exchemist

Can you give examples of things you have difficulty with? Is your post a Trojan Horse for creationism, for example?

OK I'm now putting you Ignore. Go and see a health professional.

The second piece you quote is fair enough as far as it goes, but only seems to address the reasons behind European resentment of immigration. That is insufficient to explains whether or not such resentment is the primary cause of the rise of the far-right. Most analysis I have read suggests, on the contrary, that support for far-right parties may be mainly driven by feelings of being "left behind" economically and ignored politically. So at the emotional level it is to do with loss of perceived status. The animus against immigration may be just one expression of that, in that these groups feel new arrivals are given better treatment than the people who have lived there for generations, as expressed for instance in the legislation, and the posturing in the media and in businesses, around protection of ethnic minorities. The far right is good at empowering people to hate something or someone. Immigrants are one target. "Elites" , which by the way will include most members of this forum, as we are mostly highly educated people, are another. The rise of the internet is in my opinion largely responsible for spreading such views rapidly around. 20 years ago, when opinion-formers still tended to be politicians, writers or media commentators, there was a lot more control of the wilder and more stupid and unpleasant ideas. We have all seen how the anonymity of the internet allows many people to shake off the norms of civilised behaviour and indulge their darkest thoughts. Golding's "Lord of the Flies", which was really an exploration of how human nature, freed from civilising constraints, could have led to the rise of the Nazis, is relevant here, I think. As to your final question, 10 years ago it was already clear in Britain that there was a rise of nationalism and suspicion of "elites", fanned by the right wing press. That is what led to Brexit 8 years ago. 20 years ago, in 2004, before the financial crisis or 2007-8, I certainly would not have seen it coming, or not in that form. At that period, a year into the Iraq invasion, my fear was of a swaggering neocon/Likudnik dominance of the USA in foreign affairs. So very right wing, Israel Lobby-driven, Islamophobe politics in the USA, yes, but not a more widespread, grass roots revolt against domestic liberal democracy. One final thought: if you look at the places where right wing nationalism has been put into practice, in the UK with Brexit, Poland with PiS, India with Modi, Brazil with Bolsonaro, Turkey with Erdogan, you see electorates turning against its practitioners. The UK Tories, PiS, and Bolsonaro are out of office, while Modi and Erdogan have had their wings clipped. So I don't think it's a one-way street. But the Big One of course is Trump 2.0.

Yes it looks almost like deliberate deception, to get AI to return his nonsense uncritically, simply because there is nothing out there to criticise the concept. And he can keep it that way, by carefully NOT offering a description that would be sufficient to attract analysis and criticism that the AI program would detect and read when searching on the topic.

Hmm, it certainly doesn't sound very serious. I too did a quick internet search and couldn't find any written description that was not by AI. I also noted a couple of YouTube videos about it - usually a bad sign. It feels as if it may be some sort of perpetual motion crankery. Those can be quite entertaining to take apart to find the error, but without a proper description we can't even do that. I looked at the link you supplied and while it screams wacko, it does not describe the system in a way that allows analysis. Looks like a dead end to me.

My God, cognitive decline! You are right of course and I have misled @Agent Smith by telling him he was wrong when he is perfectly right! Apologies all round. Time for my nap.........😄

On one point, please don't describe the Earth as a closed system. Someone, I forget whom, has already pointed this out on the thread. It may be virtually closed as far as matter is concerned but from the thermodynamic point of view, which is how the term is generally used, it is an open system, absorbing radiation from the sun and itself radiating, in the Infra-red, out into space. This energy flow is itself an important contributor to the state of the planet, as the current climate change issue, which is a classic example of an equilibrium being shifted, demonstrates. Specifically, the temperature of the Earth at which the inflow and outflow of radiation is in balance is changing, upward, due to a slowdown in the rate of escape of radiation from the Earth.

That's interesting. I have a feeling I have read sci-fi novels in which faster-than-light travel takes place, but is only possible once one gets well away from sources of gravitation like the sun. However I'm sure the stories I'm thinking of date from a time before Alcubierre.

How is this “green”, if it generates CO2 as a byproduct? Electrolysis may be currently inefficient, but at least it does not do that. What you are doing, if this scheme works, is produce “blue” hydrogen. This cannot be part of a long term solution for hydrogen production. Secondly, who is “we”? I asked this before and your answer was “we” refers to “our” team. Whose team, then?

