Comments Grant Williams has made

  • Simple reasoning.

    I'm not going to continue with you.  You're too intellectually dishonest.On Delayers and doomsayers receive a chilly reception from pragmatic business leaders posted 1 year, 8 months ago 37 Responses

  • uh

    It's not true that there has been a massive increase in industrial activity in China, India, Japan, and the Middle East ever since America and Western Europe stopped being primarily manufacturing economies?On Delayers and doomsayers receive a chilly reception from pragmatic business leaders posted 1 year, 8 months ago 37 Responses

  • how..

    how do they make money?  On Delayers and doomsayers receive a chilly reception from pragmatic business leaders posted 1 year, 8 months ago 37 Responses

  • Here's how...

    A good example of how I arrived at that fact was in my very first comment.  I pointed out that despite all of the feel-good talk by the pandering business men in this article, they pollution has not gone away.  The rise in prices and the greening of the developed world has simply been absorbed by the developing world - in terms of cheap labor and increasing pollution levels in those countries.

    Now, you may want to do away with those phenomenons too, but then we'll have to end this conversation - or at least continue it via The Pony Express.On Delayers and doomsayers receive a chilly reception from pragmatic business leaders posted 1 year, 8 months ago 37 Responses

  • I'm confused

    I don't see what is so difficult to understand about this.  I'm not saying one thing or another about the IPCC, Gore, or Liveras.  I'm simply saying that if their predictions or true, it still wouldn't change the fact that industrial civilization, in order to continue to exist, must be free of any and all environmental restrictions.  I'm saying that the most important question is whether or not climate change is a bad thing - not whether or not it is occuring.

    You just will not spit out this straw man argument you keep attributing to me.  I'm sorry that you didn't understand my analogy between myself and Thoman Jefferson, but it's really making your attempt to claim big business as allies pathetically desperate.  It's also, quite frankly, calling into question your reading comprehension.On Delayers and doomsayers receive a chilly reception from pragmatic business leaders posted 1 year, 8 months ago 37 Responses

  • um

    I don't know what the IPCC is.  I haven't researched any of Al Gore's claims.  I don't know who Andrew Liveris is.

    As I've said in many of my comments so far, I don't care how true or false the environmentalists' claims are.  That has never been my point.  My point has always been that none of whatever humans might be doing to the environment is inherently wrong.  The cost of reversing industrial civilization far outweighs any of it's benefits.

    I also hold that, if there are any benefits to human life which being green brings, they don't need government intervention to come into being.  All they need is a reaffirmation of private property in the legal code.  A reaffirmation that says that if a plaintiff can objectively demonstrate that a particular polluter has caused a direct impact on his property's cleanliness, then he is entitled to justice.  

    I also don't care if you agree with me, or if some CEO disagrees with me because he can't see beyond next quarter, or if you dismiss logically inferred, Constitutionally consistent philosophical principles as "ideological stubbornness", it is what it is.On Delayers and doomsayers receive a chilly reception from pragmatic business leaders posted 1 year, 8 months ago 37 Responses

  • Facts :(

    "We hold these truths to be self-evident:  That all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights..."  - Thomas Jefferson

    Woohoo!  Another stubborn, uncompromising ideologue who spends his time dreaming about some abstract "liberty", in contrast to someone who will just accept the conventional wisdom, that Britian is our mother, and attempt to make his forturne trading with them.On Delayers and doomsayers receive a chilly reception from pragmatic business leaders posted 1 year, 8 months ago 37 Responses

  • thanks

    You're earlier question: "Why would I want to talk about it with you?" was in response to my claim that industry is better than ecology.  It was not in response to my claim that I don't know if industry plays a role in pollution.  I don't want to talk about that one with you, either.

    Moving on, maybe I don't know what "eco-harmony" is, but I do know what I'm opposed to.  I'm opposed to everything mentioned in the article above - as well as any restrictions on industrial activity beyond the right of a private citizen to demand that his private property be left unpolluted.

    The fact that some business men, knowing it would be political and legal suicide to do otherwise, support these restrictions in the developed world doesn't change the fact that their profitability has to come from somewhere.  Notably, the third world.  Of course, it is in their short-term interest to convince people like yourself that they're on your side, but that doesn't change the fact that if they wish to continue to be business men, and not Medieval serfs, they have to eventually be on mine.On Delayers and doomsayers receive a chilly reception from pragmatic business leaders posted 1 year, 8 months ago 37 Responses

  • yawn

    Spuriousness is a specific type of falsity.  That's why I said that you were, and are, wrong in defining it as simply false.

    As for your next feeble attempt at sophistry: No, I did not claim that I live in ignorance of my environment, I merely claimed that I lacked adequate knowledge to determine that human activity is the vital cause of ecological destruction.  Would I be contradicting myself to claim that I am not a nutritionist merely because I am aware that bread, and not rocks, are edible?

    But of course, none of this matters, because my agreement of disagreement on legitimacy of environmentalist claims is not the issue I raised.  The issue I raised is the one which you wish not to discuss: why "eco-harmony" is preferable to unbridled industrial civilization.On Delayers and doomsayers receive a chilly reception from pragmatic business leaders posted 1 year, 8 months ago 37 Responses

  • Sad

    Your retort was spurious because it appeared like a response to my claim that I'm not a scientist specializing in the field of ecological homeostasis, but in fact it was a response to my "claim", invented by you, that I exist apart from the environment.

    It was confounding because it brought our discussion to this point.  Instead of having a discussion centered around weighing the benefits and hazards of industrial civlization, or establishing a rational standard for what is a benefit and what is a hazard, we are doing this.  I am defending myself against insinuations that I am a religionist or a mad man, and you are attempting to redefine the word "spurious" to mean simply "untrue."On Delayers and doomsayers receive a chilly reception from pragmatic business leaders posted 1 year, 8 months ago 37 Responses

  • Fun?

    Spurious, intentionally confounding claims aren't fun.  You knew exactly what I meant by my use of the term "environment."

    As for your admonitions that my appraisal of industrial civilization is selfish:  Yes, it is.  Proudly so.  I do not feel one iota of responsibility towards all of those people in the 3rd World (who, by the way, wouldn't nearly be as numerous if not for some seepage of industry into their countries), nor for the children I would never be able to have were I hobbled from 16 hour days of Medieval farm labor or killed by the influenza virus.On Delayers and doomsayers receive a chilly reception from pragmatic business leaders posted 1 year, 8 months ago 37 Responses

  • Also...

    What makes you think that I'm a denialist?   I don't know squat about the environment.  I just know that, whatever it's negative byproducts, industrial civilization is far more beneficial to human life than "eco-harmony."On Delayers and doomsayers receive a chilly reception from pragmatic business leaders posted 1 year, 8 months ago 37 Responses

  • Con - vict

    Because I don't know how to appeal to the petty, power worshiping emotions of people like yourself.  I certainly don't know what to say to the schizophrenic laugh at the end of your post.

    There's that, and there's also the fact that I, like business people, don't have the power to use compulsion to get people to follow my point of view.On Delayers and doomsayers receive a chilly reception from pragmatic business leaders posted 1 year, 8 months ago 37 Responses

  • Con - text.

    Sure, the hipster business community thinks that they can have their cake and eat it too.

    "Look how productive/green we are!"  "What?  Oh, them?  Nevermind them or their pollution - they're just our Third World manufacturing base"  "Here, have a $5 latte.  And don't forget to pick up your complimentary mortgage refi on your way out"On Delayers and doomsayers receive a chilly reception from pragmatic business leaders posted 1 year, 8 months ago 37 Responses