Stupid is the new reality

[The Green Barbarian]

I was watching "Power & Politics" yesterday with host Rosemary Barton. First guy I saw being interviewed was Joe Oliver, former minister in the Conservative government. Rosemary was grilling him on the record of the Conservatives and how they handled pipeline discussions. I could understand why Joe and his government failed in getting the Energy East pipeline and why their track record wasn't good. They make too much sense. Sense isn't something that gets you anywhere anymore in our new, everyone-has-an-opinion world.

Rosemary was bugging Joe about how the pipeline reviews in the past ignored "Climate Change" issues, and Joe, looking bewildered, asked Rosemary how much "greenhouse gas" is emitted by trains moving bitumen. Rosemary looked stunned at the question. At that point, the conversation should have been over, and Joe should have just dropped the mic, as his answer was a perfect response. But then Rosemary started babbling about how the "consultation process" under the Conservatives had been inadequate, because they only allowed those who are actually affected by the pipeline to register their complaints and comments. Once again Joe looked bewildered and asked "why should people who live hundreds of miles away care about a pipeline that doesn't affect them in any way?" I was like "yeah, why would those people care? It's ridiculous". Anyway, at the point Rosemary ended the discussion.

So next guest up was someone from the Pembina Institute, a notorious promoter of the man-made climate change myth. She started babbling about how the CO2 emissions caused not only by the pipeline but by the "extra" barrels of oil that will be allowed to be produced could be balanced against the jobs created blah blah blah and how the government now in place is "sensitive" to this crap now, as opposed to the Conservatives who thought didn't consider the "ramifications" of a pipeline (as opposed to the "ramifications" of an entire town being incinerated thanks to rail transport of bitumen). She then rambled on about how "important" it is to let people in Halifax, BC and Manitoba all "weigh in" on the pipeline issue, rather than just those directly affected. All I could think was "why"? Why would anyone care about what someone on Vancouver Island thinks about a pipeline? Especially if they have no clue what the hell they are talking about. Like who cares?? Anyway, once again the Liberals now are going to be "more inclusive" of "all ideas and opinions" as opposed to the Conservatives. Translation - they will waste a ton of money and time listening to a bunch of idiots whining about pipelines, and then proceed with building it anyway. What a joke.

So then it dawned on me that this is the new reality. You can try it Joe's way, the old way, where you just listened to people who were affected and made sure they were happy, and you didn't care about myths about man-generated CO2 and just created jobs, but this is the way of the dinosaur. In our new "society", where anyone and everyone, no matter how dumb, naïve, and ill-informed, has to "feel" like their opinion has been heard. Governments now have to waste so much more energy and time listening to morons drone on about crap they really know nothing about, and have absolutely no real interest in, all because of how our society has now gravitated to such a level of entitlement. So to sum up - while you don't really have to listen, and the result is pre-determined anyway - ie the pipeline is going to get built, you have to give the illusion that you care what people think. Joe didn't get that, and that's why the Conservatives failed. If there's anything Justin should be good at, it's empty platitudes and dealing in the new societal reality - you don't have to listen, but you have to give people the impression that they are being heard, no matter how poorly informed and useless their opinion.

You go Justin.

[fluffy]

I think that protests and arguments against individual pipelines and such are just skirmishes in what is now a war against fossil fuels in general.

[The Green Barbarian]

I think that protests and arguments against individual pipelines and such are just skirmishes in what is now a war against fossil fuels in general.

right. And I always laugh at who shows up to these "protests" - it's always millenials and Gen Y types with their Ipads and Iphones, crying about how we "have to get off fossil fuels" with absolutely no clue what should replace them or how their entire pampered entitled existence is almost solely due to the exploitation of cheap energy from petroleum products.

So like I said, the Conservatives couldn't see the value in "listening" to these idiots, as there is no value. But that just makes them dinosaurs. Justin is from the new generation, where you pretend to listen to these morons. At least then they can say their opinion "meant something" when in fact it means absolutely nothing. If you don't at least give them this false impression, you are doomed to fail.

