MagusJanus's page

Jader7777 wrote:

I also imagine that if they updated the online PRD it would create a massive split and all the rules argument threads would start to resemble some sort of Rwandan Genocide, but with mashy keyboards and name calling.

One of the biggest draws to Pathfinder I enjoy is how easy it is to get your hands on resources, other than a fully digitized app that has the book with handy look-up links and digital repositories I don't see how you could improve the system enough to warrant firing up the printing press again.

How exactly an update to PRD would generate a split and chaos?

A better PRD and to be more precise a better Index seems to be what most people are looking for. Imagine if you could just click in a tab for Fighter and see all the info related to the Fighter, all the feats, archetypes, items, relevant rules, etc. the would be pretty cool and no need for new books, I mean the info is already there it only needs to be organized and indexed.

I know of wikis organized like this. The expectation is that every section will be updated as soon as possible. The reality usually is that sections can be weeks or months out of date (or, on larger ones, years).

While I think it's a good idea in theory, I've never seen it work that well in practice.

MagusJanus wrote:

Do you ever have to deal with insane arguments with people who fund your research?

I wish the above was not based on something I moderated at work recently.

With funding no...generally speaking funding requests go through committees formed of other scientists, and for smaller grants when I was a student I received no feedback, while more recently the bigger grants I have applied for have all liked my grant applications.

The bigger frustration being getting high praise for a grant which I invested numerous late nights into making perfect, only to still not get funded, simply because there wasn't enough money in the pot to fund all the well-received grants (this has happened twice now to me).

Ouch. I always hate it when that happens. I've always been glad I never was in a position to make that choice.

MagusJanus wrote:

BigNorseWolf wrote:

thejeff wrote:

He's a PR guy. He's a spin doctor. This is what he does.

For the oil companies?

And you wonder why I hate philosophy...

I'm green and science lobbies. Or have you not noticed I've been pro-environment the entire time we've been arguing?

No, honestly I haven't.

I can't tell, because you talk about being pro-environment, but do everything possible to equivocate, spin any pro-environment position into a strawman and shoot it down, defend and excuse the businesses opposing it and generally paint both sides as bad.
With enough wiggle room it's hard to pin down. Because you're a pr guy.

That's perfectly fair.

And this is my last argument and post on the subject of environmentalism. Time for me to retire.

MagusJanus wrote:

John Napier 698 wrote:

Don't mind me. Just complaining because growing old sucks.

Oof! I know the feeling. Anymore, my pep of the morning requires two cups of coffee and telling myself, "one more day..."

My mother can't stand the smell of coffee, so we pretty much drink tea or soda. I typically drink two liters of hot tea at work, and, more often than not, even that isn't enough.

Anymore? Not certain I could live without coffee.

thejeff wrote:

He's a PR guy. He's a spin doctor. This is what he does.

For the oil companies?

And you wonder why I hate philosophy...

I'm green and science lobbies. Or have you not noticed I've been pro-environment the entire time we've been arguing?

Of course, being pro-environmentalist lobby doesn't prevent you from being in an oil company pocket. ExxonMobil funds half my colleagues, and they've scouted me pretty heavily. Remember what I said earlier about them funding both sides of the argument?

Edit: To add some clarity...

My job is to advocate for science and environmentalism, no matter what. That means today I may be arguing for funding for a new kind of solar panel, and tomorrow I may be arguing for cutting all funding to solar panels because an entirely different research paper says they're portable poison. That's my job: Argue whatever stance I'm being paid to argue to the fullest extent of my ability, to the point that any politician dealing with me is utterly convinced I'm a true believer... even when I think the stance I'm arguing is utter horse&*^*.

This also means that I tend to have a lot more access to science than your average person, and the dirty secrets that come with it. There are things I could tell you about some agencies that would make you wonder if, maybe, the climate deniers are right. And things I could tell you about certain oil companies that would make you convinced there is a massive conspiracy to manipulate climate science for the benefit of the oil companies.

The truth? That's for the historians to sort out. I just have faith.

Magus Janus wrote:

He's slightly inaccurate for one solar system, and massively inaccurate for far more than we can count. That makes him wrong because of the high amount of inaccuracy overall, and one tiny exception does not change that.

Your license to play devils advocate has just been revoked with prejudice.

So pointing out actual science is playing devil's advocate? Nice to know how you really feel about science.

There is no attempting to claim the factual position when you need to try to make this point a fact. At all. This is wrong. Everything you say is wrong. Case in point.

Where's your evidence? Because this is what NASA has to say on the subject:

"Our entire solar system also has a barycenter. The sun, Earth, and all of the planets in the solar system orbit around this barycenter. It is the center of mass of every object in the solar system combined."

So, where's your evidence that I'm wrong?

No. Challenging your wacky adherence to absolute pedantic perfection or nothing is not challenging NASA.

It is challenging NASA when the pedantic perfection you're challenging is the one published by NASA. As I just proved beyond the shadow of a doubt.

You don't get it.

The deniers are not inventing conspiracy theories because they are loud. They are inventing conspiracy theories because they need to make claims that go against a vast amount of evidence and going against that much evidence requires a vast and utterly nonsensical conspiracy theory. It doesn't matter that it's nuts, it doesn't matter that it's stupid, it doesn't matter that it makes absolutely no sense: the only two explanations is that there is an insane conspiracy or the environmentalists are right, and if the environmentalists are right then we lose money and we cannot lose money.

And where did I say it is because they are the loudest that they are inventing the conspiracy theories? I said they would rather invent conspiracy theories than compromise.

You cannot and will not change this line of logic by making your facts better, either with the people perpetuating the misinformation or from those who believe it. The facts do not matter because they are not being used.

And? Why is this an obstacle to compromise on actions to get things done? They don't have to believe it as long as they think it'll give them profit. If you're not even trying to convince them they can profit off it, naturally they won't even try to listen to you.

Seriously, this is politics 101. They should cover this in high school.

You cannot equate people that have the facts on their side and those that don't.

Where did I? I clearly blamed one side more than the other.

You cannot equate climate change scientists and clime change deniers

Where did I? Climate change scientists are not the most public of the supporters for it.

You cannot equate Galileo and the pope

I can, did, and showed you the science. It's not my fault you don't believe it.

You cannot equate "slightly inaccurate" with wrong. EVERYTHING is slightly inaccurate in real life. So everyone is wrong, so no one is more right than everyone else. You are calling Galileo wrong for being (at worst) 800,000 kilometers off in a solar system that's 75 BILLION kilometers across. A 0.001% margin of error.

