tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post4521319758017002748..comments2023-09-28T08:13:11.489-07:00Comments on Only In It For The Gold: BP's $499,999,864.72Michael Tobishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08229460438349093944noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-64594580399743808132010-10-21T19:50:25.563-07:002010-10-21T19:50:25.563-07:00I don't really have much on the abstract quest...I don't really have much on the abstract question of whether they should be allowed or not. It's kind of pointless, because they are allowed, and I see no mechanism by which they could be disallowed.<br /><br />As for encouraged vs discouraged ... the way that I assume that this will happen is something like:<br /><br />1. BP pledges half a billion to research at public institutions in response to spill. This is done purely for reasons of PR, obviously -- otherwise it would have been done already. There's no "encouragement" other than that they think it will be good PR.<br /><br />2. I predict that BP will never send out most of that money. Perhaps they'll do 10% or 20%. Again, this is not because anyone will "discourage" them, but because once the story fades, there is no need to buy PR about it.<br /><br />Both of these phases depend on the setup of our media, which are dysfunctional. No one who is heard will say that BP is either buying PR in stage 1, or will track them and hold them to their pledge in stage 2. See e.g. Bush administration promises about aid after Katrina.<br /><br />I see no mechanism by which the media can be reformed. Therefore this just collapses to the first case again.Rich Puchalskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13565210317964576866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-86745587030306360692010-10-21T14:52:17.263-07:002010-10-21T14:52:17.263-07:00Sure. No objection.
Now, should BP be encouraged,...Sure. No objection.<br /><br />Now, should BP be encouraged, discouraged, allowed, disallowed to fund research at public institutions?<br /><br />Should those institutions, similarly be encouraged, discouraged, allowed, disallowed to accept those funds?<br /><br />I admit that answers to these questions are actually unclear to me.Michael Tobishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08229460438349093944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-5071086956967281662010-10-21T14:47:26.388-07:002010-10-21T14:47:26.388-07:00I still don't seem to be communicating well. ...I still don't seem to be communicating well. I support always being truthful in anything you work on, whether it favors corporations or disfavors them. The point then is to be careful about what you work on.<br /><br />If you work for a corporation, you will only get assigned to corporation-favoring projects. And yes, people are smart enough to generally figure out what these are in advance. Only if you retain control of which projects that you take on will you be able to preserve neutrality, much less overall societal balance, in project choice.<br /><br />And getting back to my first point, you may think that you can take on one project for a corporation and that will be it. And sure, it's possible. But the more likely it is that this is significant money for you, the more likely it is that you will rationalize continuing down that path. That's not a criticism of you specifically, it's just an observation about people in general.Rich Puchalskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13565210317964576866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-12164351045046665902010-10-21T14:16:16.690-07:002010-10-21T14:16:16.690-07:00Ah, well on this I have no disagreement; indeed th...Ah, well on this I have no disagreement; indeed this is exactly the occasion for my query.<br /><br />Nevertheless, in addition to its intrinsic interest (it is, actually, a problem with properties that appeal to me) we do have the fact that it responds to work that improperly acted against the corporate interest.<br /><br />So the question raises an ethical hierarchy; is it better to act improperly against the overly powerful side or properly in its behalf. The ethical ranking of the other quadrants is clear.<br /><br />But the fact remains that the original research was in the anti-corporate quadrant (and in my opinion, transparently badly done). <br /><br />There is some disagreement as to which political tendency is excessively powerful within science. The case at issue supports the idea of science as an instrument biased in favor of socialism as opposed to biased in favor of corporate capitalism. I am sure you don't like this suggestion. I am not comfortable with it myself. But it clearly happens sometimes in some places, and apparently it can happen even in America today.<br /><br />Given that there is some symmetry here, it seems that ordinarily one should be on the side of truth.<br /><br />In fact, while it would have been difficult to do a good job with the simulation, it would have been trivial to do a better job. This wouldn't have gotten much press. ("Scientist predicts no significant amount of Gulf spill will get into Gulf Stream" ho hum)<br /><br />Horrified as I am by what corporations are blindly doing to us in aggregate, I do not think the business will be repaired by injuring them randomly. If we do not actually use truth, we are not helping.Michael Tobishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08229460438349093944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-78557532202030045962010-10-21T13:53:50.831-07:002010-10-21T13:53:50.831-07:00Michael, I don't think that you're really ...Michael, I don't think that you're really understanding what I write at all.<br /><br />Look. "A proper simulation technique of spilled oil trajectories is not on anybody's side; an improper one may be." is just wrong. False. You live within a political system, whether you like it or not. Properly discovered things are often on sides, and often people know this beforehand. For instance, let's say that there's an area that developers want to develop. Properly discovering that there's an endangered species there (assuming that there is one) is against the developer's interests. Properly discovering that there isn't one there (assuming that there isn't) goes against slow-growth people's interests. You can't pretend that this doesn't happen just because you want no part of it.