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.

 

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Found this article very concerning.
Anger as academics say Greta, 16, ‘not sexy enough’

LEADING French academics have been criticised for complaining 16-year-old climate campaigner Greta Thunberg is not sexy enough.

Bernard Pivot, 84, president of the Goncourt Academy — which awards France’s top literary prize — was branded a ‘fat misogynist pig’ after comparing the teenager to the Swedish girls he pursued in his youth.

‘In my generation, boys would run after les petites Suédoises, they had a reputation for being less stuck-up than French girls,’ he tweeted. ‘But I can imagine adolescent me being scared stiff of Greta Thunberg.’

Fellow intellectual, philosopher Michel Onfray, 60, said Ms Thunberg ‘makes you think of those silicon dolls heralding the end of humanity’.

He added: ‘She has the face, age, sex and body of a cyborg of the third millennium, her envelope is neutral, she is, alas, where mankind is heading.’

Another philosopher Pascal Bruckner, 70, accused the teenager of having a ‘scary face’ and ‘flaunting her autism like a title of nobility’.

Last night, TV producer and women’s issues campaigner Yasmina Bennani hit back, saying: ‘Luckily, you are a species on the way to extinction.’

https://www.metro.news/anger-as-academics-say-greta-16-not-sexy-enough/1737319/

What is it with criticising the 500 year old climate loli who looks 10 years old, and being a pedophile?

 

[AnOminous]

Another philosopher Pascal Bruckner, 70, accused the teenager of having a ‘scary face’ and ‘flaunting her autism like a title of nobility’.

"flaunting her autism like a title of nobility."

That dude should be an honorary Kiwi.

 

[thismanlies]

Another philosopher Pascal Bruckner, 70, accused the teenager of having a ‘scary face’ and ‘flaunting her autism like a title of nobility’

And here I thought I was wasting my time by making fun of autistic people. Turns out I was discussing philosophy all along.

 

[Positron]

I want her to star in the next sexy PETA ad.

 

[Malagor the dank omen]

They also have idiot batshit obsessions with things like GMOs that get them to push idiotic and sometimes even deadly policies. Like golden rice, a rice engineered to have vitamin A, literally can wipe out childhood blindness from vitamin A deficiency and hundreds of thousands of deaths on top of that, but they're against it because "muh GMO frankenfood" lunacy.

This is why i don't get the fucking enviromentalists. GMO crops have allowed us to create hardier crops that can be planted in harsher climates, therefore allowing the use of more arable soil and reducing the need for exports in certain countries. Like in Russia where hardier wheath crops allowed it to be harvested further north. But hey, better to have scrarcity that may lead to a famine than having GMOs, am i rite?

Also, newspapers around here are already gawking that Greta is coming to Spain by boat to save climate. I can't believe this hobgoblin has decided to get her ass over here by sea. She will probably make landing in the north west and then she will have to get her ass to Madrid to spout her bullshit, something the government will most likely agree on since they are desperate for people to not notice unemployment numbers. But god knows since spanish elections are the 10th this month.

 

[Dizzydent]

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

This is why i don't get the fucking enviromentalists. GMO crops have allowed us to create hardier crops that can be planted in harsher climates, therefore allowing the use of more arable soil and reducing the need for exports in certain countries. Like in Russia where hardier wheath crops allowed it to be harvested further north. But hey, better to have scrarcity that may lead to a famine than having GMOs, am i rite?

The socialists claim they want equal footing for all but they start with the fallacious presumption that the cushy standard of comfort and "relatively" modest excess in their own lives is that standard, they don't want to give it up but they also don't want to engage the overwhelming evidence that free equality the way they want it can't be obtained for 8 billion people without them sacrificing a lot of their creature comforts. So they go along with anything that will starve and destroy true poor people so long as their own in-group is untouched enough that their bubble of fantasy remains intact. They willingly become propagators of inequality directly in the service of obtaining social credit for claiming to serve the opposite goal.

 

[Malagor the dank omen]

The socialists claim they want equal footing for all but they start with the fallacious presumption that the cushy standard of comfort and "relatively" modest excess in their own lives is that standard, they don't want to give it up but they also don't want to engage the overwhelming evidence that free equality the way they want it can't be obtained for 8 billion people without them sacrificing a lot of their creature comforts. So they go along with anything that will starve and destroy true poor people so long as their own in-group is untouched enough that their bubble of fantasy remains intact. They willingly become propagators of inequality directly in the service of obtaining social credit for claiming to serve the opposite goal.

When you see it like that then you understand why they comnstantly keep the people that are far worse than them constantly on their toes and wary of others. It's much better to keep them afraid and mistrusting each other than allowing them to collectively notice that the higher ups lied and that they just wanted to take shit for themselves.

You always need a boogeyman or two to keep the undesirables distracted and confused.

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

When you see it like that then you understand why they comnstantly keep the people that are far worse than them constantly on their toes and wary of others. It's much better to keep them afraid and mistrusting each other than allowing them to collectively notice that the higher ups lied and that they just wanted to take shit for themselves.

You always need a boogeyman or two to keep the undesirables distracted and confused.