He's slightly inaccurate for one solar system, and massively inaccurate for far more than we can count. That makes him wrong because of the high amount of inaccuracy overall, and one tiny exception does not change that.

By that stanards yes, the climate scientists are wrong. They will be the first ones to tell you that the system is too complicated to predict with that much accuracy.

Ah, now we get to the denialist talking points. I was waiting for this.

Well, here's the thing: They don't try to predict it with that much accuracy either. They don't even rely on one set of predictions. Crack open one of the IPCC reports sometime. You'll notice that, between the models they use, their margin of error is almost the difference between the climates of Canada and Brazil. But they all show the temperature is going up.

And that's the key problem with you bringing that up as an example to try to defend Galileo. If you use the same range of error the climate scientists do, you're talking about (approximately) the range from the center of the Sun to the orbit of Venus. And climate scientists are working every day to better refine our knowledge so they can close this gap.

That is not a useful paradigm for policy. you need to get off of a binary right/wrong paradigm and move on to close enouh to be useful.

And I never argued it is a useful paradigm for policy. Unfortunately, it's the current paradigm for policy. My argument earlier was to instead not focus on proving people right or wrong, but focus on getting people to compromise on action and presenting the idea everyone benefits. If you do X for me, I'll do Y for you. Surprisingly, this works, even on cases where your ultimate goal is detrimental to the people who do X.

A philosophy professor is brought into a room. He's told that on one side of the room is a chair that he'll be placed in. On the other side of the room is a pizza. .every 15 seconds he'll be moved halfway to the pizza. He scoffs "I'll never reach the pizza!" and leaves.

A scientist is brought into the room and told the same deal. They sit down. He's told "but.. you'll never get to the pizza" Scientist shrugs. "I'll get close enough for all intents and purposes"

A lobbyist is brought in and shown a chair. They're told every 15 seconds, they'll be moved halfway to the pizza. They shrug and offer someone else half the pizza to move the pizza to them.

You talk so much about binary thinking that you don't even realize you're trapped in it yourself, as your examples show. You think "they must be arguing for either accurate enough or they must be arguing for right/wrong" without considering that, maybe, they're arguing "let's try an approach that ignores both options." This is the kind of thinking that caused the very polarization I was talking about, caused us to still be at the very beginning of doing something after thirty f&%^ing years, and which is why we're not likely to do anything substantial about climate change until it's far too late.

My sanity

Do you ever have to deal with insane arguments with people who fund your research?

I wish the above was not based on something I moderated at work recently.

Don't mind me. Just complaining because growing old sucks.

Oof! I know the feeling. Anymore, my pep of the morning requires two cups of coffee and telling myself, "one more day..."

Because your ideas about compromising on positions of facts is fruitier than toucan sam in Carmen Miranda headgear. You gain nothing by compromising with someone that doesn't have fact based ideas. Even if you are slightly innaccurate there's no guarantee that a compromise has will make your position more accurate. In short, you're touting the golden mean fallacy and that is a horrendously bad idea on so many levels.

Right. Which is why I immediately argued, in that same post, that you don't have to compromise on facts on this one. In the same section in reply to the Bob and Jeff argument where I actually addressed climate change.

And then continued to double down on the same fallacy. Big time.The fallacious reasoning you were trying to say you weren't engaging in was rife in your example.

Doubled down in what way? Show me the quotes with posts linked so people can see the context.

And yet you got the point anyway. So perhaps declaring which one was right wasn't actually necessary because it was entirely beside the point. You're complaining about something that's irrelevant.

And yet, we've been arguing about it ever since I brought it up in this post.

And this is the amount of effort you put into arguing this irrelevant complaint:

1
2
3
4

31 lines of text across 4 posts is quite a lot for something irrelevant. You're not someone who wastes words.

Edit: And I'm headed to bed. Catch you tomorrow to see if you've replied.

*hugs abound!*

So I picked up a National Geographic at work today, because of the cover. Haven't had a chance to read it, don't know what is good and bad about it yet.

Apparently their website has more on it, too!

National Geographic

Hopefully helpful...

If you click on the article about the trans cover, do NOT read the comments section. And be prepared to be enraged early on in the article. They quote one of the more hateful comments they got.

That comments section... I gave up. I wanted to argue so badly, but Angrish isn't easily read.

My appointment with my endocrinologist is in March. So... we'll see if I make it that long. I'm fairly assured in my own strength, but with the turn things took in November, I can't say with certainty that it will still work out. Who knows what measures will have been taken to stop people like me by then? I still don't have valid ID... and I don't know if I ever will, for similar reasons.

There's not a lot of reason to believe in a safe or happy future.

** spoiler omitted **

I hope it goes amazingly well, and you get news far brighter than even they expect.

You seemed to have figured it out anyway.

Then please forgive me for this, but what was the point of even bringing it up?

except for neither to be right your definition of right has to exclude anything short of perfect: which would mean that climate change is just as wrong as climate change deniers as long as they have ANY mistakes.

Believe me. They do have mistakes. They are definitely more wrong than the (right depending on the year) idea that the solar system orbits around the sun.

That is a given. What you're arguing is that that puts them on equal footing with the climate change deniers, which gives you no reason to believe one or the other and that is utter nonsense.

Did you notice I specifically switched away from discussing climate change for that part about Jeff and Bob? There was a reason. I didn't think your example really added onto the argument you were making, so I switched gears for that bit to show that.

The epistemic nihlist does not get to tut tut evidence that doesn't meet the impossible standards from the comfort of a 21st century armchair that probably has more than a few parts that wouldn't exist if his evidence hadn't been right.

No. You do not get to do this.
No, this is not a valid, sensible argument.

If you need to put the pope and Galileo on equal footing in their scientific accuracy to try to make a point you have clearly lost. You are using the UR example of someone having the evidence and being right as an example of both sides having a point and.. wow. Is it not working. The pope was not in any way, shape, or form right.

I'm sorry that Galileo'sscientific breakthroughs don't meet your exalted standards of being right enough. Be sure to spend 400 years calculating the amount of global warming out to 12 decimal places instead of 1, because thats going to be incredibly important to the Fennec eared mutants crawling underground in our salt mines worshiping the great god J'hn De'R. Hey, we could have averted that bad future but the thought of some philosopher of science from the year 2400 turning up his nose at our inaccurate work was just too much to bear so we had to spend a few hundred years contemplating our navels instead of fixing the problem.

The real world is fuzzy. The real world is innacurate. The real world is complicated. Every single advancement in science has failed to meet your standards.

It doesn't care. It works without your approval.

