Google's Science Fellows Challenge the Company's Fund-Raising For Senator Inhofe 140
Lasrick writes "At the Dot Earth blog in the NY Times, 'Big companies have many, and sometimes conflicting, interests, as a spokesperson for Google tried to explain to the environmental blogger Brian Merchant this way: “[W]hile we disagree on climate change policy, we share an interest with Senator Inhofe in the employees and data center we have in Oklahoma.” Now the Web giant is facing fresh criticism, this time in an open letter from 17 scientists and policy researchers who were invited to Google’s Silicon Valley headquarters back in 2011 to explore ways to improve climate science communication....'"
Wha if (Score:5, Interesting)
What if their reasoning goes like this: Inhofe is dangerous. We cannot now influence Inhofe. If Inhofe takes our money, then Inhofe will be, in part, dependent upon us. If we can create a financial dependency between Inhofe and his constituents, we can use that dependency to influence Inhofe. We can threaten to withdraw jobs, close plants, relocate.
That is what most people complain corporations do, right? That is the source of their power along with campaign contributions. It seems to work, or at least everyone bitches about it as though is does work. I believe it works.
So....
What good is a purity-play if it doesn't get you what you need- influence?
I don't know this is their thinking. It could very well be their thinking. Note my signature and check my last posts if you think I have priorities other than climate change abatement or am shilling for anyone. I am just a person looking to deal with reality in any way that is effective.
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That would be nice.
I blame the ignorant people who elect him into office - time and time again.
But, our elected officials reflect the Voting public.
Gerrymandering?
Ask yourself why does it work?
During the last Presidential election, I had a wonderful time observing my neighbors here in the Bible Belt.
First, you need to understand, if you are not a member of their particular Christian Sect, you are NOT a Christian - like Catholics and Mormons are not Christian in their eyes.
BUT, given the choice between O
Re:Wha if (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporations and their funds should not be allowed to give or fundraise for politicians period. Only private citizens should be allowed to do either. It should not be a tax deduction either. It would fix a lot of problems.
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Corporations and their funds should not be allowed to give or fundraise for politicians period. Only private citizens should be allowed to do either.
Corporations are run by people. You OK with telling a CEO "youre not allowed to donate money"? Because that seems problematic.
Re:Wha if (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe he said "Corporations and their funds". Certain a CEO is a private citizen and can do what he/she will with their own money. Perhaps the point is that it is not right for a CEO to use the power and profit of a Corporation to influence votes. If they can pull millions of dollars out of their own (deep) pockets then fine, though they do run up against campaign finance laws. Corporations can now contribute with no caps and thus play a huge part in how a campaign plays out.
Re:Wha if (Score:5, Insightful)
"Corporations are voluntary grouping of people"
This is a lie on so many levels it's heard to know where to begin.
You make it sound like they're all of one mind WRT politics. They're a "voluntary grouping" , right? But they're not. They're just there to work and pay the bills; they haven't "voluntarily grouped " for political reasons at all.
Yet you force them to accept what the corporation does and use their presence in the corporation are a a kind of justification, hey,. they're there as a voluntary group! They can leave if they don't like it!
Of course they could leave their job. As if. I love it when this argument finally gets down to "if you don't like it , you are free to leave your job / state / nation" part . It's a joke and factually as untrue as "if you don't like it, you can leave your job, lose your house, wreck your credit and live on the street" . Only in an adolescent fantasy world does this kind of logic exist.
What's more, it puts unwarranted amount of political power into the hands of a tiny minority of people merely because they're rich. That's the real world effect. It's no different than 18th century England with a king and the various barons. They wield the real power. But this is what democracy was invented to prevent. You seem to overlook that basic fact. Democracy is a means to an end- the opportunity for citizens to participated as equals in government. You turn it into a circus of perverts, gleefully shaking their packages at the whole POINT of democracy through some fucking "voluntary group" horseshit.
People should be limited in how much they can give candidates. Candidates elections should be publicly funded. Elections should be of by and for the people, not of by and for corporations. and the tiny sliver of people who run them.
Nothing could be simpler to understand.
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You make it sound like they're all of one mind WRT politics. They're a "voluntary grouping" , right? But they're not. They're just there to work and pay the bills; they haven't "voluntarily grouped " for political reasons at all.
That's a crock. If that were true then they wouldn't be allowed to go work somewhere else if they didn't like their job.
