Science Greta Thunberg Megathread - Dax Herrera says he wouldn't have a day ago (I somewhat doubt that)

Why is Greta Thunberg so triggering? How can a 16-year-old girl in plaits, who has dedicated herself to the not-exactly sinister, authoritarian plot of trying to save the planet from extinction, inspire such incandescent rage?

Last week, she tweeted that she had arrived into New York after her two week transatlantic voyage: “Finally here. Thank you everyone who came to see me off in Plymouth, and everyone who welcomed me in New York! Now I’m going to rest for a few days, and on Friday I’m going to participate in the strike outside the UN”, before promptly giving a press conference in English. Yes, her second language.

Her remarks were immediately greeted with a barrage of jibes about virtue signalling, and snide remarks about the three crew members who will have to fly out to take the yacht home.

This shouldn’t need to be spelled out, but as some people don’t seem to have grasped it yet, we’ll give it a lash: Thunberg’s trip was an act of protest, not a sacred commandment or an instruction manual for the rest of us. Like all acts of protest, it was designed to be symbolic and provocative. For those who missed the point – and oh, how they missed the point – she retweeted someone else’s “friendly reminder” that: “You don’t need to spend two weeks on a boat to do your part to avert our climate emergency. You just need to do everything you can, with everyone you can, to change everything you can.”

Part of the reason she inspires such rage, of course, is blindingly obvious. Climate change is terrifying. The Amazon is burning. So too is the Savannah. Parts of the Arctic are on fire. Sea levels are rising. There are more vicious storms and wildfires and droughts and floods. Denial is easier than confronting the terrifying truth.

Then there’s the fact that we don’t like being made to feel bad about our life choices. That’s human nature. It’s why we sneer at vegans. It’s why we’re suspicious of sober people at parties. And if anything is likely to make you feel bad about your life choices -- as you jet back home after your third Ryanair European minibreak this season – it’ll be the sight of small-boned child subjecting herself to a fortnight being tossed about on the Atlantic, with only a bucket bearing a “Poo Only Please” sign by way of luxury, in order to make a point about climate change.

But that’s not virtue signalling, which anyone can indulge in. As Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, and their-four-private-jets-in-11-days found recently, virtue practising is a lot harder.

Even for someone who spends a lot of time on Twitter, some of the criticism levelled at Thunberg is astonishing. It is, simultaneously, the most vicious and the most fatuous kind of playground bullying. The Australian conservative climate change denier Andrew Bolt called her “deeply disturbed” and “freakishly influential” (the use of “freakish”, we can assume, was not incidental.) The former UKIP funder, Arron Banks, tweeted “Freaking yacht accidents do happen in August” (as above.) Brendan O’Neill of Spiked called her a “millenarian weirdo” (nope, still not incidental) in a piece that referred nastily to her “monotone voice” and “the look of apocalyptic dread in her eyes”.

But who’s the real freak – the activist whose determination has single-handedly started a powerful global movement for change, or the middle-aged man taunting a child with Asperger syndrome from behind the safety of their computer screens?

And that, of course, is the real reason why Greta Thunberg is so triggering. They can’t admit it even to themselves, so they ridicule her instead. But the truth is that they’re afraid of her. The poor dears are terrified of her as an individual, and of what she stands for – youth, determination, change.

She is part of a generation who won’t be cowed. She isn’t about to be shamed into submission by trolls. That’s not actually a look of apocalyptic dread in her eyes. It’s a look that says “you’re not relevant”.

The reason they taunt her with childish insults is because that’s all they’ve got. They’re out of ideas. They can’t dismantle her arguments, because she has science – and David Attenborough – on her side. They can’t win the debate with the persuasive force of their arguments, because these bargain bin cranks trade in jaded cynicism, not youthful passion. They can harangue her with snide tweets and hot take blogposts, but they won’t get a reaction because, frankly, she has bigger worries on her mind.

That’s not to say that we should accept everything Thunberg says without question. She is an idealist who is young enough to see the world in black and white. We need voices like hers. We should listen to what she has to say, without tuning the more moderate voices of dissent out.

Why is Greta Thunberg so triggering? Because of what she represents. In an age when democracy is under assault, she hints at the emergency of new kind of power, a convergence of youth, popular protest and irrefutable science. And for her loudest detractors, she also represents something else: the sight of their impending obsolescence hurtling towards them.

joconnell@irishtimes.com
https://twitter.com/jenoconnell

https://web.archive.org/web/2019090...certain-men-1.4002264?localLinksEnabled=false
Found this thought-provoking indeed.

 

[MembersSchoolPizza]

View attachment 954273

<Driving a huge, smoke-billowing truck with “fuck you Greta” printed on the back along with a skeleton that’s presumably a death wish against Greta

This is just a new level of pathetic and trashy.

Coal rollers aren't new.

 

[TFT-A9]

View attachment 954273

<Driving a huge, smoke-billowing truck with “fuck you Greta” printed on the back along with a skeleton that’s presumably a death wish against Greta

This is just a new level of pathetic and trashy.

Agreed.

I actually have come to the conclusion that Greta's handlers are much better at this game than one might give them credit for. Greta is bait. Greta is the "ATTACK HERE" sign they're falling for. She's both a visible, easy target and one that's hard to defend going ballistic on (Looking at you, Clarkson).

 

[Step]

Dinesh said it well.

