Back on August 2nd, I posted about how America imprisons 1% of it’s citizens while leaving another 10% of them unemployed and commented that the rhetoric promising to end this situation is just that, rhetoric—not actual promises to change things. This morning I came across “Why Even Bother With Science?” from underpaidgenius:
Tom Toles, Friday Rant — Heat Exhaustion Version
This will be my last rant about the climate. Cartoonists sometimes look just like the archetypical cartoon character crawling across the desert. Gary Larson did a cartoon about two guys crawling across a desert, dying of thirst. They have come upon a drinking fountain. One is letting it run without drinking and saying he’s going to let it run until it gets cold. That’s about as sensible as the debate on climate change.
We are apparently going to let the debate on the science run until hell freezes over. If you can’t accept the conclusions of 98 percent of the scientists whose FIELD IT IS, then why even bother with science? If that high a percentage of field of study is to be discounted ENTIRELY, then we are in deep trouble, which, of course, we are. It would be so simple if it were just a matter of ignoring the yelping commenters hereabouts: “Move on, Mr. Cartoonist! Chill out Tommy! There are more important things to worry about!”
Really? Which would those things be? This may be the only political issue whose results could be catastrophic PERMANENTLY. But the deliberate dust storm thrown up by fossil-fuel-centric interests has succeeded in contaminating and paralyzing the American response. Quite a victory for the deniers! It looks like mass-suicide to me. And so, my final rant on climate. Except not really. There has to be a drinking fountain out there somewhere.
In the latest edition, episode 18, of the 666cast, I talk about “The Absurd Disconnect”. This is what I call the difference between our beliefs and our reality. Tom Toles provides a wonderful example of this kind of thing in action—we see the reality but we refuse to accept it. Paul Krugman in my above linked post from August 2 also provided a great example, though, unlike Toles, was unaware he was doing it. In that post, I suggest Krugman should wake up and smell the bullshit he still believes is honesty from our leaders. To Toles, I say: you SHOULD chill out, but not because there are more important things to worry about, but because humanity isn’t doing a great job of paying attention to the threats facing them. The more upset you get, the more crazy people will think you are—even if you have the facts to back you up. That’s The Absurd Disconnect.
What’s really sad and frustrating is that there’s not a whole lot that seems to be effective in changing the minds of enough people to make a difference. When given the choice, most folks seem to choose the more fearful path over the logical one, even if the logical one is easier (like hating gays—isn’t just easier to leave them alone?)
Of course, people like Toles and Krugman being worried that things are going to get worse, even though things are already worse, is just another example of The Absurd Disconnect—where the symptoms you’re concerned will appear at some point in the future are erupting all around you but you just choose to ignore them.
In the end, a lot of what we criticize about our leaders and ourselves has become, for me, one giant “DUH!” moment. I look backward at the last 400 years (essentially, since the invention of the first immortal corporation) and see the logical end game of capitalism/free market/the greed-is-good mentality.
I also see a world too bamboozled, too willingly distracted by their own greed, to change this path that humanity is on.
But no need to despair! Take a lesson from Hollywood actor, Slim Pickens (ironic name!):
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