I find it interesting that our intuition clashes so. I immediately found RL’s account compelling on the basis, whereas others did not. This could be a case of different labelling, or even different emotional experience.
The weirdest thing is that I do have the intuition “corresponding” (FLOABW) to the fact that if deterring someone from doing something can work in principle it might be a good idea to try but if it cannot possibly work it makes no sense to try (the “Sympathy or Condemnation” section of the “Diseased thinking” post makes perfect sense to me); when Mencius Moldbug pointed out that people react differently to the threat of anthropogenic global warning differently to the way they’d react to hypothetical global warning due to the Sun, I knew exactly what he was talking about. But, Rob Lyman’s example is a very poor choice of a pointer to that intuition for me, exactly because it points me to stuff like stubbing a toe in the dark instead.
when Mencius Moldbug pointed out that people react differently to the threat of anthropogenic global warning differently to the way they’d react to hypothetical global warning due to the Sun,
That’s perfectly rational behavior. The two causes give different predictions about likely future warming.
He explicitly specified that the predicted increase of radiative forcing due to solar activity in his hypothetical would equal the predicted increase of radiative forcing due to greenhouse gases in the real world.
Sure, there is still a difference between the two situations akin to that described in the Diseased Thinking post I linked upthread, in that shaming people into not emitting as much CO2 might in principle work whereas shaming the Sun into not shining as much cannot possibly work (though Moldbug still has a point as the cost-effectiveness of the former is probably orders of magnitude less than most people would guess). I know you can’t shame a saber-toothed tiger into not charging you either, but still Moldbug’s example worked for me and Lyman’s didn’t for whatever reason.
EDIT: Might be because I’d think of an increase in the solar constant in Far Mode but I’d think of a saber-toothed tiger in Near Mode.
The weirdest thing is that I do have the intuition “corresponding” (FLOABW) to the fact that if deterring someone from doing something can work in principle it might be a good idea to try but if it cannot possibly work it makes no sense to try (the “Sympathy or Condemnation” section of the “Diseased thinking” post makes perfect sense to me); when Mencius Moldbug pointed out that people react differently to the threat of anthropogenic global warning differently to the way they’d react to hypothetical global warning due to the Sun, I knew exactly what he was talking about. But, Rob Lyman’s example is a very poor choice of a pointer to that intuition for me, exactly because it points me to stuff like stubbing a toe in the dark instead.
That’s perfectly rational behavior. The two causes give different predictions about likely future warming.
He explicitly specified that the predicted increase of radiative forcing due to solar activity in his hypothetical would equal the predicted increase of radiative forcing due to greenhouse gases in the real world.
Sure, there is still a difference between the two situations akin to that described in the Diseased Thinking post I linked upthread, in that shaming people into not emitting as much CO2 might in principle work whereas shaming the Sun into not shining as much cannot possibly work (though Moldbug still has a point as the cost-effectiveness of the former is probably orders of magnitude less than most people would guess). I know you can’t shame a saber-toothed tiger into not charging you either, but still Moldbug’s example worked for me and Lyman’s didn’t for whatever reason.
EDIT: Might be because I’d think of an increase in the solar constant in Far Mode but I’d think of a saber-toothed tiger in Near Mode.