CharonY

It is also noteworthy that it would be a bit of a mistake to see cohesive strategies everywhere in the Trump administration. There are of course folks who do have a plan, such as Vought and Miller. But as Trump is too lazy (or dumb) to follow all that, his public remarks have been used repeatedly in court to undermine arguments of government lawyers in court. I think Trump is used to pick and choose whatever reality he fancies at any given point but at least so far that doesn't really work in court. I may be wrong, but isn't KJW's point that foreign relations is a clear area where the constitutions gives the federal government the primary power limits state powers? I.e. the idea of declaring something relevant to foreign relations (or anything else primarily in the fed's jurisdiction) would be a means to move jurisdiction and thereby effectively curtailing state powers. I do not really see a realistic path to that. But then, since Trump mentioned it, I think it is a fair bet that there are folks strategizing about that.

But I fear that they also don't particularly care. After all, pretty much everyone during his first administration who exited have remarked how little Trump understands basic concepts, including foreign relations. And of course, the first few weeks of the second Trump administration made it exceedingly clear. I am also pretty sure that the pentagon was understood what is happening, with Hegseth as the Secretary of Defense. The pentagon is not really outward-facing and there have been reports of levels of confusion and demoralization. Yet, clearly, there is no formal pushback, (as opposed to Trump 1.0) and it is not clear what would have to happen before there is.

This is not how markets work. China is free to buy from anywhere regardless of who else is buying. However, Russian oil got cheaper as others had stopped buying it, as we have established. This would have happened even if Europe for some reasons had reduced demand for oil.

I had a discussion recently with folks from health authorities who were testing a chatbot for patient interactions and diagnostics. It is specifically trained on medical data and what they wanted to use it for is initial interactions and preliminary diagnoses. I don't know the specific model they tested, but they did a comparative study with health care providers. The interesting bit is in the patient cohort, folks significantly preferred them over interactions with real family doctors. To a large degree because they didn't feel rushed and could chat at length regarding their issues. And on the diagnostic side, they outperformed humans, because they were able to pick up things that were not mentioned or missed by humans. That being said, I think medicine is a great place for AI, as in many cases the way a healthcare provider works is based on existing diagnoses and there is comparatively little room (or allowance) for creative assessments or trying out new ideas. I think there was one area where AI underperformed by a little bit, but I cannot recall what it was. It is possible that it was related to rare diseases, where overall detection was low to begin with. I thin there are a few things one could gleam from those tests (unfortunately the paper is not written yet). First is benefits to patient satisfaction. Even though it is virtual, the fact that things are at their pace and because AI has unlimited patience, they feel taking seriously. The second is that for routine things, they perform better, as they are less likely to dismiss things. For rare or very difficult diagnoses, it would depend a bit. On the human side, the variance is huge. Some specialist get to the right diagnosis, just because it happens to be in their wheelhouse. Also, in my experience, MDs with an active research program tend to be picking up non-regular things, as they are more used to think in an analytical way, as opposed to going through check lists. I had cases where I had to explain family doctors the etiology of certain diseases and their molecular mechanisms, because they either got it wrong or the references they used (in one case, wiki) was off. I assume an AI system (based on current capacities) will have less variance, but will more likely miss the outliers, though that can be tweaked, of course. But given the system in which healthcare currently operates, AI models are almost certainly to have serious impact here, including on the patient-facing side. Edit: On the diagnostic side the implementation is probably seamless, basically AI-enhanced tools with human oversight The main issue I see there is that these conveniences often lead to a drop in human capacity, especially as trust in the tools themselves increases. As those tools might not be static, it is unclear to me what happens if human capacity decreases.

Yes, though the Ukraine war did cause a surge in private PV installation, as energy prices shot up across much of Europe. Effects such as those likely make it harder to predict the effect on the broader energy grid and given the cost, could partially explain the hesitancy in converting/expanding the grid to accommodate broader solar use.

It is a bit like a news segment. And it has sparked some discussions so I don't see a reason to close it.

