Phi for All

Moderator NoteThis is an unsupported assertion. If you state something like this, we expect you to elaborate. NOBODY here is going to simply take your word that you make a major change to your idea that makes it stronger. Please explain your new position without making up new terms, and perhaps go back to answer unanswered questions from other members.

But it's true. People give a downvote for many reasons, including when they don't like someone's tone. It could be because you make an assertion without support, or that you keep using the word "theory" to mean "guess", or that you avoided a previous question posed to you that was important to the poster. So, again, who are you to say that reason is irrelevant or "nothing"? And if you aren't here to argue, you're not here to do science. Arguments are the core of peer review, and while we're far from a formal process, we like to use the same successful methodology in our discussions.

This all feels wrong. I understand getting behind an idea, but this seems like an agenda that's being pushed on us. Who cares what Michael expects everybody to do? Seriously, this is a science discussion forum, and we tear EVERYTHING apart to get at the reasoning and meaning behind any concept. None of the comments have been off-topic, not a single one. And trying to claim the problem is our inability to understand so we must listen to Michael is loathsome to me. Make your case, spell it out, tell us what you want us to know and we can weigh in with our own knowledge, but you started off on the wrong foot by putting Michael on some kind of pedestal. I would love to learn something from this but it feels like a setup to sell a book or some gut-related products.

Hmmmm. They give mods the power to edit profiles, including pictures, in case something inappropriate is put there, but not the username. I suppose you're going to have to ask an Admin. This better be a really good name change for you to risk their ire (I'm kidding, nice folks, just haven't done this with the new software). Here's the link for messaging: https://scienceforums.net/staff/ Dave and Cap'n Refsmmat have been active lately, I'd start with one of them. Good luck, member formerly known as Sohan Lalwani!

Moderator NoteI don't know what this means, but it sounds like this thread needs to be closed so members can discuss your new... forgery?

Click on your icon at top right and choose Account Settings. On the left menu, choose Display Name. I think you get a certain number of changes (3?).

Moderator Note Discussion needs to be focused. We don't want a bunch of threads on this until there is a reason for it. Stay in this thread, the other one is closed.

We can't require something like that from a volunteer staff. People, including REs, get busy with other projects or study or life in general, or they just need a break. We wish Mordred well, and hope he can join us in discussion soon.

They work on chocolate biscuits too! I love anything that reduces my compulsive thumb and forefinger rinsing.

Excellent, thanks! We stopped buying Cheese Nips since orange cheesiness got such a bad name, and we need a new staff snack.

We shouldn't hire the ratcatcher who snuck all these rats in here in the first place.

Even something super simple, like spamban if links are posted in the first 5 posts would help a LOT. All of these are so obvious, it's hard to believe the software can't figure them out.

I already hate having to watch a YT video. We're a discussion forum, and I can't quote anything from it. I like reading, it keeps YOU honest. Videos make me think you're trying to earn views or you want to slip something shady past me. I also distrust your AI style. Again, it makes me think you're trying to pull a fast one with slick graphics and no meat whatsoever. Oh, and the model will follow later, always. You should also be drawing your own conclusions if you really understand it, not letting the language model interpret it's own mistakes.

As swansont said, where appropriate the math should be an easy way to support an idea, but there are other ways to model. Unfortunately, a lot of folks want us exposed to the whole idea at once so we take it in the way they imagine it. They don't like it when we take small bites and chew thoughtfully before replying, but that's really the only intellectually honest way to discuss ideas like this. Nobody wants to continue to scale the wall of text once they find flaws with the first few bricks. Fix these, please, and then we'll continue, thanks very much.

And if they can't provide these basics, they at least need to listen to criticism. Most of the references cited are bogus in my experience. If the poster hasn't bothered to check them, I think that's posting in bad faith. I've been rather stunned that nobody bothers to see if the LLM cited anything meaningful about their idea. The OPs should be excited to read mainstream material that supports them, but few seem to know what's in those citations.

Might take less time to do this than banning a bunch of accounts.

How can you tell a plumber from a chemist? Ask them to pronounce the word "unionized".

You're so welcome, I hope it revealed to you my attitudes towards generalizing me and deciding for me what I like.

I wanted you to answer a simple question I've posed. Your Truth isn't mine, so how can it be The Truth? You chose to post this instead, for which I have no reference or clarity. I don't think you argue in good faith, I think you ignore the tough questions. You have the day you deserve. You don't think Truth as an ideal is imposing a condition?! I suggest you look the word up, in a relevant context.

