National Geographic sucks
When I was growing up, National Geographic magazine was a wonderful thing to behold. I requested repeated annual subscriptions to the magazine and its spinoff publications as birthday or Christmas gifts, and my grandparents were happy to oblige. We stored stacks of the magazines like they were books, and I'd repeatedly revisit them for research or entertainment.
And then in 2015 something awful happened. The board of the National Geographic Society effectively sold the magazine to Fox -- the same company that ran Fox News and the Wall Street Journal and other right-wing stuff. I couldn't believe my eyes, it seemed like an impossible betrayal of everything the National Geographic Society stood for. I've pretty much boycotted the brand ever since. How did right-wingers manage to take over such a venerable scientific publication?
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Last night I was listening to an audiobook chapter about the existential danger of "supervolcanoes", which I'll probably write about in more depth later. I was curious to see what some other sources think, I don't want to take one author's word for it, and my search engine brought me to a 2019 article published by National Geographic. This article bills itself as an "Explainer" in the "Science" category, but it uses classic right-wing rhetorical deceptions to downplay the dangers of these VEI 8 volcanic explosions. I won't even link to the article because it is crap, but it showed me I haven't been wrong to boycott National Geographic since Fox took over.
An example of what I mean by rhetorical deceptions, however. The audiobook last night explained how perhaps billions of humans could perish when the next VEI 8 eruption hits -- and this size eruption may happen on earth every 50,000 years on average. OK, probably not likely to happen during our lifetimes, but if the human race persists for another couple hundred thousand years, we are likely to experience at least one more VEI 8 eruption as a species. Shouldn't we acquaint ourselves with the dangers and prepare for the eventuality? Create a United Nations Bureau for Protection from Volcanic Eruptions?
The National Geographic author instead first argues that the frequency of such VEI 8 eruptions is only one per million years, based on how many such eruptions have been conclusively identified in the geological and fossil records thus far, not based on the statistical likelihood of actual occurrence given what we've identified so far. She then poses the rhetorical question, "Would a super-eruption kill us all?" Well, no, it wouldn't kill us all. But the article pauses there, and then inexplicably switches to a brief explanation of what happened the last time a VEI 7 volcano erupted, as though it were comparable to a VEI 8! The scale is logarithmic, not arithmetic, so these two simply do not compare. Plus, the last VEI 7 was 200 years ago, when there were far fewer people alive than today (one billion instead of eight), and the global economy was not nearly so complex and interconnected as today.
Also, even within the VEI 8 category, there's a large variation in size, effect, and duration of eruptions. The largest known VEI 8 eruption was 30x as large as the VEI 7 cited to by the author.
So, the author argued these kinds of eruptions happen 20x less often than they actually do, and are up to 30x less destructive than they actually are. And then concluded, "Why worry?" Without any analysis of how our present economy could be more susceptible to a VEI 8 than the hunter-gatherer societies of 50,000 years ago.
It's the same sort of crap I see on a right-wing websites about the dangers of COVID -- using the wrong statistics for the risks and then setting up straw men that are easy to tear down. Claiming COVID is 20x less deadly than it really is by citing to incorrect statistics, and then pointing out that most of us will be fine! in order to justify doing nothing about a virus that could kill a couple million Americans if we did nothing.
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But now I see Fox sold National Geographic to Disney, so it's become just another media commodity that is bought and sold by the multinational megacorporations.
Sigh.
The author of the audiobook says that humans are bad at estimating the risks from dangers they haven't experienced for themselves, especially when they haven't happened to anybody at all during their own lifetimes.
I can see exactly how that works in the context of gay men, STDs, and condoms. During my own lifetime, roughly half of the gay men then alive were killed by HIV. Nowadays, young gay men have the perception that HIV has been resolved by taking antivirals. And, yes, as far as HIV is concerned, this is presently true. But there's always the potential for a new and similarly deadly STD to arise. The risk hasn't disappeared. Microorganisms evolve continuously.
It's the same way with a lot of risks, such as the dangers of large asteroid impacts or supervolcanic eruptions. Hasn't happened during our lifetimes, but eventually these things will happen again, and they will be devastating.
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You can assume, sure, [Danger X] will happen again, but not during my lifetime, and that could be a reasonable conclusion. But let's not use incorrect statistics and improper comparisons to make these conclusions.
And maybe it won't happen to you, personally, during your lifetime, but is that a reason for completely ignoring the risk? Or should we plan as a species for the inevitable return of such devastating events?