The thing is, the key point of my even bringing the two up was to show that the example you used relied on a flaw: It did not state what the right answer is, so there was no way your example showed what you had in mind. The Galileo-Pope argument was to show that it is possible for two sides to discuss a topic and neither to be right as an argument that your example did not prove your point.

The fact you have since argued with me over whether or not Galileo was accurate enough rather than fix your flawed example shows an attempt to distract from the fact your example was simply bad and you were caught on it.

Top it all off, your reply to the idea that his scientific evidence was not enough to prove his own theory even by the looser standards of his era is to chide me for looking back on it and judging it by modern standards while sitting there and going on and on about his breakthrough using evidence that came long after his death. In short, you are using modern evidence to try to prove a scientific theory while chiding me for pointing out that, by modern standards and the standards of his era he did not have enough evidence to prove his theory.

Do I even need to point out the word that applies at this point?

Also, you are saying science fails to meet my standards? I used frickin' NASA to show that Galileo was wrong. The only way your idea that science doesn't meet my standards makes any logical sense is if you are arguing that NASA doesn't do anything related to science.

A moon is a little easier to spot than the difference between an old river bed/wind channel and a canal.

The "canals" of Mars are not canals or river beds/wind channels. They're gullies that likely don't have anything to do with liquid water.

And the orbit of Jupiter is likely a lot harder to determine, since there is a lot of it he would not have been able to directly observe due to daylight hours and the times Jupiter is not within viewing range of where he was on Earth.

And yet most people don't know about it, or believe it and they're not in jail for bribery. Plausible deniability is the only standard they're going for, and they have it. It's secret enough

Nah. They've made plenty of statements in the past where they outright acknowledged how much climate research they fund. They even have a statement about it on their website. It makes me chuckle every time I read it, since I know parts of it are utter bull*^%&. They definitely suppressed science.

They're going more for the "people are gullible and stupid" angle. Relying on a media who hates them and climate science supporters thinking they're going to fall to make themselves appear weak. Standard Art of War stuff.

Which makes me wonder...

"Being Dennis Quaid"
A sequel/reboot to Being John Malkovitch, but instead of a secret passage leading to his mind, there is a dialogue box online that causes Dennis Quaid to act when directions are typed into it. Everything goes okay until someone posts a link to the box on 4chan, leading to the Dennis Quaid of today.

Horror movie of the year?

NO.

Right and wrong is not binary.

Galileo is close. He's pretty damn close The fact that jupiter is big enough to put the orbit of the two around an object just outside of the sun doesn't change that.

The pope is absolutely wrong. The point being closer to earth or not isn't even true: sometimes it's further away from it.

Furthermore, nothing the pope is doing leads to galileo making his idea more right. It just makes it that much harder for him to do research and convinces others not to do said research.

A clock that 10 minutes slow and a clock that is absolutely broken are not both equally wrong. This is epistemic nihlistic sillyness.

At the time, the evidence Galileo had was faulty. We know he's (somewhat) right now, but the evidence standards he had from his observation through telescopes would not hold up to today's evidenciary standards, and it only held up as a possible theory at the time. A theory sound enough that he even had the very Pope he made it a point to argue with give him the go-ahead to publish his theory. The only requirement was he publish the other theory that fit the evidence of the period.

Remember, the only evidence he had was what he could see from a telescope. This kind of evidence resulted in such wildly inaccurate ideas as Mars having a civilization on it. So this is more of a clock that was set by glancing at the sky and giving a best guess about the current time (and which turned out to be off by ten minutes).

con·spir·a·cy

kənˈspirəsē/
noun
noun: conspiracy; plural noun: conspiracies

a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.

"Hey, lets bribe politicians into keeping us on our product so we can sell more of it and make money even though its causing environmental devistation" is certainly harmful even if certain policies have made it legal.

The key word there is "secret." ExxonMobil has never kept it a secret that they buy politicians, political groups, or even entire science organizations. They just don't advertise it, making people think it's a secret when they stumble across evidence of it. Which is why people tend to be shocked to learn that ExxonMobil is one of the biggest funders and grant providers of the Geological Society of America. A group that, among other things, has a policy statement supporting the fact humans are causing climate change on their website. And that's just one of the many science groups that is tight with ExxonMobil, yet accepts the science on climate change.

ExxonMobil isn't even the only oil company doing this. Just the most blatant and shameless about it.

There's your conspiracy. ExxonMobil is saying they're anti-climate change while quietly funding both sides of the fight.

They are unwilling to concede basic facts because once those facts are accepted they will have to make concessions on action, which will cost them vast amounts of money.

They don't have to accept those facts. Just convince them there's more money to be made by supporting the correct actions. Because there is. Alternative energy alone is a potential boom industry that could easily dwarf oil.

No. There is not.

Those fields are run by corporations, a business entity running as a defacto AI with the only objective being to maximize profits. Nothing else enters into the decision making process. Accepting meaningful changes to energy policy hurts their bottom line severely and thus is to be avoided at all costs. This is considered an ethical duty by members of the corporation.

Potential market dominance in an untapped market. Or potential for future dominance in the current market by adapting ahead of the competition. Corporations are quite willing to pursue the new if they think it will maximize profit in the long run. If they weren't, do you really think we would be arguing about this over the internet?

You have to know how to sell it to them. I've been in my career long enough to know that it's just a matter of making them see the right perspective. And to recognize when a group is saying they're against it while actually trying to delay things until they can gain a market dominance over everyone.

New Horizons is going to arrive there soon enough, so... what does everyone think we'll find?

My guesses:

1) A planet, possibly an exoplanet. It would explain the strange vacuuming.

2) An alien spacecraft from a race that has been monitoring us this entire time and broadcasting our science to the rest of the galaxy to laugh at.

3) A miniature black hole. Because the universe has to screw with our heads, so why not?

4) My ego. I know I left it somewhere.

MagusJanus wrote:

Well, there is the theory that none of the planets in our solar system orbit the Sun, but instead all of them orbit the Sol-Jupiter Barycenter. Making our system a binary star system.

Again, that's really fiddling nits there. Sol has what 100-300 times Jupiter's mass, which in itself outweighs the rest of the planets combined. But Jupiter isn't a star, not even close to being a brown dwarf, so anyone calling this a binary star system on that basis, is reaching to a degree that most astronomers won't accept. And like I've said before, given that the barycenter is that close to the center of Sol, for casual purposes purporting that the planets orbit around the Sun is not a false statement.

Not every binary star system has two suns at current. Many black holes are currently detected because the black hole is the second "star" in a binary system. The idea of a planet being the other part of a binary system equation isn't too far-fetched.

Of course, as you said, that doesn't change where the center of our system is. So, I admit I am not arguing you are wrong.

