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drumbo

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Everything posted by drumbo

  1. The big bang. If there was no quanta of space, you could just keep compressing everything together more and more. But you can't, you can only fit so much inside of a quanta of space, and that's why there was a big bang.
  2. If you observed time passing between your observation of the intact muon and its subsequent decay, then that implies a change in the system since you could not perceive the passage of time otherwise, and therefore is not a refutation the existence of the quanta.
  3. But is that not an example of a memory-less process? As far as I know, the prior amount of time which has passed without a decay does not give you any information about when the muon will decay in the future.
  4. Lol muh fallacy. Consider this, if space in quantized, and we know it is, then how could time also not be quantized, since one cannot exist without the other?
  5. I mean any change, even at a subatomic level. An electron changing its position. A bond lengthening or contracting. Subatomic particles spontaneously appearing and colliding a disappearing. Any change in the system at all. If there is no change, time effectively never passed. The time quanta is the minimum amount of time that must pass before something in the state of the universe changes.
  6. Yes. Consider this thought experiment. Let's say you observed a system, and absolutely nothing changes in the system. Well, that would imply that time might as well have not proceeded in that system at all. This necessarily implies the existence of a time quanta when you consider the infinitesimal limit and the greatest lower bound where you begin to see a change in the system.
  7. It's all relative. If you are in the part of space that is expanding then you can move faster than light then in reference to a part that isn't expanding.
  8. drumbo

