A few months ago I joined a new community, the Emergent Commons  (EC). It has quickly become my favorite community and I am building some meaningful relationships with some other members. I am becoming more active in some of the discussions.

On November 11, 2021 I attended the EC Steelmanning Vaccine Mandates event. It was well attended by twenty-nine of the most active EC members. The event centered around the question "How do you feel about governments mandating vaccines for Covid 19?" Two members with opposing views discussed the question aided by a neutral moderator who also acted as a coach. I was impressed by the efforts of all three participants.

There has been a very lively discussion on the EC website since the event.

I am more interested in the dynamics of the discussion than in the question itself. However, I do think the question is important and I do have an opinion. Mostly I am an observer as this issue plays out in countries around the world. It does not affect me personally at this time. Prior to the event I was not opposed to government mandates and nothing during the event or subsequent discussion has changed my mind, but I try to hold my opinions lightly.

The individual opposed to mandates included the following paragraph in one of his posts.

"One of my regrets over the past 15 years is not being more courageous in sharing sites like The Corbett Report from James Corbett, who is also just a dude who came to Japan to teach English and, simply by following unanswered questions he had about 9/11, ended up creating a nice name for himself in the alternate media world."

I replied,

I appreciate your presence here at EC. You are someone I would like to get to know better, if only I had the time. You and I follow two writers at Medium that probably most members here are unaware of but gives us a point of connection. I think most of us here are trying to understand the pandemic and the Big Picture as best we can. Personally, I do not think you, me... or James Corbett understands the pandemic very well. It can be understood as a hyperobject that is beyond the understanding of any one person. Absorbing pandemic information is much like trying to drink out of a fire hose. However, I will have a look at James Corbett if you agree to have a look at Tomas Pueyo.

He agreed.

I first went to Wikipedia where I found nothing about James Corbett.

Next I went to https://www.corbettreport.com/ where I found an overwhelming amount of information. I needed to select a manageable amount of information so I went to The Best of The Corbett Report which was still too much. I selected three items which drew my interest with the first one being Are There Limits to Growth? - Questions For Corbett #077 (Limits) posted on 08/21/2021. 

Limits was long, 1 hour and 41 minutes but I listened to it all, pausing occasionally to think and make notes.

Limits is a critic of The Limits of Growth, a report commissioned by the Club of Rome which was published in 1972. As a young man I was quite interested in current issues and I became aware of this report soon after it was published. This was not new territory for me.

At this point I want to interject with a declaration of my own current bias. I am aware that Lene Rachel Andersen, Tomas Björkman and Nora Bateson are current members of the Club of Rome. These individuals are significant players in the Game B movement and I highly respect each of them. It will not be easy for me to be objective as I watch Limits but I will try very hard. And yes, I am also biased with my belief that there are indeed limits to growth.

I also want to disclose that I was monitoring my own emotions as I was listening to Limits. I was never triggered by anything Corbett said. My emotional reactions were very mild. 

Corbett’s tone was fine very early in his video but it soon changed. He referred to a 1972 MIT study with a mocking tone. He explicitly associated MIT with “the deep state”. This seemed prejudicial to me. For me it was an early red flag.

Corbett next addressed looking at the science and at computer modeling. Again, I think I am being fair to continue to describe his tone as mocking. However, I agreed with some, not all, of his criticisms of computer models.

Corbett was critical of the presentation of the results of models as science. I totally agree. He was critical of journalists who present the results of models with certainty. I totally agree. But Corbett mocked computer modelling and dismissed them as being of almost no value. He implied that they were merely being used to support narratives that were little more than propaganda. In doing so, Corbett is making an error of the same magnitude as that which he criticized, just in the opposite direction.

Several times Corbett used the phrase Garbage In, Garbage Out in reference to computer modeling. I agree. Corbett asserted that computer models are no better than the assumptions used. I agree. Corbett admitted that he is not an expert on computer modelling, nor am I. He also mocked the use of proxies in computer models but he did not seem to understand why proxies are used and why that can be appropriate.

Corbett pointed out instances where the future unfolded quite differently from what was predicted in 1972. That is valid. This brings us to a key point.

Corbett is critical of doomsday literature. He mocks assertions that society will collapse by 2030 or 2040 or anytime in the 21st century. He paints a very different picture than the Game B thinkers who are very concerned about a metacrisis. Game B thinkers are not making predictions of an imminent collapse. They are asserting that, all things considered, our current civilization is unsustainable and as time progresses the risk of collapse increases. Corbett seems unaware of this line of reasoning.

Corbett is critical of fear mongering. I agree. He said this in the context of climate change, again being critical of climate modelling. At one point he stated that they are interested in deindustrialization and “sending us back to the stone age.” To me, this sounds like fear mongering about the fear mongers. And I know of no one who wants us to go back to the stone age and Corbett offered no examples.

Corbett described the book The Population Bomb by Paul R. Ehrlich, published in 1968. Again, I was familiar with this book as a young man and I am aware of how wrong it was. And Corbett added Thomas Malthus to his presentation, more familiar territory for me. 

Corbett spent some time explaining the difference between the absolute scarcity of resources and the economic scarcity of resources. I thought he did this very well. But I do not agree that this supports an assertion that there are no limits to growth.

Corbett’s own narrative was becoming clearer to me. Beginning 200 years ago with Mathus, the elite have been interested in controlling the human population. Today, he asserted, the elite are interested in reducing human population.