The only groups that aren't voluntary today are militaries and labor unions. (Volunteer militaries are obligatory once you've signed up.) At least you can leave a corporation at any time of your choosing, however labor unions will take your money and spend it on whatever political cause they want even if you disagree with it, and if you don't like it tough shit, if you leave they force you
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How the hell can you claim that corporations are voluntary but labor unions are not? That is some serious doublethink right there. They are very nearly the same thing.
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Depends on the corporation now doesn't it? The corporation in question during the completely misrepresented SCOTUS ruling was, in acutality, a corporation formed for the purpose of a "voluntary grouping for political reasons." The line of reasoning the justices were following is that the laws of the US have been manipulated to the point of requiring such voluntary groupings to form a corporation in order to pool their money and then laws were enacted to prevent them from using that money to buy speech time
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If you don't like the political activity of a corporation, sell your stock interest in that corporation. Last I heard, no one is forced to buy stock in a particular company.
You seem to hail from another planet. on Earth, it's not possible to avoid giving money to corporations you don't like merely by not buying stock. Politically speaking nearly all telcos are "one" corporation in that they agitate for the same things from candidates. Ditto the cable companies. Ditto the auto industry, which as a group,
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You are not "giving money" to corporations when you buy products,
You seem to confuse the concept of "donating' with the concept of "giving". I said giving, not donating.
This is the essence of libertarianism- tell straight up falsehoods which everyone knows are plainly false then engage in a vacuous and elaborate explanation which you hope people will engage with.
You cannot avoid giving money to corporations. In a society whose laws permit the rich to have a far more potent political voice this has real wor
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Companies with similar products have similar political goals. I commend you on your deep insight, but I don't see how that delegitimizes their political activity nor do I see how corporate donations and event sponsorship constitute "agitation". Agitation usually means trying to whip up a mob mentality and promoting civil unrest which are not usually tactics used by corporations.
I'll spell; it out as many times as necessary. Corporations in in similar industries all share similar goals. If they are allowed
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More expensive cars means some people drive their cars longer before buying a new one.
A stellar example of two libertarian ploys. One is to use some generally true, yet unquantified fact - "airbags increase car costs" and then causally relate that to some effect, citing no evidence, just "pure reason" - it must be true.
The other ploy is simply to blink away the totality of the situation- we're talking about people dying. We already have a working example of a functioning market in Europe that includes ai
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Re; global warming. Let me get this straight. You consider it realistic that all the world's scientists are engaging in a gigantic scam together for grant money and for ideological reasons. This is realistic to you.
However, the world's corporations who explicitly and singly exist to make money , their collusion is unlikely and anyways not a problem because of "free market forces" and anyway government intervention is worse than any kind of collusion. .
So scientists are colluding to lie but the noble corpor
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Its pretty simple, individuals should be able to contribute to the candidates of their choice with caps. Elections should be running on small money, not big money.
If people are part of a larger organization encouraging them to contribute in a certain way that is no ones business as long as its the individual making the contribution and not the organization.
If an organization is collecting funds via dues, corporate profits or anything else and spending that money in a coordinated fashion to buy political in
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Out of his own bank acount or out of the corporation's?
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I'm OK with telling him he is not allowed to donate other people's money. if it comes out of his own personal funds, that's fine.
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Corporations are no democracies, at least they're not required to be so by law. So one "dictator", e.g. the CEO or the owner, decides "for everyone" to influence politics in a certain direction.
This destroys the "one man one vote" basic principle of democracy.
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Does that include unions? Does that include groups like The Sierra Club?
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I would say all of the above and more. If any of those groups want to request that people make contributions and even if they want to say who convinced them it was the right thing to do, fine so long as there is no coercion of any kind involved. Admittedly that leaves a grey area that needs better definition.
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I blame the ignorant people who elect him into office
What, here in Oklahoma?! Nah...
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"environmental cult"
It's you religious shitwits who are the problem, christ-for-brains.
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One American Senator is completely meaningless and will continue to be meaningless with regards to "Climate Change," however one American Senator can be quite meaningful with regards to our business operations in his district.
Look folks, China is in the #1 spot emitting ~25% of the worlds CO2, and its still a god damned developing nation (about half of the people in China are still subsistence farming.) There is no chance that reducing CO2 emissions her
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There is no chance that reducing CO2 emissions here is going to mean anything, ever.
Ah, there's the attitude of progress!
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Ah, there's the attitude of progress!
Ah, the old "only one way towards progress now let me dictate it" argument.
