This should never have been made...it is pointless. "Adman ruins vaccine deniers" or "Adam ruins people who think it is hygienic to wipe their noses with shit paper."

Nothing he says is very funny because it doesn't reveal a single thing. And yet he says it like it is revolutionary. I get that some courts allow people to take it and a select few people still believe in it...but yeah.

Yeah, I think that's what the deniers don't get. When 97% of scientist agree that humans burning fossil fuels is the primary driving force behind climate change, they are talking about the increase from what would be natural, to what is happening now. Nobody is claiming 100% of all global warming is human caused, just like nobody is coming for their guns, but the conservative media sells both that way.

Ok, I'll explain it.

It's a comedic piece, not a lecture on reproductive health.

It doesn't matter if condoms are 97, 80 or 50% effective. They are being used as a stand-in for something that HAS a 97% consensus on its accuracy.

Granted, it's not a completely perfect analogy (they are comparing efficacy to consensus), but it's poetic licence. In other words.....

it's a fucking joke.

As for writing people off, everyone is entitled to make mistakes, but really at this point climate deniers are up there with creationists, homeopaths, and flat earthers. There's only so much slack we can cut them, before we move the fuck on and say "If you believe that shit, you're an idiot"

OK, the video's point, and your first 2 answers to it in the comments. @ChaosEngine explained how I see it quite well.

This 'anecdote' proved that you were wrong in your blanket assertion that condoms are only >98% effective in the lab, because condoms are >98% effective outside the lab....at least in one case I know of, and certainly others.

I do understand that deniers want to be called 'skeptics', but I also understand that that's not at all what they are.

I/we don't need to convince those that are clearly closed to convincing if I/we don't allow their obstinacy to be a road block to progress. Giving them more hearings, more time, and more chance to kick the can down the road gives them that opportunity.
I don't WANT to leave them behind, but I also won't die on the beach because Bubba wants to sit in the bus parked in the soft sand at the low tide line, and debate whether there is such a thing as a tide...especially when the tide is already 1/2 in, the motor's sputtering, and the wheels are under water. At some point one must decide to not let them and their never ending, constantly changing, factually challenged 'argument' doom all of us, even if it means ignoring their continuing argument and acting without their consent. I'm not sure we should kick them off the bus...but they are starting to mess with the driver and sometimes steal the keys....so it might come to that some day.

You only answered half my question. The answer that proves this?

Nice anecdote. I assume by your smiley face that you know anecdotes are not proof of anything except an individuals experience.

In normal usage of the terms, denier and sceptic are synonymous. Although I do agree that there should be a distinction along the ways you've said.

It is lazy stone age thinking. You're not going to get anywhere if they're a roadblock and you don't spend the time convincing them otherwise. Do you really want to leave your fellow man behind? I think you should strive to put him on a better path. (I mean sceptics/deniers as a group - not on an individual level).

The point of the video.

I've used well over 100 condoms, and never once had a failure, a pregnancy, or an STD. Then again, I not only read the instructions, I was also shown how to use them, and I don't try to use expired or damaged condoms, or store them in heat and sun, or any of the other things people often do wrong with them....so you're wrong, they are not only >98% effective in labs...they have been 100% effective in my experience, for instance, which is >98%, and not in a lab. ;-)

It is not a lazy abandonment of people who disagree with me, it's a long over due abandonment of people who disagree with reality and science (honestly or not) usually in order to be a roadblock for action.
The skeptics have had their hearings, time and time again. At some point, you must admit that those still 'skeptical' either pick and choose/misinterpret information that allows that mindset, are knowingly lying for some gain, or are completely ignorant and only listening to those that pick and choose information or are liars, and they're doing so willfully. Because further 'debate' is consistently at the expense of any overdue mitigating action, and action is imperative for long term survival, the time for more 'listening' to deniers should have ended decades ago.
Examining theories with a critical eye and being a denier are not the same thing by far. Deniers examine theories with a pre-conception, and if it's not agreed with, they discard the theory, then figure out a reason why.
Deniers aren't 'skeptics', they're conspiracy theorists. The only way their argument stands up is if they can convince you that the overwhelming majority of scientists are actually not scientists, but are really just liars that somehow stand to make a fortune if they convince people of the big lie....to most people that's just nuts....and to reasonable people it's long past time to stop giving the nuts equal time and consideration.

I also think you still miss the point....your answer seems to confirm that.
Condoms are >98% effective when used properly. I think your numbers might be for first time users with zero instruction...not the average user...but are more likely really from anti-sex education organizations.
At this point, it is totally reasonable to write off others as lost causes because they intentionally and zealously get important life or death things that effect us all so terribly wrong. No one with a brain that's actually looked at the problem still honestly believes deniers, only political hacks and those that trust them over science. I write them off with no qualms.

No, I'm not missing the point. The point of the video is in the title "how climate change deniers sound to normal people". The video itself clearly illustrates this. The previous sentence is the first time I've directly addressed the topic of the video. It's disturbing that you think you can dictate to someone based on conjecture (since I hadn't directly addressed the video topic before this) whether they have understood something or not. I indirectly addressed the topic when I wrote of the video ridiculing people who do not understand climate change (which is what the video does).

