An Apology, a Response, and a Free Dystopian Science Fiction Novel from Geoffrey Chia; The Thrilla in Doomerzilla (Extinction or Bottleneck?), a Podcast

June 26, 2014

by Dr Geoffrey Chia, Cardiologist/Physician

1. Apology to Mr Friedrich Kling

I made a grave mistake in my NBL critique article for which I owe a public apology to Mr. Friedrich Kling. Mr Kling never posted any holocaust denialist articles, I got the name wrong, it was Gerald Spezio who was the culprit, who had been repeatedly banned by Dr McPherson for such behaviour. Once again, apologies to Mr Kling.

My sloppy and stupid mistake in naming the wrong person highlights once again the principle that irresponsible “free” speech, especially if harmful to and misrepresentative of another person or group of people, should be deleted or banned and if a mistake is made it should be corrected. No one should be exempt from such principles, especially myself. It also shows that Dr McPherson despite his busy schedule has endeavoured to enforce responsible free speech on his blog, having banned holocaust denialist posts when he identified them, which actually negates one of my previous criticisms. Mr Kling is not one of the whiny, anonymous, cowardly, killjoy orcs or WACKOs who I oppose.

2. Response of the WACKOs

I have been accused of using a harsh tone which is true, however that is not a patch on the abusive, vulgar and profane language used by the the prime WACKO himself in the past. Didn’t like my tone? Well then look to yourself as being the worst offender, all well documented. He responded first off the bat with hysterical laughter befitting the promoter of an insane death cult. The rest banded together with mutual backslapping to agree with each other and achieve “majority opinion” and thus “discredit” my ideas. The obvious tired tactic they employ is to wilfully misinterpret and misrepresent what I have written, to set up a straw man argument which they then “demolish”, then congratulate each other on the consensus they have achieved. I have encountered exactly the same behaviour when dealing with global warming denialists. They were unable to counteract my arguments with any reasoned response. Dr McPherson himself stated: I disagree with essentially nothing in Chia’s essay except the harsh tone and inappropriate attacks on other people.

The fact is that my harsh tone was directed against people who were many, many times harsher in their tone to others in the past. They just did not like a taste of their own medicine. The WACKOs claim I launched an ad hominem attack against them, which merely demonstrated their misrepresentation or lack of understanding of the term. An ad hominem attack is a baseless, unsubstantiated denigration of another person’s character which is irrelevant to the main topic of discussion (e.g., accusing James Hansen of being a child molester “proves” that global warming is a hoax). Calling out a proven embezzler to prevent him from seizing your father’s retirement fund is not an ad hominem attack, it is an accurate evidence-based description, a factual exposé, required to prevent harm. My factual description of the WACKOs was solidly based on well substantiated abundant evidence of their previous behaviour which had been thoroughly documented on NBL ad nauseum. If the WACKOs found such a factual description of their previous behaviour to be insulting, then they have only themselves to blame. I put forward credible hypotheses as to the reasons for their perverse mindset based on the few snippets they had revealed of themselves. Perhaps a trained psychiatrist such as Dr Carolyn Baker may wish to evaluate those hypotheses. The WACKOs behaviour was entirely relevant to the main topic of discussion, NTHE, as explained below.

Science depends on reasoned criticism for progress. After initially listening to Dr McPherson’s arguments in 2012 I found them very convincing based on overwhelming evidence and was not able to think of any strategy by which humanity could escape NTHE. Some critics disagreed with him because they were “optimistic” that humanity would find a solution. That sort of criticism is vague and useless, being based on faith rather than reason. Reasoned criticism would require them to specify in detail a feasible strategy by which some humans could conceivably survive this Permian-type global wipeout we are facing. After ruminating for almost two years, I believe I have worked out such a strategy. Not guaranteed, not foolproof, but not impossible to implement. I emailed Dr McPherson asking if he could identify any factual or logical flaws in my essay and asked him for his reasoned criticisms of my arguments. His email response to me? “You are correct Dr Chia“.

The main point I want to make is that Dr McPherson is not the founder or promoter of an insane death cult. He will go in the direction that evidence, facts and reason take him. That is the mark of a true scientist. The WACKOs however are a different sort of creature who have flocked to NBL to promote their insane death cult ideology, to drown out reasoned discussion and to sabotage any survival initiatives, for reasons best known to themselves. It is essential to expose these poisonous and harmful hangers-on for what they are. If they want to kill themselves, by all means go ahead, but encouraging other people to commit suicide is simply not on. If they are personally not interested in any survival strategies, no one is forcing them to participate, but trying to scuttle the initiatives of others is simply not on.