[Rwede]

I guess I'm a dinosaur.

I like country music.

And I believe in Toby Keith's words.

[Jx3]

Justin is from the new generation, where you pretend to listen to these morons. At least then they can say their opinion "meant something" when in fact it means absolutely nothing. If you don't at least give them this false impression, you are doomed to fail.

I'm afraid I don't share your optimism that PM Trulander will just listen to these idiots to give them the sense that their opinions matter.

[fluffy]

And I always laugh at who shows up to these "protests" - it's always millenials and Gen Y types...

...in their Navigators and Escalades.

The writing is on the wall for fossil fuels, it's getting harder and harder to ignore the environmental price, but you're right in that there is nothing to immediately replace fossil fuels in the global (and Canadian) economy. Even transitional fuels like natural gas are coming under the gun. These people are "flavour-of-the-week" protesters, and like you say, most are from the retirement community for whom working for a living is no longer an issue.

I think it's important that politicians do take a stand on environmental considerations, but I can understand why people like Trudeau and Notely are trying not to come on as hardliners. It's what politicians do after all, and as much as the CAVE people and BANANA people may be less than thoroughly informed on their current position, they do have votes. Still, it would take an idiot not to see that the well-being of our economy needs the oil industry to thrive for the time being, and I don't think either Trudeau of Notely are idiots. They are just in the unenviable position of having to convince a few million idiots that there is a middle setting on the oil on/off switch.

[Ka-El]

*removed*

[maple leaf]

I would say the opposite.People in this day and age are more informed and not stupid,Government is just having a harder time pulling the wool over the eyes of those who are not so gullible to just accept everything they are doing or saying.Before the internet people probably didn't know the half of what went on in the country,now people are waking up and smelling the bacon,and speaking out.
Also I do care about a project hundreds and thousand of miles away.I care what impact there is going to be on hundreds of fish bearing streams and what gets put into the oceans where some of my food comes from.Joe Oliver is an idiot and must not like sea food.

[fluffy]

Resource extraction has a price to be sure. The question here is whether or not the benefits are worth the price, and how can we keep that price as low as possible. The standard refrain that we shouldn't ship oil by sea because there might be a spill, or that we shouldn't build pipelines because there might be a rupture is short sighted at best. I think most people who argue against any form of progress for the oil industry haven't thought about what it would mean if that industry were to just go away before viable alternatives are in place.

[hobbyguy]

At the root of all stupidity in this regard is self interest.

When there is no self interest for people in general in something being done, it will ultimately fail.

More and more people are not buying the corporate bilgewater that is put forward as information. They know that much of it is misinformation.

Many of them have been screwed over by corporate greed. They have a decent job that they have worked at for 10, 15, 20 years. They do a good job and the company makes money. Some dweeb on Bay Street or Wall St. decides they want to bump the share price, so they announce 10,000 folks are going to lose their jobs, or that they are building a plant in Bangladesh to replace those jobs with 25 cents per hour labour, and "poof", all those years of service evaporate.

Expected reaction from those folks when Bay St. or Wall St. want something? The middle finger.

To paraphrase Confucius: "When you do everything and anything for profit, you will create great resentment".

So am I surprised that folks will use any excuse to block corporations when they can? Absolutely not.

The stupidity starts with the corporations. They are purposely run in a myopic manner, this quarter, next quarter maybe. The answer from Wall St. to the question: If you have an investment that you could make that would be in the long term interest of the company, but would drive the share price down by 1 cent, would you do it? No.

And so we have an impasse of shared stupidity.

[hobbyguy]

Oh, and GB, if you don't think "we' are having a negative impact on the planet: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/lake-poopo-bolivia-dries-up-1.3371359

[maple leaf]

Resource extraction has a price to be sure. The question here is whether or not the benefits are worth the price, and how can we keep that price as low as possible. The standard refrain that we shouldn't ship oil by sea because there might be a spill, or that we shouldn't build pipelines because there might be a rupture is short sighted at best. I think most people who argue against any form of progress for the oil industry haven't thought about what it would mean if that industry were to just go away before viable alternatives are in place.