<br /><br />Let's say that you want to work on things properly; e.g. not lie. I fully support that. But then you have to be careful what work trajectory you put yourself into, because that determines what projects you take on.<br /><br />The point is not to balance one incident that disfavors BP with another that favors it. And it's not to balance one incident that you work on that disfavors corporations with another one that favors them. The point is to look at what's actually going on in larger society. In larger society, corporations are systematically out-propagandizing their opponents in the public sphere. <br /><br />There's really no way that you can work on issues of how individual actions become questionable when lots of people do them and not see this, except in the usual sense that people can't see what their paycheck requires them to not see. It's a bad sign that just prospectively thinking about this money is accompanied by this kind of blindness.Rich Puchalskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13565210317964576866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-8585760008949656912010-10-21T04:39:54.434-07:002010-10-21T04:39:54.434-07:00Thanks for the detailed illuminating report.Thanks for the detailed illuminating report.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-69900725254052092822010-10-20T08:51:34.572-07:002010-10-20T08:51:34.572-07:00Watch next week's "Frontline" on PBS...Watch next week's "Frontline" on PBS. They may have some interesting things to say about BP and the spill.<br /><br />Paul MiddentsPaulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13742905742181959851noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-88364221589714330132010-10-20T08:46:15.894-07:002010-10-20T08:46:15.894-07:00Rich I was with you 'til the last paragraph.
...Rich I was with you 'til the last paragraph. <br /><br />"Work on something on the other side" doesn't parse very well for me. A proper simulation technique of spilled oil trajectories is not on anybody's side; an improper one may be.<br /><br />My point was that the original work was indeed arguably improper. But if so it was an improper publicly funded attack on corporate interests (and incidentally, on others including mom and pop motels in southeast Florida) not an arguably improper defense of corporate interests. So it is already on "the other side" as you propose it. <br /><br />If one were to be compulsive about balancing the thing to do would be to get an incorrect result that suits BP's profit margins. That is, in this case the evidence is exactly against the phenomenon you posit.Michael Tobishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08229460438349093944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-13707380604600772312010-10-20T08:31:43.354-07:002010-10-20T08:31:43.354-07:00"But it doesn't really apply. Peacock alr..."But it doesn't really apply. Peacock already, on the public dime, made a big news splash [...]"<br /><br />Doubt if you're reading this any more, but... <br /><br />No, it doesn't invalidate my model at all. I'm trying to get you to see two things, basically. The second of them is that individual decisions on what to work on can be absolutely fine in themselves but absolutely wrong as part of a pattern of what is worked on.<br /><br />If corporations pay people to pursue all of the cases in which people on the public dime did something wrong, and no one pays people to pursue all of the cases in which corporations do something wrong, what do you think the end state is going to be? Even though each individual mistake-pursuer can (for the sake of argument) point with complete justice to their own individual integrity, competence etc., the end state is that corporations rape the planet.<br /><br />Criticizing Peacock is, once again, perfectly fine in itself. Find someone to fund you to do it who will also, once they've established a relationship with you, possibly pay you to work on something on the other side.Rich Puchalskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13565210317964576866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-76816269227449460952010-10-19T18:35:10.905-07:002010-10-19T18:35:10.905-07:00King of the Road --- The date of 2014 comes from t...<b>King of the Road</b> --- The date of 2014 comes from the September issue of \Scientific American\.<br /><br />The method used is a update, or modernization, of M. King Hubert's successful prediction of peak oil production for the USA.David B. Bensonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02917182411282836875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-86580338317135607222010-10-19T17:55:54.068-07:002010-10-19T17:55:54.068-07:00@ David Benson:
Can you provide a date and time?@ David Benson:<br /><br />Can you provide a date and time?King of the Roadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06841601144107400103noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-37243308231022521882010-10-19T17:13:20.918-07:002010-10-19T17:13:20.918-07:00I think mt's point is that a modest quantity o...I think mt's point is that a modest quantity of common sense would have been a better predictive model than what some scientists did in this particular case. I share his...disappointment.James Annanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04318741813895533700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-7548945928820615372010-10-19T14:36:20.696-07:002010-10-19T14:36:20.696-07:00MT --- First of all, peak crude oil arrives in 201...<b>MT</b> --- First of all, <i>peak crude oil</i> arrives in 2014 CE. Nothing you do will change that nor the subsequent desire for evermore deep drilling offshore.<br /><br />Second, by all means produce a better predictive model if you can. Similar events will surely happen again in the future and having a good model is obviously a fine idea.David B. Bensonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02917182411282836875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-65275032569161020832010-10-19T11:17:29.465-07:002010-10-19T11:17:29.465-07:00I see your point, and it's interesting.
