swansont

He was probably worse, since his influence means many details were obscured. He was wealthy, so he didn’t have to. He got others to do the equivalent, and deliver victims to him. If we found that Jeffrey Dahmer was nice to some people, does that mean he wasn’t a serial killer?

You have a previous thread on package voting and alleged authoritarianism, which looped back to your thread on referendum voting. I’m not sure how this is anything new, which makes it soapboxing, and suggests it should be locked. You can discuss those details in the existing threads. What is your definition of authoritarianism? Because there seems to be a disconnect here. Authoritarianism is about power vested in a leader or single group, with little accountability. Your beef seems to be with the fact that multiple viewpoints exist on multiple topics, and to some extent these topics are independent, so there a lot of permutations of pro vs con. That’s an issue of choice, which requires compromise (as CharonY points out) and doesn’t have much of anything to do with accountability.

What evidence do you have to support the idea? QM did not apply before life existed? Wave functions are how we describe QM. They do not physically exist.

“Astronomers have watched a dying star fail to explode as a supernova, instead collapsing into a black hole. The remarkable sighting is the most complete observational record ever made of a star's transformation into a black hole, allowing astronomers to construct a comprehensive physical picture of the process. … The discovery will help explain why some massive stars turn into black holes when they die, while others don't.” https://phys.org/news/2026-02-supernova-clearest-view-star-collapsing.html

They’re doing it elsewhere (e.g. health), so it’s not really a surprise

You haven’t presented a model. You have one equation, which is unenlightening - that a rate has units of 1/time. One can’t really do much with it. What specific prediction can you make, and how is the idea testable?

How much quantum mechanics and relativity have you used in your career as an engineer?

“The new study has been published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS). It challenges the leading theory that Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), a proposed black hole at the heart of our galaxy, is responsible for the observed orbits of a group of stars, known as the S-stars, which whip around at tremendous speeds of up to a few thousand kilometres per second. The international team of researchers have instead put forward an alternative idea – that a specific type of dark matter made up of fermions, or light subatomic particles, can create a unique cosmic structure that also fits with what we know about the Milky Way's core.” https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/research-highlights/dark-matter-not-black-hole-could-power-milky-ways-heart

Related to the recent solar and wind capacity news, but a notable contribution from a decline in cement production “growth in energy storage capacity and clean-power output topped the increases in peak and total electricity demand, respectively” https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-have-now-been-flat-or-falling-for-21-months/

Indeed, it’s why supervisors are forbidden from relationships with subordinates in the workplace, and similarly with other positions of authority (e.g. teacher-student); there’s no true ability to consent, even when one is an adult. DARVO manipulation in action here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO

Yes. The “we met for coffee to discuss funding when he was visiting NY” crowd is not drawing fire from what I can see. That’s not social interaction. It’s the ones who were spending a lot of time interacting with him and defended him and/or lied about the extent of their association that are the big targets. Musk, Gates, and a few other big shots in tech. Krauss. There was an email from a prof recommending a woman and the exchange included a physical description and an insinuation that she’d be to Epstein’s liking. Creepy stuff.

Yes pumped storage needs two reservoirs - where do you put the upper one? Desalination plants generally process less than a million cubic meters per day while pumped storage plants are generally much larger than that. The biggest saltwater pumped-storage plant is a 240 MW tidal generation facility. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity “the 240 MW Rance tidal power station in France can partially work as a pumped-storage station. When high tides occur at off-peak hours, the turbines can be used to pump more seawater into the reservoir than the high tide would have naturally brought in. It is the only large-scale power plant of its kind.” So yes, you can do it, but basically nobody does at large scale.

Again, I don’t think his association with consenting adults is what is upsetting to most. I think it’s informative to look at the conviction of his literal partner in crime, which happened when Epstein could no longer exert influence over the system https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/ghislaine-maxwell-sentenced-20-years-prison-conspiring-jeffrey-epstein-sexually-abuse “GHISLANE MAXWELL was sentenced today in Manhattan federal court by United States Circuit Judge Alison J. Nathan to 240 months in prison for her role in a scheme to sexual exploit and abuse multiple minor girls with Jeffrey Epstein over the course of a decade” “From at least 1994, up to and including in or about 2004, GHISLAINE MAXWELL assisted, facilitated, and participated in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of minor girls by, among other things, helping Epstein to recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse victims known to MAXWELL and Epstein to be under the age of 18. The victims were as young as 14 years old when they were groomed and abused by MAXWELL and Epstein, both of whom knew that their victims were in fact minors” We know this continued past 2004. There is the question of the number of crimes where could they not get people to testify or otherwise gather enough evidence for conviction. Maxwell continues to take the fifth when questioned, which buttresses the idea that there are more crimes not covered by her conviction. (she can’t possibly incriminate herself for the crimes for which she was convicted).

Not prostitutes. Girls. Not consenting adults. The concern is that these people continued to associate with him after he was convicted of his crimes, knowing they were more extensive than his sentence indicated because he got a sweetheart deal. Socializing with a serial rapist didn’t bother them, which is an indicator for creepiness for some. If it was just a predilection for adult prostitutes I don’t think people would have nearly as much of a problem.

Not sure where momentum entered the discussion. The relevant variables are mass (or weight) and height. The limit of extractable energy is mgh if it’s a static source. No, but it needs to then be a dedicated saltwater system that draws from and drains to the ocean. People are going to be perturbed if saltwater drains into their freshwater sources, which means leaks are more problematic. Corrosion means it’s probably got a shorter lifetime and more expensive, and the pipes need to go somewhere