Short sighted ,I don't agree.Personlly I am not against pipelines per se,but how it is done and what is being put into the pipelines .IMO bitumen should never be piped or tanked in ships.Governments gutting environmental protections that were there to mitigate and protect streams and rivers where necessary does nothing to help.Rules and regulation in place to restore and reclaim sensitive environment disturbed by pipeline construction ,not being enforced by government doesn't help.Running a sham of a NEB hearing as we are seeing being done in Vancouver right now ,doesn't help anything. No one except a few extreme people are suggesting that we stop using oil .It is not going to happen.But we can in the mean time be developing ,encouraging,exploring alternatives better than we are.We don't have to ship raw bitumen to China,but if they are hell bent on shipping our raw resources out of country ,the processing should be done in Alberta,at least and do everything possible to ensure there are environmental protection that are enforced and follow to the Tee, instead of turning a blind eye.

[The Green Barbarian]

I'm afraid I don't share your optimism that PM Trulander will just listen to these idiots to give them the sense that their opinions matter.

Yeah that is a good point. He may actually listen, which is the scariest option of all. The lady from the Pembina Institute sure seemed stoked that Zoolander was going to invoke a "democratic" approach to pipeline building. Imagine if WAC Bennett had had to listen to hundreds of crying morons in his day from all over the country just to get the dam built in the Peace River Valley back in the 1950's. So mindnumbingly stupid, but the new stupid reality we are facing in today's world.

[FreeRights]

Good thread and it's been something that I've been harping on for a few years. Taking a step away from this applying to the pipeline debate, it can be directly applied to so many issues now that have sparked unnecessary, ill-informed outrage.

So then it dawned on me that this is the new reality. You can try it Joe's way, the old way, where you just listened to people who were affected and made sure they were happy, and you didn't care about myths about man-generated CO2 and just created jobs, but this is the way of the dinosaur. In our new "society", where anyone and everyone, no matter how dumb, naïve, and ill-informed, has to "feel" like their opinion has been heard. Governments now have to waste so much more energy and time listening to morons drone on about crap they really know nothing about, and have absolutely no real interest in, all because of how our society has now gravitated to such a level of entitlement. So to sum up - while you don't really have to listen, and the result is pre-determined anyway - ie the pipeline is going to get built, you have to give the illusion that you care what people think. Joe didn't get that, and that's why the Conservatives failed. If there's anything Justin should be good at, it's empty platitudes and dealing in the new societal reality - you don't have to listen, but you have to give people the impression that they are being heard, no matter how poorly informed and useless their opinion.

You hit the nail on the head there. I think the rise of social media in our lives and sadly yes, even message boards like this one, permit people to essentially become outraged and comment on topics that they don't fully understand. There's a reason that the vast majority of threads on this website, I read but do not comment on - because I'm far from understanding some of the issues, let alone in a position to comment on them.

These problems make our government's job much harder if they feel that they need unilateral support from coast to coast for something that affects only a portion of the country. Pipelines in Ontario, or even changing recommended verbage in government forms in Ontario - the only polls that should matter, are the ones in Ontario. Another example is the wolf culling in BC - there are many very legitimate, well thought out reasons for conducting it, but people from other parts of Canada and in the US selectively hear that BC is culling wolves and the immediate PETA-animal cruelty response comes out, again without understanding the issues fully.

I'm all for freedom of expression, and have never had a problem with an ill-informed person commenting on something. But the line should be drawn there - anybody can comment, but decisionmakers shouldn't have to necessarily listen.

[The Green Barbarian]

I would say the opposite.People in this day and age are more informed and not stupid,.

And I would say the opposite. People in this day are not informed and incredibly stupid, yet they demand that their stupidity be heard. In the old days, no one cared about pipelines being built, especially stupid opinionated people. Justin and his gang at least understands you have to provide these morons with the illusion that they are being heard. The Conservatives just didn't have the patience or tolerance for this stupidity from these morons, and that's why it was time for them to go.