CharonY

On 2/2/2026 at 8:57 PM, Mordred said:

It could also be argued there is no hard and fast truth in science. There is truth to the best of current understanding. Good example that everyone is familiar with in physics is Newtons laws of inertia. Everyone firmly believed the equations applied regardless of the measured objects inertia. Later findings showed its only valid for non relativistic inertia hence GR.

I also wonder why this thread is in politics.

I think the key element that is left out is that key to science is the self-correction element. It is not about absolute or truths, at all, but the idea that over time, things will be incrementally more accurate. As such, it is more about trust in the process, rather than trust in people.

Rather unfortunately, some folks do not realize that and focus on the persons instead.

I found aphantasia very interesting for the discussion of what we consider disorders or impairments in the mental realm. On its face, aphantasia seems like a deficiency in terms of what some claim is is mainly sensory imagination. Yet, in everyday life folks do not seem to be really affected by it.

7 minutes ago, TheVat said:

The details matter because Turnip steadfastly denied that they ever happened. His insistence of no influence from foreign powers weakens any later claims he might make. Civil unrest "carnage" or drug "invasions" are easier, and the red meat his followers are hooked on.

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.

9 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Even the RW leaning Roberts court has deferred to the doctrines of states rights - that's how we got Dobbs v Jackson, our SCOTUS ruling on abortion rights sent back to the states. Several conservative justices have made clear they view the Constitutional framework for states rights as sacred. Not even Turnip can intimidate them away from that. And a recent decision or two has affirmed that states retain control of their elections.

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.

4 hours ago, MigL said:

I would make the argument that D Trump, and members of his administration, have no clue about foreign relations, and I think the American electorate, members of Congress and the Senate are beginning to realize 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.

12 hours ago, Linkey said:

If Gemany bought less oil from SA, SA would sell its oil to China, so the China would stop buying the oil from Putin and this would stop the Putin's

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.

6 minutes ago, studiot said:

But I also note that China's economics was not disrupted by the Ukraine war like Europe's has been.

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.

17 minutes ago, studiot said:

As to strategic investment in infrastructure, what does that mean ?

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.

9 hours ago, Linkey said:

I have already written, that Europe is close to USSR: it has more equality, but less freedom.

There is indeed often some correlation between the authoritarianism and the equality: for example, in China there is a large middle class now. Maybe the explanation is that since China is a hightly authoritarian country, its rulers are not afraid of the middle class (while in the Western world the middle class could overthrow the ruling elites, because it has more civil rights).

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.

2 hours ago, swansont said:

It’s true that new EU solar has contracted slightly, but it still installed ~65GW of capacity each of the last 3 years. More of a flattening as compared to the US. ~400 GW of installed capacity at end of ‘25, while the US was at ~240GW at the end of ‘24, yet the US uses about twice as much. So the EU is pretty far ahead in this.

https://www.solarpowereurope.org/press-releases/new-report-eu-hits-2025-solar-target-but-market-contraction-puts-2030-goal-at-risk

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.

3 hours ago, swansont said:

(Makes the US position all the more painful, though the courts have reinstated some renewables projects)

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.

12 hours ago, npts2020 said:

I wonder how Sweden made the list. I have always been under the impression that all of the Scandinavian countries were more egalitarian than most of the rest of the world

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.

25 minutes ago, Linkey said:

https://kimgriest.medium.com/real-reason-the-american-middle-class-is-disappearing-901cb78ababf

So these 1% welthiest are the "nobles", while maybe the FED bankers are "monarchs".

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?

11 hours ago, TheVat said:

Thursday sounds about right. Keeping this in the humor track....so, about this:

Trump’s suit states that Littlejohn’s disclosures to the news organizations “caused reputational and financial harm to Plaintiffs and adversely impacted President Trump’s support among voters in the 2020 presidential election.”

Um, I thought Turnp WON 2020. That's what he has insisted for five years. If he actually won, then where's the adverse impact? 😉

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

4 hours ago, swansont said:

The unspoken issue is: what better system is there?

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.

4 hours ago, swansont said:

It’s not helped by having technologically unsophisticated geriatrics making the decisions about how to rein in the technology. The law is usually already playing catch-up, and that’s an additional handicap

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.

4 hours ago, swansont said:

People are going to try and game the system, regardless of the system that’s put in place. Blaming the system is a red herring, IMO, because the problem is inherent in any population of people.

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.

25 minutes ago, TheVat said:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jan/30/eggs-hats-unfettered-political-ambition-what-we-learned-melania-trump-documentary

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)

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Which underscores the distinction I was trying to make between whether it’s inherent in the system or if it can be fixed within the system

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.

2 hours ago, swansont said:

The OP seems to be based on (or possibly even actively promoting) poorly constructed propaganda, and proceeding under an unproven/unwarranted premise.

Fully agreed.

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

I was not clear on "they." Not individuals, I mean we have rogue agencies, which are sent outside the established constitutional and statutory guardrails of their original mandate and mission. Like all rogues, they wear the mantle of some singleminded principle, like "national security! Stop the invasion!" Essentially it's a rogue administration which is then subverting particular agencies. And it's easier to start with ones whose original mission is easily perverted and its members poorly trained and vetted.

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.

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

We are seeing enforcers who are allowed to go rogue, not accountable to local/state authorities or established protocols.

I don't think they are going rogue, they are doing as intended.

1 minute ago, swansont said:

It’s not hidden, though, and in light of the thread title, the “mechanism” is not built in to the system, but is coming about because the powers that be have decided not to follow the rules - not respecting rights and not holding transgressors accountable.

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.

9 hours ago, KJW said:

In the scenario you mentioned, if the Gestapo consider your physical ID to be fake in the absence of any evidence, then they were always going to take you into custody, and the ID becomes irrelevant.

9 hours ago, KJW said:

Bear in mind that this thread is about hidden authoritarianism. The scenario you mentioned seems to me to be about a full-blown dictatorship. But whereas the opening poster seems to be discussing the intrinsic limitations of a democratic system, I am focusing on the way technology is gradually encroaching on freedom and privacy.

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.

16 hours ago, KJW said:

At least with a physical ID, even if it is somehow revoked, the person is still in possession of that physical ID and can show it to someone who requests that ID be shown.

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.

11 minutes ago, Stephen001 said:

I'm wondering, why is this not mentioned ever in popular messaging on this topic? I know many people have taken to using blue light filters even during the daytime, because of the claims that it's not good for eye health, isn't that just increasing myopia risk, if the quoted passage is true? Or is evidence for this inhibition of myopia just not very strong?

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.

9 minutes ago, Externet said:

Hi. Many surveillance and phone and other cameras can be made to see infrared by removing their IR blocking filter in the lens.

Is sensitivity to thermal included when the filter is removed; or the sensor works only to a near-IR and thermal sensing is not 'near' ? What is a thermal camera spectrum ? ~12um ? Is any common canibalizable camera sensor that can be used for 'toy grade' thermal imaging ?

If you want, jump to time stamp 1:10 at --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YEvkOVCaNI

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