- passing around butt-plugs and dildos to my students
+ [giving] out sex toys to kids
...is an example of exactly the kind of transcription error via which controversy ignites into hysteria. If we are to interpret your intent charitably, we must also charitably assume that abstract anatomical models (sex toys) are a useful and valid demonstration tool in the context of sexual health education.
The first part of this sounds very closely related to something called Rogerian argument [1] which aims to find new opportunities for consensus by building on views already held in common.
The bit about assigning probabilities is interesting, precisely because I can think of very few contexts in which it would be of use to me. People seem to have little tolerance for shades of uncertainty when expressing views, whereas privately we think in probabilities all the time. It's as though we play a kind of poker where our need to conserve our 'stack' of reputational authority makes us relegate the actual ideas in contention to mere 'hands' to be represented, bluffed, and trivially discarded when a more amenable certainty presents itself.
It's nighttime and there is no wind. That's the downside of extrapolating from real-time data.
A couple of highlights from Australia's energy transition story in the last few days, which show some of the work being done at state level in spite of a largely renewables-hostile federal government over the last several years:
> the Western Australia grid ... reached 82 per cent renewables for a half-hour period on October 30 ... and it is likely that new peak is the highest for any gigawatt-scale grid in the world.
> South Australia ... has established the world’s highest share of renewables – as a percentage of demand – in any gigawatt scale grid in the world, when it reached 146 per cent on September 14. The excess is, of course, exported to the neighbouring state, in this case Victoria.
> [NSW is seeking] solutions on replacing 10GW of coal capacity that is likely to leave the grid within the next decade.
> Those plans are being accelerated by fast-tracked closures of the main coal generators, including Liddell early next year, Eraring in 2025, and Bayswater as early as 2030. Vales Point is expected to close by 2029, leaving Mt Piper with the only uncertain closure time.