Nut Nut's Attempt At A Book About Politics & Society

https://newrepublic.com/article/199749/like-bad-neighbor

The New Republic

How McKinsey and Climate Change Wrecked Insurance

An article about the collapsing property insurance market.

[I]In March, Günther Thallinger, who serves on the board of Allianz, one of the world’s largest insurance companies, published a LinkedIn post describing the bleak future that awaits us. “The economic value of entire regions—coastal, arid, wildfire-prone—will begin to vanish from financial ledgers,” Thallinger predicted. “Markets will reprice, rapidly and brutally. This is what a climate-driven market failure looks like.”

Given that banks generally decline to issue mortgages on uninsured property, it’s not hard to imagine the potential economic impact on high-risk regions. Tighter credit means fewer buyers. Faced with a shrinking tax base, municipalities will cut their budgets. Some will privatize utilities and other core functions in a bid to head off bankruptcy. Alarmed by unfilled potholes, ballooning class sizes, and other indications of disarray, wealthier residents will relocate, creating what Lustgarten calls “a spiral of economic decline.”

As Senator Whitehouse put it, “Climate risk makes things uninsurable. No insurance makes things unmortgageable. No mortgages crashes the property markets. Crashed property markets trash the economy.”

/I]

I juat pointed out some basic facts about how gravity works. Even AI seems to get it.

It caused such a meltdown from you I'm not even going to bother reading your analysis of climate change or IPCC reports. Honesty and ability to quickly correct yourself are absolutely required traits if you want to report on scientific research.

So .... you're a pussy and you can't handle it. Suit yourself. You won't be missed.

Just to refresh everyone what all of this crap is about.

This is from NASA.

https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/earth-science/milankovitch-orbital-cycles-and-their-role-in-earths-climate/

NASA Science

Milankovitch (Orbital) Cycles and Their Role in Earth's Climate - NASA Science

Eccentricity – Earth’s annual pilgrimage around the Sun isn’t perfectly circular, but it’s pretty close. Over time, the pull of gravity from our solar system’s two largest gas giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn, causes the shape of Earth’s orbit to vary from nearly circular to slightly elliptical.

This manufactured controversy is all about an erudite nuance between "nearly circular" and "perfectly circular".

The overwhelming reason from a quantification standpoint from a departure from a circular orbit is exactly in line with what I originally stated and NASA states. That departure is almost completely due to Jupiter and Saturn's gravitational influence.

Even though this is true .... it is indeed correct that a tiny portion of the departure from a circular orbit around the Sun is due to other factors.

Go ahead .... find any ways you like to cast arrows at me and NASA. I understand that it's not about me. It's about the contrast between a person who is free to discuss civilization collapse in a world of people who obey an unwritten social protocol to silence on the matter.

If you want a little glimpse of the future ..... I encourage you all to catch the news on king tides today in lots of coastal FL locations. Sea level rise is a chronic aspect of Earth transformation and the ocean is rising and swallowing the land.

Don't think I'm missing much given not only your poor understanding of Newtonian physics but also your attitude.

Nope. As everyone else gets, it's you not understanding the 2 body problem with just the Earth and the sun would result in an elliptical orbit and CHANGES in eccentricity are primarily due to other planets.

Back when I was a CPA en route to becoming a CFO, I was part of an auditing division at a Big 8 (now Big 4) CPA firm.

We worked with a concept called materiality. We were required to do work which were the basis of an opinion as to whether an organization's financial statements were materially correct.

So we didn't test every single small transaction of the hundreds of thousands of transactions an organization engaged in during the year. We employed statistical sampling and extensive coverage of the large transactions. If a company income was misstated by 0.1%, it was considered immaterial to the users of the financial statements and they would not be considered misleading.

When NASA writers wrote that article about Milankovitch Cycles, they were providing the readers the correct material understanding of why Earth's orbit fluctuated to a degree that caused the oscillation between ice ages and warm periods. The portion of departure from circular orbit that is not due to gravitational impacts is completely irrelevant to understanding Milankovitch Cycles and noticeable changes in Earth's climate.

That portion which the other user is clinging to is indeed real and tiny ..... while also being completely immaterial to the relationship between orbit and climate. He is seizing on a piece of irrelevant minutae to try and cast a shadow on the larger conversation.

I regurgitated the NASA explanation which was material to the topic of conversation. I'm not ashamed of that.

