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Voss wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
MM is hit or miss with me, he has some misses, and a lot of his videos are preaching to the choir. I did like "where to invade next?" for listing things america should take from other countries.

I'm not a big fan of his, i respect him and his courage. and it takes a lot of courage for him to do what he does, but most of his docs i can pass on.

It doesn't take any courage to misrepresent people and tell the existing audience who already agree with you how right they are.

It takes a lot more courage to have an honest conversation and try to work out practical solutions, than just rake in cash with faux outrage

Pretty much this.

Politically, I’ve a lot in common with Michael Moore, so this isn’t some ‘hurrdurr tubby libtard’ thing. I just don’t like his work. If anything, because he goes for such low hanging fruit, he undermines other, more serious efforts.

I mean, it’s the different between making a Documentary about how any form of political extreme recruits new people, and a Documentary about ‘oh noes Political Extreme Group R Bad’.

The former can be thought provoking, and help with interventions before someone swallows the Kool Aid. The latter? Well....yes, yes it is. Any kind of Extreme tends to be less than useful and desirable to society at large - so what was your point again?

I remember he's got massive manipulative editing. The most infamous I remember was his Farenheight 911 one where he asked a congressman if he'd send his son to Iraq... While the editing cut out the entire bit where the guy said his Nephew already is.

No point to watching his vids.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
I remember he's got massive manipulative editing. The most infamous I remember was his Farenheight 911 one where he asked a congressman if he'd send his son to Iraq... While the editing cut out the entire bit where the guy said his Nephew already is.

No point to watching his vids.

How about the "All I had to do was open a bank account, and the bank handed me a gun over the counter, same day, no questions asked " scene from Bowling for Columbine? Although portrayed as a same-day event with guns being kept in the bank, in actuality it was over several days, guns aren't kept at the bank, he had to get a background check done, and begged and pleaded with them to change their normal practices just enough to edit the frack out of it.

 Matt Swain wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:
Yep. people demanding that any alternative to fossil fuels must be completely developed and able to 100% replace fossil fuels, for the alternative to even be considered, supported or fossil fuels having any kinds of limits placed on them.

This is a logical fallacy argument called "the nirvana fallacy". Basically the nirvana fallacy goes "Unless a solution is absolutely, totally, 100% perfect and free from any flaws or failing in any case, it is totally worthless and must be rejected.

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Nirvana-Fallacy

I didn't know, there was a distinct fallacy for this problem.
It is a good day, when you learn something new.

Yes, it takes courage to be a prominent liberal in modern america. As soon as anyone sticks their head up and makes a progressive statement, they are immediately sent threats of violence and even death.

Also since liberal views like worker's rights, far wages, etc are often frowned upon by corporate culture in america being a working person expressing liberal views can result in your losing your job for no given reason. I had family members lose their jobs over attending certain social or political rallies. Some employers even said if they saw their employees at a rally resisting his political POV they would be fired.

Pretty much feel the same as most here. MM tends to say stuff I generally agree with, then somehow twist and mangle it to the point that I find myself getting annoyed at him more often than not. I think it's because he often ends up doing similar things in his films to those he accuses the conservative, corporate right of doing. When you're cherry-picking evidence, selectively editing and putting your conclusions before your research you end up getting in the way of the thing you're trying to achieve.

 Matt Swain wrote:
Yes, it takes courage to be a prominent liberal in modern america. As soon as anyone sticks their head up and makes a progressive statement, they are immediately sent threats of violence and even death.

Also since liberal views like worker's rights, far wages, etc are often frowned upon by corporate culture in america being a working person expressing liberal views can result in your losing your job for no given reason. I had family members lose their jobs over attending certain social or political rallies. Some employers even said if they saw their employees at a rally resisting his political POV they would be fired.

Sadly, no more...It has totally swung the other way, as in those with a liberal view are shouting from every news station and mountain top and those not following this tune are quickly condemned. The conservatives are those that are now being attacked (verbally and physically) for being a conservative, republican or heaven forbid, a Trump supporter.

So, Environmentalism.....

One of the really interesting aspects of the current flavor is that it is almost all set as the responsibility of the consumers. The manufacturers, Distributors, and Sellers have no role. Of course, in a global and interconnected world, holding any one industry or company responsible was a ridiculous premise.

This has changed somewhat with the creation of "Green Investors" and some small government changes. However, the responsibility to stop climate change is still mostly at the feet of individual consumers.