Is this a bid for the Write4U Memorial Prize for irrelevance?😆

Now, now, that is pure speculation, and as such not permitted😉. Yes, looking it up it seems it was coined by Jaqueline, to refer to his late presidency in terms of Arthurian romantic mythology.

That’s interesting. I had always thought the Kennedy “Camelot” simply referred his “courtiers” i.e. just the people around him, socially, politically and in government. I had no idea it was a popular movement. Was it really?

Who is “we”?

As you wish, Bwana.

I think the answers have already been given earlier in this thread. I'm not going to watch another crap YouTube video just to come to the same conclusion. These videos seem to come from the Far East: "She make free energy water pump..." etc. Makes a change from Western crap videos about free energy from magnets, but crap nonetheless.

Yes, we can hope - hope - he gets a short-term bounce in support that fades by November. The Trumpies are of course making hay with it, insinuating Biden was behind it, claiming Trump was saved from otherwise certain death by Almighdy Gaaad, etc, etc. But there is hope, I suppose, that such swivel-eyed lunacy is mainly preaching to the converted and won't sway the swing voters much. Fascinating, in a hideous way, to see how Trump is suggesting it is the will of God (!) that he, a known sex pest and crook, should be elected. Elmer Gantry on steroids.

Reagan, in 1981, got quite a poll bounce after the assassination attempt, I understand, though admittedly it subsequently faded. But whether it has worked before is not the sole criterion for assessing its likely effect this time. So far as I am aware the United States has never before been in the grip of a presidential personality cult like Trump. A personality cult works on emotion and the inculcation of a tribal sense of loyalty. One does not have to be a genius to see how those can be turned to advantage by an incident like this.

Let's hope. But half the country will probably think it just shows the Democrats too descending into conspiracy land, documentary evidence notwithstanding. For me as an outside observer, one of the most depressing features of the current US political scene is the degree to which Trump and the far right media have succeeded in making many people doubt the reliability of "mainstream" (i.e. professional) news sources, the idea presumably being that they should turn instead to The Leader and put their trust in him. I confess I am deeply depressed by what is unfolding. Trump has already undermined faith in the independence of the judiciary, he has been undermining faith in the news media, he has undermined faith in the democratic election process, he makes coded calls for violence, he relentlessly exploits and increases division in the country......and he faces, as a political opponent, an old man who seems to be losing his faculties (cf. Hindenburg). We saw all these elements in Europe last century. History never repeats itself exactly, but I am fearful. There is a risk people think this is just being alarmist, but that's what people thought in Germany in the 1930s too.

Thatcher warned the country the medicine to sort out the economy would be tough. Her political nickname was TINA: there is no alternative. Her last finance minister (Major ) even used the phrase "if it's not hurting it's not working.

He'll be able to pose as courageous and virile (compared to his opponent) , win sympathy, channelling JFK, and persuade another slice of the electorate that there are dark forces trying to stop him by fair means or foul.

Looks to me as if a win for Trump in November is now a racing certainty and our American friends will need to get a ready for a dose of: while we in Europe need to boost our defences urgently and prepare for the the world to have to deal with three major hostile authoritarian blocs. Once Trump is in, they'll never get him out until he dies and, once the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 is in train, it will take decades after Trump's eventual departure to get a properly functioning democracy back again.

That (in red) is not true. The politics of Margaret Thatcher, for example, did not involve such deception.

Yes I think this is the point: people are capable of holding two conflicting ideas at the same time, to suit their wishes, rather than acknowledging the connection that shows there has to be a trade-off between the two. Everyone wants low taxes and everyone wants good public services. If pollsters ask the right question, the answers show people do understand the connection, so it's not a matter of not getting it, but it's more a conflict in the mind between reason and a desire, or hope, if you like, that they can have both. When you have populist politics that falsely encourage that irrational hope, it can gain support, in the short term, since the consequence of the fraudulent promise take time to feed through. It seems to be only after such politics has ben tried in government, and seen to fail, that the public acquires the appetite for the rationality and the hard choices it requires, cf. Margaret Thatcher, Keir Starmer.

Yes, quite right, you are both insane and silly.

Exactly. Buffering is the term. There are processes that react to change by mitigating it, but which do not restore the system to quite the same state.