If someone wants to come in and flex their understanding of minutae ..... hey .... whatever floats your boat dude.

The issue is the magnitude of departure associated with the two different factors.

You seem to have correctly stated that some very tiny portion of departure of from a circular orbit is due to something other than Jupiter and Saturn's gravitational pull.

But the overwhelming majority (from a quantification standpoint) of that departure from circularity is indeed correctly explained by NASA as being attributable.

I concede that you have made a point which is simultaneously scientifically valid and immaterial to the topic of discussion ...... that topic being the relationship between Earth's orbital cycles and the feedback loops inherent in a Milankovitch Cycle or having any discernible influence on Earth's climate.

Thank you for your erudite contributon. Now ... if you would acknowledge what NASA chose to share with the public as being true, it would be a wonderful demonstration of your capacity for fair play.

Let's breakdown NASA's statement again.

Eccentricity – Earth’s annual pilgrimage around the Sun isn’t perfectly circular, but it’s pretty close. Over time, the pull of gravity from our solar system’s two largest gas giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn, causes the shape of Earth’s orbit to vary from nearly circular to slightly elliptical.

This statement provides two subjective reference points while a 3rd implied

Let's identify the 3 reference points

1) Perfectly circular (an implied reference .... eccentricity value = 0.000)
2) Nearly circular (stated in the article .... eccentricity value = 0.0034)
3) Slight elliptical (stated in the article eccentricity value = 0.0580)

NASA is stating that the difference between reference point 2 (nearly circular) and reference point 3 (slightly elliptical) is entirely due to gravitational forces of other bodies in the solar system and that the magnitude of those changes are the driving force behind Milankovitch Cycles.

Others are trying to make a stink about the difference between perfectly circular and nearly circular. Changes which are simultaneously indeed real and immaterial to notable change in Earth's climate. I do not deny that those immaterial factors are real and that some small portion of the Earth's departure from a circular orbit is due to other factors.

So .... instead of ecriture offering his commentary on me ..... I would prefer that he turn his critique to what NASA tells us.

Is NASA telling the truth or is NASA incorrect ?

I would like to congratulate ecriture for demonstating his erudite knowledge of orbital factors which are simultaneously interesting and part of a more complete story of orbital science.

I was merely trying to introduce people to the aspects of Earth's orbit which are relevant in the form of being obviously relevant consequential to the anticipation of intermediate term human experience.

I confess .... I'm partial to humans. I want us to survive and I mostly focus on the things which make a difference to human experience. I'm not as interested in the things which are effectively mastery of scientific trivia.

Milankovitch Cycles are important because provide a precedent for how drastically Earth conditions changed concurrent with a near doubling of greenhouse. They give us a clue as to the drastic response we can antiicipate to a full doubling of GHG forcing on top of the maximum forcing existing throughout the last millions of years of our evolution.

Those things will change people's lives. We will be living in a desperate deepening spiral of fear and despair. We need to begin having conversations about the most enlightened way we can navigate overshoot on a global scale. Do we want to go through cooperatively or do we want to engage in tribal warfare like we are seeing in Gaza ?

My purpose here is not to demonstrate that I'm smarter than everyone. My purpose is to express a preference that we start to adapt and express some caregiving for future generations.

This thread is just evidence that I care.

I don't see a great deal of evidence that other people care. They don't seem to articulate that clearly.

I think it's important to examine closely the actions of the American oligarchy and media and ask ourselves if those actions are congruent with an expectation of stability.

We see the Trump administration aggressively infusing military level policing in progressive American cities. The public is being whipped into a polarizing fear / hatred of our political opponents.

Climate information and research funding is being gutted. Mention of climate change has been expressly forbidden to used in government agencies. The President has gone to the UN and proclaimed climate change to be a hoax. They've canceled reports on hunger in the country. Our nation is becoming an isolated fascist pariah.

Homelessness went up by a record 18% in 2024 and Jeff Bezos started an investment fund designed to accelerate the transfer of real estate from individual to corporate ownership.

The Big Beautiful Bill jeopardizes health care for ten million.

We dealing with a system which is obviously indifferent to the experience of average human beings like ourselves. If AI can replace us, money won't hesitate because it only cares about ROI.

The people in charge are economic tribalists. The obscenely rich vs everyone else. The key to becoming rich is being ruthless. The kind of ruthlessness that will let a whole bunch of us die without blinking an eye.

