patrick.net

Dan8267 says

Since when is not polluting a drastic action? And why can something as large as global climate change wait, but we couldn't wait after 9/11 before giving up all our human rights?

We don't have the capability yet to drastically curtail CO2 production without keeping billions in poverty. The western world could, at various degrees of expense, reduce their CO2 footprint, for example, the Ivanpah solar facility that just opened removes about 400,000 tons of annual output. This electricity is very expensive and needs to be supplemented at night. We can afford to do that.

The people barely surviving, burning animal dung and wood, will do everything in their power to improve their lives. They will generate much more dirty energy than we can compensate for with clean energy. The drastic action is denying these people a shot at better quality of life to reduce CO2 emissions.

The best way would be to build out thorium based nuclear power, we've got enough thorium to last a long time. Unfortunately, clear nuclear power has a lot of resistance, even among the eco-crowd, because "nuclear" is a dirty word.

In my ideal world, we'd have nothing but clean energy, but the world first needs enough productive critical mass to afford it. I think we'll clean up, for sure, but not for a while.

Oh, and as for 9/11 leading up to giving up human rights, well, we shouldn't have done that either!

myob says

We don't have the capability yet to drastically curtail CO2 production without keeping billions in poverty.

Care to back up that assertion and compare it to the potential billions of climate change refugees anticipated?

Dan8267 says

Care to back up that assertion and compare it to the potential billions of climate change refugees anticipated?

"billions" of refugees is an overstatement with no basis. A warming earth will hurt some, it will help others in cold climates, and it might lead to some migration, but not billions.

I do not see how we can replace fossil fuels for the time being, maybe with the exception of nuclear power, which is politically impossible. We've already dammed all the rivers we can dam for hydroelectric, solar can't generate steady power so it's useless as base load generation because we don't have ways of storing it, as is wind, but it's even less predictable. Geothermal works well in a few places where it's possible. What other forms of CO2 free energy do we have? Power plants are easier than transportation. Even if we had scads of green electricity, you can't use that to power airplanes or many automobile applications either.

Treaties like Kyoto or whatever will never work because they stifle economic progress. Some countries will sign these things, others wont, and those that do will cheat because the whole point of these things is to hold back your own people. No, the only real move towards green energy will happen when it's actually the better option. I don't see an alternative way of greening our economies that's politically feasible in the long term. Short term, sure, you can make some examples of some people and cause them to live with less energy, until they revolt.

myob says

"billions" of refugees is an overstatement with no basis. A warming earth will hurt some, it will help others in cold climates, and it might lead to some migration, but not billions.

Climate change could force 1 billion from their homes by 2050
Climate Refugees Could Number 1 Billion by 2050
1bn climate change refugees by 2050
HowStuffWorks: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that by 2080, 1.1 to 3.2 billion people will experience water scarcity due to climate change
how we are going to handle up to a billion climate change refugees

Fools prepare for the best case scenario. The wise prepare for the worst case scenario.

I'll await your apology for accusing me of pulling these estimates out of my ass. We'll probably have fixed climate change before you man up and apologize.

It may come as no surprise, but I think they're exaggerating. Thomas Malthus predicted we will all starve to death, and we didn't. More recently, Paul Ehrlich made similar predictions, and he was proven wrong.

Climate change is very politicized, and people behind these reports have foundations they'd like to build or organizations that need funding, so it's in their best interest to exaggerate, since moderation isn't heard.

I never claimed you pulled anything out of your ass, just that the numbers you cite are a kind of modern version of "the sky is falling!". I don't believe them.

Where are the 50 million predicted climate refugees that should have been displaced by 2010, according to a 2005 prediction from the UN?

http://asiancorrespondent.com/52189/what-happened-to-the-climate-refugees/

Is it at all even remotely possible that these predictions are wrong? My claim is that we simply have no way of knowing because we don't understand the climate well enough.

I will gladly support curtailing real pollutions - sulfur emission, soot, other toxins, since we can do this cost effectively and the benefits are immediately obvious, as are the harms.

