my post. If (I say if!) it is indeed an experiment, ATTP can surely be forgiven for his unfamiliarity with such things.
Who is ATTL, though?
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Alan,
I’m discovering some other great morsels in your comments. (And no, I don’t censor anyone casually; nor do I casuistically cavil at ‘censor,’ because that’s what it is: censoring.)
How good a job, in your observation, are those laws doing to protect Muslim children?
(Oops—I forgot my Dawkins/Harris/Hitchens; I mean “the children of Muslim parents?”)
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Brad
Censorship here because of stylistic reasons? Whatever next!
As you are fully aware, laws have to be applied by good and concerned people. In the UK female genital mutilation is banned but continues illegally because of so-called cultural reasons, although there have been recent prosecutions.
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Brad.
Do you have ESP?
Were you anticipating this?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/05/19/claim-unwanted-children-the-fundamental-cause-of-climate-change/
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Alan, I doubt the family member who alerted me to TIME’s egregious apologia for child abuse had any advance knowledge of Anthony Watts’ posting intentions. Why, that would require nothing less than a conspiracy spanning one continent and 2 (two) persons, which strains even my tendons of credulity, and I’m the most gullible denialist who ever ideated!
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If it wasn’t so close to what the climate extremists actually say it would be hilarious.
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Hunter,
I don’t follow you. Well, I do follow, but this is where I get:
If what they say wasn’t so close to what they say, what they say would be hilarious.
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ATTP *actually* fell for this? No wonder he makes such a climate kook. His voluntary idiocracy only makes your post even better. Extremists, as ATTP demonstrates, frequently use humorectomies to help assure they are unlikely to ever have to use critical thinking skills and possibly question the focus of their extremism. ATTP’s humorectomy was apparently quite thorough.
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I’m not sure ATTP “fell for” anything. Or are you suggesting that only someone whose first blog was called ToTheLeftOfCentre would fall for anything TIME says? When I see that masthead, I automatically prepare myself for a liberal* dose of fake news.
*No pun intended, and no offence intended to adherents to the Sane Left, a broad church that claims Tom Fuller, Geoff Chambers and often myself as members.
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Umm, no. All I did was point out that the reason there was no link to the original article is that the original article didn’t exist. For some reason, Brad saw that as a comment worth moderating.
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You are of course right. Your chatty fluff piece could have been written by Jack Lint of Brazil, another good family man who knew how important his work-family balance is.
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ATTP you are so funny. Only a moron or true extremist (sorry for the redundancy) would think it important to pint out that an obvious parody is not actually a published pieces. That you are acting like a guilt ridden Catholic defending the various pre-occupations of priests implies a rather brittle faith in your obsession. Be careful lest critical thinking breaks out and you actually consider the implications of your faith.
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Brad annoyingly posts stuff that is only a bit more weird than reality. If it was a lot more weird or warmists weren’t so bonkers, his japes would be easier to spot. I say that in defence for having fallen for them on multiple occasions.
While there are no testicle trimming parents out there, there are people who say they’ve chosen not to have kids because of their CO2 phobias. Is it worse to be neutered or to be never conceived? There are many parents blighting their kids lives by moaning on about the end of life as we know it. It was worrying to grow up under the shadow of the bomb but at least you knew when it wasn’t the end of the world. You knew that there would be a big bang and a few minutes to eat all the ice cream in the freezer. The poor kids now don’t even know what thermageddon would look like. All they know is that it’s 10 years away… always 10 years away.
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Ken, don’t exaggerate.
Your comment (which I regret censoring, as I’m now reduced to asking people to take my word for this, and also because Censorship Is Wrong) said that your *SUSPICION* was “that the actual reason there was no actual link to the original article is actually that the original article didn’t actually exist.”
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Brad, surely the ATTL’s use of the word “suspicion” merely implies that he didn’t want to go the whole hog and call you out as a disseminator of fake news?
ATTL knows what it means and that is sufficient.
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Hunter,
OHH, you meant the FILM Brazil. The legendary tragicomic masterpiece of a FILM called Brazil, which I’m ashamed to say I hadn’t seen in too many decades to recognize your allusion. I’m adding it to my list.
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When is someone going to tell me what ATTL stands for?
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Hunter. Brad’s offering is not so easy to spot as parody. I was unsure for several hours. Setting it in California was a masterstroke – almost anything seems possible in that nuthouse (l lived there for three years). What was being proposed was not so different from the common practice of FGM.
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Alan,
It matters not if we mere men knew, or knew not, Ken’s fake news meaning; the naked few knew Ken’s mind on that and that is enough. I’m better at reading words than minds.
