Chris Berg's recent pro-libertarian column in the Conversation (which I have already disparaged) noted at length his support for the Friedman Conferences that attracts "hundreds" of libertarian/classical liberals each year. (In other words, about the sum total of every Australian who has ever deliberately voted for libertarian parties.)
So, lets see who's included on the list of speakers at the next one coming up (courtesy of Catallaxy, where Sinclair Davidson promotes the conference every year):
Professors Ian Plimer
Climate Skeptic Blogger Jo Nova
Yeah, there's your Libertarian anti-science, anti coherent policy on climate change right there.
Berg should be pilloried about this every time he appears on the ABC with his "I'm the nice, reasonable face of libertarianism/classical liberalism" facade.
And Jason Soon - you need your head read too for supporting the branch of politics that is determinedly anti-science on the most important science policy issue of the century.
9 comments:
Syeve,
Neither the IPA nor Catallaxy are libertarian at all. They try and say they are but their action belie this entirely.
Sinclair at Catallaxy casts out any dissenting voices and simply bans them frrom commenting there.
As for the IPA they have had no intellectual grunt there since Ron Brunton left a long time ago.
Our mate Soony actually is one
the friedman conferences attract a diversity of guests of a variety of intellectual quality from the genuinely super-accomplished to total hacks, like any other conference
Pretty weak response, Jason. It's on the same status as if the conference had anti-vaxxers speaking. Same shrug of the shoulders deserved then, hey?
I thought that John Humphreys believed climate change is real? How does he feel about Plimer and Jonova speaking at the conference?
As a group, libertarians/"classical liberals" are always going to have no science or big picture tax policy credibility while ever they continue to play footsie with climate change deniers.
You seem to have transferred your obsession with Davidson to Berg.
No climate sceptics are not the same as antivaxxers.
There is more uncertainty in the modelling than simplistic campaign slogans let on - someone like Judith Curry for instance is not the equivalent of an anti vaxxer
Plimer and Jonova are just about the bottom of the barrel when it comes to climate change denial - on a par with Monckton: I wouldn't even count them as lukewarmers.
Curry has been shown up continually over the years, since she went her own way, as having low to no understanding of things she is criticising; but even so, she counts as a "lukewarmer", as her recent work with Nic Lewis (which other papers have already discredited) indicates.
So while I would still rip into the conference if it invited Curry instead of Plimer and Jonova, it would not be as irredeemably bad as those zero credibility ideologues attending. (Yes, they have science-y qualifications - so do some antivaxxers.)
I am with Steve. Those two are hopeless as was shown in a 'paper that jonova tried to publish. It was an embarrassment.
With Curry at least she tries ( mostly unsuccessfully see and Then Theres Physics or my Around the Traps in climate) for example) to use the scientific method
By the way, Jason, anti-vaxxers at least mainly hurt themselves (and their own kids) by their foolishness.
Climate change deniers, and "shrug shoulders" libertarians, would be taking the entire population with them, if they have their way.
So, yeah, libertarians who actively promote climate denial I find more morally deplorable than anti-vaxxers.
And the libertarian movement as a whole is tarred by its refusal to call out the deplorables who still get an open welcome under their umbrella.
I catch Chris Berg on The Drum. I don't mind him but I am still confused as why so many political types want to pin their identity to some old farts from decades if not centuries ago. "Classical Liberal": most people don't have a clue what that entails. Tim Wilson was notorious for such identification but when he saw the easy money coming from government he sold out more quickly than a condom machine in a whorehouse.
Libertarianism is dead and revival is impossible. The world cannot be run on simplistic appeals to freedom. It is also irrelevant to most people. Given a choice between security and freedom most will choose security.
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