[Update] Mind Games/Luboš Motl: how an absence of functioning markets means that I’m right, but you’re a delusional, neurotic "zealot"
[Update below]
My last piece (on Bret Stephen‘s straight-faced but ridiculous dismissal in the WSJ of all concerns about climate change as a “sick-souled religion” and a “nonfalsifiable hypothesis, logically indistinguishable from claims for the existence of God”) brought the following piece of mail, from Luboš Motl, a theoretical physicist who blogs frequently from a contrarian view on climate change.
With Luboš’ kind permission, I offer his email and my response as a further illustration of the common dynamics of misperception and tribal side-taking (as I have noted recently in the context of remarks by Nick Kristof) that feed into conflicts over unowned or unprotected resources (and abound here, where it is difficult to “see” the climate and what influences, if any, we have on it over the course of decades and centuries).
My interlocutor writes:
Dear Tom,
did you write the mises.org text? It’s just terrible. I find it extremely zealous, insulting, and avoiding the essence of all the discussions here – scientific, sociological, and others. Why the hell do you think that “scientists” have concerns? Scientists are not there to have concerns. Scientists are there to understand and predict phenomena. It is green activists and politicians who have or may have “concerns”. I didn’t find anything insulting in the WSJ piece. It was a nice text. The very fact about the frequent and completely irrational usage of words like “concern” is a *proof* of a mass neurosis, as far as I am “concerned”.
Best, Lubos
My response:
Dear Lubos:
Thanks for your comment. Yes, of course I wrote it. I’m not entirely surprised that you found my piece insulting, as I meant it as a put down – but of Stephens, not you. In any case, if you did find it insulting, it’s curious that you don’t find Stephen’s piece also insulting: the most offensive aspects of my remarks did nothing but hold the mirror of psychobabble to it, which is entirely fair. But of course most my remarks were analytical and showed how it is Stephens who is trying to dismiss all debate by ignoring all rational disagreement and attacking a broad-brush strawman that all who worry about anything are irrational. If I failed to address science arguments for or against global warming it is because of Stephen’s failure to raise them.
It looks to me that it is Stephen’s argument that is zealous; is mine? Sure, I care enough about this issue to write about it, but does that make me different from him – or you, who troubled to respond to me?
You say I “avoid the essence of all the discussions here – scientific, social and others”, but I’m not sure what you mean. Is it not rather Stephens who has avoided discussing anything but the psychological, and I who have tried to point it out?
Your thoughts on scientists are interesting, too. Are they supposed to be emotionless and amoral automatons, with no reason to actually care about their research or its implications? Sorry, but you can’t take human nature out of the human, nor the scientist out of society – nor should we. (If you have an opposite ideal, are you suggesting that you yourself out to stop blogging?) Perhaps what we could consider is to stop the public funding of science and technology research, as it tends to reinforce government power and the political football of struggles over resources – where do you stand on that?
You say that it is “only green activists and politicians” who do have concerns, but obviously that’s wrong – you have concerns, so does Stephens and Chris Horner; we all do, and we are all entitled to our own preferences, and it is natural for us to express them when the absence of markets and property rights make words the only currency by which we can express our preferences. This a very basic observation of libertarian economics, Lubos. So far from “concern” being a “‘proof’ of mass neurosis”, all that it shows us is that an issue is a politicized one, whereby different interest groups are fighting over the wheel of government and public opinion, since the absence of markets makes it otherwise impossible for them to express their preferences through voluntary transactions.
Regards,
Tom
Check.
[Update: Here is Lubos’ response; my further responses are in bold:]
Dear Tokyo Tom,
I apologize but I apparently agree with Stephens that those who want to create “global worries” are a priori irrational. It’s the same sentiment that leads Jehovah’s Wittnesses to predict a new coming of the Lord all the time.
TT: While some aspects of the “Warmers” and the Jehovah’s Witnesses may be linked, the Warmers are descendent’s of those who raised awareness and fought for control of REAL pollution in the 60’s and 70’s. Warmers also point to REAL phenomena, like increases in GHG levels, acidifying oceans, dramatic warming in the higher latitudes, pronounced climate zone shifts, etc.
They never learn anything from their failures and try to predict things that can’t be predicted and pretend that clearly very unlikely things are likely. The only different aspect of the AGW cult is that they also include a lot of scientific buzzwords but they don’t do proper science because they don’t abandon conjectures that have been falsified. In some sense, bad science is even worse than pure religion because the conclusions are equally crappy and moreover, it contaminates the good name of science.
TT: Care to elaborate on your complaints?
You say I “avoid the essence of all the discussions here – scientific, social and others”, but I’m not sure what you mean. Is it not rather Stephens who has avoided discussing anything but the psychological, and I who have tried to point it out?
Your thoughts on scientists are interesting, too. Are they supposed to be emotionless and amoral automatons, with no reason to actually care about their research or its implications?
Sorry, but you can’t take human nature out of the human, nor the scientist out of society – nor should we.
TT: Of course I can “imagine” removing emotion and politics from science; I just believe that it is naive to assume that it is ever going to happen. Further, there are probably good arguments to be made that science is driven by emotion and subconscious desires, so that “success” in removing them from “science” would actually yield less scientific progress, not more. The real issue relates to the (corruptible) role science plays in group decision-making.
(If you have an opposite ideal, are you suggesting that you yourself out to stop blogging?)
TT: While your stated aims may be admirable, Lubos, they are inescapably a surface manifestation of your own policy goals and preferences.
Perhaps what we could consider is to stop the public funding of science and technology research, as it tends to reinforce government power and the political football of struggles over resources – where do you stand on that?
You say that it is “only green activists and politicians” who do have concerns, but obviously that’s wrong – you have concerns, so does Stephens and Chris Horner; we all do, and we are all entitled to our own preferences, and it is natural for us to express them when the absence of markets and property rights make words the only currency by which we can express our preferences.
This a very basic observation of libertarian economics, Lubos. So far from “concern” being a “‘proof’ of mass neurosis”, all that it shows us is that an issue is a politicized one, whereby different interest groups are fighting over the wheel of government and public opinion, since the absence of markets makes it otherwise impossible for them to express their preferences.
LM
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