But for all my reading skills, I still don’t get where these (somewhat conspiracist) ideations about fakery are coming from. To take a passage at random, could somebody please point out to me what part[s] of the following would strike any reader as remotely odd, not-real, BS-detector-arousing or otherwise eyebrow-raising?
I must be a bit slow, because I’m just not seeing it.
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To take another example,
That quote is composed entirely of cromulent, non-humourous words you can find in any dictionary, isn’t it?
Help me out: what’s wrong with this picture? (Nothing, as far as I can see.)
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This is getting rather tedious, but for the benefit on onlookers/lurkers (assuming that there are some) but the Mark Malin quotes in this comment are also fake.
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ATTP,
if *you’re* getting bored making one comment after another expressing the same, sole, single, one (1) opinion you’ve ever had about this article, imagine what it’s like reading them.
I’m tempted to coin the Latinism ‘ad tedium’.
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Apologies, Mark Malin should have been Mark Maslin.
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Brad. There is an obvious flaw in the type of piece you commonly produce and that is that, once detected, all future writings become suspect. ATTL (originally ATTP) found that out. Deliberate [L]ies are never forgotten.
For example you wrote (20 May 17 at 6:09 am)
“Alan, I’m discovering some other great morsels in your comments.” Originally I took this as a compliment, but now wonder if it is further parody. Even reassurances to the contrary will be suspect. There’s nothing you can do, you’ve blown it buddy!
I am pleased to read that others, with greater experience, have been taken in by your considerable skill. I’ll endeavour not to be fooled twice.
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*Nobody* should have been Mark Maslin. One is one more than necessary.
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Alan,
satirists and parodists—not that I admit to being one of them—have one obvious advantage over the [L]iars who Lie Lurking in our Lair, however:
the former can swear in a court of law that whenever they’re being anything less than literally honest, they invariably write with a telltale jauntiness in their literary voice, often called ‘wit,’ to distinguish such utterances from their more pedestrian, and guileless, ones.
When [L]iars [L]ie, the only giveaway is that their mouths are open. They don’t ‘do’ wit.
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Brad, was your 10.40am meant to be “jaunty” or contain “wit”? No offense.
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Alan,
no, quite the opposite.
It was meant to be relatively dry and prosaic, as a signal of its non-sarcastic, sincere nature.
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Brad. See, I don’t know if this is more parody. My usual “sniffer” is shot to hell.
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The trick is to focus strictly on the TEXT ITSELF (which takes a certain discipline, admittedly, but practice makes perfect).
Don’t worry about who wrote it, or where, or why.
Thinking about the context is… well, overthinking.
For example, in the Time article above, there’s nothing amiss in the WORDS THEMSELVES (other than their moral repugnancy, obviously) to suggest it’s pulling anyone’s leg. Not a single “wink to the reader,” as the saying goes.
Which is why, as soon as I read it, I could tell it was authentic.
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Like the windmills of your mind!
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This latest contrivance, “fakenews” is actually reducing the ability of people to apply critical thinking and analysis apparently. But here in the states comedy shows are considered serious players in news, and traditional news sources are in many ways pathetic attempts at deception. That the ATTP’s of the world (and the meme that debilitated them) spreads like wildfire across the planet, we will see more and more of the sort of ignorant myself aware humorless reactionary behavior. In America it might in full bloom become a truly dangerous social madness. If ATTP is an example it will be merely tedious in the UK.
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hunter,
Want me to change “myself aware” to “non-self aware”?
And was “merely tedious” a typo too? Isn’t that like “merely genocidally Satanic”? Or am I the only one who still agrees with Oscar Wilde that tediousness is the greatest, not the least, of crimes?
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We are giving Brad all the credit/praise/blame/antikudos (strikeout as you choose) for bringing to our attention/credit for fabricating (again strike at will) this piece of horrendous reality/deliberate hokum/merde (strike 3). However, a detailed re-reading suggests it’s the American relative who should be praised/blamed…. (oh you know the drill by now).
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No reader taken in beyond the first use of the word ‘castration’ (what, you never learned the non-reproductive consequences? Nor if all other scepticism abandoned you, doubted the legality) should consider himself competent for scientific scepticism on climate.
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Len. Your “contribution” is far too strong. People learn by experience and this often includes using a knowledge about who wrote the post (or whatever). Personally I would err toward the gullible side and this is a preference. I would not wish to be like some I communicate with on various websites who IMO are miserable sceptics believing in nothing or no one. They are true doubting Thomas’s. For example, I always give your more serious posts the time of day, because they often challenge some of my beliefs and commonly I need to research the subject or consult with others more knowledgeable than I. To others here what you write is like a red rag, something to be opposed regardless.