Maybe it's an impossible dream to think that we could organize and plan together as a species. In this country we can barely run a national election anymore.
And then in 2015 something awful happened. The board of the National Geographic Society effectively sold the magazine to Fox -- the same company that ran Fox News and the Wall Street Journal and other right-wing stuff. I couldn't believe my eyes, it seemed like an impossible betrayal of everything the National Geographic Society stood for. I've pretty much boycotted the brand ever since. How did right-wingers manage to take over such a venerable scientific publication?
-----
Last night I was listening to an audiobook chapter about the existential danger of "supervolcanoes", which I'll probably write about in more depth later. I was curious to see what some other sources think, I don't want to take one author's word for it, and my search engine brought me to a 2019 article published by National Geographic. This article bills itself as an "Explainer" in the "Science" category, but it uses classic right-wing rhetorical deceptions to downplay the dangers of these VEI 8 volcanic explosions. I won't even link to the article because it is crap, but it showed me I haven't been wrong to boycott National Geographic since Fox took over.
An example of what I mean by rhetorical deceptions, however. The audiobook last night explained how perhaps billions of humans could perish when the next VEI 8 eruption hits -- and this size eruption may happen on earth every 50,000 years on average. OK, probably not likely to happen during our lifetimes, but if the human race persists for another couple hundred thousand years, we are likely to experience at least one more VEI 8 eruption as a species. Shouldn't we acquaint ourselves with the dangers and prepare for the eventuality? Create a United Nations Bureau for Protection from Volcanic Eruptions?
The National Geographic author instead first argues that the frequency of such VEI 8 eruptions is only one per million years, based on how many such eruptions have been conclusively identified in the geological and fossil records thus far, not based on the statistical likelihood of actual occurrence given what we've identified so far. She then poses the rhetorical question, "Would a super-eruption kill us all?" Well, no, it wouldn't kill us all. But the article pauses there, and then inexplicably switches to a brief explanation of what happened the last time a VEI 7 volcano erupted, as though it were comparable to a VEI 8! The scale is logarithmic, not arithmetic, so these two simply do not compare. Plus, the last VEI 7 was 200 years ago, when there were far fewer people alive than today (one billion instead of eight), and the global economy was not nearly so complex and interconnected as today.
Also, even within the VEI 8 category, there's a large variation in size, effect, and duration of eruptions. The largest known VEI 8 eruption was 30x as large as the VEI 7 cited to by the author.
So, the author argued these kinds of eruptions happen 20x less often than they actually do, and are up to 30x less destructive than they actually are. And then concluded, "Why worry?" Without any analysis of how our present economy could be more susceptible to a VEI 8 than the hunter-gatherer societies of 50,000 years ago.
It's the same sort of crap I see on a right-wing websites about the dangers of COVID -- using the wrong statistics for the risks and then setting up straw men that are easy to tear down. Claiming COVID is 20x less deadly than it really is by citing to incorrect statistics, and then pointing out that most of us will be fine! in order to justify doing nothing about a virus that could kill a couple million Americans if we did nothing.
-----
But now I see Fox sold National Geographic to Disney, so it's become just another media commodity that is bought and sold by the multinational megacorporations.
Sigh.
The author of the audiobook says that humans are bad at estimating the risks from dangers they haven't experienced for themselves, especially when they haven't happened to anybody at all during their own lifetimes.
I can see exactly how that works in the context of gay men, STDs, and condoms. During my own lifetime, roughly half of the gay men then alive were killed by HIV. Nowadays, young gay men have the perception that HIV has been resolved by taking antivirals. And, yes, as far as HIV is concerned, this is presently true. But there's always the potential for a new and similarly deadly STD to arise. The risk hasn't disappeared. Microorganisms evolve continuously.
It's the same way with a lot of risks, such as the dangers of large asteroid impacts or supervolcanic eruptions. Hasn't happened during our lifetimes, but eventually these things will happen again, and they will be devastating.
-----
You can assume, sure, [Danger X] will happen again, but not during my lifetime, and that could be a reasonable conclusion. But let's not use incorrect statistics and improper comparisons to make these conclusions.
And maybe it won't happen to you, personally, during your lifetime, but is that a reason for completely ignoring the risk? Or should we plan as a species for the inevitable return of such devastating events?
Maybe it's an impossible dream to think that we could organize and plan together as a species. In this country we can barely run a national election anymore.