TheVat

I guess I was trying to ask, with my limited physics, if it could be an intrinsic property at the smaller scale which is just masked by the gravitational attraction of local inhomogeneous clumps so it's only noticeable at the largest scale. Maybe it doesn't make sense outside of QFT? Can zero point energy be the cosmological constant?

A boy stood on the burning decks, mumbling a crust of clotted flecks, an oesophagus lofted to fungible heights, expels a conundrum in bright purple tights, a brother now fits in a microwave dish, though adding galoshes makes it a squish.

I was thinking of dark energy theory, where expansion and vacuum energy are related. As in this... https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-plasma-physics/article/abs/dark-energy-and-dark-matter-as-due-to-zero-point-energy/DFAC4A98338A39DDFD72DA85A6B09F06 An attempt is made to explain dark energy and dark matter of the expanding universe in terms of the zero point vacuum energy. This analysis is mainly limited to later stages of an observable nearly flat universe. It is based on a revised formulation of the spectral distribution of the zero point energy, for an ensemble in a defined statistical equilibrium having finite total energy density. The steady and dynamic states are studied for a spherical cloud of zero point energy photons. The ‘antigravitational’ force due to its pressure gradient then represents dark energy, and its gravitational force due to the energy density represents dark matter. Four fundamental results come out of the theory. First, the lack of emitted radiation becomes reconcilable with the concepts of dark energy and dark matter. Second, the crucial coincidence problem of equal orders of magnitude of mass density and vacuum energy density cannot be explained by the cosmological constant, but is resolved by the present variable concepts, which originate from the same photon gas balance. Third, the present approach becomes reconcilable with cosmical dimensions and with the radius of the observable universe. Fourth, the deduced acceleration of the expansion agrees with the observed one. In addition, mass polarity of a generalized gravitation law for matter and antimatter is proposed as a source of dark flow.

Good question. How would a vacuum energy model of expansion work with emergentism? Though near objects are gravitationally bound, a vacuum energy still weakly repels and so all objects are slightly larger than they would be. Then expansion would be intrinsic? So not emergent?

Haha. When there is a discussion of absurdity, it is hard not to mention Monty Python. That phrase is almost a shibboleth for Python fans.

Haha! A little embarrassed to admit how much fun I had with this webpage... https://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/hovercraft.htm

Oh, right, Google wouldn't recognize a lot of creole languages. Owat eyfule amei = Oh what a fool am I. And here is a phrase in Morse Code.... -- -.-- / .... --- ...- . .-. -.-. .-. .- ..-. - / .. ... / ..-. ..- .-.. .-.. / --- ..-. / . . .-.. ... Cheers.

I thought that might be the case. Owat eyfule amei.

Hvorfor? å være absurd? C'est la navet! You just broke Google Translate. 😀

Plus one, mainly for a clear explanation but also because this (below) on frequency doubling is one of the coolest things I've learned here. I already sense that frequency doubling of an IR laser makes a green beam is going to become a staple of my cocktail party chatter. (an excellent reason to avoid cocktail parties)

Sourdough, the slow fermented kind has always been the least problem bread for me, and very tasty. The fermentation also breaks down starches that are difficult for some guts to digest, referred to as FODMAP. The Dutch also like to use emmer wheat, which is an ancient grain quite low in gluten and more tolerated by people with gluten sensitivity.

Amen. It's hard to describe the stark improvement I found eliminating wheat from my diet. And most "multigrain" breads are still at least fifty percent white flour, which is crap. I like whole rolled oats, which are one of those foods which is exactly what it says it is. And no brain-fogging, nap-inducing gluten. I would not be surprised if future research discovered that half the population has NCGI, non-coeliac gluten intolerance.

Agree. The alt-azimuth mount makes it useless at higher mag or photos, as you noted, but it's a great "light bucket" (what we called it, back in my astronomy club days, for its large aperture) for low mag viewing. As @Genady mentioned there are also binoculars, for a wide field, ultimate portability. And their chromatic aberration isn't a problem unless they are very cheap. If you want to do real astronomy, be sure and get an equatorial mount. That has a clock drive which follows the stars in their apparent motion. For planets, you would do well with the Dobson or a Maksutov or some other Cassegrain, because planets benefit from the larger aperture. For deep-space objects, it's hard to beat the classic Newtonian - good price, too.

C'est la vie, C'est la guerre, C'est la pomme de terre! "what makes something absurd"

Made me think of Kiki Rockwell, with her witch/folk stuff. And weirdly, though the vibe is somewhat different, Wet Leg. Here's a rather whimsical track from these Isle of Wightians... Great voices, great sense of humor. See also All Day Long on the Chaise Longue, or Ur Mum.

I think the previous sentence to the one you quoted made clear I wasn't comparing casino gambling to other forms of wagering. I was, somewhat whimsically, saying that drugs do deliver on at least some of their promise of making you feel better (hideous as the cost can be). Sorry if my tone, or comparison, was unclear.