CO2 is much more difficult, since it's the byproduct of all human economic activity (even farming). We can never go back to zero emissions, but how low can we go? Even that's not known. What's the cost of curtailing emissions? Also unknown, since green energy predictions are based on very optimistic costs of buildout which end up being far more expensive in practice.

Anyhow, I should stop trying to convince you, and you will not convince me of anything. I'm sure that all of this is just talk, politically, this is an intractable problem, and recent political solutions were only popular among people who wouldn't be affected by them or would receive credits from the large economies.

The way to attack global warming is via human reproduction.

A two-child policy.

And it can't be voluntary, because those most dedicated would reproduce at the lower rate, while the religious freaks who think the Invisible Man in the Sky will Fix All would continue to expand exponentially.

myob says

It may come as no surprise, but I think they're exaggerating. Thomas Malthus predicted we will all starve to death, and we didn't. More recently, Paul Ehrlich made similar predictions, and he was proven wrong.

Myob, the agricultural production possible today is driven by non-renewable oil both in the mechanization and the creation of fertilizer. The run-off, especially when modern ag meets hardscrabble soils better fitted for grazing, goes into the rivers and then the sea, causing acidification, which harms the fish population. The over-production of corn and soy cause more marginal land to go from grazing to agriculture, with the cattle penned in feedlotsand, instead of spreading beneficial manure all over a large area of grassland, it becomes dangerously concentrated in one place, and causes even more pollution of water.

Technological solutions work, until they themselves create more problems.

With a world population of 1 Billion, we would have plenty of people, human lives would be more valuable, less energy would be required making a clean shift easier, and there would be less taxation of the Earth's resources. We could "Re-wild" vast swaths of the Earth's land. There would be the same wealth for far fewer people; the quality of life would improve. Landlords and Churches wouldn't like it, however.

myob says

It may come as no surprise, but I think they're exaggerating.

In other words, no evidence will convince you because you have decided what you want to believe.

Dan8267 says

I'll await your apology for accusing me of pulling these estimates out of my ass. We'll probably have fixed climate change before you man up and apologize.

myob says

I never claimed you pulled anything out of your ass, just that the numbers you cite are a kind of modern version of "the sky is falling!"

Asserting that my statements are equivalent to "the sky is falling" is the same as saying my statements are unfounded. And you were simply wrong about that.

The face saving move would have been to say something like
Wow, I didn't know about those reports. Thanks for bringing them to my attention. I'll adjust my worldview accordingly.

Instead, you have taken the position, I don't like those reports so I'll choose to reject them even though I'm no climate scientists and I've never done any work on the subject, and the actual climate scientists are backing up these reports with peer-reviewed work. Still, I'm sure my amateur gut reaction is more accurate than the scientific method.

myob says

Thomas Malthus predicted we will all starve to death, and we didn't. More recently, Paul Ehrlich made similar predictions, and he was proven wrong.

Following that philosophy, we should do nothing to prepare for or try to prevent another terrorist attack. After all, such security is inconvenient and costs a lot of money. And we don't know if there ever will be another terrorist attack. We can't be 100% sure of that. And even if it was, we don't know how significant it will be, so we can ignore it. And besides, some of our efforts to prevent terrorism might not be necessary and some might not work, so why try at all and why spend any money on anti-terrorism measures?

No matter what the estimates, there is one thing I'm damn sure of. Climate change will kill more people than terrorism. That is indisputable. As such, climate change should be treated at least as seriously as terrorism. And unlike the war against terrorism, the war against ecological collapse doesn't require killing innocent people including children, torturing, sexually assaulting people, and giving up our human and civil rights.

thunderlips11 says

The way to attack global warming is via human reproduction.

A two-child policy.

And it can't be voluntary, because those most dedicated would reproduce at the lower rate, while the religious freaks who think the Invisible Man in the Sky will Fix All would continue to expand exponentially.

Actually two children is greater than replacement, since generations can be pumped out faster than old people die. So couple XY reaches 23 years at which point they have two kids, and 23 years later they each have two more. Twenty-three years later these also have two. Now the original couple XY are 69 years old and their offspring number 14 people, bringing the total to 16 alive at one time from the original two.
That's why the Chinese policy was one child, not two. Keep in mind, during that period their population didn't appreciably shrink. It just stopped growing.

