Eric Raymond kicks ass by writing basically what I’ve been thinking for a long time without ever quite straightening it out enough to write about it myself.
In his post he explains what he means by error cascade, zombie, Gaianist and green-shirt, but if you’re short on time you can guess and you’ll be about right. Here’s the good bit:
My model of what’s been going on is basically this: The hockey team starts an error cascade that sweeps up a lot of scientists. The AGW meme awakens chiliastic emotional responses in a lot of Gaianists. The zombies and the green-shirts grab onto that quasi-religious wave as a political strategem (the difference is that the zombies actively want to trash capitalism, while the green-shirts just want to hobble and milk it). Pro-AGW scientists get more funding from the green-shirts within governments, which reinforces the error cascade — it’s easier not to question when your grant money would be at risk for doing so. After a few times around this cycle, the hockey team notices it’s riding a tiger and starts on the criminal-conspiracy stuff so it will never have to risk getting off.
Overall, is this conspiracy? No. Mostly it’s just people responding to short-term incentives, unaware that they’re caught up in an error cascade and/or being politically fucked around.
He also explains why it will all just happen again unless people are properly punished.
thanks for link, reading now.