Two Sides to Every Argument

When somebody tells you that there are two sides to every argument. I recommend that you back up and take a careful look. An argument is by definition multiple views being asserted and contested, so saying that there are two sides to every argument is redundant- like saying a circle is round.

So unless you suspect that the person reminding you of the obvious believes you to be an idiot, something strange is occurring here.

Does the central point of the argument hinge on factual data, evidence, facts? If so, then there may be multiple arguments, but only one will be 100% correct. When police and courts and experts attempt to reconstruct the events of a crime, there is only one way that the events of the crime actually occurred. It is possible that this one correct chain of events will be discovered. It is also possible that none of the arguments presented and argued over will be the one correct chain of events. But unless all the arguments presented are all the same argument, it is impossible for all the arguments presented to be fully correct. If there is variance between the arguments, and the arguments concern facts, then some or all of the arguments will be wrong to a greater or lesser degree.

By using the phrase “there are two sides to every argument” the person making this assertion is leading listeners towards the false proof of false equivalency. And arguments are not all equivalent. 2+2=5 is not an equally valid method of adding two and two.

So be very careful of the statement “There is two sides to every argument.”

The person may have meant any of the following:

“I do not think you have properly evaluated the facts. And have reached an incorrect conclusion.”

“I think that both of these arguments may be partially right, and therefore also partially wrong.”

“I do not like people disagreeing with me, and will push you psychologically rather than lose.”

“I don't like people arguing and just want a solution where everyone stops yelling at each other.”

“I do not understand basic logic and the realities of physical laws.”

“I have a liberal arts degree or was raised by a mentor figure who taught me that winning the argument meant I am right, regardless of the facts.”

Added Resource Page

Next piece of our little ongoing New Year's Resolution. We have added a resource page on the bar. Have a look. It's pretty sparse right now, but we'll be building on it.

Not much else today, but if you haven't seen our Pinterest and Pearltree accounts, we've found some pretty great resource sites and organized them in there. So have a look.

Oh, and here are some interesting Web links I've been reading lately...

• The 8 Steps To Creating A Great Storyboard 
• re:publica 2012 - Rick Falkvinge - Working swarm-wise
• The Paiute Tribe’s Food System Project restores control of food system

Page Redesign: Simple and Open and Direct

We've been quiet for a while, and it's time to start warming up our engines and get ready to begin taking dramatic action. We aren't ready yet, but you have to start before you're ready.

It's important that we take steps towards our goals, even small ones.

Our old website layout was a disaster. It was a pile of marketing hype and overcomplicated nonfunctional detritus. And so it's going going gone.

The new layout may change further from this, but this new layout is very simple, very 'zen' in a word. We want our message and our goal to be the primary message of our website and the organization itself.

So, no more busy cluttered website.

You can expect that we will be shuffling around the page configurations a little bit and possibly a lot in the coming weeks. So if things seem really weird for a while, that's why. We apologize for the confusion, but since we're still pretty small and unknown, we figured this was a good time to clear this up.

So welcome to the new layout, it will change further.

The King is Dead, Long live the King.

Talking about Dreams

I want to talk to you about my dreams. I know. I know. I know how trite that sounds. But I'm going to ask that you hang in there with me and talk to you about a dream that I think will answer some dreams in many of you as well. And if I am wrong, I apologize.


I dream of a place where people can learn to provide for themselves, not by reading, but by doing. I dream of a place where people learn how to become full adults, so that, wherever they go in their lives afterword they take the knowledge that they can handle anything hits them. I have watched adults worry about their children's futures when those children struggle to find a job. I have seen the terror in parents eyes when they themselves lose their jobs. The secret nasty truth of our world is that there is not back up plan and very few of us know how to provide for ourselves and our loved ones. We were taught to go from employer to employer asking begging for bread.

The resume is simply a prettier version of the cardboard placard that reads "Will work for food".

And I dream of changing that, of building a place where people of all ages can come and learn a set of back up skills that means none of them will never need to fear adversity again, because they are complete in themselves.

I am not complete in this way yet, none of the people working with me are either. But we are trying, working together to reach a goal that our great grandparents were closer to that we are, and that their great grandparents were closer to. Independence is our birthright, self-sufficiency the great inheritance of all of us, but it does not profit the few on top. And so it is not valued.

There is a saying, that A students teach B students how to work for C students.

I want to teach all people how to work for themselves. I want to teach the world how to be free.

Because the vast majority of humans are not free, and in our captivity we have ensnared the whole ecosystem, the planet itself. And my dream is that maybe, if we can free ourselves, we can free the planet too.

That is my dream. Let me know if that speaks to you. We can always use the extra hands.

The Case of the Hula Painted Frog: Cause for Hope

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hula_painted_frog

I spend a lot of time depressed about the future we are leaving to the next generation. But every now and then I get a dose of hope.

Enter the Hula Painted Frog.

It's not extinct. Like millions of other species on the planet its not extinct. This wouldn't seem like a big deal, lot's of species are not extinct.

