Christopher Hitchens on Global Warming

You kids and your lack of knowledge of the Milankovitch Cycle.

I'm completely against government intervention into an economy which, as it's been shown, historically, would be self-correcting, if left alone.

thats not true

@neoblast1:

OK. I cave. I have seen the light. Your argument has me spinning. Hong Kong doesn't exist. The United States don't exist. Japan doesn't exist. The Soviet Union, Cuba, and communist China were a splendid success.

You deserve thundering applause for your clarity and well reasoned argument of,

"thats not true"

i dont think i need to argue with someone mixing state intervention and communism. My point have been made: you need economy classes.

The typical argument of someone with no basis is: "you need to read a book."

Look, Neoblast...Put up or shut up. Either you know what you're talking about, or you don't.

As of now, I rather think the latter is more apparent.

I cant give you a macroeconomic course in 500 caracters but look for the causes of the great depression, why the gov is helping GM, why certain products have an artificially low or max price, why a country print money or sell treasury bound, why they fix minimum salary, change the federal reserve rate....etc. These are all very very important mesures taken by the gov to protect the economy. also, I would like to know on what historical facts you base your opinion against state intervention.

You needn't provide me with a macroeconomics course. I did quite well, in college economics, thank you.

Are you suggesting that some bureaucrat is capable of replacing the market? That an individual person can, somehow, decide how much things should be worth to everyone? I'd like to see the proof of that. Are you suggesting that central planning can work?

The cause of the great depression was government intervention on the part of Roosevelt, Hoover, and a Federal Reserve.

Yes. Leaving the evidence out of the argument, indeed, could come off as analogous to Pascal's Wager. That's why I think, now that I look back at some of the prior posts, so many of us immediately thought of it.

The thing is, he could just back-pedal, if necessary, and point out the evidence if called on it.

Pascal, however, probably couldn't provide you with evidence for which of the ten thousand gods you should gamble on to avoid the flaming pit. It may be the god of Sporks.

@caltrop69

I agree, Hitchens could back-pedal, or merely elaborate, and make his argument valid and completely distinct from Pascal's Wager.

And absolutely, Pascal couldn't have provided an ounce of even suggestive evidence. His Wager is retarded beyond belief.

So, I guess that's all there is to it. To me, Hitchens just needs to emphasize the importance of evidence. I just felt he left this out of his core argument, and I was attempting, as others have, to expand on it.

Yeah. Again, I think he makes the assumption that the audience is aware of the link between carbon dioxide and temperature.

It's a poor form for his argument. I think he should have restated these points, so that people knew, exactly, what evidence he was gambling on.