If only Oklahoma's 1st district had the right Senator, for then we could force China to not be on track to producing half of the worlds CO2 emissions by 2050.
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Ah, the old "only one way towards progress now let me dictate it" argument.
How the hell did you manage to get that from my post? All I am doing is pointing out that your post reads like "we cannot significantly do something, so why bother?". I make no claim as to the "right" approach, or even a right approach, only that yours is a wrong approach.
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Ah, I see that you're now currently at #3 of the hierarchy of global warming denial
#1 Global warming isn't happening
#2 Global warming is happening, but it’s not caused by humanity - so we don’t have to do anything.
#3 Global warming is happening, it is caused by humanity, but China and India aren't doing anything - so we don’t have to do anything.
#4 Global warming is happening, it is caused by humanity, but even if China and India do something it’s too late for us to do anything and i
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Re:Wha if (Score:5, Interesting)
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There is no chance that reducing CO2 emissions here is going to mean anything, ever.
When a Watt of energy from wind or solar costs significantly less than a Watt of energy from coal, oil, or gas emissions will plummet. When a battery has higher effective energy density than gasoline, emissions will plummet. The problem is thinking you can come up with treaties and laws to tackle the problem, the thing about agreements like that is that the more everyone sticks to them the more there is to be gained by being the one who cheats. If you want to fix it, you have to improve the tech so that
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I don't see that happening. Not unless it's because the fossil fuels are used up to the point of rarity.
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Nope. Running out of crude? Maybe. That just means more shale and oil sands. Yup... even more polution than what is mostly used today! But.. still cheaper than the alternatives and so that's what people will burn.
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LOL! You must live in a windy place. Try to get out more. Unfortunately, only in certain rare locations is wind cheaper than oil. Sure.. wind is great when it is actually blowing but most of the time in most locations your windmill investment is just sitting there rusting. I drive by several wind turbines on the way to work. I'm not sure why they were built here, I think some local politician must have thought it was a good idea to subsidize them or something. Anyway, I would say that about 4 days out
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Look folks, China is in the #1 spot emitting ~25% of the worlds CO2, and its still a god damned developing nation (about half of the people in China are still subsistence farming.) There is no chance that reducing CO2 emissions here is going to mean anything, ever.
It's really easy to absolve yourself of any responsibility with statements like this. Perhaps looking at your country's contribution per capita [worldbank.org] would be more helpful.
Re:Wha if (Score:4, Interesting)
For instance, he voted against raising the debt ceiling. I'm no economist, and it's a matter of opinion (or crystal balls) as to whether the cuts the republicans are trying to get as ransom are a good idea or not, but based on his position on climate change, that really makes me suspect he'd tank the economy in an attempt to get tax cuts for his rich friends.
Or worse, he's one of a disturbing number of representatives who seem to be religiously conservative, who ignores reality when it disagrees with his worldview. That can be more dangerous than simple greed in any numbers, since it can't be reasoned with.
Anyway, as far as China, it's less likely that China will reduce their emissions until it's financially advantageous if we're still pumping out carbon like there's no tomorrow, and Inhofe is yet another barrier to changing that.
Re:Wha if (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately, one senator is NOT completely meaningless. Inhofe isn't just a Senator. He's the ranking minority member of the Committee on Environment and Public Works. That means he has enormous say in any legislation on the environment. If the Senate changes hands, he becomes the chairman of that committee, and has the power to singlehandedly stop any legislation to do anything about climate change. He would also have significant power to introduce legislation to dismantle any regulatory framework, and the ability to hassle executive branch agencies with subpoenas (and has shown a willingness to use it).
The committee structure of the US Congress puts enormous power in the hands of a few individuals. And the ones with the biggest axes to grind try to end up in prominent positions: the House Committee on Science and Technology is packed with people who aren't just climate change denialists, but creationists to boot.
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How many people are going to die because deniers are effectively shouting "no fire" in a proven-to-be burning theater?
Denier == terrorist.
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The donors ARE the constituents. Voters are just chumps to be exploited. The problem with giving Inhofe some money is that other monied interests are giving him much more money. Inhofe is going to drop Google in a New York minute if it were to hurt his supply from Exxon/Mobile &c.
lolwut? (Score:4, Informative)
this time in an open letter from 17 scientists and policy researchers [...] to explore ways to improve climate science communication....