Redistribution assumes there are assets to be redistributed. That was sort of guaranteed when people earned a wage that covered more than the cost of living. It behooved the extremist capitalist to keep the worker/consumer relationship healthy so they could count on steady income from the working and middle classes. Now though, they don't seem to care much about that. Fuck consumer protections, force the middle and working classes to pay more in taxes while LOUDLY cheering to pay nothing yourself, and take away healthcare people already considered inadequate. I think the deportations are just another way to signal that they've militarized these capitalist efforts. They don't give a shit if you're brown or black, but their base does, and they're using that to mimic WWII Germany. It shouldn't be this hard to convince anybody that deporting central and south Americans is just the start, and those with wealth to confiscate who aren't willing to pay to stay will be next, especially if they don't get a chance to pay for due process. Jesus, TFG is talking about deporting citizens, not just those with no papers. Established citizens with generations of wealth, you don't see that as a grab for assets? It seems like another tool to me, perhaps one that will work better than those "far more effective" ways they've used before. Edit to add: Ah, the Secretary of Agriculture just figured it all out! The folks on Medicaid who need to show 80 hours of work are now expected to pick the crops going unpicked by deported migrant workers. Brooke Rollins is so happy the workforce will be 100% American!

It's not though. Your Truth isn't mine, so how can it be The Truth? I can bring in three other religion proponents who would all disagree with both of us. Is it true that the sun rises in the East every morning? No, not for some. Is it true that birds have wings that let them fly? Again, that's not true for some birds. I think any Truth you could tell me would involve you knowing something about your unknowable god. Zealotry ignores the ironic.

Maybe once, but it seems the gloves are off. We have masked men in military gear with questionable authority harassing ordinary citizens. We have politicians willing to grin in photo ops under headlines like "17 Million Americans Lose Health Insurance!" They behave as if the midterms won't take place. I think we may have reached some magic number only the oligarchs know and now they don't need consumers as long as they can grab up everything the consumers own. I'm still reeling from the idea that a lot of these corporations don't need people of color to make their sales forecasts, so they dropped their DEI programs VERY publicly. Then again, I thought it was good practice to pay people well for the job they do, so they can participate in their own economy, and everybody is happy. I didn't count on the fact that unhappy people work for less pay, don't complain as much, and spend even more money than happy people.

Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. Do any of your beliefs have the mountains of evidence and experiments supporting evolution? No, not even close. You have a feeling, but I know nothing has defeated the explanation I have so far. You are told how things are, I get to test them. Unfortunately, since you can't be bothered to study it, you'll never know how satisfying it is to TRUST the information you use, rather than hope it's correct, or have blind faith that it is. Science is testable. It's pretty easy. You avoid making conclusions you can't support. False is false, and it only takes one false to falsify any hypothesis. Just one and the idea doesn't work. Evidence that supports an hypothesis is treated as just that, support. Build enough support for an idea and if nothing can show that it's false, it becomes theory, the strongest explanations science has. And guess what? If you never call it true, you keep testing it, which either falsifies or strengthens the theory, but NEVER lets you simply assume it's "true" and move on. Rigor is a true friend of science, and the enemy of organized religions. The truth is NOT the opposite to something that's false. What you call truth is anything but, and is different for every person, so why even call it truth, or Truth with a capital T? Agreements works for me. One of the hallmarks of our species is our cooperative nature. No animals work together as well as we do on such scale. The best supported explanations of science are made EVEN STRONGER by consensus, which is arrived at through experimentation, which is based on the property of replication. I make an hypothesis, and to support it I devise an experiment to show what I mean, in a way that you or anybody else can duplicate exactly. We all run the same experiment, and if we all got the same results, we agree! How do you test your faith as rigorously? It's certainly not to be found in Bronze Age superstitions. You think this knowledge is some kind of bedrock, but you're willing to accept a supernatural explanation over what you can observe and test? You and I have a very different understanding of what bedrock is.

Grabbing assets is definitely part of the overall plan, since wealth is how they ultimately rank themselves, and how they remove others from the game. And more and more, the game seems to be aimed at total global collapse, leaving them holding as much as they can. Billionaire wealth rose by 121% in the last ten years, and it's clear they've got the stock market beat, since the best of the indexes only made around 77%. They're using their money to push the world to the brink, because they're ready for it, and will profit from all the chaos they're creating. Again, deportation just gives them another tool to take assets away from others to benefit themselves.

Science doesn't look for truth. Truth is too subjective, obviously, since you can believe what you believe is true and I can say it's not. Similarly, science in general isn't interested in "proof" either. Proofs are for maths and philosophy. Science looks for the best supported explanations. We CAN know what those are, as opposed to the "truth" from you or anyone else. Test an explanation mercilessly, examine every bit of evidence objectively, try to make it fail, assume it's wrong and try to show that. If it survives every test (only one fail is needed to show an explanation is false), then you can start trusting the explanation. You still can't say it's "true", but isn't trust an objective when it comes to knowledge?