 

[Cosmos]

View attachment 954282
Dinesh said it well.

<Unironically invoking Godwin’s law and the “Nazis were actually leftists” meme

Not a good post.

 

[Sheryl Nome]

<Unironically invoking Godwin’s law and the “Nazis were actually leftists” meme

Not a good post.

Thats all Dinesh ever does.

 

[X Prime]

I point out that neither of you are challenging his actual point, which is that, well, white kids are simply more marketable.

Which is not exactly false.

 

[AnOminous]

Arnold Schwarzenegger arranges for Greta Thunberg to use a Tesla

The Terminator’s rep told Car & Driver that the actor had asked the 16-year-old Swedish student to call “if she needed anything.”

pagesix.com

So does Arnold want to fuck her?

 

[X Prime]

Arnold Schwarzenegger arranges for Greta Thunberg to use a Tesla

The Terminator’s rep told Car & Driver that the actor had asked the 16-year-old Swedish student to call “if she needed anything.”

pagesix.com

So does Arnold want to fuck her?

I'm not certain Greta is his type, given his history.

 

[Cosmos]

I point out that neither of you are challenging his actual point, which is that, well, white kids are simply more marketable.

Which is not exactly false.

White kids are more marketable, no one is disputing that. He didn’t have to go full exceptional individual and say “bUt NaZiS dId ThAt ToO!” Hitler drank water, does that mean I’m a Nazi for hydrating myself?

 

[AnOminous]

I'm not certain Greta is his type, given his history.

His type is anything that moves though.

 

[Coldgrip]

Imagine being triggered by some random, nobody redneck in a trashy truck.

 

[Strange Looking Dog]

View attachment 954282
Dinesh said it well.

Dinesh baby what are you doing

Carbon credits are not carbon taxes.

Honestly credits seem like a worse idea though. A credit gets you "the right to emit a ton of CO2", which seems like a great way to concentrate more power in that hands of big business and bureaucracy. Taxes whatever their pros and cons would be much simpler, and wouldn't create a parasitic secondary business dealing in the right to do business.
Personally I'd prefer carbon incentives, which I think would more directly encourage innovation.

 

[Barnard]

Hitler drank water, does that mean I’m a Nazi for hydrating myself?

Dihydrogen monoxide is probably one of all these weird drugs Theodor Morell was injecting Hitler with, you should steer clear of it just in case.

 

[nosemouth]

View attachment 954273

<Driving a huge, smoke-billowing truck with “fuck you Greta” printed on the back along with a skeleton that’s presumably a death wish against Greta

This is just a new level of pathetic and trashy.

"No, y-you're the one who's triggered!"

 

[TerribleIdeas™]

After every other instance in which people with the right resources manage to loophole, cheat or otherwise get around taxation I just don't have confidence in a carbon tax being a successful punch in the dick to gross polluters. Hitting the lower classes is going to have miserable returns on behavior and tax revenues, the middle classes are already getting punched in the dick by a number of other things, and... honestly taxation has never been my favorite way to correct behaviors.

Maybe direct fines to gross polluters, substantial ones. Not a tax per se, but still a penalty and money that can be diverted towards unfucking things.

You fucking exceptional moron. If we just keep doing exactly the same thing over and over again that has never worked, clearly it will begin working for us! Stop rocking the H.M.S. Feelsgood!

All this kind of stuff is going to lead to is companies investing in corporate lawyers to lobby for loopholes, and to abuse those loopholes, leaving the common filth to choke down another version of a shit sandwich.

 

[Sheryl Nome]

>the corporations are fucking us, but lets not change anything because the corporations might still be fucking us even though that can only occur through a failure to understand basic economics. or them literally breaking the law and having to eventually pay up anyways.

Bravo.

 

[MembersSchoolPizza]

>the corporations are fucking us, but lets not change anything because the corporations might still be fucking us even though that can only occur through a failure to understand basic economics.

Says the person who apparently thinks that just because some goods have fixed demands and some have flexible demands magically means a company doesn't pass on taxes to the consumer.

or them literally breaking the law and having to eventually pay up anyways.

*snorts*

 

[Sheryl Nome]

Says the person who apparently thinks that just because some goods have fixed demands and some have flexible demands magically means a company doesn't pass on taxes to the consumer.

Yes, because I've taken Econ 101. Or read like, the first few chapters of an econ book. Or literally watch some fucking videos on youtube about it. You should to! Its really easy to understand why an elastic good's tax incidence falls largely on the corporation.

 

[Cosmos]

Imagine being triggered by some random, nobody redneck in a trashy truck.

Pointing out that something is pathetic is getting “triggered” now? Lmao, the only person who’s triggered is the guy who’s driving that truck.

 

[MembersSchoolPizza]

Yes, because I've taken Econ 101. Or read like, the first few chapters of an econ book. Or literally watch some fucking videos on youtube about it. You should to! Its really easy to understand why an elastic good's tax incidence falls largely on the corporation.

First of all, I'm familiar with the concept of tax incidence. But what you're talking about primarily concerns situations where the demand is elastic but the supply isn't. It isn't nearly so cut-and-dried when both are highly elastic elastic, such as - for example - luxury goods like high-end cellphones, luxury food, etc.

Second, and again this is the irony I tried to point out posts back, the joke here is that my whole point to begin with was predicated on the concept of taxing things with an inelastic demand.