Yeah, because improved communication is the problem, not people shoving their fingers in their ear and going "glory glory halleluja!" If only there was some scientific explanation [wikipedia.org] for behavior like this. Anyway, the solution is simple: Better education, not better 'communication'. A better educated population is more likely to use science, reason, and excercise critical thinking in response to new information, than an uneducated one. Ah, what's the going rate of a college education these days?
Oh. Right.
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Anyway, the solution is simple: Better education, not better 'communication'.
Not really. The more science you know, the less worried you are about climate [theregister.co.uk]
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Anyway, the solution is simple: Better education, not better 'communication'.
Not really. The more science you know, the less worried you are about climate
Sounds like an argument for more science curriculum to me.
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Anyway, the solution is simple: Better education, not better 'communication'.
Not really.
The more science you know, the less worried you are about climate [theregister.co.uk]
It's a Lewis Page article - as usual when Page reports research it turns out that the research doesn't say what Page claims it does.
What about Gay Marriage? (Score:2, Insightful)
So when Google/MS/etc. etc. all were heaping money on for the pro-gay marriage debate why was protest by company employees not allowed while this is seen as being a "moral' thing to do?
I'm not taking a position either way on either topic, I'm just pointing out that lots of people on this site and in general have very blinkered views where paying money to support the "correct" politicians is perfectly fine while paying money to support the "incorrect" politicians should somehow be illegal.
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"So when Google/MS/etc. etc. all were heaping money on for the pro-gay marriage debate why was protest by company employees not allowed while this is seen as being a "moral' thing to do?"
Was it not allowed or is it simply that Google employees are smart enough to realise that laws supporting equal rights for gay people are as important as equal rights for women and equal rights for people of different race and that only bigoted idiots take issue with them?
"I'm not taking a position either way on either topi
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Either support the availability of all of the special rights that married people have to all unmarried people also, or stop calling it "equal rights."
Basically, stop lying. We understand that the phrase "equal rights" has powerful connotations that automatically get a large group of drones to stand with you, but its still a fucking lie.
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What do you think about the term "marriage equality?"
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..by "equal rights" you seem to actually mean "inclusion into the special rights club that all non-married people are still excluded from." Either support the availability of all of the special rights that married people have to all unmarried people also, or stop calling it "equal rights."
This doesn't follow logic at all. The concept that marriage has certain "special rights" both ignores the concept that it also has certain responsibilities that unmarried people don't have to deal with, and ignores the idea that (in a perfect world) anyone is free to enter into marriage and free to leave it. Your argument makes about as much sense as getting mad that people can incorporate a company and get into some "special rights club" that unincorporated people don't enjoy. It may be technically ac
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I'm not talking about special treatment for being married, that's country specific so pointless to talk about as if tax breaks for being married or whatever are some inherent trait of marriage everywhere - they're not.
By equal rights I'm referring to the ability to marry someone you love. Currently only gay people are denied that right.
If you jumped off your ethnocentric horse of American marriage benefits for a moment you'd realise that there is an underlying equality issue there that's far more important
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Do you? Where?
I don't really care what consenting adults do. Marrying a sibling may not be my cup of tea but it's not as if that didn't happen historically.
Fundamentally that taboo for example came about largely because of the lobby that decided marriage should be about reproduction rather than love but they're separate issues. It's possible to ban such reproduction because of the effects it can have on the child without banning marriage.
At the end of the day if there's consent, capability to give consent (
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What purpose is there in the government sanctioning and providing special privileges for marriage if not to encourage reproduction in order to ensure the survival of society?
Remove that reason and there is no other reason for government to be involved in marriage at all.
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Well as I said in my other post, most countries in the world don't give special benefits to marriage and so yes maybe government involvement in marriage is a key part of the problem in countries where that happens.
In the UK there has been talk about changing this and offering tax breaks for the married but the underlying purpose is to increase marriages which as a proportion of which will occur in churches is a subtle way of the religious MPs backing it trying to get more people into religion.
I don't know i
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Rather than making such a long post you could've just said "I'm a bigoted gay hater" and it would've come across in exactly the same way.
Pretty much everything you said was simply you trying to justify to yourself why it's okay for you to treat gay people as lesser beings and that's okay, most of those who hold such deep far right sentiment do like to think they're right despite knowing deep down they're not, but it doesn't wash with those of us who can see right through it. You're a fascist bigot and it sh
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..by "equal rights" you seem to actually mean "inclusion into the special rights club that all non-married people are still excluded from."
Well, no.