This seems..... less than possible.

As noted, this thread is for discussing environmentalism (and specifically, Michael Moore's documentary on it or related work).

General politics discussion will result in us having to lock this thread, so let's try to avoid it, please...

Steelmage99 wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:
Yep. people demanding that any alternative to fossil fuels must be completely developed and able to 100% replace fossil fuels, for the alternative to even be considered, supported or fossil fuels having any kinds of limits placed on them.

This is a logical fallacy argument called "the nirvana fallacy". Basically the nirvana fallacy goes "Unless a solution is absolutely, totally, 100% perfect and free from any flaws or failing in any case, it is totally worthless and must be rejected.

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Nirvana-Fallacy

I didn't know, there was a distinct fallacy for this problem.
It is a good day, when you learn something new.

Slight aside, but if you’ve got some time it’s well worth wandering through the wiki articles on various types of fallacy. It’s really interesting and great fun to see how many you accidentally fall into.

 Jadenim wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:
Yep. people demanding that any alternative to fossil fuels must be completely developed and able to 100% replace fossil fuels, for the alternative to even be considered, supported or fossil fuels having any kinds of limits placed on them.

This is a logical fallacy argument called "the nirvana fallacy". Basically the nirvana fallacy goes "Unless a solution is absolutely, totally, 100% perfect and free from any flaws or failing in any case, it is totally worthless and must be rejected.

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Nirvana-Fallacy

I didn't know, there was a distinct fallacy for this problem.
It is a good day, when you learn something new.

Slight aside, but if you’ve got some time it’s well worth wandering through the wiki articles on various types of fallacy. It’s really interesting and great fun to see how many you accidentally fall into.

Absolutely. I usually have a good grasp of both formal and informal fallacies, having interacted with quite a few religious apologists, so I was pleasantly surprised to have missed one.

I also enjoy skimming through the various common fallacies, to see what I am guilty of saying and doing.

Steelmage99 wrote:

 Jadenim wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:
Yep. people demanding that any alternative to fossil fuels must be completely developed and able to 100% replace fossil fuels, for the alternative to even be considered, supported or fossil fuels having any kinds of limits placed on them.

This is a logical fallacy argument called "the nirvana fallacy". Basically the nirvana fallacy goes "Unless a solution is absolutely, totally, 100% perfect and free from any flaws or failing in any case, it is totally worthless and must be rejected.

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Nirvana-Fallacy

I didn't know, there was a distinct fallacy for this problem.
It is a good day, when you learn something new.

Slight aside, but if you’ve got some time it’s well worth wandering through the wiki articles on various types of fallacy. It’s really interesting and great fun to see how many you accidentally fall into.

Absolutely. I usually have a good grasp of both formal and informal fallacies, having interacted with quite a few religious apologists, so I was pleasantly surprised to have missed one.

I also enjoy skimming through the various common fallacies, to see what I am guilty of saying and doing.

I had also not heard of this one, despite studying critical thinking. I don't think this one is as common as some others, and seems something that would be more used by juveniles, rather than adults who have (generally) developed a more comprehensive method of debate.

So being in lockdown, I watched the movie.
And in the end, I was like, “So tell me something I don’t already know?”
It was entirely redundant and didn’t really talk about anything new, or that most people didn’t already know.
Just another sensationalist viewpoint to cash in on people outrage.

Overall a solid, “meh”.

 Easy E wrote:
So, Environmentalism.....

One of the really interesting aspects of the current flavor is that it is almost all set as the responsibility of the consumers. The manufacturers, Distributors, and Sellers have no role. Of course, in a global and interconnected world, holding any one industry or company responsible was a ridiculous premise.

This has changed somewhat with the creation of "Green Investors" and some small government changes. However, the responsibility to stop climate change is still mostly at the feet of individual consumers.

This seems..... less than possible.

It is. Industry is the biggest polluter on the planet, bar none. No, not even agriculture.

 RiTides wrote:
He tends to be very political, and has a knack for taking worthy causes but making them extremely polarizing...

However, I skimmed through the video and honestly this did not strike me as that. It seems to mostly be simply anti-corporate, and does things like focus on Al Gore and Obama being affected by corporations in making environmental decisions, but doesn't focus on politics.

So, I think this can stay open if we can just focus on environmentalism.

How is taking anti-corporate stances not a political view? Not that I have a problem with that as I find the subject interesting. And by focusing on environmentalism we have officially entered a discussion about politics which again, I have no problem talking about but lets not be in denial here.