As a physician, is it sufficient to merely treat diseases as they arise? All physicians will agree that prevention is better than cure. Initiatives to reduce smoking require we must also oppose the tobacco lobby. Healthy eating initiatives require that we advocate public health measures to minimise salt, sugars (especially high fructose corn syrup) and saturated fats in processed foods or at least ensure the foods are clearly labelled. This puts us in direct opposition with commercial vested interests. The granddaddy public health issue of all time, global warming, was essentially ignored by the medical community, an utter disgrace. The reasons for such inaction were varied, but one reason was that it required we oppose the most powerful vested interest of all: the fossil fuel lobby. It is now too late on that score, the horse has bolted. If only more medicos were willing to stand up against those who would cause harm, accepting that they would be making enemies by doing so, things could have been different. In my attempts to devise a feasible plan for humanity to avoid extinction, I have been reviled in this forum, a truly bizarre situation. Nevertheless I forge on and I oppose the WACKOs.

3. Free dystopian science fiction novel

The medical community also abrogated their duty to oppose illegitimate warfare, one of the few notable exceptions being Dr Helen Caldicott, one of my heroes and renowned opponent of nuclear madness. Attached via three pdf files is a dystopian science fiction novel I wrote 10 years ago in response to the invasion of Iraq which unfortunately remains all too relevant today. The ongoing atrocities and civil war are a direct legacy of the US invasion. Obviously some of the thoughts in the novel are out of date. I believed then that energy limits were likely to hit us before global warming catastrophe. I believed that solutions were still possible and the scenario of near extinction was a farce, not a genuine concern at the time. Since writing that novel and associated essays, I have abandoned hope of any high tech fixes to our predicament. The reality of our future is turning out to be worse than depicted in the novel, hence it may be better to call it a eutopian (not utopian) rather than dystopian novel. I used a pseudonym for ironic purposes but made no effort to hide who the real author was. If you enjoy it, pass it on. If not, don’t read it. Quite simple really.

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Front matter

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The Thrilla in Doomerzilla (Extinction or Bottleneck?), Podcast

Off the Microphones of Guy McPherson, RE & Monsta

Aired on the Doomstead Diner on June 26, 2014

Discuss this Conversation at the Podcast Table inside the Diner

THE THRILLA IN DOOMERVILLA

GUY McPHERSON RE

RE-BM-Camp3

EXTINCTION BOTTLENECK

We have been doing Podcasts for a full year now, and one of the first guests we invited on to talk Collapse with was Guy McPherson of Nature Bats Last. The one-year anniversary of the Podcasts seemed like a good interval on which to catch up with Guy and further discuss the issues surrounding Collapse, in Guy’s case with emphasis on the Climate and Pollution issues we are currently facing down, which is where his focus lies.

Of all the bloggers who are looking at Collapse issues, Guy has perhaps the most radical view, that the current spin down will not just lead to Collapse of Industrial Civilization, but in fact lead to a Near Term Human Extinction by mid-century. This isn’t my view, I tend to think we will see a large population collapse and Bottleneck of Homo Sapiens by mid-century, but not Extinction on this timeline. Over the course of the last year on both of our blogs, Nature Bats Last for Guy and the Doomstead Diner for me, we have come into conflict on several occasions arguing the probabilities here. In this Podcast, we hash out some of these differences of opinion, while managing not to get tooooo ticked off at each other. LOL.

This is Part 1 of a 2 part conversation with Guy, in Part 2 Guy and my co-host on the Collapse Cafe Monsta further discuss the issues. I had to sign off on participating in that part of the discussion because the Cafe where I use their free WiFi closed unexpectedly early that day. We will air Part II in the next week or so hopefully.

Whether you are in the Uber Doom camp of Guy and believe that we will see the Extinction of Homo sapiens and just about all other life forms above the level of the Tardigrades or in the Full Doom Camp and think we are approaching a Population Bottleneck on the order of Toba, which knocked down Homo sapiens to just 10,000 Human Souls or 1000 Breeding Pairs left standing, you certainly will get an earful of DOOM in this Podcast from both Guy and me. If you are Doomer Lite and just think this is a blip in Generational Collapse of the Strauss & Howe 4th Turning variety, or if you are Cornucopian and think the Cold Fusion Cavalry is right around the corner here to Ride to the Rescue, you probably won’t agree with most of what is said, but still worth listening to IMHO.

Also, don’t miss the Anniversary Vidcast of the Collapse Cafe with Ugo Bardi of Resource Limits and Gail Tverberg of Our Finite World. We discuss NTHE issues in the second half of the Vidcast.