Maybe not a wildcard, but researchers into the big drop in average sperm counts debate if it could also be a factor at some point. Sorta depends on what extrapolations from that downward curve could be made. And how your mentioned reproductive technology wildcard is played. There is an apparent redundancy built into a system of millions of little swimmers. (as well as that delightful redundancy in the standard method of sharing them)

Well, ok then. If you were making a point about semantics I wish you had just said so, goddamit. 😀 I just figure a good faith discussion of how to reduce population is predicated on the assumption it is via lower birth rates achieved through various carrots and sticks. One stick that wouldn't be as coercive would be just to eliminate tax credits if you have more than, say, three children. That just says, we're not stopping you but bear in mind you are putting a disproportionate burden on various social infrastructures and resources. So you need to help pay for that. As others point out, doing this globally is not possible at the moment, as various ideologies and creeds of growth prevail, especially the mostly unexamined phobia that economic shrinkage is a fate worse than death.

Holy feck, did you just troll me? Dude, no one who advocates a set population for the planet is advocating people dying. This is about family planning and a demographic shift to smaller families being a viable choice and one that is rewarded. i.e. fewer new people being born. I'll thank you also to skip the forced sterilization strawman, too.

Say that we do get to a more stable, egalitarian, nonsexist, eco-aware and carbon-neutral planetary civilization. Call it the Thunbergian Era.* In terms of quality of life and elbow room, what would people here see as a good population size? Maybe most would say it's impossible to determine. Sierra Club style nature nuts might offer a lower figure where lots of Earth is a wild preserve and Yosemite is never crowded. People with rare niche hobbies might want more, to increase odds of finding fellowship. Some people would just shrug and say things like I want the beach less crowded on Sundays so it's easier to fly kites. My guess is a lot of preferences relate to how popularion is distributed rather than numerical totals. We could have three billion people, a figure that seems to me a nice middle path, but that could be very differently distributed. A decentralized population with autonomous houses could sprawl across the countryside, or a very urbanized population could concentrate in dense clusters of soaring towers surrounded by immense green spaces. Or other options between those polarities. That distribution is somewhat tied to wealth of nations and complicated social trends. * you can call it something else, Mack. 🙂

Two persistent misunderstandings block a clear view of the problem, one that advocacy for population decrease is some Right-Wing wolf in sheep's clothing, and is only aimed at brown people. I've tried to dispel that one. The other is that all land is equal and that people can live on any dry surface. Well, maybe very affluent people, who can hire a team of engineers and have a million dollars on hand. The rest of us need to keep a distance from seashores, flood plains, dust storms, swamps, unstable slopes, dry lands which lack a sustainable aquifer, fire-prone woodlands, etc. It's surprising how little of Earth s land area is really suited for human habitation. A good point, the elimination of extended family homes is one of the hallmarks of the over-consuming USA. Dad was 500 miles away, so I had to buy an extension ladder instead of us just sharing one with him. We also largely eliminated the boarding house, a handy setup for single people that pooled resources nicely and provided a homecooked meal.

Saying it's relevant is not to say reducing population is THE solution, only that it may be part of a suite of solutions that protect arable land, wetlands, beaches, parks, wilderness preserves, watersheds, airsheds, oceans, etc which are vital to having a nurturing planet. Working against this common sense suite of solutions are toxic ideologies and religious beliefs, which sometimes foster a notion that my group is special and chosen and we should have large families and lots of room to push out the less-special people. And, allied with that, is the anthropocentric view that we can also push out other species who just don't matter as much. One reason I avoid trying to define a global carrying capacity is that quality of life is not easily rendered in numbers and constant over all bioregions. Phoenix is already overpopulated at a couple million, and is already massively dependent on resources imported from other areas, and struggling grimly to find enough water. The Mekong delta OTOH could probably handle more people, with its society having a more low-carbon lifestyle and immense biological richness and fecundity all around. That said, I haven't heard of too many places where ordinary people (not local business and tourism boosters) are crying dear god we just need more people! I live in a relatively sparsely populated place, and yet even here there has been a decline in many metrics of livability. My city is already prone to spells of poor air quality due to the bowl effect of hills, and the metro is a mere 120,000 people. It is dirtier, less walkable, the creek for which the town is named is threatened by runoff, traffic is ugly, people are less friendly, housing prices are insane and there is the unmistakable impression that if we could just stop growing for one freaking minute and catch our collective breath then we might be able to catch up on some of these problems. It is just not normal and healthy for human civilization to go from 3 billion people to 8 billion in less than my lifetime. Yes. I too have pointed this out in other threads. Western nations spread their rapacious level of consumption, both by stripmining resources of developing countries, and by selling a Western lifestyle to them. And places where population increase is rapid do then experience a double-barrelled blast of social and ecological problems. And there is the sad paradox of bringing in vaccines and reducing child mortality and better crop yields....all supposed to improve life...and then you have a disruptive rapid surge in population that later struggles to sustain itself when drought years come. This happened in the USA too, when too many people came in and grew crops on land really only suited for grazing sheep or cattle. The result was an eco disaster called the Dust Bowl. Millions of Californians are descended from the torrent of refugees it created.

I think resources can be inequitably distributed, and some groups are big on overconsumption, but that doesn't mean that we aren't overpopulating too. Population and quality of life are connected, even if pointing this out can be misused for political purposes.

What's especially worrisome is that as pop increases, other trends mean arable land is decreasing and habitable land also decreasing. And, to make a trifecta of awful, fisheries are being depleted, and with more seafood becoming too contaminated to eat. Some of the crowded southern border of the US is related to eco-degradation in Central America, with regions that are no longer sustaining those populations. This onslaught of desperate refugees from the tropics is being repeated all around the world. I would not mind if Pope Francis, an unusually progressive pontiff, were to speak up on the matter. Rhythm method is not going to cut it.