 Cheesecat wrote:
How is taking anti-corporate stances not a political view?

Corporations aren't governments?

 Ouze wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:
How is taking anti-corporate stances not a political view?

Corporations aren't governments?

No, but they both influence each other.

By that degree literally everything is political, though. It's an impossible standard to enforce with any sort of consistency.

 Ouze wrote:
By that degree literally everything is political, though. It's an impossible standard to enforce with any sort of consistency.

Exactly.

Oh cool, another documentary we can laugh at the predictions it made in 20 years! An Inconvenient Truth has been about played out for its failures.

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
Oh cool, another documentary we can laugh at the predictions it made in 20 years! An Inconvenient Truth has been about played out for its failures.

Almost like exaggerating to try and scare more people into action inevitably backfires.

AIC seems to have done fairly well for itself, particularly relative to anything Moore's put out. Whatever one wants to say about it, It's certainly done more to raise the profile and interest of its particular issue, with substantially better research creds, than anything Moore has done.

In the long term I see less exaggerated productions doing better. Save the exaggeration for vague implications in advertisements to lure in clickbait biters.

Yeah, big changes are not going to happen, its going to be a slow gradual change where everything gets more and more gak

A lot of posts seem to be about my mention of the nirvana fallacy and how some people were surprised when I told them about it.

Well, don't feel bad, I didn't know about it till recently.

There was a debate about healthcare and we had the usual trolls who were opposed to any healthcare reforms in any form.

One of my posts mentioned some proposed healthcare reforms based on some countries could result in an american going from cancer diagnosis to first actual treatment in 2 weeks.

A troll stuck it's head up from under it's bridge and snarked "What if he doesn't have two weeks? Checkmate! Yuk yuk yuk."

Well obviously if someone hasn't been diagnosed until he has 2 weeks no system will help him and i said so, and was ignored.

It occurred to me the argument was clearly fallacious and I asked some experts of logical fallacies, like armored skeptic and logicked, about the situation.

One of them told me it was a" nirvana fallacy". I had never heard of that one and only looked because some troll hit me with it.

So hey, I only learned about it recently myself. I'm glad if I spread some useful knowledge around.

I mean, i always knew about it the idea and got frusterated when people brought it us, didnt know it was an actual Fallacy.
Problem is, pointing out a fallacy only works when the man themsevles beleives in fallacies.
If you point out to someone you they are using a fallacy, most of the time, they will not care and continue.

Yeah but you aren't really trying to convince that person, it's the other readers you are actually doing it for. Pointing out a fallacy is easier with a proper name to it. I certainly appreciate knowing 'nirvana fallacy' is a term.

The crazy thing about this particular instance, though, is how the documentary itself could fall victim to such a thing, and seemingly be completely unaware of it.

If you really want to save the environment, you work on solutions. It's like with health issues or retirement, if you make it sound hopeless, people don't take small health steps or bother saving at all.

If you give them real targets to shoot for and focus on the difference it can make, they actually work on it.

This documentary seems to basically say it's all hopeless, and by citing out of date technology, they don't even do that part well...

 RiTides wrote:
The crazy thing about this particular instance, though, is how the documentary itself could fall victim to such a thing, and seemingly be completely unaware of it.

I'd agree, but while never having seen the name before, I've seen the fallacy itself a lot lately. Mostly politics, so I'll forgo examples, but the 'If we can't X, we might as well not bother' has become distressingly common. And frustrating, because reality has never worked on the principle. Doing what you can and compromise has been the only effective solution in human history. 'Absolute solutions' are either a lie or an utter failure.

If you really want to save the environment, you work on solutions. It's like with health issues or retirement, if you make it sound hopeless, people don't take small health steps or bother saving at all.

If you give them real targets to shoot for and focus on the difference it can make, they actually work on it.

This documentary seems to basically say it's all hopeless, and by citing out of date technology, they don't even do that part well...

Yeah, that last bit is particularly galling. The point of this kind of thing should be to encourage action, not discourage it with hopelessness.
Its particularly odd with environmental issues since globally several 20th century environmental issues were actually solved. Acid Rain? Ozone depletion? Things can be fixed, and while letting things get bad is never good, recovery is a continual process.

I think the rapid benefits to wildlife in now-vacated areas from coronavirus also provides examples of how dramatic positive impacts can indeed happen.