Equal rights to marry the person they want to marry.
Gay people don't get to be "included into the special rights club" if they don't marry.
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or we could look at it this way
Dim Character as new Moderator
Dim Post as new Message
if Character.GetType().Name = global.LEFTISH_LIBERAL_WORLD_VIEW then
Post.Mod += 1
else
Post.Mod -= 1
end if
Post.Update
Character.Dispose()
I've now blinded the eyes of most the /.'ers here (if they can even read it).
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I think you are confusing the liberal worldview with the Democratic party. There's plenty of /. posts trashing both the Democrats and Republicans, and it seems a large number (of the more vocal /.ers) are more libertarian or anarchist leaning.
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Careful! A geek is about to use his Samsung phone to bitch at you about the glories of communism.
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What you fail to grasp is people are trying to change the campaign finance laws...HOWEVER, at the same time, they will use the means that are available to them until such a time as they are changed.
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Just because it's wrong doesn't mean I'm gonna fight it. The founding fathers recognized that we're all a bunch of corrupt motherfuckers, and that's why we need checks and balances. You do something wrong that I don't support; I'll fight you. You do something wrong that I support; I'll let someone else fight you. That's the real world.
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The problem here is that google is funding a politician
You can stop there and still be right.
good grief, give it a rest (Score:3)
It's fine for some group of scientists to point out how they believe Imhofe is wrong. But calling on companies to blacklist any politician who doesn't agree with their position goes way too far.
In fact, a company that really is interested in good corporate citizenship should spread its money and influence around so that opposing views are heard.
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Indeed. Scientists are scientists. These people are politicians that claim to be scientists.
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You are a fucking idiot.
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No, these people are scientists pretending to be politicians, and that is far worse.
Re:good grief, give it a rest (Score:5, Insightful)
1, Science is a matter of evidence, not a matter of belief.
2. To have an opposing view, one must first agree there is such a thing as 'reality'.
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Quite right. But policy is a matter of values, decisions, and tradeoffs. The error here is with scientists trying to impose their political choices on everybody else, and misusing their scientific credentials to do so.
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Exactly, which is why anybody touting consensus as having anything to do with science should leave the discussion.
[I do believe this is the first time I've ever agreed with tapecutter.]
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Bribery is ok as long as it is spread around to everybody?
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I don't see any "bribery" involved here. Politicians need political contributions, otherwise only the very wealthy could run. Would you prefer that? And if politicians get political contributions, then isn't it better if those are "spread around" and not tied slavishly to specific political positions?
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Have you seen what the EPA has done to people? Calling them the Gestapo isn't that far off and I'm getting a little tired of the exact same people who think that the NSA spying on *anyone* (even North Korea) is some insane violation of the Constitution having zero problems with the EPA spying on American citizens and effectively confiscating their property and livelihoods because they think a slug might live within 50 miles of their homes.
Comm 101 (Score:2)
Speaking of improved communication, where's a link to this letter?
Zealotry and the balkanization of our culture (Score:2, Insightful)
In real, grownup life (ie not "ivory tower academia") we all spend time working every day with people who may or may not PRECISELY agree with everything we believe.
The fact is that Senator Inhofe can be useful to Google in a number of contexts unrelated to either of their positions on climate change.
I have friends that are both Christians and Atheists, am I too supposed to refuse to associate with one group or the other based on which side of that fence I personally stand on?
The sort of zealotry that inform
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Fresh criticism on global warming? (Score:2)
Do they cancel each other out?
Simple solution to complex problem (Score:3)
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Government representatives are supposed to represent their constituents, not multinational corporations [wolf-pac.com]. Make it illegal for foreign^H^H^H^H^H^H^H entities to fund domestic campaigns and we can avoid these conflicts.
Corrected that for you.
Job One of Do No Evil (Score:3)
Not that hard if you a functioning human soul.
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Don't build anything in states that promise zero business taxes. Not that hard if you a functioning human soul.
Aha. Because kowtowing to a government is what makes a person "moral". Please, go away. Despite the circle jerk that you and your pretend "friends" live in, you are not a good person. You are a tool. You and the people like you are responsible for the "society's ills" (that's how you ass holes put it, right?). You promote incompetence and waste. Its eventual inevitable results are waste and starvation.
allow no-benefit, slave-wage jobs
Let me fix that for you:
"allow jobs"
See: brief and to the point. You could have saved yourself so
Google is all for lofty, noble causes... (Score:2)
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