npts2020

Of course it would take them having used anything that lasts that long but you have isotopes produced in a nuclear blast that would be detectable for that long. Plutonium-244, for example, has a half life of over 80 million years and is extremely rare naturally.

I might be opening a can of worms but, Seth using maths to show his point got me to thinking about if a "fact" could be not true or are all"facts" simply contingent on language and context? For example, it is pretty self-evident that 1 + 1 = 2 but any computer programmer can tell you that 1 + 1 = 10 can also be true. Another example might be "the sun is shining", which is always true but if it is in the context of being raining or nighttime could easily be false

Seems to me if this had ever happened, it would leave a mark worldwide that could be found in nearly any layer of sedimentation from that time. Pretty interesting article, tho, and gives a pretty clear process for how and what to look for.

First of all, the Earth's wobble is well documented and it is not because it (or any object with mass) is "unwinding" from anything with its spin. Every free object in the universe has some amount of "spin" relative to other objects. The only reason you don't spin yourself is because you are attached to the Earth's gravitational field and spin with it. And finally, you do realize that an Atwood machine is an idealized thought experiment, like a Carnot engine, that cannot be achieved in real life but is used to compare the efficiency of anything in real life to what should be the ideal. There are a host of reasons why the ideal can't quite ever be reached but that is a whole other discussion.

I am not arguing that any particular mathematical (or other) statement is true or not and, in fact, accept their veracity and usefulness because they are true. What I would argue, however, is that those mathematical statements are, at best, a small part of truth. Kind of like being able to see only the tip of Mona Lisa's nose. Yes, it is Mona Lisa but with such a small piece of it visible, one would be unlikely to discern what the rest of the portrait (truth?) looks like without more pieces (facts?). What you are seeming to say is "facts are truth". What I would say is "facts are true by definition but any particular one is only a small piece of "truth", which is much wider (possibly infinite) in scope.

It is factual in our commonly used base 10 system so is true in that sense. Are you also claiming it is the entirety of truth, even in just that base 10 system?

Well according to Wikipedia, the price of a new 1910 model T Ford was $780 and by 1924 the cost had been reduced to $290. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T I'm sure mass production wasn't the only factor but cars were also not the only product price that was affected by mass production.

I don't agree that you can even compare a car from 1984 with one today to prove your claim. To begin with, by 1984 mass production had been widely implemented in virtually every industry that produces goods for at least half a century so savings in production and sale should have been already been baked in by that time. Leaving aside the fact the model T is a very different animal from cars built 70+ years later, a fairer comparison would be a model T in relation to the cars that came before it. Whether it has had greater impact than computer tech or not is certainly debatable and I am not making a claim either way because I don't have the time and wherewithal to do all of the research required for coming up with a definitive answer. It was merely a mention of a topic I hadn't seen discussed yet in a subject I found interesting.

I think mass production is pretty similar. Automobiles were largely a rich man's toy until Henry Ford started mass producing them and tractors took over farms within a couple years of Ford beginning to produce them on an assembly line.

How Trump Can Achieve the Victory of Western Democracies He could start by stopping trying to limit democracy in his own country

I am a little surprised to see the pushback being as strong and speedy as it has been. Great to see, tho, even if those pushing back are likely doing so more to maintain their own power and status than for any concern about privatization or "spoiling" the game.

IMO the notion of poverty comes from expectation. The expectation of most the US is much higher than that of where most of the rest of the world lives, so what is considered poverty here is pretty well off in much of the rest of the world. Is there any objective minimum standard of living that can be applied worldwide? Some of the things I would consider to be in a minimum standard of living would be; food, housing, health care, and education. Are there others?

IMO the biggest part of the problem is the widespread acting as if everything in life should be digitized and assuming there is no practical limit to storage.

In the case of Utah most of the available water during a large part of the year is underground, which is generally all potable. Data centers CAN use a closed loop system and generate energy through means that don't require water usage. The problem is those are more expensive than just buying up all of a cheap resource (especially one like water which is probably way undervalued) and using it. It is almost always cheaper to make a mess and leave it than it is to clean it up or keep from making that mess to begin with.

True, (if you discount the possibility of a half egg from a baker's dozen--thanks iNow 🙂) but that is an infinitesimally small piece of the facts required to describe reality IMO.

This is where we disagree. I think absolute truth demands absolute accuracy, hence the reason I see absolute truth as possibly being unattainable by humans. Making things work in engineering and other applications doesn't generally require perfection, just being close enough that things turn out the same every time. In manufacturing that's why there are +/- specs for quality control, your car or tube of toothpaste isn't exactly the same as all of the others made like it but close enough that one can't tell the difference without using extreme (beyond your senses) means to do so. It is the same with reality/truth no two people have exactly the same view of it but the more we agree on what are actually "facts" the closer our perceptions of what reality is or should be.