MagusJanus wrote:

2a) Your example doesn't state which one is right. Reality is what it is even when everyone involved is wrong. For example, let's use an actual bit from history: Galileo believed the Jupiter orbits the Sun and the Pope believed Jupiter orbits the Earth. The truth is, they're both wrong. If both Jeff and Bob were wrong and it really was 100, then neither one willing to move would not have resulted in anyone having the right answer.

Only if you're being extremely pedantic, given that the Sol-Jupiter barycenter lies entirely within the Sun.

Galileo's main problem was that he was truly one of the most obnoxious individuals ever to walk the planet. And he had the extremely poor judgement to break the word he'd given to someone almost as convinced of his "rightness" as he was. and to be in the wrong while doing so.

Well, there is the theory that none of the planets in our solar system orbit the Sun, but instead all of them orbit the Sol-Jupiter Barycenter. Making our system a binary star system.

While this doesn't have much effect on our system due to where that barycenter is, it apparently has a massive effect on other solar systems. Including that we now know it is possible for a planet to orbit between two, or even three, stars. I put it down to the universe itself being pedantic just to spite us.

And, yeah, he was. A major, major jerk who deserved it.

MagusJanus wrote:

How does this contradict with what I said?

Quote:

You have two sides that are so polarized the most public of their supporters would rather invent conspiracy theories about each other than work together to find a compromise

1)If one side actually has a conspiracy then the other side is not making up conspiracies about the other side.

2) You cannot compromise on facts. Reality is what it is whether Bob and Jeff agree on it, if bob thinks its 200 and jeff thinks it's 0 it's not going to change just because jeff moves and decides it's 100.

1a) Using money to buy people and advance your political goals is not a conspiracy; if it was, then both sides would be guilty of conspiracies against each other. I should know, since I'm one of the people bought by the green lobby.

1b) Not everyone who opposes a topic is paid for. There are a lot of people who invent a conspiracy that ExxonMobil pays random people to just wander around and comment on every environmentalist site possible, despite a complete lack of evidence this is happening. That is still inventing a conspiracy where none exists, even though the oil giant does fund denialist research.

Note I am not going to talk about ExxonMobil's relationship with climate research fully. Let's just say they're massive hypocrites and leave it at that.

2a) Your example doesn't state which one is right. Reality is what it is even when everyone involved is wrong. For example, let's use an actual bit from history: Galileo believed the Jupiter orbits the Sun and the Pope believed Jupiter orbits the Earth. The truth is, they're both wrong. If both Jeff and Bob were wrong and it really was 100, then neither one willing to move would not have resulted in anyone having the right answer.

2b) Compromise does not have to be on facts, but can be on action... which is 90% of the opposition to climate change.

Thejeff presents a good compromise on the idea of beef consumption, and we could probably get the beef and dairy lobbies onboard by agreeing to help lower the feed cost portion of their overhead. If feed is cheaper for them, say because we're going more crops and sending them the cheaper excess instead of making them rely entirely on the corn industry, then they still potentially maintain the profits they had while we also stimulate several agricultural industries that would help supplement the beef reduction in the American diet. Plus, fewer cows would mean they would need to employ fewer workers (lower overhead again)... who, in turn, can work in these newly-created jobs raising crops.

There are ways to get the results we want without impacting those fields to the point they are unwilling to work with us.

MagusJanus wrote:

Twenty years ago? Maybe a step-down of beef consumption to a more reasonable level would have been the logical conclusion for what someone was arguing. Today? I'll admit this is the first time in five years I've seen it.

I argue against what I encounter most. And, yes, there is a lot less of advocating for reasonable timeframes and step-downs these days then when I started. As time has passed, there's been an increase in polarization.

And that's the real cause of the conspiracy theories this topic was brought up to discuss. You have two sides that are so polarized the most public of their supporters would rather invent conspiracy theories about each other than work together to find a compromise. And the deniers are the loudest group of all, so naturally they invent most of the conspiracy theories.

No.

There is a conspiracy theory about climate change denial because there actually are people spending a great deal of time, money, and political influence to keep us on fossil fuels for the express and rather obvious purpose that they make their money selling us fossil fuels and if we stopped using quite so much of them they wouldn't make quite so much money. That conspiracy is not only sensible, it's evidenced to the point of being a fact.

Contrast that with the conspiracy theory for Global warming. A massive group of scientists, technicians, experts, politicians, are perpetuating a hoax for the purpose of... S&G ? Win free trips to the arctic? There's no evidence that they're doing this and there isn't even a plausible explanation for WHY they would do that. It makes absolutely zero sense.

These two ideas are not the same. The two sides of every issue are not equally and oppositely wrong. The Golden mean fallacy is a fallacy, not an ideal for human thought.

How does this contradict with what I said?

If we stop eating beef, we don't need to maintain an artificially high cow population, in one generation that population resolves itself. Eating our food directly from plants would be the highest efficiency ration of food over energy spent to make it. It would drastically reduce our carbon footprint from agriculture. So would switching our protein intake from beef to chicken, because chickens are much more efficient in conversion from plant matter to proteien. If we switched our protien intake from beef to chicken, we would eliminate about 75 percent of agriculture's carbon footprint.

There is no natural cow population. Any domestic cow population above zero is automatically artificially high due to the fact the domestic cow is an artificial species ('artificial' meaning one created by humans). Note that I am not counting an American bison or similar wild cattle species as a cow for this; my comments are limited entirely to Bos taurus.

And, again, that depends on where the food is grown, what food is grown, and what we do with most of it. For example, in America cows actually make up a small portion of corn usage, despite being the primary consumers of corn (they massively outnumber humans). Most corn produced in the U.S. is used in efforts to create biofuel, of which high-fructose corn syrup is a bi-product (corn subsidies are why HFCS spent so long cheaper than sugar). Even if you eliminate cows, you're still not going to make a dent in the carbon footprint from corn because the majority of that carbon footprint has nothing to do with consumption-as-food.

It also depends on how the cows are raised. America tends to rely on a much more grain-intensive method, while other nations rely more on grazing. Some nations even rely entirely on grazing due to local climate, allowing them a carbon footprint that is near-zero when compared to the American footprint.

And, now my question: Are you calling for the elimination of the entire artificial population (basically, the extinction of Bos taurus), or a reduction? If an extinction, the Endangered Species Act is going to stand in your way. If a reduction, you still have to deal with the fact that we will have cattle that, if we switch entirely to chicken for a protein instead of meat, will have no use but still require a heavy resource investment, even at low population levels, to prevent their extinction.