Corbett began asserting that games are being played, that narratives based on “completely nonsensical models” are being pushed on us by a scientific illiterate media duped by the elite. He defended those in the middle and laid the blame on the wealthy elite. Near the end of the video, a picture of Bill Gates flashed by. 

Limits has extensive show notes and it seems that Corbett has done much research. This adds a lot of credibility to his report. I wonder how much confirmation bias is at play but at this point I do not know.

My second selection from The Corbett Report was Solutions: Revolution of the Mind posted on 02/07/2016.

It was 1 hour and 3 minutes long. I again paused occasionally to make notes.

Early in this video James Corbett made his position clear. There has been, he asserted, an old, coordinated agenda: “... our thoughts are being guided and manipulated…” Corbett will tell us how to resist.

He focused on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its funding of educational programs.

I carefully captured this statement made by Corbett.

There is a guiding force and in fact a demonstrable wealthy elite that has been guiding this ideology for the last century.

I will interject with my own views. I am not in alignment with the worldview of Bill Gates. I am not a supporter of the Bill Gates approach to education. I think Bill Gates was ruthless as CEO of Microsoft. I think the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation probably does more good than harm, but I have not studied this matter. I think that Bill Gates has become an icon in the culture wars. I think that Bill Gates has become the subject of conspiracy theories.

Corbetts asks us to think about what we can do about the problem he has identified. 1/ identify the wealthy, ruling elite 2/ reject their ideas 3/ propose our own ideas. Corbett will tell us how.

Next Corbett played a lengthy clip from an audio version of the book 1984 by George Orwell. This was very good. I enjoyed it.

Corbett then framed his thoughts as the struggle of the individual against the collective.

This is a familiar theme that I have been giving considerable attention to for many years. I will again interject my own point of view, my bias. I am opposed to extreme individualism and I am opposed to extreme collectivism. I think that our civilization has not yet figured out what the right balance is. Personally, I do not know how to resolve this tension but I think the matter is very important. This issue often bubbles up in the culture wars. It seems to me that Corbett champions the individual and that he sees himself as a warrior in a battle.

Corbett played a lengthy clip from an audio version of the book The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism by Emmanuel Goldstein. I had never heard of this book. Corbett described the excerpt as staggering and breathtaking but I found it boring and my mind wandered.

Corbett identified two figures from the past ruling elite, David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger, and indicated that they have passed the torch to others.

Corbett explained how the masses generally do not know much about the systems they play roles in. Specifically, teachers do not know much about the education system. I agree.

Corbett asserted that we should challenge the status quo and become conscious agents and again, I agree.

About half way into this video, Corbett indicated that we are in “a game for all the marbles.” We must prevent 1984. We must shake people out of the matrix. How? An appeal to facts will not be effective because people are primarily not rational.

We must find a tipping point to change the worldview of people, he said, and again I agree.

Corbett played a lengthy clip from a commentary on the book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn. This is a work I am familiar with, about paradigm shifts in science. The commentary was excellent.

Corbett explained that the idea of paradigm shifts can be applied beyond the realm of science and I agree.

Corbett then asserted that conspiracy theories are not adequately considered because they are outside of the current paradigms. I strongly disagree, although this may be true in some instances. However, a lot of good work analyzing conspiracy theories has been done by people clearly not captured by current paradigms. Corbett seems unaware of such work. This is interesting because Corbett clearly is someone that does a lot of research.

Corbett advises us on how we should proceed. Question the paradigms, he says. I agree.

And ostracize those who do not agree, who go along to get along. Corbett labels such people as evil. I replayed the video to confirm that evil was the word he used. I strongly disagree with him. I believe that attaching the label evil as Corbett did is itself dangerous.

Finally, Corbett advocates building communities of like minded people. Again I agree. But I am no longer neutral. I will avoid communities associated with Corbett or his ideas.

My third selection from The Corbett Report was Climate Models for the Layman. This is an area of interest of mine, as it is for many people. Earlier this year I read and wrote reports on two books about climate change and climate science. I deliberately selected books with opposing points of view. I anticipated the direction The Corbett Report would go.

Climate Models is a 32 minute podcast posted on 03/15/2017. James Corbett interviews an academic climate scientist, Judith Curry, who I am not familiar with. She had recently published a report, CLIMATE MODELS for the layman, which I am not familiar with.

I was familiar with the main arguments made by Curry. She asserted that climate models are highly uncertain to a degree that they are not useful for the purpose for which they are used. She focused on the difficulty of separating the degree of global warming caused by human factors from the degree of global warming caused by natural causes. She pointed out that climate models using 20th century data did not accurately predict the climate of the early years of the 21st century. She pointed out that climate models use a range of values for capturing the impact of CO2 on warming, that the high end of the range is often used but, in her opinion, there is more justification for using the low end. She asserted that this is being done deliberately to support a desired outcome. She asserted that the calibration, the tuning, of climate models was being manipulated in ways to generate particular desired outcomes. She questioned the selection of starting points used in models.

Judith Curry advocated for the use of climate models only for climate research. She believes that because of the incredible amount of uncertainty they should not be used for policy decisions. She has concerns that climate models are being increasingly used for “command and control” purposes.

James Corbett did not talk much in this podcast. However, at one point he said, “The way climate models are used make laymen like me laugh.” Near the end of the podcast Curry said, “Maybe this is a pretty benign climate we are in right now.”

My book reports, The Physics of Climate Change and Unsettled WHAT CLIMATE SCIENCE TELLS US, WHAT IT DOESN’T, AND WHY IT MATTERS capture my comments on climate change and climate science so I will not repeat them here.