Brad’s piece is believable to the gullible on first reading because, compared with what is acceptable around the world, his thesis is not so bizarre, and it is set in a society in which the bizarre is commonplace. For some like me it takes a little time for reflection to realize I have been “had”. I don’t believe initial gullibility makes one ineligible to comment on climate change dogma.
Brad. An interesting ploy would be to find something really bizarre but genuine and rewrite in your own prose style, and see how many here believe it to be parody.
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Brad. Or perhaps you already have and I (we?) haven’t noticed!
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Yes feel free to edit for clarity. I am reduced to typing on a small “smart” phone keyboard since my computer was fried. The “smart” phone seems to enjoy autofilling even after I have selected the word to use…thank you very much.
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….and yes: tediousness is right there with “mildly satanic”, “mildly genocidal”, and “banal of evil”. Which was rather the point in Brazil the movie…..
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Brad’s art, as ever, mimics reality and his dark genuine humour is actually a few shades lighter than the unintentional dark humour which springs forth upon an inspection of actual events. Eric Holthaus, meteorologist:
“For those who live in the real—and warming—world, though, the fact that the earth’s atmosphere will undergo some pretty fundamental changes in the next generation can raise second thoughts about the idea of procreation.
I know firsthand. On the same day my wife and I gave up flying for good, I also publicly considered getting a vasectomy . . . . .
Because really, why the hell would someone of procreating age today even consider having a baby? It feels like an utter tragedy to create new life, fall in love with it, and then watch it writhe in agony as the world singes to a crisp.”
As it happens, Eric did have kids – two of them – and doesn’t regret a moment of it, despite his ominous declaration that “California is shriveling up, amid predictions of imminent mega-droughts across the western US”. I’m guessing now he is even more bereft of regret with the ‘1000 year drought’ in California now officially ended (somewhat early, it must be said) and most of the western states now drought free. He’s not alone of course in having serious misgivings about having children.
“Jennie Ferrara, a mother of two and an American ex-pat living in Copenhagen, told me that in the last several years she’s experienced bouts of a “climate angsty-anxiety-depression,” which began soon after the birth of her first child.”
Ferrara says:
“I’m looking at my kids on a daily basis, and I don’t think an hour—I don’t think a half-hour—goes by without me thinking about the existential malaise that we’re in,” Ferrara said. “Had I not had kids, I’m not sure I would be where I am about the climate… That’s my bubble, the climate bubble that I’m walking around in all the time.”
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/should-climate-change-stop-us-from-having-babies-305
Poor kids; having to put up with mummy looking at them anxiously every half hour through the glazed walls of her self-imposed “climate bubble”. Their future is probably looking rather more bleak for the fact of being brought up by an unhinged climate worrier than for having to possibly deal with a centimeter or so of sea level rise and some bad weather occasionally.
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Professor Mark Maslin (UCL)
This is a purely made up article – a sick attempt to push a political view on climate change through fabrication. Time magazine has no record of this article and there is no record of it on any search engine. Also I have never given any of these quotes. These quotes are sick and I do not endorse any of them. In a world of fake news it is strange to find myself in the middle of a fake article. Different Political opinions are everyone’s right but not making stuff up and making up quotes of scientists just to push your view. Sick, sick, sick. This shows the desperation of some individuals for attention and validation of their world view.
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But Mark, can you really blame me for falling for it (assuming there was, as you suggest, something to “fall for”)? I don’t have an army of fact-checkers at my command. Also bear in mind that I don’t know you nearly as well as I’d like to get to, one day.
Therefore, to repeat the challenge I’ve issued others on this thread: which part of this passage featuring your good self was supposed to leap out at me as self-evidently factitious, faketitious, facetious or faketious?
I must be a bit slow, because I’m just not seeing it.
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There is a distinct lack of sympathy for Brad’s predicament in some of these comments. Some are quite hurtful. If these commentators would take the trouble to point out which particular parts of the article which came into Brad’s possession were implausible given what we know of the purported actors and the cultural milieu in which leading-edge, well-woke, American social pioneers and activists operate, then that would help us all progress. One of their leading journals, for example, just published a paper which added the penis to the list of factors causing climate change (http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/05/20/delingpole-penises-cause-climate-change-progressives-fooled-by-peer-reviewed-hoax-study/). It may be linked to the notion that unwanted children are the primary cause, but whatever, we live in lively times, when people with vivid imaginations and dire forebodings about the future get into prominent positions in academia, the media, the UN, leading NGOs, and so on and on. It behoves us to give them a good checking out to try to pin down where their realities separate from those of more rational, calmer people like our goodselves.