But i...I see your point, and it's interesting.<br /><br />But it doesn't really apply. Peacock already, on the public dime, made a big news splash making the spill out to be even worse than it was, causing actual financial damage to businesses on the east coast of Florida due to cancelled oceanside vacations and increased outrage directed at BP. And this based on science that should have been obviously suspect to anyone with any knowledge of fluid dynamics. <br /><br />Basically it looked as if the surface oil was treated as a passive tracer in the top layer of an OGCM, which is at least wrong (it was obviously decaying quickly) and maybe doubly wrong (surface processes unimportant for OGCMs at least need to be taken into account).<br /><br />This was bad science with an anti-corporate spin using tax dollars. Admittedly only a single data point, but it certainly seems to be one strike against your model.<br /><br />I think it's just cheesy bandwagon-jumping. The press was kicking BP (quite deservedly, make no mistake) so somebody decided to get some press delivering another kick, deserved or otherwise.Michael Tobishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08229460438349093944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-51172334015202387482010-10-19T10:52:40.551-07:002010-10-19T10:52:40.551-07:00"In this case my interests already align with..."In this case my interests already align with BP's,"<br /><br />No, really they don't. Imagine a cherry-picker hired to pick cherries. "Pick them from that side of the fence," he's told. So he does, and they hire him again. When people ask why all the cherries are vanishing from the public side of the fence, he tells people that his interests and his bosses' interests are perfectly aligned: he's a cherry-picker and he's doing what he believes in. And oh by the way this whole rhetoric of there being "two sides" to the fence is really damaging. There is just one area that's sort<br />of mostly devoid of cherries now and it blends into another one that statistically has more cherries for some unknown reason.Rich Puchalskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13565210317964576866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-69279689236216481932010-10-19T10:13:53.921-07:002010-10-19T10:13:53.921-07:00Aaron: I'll invite him to answer if I can find...Aaron: I'll invite him to answer if I can find his email. <br /><br />I thought he was politically adept in avoiding saying things in a way that would reflect badly on BP. <br /><br />On the other hand I have no suspicion that he was lying, and no suspicion that he had anything but the best of intentions in maximally protecting and restoring the environment within the limit of the ample resources his group has at hand.<br /><br />Rich: The questions asked do affect the answers received. But I think the question asked of the remediation team was specifically, how best to remediate the environment, subject to the constraint that we have to look as if we are doing so. <br /><br />(The latter part accounts for the weird symbolic bird-washing tradition that traces back to the Santa Barabara incident, I believe. It's really silly; by definition only damaged specimens of common species will be recovered.)<br /><br />If I take money from BP to prove what a lousy job NCAR did at projecting and overstating the path of the oil (which offended me more than I have said around here) and work out better ways to do that, I will be reflecting only the ideal that science should be done right, not badly. In this case my interests already align with BP's, as the exagerrated predictions were used in the anti-BP propaganda and scaremongering.<br /><br />The trouble is that I am not sure we should be getting the petroleum at all. So being able to get better predictions than the (to me) transparently wrong predictions of S Peacock released in the early days of the crisis would be adding to the capabilities of an industry that in the best of possible worlds would not exist.<br /><br />On the other hand, we are a long way from that world. And another thing that offends me is the idea that polluting American waters is more evil than polluting other people's waters or lands. In fact, the industry will be much safer in future because the accident impacted America. If it had impacted Nigeria, do you think we would have heard as much about it?<br /><br />So the ethics of the situation genuinely puzzles me. Others would see this as funding plausible -> go; I see ethical arguments on both sides of this question.<br /><br />Speaking of "both sides" I really do consciously try to avoid dividing the world into two competing camps as a matter of personal philosophy. I think that shortcut has been enormously damaging in the past.Michael Tobishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08229460438349093944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-40031872857225641022010-10-19T09:53:46.948-07:002010-10-19T09:53:46.948-07:00Does Tsao use Corexit as a cleaning and sanitizing...Does Tsao use Corexit as a cleaning and sanitizing agent around his house and office? Why not? <br /><br />Was Tsao's group responsible for the stories that asserted "chemical oxygen demand" (COD) was "biological oxygen demand" (BOD)?<br /><br />For a long time I worked for an engineering firm that had clients such as API, BP, and Exxon. We took their money and did good science. Sometimes they would pay us for a design, and then go with a cheaper design by somebody else. Then, they would come back to us because our designs always worked.<br /><br />If you are the best, you do not have to compromise - anything.Aaronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05150805906414546377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-15937234569684605942010-10-19T07:28:43.408-07:002010-10-19T07:28:43.408-07:00Have you been greenwashed? No, but...