But that doesn't change what I've said. I.e. that if you are going to present a fact, then be accurate.

It also doesn't change my opinion that ridiculing them is counter-productive.

Unless all the knowledge in your own head is in 100% correct order, then perhaps you shouldn't write others off as lost causes because they've gotten something wrong.

Your video, how climate change deniers sound to normal people, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

@MilkmanDan, I get where you're coming from. I think that people should have a basic right not to implicitly support something they vehemently oppose, i.e. a eco marketing company shouldn't have have to support some climate deniers, or anyone at all shouldn't have to bake a nazi cake.

But as you pointed out with your race example, lines must be drawn somewhere. I don't support anyone getting to decide they won't serve people because of race or gender and for me, sexual orientation falls on the right side of the line? Don't want to bake a cake for a black wedding? Fuck you, if you fell that strongly, be prepared to be sued or imprisoned. And same for a gay wedding.

I don't think intellect or "brightness" has anything to do with it. It's desire/zealotry that is the key to staunch belief in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary (or complete lack of supporting evidence) paired with ignorance, sometimes deliberate, sometimes incidental. It's a faith thing, which makes it akin to religion.

eg. the discussion we are having re: solar PV, I mentioned James Hanson who was really the first modern scientist to codify man made global climate change. Climate deniers ridicule him for his stance on global warming, and many environmentalists hate him for his staunch pro nuclear stance.

Because Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the rest... "CO2 is good for the Earth, it helps plants" (ignoring that most plants are absorbing about as much CO2 as they can already, and ignoring the bigger problem that very little of the Earth is green, and no walls or ceilings to keep the CO2 where plants are), "compact fluorescent bulbs are stupid, they have mercury in them!" (ignoring that the mercury in them and the mercury put into the air by the power plant is less than the mercury put into the air by the power plant to power regular bulbs). And the news media paints it as a debate, having one climate change scientist debate one climate change denier (though the media still refuses to call them deniers and paints them as skeptics) and this isn't just the right wing media, almost all the media in the US presents it as a debate. They don't present the fact that a 97% consensus exists.

Then there is religion. They talk how insane it is to assume that humans, made of God could destroy God's work. That we can't damage the Earth as God made it... of course they take the idea of destruction literal, and not in the way people actually mean when they say it's destroying the Earth. They also don't care about the repercussions of future generations as "Jesus is coming soon, well before any of this will matter"... more or less an actual quote. They believe also that God has granted mankind all authority over the Earth and not that it was stewardship over the Earth, so we can and should do whatever we want.

There's also ignorance. The media, especially the right wing media, portray the idea of climate change as presented is being presented as being only 100% caused by humans, they claim that the pro climate change scientists won't acknowledge any part of it might be natural. The media is playing it as an all or nothing scenario, either humans caused it all, or caused none of it. This isn't what any scientists are saying. They are just pointing out the natural uptick vs the uptick we are seeing is explained by human burning of fossil fuels, and that's what the 97% consensus is about, the uptick we are observing vs what would be expected naturally. But not understanding, and thinking science is ignoring all possible natural causes, they deny the whole thing.

Heck, just look at the media uproar over the supposed mini ice age that is coming in 2030 or so. Of course the actual paper never mentions an ice age or climate at all, and neither did the presentation. The problem was the press release for presentation mentioned the Maunder Minimum and linked to the Wikipedia article about it, and from there the media assumed that would mean a new mini ice age, even though the mini ice age during that time was started before the Maunder Minimum. Nobody in the climate change community is really calling for a mini ice age (just like it was never widely thought in the 70s that we were heading for global cooling, it was understood even then it was warming, the cooling thing came from an article in Time if I recall correctly, not exactly a peer reviewed science journal) come the 2030's, at best we may get a very small slow down of the warming, but CO2 levels are 40% higher than during the Maunder Minimum. Anyhow the media tends to mislead the public with things that wasn't actually said. The right wing media machines especially know that their audience won't vet their sources or information and will trust them and talk about conspiracies to hide the truth. Heck most of the media never even cleared the air over climategate emails, so most of the deniers still cite the climategate emails as a valid thing, even though in context and with scientific understanding none of the climategate claims are valid, and in fact still point to global warming... (http://www.iflscience.com/environment/mini-ice-age-hoopla-giant-failure-science-communication)

There's also the change from "global warming" to "climate change" which they don't understand to be an escalation of the term, and think instead it's toning it down.

Who is Roy Spencer and what does he think. This stuff seems relevant if you're going to take the time to listen to him at all.

https://www.skepticalscience.com/Roy_Spencer_quote.htm

https://bbickmore.wordpress.com/roy-spencer/

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Roy_Spencer

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/07/29/282584/climate-scienists-debunk-latest-bunk-by-denier-roy-spencer/

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Roy_Spencer

http://www.desmogblog.com/roy-spencer

A "climate denier" is shorthand for "morons who refuse to acknowledge the scientific reality of man-made climate change either through blind ideological stupidity or because they are sucking oil company cock".

But I'll grant you that it really should have been "climate change denier". I'm sure at this point you will now decide that my one typo invalidates literally millions of man-hours of climate research.

You're right about one thing, we are getting desperate. Everyone should be, because we are fucking ourselves over.