But the Hula Painted Frog was declared extinct in 1996. 

And now we know that we were premature. Cases like this make me happy we were wrong.

The Hula Painted Frog is still critically endangered, with a surviving habit of less that 2 square kilometers. But rehydration of its historic range may change that and may help this species bounce back.

Life is surprising. Life is tenacious. Life does not give up without a fight. Learn from the Hula Painted Frog, and keep fighting- even if everyone else is convinced you're already dead.

The Lessons of Daisyworld: Adaptation And the Anthrocentric Error

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisyworld

The Daisyworld was a simplified experimental planet designed to show how natural selection could help stabilize the environment and make the environment more condusive to life.

The two daisies: black which absorb light and white which reflect light, will flourish and decline as needed to stabilize the temperature of the planet orbiting a sun whose temperature is gradually increasing.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:StandardDaisyWorldRun2color.gif

Up to a certain threshold the planet's temperature is remarkably stable. And in fact further experiments with more species beyond just the daisies themselves produced and even more robustly stable temperature. 

nature has no will of its own. But the complex rules that govern those things we collectively call nature, cause nature to act as though it had a will, and that its will was driven by a desire to preserve life.

But here is the rub, nature does not care what life survives. Observe the line of the black daisy. As the hypothetical world is bombarded with increasing solar radiation, the black daisy dies off and the white daisy flourishes- right up to the tipping point where it can no longer mitigate the increasing radiation. 

There are two lessons there. First, life will not be destroyed by climate change. The Carboniferous period shows that both global warming and global cooling are things that ecosystems can adapt to. 

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html

But just because life will survive, does not mean everyone makes it out alive. And our naive assumption that we will be here until the end of earth, that if we go the Earth must also therefore go, is ridiculous.

Now, of course, once the assumption is said out loud it sounds ludicrous. Most people will readily admit that the Earth will outlast humans and that like the Dinosaurs, we will one day unwillingly bequeath this planet to our successors. But we don't act as though we believe this or understand this.

Like a small child saying "Mom, I understand!", and then promptly proving that we don't; we act in a way that consistently indicates that we believe:

• We are the center of all life.
• Damage that we do to the rest of life could impact them but not us.
• There is no story beyond ours.

By blithing continuing down the path towards runaway climate change we are playing the part of the black daisy, encouraging an environment that we can't live in. Life will go on, but unless we stop acting like black daisies, we likely won't go on with it.

Why Jon Ferry... Shouldn't teach Critical Thinking

In Jon Ferry's Jun 5 article in the Vancouver Province he decides to take aim at eco-density and the trend towards living smaller. According to his account, economic realities have apparently forced him and his to downsize their digs.

And he clearly doesn't like having less elbow room. But since it's hard to argue against facts that forced a relocation, Mr. ferry has decided to rail against others by using the false proff known as character assasination.

he rails against eco-density and other downsizing measures by pointing out those high profile ecological celebrities such as David Suzuki and Al Gore have large houses. This lack of monastic piety on the part of Suzuki and Gore and others is apparently enough, if Ferry's writing is to be believed, to disprove eco-density as a useful tool.

The problem here is that one does not follow from the other. Al Gore could live in a house that ran on coal, kerosene, methane, a leaky nuclear reactor and the processed tears of unicorns; and none of that would actually change whether or not what he says about the environment is correct or not. One does not follow from the other.

Ferry compounds this by intimating that the need to be more ecologically conscious and less ecologically damaging is some sort of coercive force being thrust down upon people like an overbearing father or a school yard bully.

But as Ferry began his own article by admitting, sometimes realities force us to change, and sometimes in ways that are unpopular. I once ran myself financially into the ground and room in what could be charitably called a flop house with a friend who was similarly impoverished until I was able to dig myself out of that hole.

In the months and years leading up to my self implosion, people around me were constantly trying to warn me of the inevitable consequences of my self-destructive behavior. And some of those people, caring though they were, had similar bad habits and problems. But the fact that they were making the same mistakes, albeit on a smaller scale and with more room for error than I had been, didn't change the fact that they were right.

If a convicted murderer tells you that murder is wrong, are you going to disagree with him on the grounds that he doesn't practice what he preaches?

None of this suggests that Gore and Suzuki and Mayor Robertson, wouldn't help reduce their carbon footprints and ecological impact if they downsized. None of this further suggests that downsizing wouldn't be the best and most moral choice for these people. And none of this says anything about whether or not the living choices of these public figures damages their credibility with audiences and critics. But none of those things relate in any way to whether or not what Al Gore or David Suzuki or Gregor Robertson are correct in the ecological warnings or not. And that is the point that Jon Ferry seems either unaware of or hoping that we won't notice.

The answer to what is the sum of two plus two is not "Oh look over there! I See a monkey!" Jon Ferry is either comically missing the point or deliberately trying to mislead readers. I won't speculate on which of those is the most likely case. But I would like suggest that he never teach critical thinking professionally.