That has happened to me a lot when hitchhiking, frequently I get offered money or food (which mostly isn't on my diet menu anyway). I have never gone on the road because I couldn't afford bus or train fare but people assume that you are doing it because you are destitute, especially if you are carrying camping equipment. That is one of the things that gives me hope that there are enough people in the world wanting to solve the problem posed in the OP that it can actually happen. IMO it comes down to learning how to motivate people through some other means than promise of extreme wealth or the threat of homelessness and starvation.

Of course, and that's why engineers and scientists can agree on reality enough to produce useful things. On a human scale this seems to work pretty well but you are familiar enough with physics and cosmology to know there is a vast amount we don't know and some of what we do know is changed on a pretty regular basis. The problem with defining reality (which I would equate with truth) becomes more acute as we delve into the microscopic and galactic realms because we see even less of it than what is discernible by our senses at "normal" scales. The fact (beginning to love that word) that humans discover things that seem to give us better explanations for this or that, makes me think that there is some ultimate or objective truth. The fact that we are STILL discovering things tells me we aren't there yet and might never get there.

I don't believe I have ever rejected the notion of objective reality, only that humans don't see enough of it for their subjective realities to perfectly align with it or even if we have correctly defined what objective reality is. Isn't that why there is such a thing as scientific discovery?

Poverty IMO is a relative term that is dependent on one's circumstances, a reason I have avoided using the word. The poorest person in the US would be considered pretty wealthy by Haitian standards but when the standard is keeping oneself from starving to death or being killed by a neighborhood gang, poverty is below what most people would consider an acceptable level of well-being. This discussion is isn't so much about money but allocation of resources for which money is simply a temporary representative in most circumstances. One of those other circumstances, I think, is education, especially about money and economics. The problem in the US is that only 2 parties are allowed to participate and both are bought off by moneyed interests. The difference between Democrats and Republicans is similar to the difference between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, pretty great on some few ancillary positions but in the end still capitalists/communists. Look how the mainstream Democratic Party did everything they could to oppose Mamdani and EVERY candidate he supported. Now they are saying that mainstream Americans are "not for socialism" without ever describing all of the socialist policies already in place or taking longer than a sound bite to talk about any specific policy.

I agree 100% with this. The problem is how to change it? No worries. I just felt it should be mentioned.

Not necessarily true, especially if one has no dependents. I know a few who are intentionally poor because they don't feel like working but that is admittedly a minority. I believe this to be the gist of the problem. In pure capitalism, that group gets shrunk down to one, the individual under consideration. Usually, that individual chooses to expand their group because it is recognized to be in his/her benefit to do so. I suppose the real question in the OP is how do we keep those with interest in the smallest groups from hoarding all of the world's resources?

Perhaps, but how much of that state are you/we able to observe and is/will it ever be 100%? I don't believe that it will ever be 100% and that it is the reason people have different "truths", often even when agreeing on the "facts". At present, I am more likely to believe that human view of "state of the present" is closer to 0% than 100%

Except for the part about being estranged from family, he pretty much describes how I grew up and puts a pretty good perspective on the problem posed in the OP. Unfortunately, he seems no closer to realizing any kind of solution than we have here. I wonder if it really boils down to just trying to change the minds of people who won't change them regardless of any evidence contrary to what they believe. Interestingly, I have done a fair amount of hitchhiking in the US (east to west a half dozen times, north to south a couple, and dozens of shorter trips) Only twice have I ever felt unsafe, once because of the driving and once because the guy was an armed lunatic I later found out had robbed a qiuckie-mart. In general, I have met very interesting people and most seem to like ideas such as feeding and housing everyone but I wonder how much my view of strangers is skewed by meeting only those willing to help to begin with? After all, the vast majority of people just drive on past. I would agree with the notion that culture pays a large part, there are definitely places where it is much easier or harder to get rides but I have been picked up by all kinds, from a barely running VW Beetle to very expensive luxury and sports cars to brand new 18 wheelers.

What I meant is, if the present ever became absolute truth, it wouldn't ever change and thus time would stand still. This is akin to Chairman Mao's writings about all motion being due to contradiction. This is why I personally don't believe in absolute truth. Like infinity, it is a useful concept but may not describe anything real. Like Schroedinger's cat which you don't know if it is dead or not until you look, a fact doesn't exist until it is far enough in the past to be shown true.