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swansont

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Everything posted by swansont

  1. Indeed. The idea that the president was behind all of the shenanigans (or that top WH officials were involved) was not offered up at the outset, it was a conclusion drawn after a bunch of evidence had been found.
  2. Perhaps it’s because maybe most people don’t have integrated home security systems that control the smoke detector. You are implying that this is (nearly) universal. Consider that it’s not. That you are the outlier, not the typical.
  3. Context matters. “Conspiracy theory” is often used when there is no actual evidence of a conspiracy, yet one must exist in order to account whatever coverup is allegedly happening. As opposed to actual conspiracies, where you hypothesize connections and then go out and find evidence of them, and don’t actually refer to them as conspiracy theories. I concur - you need some examples of these absurdities being called conspiracy theories. I think it’s absurd to use made-up notation like “e.x.” but it’s not a conspiracy theory unless I e.g. (<— a legit abbreviation) say it’s a freemason plot to take over the world.
  4. You said “turn the other cheek” was not a moral argument, though. And why does a moral stance require a reasonable argument? Who decides if it’s reasonable? Someone who doesn’t share that moral stance? Is the view that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind a “reasonable” argument?
  5. So when you claim that “Most atheists only believe in the theory of evolution (whichever version of the theory they're coming from) because they were taught and indoctrinated to believe it” this is not based upon any evidence. It’s just a premise you offer to bootstrap an argument. The thing is, you could replace “evolution” with other science theories and make the same claims you do. Most people who understand a little physics are not actual physicists. These people wouldn’t have come up with Newtonian gravity on their own, either. So what? But it’s harder to argue that they do this to “support their atheistic stance” since Newtonian gravity isn’t seen as being in stark contrast to the Bible. Same goes for laws of motion, thermodynamics, E&M. You don’t need to come up with a concept to be able to understand the concept. This whole thing reeks of bad faith. You need to do better, starting with not trying this “end run” tactic of stating some purported fact that is something you’ve made up.
  6. And nobody else is allowed to?
  7. swansont replied to npts2020's topic in Ethics
    There is supposed to be competition that would limit prices.
  8. Is the Bible a source of morals for some, or not? Foolishness and morality are not the same thing.
  9. Um, what? We’ve seen many recent examples of companies price-gouging because they were prioritizing their own interests.
  10. Alternately, the moral argument could be “turn the other cheek” Anyway, I think the “proportional response” is about how others view your actions. Not how your target does, so it’s not about deterrence. It’s about not being labeled a pariah by nations that might be moved to take action.
  11. ! Moderator Note I don’t think that anything “discovered” while using a psychedelic drug counts as evidence; in any event you’d need independent observation. By some instrument, like a movie camera. Additionally, describing or advocating the use of an illegal substance is against rule 2.3
  12. You haven’t demonstrated any gap. It’s not at all clear to me what problem this is meant to solve.
  13. Then why is this called physics-logics? Seems to me it should be something that does physics.
  14. ! Moderator Note You should read them. Rule 2.7 starts with “Advertising and spam is prohibited. We don't mind if you put a link to your noncommercial site (e.g. a blog) in your signature and/or profile, but don't go around making threads to advertise it”
  15. Black holes are not “absolutely nothing” And yes, a BH is more dense than a neutron star. You would need evidence that this is the case. A model, and an observation that fit that model.
  16. It’’s called a black hole because no particles that have fallen inside can escape, not even light. So, like a hole, and also black. You would have to explain how a neutron structure could exist under such a large attraction. Black holes have little to with dark matter. Dark matter would fall into it, but the black hole behavior does not rely on dark matter; the theory that predicts black holes predates knowledge of dark matter
  17. You mentioned Oscar winners. There’s a lot of Hollywood in that. It doesn’t, and I didn’t claim it did. You were drawing a distinction, and I’m pointing out that these are not black and white. No, but some things are introduced as being the topic of discussion, while others aren’t.
  18. The bottom line for physics is being able to predict or explain behavior of some phenomenon, usually with a calculation, as applied to some experiment. What observed phenomenon does this apply to?
  19. But there are a lot of movies made every year and only a few win awards, and only a few of the actors, so that’s not representative. Do you really think that woman #2 or bar patron has a real investment in the movie? Or is it more like the Hollywood adage “work is work”? And it’s not like Hollywood actresses aren’t mistreated. (See e.g. Judy Garland) or that Hollywood doesn’t exploit people Morals and ethics aren’t the same thing, though.
  20. It occurs to me that the way they do this now is with animated movies and voice actors. But animation often involves some kind of element not easily replicated with live action, and there’s a suspension of disbelief- animated action can get away with things that look weird in a live action scenario, and I don’t think AI would look real enough (which is uncanny valley-related)
  21. swansont replied to MSC's topic in Politics
    It’s possible the letter was supposed to be discovered and distributed after the attempt (the authorities might not have disclosed all the details) but it assumes failure, that the intent wasn’t clear, and that he couldn’t clarify himself. Almost like this was intended to be a suicide-by-cop.
  22. But this -your thread- is allegedly about ethics, not good vs bad, or tasteful vs tasteless What is unethical about porn, in your view? Are you suggesting it’s unethical to listen to “bad” music?
  23. swansont replied to MSC's topic in Politics
    It seems odd that this was written months ago but put in the past tense, but then, there’s nothing normal going on here https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-charged-apparent-trump-plot-wrote-assassination-attempt-court-rcna172199
  24. The speculation in this thread is about a TOE. Not about any other topics. There will always be an uncertainty in any measurement. But it’s going to be quite small relative to the size of the earth.
  25. Fred Astaire’s widow licensed his likeness for a vacuum cleaner commercial but they were paid, so that’s not the same thing as using AI as a replacement; AI purveyors are notorious for scraping content without regard for copyright (or other rights) and have admitted they can’t be profitable if they have to pay for content. LLMs degrade pretty quickly if they are cannibalizing generated content.

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