Has anyone read Dan Brown's latest novel? It ends with an involuntary population control device.

Quigley says

That's why the Chinese policy was one child, not two. Keep in mind, during that period their population didn't appreciably shrink. It just stopped growing.

Interesting Quigley - count me corrected. We're going to have to control population involuntarily, but my God the forces arranged against it.

We can choose to arrest and gradually lower our numbers, or we can experience the joys of being too many deer on too small an island.

thunderlips11 says

We can choose to arrest and gradually lower our numbers, or we can experience
the joys of being too many deer on too small an island.

That's the ticket! Nice little authoritarian impulse to save the earth. We can end up just like China with massive sex imbalance of too many dudes with too few women to marry and mellow out us animals in the male species. The massive glut of unmarriable Chinese males might make for some useful cannonfodder in China's military - so all is not lost. War can meet your desire of reducing population.

socal2 says

Nice little authoritarian impulse to save the earth.

Sometimes you have to be authoritarian. The US Army in WW2 was authoritarian. Washington hung deserters from the Continental Army and Militia.

I dislike authoritarianism, I'd do anything to prevent an authoritarian solution if there was any other solution, even a half-assed one, but there isn't.

The only, only alternative to this is to aggressively redistribute the wealth so that people don't want to have too many kids themselves - but that involves even more death and destruction. If it's even feasible because it would involve more environmental destruction to rush to bring wealth to fourth and third world areas with power, roads, etc.

It makes me sick to my stomach, but damn, it has to be done somehow.

We can restrain ourselves or we can die along with everything decent we and our ancestors have created in spectacular fashion after suffering Soylent Green/ApocalypseFUCK style hell.

thunder lips, last time someone did that, the storm troopers killed all tHe Jedi and the empire came into existence with Chancellor Palpatine as ruler

Heraclitusstudent has a great video at:
http://patrick.net/?p=1242509

I encourage all those who think we don't need to restrain population to watch it.

dodgerfanjohn says

thunder lips, last time someone did that, the storm troopers killed all tHe Jedi and the empire came into existence with Chancellor Palpatine as ruler

I don't consider the so-called Prequels to be legit history. :)

Now the original trilogy, on the other hand...

Science should be the answer. A birth control implant or better yet, a reversible virus, would be the best solution.
There's also a (potentially) reversible birth control option where stents are inserted (vaginally) into Fallopian tubes which scar shut. Boom! No more periods or pregnancies. I suppose they'd have to be removed surgically, and no idea if this would cause permanent reproductive harm. Probably.

Oh noes, it's a war on women!!!
Quigley says

Science should be the answer. A birth control implant or better yet, a reversible virus, would be the best solution.

There's also a (potentially) reversible birth control option where stents are inserted (vaginally) into Fallopian tubes which scar shut. Boom! No more periods or pregnancies. I suppose they'd have to be removed surgically, and no idea if this would cause permanent reproductive harm. Probably.

There's another option: Pay people to be sterilized, both men and women.

It would increase wealth (wealthier people have less children, and the children that are born generally choose to have less children) and the process itself would prevent more population growth.

You would get a bit of money for a sterilization after child #2
Much more money for sterilization after the first child.
And a ton for not having any.

With a reverse incentive joined to it:
Increasing taxation for every child after the first or second.

We should also increase the subsidy and the tax based on the poverty level, criminal history and/or education level. So HS Dropouts with a felony conviction would make a small fortune by getting sterilized before they had a first child. This would also likely reduce the temptation to commit crimes. You don't need to rob the liquor store if you've just got a flat $250k, or you're getting $25k/year subsidy or somesuch

I practically feel the steam of anger arising from the Iron Age religious believers as I type this.

dodgerfanjohn says

thunder lips, last time someone did that, the storm troopers killed all tHe Jedi and the empire came into existence with Chancellor Palpatine as ruler

That was a long time ago in a galaxy far away. More recently and closer to home, stormtroopers did so for lebensraum right here on our planet.

thunderlips11 says

So HS Dropouts with a felony conviction would make a small fortune by getting sterilized before they had a first child. This would also likely reduce the temptation to commit crimes.