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Alan, yes it was too strong, but it got you attention 😀 But I do find that there is a surprising lack of scepticism on the part of those who call themselves sceptics. Sceptics seem so certain, blinded even. This is exemplified by Brad not even recognising why his supposed quotation is not believable.
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Len,
You seem to think the whole supposed Time piece is a bold-faced lie. So please lift the scales from my eyes and tell me what I should’ve noticed amiss in those quotes!
I was so bold as to say I saw no “winks” to the reader anywhere (though it’s possible I blinked and missed a couple of winks).
Now I’m going to make like a large rock and be even bolder: hurry up and prove me wrong! Boldly go where nobody in this thread has gone. I’ll be bowled over.
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PS Joint blog name aside, I call myself a denier, not a skeptic (if we’re being technical).
I *think* of myself as a skeptic, but so do most people, believers and deniers alike, so *calling* myself a skeptic wouldn’t convey much useful information, if any.
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Believe you me, I’m gonna be having some unminced words to say to my American family members next time we speak.
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Brad. Just who is reportedly responsible for authoring the item? Then others could discover the credibility (or otherwise) of their entire oeuvre and make informed judgements upon their credibility (or otherwise).
The item is just long enough for contextual analysis. Someone with those skills might employ them here for all our enjoyment.
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Brad, only nutters would laud a movement that was obviously illegal, medical malpractice, morally repugnant and illogical (the more logical being not to procreate yourself). That would be obvious to readers of your text unless they really thought of people like Maslin as nutters – the un-sceptical certainty I referred to. Also the comma after “I hope” must be a ‘tell’ for something.
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Len. “only nutters would laud a movement that was obviously illegal, medical malpractice, morally repugnant and illogical”. Yet you have the example of FGM already mentioned – accepted practice in many countries, illegal but ignored in many others.
Brad’s(?) invention (?) is, unfortunately, not so far fetched. Is it any more outrageous than deliberately poisoning people with arsenic to cure them of their cancer?
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Alan’s comment about this being “not so far fetched” has made me decide to post a few additional comments.
1. Climate is a topic in which there are regular complaints (sometimes from people on this site) about the use of the term “denier”, supposedly because it creates an association with an appalling past event. This happens even if people make clear that they’re referring to denying science, or denying climate science.
2. Despite this, here is a post in which an explicit association is made between wanting to save the planet and mutilating children. So, you’ve explictly associated people you disagree with, with carrying out appalling acts on children, and someone thinks this is “not so far fetched”?
3. On top of that, the author of the post then goes on to make up quotes from a prominent member of the UK science community to make it seem that they approve of this appalling practice, when it’s pretty obvious that they do not.
I really did think that this site could not sink any lower, but you’ve gone and proved me wrong again. Kudos.
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What’s the perfesser so upset about? He is clearly living in the echo chamber that has sustained the “population bomb” hustle that has profited so many prophets of doom so well for so long. The perfesser has been making up scrap about the dangers of population for a nice living for himself. He has been calling for just what this satirical parody offers. But he too clearly suffers from the after effects of a humorectomy. “Fake news”? No more than “A Modest Proposal” was “fake news”. If the perfesser had any ability to self reflect, or even had the vestige of a conscience, he might consider the actual implications if his words. But he is after all an Academic in the modern sense of the word so that ain’t very likely. The bomb Ehrlich set off nearly 50 years ago damaged the Academy deeply as the good perfesser demonstrates here.
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Distorting evidence 101 (ATTL lecturer)
“here is a post in which an explicit association is made between wanting to save the planet and mutilating children. So, you’ve explictly (explicitly?) associated people you disagree with, with carrying out appalling acts on children, and someone thinks this is “not so far fetched”?” [The someone being yours truly].
Yet I gave the parallel of “female genital mutilation” as an example of similar medical procedures being “not so far fetched”. I could have mentioned involuntary sterilization of the so-called “feeble minded”. We humans have a long and tortuous history of doing unmentionable things to our fellows.
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And to top it off ATTP *still* doesn’t get it. He’s as clueless as someone searching for a gold coin in the corner of a round room. Brad this may just be your best yet.
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Ken:
“Alan’s comment about this being “not so far fetched” has made me decide to post a few additional comments.”
