Consequences of Climate Change

David Friedman

David Friedman

11 a.m., September 24, 2023

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This Sunday we are happy to have David Friedman joining us in person to talk about the economics of climate change.

Most criticism of the current climate orthodoxy questions either whether climate change is happening or whether it is anthropogenic. In my view the real question is neither of those. It is what the net consequences are. Climate change has large negative consequences, large positive consequences, both spread through a long and uncertain future; I do not believe we know whether the net effect is positive or negative. The widespread belief that it is predictably negative is based in part on ignoring the positive consequences, which get very little public mention, and in part on a biased, in some cases dishonest, presentation of the evidence.

Prof. Friedman is an American economist, physicist, legal scholar, author and anarcho-capitalist theorist. He was a professor of law at Santa Clara University from 2005 to 2017, and is currently Professor Emeritus. His is a contributing editor to the libertarian journal, Liberty.
Prof. Friedman is a longtime member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, where he’s known as Duke Cariodoc of the Bow. He is a science fiction fan and has written two fantasy novels, Harald and Salamander.
This should be a very interesting forum.

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My Theory of Everything – Putting Time in Motion and Worlds in Brains

Martin Squibbs

Martin Squibbs

11 a.m., September 17, 2023

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I have long held the theory that time may not be a real physical 4th dimension as it is commonly believed to be, and modeled in the sciences. Instead, perhaps reality is simply the motion of physical things in only 3 dimensions, absent of time. And within this reality, our brains are creating virtual, abstracted “forms” of physical reality beyond them, and storing these forms as memories. These forms being our perceptions, and these memories being their past. And you and I, ourselves, exist here in our brains, and experience these perceptions and observe these past memories as our objective world in mind. In this case, I believe time, or more accurately time bases, may be just particular types of these objective past memories; regular repeating ones. We, ourselves, remember and count these different times, and use them to order and measure the relative duration of our other past memories. And we also use these times to order and measure the duration of futures we imagine and predict in our minds; these futures being our projections of yet-to-be-perceived, experienced and observed past objective memories. So between our self and our brain, we create our future objective memories here in our brain.

9/17/2023 Martin Squibbs from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

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Climate Change: Why Facts Don’t Matter

Helen Floersh

A video by WISECRACK about Climate Change

11 a.m., September 10, 2023

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This Sunday we will discuss a “Climate Change: Why Facts Don’t Matter,” a video that examines why climate change denialism survives in the face of overwhelming evidence. It covers many of the attempts to falsify data about the greenhouse effect and global warming, and create the illusion that there is doubt among those who have studied it.
This video is produced by WISECRACK, sponsored by Curiosity Stream, and hosted by Helen Floersh .
WISECRACK is a collective of academics, filmmakers, artists and pop-culture junkies who are curious about the world and explore big ideas like philosophy and critical thinking.
Curiosity Stream is an American media company and subscription video streaming service that offers documentary programming including films, series, and TV shows.

You can preview this 22-minute video at https://youtu.be/MMCL_ooDWJ0?si=XRD6Q0GO2aJn44hU

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Also, we will continue to present our forums on Zoom. To join and be able to ask questions and make comments, click here.
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Hot or Not: Steven Koonin Questions Conventional Climate Science and Methodology

Steven Koonin

A video about Hot or Not: Steven Koonin Questions Conventional Climate Science and Methodology

11 a.m., September 3, 2023

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This Sunday we will watch and discuss a video from Uncommon Knowledge from the Hoover Institution about “Hot or Not: Steven Koonin Questions Conventional Climate Science and Methodology.”

“In this wide-ranging discussion, based in part on his 2021 book,Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters, Koonin gives a more refined look at the science behind the climate issue than the media typically offers, guiding us through the evidence and its implications. As Koonin explains in this interview, he was “shaken by the realization that climate science was far less mature than I had supposed” and that the “overwhelming evidence” of catastrophic implications of anthropogenic global warming wasn’t so overwhelming after all.”

You can preview this 55-minute video at https://www.hoover.org/research/hot-or-not-steven-koonin-questions-conventional-climate-science-and-methodology

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Critical Race Theory

Professor Sam Richards

Four videos about Critical Race Theory

11 a.m., August 27, 2023

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Critical Race Theory, CRT, has become a big issue in the culture war we keep hearing about. This Sunday we will look at what is CRT, what is taught and what should be taught in schools.

We start with a 6-minute video, “Critical race theory: Experts break down what it actually means” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svj_6w0EUz4).

In a 3-minute piece “What is critical Race Theory” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gdxrkwpPKc), Berkeley sociology professor Prudence Carter is interviewed on PBS NewsHour.

A 2-minute piece, ‘Critical Race Theory in Public Schools” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBzt6vhseww), by News2JAX, presents conflicting views on new rules proposed by Florida’s Board of Education.

Finally, “Should Critical Race Theory Be Taught in Schools?” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwbK0qVjBsA) is a short, 17-minute segment from an introductory class on race and culture taught by Professor Sam Richards at Penn State University. “Dr. Richards reshaped a class on race relations, taking it from one of the least popular in the Liberal Arts College to one of the most popular courses campus-wide.” (Portrait by Ddiptee – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=108961142)

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Also, we will continue to present our forums on Zoom. To join and be able to ask questions and make comments, click here.
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Meeting ID: 816 5389 0712
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+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
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