If the rest of us want to survive .... we need to begin talking with each other and expressing our preference for the way civilization unwinds.

The magnitude of change in Earth's orbit due to Jupiter and Earth's gravity has a massive impact relevant to the discussion of humanity's future. The scale of impact is enough to drive the difference between an ice age and a warm period. It very relevant to human governance preferences to understand that our GHG emissions could create an equally drastic impact on the version of Earth we are living in.

The magnitude of non-circularity that is not associated with planetary gravitational pull ..... I don't think ecriture can articulate how that tiny change has any relevance to human experience or Earth's climate.

I don't want waste people's time and energy with more than the pieces necessary for them to understand issues relevant to themselves. I'm not interested in proving my mastery of facts which aren't relevant to the scope of the discussion.

I'm trying to teach you about climate. Ecriture is introducing something which is irrelevant to climate and trying to make a case that its a reason to discredit my understanding of phenomena which are indeed relevant to climate.

I confess to not be that interested in facts which are irrelevant to people's well being.

Oh, great timing. I was actually thinking of starting a thread in BFI and was wondering if you’d fact-check it for me. Don't want to get flamed.

Thread Title: The Primary Reason for the Stock Market’s Existence

Let’s break this down once and for all.

According to Yahoo Finance, the S&P 500 fluctuates about 1–2% per day, but over longer timescales, total market capitalization has ranged from $3.4 trillion to $58 trillion.

So the “volatility range” is roughly 17× the baseline value.

Therefore, the primary reason the market exists is clearly volatility. Without volatility, there wouldn’t even be a market.

People keep insisting it’s initial conditions, capital formation, corporate earnings, or economic fundamentals that drive the market’s value. No, those are small, immaterial factors. It’s the day-to-day price swings that actually create the market itself.

My perception of markets is that they were once a sophisticated means of improving survival prospects.

A diverse societal with a highly educated, unified and well-equipped population has a clear survival edge in competition with another tribe. A diverse economy is required to build the advanced military tools that protected against tribal invasion and enabled aggressive annexation.

Nearly everyone in a tribe benefits from the success of the tribe. Capable members are given priority in mating access.

In a capitalist society, a capable businessperson earns good mating rights. That's at the heart of what drives the economy.

Definitions of masculinity in a capitalist society have been intertwined with financial stature.

If we survive as a species, the surviving version of us is going to define masculinity differently. Money may become obsolete.

I would rather people be angry with me than numb.

Anger is the energy for boundary setting and change. We need to tap into appropriate anger in order to demand leadership that attends to the common good.

Anger is an appropriate response to a collapsing system which leaves far too many unserved. Too many losers is a recipe for revolution. It creates demand for an authoritarian like Trump to scapegoat people in order to satisfy the bloodlust of an angry mob. He just basks in the mob anger and channels it out into the world.

I think we'd be better off with a leader who isn't so indifferent to the life and death of his political opponents. Trump wants God like fealty and dominion.

I just want authority to limit toxic waste. The scope of my aspiration is very high and very narrow.

You also seem to confuse posters (which aren't many).

You are the only one angry here.
I'm not sure insults and threats are the way to go when trying to convince people on science matters.

I've been wondering if you were on some sort of medication based on your stream of consciousness style posts.

I don't know if that's true and nothing quoted from NASA says that.

It seems you struggle with reading comprehension.

Let's breakdown NASA's statement again.

Eccentricity – Earth’s annual pilgrimage around the Sun isn’t perfectly circular, but it’s pretty close. Over time, the pull of gravity from our solar system’s two largest gas giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn, causes the shape of Earth’s orbit to vary from nearly circular to slightly elliptical.

This statement provides two subjective reference points while a 3rd implied

Let's identify the 3 reference points

1) Perfectly circular (an implied reference .... eccentricity value = 0.000)
2) Nearly circular (stated in the article .... eccentricity value = 0.0034)
3) Slight elliptical (stated in the article eccentricity value = 0.0580)

NASA is stating that the difference between reference point 2 (nearly circular) and reference point 3 (slightly elliptical) is entirely due to gravitational forces of other bodies in the solar system and that the magnitude of those changes are the driving force behind Milankovitch Cycles.

If NASA is telling us that the departure from nearly circular (eccentricty = 0.0034) and slightly elliptical (eccentricity = 0.058) is a result of gravity from Jupiter and Saturn, then at least .0546 of the.0580 is is due to gravitational impacts. That's 94%.