Thanks, Alan. Thanks a lot. 😉
“This happens even if people make clear that they’re referring to denying science, or denying climate science.”
Oh, that’s OK then. I thought you were accusing us of denying history, which would be rather insulting. You just meant denying *science*—a COMPLETELY different libelous imputation.
My bad.
You can’t imagine how silly I feel, having so radically misinterpreted you for *decades*. It’s almost like I wasn’t paying the slightest attention to any of your—let’s call them—’arguments.’
I must be the second stupidest person in this conversation, Ken. I can literally count on one finger (digitus tertius being the natural choice) the number of more spectacularly beefwitted fuckknuckles in the set {me, you}.
“Despite this, here is a post in which an explicit association is made between wanting to save the planet and mutilating children.”
Weeelllll…. just to extend us the charity I think you can afford on your embezzled Professor’s salary, Mr I-Can’t-Tell-Science-From-Its-180-Degree-Opposite, you might want to amend your umbrageous gasp of dudgeon to:
‘…here is a post in which an explicit association is made between wanting to save the planet by mutilating children and mutilating children.’
Yep, sorry bout that. Guilty as charged (a refreshing feeling, I must say, in the context of this clash of Minds v. Anencephalic Walking Spitoons).
“…quotes from a prominent member of the UK science community…”
Whoa! Quotes from whom?! You must be thinking of a different Mark Maslin. Are you getting University College London, University College, London, London College University, London’s University of College and the People’s Front of Judea conflated in your widdwe skull, perhaps, Ken? (I’m just trying to be charitable back atcha.)
The Mark Maslin who, er, *contributed* to this thread just a while back is, I believe, the same prominent member of the UK business community who, in the act of pretending to be a scientist,
1. pompously propounded to a NASA engineer the Fake News that humans were descended from apes (literally; not from a common prosimian ancestor, but from apes)*
2. explicitly tapped out of the science game (it being too hard for his widdwe Barbie cranium, presumably), by pleading that he was willing to discuss politics, and only politics, with people who didn’t share his pet hypotheses about the atmosphere
*In Maslin’s defense, what would a NASA engineer know, really? I mean really? Rocket science isn’t exactly climate anthropobioclimatology, is it?
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Brad, you’re very welcome, but in my defence I am not ATTL’s keeper nor do I subscribe to his particular pecadillos.
BTW the common ancestor of extant apes and humans would also have been a hominid (= ape), so all of us are, and have evolved from, apes. A Prosimian would also be the ancestor of the New and Old World
monkeys as well and lived more than 40 million years ago. Just saying…
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Len,
thanks for your explanation. I’d like to hear some other people’s answers, if they have some to share.
Just to take issue with your logic, I note that you write:
“…if they really thought of people like Maslin as nutters – the un-sceptical certainty I referred to.”
If someone is *un-sceptically certain* that people like Maslin are nutters, then you’re right to upbraid them as above.
If someone simply *THINKS* people like Maslin are nutters, the right thing for you to do, surely, would be to triage their reasons. These might, *or might not,* involve an element of askeptical certainism.
You’re making a category error, in other words (in my interpretation, anyway) by charging people who have a belief you consider wrong with the habit of believing beliefs in the wrong way.
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Alan,
“Brad, you’re very welcome, but in my defence I am not ATTL’s keeper nor do I subscribe to his particular pecadillos.”
Yeah, apologies, I retro-edited my comment to smilify that remark, so as to make allusions to Genesis unnecessary 🙂
“BTW the common ancestor of extant apes and humans would also have been a hominid (= ape),”
‘Would also have been’? Do you mean to suggest it follows logically and necessarily? Or do you just mean ‘were’? I.e., are you drawing from a body of a-posteriori knowledge which [apparently] has, so to speak, evolved since I was in high school (as science is perfectly entitled, wont, designed and supposed to do)?
“so all of us are, and have evolved from, apes. A Prosimian would also be the ancestor of the New and Old World monkeys as well and lived more than 40 million years ago. Just saying…”
Well, I appreciate your just saying that, though I’d appreciate even more having heard it from Maslin himself, but that would require his condescending to discuss science, not politics, with the Lumpen Sullied.
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Also, given that humans ARE apes, this sketch is exceedingly silly.
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Oh—I’m a bit slow tonight—is that what you meant all along, Alan? My cue to go to bed, methinks.
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‘ Also the comma after “I hope” must be a ‘tell’ for something.’
I thought the comma after “I hope” was a ‘tell’ for the fact that there was a comma before “I hope.” No?