Also, you are just trading one problem for another. Just picking a link at random from Google, I come up with a consumption figure in 2013 of 25.8 billion pounds provided by 33.2 million cattle. The chicken amount for that year was 38.4 billion pounds provided by 8.6 billion chickens. Using a rough guess, you're talking about increasing the chicken population by 7 billion birds. Nearly doubling the amount of chickens, most of which will be raised in factory farm conditions. While true that chickens are much more efficient than cows (around ten times, I think?), it also takes over 200 times as many chickens to get the same amount of meat.

How does this eliminate 75% of the carbon footprint?

Now, to cover eating plants: That's not a real solution. That's a delay. It reduces it for now... but we're still going to be relying on fossil fuels for fertilizers. And we're only going to need more of them as time goes by and the population grows. So instead of dealing with this now, we'll end up dealing with it 20 years from now.

A hidden society of genetically engineered, super-intelligent cows is the secret power behind both the growing vegan/vegetarian movement, as well as the "Got Milk?" ad campaign. Their goal is nothing less than udder control of the planet Earth and all it's inhabitants. By eliminating meat (especially cow) from people's diets, they prevent the slaughter of their less intelligent fellow bovines. And by encouraging the consumption of milk, they guarantee that more people are being exposed to the mind control formula they have been including in milk across the country.

This explains so many of my colleagues I almost believe it.

Twenty years ago? Maybe a step-down of beef consumption to a more reasonable level would have been the logical conclusion for what someone was arguing. Today? I'll admit this is the first time in five years I've seen it.

I argue against what I encounter most. And, yes, there is a lot less of advocating for reasonable timeframes and step-downs these days then when I started. As time has passed, there's been an increase in polarization.

And that's the real cause of the conspiracy theories this topic was brought up to discuss. You have two sides that are so polarized the most public of their supporters would rather invent conspiracy theories about each other than work together to find a compromise. And the deniers are the loudest group of all, so naturally they invent most of the conspiracy theories.

Welcome to why I don't advocate anything related to agriculture at work. There's too much unrelated bull&*%^ involved.

Unfortunately, these are the arguments that stand in the way of getting anything done related to climate change in American agriculture. And that's before you hit the hornet's nest.

This is quite possibly the most Byzantine mess of a topic I've ever encountered at my job.

What are you talking about? After what?

What income source did I eliminate? We have to have millions of cows and an entire industry to feed them because of the Endangered Species Act?

After we reduce the cattle population, then what?

Also, we don't have an entire industry to feed cattle. Cattle are primarily fed by the corn industry, which until recently made a lot of its money off American biofuel efforts and still makes a lot of money off American ethanol efforts. Feeding cattle is only a small part of the usage of corn. The beef and dairy lobbies butt heads with the green and corn lobbies over this all of the time.

And, yes, we would still likely need quite a lot of cows because of that law due to the need for stable breeding populations. Remember, stable breeding populations are measured by region and not by species total. That's how the American bison can be considered still at risk despite having a species population of half a million.

What are we going to do with the reduced number of cows being bred? We're going to eat them. Just like we do now. Just less of them.

Are you talking about some legal ban on eating meat or something?

We don't just eat them. We also export them to other nations to eat, and use them for milk and leather. And at least one of the nations we export to has a growing demand for beef. So, if we're assuming that people are still going to be eating them and knowing that other nations eat American cows as well, how much do you think the population will be reduced and how long do you think it will stay reduced?

That's why I skipped just to people not eating them. Logistically, it's much easier to figure out than trying to work out a cattle population reduction using a dietary change only in one nation. Otherwise, we get into a nightmare scenario of trying to have America control the diets of other nations.

The reason I say "America" in that is the discussion so far has been about primarily-American methods of feeding cattle. A number of nations don't use the American method but instead rely more heavily on grazing and less-intensive crops for their animal feed, resulting in a much lower carbon footprint for them. I'm honestly surprised I wasn't called on that America-centric viewpoint.

One more time: Reducing the amount of beef we eat leads to a reduction in demand for beef, which leads to a reduction in the number of cattle bred, which leads to less crops needed to feed them, which leads to less fossil fuel fertilizer needed to grow those crops. It also, as a side effect leads to less manure to use as fertilizer, but if that is as I suspect smaller than the amount of fertilizer used to grow the crops to feed the cattle, it's still a net gain.

This process could in theory happen in only a few years without leaving a huge problem of unneeded cattle, since beef cattle are slaughtered around 1-2 years anyway. The process of reducing the demand is going to be a far longer one than that.

I think I've aptly demonstrated why the process of reducing demand is going to take a century or more in just how I've argued.

If you're still talking about some magical instant "No more eating beef", then yes, we'd have a problem. But that's not going to happen, so it's not worth worrying about. Meanwhile, every bit of reduction helps and as long as it's not instant and total we don't run into these weird cases you focus on.

And yet, it's the primary endpoint of the argument nearly every single time this comes up. What's the solution I see nearly every single time someone brings up the idea of cattle eat too much? No more beef. And sadly, that includes the lobbyist level.

Now, what are we going to replace those feed crops with? The population growth isn't going to go away, and in time the cattle population will either be forced to start growing into the insane population it is today or we're going to have to find a replacement to avoid simply delaying the current problem a few generations.

So far, I have nothing to answer that last question with. Population growth remains the #1 problem with agriculture.

Magus it's good to see you!

Heya! Been awhile! I hope things are good with you.

There are laws that require farmers to breed more animals than there is demand for? Nonsense.

It's called the Endangered Species Act. Give it a read sometime. You'll find it interesting what the federal government can and cannot regulate where it comes to preserving an animal species.

And that's not counting the state laws along the same lines.

And in any kind of a non-magical phasing out of meat that's all that's required. There's no reasonable scenario where you wind up having to slaughter vast herds of cattle because we've given up meat. The "What will we do with the animals" question is nonsensical. There's no "technical feasibility" related to it. What we will do with them is stop breeding so many. That's it. Nothing else.

Which misses the fact this entire discussion started with a complaint about how much feed cattle eat. I said that problem isn't going to go away, even if we reduce the cattle. What you just stated backs that up.

And you're still saying we're only going to reduce the number of cows being bred. Not eliminate them. So, answer this: What are we going to do with the cows that will remain alive? Even with population reductions, they still need land, food, water, and shelter and we've eliminated the primary source of income for providing those.

If your point was to demonstrate that people will make up stupid objections to keep from doing things they don't want to do, consider it proven.

It was also to demonstrate that many who support this have no idea for how to implement the logistics for dealing with what cattle will still be alive afterwards. Thanks for aptly demonstrating that.