Or at least it might make them less tempted to re-commit crimes, after you've already given them an incredible incentive to commit the first one!

Paralithodes says

That was a long time ago in a galaxy far away. More recently and closer to home, stormtroopers did so for lebensraum right here on our planet.

The Nazis encouraged Germans to have more children, not less. The Lebensborn, or "Wellspring of Life" Program.

For decades, Germany’s birthrate was decreasing. Himmler’s goal was to reverse the decline and increase the Germanic/Nordic population of Germany to 120 million. Himmler encouraged SS and Wermacht officers to have children with Aryan women. He believed Lebensborn children would grow up to lead a Nazi-Aryan nation.

The purpose of this society (Registered Society Lebensborn - Lebensborn Eingetragener Verein) was to offer to young girls who were deemed “racially pure” the possibility to give birth to a child in secret. The child was then given to the SS organization which took charge in the child’s education and adoption. Both mother and father needed to pass a “racial purity” test. Blond hair and blue eyes were preferred, and family lineage had to be traced back at least three generations. Of all the women who applied, only 40 percent passed the racial purity test and were granted admission to the Lebensborn program. The majority of mothers were unmarried, 57.6 percent until 1939, and about 70 percent by 1940.

In the beginning, the Lebensborn were taken to SS nurseries. But in order to create a “super-race,” the SS transformed these nurseries into “meeting places” for “racially pure” German women who wanted to meet and have children with SS officers. The children born in the Lebensborn nurseries were then taken by the SS. Lebensborn provided support for expectant mothers, we or unwed, by providing a home and the means to have their children in safety and comfort.

Another article, this one about the children of the Lebensborn: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/07/world/europe/07nazi.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Big difference between not killing people and encouraging people not to have children, and killing people and encouraging other people to fill up the killed people's lands with other people.

thunderlips11 says

I dislike authoritarianism, I'd do anything to prevent an authoritarian solution
if there was any other solution, even a half-assed one, but there isn't.

No need for liberal do-gooders to resort to authoritarianism.

Environmental constraints are already doing the job.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/01/world_population_may_actually_start_declining_not_exploding.html

socal2 says

Environmental constraints are already doing the job.

Yeah! Real Americans know its a lot more patriotic to have no constraints at all. We were a lot more free with leaded gasoline fumes. Then those annoying lib-rals came in and "ruieeened" it all!

edvard2 says

Yeah! Real Americans know its a lot more patriotic to have no constraints at
all. We were a lot more free with leaded gasoline fumes. Then those annoying
lib-rals came in and "ruieeened" it all!

"Constraints"?

I was responding to Thunderlips who is saying that the government should be fucking sterilizing people or forcing people to have abortions to save the environment.

Give Lib-rals have an inch, and their little Commie authoritarian impulses run wild.

socal2 says

Give Lib-rals have an inch, and their little Commie authoritarian impulses run wild.

I think this is probably the first time I have made (and admitted without prompting) a call to an authoritarian method of solving a problem in this forum. I also provided, after some thought (remembering the controversy some guy created when he offered to pay bastard factories money to sterilize themselves) a non-authoritarian method of doing the same.

You live in the environment, fellah. If the environment is ruined, you can't live or at least live very well, unless Soylent Green with Marmite is on your list of favorite foods.

thunderlips11 says

If the environment is ruined, you can't live or at least live very well, unless Soylent Green with Marmite is on your list of favorite foods.

Ewe, Marmite is disgusting.

thunderlips11 says

Big difference between not killing people and encouraging people not to have children, and killing people and encouraging other people to fill up the killed people's lands with other people.

Like with the Nazis, who also looked at sterilization, etc., there's no guarantee that your method won't result in the killing of people, particularly when your efforts to "encourage" them involuntarily don't work out as you design when they don't willfully cooperate, and you need to resort to more dramatic means, which you can justify for the greater good of whatever group of people you think you can determine has the right to continue to exist and propagate (b/c you're going to have to find some method of selection, no?).

thunderlips11 says

I practically feel the steam of anger arising from the Iron Age religious believers as I type this.

Just like you, the Nazis hated them as well.