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The physical mutilation of kids in order to save the planet is a dark-humoured parody, a nightmare dredged from the delinquent and unruly depths of Brad’s unexplored subconscious. But it’s a parody, not an accusation, not a recommendation. What is not parody is that virtually all climate worriers are in fact male/female eunuchs, having lost their essential humourous ‘bits’ sometime between birth and becoming ‘climate experts’/climate change activists. What is REALLY not parody is that young, impressionable kids are being propagandised at school and university by left wing climate change ‘group think/no think’ dogma. That is mutilation of the spirit/violence against the mind, requiring not a surgeon’s sharp scalpel, but a blunt instrument of state-endorsed and sponsored ‘learning’. So spare us the indignation at parody and spare a thought please for the actual, ongoing abuse of children ostensibly being carried out in order to save the planet and save humanity.
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Just for the record, I think it’s fair to say that Mark Maslin’s actual view about population and climate change is that simple population control will not of itself solve the ‘problem’ of climate change, the ‘problem’ being one of ‘excessive’ consumption, which is a function of industrialisation and development in conjunction with per capita consumption. So in that respect obviously, large population growth in developed nations is undesirable, as is increasing population in developing nations which are wanting to exploit cheap fossil fuel reserves to develop their economies and infrastructure. Mark also thinks ‘population control’ amounts to empowerment of women, i.e. women making family planning decisions. But he could have told you all this and we would have believed him and said fair’s fair Mark, Brad was a bit mean to you.
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Brad, thanks for ‘asceptical’; un-sceptical seemed ugly, although the spell checker objects to ascetical. Regarding the comma, yes of course. Somehow I managed to read the preceding comma as a stop, several times.
Regarding asceptical certainty (I’m now thinking un-sceptical reads better…) there’s plenty of it around.
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Len, thanks for caring about words. It’s refreshing. I hope you enjoyed the visual confundibility of ‘certainism’ and ‘cretinism.’ I’d caution you, though, against being too harsh on those who fail to read as closely as Time’s writers might’ve hoped. Scanning-for-gist is not always adequate… but there is, as you might say, plenty of it going round. 🙂
[Edit: Len, commas can be a bitch—as I was reminded when I missed Alan’s point that humans are, and are not [merely?] descended from, apes. And proceeded to make the same mind-blowing announcement myself, a few comments later.
But to expand on the other matter: what I’m suggesting is that there may be some bodies of writing (not mine, obviously) in which the meaning of the words, when read carefully, and the gist of the piece, when scanned à la blog post, may be two different (or even diametrically opposite) things. In theory.]
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Thanks Jaime. Perhaps my American relatives were, indeed, a bit mean to another Mark Maslin, who’s a climate biologist [sic] at University College [sic] in London. And no doubt the Maslin who deigned (if it’s possible to deign indignantly) to visit us here is a leader in thought and example, having both the consumptive footprint of a Chinese ballerina and a strict One Ballerina Policy in his own, none-of-our-business life. I’d certainly have a hard time objecting to the view, if he’d expressed it, that “‘population control’ amounts to empowerment of women, i.e. women making family planning decisions,” which is both a feelgood Values Thing and (last I checked) an empirical theory.
But I’m guessing the Renaissance man of business, developmental economics and evolutionary chemobiospheric physics has a policy of only discussing science, not politics, with anyone so gauche as to lack his politics, so we’ll probably never know.
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I”m having difficulty catching up with this fascinating thread. For example, when JAIME JESSOP (20 May 17 at 5:31 pm) says: “Brad’s art, as ever, mimics reality” and then quotes one Eric Holthaus, meteorologist saying:
the only way I can efface the image of a meteorologist publicly considering his imaginary vasectomy (is it on Youtube?) is by assuming that Jaime is making it up. But I don’t think she is. Which is why we need Brad.
Some of Mark Maslin’s opinions on climate change, deniers, and big pricks can be found at
http://theconversation.com/profiles/mark-maslin-108286/articles
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Geoff, I know you better than to suspect your link to those musings on macrophallic microorchidism was a precocious adolescent’s way of calling Maslin a massive knob who lacks the scrotal volume to defend himself. Unless… have you shared your Internet login with a nephew we don’t know about?
[No. I’m still a precocious adolescent. It’s what makes me doubt. – Geoff]
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“I really did think that this site could not sink any lower, but you’ve gone and proved me wrong again.”
And yet here you are Rice – again…
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Cat,
“I really did think that this site could not sink any lower, but you’ve gone and proved me wrong again.”
Oh, he was talking about *us.* I thought he was just on holiday in Venice, which (for the trivia tragics) is also called the Poor Man’s Bali, as it tends to attract the budget-conscious tourist in search of the maximal bang for his embezzled Professorial buck.