The primary problem with solutions like this is they are fuzzy solutions; they are items that feel good to contemplate, but have no real structure to them to actually implement. And typically, solutions with no structure to implementation only cause more problems than they solve.

As of New Year's Day, Missouri will be one of the growing number of American states that don't require a permit for carrying a concealed firearm.

I love Prime for just that reason.

Oh, I'm sure it will be a die of old age problem too, but that's because there's no political will behind it not because it's not technically feasible to transition faster.

That's got nothing to do with "what do we do with all the animals?!!?!!" That's a b+!!#*!+ argument that you're now avoiding defending.

And you admit your other claim that we can't cut back on animals without cutting back on growing vegetables as well doesn't hold up, so what was the point of your earlier posts where you argued both of those things?

"What will we do with the animals" is part of the technical feasibility.

If you're wondering why, the answer is the dairy lobby. You don't want to know the hornet's nest they've built to keep cattle from being phased out, and they built it using much of the existing network for the American bison. It's almost beautiful in how it makes elected officials wet themselves at the thought of being in the center of that fight.

The point of my earlier posts? To show that agriculture is pretty much a nightmare all around on the environmental front. We can't do away with artificial fertilizers which rely on fossil fuels, and even if we could we would only be making things worse. At the same time, the animals are not going anywhere because there are laws completely unrelated to carbon footprint that will come into play if we try. And even if we still manage to succeed in getting cows out of the picture, we're only going to end up losing a larger fight to win a smaller one. It's a classic Morton's Fork.

That's why it is you pretty much can't do anything with agriculture without getting in the middle of a fight where the environment is going to lose no matter what you do and you're so deep in politics we technically shouldn't even be discussing the subject.

That you're a spin doctor and can't resist using your tactics is what leads you into such trouble here. Your clever tactics don't work.

That said, one more round: Sure, the calls may be to "end it now", but that's not going to magically happen. If it did and there was somehow a nationwide instant conversion to veganism, the scenario you describe would happen - along with all sorts of other massive economic disruptions.
But it won't. Nothing on the scale of the US economy changes overnight. Any such change would happen over at least years, though not necessarily "die of old age" territory. Leaves plenty of time for the cows raised for beef to phased out - we'd just breed less of them as demand dropped.
Strictly speaking you'd only need a couple of years, since cattle are slaughtered between 1-2 years of age. Dairy cows and the like would be around longer, of course.

As for fertilizer, I'm still not convinced. We use enormous amounts of fossil fuel based fertilizer now, much of it to grow the crops to feed the animals you're proposing as a source of natural fertilizer. Switching away from such fertilizer sources would be hard no matter what, but I'd need to see hard numbers to convince me there's a net gain in fertilizer from animals - that it doesn't take as much or more to feed them than you get from them.

Personally, I do think we need to switch away from a diet as heavy in meat as is common in the US to one more reliant on vegetables, but not necessarily give up meat entirely. From an agricultural land-use perspective, there are plenty of places that are better suited to raising animals or growing feed crops than to growing people food crops.

My clever tactics are mainly for use on politicians. As educated as you'd expect them to be, most are not. And despite what you'd think, the parties are the exact opposite of what most people expect as far as education.

Yes, I am certain that it will be a "die of old age" problem. The reason is because people resist change. There are any number of issues I could point to as part of it, but a major aspect is in the very topic we're discussing. The public has been discussing the issue of climate change for thirty years now, and science for longer. Yet, we're still here, discussing how little has actually been done and wondering where all of these conspiracy theories come from and why it is that we're not moving faster on this topic.

If we started trying on the government level to get a phase-out done, we might have the groundwork to begin it in thirty years time (based purely on the current efforts elsewhere in climate change legislation). Then, including government changes and major party resistance, we're probably talking another twenty years of not going anywhere before we begin a fifty-year phaseout. And that's accounting for upcoming climatic upsets that we're due to have as time goes on for why it's fifty years instead of thirty.

With a maximum human lifespan of... I think 130 years? I need to check that ...there is very likely going to be maybe four people currently on the planet who live to see it.

And, you're right; there are no numbers to support the idea animals can supply our fertilizer needs in the quantities we want. In order to accomplish one major environmental goal for agriculture, we have to sacrifice a far more major environmental goal for the world (well, technically, we have to sacrifice it anyway; see my next paragraph). The idea of raising even more cows is simply a hypothetical, and every projection I've seen of it agrees that it's a guaranteed environmental disaster. After all, cow manure is a minor environmental disaster now, and I'm talking about making that far worse.

Oh, and that "now" in your sentence? I work for a green lobby. There's nothing in the pipeline to replace fossil fuels for fertilizer. There's a few ideas, but so far none of them are panning out. If fossil fuels run out, agriculture is f&%^ed.

The problem with the land-use argument is the Dust Bowl. Some of the land currently better for growing animals was once the best for growing crops. That's part of why the U.S. is still so fertilizer-dependent; we're still recovering from one of the worst agriculture-related environmental disasters in the past two hundred years. Otherwise, we likely wouldn't even be having a discussion about fertilizer, but talking pure land-use. As it stands, we have to deal with the fact the U.S. soil fertility is pretty much artificial and account for that in any projections of land use. As you can imagine, this causes a lot of headaches, since the degree of acceptable artificiality is still under debate.

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas, or whatever equivalent you celebrate (or a good day if you don't celebrate), and everyone has a happy New Year.

I won't be here tomorrow evening. I got invited to a New Year's party that is also celebrating all of the work we're going to have utterly obliterating a certain new pipeline. I wouldn't normally go, but some old friends who helped me get my first leg up in the business asked me to attend.

MagusJanus wrote:

We'll just end up raising even more plants to replace the meat we were eating, resulting in agriculture having an even worse carbon footprint than now.

Actually very untrue. Any time you have something eat something else, you have losses (basically the 2nd law of thermodynamics). One term for this is "Feed Conversion Ratio." The first page of this conference proceeding has a nice summation. Note that you could feed a steer 8 pounds of silage and only get 1 pound of growth out of it.

Basically, we're already growing more plants (with industrial agriculture, obviously - growing plants wouldn't be a problem GHG-wise if we had sustainable soil use and didn't use fossil fuels to power machinery and ship food) to feed the animals we eat. Protein-rich crops may require a little more acreage per pound of edible* material produced than feed corn** does, but when you factor in the efficiency gained by directly feeding the plants to humans rather than feeding them to cattle and then feeding the cattle to humans, protein-rich plants win out. Here's a rundown of the best options by land area required. (It's missing chicken, but if memory serves chicken meat is actually surprisingly efficient.) Or if you want a more recent source, this looks at specific diets.