But the more pressing matter at hand is... Once you implement your utopian project, what will you do once the "Iron Age religious believers" (which across the world way outnumber you) and even those who are simply against your greedy lust for god-like power (or who simply don't want your 1930s German-like imperialist pressure on their countries), start actively resisting? What then will you do? How will you continue to "encourage" what you want in a peaceful, yet involuntary manner?

thunderlips11 says

I think this is probably the first time I have made (and admitted without prompting) a call to an authoritarian method of solving a problem in this forum.

No one should miss the fact that when you say "encourage" you truly, unambiguously mean "force."

Paralithodes says

Like with the Nazis, who also looked at sterilization, etc., there's no guarantee that your method won't result in the killing of people, particularly when your efforts to "encourage" them involuntarily don't work out as you design when they don't willfully cooperate, and you need to resort to more dramatic means, which you can justify for the greater good of whatever group of people you think you can determine has the right to continue to exist and propagate (b/c you're going to have to find some method of selection, no?).

The government, through a package of incentives, like mortgage interest rate deductions, first time homeowner programs and credits, homeownership. After several decades, nobody has yet forced a potential homeowner to buy a house when they didn't want to, killing or imprisoning them if they insisted on renting.

I don't believe the Nazis used subsidies and tax penalties to incentivize "undesirables" to sterilize themselves.

Paralithodes says

Just like you, the Nazis hated them as well.

As I've stated many times, one of the very first treaties Hitler signed when coming into power was a Concordat with the Vatican. It gave immunity to the draft to clergy, confirmed the free hand of the Church in running it's affairs in German Controlled Territory, upheld past privileges, etc. - in return for the Church not interfering in the Hitler Regime.

The Signatory for the Vatican was no less than the future Pope Pius XII.

Paralithodes says

But the more pressing matter at hand is... Once you implement your utopian project, what will you do once the "Iron Age religious believers" (which across the world way outnumber you)

There is no utopian project -- it's a matter of survival for the human race.

As for numerical superiority, wasn't Baywatch the most widely distributed TV show in the world, and Shades of Grey the most popular book of 2012 in the USA? Don't more Americans believe in Ghosts than those who claim to have no religious preference?
Paralithodes says

What then will you do? How will you continue to "encourage" what you want in a peaceful, yet involuntary manner?

Paralithodes says

No one should miss the fact that when you say "encourage" you truly, unambiguously mean "force."

Where and When in this thread did I use the word "Encourage"?

Twice. Once when asking people to view a video posted by Heraclitusstudent. A second time describing not a program of mine, but rather Himmler's Breeding Program.

So I don't see any evidence for this assertion of yours.

thunderlips11 says

As for numerical superiority, wasn't Baywatch the most widely distributed TV show in the world, and Shades of Grey the most popular book of 2012 in the USA? Don't more Americans believe in Ghosts than those who claim to have no religious preference?

So now in 2014 they watch Duck Dynasty...ending with the lords prayer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C63UgwzB-xY

What melted the ice after all of the previous ice ages?

thunderlips11 says

As I've stated many times, one of the very first treaties Hitler signed when coming into power was a Concordat with the Vatican. It gave immunity to the draft to clergy, confirmed the free hand of the Church in running it's affairs in German Controlled Territory, upheld past privileges, etc. - in return for the Church not interfering in the Hitler Regime.

The Signatory for the Vatican was no less than the future Pope Pius XII.

Google "mit brennender sorge" and get back to us....

thunderlips11 says

There is no utopian project -- it's a matter of survival for the human race.

Yes, of course. Just like most other extreme regimes, including the one we are discussing - it is a matter of survival! It is THAT urgent!

This is of course why your claim here:

thunderlips11 says

The government, through a package of incentives, like mortgage interest rate deductions, first time homeowner programs and credits, homeownership. After several decades, nobody has yet forced a potential homeowner to buy a house when they didn't want to, killing or imprisoning them if they insisted on renting.

I don't believe the Nazis used subsidies and tax penalties to incentivize "undesirables" to sterilize themselves.

Doesn't square with:
thunderlips11 says

I think this is probably the first time I have made (and admitted without prompting) a call to an authoritarian method of solving a problem in this forum.

thunderlips11 says

Sometimes you have to be authoritarian. The US Army in WW2 was authoritarian. Washington hung deserters from the Continental Army and Militia.