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Cat,
this soundbite from Ken Andersson Wattie-Rice:
“I really did think that this site could not sink any lower, but you’ve gone and proved me wrong again.”
is notable, also, for proving that even Ken, the Konsummate Kounterscientist, is capable of falsification-based learning.
So there’s hope.
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Brad, yes indeed. Of the two I’ve never, as far as I know, been accused of exhibiting certainism.
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I forgot what we were talking about but are you trying to warn us that you *have* been accused of a certain exhibitionism?
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If this site appears to be sinking lower, beyond even the expectations of scientists like Ken, one must understand, it’s not because it IS sinking, it’s because sea level is rising even faster than predicted. We can only hope that Pyrrho’s ship stays afloat on the higher seas so that time-honoured scepticism does not sink with us.
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Geoff,
Luckily I just now saw your epiparentheses, but it’s better to start a new comment when replying, I’ve learned.
I thought my mate James, who’s an utter legend, was pretty precocious in Year 9 when he nominated ‘dubito ergo sum’ as his motto.
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Speaking of Pyrrho’s ship:
despite myself, I increasingly catch myself throwing a millennium of English orthography overboard and joining our Englandese-speaking colleagues aboard the Good Ship Scepticism.
Spare a thought for the letter K, whose sceleton rests—unvisited but not unmourned—somewhere in the Mariana Trench. If I had the scill of an artist I could scetch her handsome features even now. She was the first glyph that really made an impression on me.
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Well, Mark?
Don’t keep us in suspense. It’s Monday now (in the jurisdiction I list as my residence).
How did UCL’s lawyers respond? Which part of your complaint got the most laughs, would you say? If you had to pick one?
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For the want of a comma, an argument was lost.
For the want of an argument, truth was abandoned.
Then there was climate change, global warming, and climate wierding.
For want of a comma we get words like wierding and new definitions of words like pollution.
Woe is us.
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I expect the big guns of the UCL and/or TIME legal team will come blasting this way any time soon, demanding that libellous content is removed, or else . . . . . .
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It is quite notable that the perfesser is so un-self aware or so arrogant as to imply that his views on climate are not political and that pointing out what an Ehrlich-derived population bomb climate profiteer he is *with his own words* is somehow unacceptable. He reacts in an internet age sort Dorian Gray gazing at his youthful portrait sort of way. Only more cowardly.
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“demanding that libellous content is removed, or else . . . . . .”
I suspect they’ll demand “else.” Without libellous content, where would the climate movement be today? It’d be a stagnant academic reservoir incapable of attracting anyone but scientific mediocrities with all the data hygiene awareness of Jayant Patel. Oh wait…
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Words do fail. For me the failure is frequently due to typing quickly, early in the AM, on a tiny smartphone keypad. And of course the accursed “spell suggest”. Please excuse the prior post’s excursion into gobbledygook.
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Jaime in most of the world under the rule of a rational legal system quoting what someone actually says is not considered libelous. But the age that has allowed the climate crisis to fester is hardly rational, is it?
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Hunter, Brad. Can we have chapter and verse where allegedly Mark Maslin allegedly wrote or said what Brad allegedly quoted him as allegedly saying/writing. Then I’ll back you up all the way, allegedly. Mention of lawyers brings me out into allegedly hives.
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I’m hopping on board a 747 as we speak to demand answers from the branch of my family that lives between Mexico and Canada, not inclusive.
(Don’t worry, I precisely cancelled out the emissions from my flight by buying a return ticket.)
Good luck with the allegedly hives, Alan. Hope your skin’s cleared up by the time I get back.
My daughter just waved goodbye. “See you later, allegator.”
“After a while, Cleopatra, Queen of Denial.”
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Brad. I have a hypothesis that you are a Pullmanesque character who has been living in your universe alt for the past few months and have gotten confused upon re-entry into our one. In that alt universe Maslin gave those quotes, California is indeed the land of the snip (familiars not gonads), Time is a highly respected organization (as is UCL) and perhaps even climate change is a reality (due to excessive dust). Don’t try talking to polar bears here.
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“Pullmanesque”
The dark-matter specialist, or the President in Independence Day?
“the land of the snip (familiars not gonads)”
Huh? What would snipping a familiar entail?
“Time is a highly respected organization (as is UCL)”
Well, Time has implicitly voiced respect for UC, L, *not* UCL, and I can’t remember indicating respect for UCL myself, in any of my personae. Does memory serve me incorrectly? It might well do, but if not, has *anyone* here said they respect UCL highly?
