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Stephen Barlow

@SteB777

Jan 15

@curlewcalls @CarolineLucas I totally agree with you. I've long said, all those in major decision-making positions, must have a basic certificate of competence, in general ecology, environmental science and natural history.
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@curlewcalls @CarolineLucas This would be similar to in many jobs, someone is required to have a basic level of competence in English, arithmetic/maths, or a certain level of First Aid certificate. I will take the latter as an analogy.
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@curlewcalls @CarolineLucas One of the basic aims, of first aid certificates, for those at work, is to give people, a sense of their limitations, and what they can deal with, and what they can't.

This, as I see it, is the basic problem, with politicians and the natural world.
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Read 11 tweets

Stephen Barlow

@SteB777

Jan 11

The reason the extreme right are running circles around progressives, is simple.

It is about emotions, and their use of emotional responses, to manipulate people.

Lies, conspiracy theories, and fear of outsiders, all produce emotional responses.
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Progressives, have failed to learn from this.

I see so many influential people, using the false argument, that we mustn't tell the full truth about the climate emergency, because of specious pseudo-explanations, that fear paralyses people into inaction - no it motivates.
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Extreme right wing climate change deniers have got into power, by using fear tactics, such as non-existent WEF conspiracies about taxing people to pay for Net Zero policy.

It's about time, that progressives learned that emotions matter, and fear is not the only emotion.
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Read 27 tweets

Stephen Barlow

@SteB777

Jan 11

@GreenJennyJones @GeorgeMonbiot It is truly a difficult nut to crack, but I believe it is doable.

We need to focus on creating collaborative narratives, on how the fortunes of billionaires, are accumulated, at our expense.

1/threadreaderapp.com/thread/1876257…

@GreenJennyJones @GeorgeMonbiot It needs to be collaborative for 2 main reasons:

1) The current approach, is lots of competing narratives, with lots of people trying to sell their solution. Divided, we are conquered, it is ineffective, which is what the oligarchs want.
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@GreenJennyJones @GeorgeMonbiot The 2) reason, is that effective problem-solving, involves lots of creative solutions, most of which will fails. So it's back to the drawing board, to learn from our failures. Individuals, are usually reluctant to acknowledge their plan didn't work. Groups less so.
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Read 5 tweets

Stephen Barlow

@SteB777

Jan 11

@JKSteinberger You're right, as usual. I have spent virtually my whole life trying to understand this.

However, to become better at it, means killing lots of sacred cows, overcoming false ideas people have about the world, that they hold dear.
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@JKSteinberger I keep telling people, the reification fallacy, mistaking the map for the territory, is the key for unlocking all this. No one gets what I am saying.

What this involves, is completely ditching the false concreteness of language.

2/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reificati…

@JKSteinberger The whole of Western Thinking, is shot through with this core logical fallacy. There isn't any area of our academia, which is not a house built on the sand of the reification fallacy. It is this false concreteness, which gives those with great power, their great power.
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Read 9 tweets

Stephen Barlow

@SteB777

Jan 9

"Artificial intelligence companies have run out of data for training their models and have “exhausted” the sum of human knowledge, Elon Musk has said."

It seems like the richest man in the world, is a bit of a simpleton, and very uneducated.

1/theguardian.com/technology/202…

The vast majority of human insight and knowledge, can't be verbalized, and the only thing you can find about this on the internet, is why this is so. If AI has overlooked that, it might be artificial something, but whatever it is, it certainly, ain't intelligent.
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I put off studying ecology at university for a long time, because the natural world was always such a magical place to me, and I feared it all being explained away.

When I had access to a vast academic library, I spent most of my time, trying to work out what was known.
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Read 16 tweets

Stephen Barlow

@SteB777

Jan 6

In a just world, billionaires wouldn't exist. There should be an escalating tax system, which makes it impossible for an individual to accumulate a billion or more. No one can accumulate that level of wealth, purely from their own work, not taking more than their fair share.
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This level of wealth, always involves taking far more than their fair share from others. Essentially, by stealing from other people. This takes place because as someone accumulates great wealth, it also gives them great power and the ability to corrupt and subvert our system.
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For the hard of thinking, or the dishonest, this is not communism, it's just common sense, and fairness. We are not talking about ordinary levels of wealth.

Disregarding interest, if someone were to save 1 million a year, it would take 1000 years to accumulate 1 billion.
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Read 13 tweets

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