From what I remember, they strategically built infrastructure in parallel with building photovoltaic production and installation. They have specific challenges, including vast distances to cover. In one article they described the challenges that the most attractive area for renewable energy production (including solar) was in the West, whereas much of the energy consumption is in the East. From a quick google: So apparently they had a strategy of mixed large-scale production in the West and a scattering of decentralized grids elsewhere. They also upgraded their electrical system which was optimized for one-way delivery (as in the article regarding the Netherlands) to facilitate easier two-way generation, to account for the decentralized delivery. Likewise (and I don't know the specifics), they also upgraded much of their coal-power to be more flexible in power generation and they have heavily invested AI-based energy use forecasting to create a flexible energy generation model. Something similar is planned in Canada, where e.g. SMRs are used to supplement power needs. I think the broader point here is that there was a long-term plan in the background, that informed more than a decade in strategic investment to build this infrastructure up. Economic paper have also focused on how China built up market forces to incentivize this development (including certification programs for renewables, encouraging trans-provincial development and certificate trading. A lot of these things have actually been also been proposed and implemented in the West, but there have been policy changes that seem to complicate things. The final bit, and this is likely less acceptable in the more free-market oriented areas, is massive investments in innovation where they create a kind of artificial competing market (I think I read the term deathmatch or similar) to basically make the best case for massive state funding (which is one of the reasons for tariffs on Chinese PV). That being said, this situation seems to have led to overproduction (one of the dangers of this model). But again, the broader point is that renewable energy use was on the agenda for China for quite a while and they managed to continuously build on it from multiple angles over more than a decade.

I think there are multiple factors that one has to keep in mind. One is that the the adoption in Europe pre 2018 was fairly slow, in part caused by cost. After 2018 tariffs on Chinese solar were reduced contributing to massive acceleration. Another jump happened due to the energy crisis caused by Russia. A number of factors, including incentives phasing out have contributed to a slow down. But as noted, there have been quite a few criticisms how the rollout has lacked strategic investment in infrastructure. I think some reports have characterized that as a blind spot in the market approach to incentivize renewables. In contrast, from what I understand, China's rollout has been more deliberate with high levels of investment in grid, in parallel to incentives for the solar industry as a whole package. That being said, they came at other costs including the reliance on coal energy to enable the increase in the production of photovoltaic units, and so on.

If someone wrote a wiki on weaponized obtuseness, this post should be in it. a) repeating an unfounded claim does not make it true, especially if you ignore a whole discussion that spawned from it. b) let me think, what else could have happened in China in the last two decades? Was it the introduction of capitalism and massive growth? No, that would be against my narrative. Clearly, they have become much more authoritarian after the death of such liberal figures like Mao. Also, again you ignored examples like Russia.

Oh yes, I didn't meant that Europe is regressing (compared to the US). Rather, as you mentioned, there was a bit of a slowdown and that in spite of significant reduction in cost over the last years.

Not only US, Europe's push for solar also faltered, to some degree due to immense price pressure from China, but also other systemic issues. On the adoption side, once China became dominant, folks were hesitant to buy in and issued tariffs to protect their own companies, raising adoption prices in Western markets. While it might have been strategically prudent, it slowed the building of solar capacity.

It also depends a bit on how the various coefficients are calculated. E.g., income vs wealth-based calculations. Generally speaking, most indices show increase in both elements across most countries in the world. That being said, among Nordic countries Sweden has been dropping in the rankings, including compared to OECD. They still have a strong social net that limits some of the more extreme outcomes, though. Here is an article from a few years back https://oxfam.se/en/news/globalt-index-visar-sverige-samst-i-norden-pa-att-bekampa-ojamlikhet/ In various reports it was indicated that Norway is doing much better. I believe the Gini Index of Sweden is hovering above 30 while Norway is around 26-ish.

I don't see how that relates to democracies or to the thesis stated in OP. This is the overarching effect of capitalist economies and is usually amplified under authoritarian rule. There is a progressive point of view, which suggests that inequality might contribute to erosion of democracy but that is perhaps a different point. More importantly, the quote suggest and incredibly American-centric view, whereas the title of this thread is about Western countries, which are emphatically not the same. Using the Gini coefficient as a measure of inequality, the USA is somewhere at the top among high income countries, with much of Europe placing significantly lower. But as OP tends to mix up different thoughts almost randomly, it is really hard to tell what the overarching point is supposed to be. Is it to suggest that the US is inherently more authoritarian, than, say Germany, UK or France? And then are the Netherlands, Iceland and Norway even less so?

Well, obviously he didn't got crowned to God-Emperor. That is quite a loss.

Absolutely, and we have come up with none, as far as I can tell. The adage of it being the worst system except for every other one ever tried. One issue is that I think many of us still have the cold war thinking that authoritarianism will ultimately collapse on its own and that democracy will be the state that most will default to. And ultimately I am not so sure about that. Technocratic authoritarianism has shown to be frighteningly effective in keeping the population in check. I.e. my point is that democracy has its weaknesses, but because of that (not despite) it is important to keep improving and fighting for it. For sure. And also the free market thinking might put blinders on younger ones. The tech is not just a simple product, it has the double-whammy of changing elements of human nature as well as making some folks very rich, and hence powerful, who have then a vested interest in keeping things going that way.