I dislike authoritarianism, I'd do anything to prevent an authoritarian solution if there was any other solution, even a half-assed one, but there isn't.

The only, only alternative to this is to aggressively redistribute the wealth so that people don't want to have too many kids themselves - but that involves even more death and destruction. If it's even feasible because it would involve more environmental destruction to rush to bring wealth to fourth and third world areas with power, roads, etc.

It makes me sick to my stomach, but damn, it has to be done somehow.

We can restrain ourselves or we can die along with everything decent we and our ancestors have created in spectacular fashion after suffering Soylent Green/ApocalypseFUCK style hell.

thunderlips11 says

Where and When in this thread did I use the word "Encourage"?

Twice. Once when asking people to view a video posted by Heraclitusstudent. A second time describing not a program of mine, but rather Himmler's Breeding Program.

thunderlips11 says

Big difference between not killing people and encouraging people not to have children

"Encouraging people not to have children" is what you claim to support. Yet above you admit that it must be through authoritarian means that will result in death and destruction.

Yes, it is you who equates your authoritarian positions with the word "encourage."

Paralithodes says

Google "mit brennender sorge" and get back to us....

I found this right away:

Issued to Nazi soldiers throughout WW2. Odd that a regime that is allegedly pushing a strong atheist agenda would issue this to their own Army.

But I see your one weak and veiled criticism by the Pope, and raise you"Bishop Alois Hudal".

(BTW, Popes throughout the 19th and 20th Century - and today - have also criticized laissez-faire capitalism in particular.)

Now you say that when I say this:
Paralithodes says

thunderlips11 says

I think this is probably the first time I have made (and admitted without prompting) a call to an authoritarian method of solving a problem in this forum.

Doesn't square with this:
thunderlips11 says

I dislike authoritarianism, I'd do anything to prevent an authoritarian solution if there was any other solution, even a half-assed one, but there isn't.

And you'd be right, except in the paragraph immediately following the second comment - which you yourself quoted - I made this observation:
thunderlips11 says

The only, only alternative to this is to aggressively redistribute the wealth so that people don't want to have too many kids themselves - but that involves even more death and destruction. If it's even feasible because it would involve more environmental destruction to rush to bring wealth to fourth and third world areas with power, roads, etc.

Not to mention a further follow up post about incentives. To clarify, the death and destruction I'm referring to is the likely violent resistance of the top 1% to having income redistributed AND religious nuts preventing the implementation of wealth distribution and population control financial incentives.

Paralithodes says

"Encouraging people not to have children" is what you claim to support. Yet above you admit that it must be through authoritarian means that will result in death and destruction.

I see what you're doing here. You're trying to attach my "Encouragement" to the one thought I had that involuntary two-child policy might be the only way to prevent it, and not any of the follow on commentary where I provided alternatives. My alternatives were posted before your
Paralithodes says

No one should miss the fact that when you say "encourage" you truly, unambiguously mean "force."

comment. So they were there to read before you responded.

thunderlips11 says

Odd that a regime that is allegedly pushing a strong atheist agenda would issue this to their own Army.

SS did not have this on their uniforms, only Wehrmacht

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gott_mit_uns

Bellingham Bill says

thunderlips11 says

Odd that a regime that is allegedly pushing a strong atheist agenda would issue this to their own Army.

SS did not have this on their uniforms, only Wehrmacht

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gott_mit_uns

Duly Noted. However, the divisions of the Wehrmacht greatly outnumbered the SS formations, and it was the principal tool of Nazi expansion - and also committed plenty of atrocities, as the recordings in bugged rooms of US/UK POW camps prove. It was served by Chaplains, both Catholic and Protestant - but not Odinist. Atheists were prohibited from joining the SS - only Protestants, Catholics, and "God Believers" were admitted - and all Wehrmacht soldiers took an oath, swearing by God, to serve Adolph Hitler.

thunderlips11 says

However, the divisions of the Wehrmacht greatly outnumbered the SS formations, and it was the principal tool of Nazi expansion - and also committed plenty of atrocities, as the recordings in bugged rooms of US/UK POW camps prove

Sure. Even the anti-Hitler clique in the Wehrmacht -- e.g. von Stauffenberg -- was approving of the Germanic reconquest of Poland, to recapture what they had lost in 1918. Wehrmacht was generally OK with taking out France, again, too, since France was the one who had declared war on them, and they still had unfinished business with the Allies in 1939.