*To humans; **Feed corn silage is edible material for cows

Anyway, that slippery slope hypothetical you gave is some "bull." There is no way we are going to spontaneously all stop eating beef at the same time. There's not even a way every person will stop eating beef given 20 years. If the US was to reduce its beef consumption, it would do so slowly, giving markets plenty of time to adjust (most commercial beef cattle have very short lifespans)....

I'm a professional spin doctor. Do you honestly think I'm going to fall for my own tactics?

Let's be blunt: Most, if not all, calls to end beef consumption are calls to end it now. No decades of step-down. No waiting. Just end it. That's why I point out the animals are still going to be around. Because I know there is no way anyone who calls for it is going to be happy to learn they might die of old age before it's phased out.

You apparently don't know anything about the Endangered Species List. It's not maintained by PETA, but by The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This is why it's sometimes snarkily referred to as the Endangered Species Hitlist. Any species on that list can render a land completely unusable and leave the owner of it with a financial obligation they can't do anything about, so some people simply kill and hide the bodies when they discover a listed species on their land. Except cows are far too large to do that with.

Now, here's where your argument completely falls apart: Where is the fertilizer for those crops now consumed by humans going to come from?

One of the major reasons why agriculture is such of a carbon footprint nightmare is fertilizer. Specifically, fertilizer containing nitrogen. That has to come from somewhere. We can make it, but you're talking about a very fossil-fuel heavy process if we're chemically engineering it from scratch. Or, we can go all-natural... and then we're going to need more cows, since the entire U.S. cattle population is too small to meet the fertilizer needs of crops. Keep in mind that before artificial fertilizers were invented, we were facing a very real threat of increasing global starvation using natural fertilizer sources.

Now, the next question: Where are we going to grow these new crops? And, yes, I say "new" crops because corn will not replace the vitamin loss from moving away from cattle. We will have to find a different crop to grow in the place of all of that corn or face health problems in the human population. And none of the current B12 sources are anywhere near capable of being farmed on that level (which is why most B12 supplements come from animals).

That's where this entire idea of doing away with cattle falls apart. It's not just a case of feeding corn to the people instead of cows, but of adjusting our infrastructure, resource management, and crop growing patterns to fit a new dietary paradigm.

Now, some might say to replace cows with chickens. Except then we'll be having this same conversation, only about chickens. Or, given most chickens are factory farmed, we'll end up talking about the even worse carbon footprint and environmental disaster.

Sure, go ahead.

Sorry for the delay in replying. Life is hectic right now.

CBDunkerson wrote:

Quark Blast wrote:

51% of GHG Emissions are attributable to livestock!

Is this true!?!?

No.

Note that your source isn't a scientific paper, but rather an advocacy article.

Likely the most egregious error is factoring in "Overlooked respiration by livestock" as 13.7% of all GHG emissions. As has been explained previously in this thread, breathing (by animals or humans) is not factored in to GHG emissions because it is inherently in equilibrium. That is, if a cow exhales an atom of carbon into the atmosphere it HAD to have gotten that carbon atom from something it ate (e.g. grass)... which in turn had to have taken that atom OUT of the natural atmospheric carbon cycle (e.g. the grass used atmospheric CO2 for photosynthesis).

Basically, respiration does not change atmospheric CO2 levels. That article including it as such a major factor indicates either that they have no idea what they are talking about... or were hoping that their readers didn't.

As to the current refugee crisis vs climate refugees... the civil war in Syria was triggered by massive drought. In short... those arguably are climate refugees.

The issue with livestock is not the carbon generation by their emissions, but of the incredible inefficiency that goes into making a pound of beef. An amazing proportion of our agricultural production, goes simply into making feed stock for beef, which basically gives it a hell of a carbon footprint. Other forms of protein, such as poultry are of an order of magnitude less in such demands.

This isn't going to go away. Because even if we stop eating beef, the animals will still be around unless we simply murder them all. Which will anger the animal rights activists and put cattle on the endangered species list.

We'll just end up raising even more plants to replace the meat we were eating, resulting in agriculture having an even worse carbon footprint than now.

Want to solve the agriculture issue? Reduce the human population. That's the only viable solution.

Not to mention...the last thing you want to accidently explode in the atmosphere is a rocket full of nuclear waste

This is why I don't think we'll ever have nuclear power in space unless we mine the uranium in space.

Several well known, wealthy, and/or influential people from across the globe were recently replaced with biomechanical duplicates by the alien Crab Men of Nebulon 5. Among those replaced have been Hiroyuki Sanada, Betty White, Ingvar Kamprad, and Al Gore. The mission of these duplicates is to slowly subvert the Earth's global economy and entertainment industry and make us more vulnerable to conquest by their masters, who want nothing more than to serve our boiled carcasses at family gatherings.

Al Gore is a Mi-Go. We really replaced James Hansen.

Good luck to those who submitted.

And next time, I am going to wait for the holidays to be over before seeking a game. Unexpected surprises this time.

How magically-generated electricity travels through conductors.

It's lightning fast.

Still working on mine. Christmas prep got in the way.

I'm posting twice, but I want this to be completely disconnected from my prior post.

I'm looking for a new career. My current one is politics-related.

Recent events are not the only reason. I'm not getting any younger or any saner. And working as deep as I do within the system is like being a permanent victim of gaslighting. I deal every day with a reality that is as connected to the real world as Wonderland, and I'm no longer as capable of the mental gymnastics needed to climb that rabbit hole.

I hear a local Fox News affiliate is hiring a fact checker. Since I'm used to dealing with insane conspiracy theorists who hold way too much power and it's a job where I could show up drunk every day and not have a bad impact, I'm considering it. I'll spend more time sweeping or sleeping on the job than correcting news stories, but at my age and mental health I could use the break.

If they have a bagger, I just specify how I want things bagged and let them bag. And not to detail, but just general. I've had maybe three who didn't know what they were doing, and every time it was because of poor training.

If you're working as a bagger at a grocery store, you need the money a lot more than I need the convenience of doing it myself.

Do I still have time? Working on a character idea, but I know that it could close before I'm finished.

MagusJanus wrote:

Guy St-Amant wrote:

MagusJanus wrote:

The following is just my opinion. It could be right, it could be wrong. Time will tell.

As I see it, Paizo has 3 options:

1) Release a new edition of Pathfinder. Bad because they will lose part of their customer base, who won't convert over. Good because they can consolidate most of the existing setting books and quickly get the setting information out. However, they're going to be competing with Pathfinder 1E, and WotC can tell you how hard competing with your own product can bite you.