“Don’t try talking to polar bears here.”
Rest assured, I would sooner smile at a crocodile.
“perhaps even climate change is a reality”
No, climate change may be many things, but I don’t think it’s even.
I think that it’s odd and I think that it’s odd that you think that I think that it’s even.
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“….who has been living in your universe alt for the past few months…”
Did you see my Tweet earlier today?
Nobody else did.
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Brad.
I should have written daemons not familiars (although the two seem somewhat similar).
OYou don’t believe in climate change. Really? The evidence is overwhelming. Furthermore in another universe anything is possible EVEN self-aware dust.
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I’m familiar with the phenomenon of familial snipping—I even blogged about it a couple of days ago, IIRC—but what the daevil is daemon snipping?
“You don’t believe in climate change. Really?”
I REALLY believe in climate change, and have done everything I can to promote it. I salute the generations who’ve come before—it’s their selfless acts of consumption that have made our climate up to 1.2 degrees better, according to the latest scientists. But the baton is in our hands now. Let us not betray their legacy by stopping here.
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The Maslin fold is a big geological feature in the Thames Valley. In Jurassic times, pseudo scientists used to queue up to drown in the shallow outflow pipes of a paper mill
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Alan,
I’m still waiting for enlightenment on the meaning of demon-snipping. I’m a bit slow at the best of times, so you might have to daemonstrate.
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Why would Maslin fold now, when his bluffing skills are helping him rake in the money, hand over fist, in the great game of Climate Poker?
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Brad. Suggest you review the plotlines of His Dark Materials for daemon snipping – a source of great energy in another universe (try my friend Wikki). I have been speculating as to what your own daemon might be ; a chameleon perhaps?
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Interesting, someone “improved” my last post. I’ve noticed this happening over at BH. Or perhaps my short term memory is shot and I’m going ga-ga.
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I have noticed with shock and awe that Len has repeatedly been awarded likes on this thread. Is this a record? What is it that he has been doing right/wrong (strike out according to prejudice)?
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Even more interesting, my 4.48am post has returned to its original brilliance. Is someone playing with my mind?
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Alan, I know nothing about any alteration of your comments (and I’ve only just read your 4:48pm now). I’m happy to investigate for you, if you’re still sure it happened. I don’t support that kind of practice, morally, unless there’s a *very* good reason for it. And ideally the “improvement” should actually be an improvement—correcting a typo to save the commenter the effort of doing so, for instance.
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Fellow blog proprietors,
if anyone *did* change Alan’s comment, don’t.
Thanks.
Alan,
Your guesses about my personal dysdaemonia are slowly converging on the truth. I have, in fact, long been possessed of (or by) a comma chameleon. Recently, for want of an em, it’s gone into a coma. Let us pray it’s terminal. The overuse of punctuation is wrong. Period. In my opinion.
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Brad. Thanx but no thanx. It could be illusionary (my impending ga-ga-ness) and if so I don’t want to know. Alternatively my early morning persona could be living a quite separate life, or my own personal daemon (a fluffy scottie dog) is responsible.
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A 2012 report from someway down the slippery slope:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/15/uk-aid-forced-sterilisation-india
Sliding on down in 2015:
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/june-19th-2015/the-plot-to-sterilise-the-worlds-poor/
We can see now where they were heading …
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Can’t see why Brad needs to make up stuff when there’s referenced material like the foregoing available.
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I put climate change and sterilization as search items into Bing and got 8,760,000 RESULTS. In the first few pages were some pretty horrendous items, including one from that great humanitarian Al Gore on the subject
http://weeklyworldnews.com/headlines/34910/al-gore-sterilize-women-under-25/
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So it seems the good perfesser is just shy. He is actually on a path with so many other climate experts on the great xenocidal path. A certain German of Austrian extraction, who was not only an environmentalist and vegetarian but was also a deep believer in the science fad of his day, eugenics. He did a heck of a job demonstrating that behind it all eugenics was about either preventing people who eugenicists did not like from breeding. And if breeding was successful to just slaughter them to make certain the wicked unworthy did not do it again. I wonder if there are any lessons worth drawing from that?
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“Can’t see why Brad needs to make up stuff…”
Exactly. THANK you.
I’m the Peter Gleick of denialism. Why would I bother making things up when it’s all out there? This making-things-up “conspiracy” is implausible on its face.
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Apropos Brad Keyes
@ 21st of May, hey,
‘smilify,’ say are you
the new Shakes-spere?
I like. *****
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