An extremely good piece on energy policy in The Mail on Sunday: "The government is betting the farm on the throw of a die. What's happening now is simply reckless," it says. There really is no point in me re-inventing the wheel and reviewing the piece in detail. Much of what is written has appeared on this blog in the past anyway. The real issue, I suppose, is to try and understand the mindset of the politicians - such as Cameron and Huhne - who keep this dangerous and corrupt system in place.

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Why? - what did I miss?

"Psychic disease"

Hmmmm - ask The Jones what he thinks - he might have an idea or two.

No, not an attack; I just know him personally... to the extent that I can remember bottle-feeding him when he was a baby. (he wont like me saying that).

Everyone loves to hate the mail but it is often the first to blow the whistle on scandals that other papers refuse to touch. They do more good in the world than the holier than tho do-gooders who read Monbiot in the Guardian

I wonder if there is any correlation between their 'mindset' and their bank accounts.

Could this be 'Groupthink' (qv, Wikepedia) writ large, with the feedback loops formed and amplified through the MSM? In fact, isn't it very reminiscent of the 'scare' dynamic described in Dr N's book?

RGB

I've seen the term "brain bug" used to refer to erroneous but widely held beliefs that seem to strengthen over time rather than fade away. Admittedly the application was on sci-fi discussion forums and hasn't been defined elsewhere, but it's a possibility.

I think it is more like a kind of computer virus: a self-reinforcing idea which duplicates itself throughout the cpu )aka brain) and which requires desperate measures to eliminate. Some of us, fortunately, seem to be immune to the infection - but those who are affected seem to have their critical faculties disabled. I think religious beliefs and political beliefs sometimes take over the brain's correct functioning in a similar way in those who are susceptible, perhaps explaining why lefties are so often those who passionately believe in AGW.

If "psychic disease" has any foundation in reality then it might be shown up in an observable difference between the reasoning and emoting processing centres of the brain. Or, it might be related to the production of feel-good neuro-chemicals like dopamine and serotonin.

Elevating your status gets you more attention which makes you produce more feel good chemicals. If you can enhance your status by doing nonsense stuff, nonsense stuff might feel like the right thing to do. The ultimate goal of those in the bubble does seem to be to do things that make themselves feel good.

The Sunday Times went in a different direction claiming Canadian Arctic waters were destroying seal pups! The fact that the severity of the winter has diverted some warmer currents is not on their radar.

How is this "psychic disease" any different from a standard meme?

And how long does it really take the Chinese to get their coal powered stations running from start to finish? If the shit hits the fan that's what we'll be building so how long does it really take?

Or a Thought Contagion? AGW is a Thought Contagion, but SWPLism, is a bit more than that.

Booker tells me that it was Jung who coined the term "psychic epidemic". That is where I must have picked it up.

Well, it's all terminology, but on the internet "meme" has immense traction with the young (meaning under 30s like myself) since we describe all kinds of recent popularities as "memes" and it covers everything from "image macros" to the current trendy un-PC jokes. Politically, Dawkins is going to regret giving a term to such a poweful concept (almost the inverse of 1984).

Whether or not we're going to get into arguments over who invented it first, I think "meme" has the popular appeal.

Surely a meme can be either true or false? The point of "Psychic disease" (or whatever) is that it describes a false meme and one that is capable of leading otherwise quite intelligent people astray.