Yep. Just as the rich elites running the parties and the media have a vested interest in fanning the flames of racism so that non-rich people are attacking their differently colored neighbors rather than them, so too do the modest middle class have a vested interest in keeping the truly poor and impoverished angry at bogeymen so that the spotlight doesn't fall on their own greed and powerlust. "Divide and conquer" occurs at all iterations of the fractal.

 

[Malagor the dank omen]

Yep. Just as the rich elites running the parties and the media have a vested interest in fanning the flames of racism so that non-rich people are attacking their differently colored neighbors rather than them, so too do the modest middle class have a vested interest in keeping the truly poor and impoverished angry at bogeymen so that the spotlight doesn't fall on their own greed and powerlust. "Divide and conquer" occurs at all iterations of the fractal.

It's at this point where the phrase "If voting changed anything it would be illegal" makes a lot of sense.

 

[Freddy Freaker]

They also have idiot batshit obsessions with things like GMOs that get them to push idiotic and sometimes even deadly policies. Like golden rice, a rice engineered to have vitamin A, literally can wipe out childhood blindness from vitamin A deficiency and hundreds of thousands of deaths on top of that, but they're against it because "muh GMO frankenfood" lunacy.

This. My mother is a retired nurse who likes to rail about the evils of big pharma and GMOs. Sometimes she actually makes good points, other times its pure bullshit. Told her about golden rice and she still went on about safety testing it and how they're gonna trade blindness for cancer and autism.

 

[Hux]

The socialists claim they want equal footing for all but they start with the fallacious presumption that the cushy standard of comfort and "relatively" modest excess in their own lives is that standard, they don't want to give it up but they also don't want to engage the overwhelming evidence that free equality the way they want it can't be obtained for 8 billion people without them sacrificing a lot of their creature comforts. So they go along with anything that will starve and destroy true poor people so long as their own in-group is untouched enough that their bubble of fantasy remains intact. They willingly become propagators of inequality directly in the service of obtaining social credit for claiming to serve the opposite goal.

When you see it like that then you understand why they comnstantly keep the people that are far worse than them constantly on their toes and wary of others. It's much better to keep them afraid and mistrusting each other than allowing them to collectively notice that the higher ups lied and that they just wanted to take shit for themselves.

You always need a boogeyman or two to keep the undesirables distracted and confused.

It also explains why most self-proclaimed socialists in the west are by and large a bunch of well-off urbanite/suburbanite honkies that claim till they're blue in the face that they and only they are the proletariat while they treat the actual proletariat in the urban and rural areas with the assertion that they don't even exist at best to complete and open contempt at worst

Socialists today care more about making people that have a better hand at life than theirs suffer than making life better for those less fortunate than them

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

Socialists today care more about people that have a better hand at life than theirs suffer than making life better for those less fortunate than them

Opioid-addict Kermit Hitler said it best: socialism isn't about compassion for the poor, it's about resentment and jealously for those who have more. It's no different than those behavior tests where a monkey is happy to receive crackers as a treat, until he sees the next monkey receiving tasty grapes and then he flies into a jealous rage the next time he's offered crackers. Obviously wanting grapes is the same as deserving grapes, right? And yet watch how charitable he suddenly feels if another monkey who has no treat comes and asks to share the crackers.

 

[Dante Alighieri]

Opioid-addict Kermit Hitler said it best: socialism isn't about compassion for the poor, it's about resentment and jealously for those who have more

They don't love the poor, they just hate the rich.

 

[HOMO FOR LIFE]

"flaunting her autism like a title of nobility."

That dude should be an honorary Kiwi.

My new title.

 

[Hux]

They don't love the poor, they just hate the rich.

Oh no, the socialists love the poor as long as they agree to be their expendable meat shields during their quixotic crusades against those that have one penny more than they do

 

[Silence of the Troons]

Some shitty rap artist made a song about her

Another philosopher Pascal Bruckner, 70, accused the teenager of having a ‘scary face’ and ‘flaunting her autism like a title of nobility’.

Oh yeah, there was a lot of brouhaha when the article was posted back in April. A real shame it doesn't seem to have been translated to English because it was pretty funny (the title when translated to English means "Greta Thunberg or the dangerous propaganda of climate infantilism").

 

[Dante Alighieri]

Oh no, the socialists love the poor as long as they agree to be their expendable meat shields during their quixotic crusades against those that have one penny more than they do

That's not love. You don't love your tools, you just use them and when you don't need them anymore you set them aside. If they're useless you throw them away.

 

[Stoneheart]

You don't love your tools,

you sure about that?

 

[AnOminous]

Also, newspapers around here are already gawking that Greta is coming to Spain by boat to save climate. I can't believe this hobgoblin has decided to get her ass over here by sea. She will probably make landing in the north west and then she will have to get her ass to Madrid to spout her bullshit, something the government will most likely agree on since they are desperate for people to not notice unemployment numbers. But god knows since spanish elections are the 10th this month.

If she manages to get this grift rolling on a permanent basis she could probably manage to live a constant cruise ship life with the occasional stop at some environmental gathering. That sounds like a pretty sweet deal. And she gets to be less of a hypocrite than Al Gore at the same time.