2) Abandon Pathfinder for Starfinder and similar games. They're still going to lose customers, but they won't compete with 5E and can write entirely new setting books so they're not repeating products. However, they also will be walking away from a product that made them and that will damage their reputation.

3) Pull a GURPS and just keep releasing more products. They're still going to lose customers eventually, just due to bloat. They also risk falling to same fate as GURPS, which is being relegated to the oldtimers and the dregs of the internet (most GURPS players I've met hang out on 4chan).

I don't see Paizo as having a good option here. I don't see them as having an option that isn't going to hurt. I think it's up to them to pick which bad option they can live with.

there are never any option that "won't hurt"

1) and kinda 3) they could have another system without stopping current Pathfinder or stopping Starfinder, that might even give them some fans back and bring new ones, problem is, it would require more people to work on it, and less "cross systems" staffers.

I honestly suspect they're just going to pull 2) and not say anything until it's obvious.

That's more optimistic than a few rumors going around, but that would fit with some of those rumors.

They're talented people. They didn't get Pathfinder as popular as it is or keep it going this long by being hacks. They've made a couple of mistakes here or there, but nothing that should impact Pathfinder much. And they know their business, their customer base, and their industry.

And even if Paizo went bankrupt tomorrow, I fully expect to hear all of them being employed and working on big projects by Wednesday. They haven't pulled what Monte Cook or Skip Williams did, and even WotC would benefit massively from employing the Paizo crew. I wouldn't be surprised if WotC has already made a few overtures towards stealing Paizo staff.

I'm confident the Paizo crew will be putting their names on RPG books for some time to come.

* Should a GM enforce racism against drow in-setting if a player is honestly wanting to play a heroic drow?

* Should a GM alter the setting heavily to make it more palatable to players who have issues with some, or even many, elements?

* At what point do house rules become excessive?

* Should the GM keep a tight rein on the setting, or should the GM allow the players some room to add details?

* Can a gnome be house trained?

MagusJanus wrote:

The following is just my opinion. It could be right, it could be wrong. Time will tell.

As I see it, Paizo has 3 options:

1) Release a new edition of Pathfinder. Bad because they will lose part of their customer base, who won't convert over. Good because they can consolidate most of the existing setting books and quickly get the setting information out. However, they're going to be competing with Pathfinder 1E, and WotC can tell you how hard competing with your own product can bite you.

2) Abandon Pathfinder for Starfinder and similar games. They're still going to lose customers, but they won't compete with 5E and can write entirely new setting books so they're not repeating products. However, they also will be walking away from a product that made them and that will damage their reputation.

3) Pull a GURPS and just keep releasing more products. They're still going to lose customers eventually, just due to bloat. They also risk falling to same fate as GURPS, which is being relegated to the oldtimers and the dregs of the internet (most GURPS players I've met hang out on 4chan).

I don't see Paizo as having a good option here. I don't see them as having an option that isn't going to hurt. I think it's up to them to pick which bad option they can live with.

there are never any option that "won't hurt"

1) and kinda 3) they could have another system without stopping current Pathfinder or stopping Starfinder, that might even give them some fans back and bring new ones, problem is, it would require more people to work on it, and less "cross systems" staffers.

I honestly suspect they're just going to pull 2) and not say anything until it's obvious.

I hope it goes well, NH.

MagusJanus wrote:

Your number 4 is not a different option from my number 3.

Well, other than leaving out that the game would be regulated to oldtimers and the dregs of the internet. I'd like to think that so far, even though a good number of gamers may be getting older, we here on this board aren't the dregs of the internet. :)

Not even close. Well, unless you count me. I'm pretty sure I count as a dreg.

But, it's still a long-term risk they have to consider. No one back in the day thought GURPS would end up there either.

MagusJanus wrote:

I haven't read the full thread. About halfway in, I decided I don't want to really argue.

The following is just my opinion. It could be right, it could be wrong. Time will tell.

As I see it, Paizo has 3 options:

1) Release a new edition of Pathfinder. Bad because they will lose part of their customer base, who won't convert over. Good because they can consolidate most of the existing setting books and quickly get the setting information out. However, they're going to be competing with Pathfinder 1E, and WotC can tell you how hard competing with your own product can bite you.

2) Abandon Pathfinder for Starfinder and similar games. They're still going to lose customers, but they won't compete with 5E and can write entirely new setting books so they're not repeating products. However, they also will be walking away from a product that made them and that will damage their reputation.

3) Pull a GURPS and just keep releasing more products. They're still going to lose customers eventually, just due to bloat. They also risk falling to same fate as GURPS, which is being relegated to the oldtimers and the dregs of the internet (most GURPS players I've met hang out on 4chan).

I don't see Paizo as having a good option here. I don't see them as having an option that isn't going to hurt. I think it's up to them to pick which bad option they can live with.

4) Continue as they are, along with releasing Starfinder. Ignore 5E and keep doing their own thing. IIRC, 4E was going to take away most of the business as well. 6E might be the one to do it next, but it's early to say that 5E is going to do anything to Pathfinder.

There are people that won't go back to WOTC regardless, or aren't interested in the system being presented, or any of a thousand reasons. Let them do their thing, concentrate on doing Pathfinder well: a rich world, interesting APs, new and interesting rules developments and so on. Redoing the rules and re-releasing all your greatest hits with a new coat of...

Your number 4 is not a different option from my number 3.

Star Wars just doesn't excite me anymore.

Seeing The Phantom Menace on opening night. It changes you, and not in a nostalgic Ron Perlman way.

Try seeing it while high on certain psychiatric meds. Much better movie.

I haven't read the full thread. About halfway in, I decided I don't want to really argue.

The following is just my opinion. It could be right, it could be wrong. Time will tell.

As I see it, Paizo has 3 options:

1) Release a new edition of Pathfinder. Bad because they will lose part of their customer base, who won't convert over. Good because they can consolidate most of the existing setting books and quickly get the setting information out. However, they're going to be competing with Pathfinder 1E, and WotC can tell you how hard competing with your own product can bite you.

2) Abandon Pathfinder for Starfinder and similar games. They're still going to lose customers, but they won't compete with 5E and can write entirely new setting books so they're not repeating products. However, they also will be walking away from a product that made them and that will damage their reputation.

3) Pull a GURPS and just keep releasing more products. They're still going to lose customers eventually, just due to bloat. They also risk falling to same fate as GURPS, which is being relegated to the oldtimers and the dregs of the internet (most GURPS players I've met hang out on 4chan).

I don't see Paizo as having a good option here. I don't see them as having an option that isn't going to hurt. I think it's up to them to pick which bad option they can live with.