The other day, while on social media, I got to see this video. It is a video titled “Is Global Warming the Biggest Fraud in History?”. Many memes have been created off this, the one that got my attention was something about “Mexican businessman shuts down liberal…”. I got to watch it and noticed two things, 1) the power of having the loudest blow horn, and 2) the power we (everyone) give to the larger consensus.
The former, I think has been made clear by other people and is self-evident, so I won’t spend much time on it. The latter, however, is trickier. In general it works. Placing trust on the wisdom of many generally works well. It has served humanity for thousands of years… until it does not. There are many examples when the wisdom of the group didn’t work. Here are some:
- The 2008 financial crisis
- Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme
- Harvey Weinstein’s sexual allegations
- Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual allegations
- Larry Nasser’s sexual misconduct
There are many more, and they all have the same thing in common; if it were true, someone would be doing something about it. Our default is to believe that other people would raise the question and act on it. And that those other people, have the same or more to lose if they didn’t, therefore if they are not raising the question, who are we to do so.
This is the pattern the person on the platform uses. He proposes that if Global Warming were real, that banks would not invest in regions where they would suffer the most. Places like England, Florida, etc. He suggests, they, the banks, in their infinite wisdom, would know better than to invest in such locations where their investments would be in jeopardy. Either Mr. Peña has the memory of a bird and he’s forgotten about loans these same banks made until 2008 to people they knew could not afford them, or he has investments in these locations and knows better than to promote doom and thus reduce the value of said investments (or both). In either case, the idea that simply because banks either; do not note the possibility of a global catastrophe in their prospectus, and/or continue to lend even though there is global warming happening, translating to an assurance is our default way of thinking.
I am a believer of global warming and a believer that we have accelerated it. I am also a believer that under distress, humans can overcome the seemingly impossible. I believe that while our world will be changed radically, it will not end. So I’m not a drummer of doom in any way. I am also not a person that places too much trust on the wisdom of the crowd.
It fascinates me that people suffering through the global changes the most are the same people who seem to ignore their reality for the wisdom of someone else. Humans are constantly trying to justify their situation and we will go to extremes to make it so.
So to Mr. Peña I say; corporations, companies and banks do not have the same needs as people. For one, corporations can write off their losses in various ways, people cannot. Second, if necessary, corporations can simply file for bankruptcy, people can as well, but a corporation can do that over and over, and people cannot. Finally, to suggest that corporations would have better wisdom than people, ignores the fact they are run by people and therefore can and will make the same mistake people would.
