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67 comments on DrumBeat: July 19, 2009

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louGrinzo on July 19, 2009 - 10:46am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Got something better than "addicted to oil" (which I don't like, either) that will fit on a bumper sticker?

This isn't snark, I'm completely serious. You're right about the mismatch between "addicted to oil" and reality, but in order to replace it we need something just as catchy and easily understood (albeit misapplied, in this case).

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ptoemmes on July 19, 2009 - 11:18am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Agree and I think even the need for a catch phrase is an example of the way "complex" topics are reduced to sound bites, catch phrases, and to discussion forums where they cannot be properly, well, discussed (very unlike TOD)

At the risk of going, with apologies, off-thread for a moment one of the most recent examples of this was Denninger having a (somewhat surprise) audienc) on CNBC Kudlow Friday night in a tri-box shout down. I won't post the link out of "respect" to this thread's subject matter.

Having written all of that it is probably worth trying to kick the addiction habit in phrase as it were.

I don't suppose "Burning oil is stupid. Ask me why?" is any better.

Pete

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WebHubbleTelescope on July 19, 2009 - 12:46pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

This is kind of a humorous piece illustrating why the statistician Nate Silver is such a marketing genius. What is he marketing exactly?

Himself.

He calls it a "A Challenge to Climate Change Skeptics"

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/07/challenge-to-climate-change-skept...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/18/stats-guru-nate-silver-is_n_239...

The gist of the story is that he is offering to bet money on variations of temperature from the anticipated average. He will pay someone who signs up $25 for each day that the average is 1 degree cooler and that person has to pay him $25 for each day that it is warmer.

Well of course this is a stupid bet, since Silver, who understands normal Gaussian statistics very well, knows that the amount of payoff either way will be marginally small. He says it is a way for people to understand that daily fluctuations do not matter too much. And to assuage the warming deniers that this summer has not been that cool throughout much of the USA, but that everyone just suffers from short-term memories.

It will make himself look good, but will it help anyone else? This is really not serious stuff and does not advance understanding. It is in fact a very safe bet that he took. The probability that he will pay out much over $25 either way is pretty small.

In comments on both those sites I linked to above, I suggested that I was considering depositing $100 into somebody's PayPal account that could find something wrong with one of my oil depletion models. I am no longer considering it. The offer is open. Grab something from my blog at http://mobjectivist.blogspot.com or one of the few posts I have written on TOD and take a go of it.

My latest here is a good start : http://mobjectivist.blogspot.com/2009/06/dispersive-transport.html

I realize that this won't change anything but it is not a safe bet for me, as I could be shown completely wrong. OTOH, Nate Silver would not try this because he actually doesn't try to advance understanding, but just plays around with conventional statistics, like a puzzle-master would.

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jokuhl on July 19, 2009 - 11:41am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I agree that the term Addicted is a misnomer, and it also spurs part of the defensiveness that the debate can stumble over..

I think the Simmons refrain (from memory here) of "A Billion Dollars a day goes out of this economy to pay for foreign oil." Probably reaches more ears.

I've also played with 'Gas is Cheap. Go back to sleep.' ..

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elwoodelmore on July 20, 2009 - 2:54am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

".....the term Addicted is a misnomer...."

ok, how 'bout "drunk on fossil fuels" ?

the difference between a drunk and an alcoholic is that drunks dont have to go to all those damn meetings.

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67 comments on DrumBeat: July 19, 2009

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