But the issue is that in a democracy the people are the system. It cannot exist or safeguard itself without involving them. If they collectively decide to go for authoritarianism, there is (generally) no separate mechanism to prevent them from doing so. This is why democracy as a system cannot just use system defences to safeguard itself. It requires a constant from the population/voters to fight against authoritarianism. This, to a lesser degree is also true for authoritarian systems, which essentially would need to clamp down the desire for self-determination within the population. Yet here the mechanism would involve cutting out the people out of relevant parts of the system. Moreover, with modern technology the balance makes it easier for an authoritarian system to fight against democracy vs a democractic system fighting against authoritarianism.

The most artful thing of all that is that it gets treated as joke while being one of the most visible acts of bribery since.... well, with this administration I guess... Wednesday? Edit: my apologies. After reading the newspaper, it seems that I should have said Thursday (https://apnews.com/article/trump-treasury-irs-tax-records-e3a79e1bfdc94a663504754af80ce183?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=share)

In my mind, democracies inherently have a built-in weakness against authoritarianism as the key tenants includes freedoms that make can be exploited to move society towards authoritarianism. Examples include elements of the freedom of expression, which allowed social media to be used as a very powerful propaganda tool. This freedom cannot be eliminated as it would undermine the principles of democracy itself and is therefore (again, IMO) inherent to the system. Now, this is not to say that this not say that there isn't a compromise that we haven't found yet, to balance these elements. But it the weakness in itself cannot be fundamentally removed or fixed without undermining the system itself. That is why in my reading, democracy is a system that ultimately needs to constantly address this struggle to survive authoritarian overreach. Fully agreed. The issue is that those agencies were given wide-ranging powers (which have been soundly criticized when they were formed, as well as the Patriot act as a whole). However, they were mostly kept in check by the executive and congress. While they have clearly overstepped in some instances (as indicated by court rulings), much of what they are doing and which upsets people is, unfortunately, fully legal. And more power is handed to them via the supreme courts, which have expanded their abilities to deploy certain tactics, such as racial profiling, as long as they pretend it wasn't racial.

I don't think they are going rogue, they are doing as intended. I disagree somewhat. I think you are right regarding the intention of the system having accountability as well as checks and balances. However, when it comes to the rules, there are loop holes, intentional or not, that allows certain types of transgressions. For example, there are very few legal paths to hold federal law enforcement (or even state law enforcement). Qualified immunity in the US system is such an element. In essence, it provides government officials performing discretionary functions with immunity, unless the official 1) violated clearly established constitutional rights and 2) only if the those rights were clearly established at the time of the incident. Courts have increasingly narrowed those definitions making it exceedingly difficult to hold authorities accountable via the judicial system. Thus, it often becomes the discretion of the executive to create rules, protocols and other mechanisms to reign in the likelihood of government officials to overstep or to be hold accountable. This, in my mind then becomes a hidden lever that an authoritarian administration, such as the current one, can use in order to insulate itself from accountability. They may or may not breaking the rules as such, but first and foremost they are "just" breaking the norms. Of course, in other areas they are actively defying court orders, which adds another dimension to it but. But it also means that means to force the executive to follow laws or rules are weak (essentially the job of congress). Edit: the point I tried to make in a convoluted way is that the system has to have rules and accountability firmly established to ensure that rules are followed. Yet if there are weaknesses in it, they can be "hidden" as long as norms are followed, but can be ignored without triggering consequences under certain circumstances. Not sure whether that is clearer though, probably need another coffee or six. I think the perspective of OP is wrong though. It seems that they see imperfection in democracies the same as a fully autocratic system, which is basically just confusing a potential slippery slope with the end of the road. Fundamentally, any democratic system, in fact, any rules-based systems will have weaknesses as ensuring freedom for the population requires compromises. These weaknesses might or might be hidden, but they do need safeguarding to ensure that they will stop a slide towards illiberalism. There is an interesting book on that matter (the light that failed) which outlines why this is so difficult. One fitting quote that I heard from that author was something to the effect of: "the border between authoritarianism and democracy is the least protected border in the world." And each democracy has its owns strengths and weaknesses in protecting this border. But again, it is not like OP seems to make it out that there is none. The US system, in part due how historically it has been formed, puts a high premium on individualism as well as norms and conventions to as safeguards. The current administration demonstrates that this is not enough. Only the most explicit rights and laws are currently holding up in court and just barely so. Just another thought going back to OP: while one can be critical of the powers of rich folks, ultimately in a democracy the power still flows from the population. Autocracies work because ultimately folks let them. This is both, strength and weakness in a democracy. If too many folks are fine with autocracy, that is what is going to happen. But if there is enough resistance to those movements, these tendencies can be stopped or reversed, this in part is unfolding right now in Minnesota. But ultimately, democracy is not a settled system, it is a constant struggle for balance.