    NRA dissolvement

    How is a 110 pound women supposed to defend herself from a 200 pound man without a gun? Your stance is anti-woman.
  9. Time only exists in reference to a state of a system. If the state of a system does not change, then there is effectively no passage of time.
  10. It seems like the soul is the word we use to describe whatever allows us to be creative and introduce new things into the world, the thing that elevates us beyond some deterministic electrochemical machine. The human brain seems to essentially be an electrochemical machine, but how is it possible for a mere machine to be creative, to write a symphony? Consider the idea of an exogenous influence, an influence on this world which comes out of seemingly thin air. There might be some mechanism that uniquely allows the brain to introduce some exogenous influence onto the world, a phenomenon which could be described by science which just hasn't been understood yet.
  11. There's nothing wrong with results oriented thinking, but to actually carry it out when it involves cruelty requires the recognition of onlookers that you are actually behaving in the best interests of the recipient. Good luck convincing people.
  12. Time is very simple. Let t=t_0, and then increment by dt, an infinitesimal amount. Those dt increments are the quanta of time, the smallest amount of time that the universe can discretely have. To prove that these time quanta exist, it is sufficient to know that there is some greatest lower bound, or infinitum amount of time such that if there were to be considered an amount of time any smaller, not a single thing about the state of the universe would change in the passing of that even smaller amount of time, effectively defining a time quanta.
  13. The entire study is flawed. They did not account for Heisenberg's uncertainty principle which states that the more precisely the position of some particle is determined, the less precisely its momentum can be predicted from initial conditions, and vice versa. By localizing a pseudo-magnetic field inside the barrier, they interfered with the spin precession of the atoms as a clock to measure the time that they require to cross the classically forbidden region.
  14. I'm not sure where you learned how to cite a source, but if you have specific pages you want to cite in that 431 page Kerner commision report then do so, otherwise you are just engaging in the classic unethical tactic of dumping paperwork on someone with limited resources. The second article is behind a paywall. You have misrepresented the content of the third article. It claims that disproportionate police force is one of the things that can make a peaceful protest not so peaceful, and therefore it does not address the problem of dealing with a riot that is already out control prior to any disproportionate police intervention. Unfortunately the goals of maximizing the protection of property and maximizing the potential to rehabilitate criminals are at odds with one another. In order to make a logical and coherent policy, we need to decide what the acceptable minimum levels are for those goals. Both absolutely cannot be maximized.
  15. If only all riots were announced so that the police had advance notice. Riots can often result because of sudden and unpredictable events, and therefore you cannot count on a preemptive police response. Once a riot is out control, maximizing the police presence is almost certainly the only way to maximize the protection of property, and that is juxtaposed with minimizing the number of harmful interactions with rioters. Don't take it personally. I only disagree with wrong ideas. Au contraire, it is vital to establish what the goal of the criminal justice system should be, and that includes establishing whether we should prioritize the protection of property or the potential to rehabilitate criminals. Without clearly established goals we are just moving forward blindly. Other countries do not have the same demographic and socioeconomic conditions as the US, and therefore the variation in the amount of police shootings between the US and European countries is likely not significantly explained by differences in the criminal justice system, but rather by differences in the demographic and socioeconomic conditions.
  16. I'm not sure why you're so obsessed with using the word model as your sword and shield, it will not save your nonsensical position. Rejecting each example is trivial since it suffices to consider a realistic scenario. Let's consider a riot, very similar to the ones we've been seeing in the US over these past few months. The rioters are destroying property. In order to maximize the protection of property you must increase the police presence otherwise the rioters will trash the city, physical safeguards can always be bypassed. Increasing the police presence will result in more injuries and life ruining criminal records for the rioters. Sending in social workers or psychologists will do jack to protect property and it certainly won't completely mitigate the harm to the protestors, and thus the potential for rehabilitation has not been maximized. See? No need for models. You just have to find one example to reject something. I am very grateful for you teaching me about your innovative way of arguing, I think I will use it now. Please describe an example where the protection of property is maximized while harmful interactions with suspects are simultaneously minimized. Unless you are able to do so your argument is refuted.
  17. Completely nonsensical. There is no model here, just an abject truth that maximizing the protection of property almost certainly requires the deployment of more police officers than we would like if we wanted to minimize harmful interactions with suspects. I was extremely patient with you, giving you apparently at least 10 replies to explain your position. You have failed to do so, and I made my judgement.
  18. Poor analogy, I am not figuratively following anyone into their house. This is a space to debate, and if you cannot do that properly then you are free to leave and I will not "follow you".
  19. Do you care to point out where my analysis is incorrect? If you are unable to understand the analysis then it does not mean it is incorrect, it only implies that you lack the aptitude to understand it.
  20. Lol muh GoAlPoStS I originally claimed that it was not possible to maximize both the protection of property and the potential to rehabilitate criminals, and that we needed to decide what should be prioritized in order make a logical and coherent policy. We can only maximize one or the other within a constraint where we do not allow the potential to rehabilitate criminals to fall below a certain level, or where we do not allow the protection of property to fall below a certain level. We need to choose where our priorities lie. It is not a fAlSe DiChOtOmY if you have an ounce of deductive reasoning and the aptitude to follow the arguments I gave.
  21. The police do not perform rehabilitation, but if their interaction with the suspect occurs prior to the suspect receiving said rehabilitation then receiving that rehabilitation is conditional upon a risky encounter with the police! That is why Americans are talking about sending social workers rather than police to certain domestic calls. I feel like I'm interacting with people who have zero sense of logical deduction here, it's so frustrating. Just because you cannot understand it does not mean it's "bollox". Here, let me bring out the big crayons and construction paper, as iNow likes to say. Let's say you can either spin a dreidel with 4 sides numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4, or you can roll a 6-sided die instead numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. The number it lands on determines the number of marshmallows you can eat. Mmmm yummy marshmallows! Now I tell you if you wait one hour, you can instead roll the six-sided die or an eight-sided die numbered 1-8. Again, the number it lands on determines the number of marshmallows you can eat. Now if you decide to eat your marshmallows immediately, you can maximize your potential locally by choosing to roll the die rather than spin the dreidel. However, you have made a choice that decreased your global potential to each as many marshmallows as possible, since if you had waited one hour you could have rolled the eight-sided die instead.
  22. I see you're back to your "nuh uh!" style of argumentation. When an individual such as Ryan Whitaker https://newsmaven.io/pinacnews/cops-gone-rogue/watch-phoenix-cops-kill-man-after-responding-to-noise-complaint-over-video-game-AsvFt-AHpkeQlcgNj5qiTA interacts with law enforcement the probability of a poor outcome increases and if there is a poor outcome the potential to rehabilitate him decreases drastically. If a social worker was sent instead of the cops then Ryan Whitaker would still be alive, and if he needed rehabilitation there would still be the potential for that. You have to think about how these cases play out on an individual level and the worst case scenario, not holistically and assuming nothing goes wrong. Please explain why you think otherwise, I can't read your mind. If you aren't able to explain yourself because your opinion is based on a feeling rather than careful analysis then you are likely to be wrong. I think your problem is that you are unable to see the difference between a local change (local as in within a constrained set of possibilities) in someone's potential to be rehabilitated versus a global change (global as in within the full set of possibilities). When the cops interact with a suspect there is the possibility where they do not kill him or injure him greatly, and instead book him into the system and perhaps once he is in the system he would be exposed to resources which could rehabilitate him. Therefore since the interaction between the police and the suspect increases the likelihood that the suspect gets exposed to rehabilitation there is a local increase in the suspect's potential to be rehabilitated. I use the word local, because we are talking about a local region of possibilities where the suspect has already interacted with the police and rolled the dice on getting killed or injured which totally eliminate the potential for rehabilitation. On the other hand, if the suspect interacts with a social worker the probability that the suspect is killed or injured is greatly diminished, and the suspect can be exposed to resources for rehabilitation just as they were before. Now with the social worker we have attained a higher potential for rehabilitation than we did in the case where we sent the cops, because we maximized the potential within a global set of possibilities rather than a constrained set where we always send the cops. This is why I asked you if you understand the concept of optimization, you don't seem to. That is why I claim that the potential for an individual suspect to be rehabilitated decreases when they are subject to a risky encounter with law enforcement, since their global potential to be rehabilitated decreases even if it locally increases within the constrained possibilities of the events where an interaction with the police occur.
  23. If you are making the more general claim that additional interactions between the police and the general public does not lead to a greater amount of negative outcomes, then that already concedes that there would be additional interactions between suspects/criminals (who are a part of the general public) and therefore a greater amount of negative outcomes. If you are instead using the word outcomes in a holistic sense then you are avoiding my point entirely, since the potential for an individual suspect to be rehabilitated decreases when they are subject to a risky encounter with law enforcement rather than a low risk encounter with a social worker. You haven't poked a hole in anything, you just keep making claims without any follow up or justification. You are welcome to start trying. Please bring out the fat crayons, my inferior brain needs all of the help it can get to read your mind because you're too lazy to explain yourself properly.
  24. Are you seriously claiming that additional interactions between suspects/criminals and police does not lead to a greater amount of negative outcomes for the suspects/criminals? That's like claiming that additional interactions between wolves and deer does not lead to a greater amount of negative outcomes for the deer. It's just immediately wrong. The police are there to enforce the law. They aren't there to be the suspect's best buddy therapist and help them get their life back on track. That's what social workers do, but social workers won't protect your property. The entire premise of the "defund the police" movement is that in some cases social workers should be sent to a situation rather than police officers, precisely because it is anticipated that sending officers increases the likelihood of a negative outcome. I am not saying that I agree with the movement, since I value the protection of property, but it is the fundamental premise of the entire debate that the country is having right now. Your refusal to acknowledge that premise puts you at odds with most of the political left in the US at the moment, and you don't seem to care much about protecting property either which puts you at odds with the political right. So you just have a completely odd position which makes little sense.
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