Anything having to do with the 2008 fiscal crisis.
Anything having to do with monetary policy in general.
Hell, just try pointing out that the IR absorption of CO2 is less than that of water vapor (eg: clouds) in a discussion of global warming. You'll get no end of "all scientists believe in global warming[1]" and downvotes, for this scientific fact.
[1] This is, by far, the most anti-intellectual and offensive statement. Science doesn't work by majority. Worse, it is simply factually false. There is no survey of scientists to determine their votes, and there is a sizable contingent of scientists who refute it or dispute it. Further, the references to "science" that this side makes generally come from IPCC reports, which is to say, reports prepared by politicians which in the past have often been refuted by the very scientists whose research they claim to be summarizing.
This issue is really a good one, because it is a purely scientific one, it is relatively straightforward and easy to disprove (Mars was warming at the same time, with the earth and the solar cycle, despite having no Hummers, the earth has been getting cooler for the past decade, despite CO2 going up, the "warming" period coincides with ice ages, and the "evidence", namely the Mann "hockey stick" was the result of outright fraud).... yet the people who believe it believe it for ideological reasons, and actually reject science, making scientific discussions impossible. (Global warming is the left's creationism!) all you can get is insistence that all scientists believe in it (all christians believe in creationism, right? Actually they don't all believe in it, possibly a majority don't.) Or you can get pointers to scientific sounding blog posts that at the root end up being nonsense.
The closest I've ever gotten to an actual scientific debate on global warming was with a physicist who, in the end, was reduced to insisting that man made carbon dioxide had different effects on the atmosphere than "naturally occurring" carbon dioxide. At that point I gave up- I can't argue with a belief like that.
How many people do you think on Hacker News believe in Global Warming? How many of them have ever looked up the IR absorption of CO2? Or would listen to that point?
How many people on Hacker News reject intellectual property out of hand? How many of them can derive, from first principles, an explanation for any private property ownership? I believe the former is the majority and the latter is a tiny fraction. Yet they "believe in private property" -- but only situationally. (EG: Ok to steal movies, but not cars, or money, unless you're the government, then its ok to steal money if you call it taxes. Is that not a reasonable characterization of "leftist" positions? Ok, then how can a leftist believe in the principle of private property if its sometimes ok to steal? By redefining the word "steal"?)
Personally, I find Stephan Kinsella's argument on how intellectual property is fundamentally different from physical property to be convincing. That may be just because it reinforces my biases, though.
By the way, if you want an honest opinion of someone who has upvoted your posts in the past -to correct "disagree" downvotes-, I frankly find your posts aggressive, to the point that you lose me as an audience. It's often not about the content - I think we can agree that e.g. Russ Roberts is not a leftist, yet I enjoy what he has to say - but the form.
You seem to have fallen off of an ideological deep end to the point of resisting basic facts, and an unwillingness to accept any position other than your own as "leftist".
The IR absorption of CO2 is well-known. As is its longevity in the atmosphere, and the amount being put up there by people.
The IR absorption of H2O is also well-known. As is the fact that it tends to precipitate out of the atmosphere, and is not being released by human activities in much greater quantity than was the case historically. (However it is released as the climate changes.) Furthermore H20 has multiple effects - in the form of vapor it is a great greenhouse gas, in the form of clouds it is a great reflector of light, as it precipitates, it removes other things that can cause global warming, if it precipitates as snow, it causes cooling, etc. In any detailed modeling of climate, it is very important and difficult to get the impacts of H20 right.
However in your world global warming is false, and anyone who believes in it is an ignorant leftist. And you think that you can argue this from an IR curve that I guarantee has been thought about more deeply by scientists than you have ever thought about it.
I also suspect that your understanding and my understanding of "private property" is different than yours. You would claim my disagreement with your viewpoint to be ignorance. I, most Americans, most lawyers, and legal historians all disagree with you. At some point you should consider whether it is more likely that you're the lone genius who knows what is right, or whether you're out of touch with reality.
I'm eagerly looking forward to your paper that is going to disprove the current consensus on climate change, once and for all.
Until then, if you allow, I'll stick with what the IPCC and the PNAS publish on behalf of over a thousand scientists from dozens of countries.
They were probably all bribed by the Solar industry and Tesla Motors, but I'm afraid it's the best we have until you get published with your revolutionary findings about CO2.
Science doesn't work by majority.
Yes, and tobacco does not cause cancer. It's all just one big lefty conspiracy.
>Anything having to do with the 2008 fiscal crisis. Anything having to do with monetary policy in general.
These are not specifics. Could you link to some actual examples?
I don't reject IP out of hand. I do think patent law needs to be reformed, but you paint this with a really broad brush. I honestly have never gotten a full-on all-anti-IP vibe here. I do believe most people here oppose software patents, but software patents are only a small subset of IP, and a recent one at that.
I've taken controversial/unpopular views on plenty of issues, including monetary policy and the financial crisis, as well as religion. Yet in my entire comment history, I only have one post that's below 0 (I deserved it).
Your posts get downvoted more than mine because of a difference in the way the two of us behave. I tried to explain this to you over a year ago, and someone else quoted it in this very thread: you include an "unreasonable amount of emotionally charged language in your post[s]." You seem to have trouble staying away from name-calling and cheap shots.
I propose an experiment: for the next month or so, before you hit the "reply" button, carefully read over your post and remove anything that could be considered name-calling (that is, any label applied to a person that they wouldn't voluntarily apply to themselves -- such as "haters", or associations with "creationism".) Remove explicit comments about others lacking intellect or having inappropriate motivation. Compare the number of downvotes you get, after removing these non-insightful statements, to the number of downvotes you get now.
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