Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/03/02/bristol-newspaper-publishes-na.html
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Ah, that uneasy feeling when a general principle conflicts with a specific case.
The one thing this leaves me certain of is that I’m glad I’m not on Facebook.
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What is the general principle you mean? The article shows language the men posted on public social media, in context.
ETA: I fully concur re: Facebook. Good riddance.
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There is remarkably much alcohol in their avatars.
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I’m a bit dubious about putting people on blast on public like this. Of course these cough fine gentlemen never had the same compunction (and with worse than mere criticism), so they deserve what they get, perhaps. I had a bit of a view-from-nowhere stance and it’s cracked on contact with reality - as such stances will tend to, I suppose.
I should stop dumping the debug log of my moral intuition to this thread, probably.
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But how else would I have learned about the view from nowhere theory? 
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I have no problem with Greta. But I am a bit uneasy with the celebrity worship that seems to be forming around her and doubly disturbed by the personal attacks on her.
It was an article title a few months back that illuminated why I am bothered. Something along the lines of “Greta makes emotional speech saying we need to listen to the science.” Good point. What bothered me though is the emotional part. Do we deal with climate based on emotion or on science? Climate deniers are going with emotion over science. Should we follow whoever makes the most passionate speeches, or the science?
So to me, every article about Greta misses the damn point. It changes the subject. It’s celebrity worship, not climate science. Go ahead and include her in articles. I’d rather hear from actual scientists, but ok, whatever. But any article with her at the center of the story is navel gazing.
Edit: The personal attacks are doubly bothersome. Both for being dickish and for, again, changing the subject from discussing climate to discussing Greta.
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Negative scoreboarding would be my concern if this was in the US.
I assume that some people would pay to have their threats published.
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There is a big difference between emotion without substance (like these fellas have) and the use of emotion to drive action (like Greta does). Her emotion provides a call to urgency that is not being conveyed in the dry, factual massaging that science delivers alone. To spur action, there needs to be a balance between physical science (indisputable facts) and the social science (results driven leadership). Leadership demands some level of charisma to get us off our behinds and to start taking immediate action and Greta is the only one providing that at the moment.
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I basically agree that our cultural tendency to make things about people rather than about knowledge and processes is not really helping us. There is a common way of thinking between people who see Thunberg as a savior and these people who threatened Thunberg.
But other people absorb information differently than you do, and right now covering Thunberg is, I think, reminding people that there is a young generation that needs to live in the world being left for them. Why they need reminding of that I don’t quite understand. The natural system that is going to determine whether there is collective action on climate change is far more complicated than the one that actually determines the climate.
And I think it’s worth noting that Thunberg is also selling exactly what you are. The whole “how dare you look to me for hope” speech was excoriating world leaders for exactly what you are saying.
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The false dichotomy between emotion and science is both harmful and dumb. The only reason the physical scientific data have any meaning or value to us is because of the emotional meaning we bring to them. If one were completely emotionally detached, then climate change data needn’t prompt any change in action, as the loss of human and animal life that would result would just be a blip in the geological scale of things, and Earth’s systems would continue along. The reason this is a crisis is because there are human stakes, and human stakes are rooted in human emotion.
(And that’s setting aside the obvious fact there there is no “pure science,” and all scientific data is necessarily mediated by human sensory and symbolic apparati that demand interpretive and emotional intelligence to wholly parse just as much as mechanical and mathematical intelligence… Even within the sciences “positivism” tends to be recognized as an epithet, not a value.)
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My principle is: If you say bad shit under your real name, you deserve the blowback you get.
You’re talking in a public and recorded medium. There is no expectation of privacy.
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Isn’t the ‘emotion to drive action like these fellas have’ exactly the problem? I’d quite like to know what makes them like this.
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They pushed their screeds in a public forum. The idea that “how dare you read things that I posted publicly” seems a bit weird. Of course, they probably thought their comments would stay in the echo chamber. Sucks for them. If you don’t want people to see your posts, don’t post.
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We deal with climate based on emotion. It’s human nature, and it’s a more difficult problem to address than climate change itself. GT has made that emotional appeal, and to do so she’s engaged in acts of political theater ranging from uncomfortable and difficult up to downright dangerous and at times absurd, so a reasonable amount of adulation aimed her way is appropriate. What’s more, her act has worked. So let’s make hay while the sun shines.
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What kind of person posts hateful comments about a teenage girl that wants a better, cleaner planet for everyone?
Now we know.
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OK, but, we tried “just” science. It doesn’t work. Emotion works. Emotion is why Trump and Fox News succeed. In the time we have left, let’s try emotion.
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I’m going to give myself 24 hours before I decide whether I’m splitting a new thread to argue this point…
(I once stormed out of a philosophy of mathematics class after a heated argument with the professor about whether fictional vs. literal was a real dichotomy or whether there was space in between)
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So a big bag of douches then…
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I’m not sure why Cary Fukunaga decided on Rami Malek to be the new Bond villain when he could have gotten the guy in the lower right corner for far less. Added bonus: savings on hair, makeup, and costume.
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