That is my broader point though, hidden authoritarianism can be exemplified by arbitrary application of rules to certain people. That is what we are seeing in the US, where ICE and border control seemingly arbitrarily accept or reject various levels of proof of citizenship. In a broader sense, this arbitrariness has always existed at borders as the agents there can legally deny you entry except when you are a citizen, I believe. I.e. you do not need a full-on gestapo moment, but there built-in vulnerabilities, even in not fully autocratic systems. The main difference in my mind is how these vulnerabilities are being exploited. After all, in the US in theory you always had to prove your legal status if you are not a citizen. But generally you wouldn't be stopped on a random basis. But it was always fully in their power to do so in public places. Edit: with regard to OP and this point here specifically, the broader issue is that authoritarianism is not binary. Even in an otherwise liberal (as in free) system, there are necessary restrictions as well as vulnerabilities. How free a given society is depends not only on whether the whole structure is authoritarian or not, but rather on how the many individual components, ranging from the bureaucracy, law enforcement, judiciary, but also voter decisions decide to run things and what restrictions and safeguards we put into place and how we decided to enforce those. The slide in authoritarianism in Weimar, but also many other countries in recent times was often not after a coup and a massive restructuring of the system. Instead, they are characterized by continuous undermining of safeguards on all levels. In the given example, offline paperwork would only provide benefits, if they are robust safeguards forcing for example law enforcement to accept them. Yet much of it still lies in the discretion of the officer. And again, in the US we can see how fast the discretion can change.

I mean, you could, but if there is malice involved, what they will say (and have been saying) is that they suspect it is fake and take you in anyway. I think my broader point is that the mechanism of compliance is largely irrelevant if there is malicious intent involved. I.e. if the system is inherently untrustworthy, any part of it becomes a liability and protections are merely illusion. It might help folks to sleep at night, but it won't offer objective protection.

I haven't read the mentioned papers so cannot comment on that, but I have been looking at the lit regarding blue light and to me it looks like that (again) popular messaging has taken a tidbit and overhyped it by a massive amount. There were initial studies showing that blue light had negative effects on eyestrain, focus and sleep. However, the effect size was fairly small. Since then follow-up using more sensitive methods (including EEG) have largely failed to replicate that effect at scale. Moreover, metastudies looking at e.g. use of blue-light filtering lenses basically found no impact eye strain measures. In other words, the link between blue light and eye health is not very strong based on current knowledge.

Generally speaking, the filter is not on the lens, but in front of the sensor. Modern CMOS (or CCD) sensors are able to capture IR light. But the capacity is directly dependent on the precise sensor and can vary a lot. Also, if you still want to take images, you still need an (IR permissive) filter, otherwise it tends to be a blurry mess. I just happen to have a brochure where you can see examples of the spectral response of some sensors and the impact of filters (not an endorsement of that company). https://www.hamamatsu.com/content/dam/hamamatsu-photonics/sites/documents/99_SALES_LIBRARY/ssd/image_sensor_kmpd0002e.pdf

There is a lot of contradicting information in lit, and it mostly depends on what you measure. The few things where most studies agree is that digital reading is different from paper, so lessons are not easily transferable. There are some studies on screen use, but the papers cover a lot of ground and include e.g. simulating driving and measures other than fatigue. A recent study has combined ambient lighting mode with screen color temperature and dark vs light mode. Generally speaking, they found that indicators of fatigue were higher when reading in light mode and with screen color temps in the lower (warmer) range. Other studies have looked at alertness and onscreen tasks it seemed that blue was advantageous for folks to find stuff effectively. Whether that plays into fatigue was not tested.

Offline papers are just as easily revoked as the respective administrations typically have broad powers about them. In that particular area I am more worried about the ability of powerful entities with access to sufficient computing power (and help of AI) to wholesale alter digital records, especially if more data is either being centralized or made online accessible. There is a more conspiratorial but increasingly possible extension of this thought to a general vulnerability to all digital records including video, photo, GPS and other information. The possibilities for creating unfalsifiable alternative realities are problematic, to say the least. The fact that this is happening with little to no oversight over companies as well as governmental institutions doesn't make it better.