As generally conservative, German militarists didn't have much truck with godless revolutionary "Bolshevik" Russia for that matter -- Hitler came to power as the right's bulwark against domestic leftist revolution -- and welcomed the opportunity in 1941 to defend the new Germanic hegemony from its only future rival, Stalin's Russia.

Warriors gonna war. Germans in the 1930s lived in a time closer to the Kaiser's Germany than the postwar pan-Europeanism. More parochial, chauvinistic, and bigoted against non-Germans.

Not that the Germans aren't still generally like that, for all I know, having never lived there.

The point about Nazism not being atheist is an important one -- Nazis didn't want independent free-thinkers, they wanted groupthink and homogeneity, with Nazi ideology foremost in people's minds.

So they were more anti-Church than atheistic per se. Maybe similar to Soviet Russia and Communist China.

What is with the Internet? A thread that starts off as a rational NPR discussion of rising sea-levels and ends up with posts about the Nazis? Does every discussion thread on every forum ultimately end up about Nazis regardless of the subject matter if the thread lives too long?

Dan8267 says

Does every discussion thread on every forum ultimately end up about Nazis regardless of the subject matter if the thread lives too long?

You know where else it was that conversation tended to turn toward Hitler?

In NAZI Germany, that's where!

Bellingham Bill says

Not that the Germans aren't still generally like that, for all I know, having never lived there.

The point about Nazism not being atheist is an important one -- Nazis didn't want independent free-thinkers, they wanted groupthink and homogeneity, with Nazi ideology foremost in people's minds.

So they were more anti-Church than atheistic per se. Maybe similar to Soviet Russia and Communist China.

Hi BB, good points all. I think "Anti-Clerical" is a good description of the attitude of the Nazi party - and an attitude long shared. The Kulturkampf under Bismarck, the I-am-Barbarossa-come-again attitude (Lay Investiture), the Ghibellines/Guelph struggle, Luther's reason for gaining steam very quickly and his support among nobles: Basically, the concept of more German control, less Italian control over German Churches is a long standing trend in Germany. The NSDAP did try to push a Duetsche Christian church based on a muscular Aryan Jesus beset upon by vile Semites and decadent Romans; and support of that Church was in the NSDAP platform. The few neopagans - who were a significant minority before in the party - were placed in camps soon after the Nazis took power, probably to shut them up.

The Germans of course, are not this way anymore, and are generally thoroughly embarrassed by WW2 atrocities. I count myself a Germanophile.

Before the 1800s, if you asked other Europeans to describe the Germans, they'd probably say "They're poets, musicians and artists who like to sing and make pretty things." -- very different than how the Germans are perceived in the early 20th!

Dan8267 says

What is with the Internet? A thread that starts off as a rational NPR discussion of rising sea-levels and ends up with posts about the Nazis? Does every discussion thread on every forum ultimately end up about Nazis regardless of the subject matter if the thread lives too long?

Another confirmation of Goddard's Law, right here.

@Dan8267, Sorry, I tried to stay on target by offering Population Reduction as a means of arresting Environmental Catastrophe, but I just couldn't let Nazi baloney stand unchallenged.

I have to read the IPCC reports to verify this for myself, but the IPCC apparently says that even though western Antarctica is losing ice (which is what predicates this catastrophic sea level rise prediction), eastern Antarctica is gaining ice cover at a faster rate, due to the increased snowfall due to warmer temperatures. On net, Antarctica is making the sea level fall, because western loss is smaller than eastern gain.

This link is from a site which denies the AGW thesis, but the references it cites are IPCC publications, so they're not making the stuff up.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/28/ipcc-findings-dispute-abc-cbs-nbc-and-bbc-alarmist-and-flawed-antarctica-sea-level-rise-claims/