As the ye...Have you been greenwashed? No, but... <br /><br />As the years go on I'm more and more skeptical about the idea that anything can really be communicated over the Internet, in the sense of actually changing someone's assumptions about anything. So I doubt that what I'm going to write will do any good. I remember, more than a decade ago, reading what you wrote on Usenet (which was technically correct, interesting, etc.) and deciding that you'd inevitably get radicalized in one way or another by events and that nothing I had to say would really be meaningful to you until then.<br /><br />Well, you're somewhat more radicalized now, though you aren't really as far along as I think is going to happen. Should you watch out for being greenwashed? Not at the pizza stage. But if you take money from BP to the extent that you depend on it, your values will become theirs. It's inevitable. This is why a scientist can work for BP and tell people that the dispersant is just an ingredient of Windex and probably feel hurt if anyone questioned his integrity or told him that he was working in PR.<br /><br />Does this mean that BP, or corporations in general, are uniquely evil? No, of course not. But the scientists who work for them really can't be trusted, and it's not really their fault. <br /><br />There is a whole infrastructure of funding for research by government, and protection of research in academia, and even employment of people by environmental groups, that works to produce, if not neutrality, at least an alignment of people's interests with the systems that they study. I don't think that you've ever really seen the point of it, given the persistence of your rhetoric about "both sides" having "activists" who do things. Well, there's a point to it.Rich Puchalskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13565210317964576866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-69308324239755173772010-10-19T06:28:41.618-07:002010-10-19T06:28:41.618-07:00I thought a bit about that one, too.
It's too...I thought a bit about that one, too.<br /><br />It's too deep for a diver. Given that, the question is whether the affordances of the device are best handled by someone inside the device or someone at the other end of a wire tether. The wire tether adds a complication when several vehicles are used in combination, but that's compensated by not having to worry about life support and mortality. <br /><br />So, what would be gained by sending the operator down with the vehicle?Michael Tobishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08229460438349093944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-33274038066283127522010-10-19T06:00:12.682-07:002010-10-19T06:00:12.682-07:00http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/infographic-talles...http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/infographic-tallest-mountain-to-deepest-ocean-trench-0249/<br /><br />There's one or two aspects of this picture that me be considered relevant, here.skankyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14584908320777937193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-28239518110772058712010-10-19T04:50:40.041-07:002010-10-19T04:50:40.041-07:00http://www.jamstec.go.jp/e/about/equipment/ships/s...http://www.jamstec.go.jp/e/about/equipment/ships/shinkai6500.html<br /><br />SHINKAI 6500 is a manned submersible that can dive up to the depth of 6,500m, outperforming other manned research vehicle all over the world today. In 1990, SHINKAI 6500 began the mission to study topography and geology of the seafloor as well as organisms in the deep sea at Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean in addition to Japan Sea., and exceeded the 1000th dive in 2007.<br /><br />That is, this device is 20 years old, and hardly secret. It might not be perfectly designed for the task at hand but surely could have been if anyone had wanted it to be (in advance).James Annanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04318741813895533700noreply@blogger.com