Why The Continuing Appeal Of The Appeal To Non-Authority Fallacy?

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Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you proof that “climate change” has completed its transformation from Science into yet another foolish global panic grift, a grift embodied in this young lady, twenty year old Sophia Kianni.

Sophia Kianni @SophiaKianni

At 20 years old, I’m the youngest United Nations advisor Here’s what I do ⬇️

This is the first tweet in a thread in which that young lady describes her duties.
One is to “Attend meetings with UN officers and country ambassadors to exchange ideas on how the United Nations can drive climate ambition and action to steer the planet to a path of sustainability by keeping global warming under 1.5C”.

I want to be both hyper-precise and perfectly accurate here. Sophia, like Great Thunberg before her, is ignorant on these matters. She knows almost nothing about them. The bulk of what little she does know is hyperbolic propaganda.

There is nothing this woman has to offer on this subject. Not one thing. Can she suggest better cloud parameterizations in GCMs? Does she know the amounts governments should force companies to pay in “carbon” taxes?

Could she define centigrade? Or a kilowatt? Can she define photosynthesis? Could she point to the ionosphere? Does she even know why the sky is blue? It’s a fifty-fifty bet whether she knows which of the two, sun and earth, revolves around the other.

In the picture which heads the post it appears she could best advise the UN that her favorite color is blue.

So why is the UN touting this silly non-authority?

Before we answer that, take a look-see at this:

Reuters @Reuters

Young climate activists from all over the world gathered at the #COP27 climate summit in Egypt to demand adult leaders take action to protect their futures reut.rs/3UHwcIH

The syrupy piano that accompanies Reuters’s propaganda is the worst part of the video. Not far behind its captions, like one where young activists are “demanding”—demanding!—“action on climate change to protect their futures.”

Young activists!

There’s a segment with an eleven year old brat harassing some politician about releasing “activists” who were tossed in the hoosegow for “protesting” against nuclear energy. The written piece followed this up: “‘We need to hold lawmakers accountable for their political decisions,’ she later told Reuters.”

“Briggs, that’s rude. You can’t call a little girl a brat.”

I can’t? But propagandists can tout her as an authority on “climate change”? She has Get Out Of Criticism Pass because she’s young?

“Well, yes.”

And so we see a prime appeal of the Appeal to Non-Authority Fallacy (written about at length here). What we can call The Easy Out.

You see the Easy Out all the time in cultural fights. Some woke celebrity will say something idiotic, and, when called on it, says “I’m only a comedian” or whatever.

Here, wee tykes say nonsensical things about “climate change”, and, when called out, get to say “I’m just a kid.” Mostly they don’t even have to say that. Restraint on the part of adults not to wound children keeps them silent.

When instead somebody should say these kids are ignorant, that they’re used as props, that their parents should be taken out back and have explained to them not to do this to their own kids.

Worse, the kids’ parents get their information from propagandists like Reuters.

The Appeal to Non-Authority also brings out maternal instinct. “If these kids are so scared, there must be something to what they are saying!” This is false, a clear instance of the What About The Children! Fallacy.

A key component of the Appeal to Non-Authority is in the people used to convey the fallacy. It must employ likable folk. Who doesn’t love children? Everybody fawns over celebrities (Glubb: “The heroes of declining nations are always the same, the athlete, the singer or the actor”). And, though it is certain that somebody has been lying to Sophia Kianni about how pretty she is, vigorous youth has a universal appeal.

People trust non-authorities more than they trust politicians on the same subjects, because of the likability and the supposed disinterest of non-authorities. What do kids have to gain by mouthing a “carbon” tax? They must be sincere!

The Non-Authority is, after all, how much advertising works. A beautiful woman drinks a beer, a swarthy man drives a truck, a film actor endorses a pop or reverse mortgage. We buy because we like and trust these non-authorities. This fallacy is used at all levels of culture.

Funny thing is, nobody ever confesses to be taken in by it.

Buy my new book and learn to argue against the regime: Everything You Believe Is Wrong.