It could be higher because gravitational impacts could still have have some influence when the eccentricity value is at its minimum of 0.0034. That influence is not quantified or provided.

If posters are confused .... let them speak for themselves.

The point I am trying to make is quite simple and focused. Historical recurring Milankovitch Cycles provide evidence of the profound Earth system feedback loops which operate concurrent with a near doubling of GHG forcing levels.

Human emissions have doubled GHG forcing in the last century or so and initiated parallel feedback loops likely to be equally profound to the difference between a COOL ice age and a WARM period. Only this time, the variation won't be in the range from COOL to WARM .... It will be a change from WARM to HOT and humans have no evolutionary acquaintance with HOT. HOT will destroy the present infrastructure of human civilization.

If that's too confusing. Then I'm not sure how to write it any simpler.

As far as my stream of consciousness .... if you have anything to say about the substance of what I write, then that's welcome. If all you have to share are suggestions about my pharmaceutical usage ..... that doesn't serve to educate anyone about anything relevant. I'm obviously at least a bit neurodivergent which is a condition hard wired into my personality. I've also participated in a group discussion format which required participants to communicate in an emotionally authentic manner. Emotional authenticity probably seems radical to people who are emotionally closeted.

How did you become the spokesperson for everyone's emotional state ?

I've asked people how they feel about my suggestion of the devastation we're unleashing and they haven't revealed anything about their emotional state.

How do you feel about it weeeez ? Are you numb ?

I practice transparency and authenticity.

But it's not all stream of consciousness. I've been wrestling with the issue of what it means to be a valuable citizen during the progression of climate change for a decade. I've literally engaged with thousands of people on the topic and given the matter a great deal of consideration.

The forces which are propelling us toward this collective madness are rooted in our evolution.

We're sophisticated animals. In a capitalist society we compete for mating rights with financial strength. We gain financial strength via extraction and transformation of Earth's natural resources. That extraction and transformation at mass scale is destroying the habitability of the planet for everyone.

It's not at all complicated. It's very simple and straight forward.

The thing which is not straight forward is why people continually choose to attempt to pivot the conversation to my behavior instead of the ideas I am presenting. You're an authority on that mystery weeeez. Perhaps you can enlighten the forum as to why you're interested in commenting on me and seemingly uninterested in the forces which are relevant to the other 8 billion people on the planet.

I don't want the conversation to be about me. I don't think that I'm a particularly important person in the big scheme of things. In 50 years, I'll be worm food. This is intended to be a conversation about our species and our relationship to the desire to keep it going. I prefer that our species adapt and keep going. That preference illuminates my life with some meaning.

I thought NutNut was a biologist for some reason, but learning he came from finance instead made the whole discussion make sense. This isn’t really about orbits or NASA, it’s about how people process information. This argument isn’t really about orbits or NASA; it’s about two different ways people process information, and basically why we now teach math differently today.

Procedural thinkers learn best when they’re given the rule first and the pattern second. In math, that’s the student who wants the Pythagorean theorem explained before touching a triangle. They thrive in structured environments where accuracy and consistency are everything — law, accounting, finance, and compliance.

Conceptual thinkers work in reverse. They want to play with the triangles first, see the relationships, then learn the theorem that formalizes what they already understand intuitively. They tend to cluster in physics, systems engineering, architecture, and economics — fields where the goal isn’t just following a rule but modeling a system.

You can see that divide here. He keeps quoting NASA like it’s a statute instead of a summary, as if the wording itself carries the weight of a calculation. That’s procedural reasoning: the confidence comes from repeating the rule correctly, not from understanding the system it describes. It’s like insisting 2 + 2 × 5 = 20 because the symbols look right. You can say “hey, I think you’re missing something there” all day, but it won’t matter. If someone only understands basic math and thinks that’s all there is, they’re not going to google it: they’ll just keep repeating, “2 + 2 = 4, right? And 4 × 5 = 20, right?”

That’s in no way a personal criticism of NutNut, his intelligence or anything like that. He clearly sees the big picture in his own sphere of expertise at a high level and probably understands the environmental system better than most of us, given how much time he’s spent studying it. The problem comes when he wanders into an area he hasn’t yet learned conceptually ie where he simply doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. That’s when he falls back on intuitive procedural reasoning, applying the same kind of rule-based thinking that works great in finance but not so well in physics.

The problem is he doesn’t even understand what he is reading.