Moontanman

Could you arrange for your god to fix my car? the tranny is messed up. 

What is the purpose of life? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.

With apologies to Conan.

I once had a workshop I built in my attic and every time I would go up to do some work I noticed an old rocking chair that would be rocking as I turned to leave. The chair was in a difficult position to get to so I couldn't really get close enough to check it out but every time I turned to leave the attic that damn chair would begin to rock. To add to the eeriness of the situation that chair was an antique that belonged to a long dead relative who spent a lot of time rocking in that chair when she was alive. Finally one day after doing my best to turn quickly many many times to catch the apparition I finally figured out what was causing the chair to rock... My cat! My cat was following me into the attic sit in the chair and watch me and would always jump out of the chair as i turned to go. It would vanish down the stairs in the not so well lit part of the attic and leave the chair rocking. 

I was very glad to have figured that one out!     

5 hours ago, npts2020 said:

I feel much safer when no weapons are around.

So you've never had the shit kicked out of you by an unarmed man? 

If only dreams could come true! 

5 hours ago, dimreepr said:

TBH I'm not sure what NATO could have done if Ukraine was a member.

With just the little help Ukraine received from NATO, even though Ukraine was not a member, has allowed Ukraine to pretty much hand Russia it's proverbial Ass on a silver platter. With the full help of NATO Russia would have been repulsed fully... probably even denied the Donbas region of Ukraine it took in 2014.

In fact considering the poor showing of the Russian war machine so far NATO could have taken a considerable amount of actual Russian territory by now quite possibly taking the region between Ukraine and Kazakhstan with relative ease. 

In fact all things being considered without nuclear weapons Russia barely qualifies as more than a thorn in the side of Europe and its existence is a result of no one wanting the frozen tundra that makes up most of Russia. 

IMHO Russia's best bet to remain a viable nation would be to suck up to NATO as to become a source of natural resources possible even becoming part of NATO... instead Russia is doing its best to imitate a military threat to try and blackmail Europe into being Russia's bitch. Kinda like a Chihuahua trying to make a great Dane it's bitch. 

The time of warfare being used to dominate the world is over, this mind set is dead, somewhat like a zombie, now days the most effective way to insure internal peace and prosperity is by cooperation of nations and the real enemy is oligarchy using fascism to achieve internal control. IMHO! 

The Zombies have to be eliminated, the so called "conservative mindset", is little more than zombies trying to recreate the past of societies being run by the fear of various outdated ruling methods/monetary systems like communism, capitalism, theism, monarchies, or other oligarchies. 

These ruling systems are not just outdated they are toxic to human existence, yes small parts of some of these systems can be used to govern a region but none of them are viable for everyone in the long term.

Violent conflict must be allowed to die out and peaceful tolerance of those who are different but non violent must become who we are as a planetary civilization.       

What is the percentage of people the placebo effect actually works on? Seems a bit like faith healing to me, "as long as you believe" I've had the placebo effect tried on me once, I was hospitalized after a terrible boating accident. I was injured severely with broken bones and internal injuries, as lay in the hospital in extreme pain the doc wasn't comfortable giving me more pain meds so he conspired with my wife to pretend to give me a "new groundbreaking pain medicine" They gave me an injection with a large amount of theatrics and it had no effect at... I continued to be in extreme pain. I've never forget those six weeks in that hospital, makes my heart rate climb just thinking of it. BTW contrary to what movies and TV tell you people don't just lose consciousness when they are in extreme pain.   

5 hours ago, mistermack said:

You're still not getting it. Nobody is saying that there is no deterrent effect. The point is that it only has to fail ONCE to cause a catastrophe. It's a bit like taking a pill that restores hair loss, but can cause a fatal heart attack. 

You can take the pill, and show off your luxuriant hair if you like. It's a gamble. A smaller reward, gambled against a total catastrophe. You might be a winner, or not, like the guy using the tightrope over the grand canyon. 

The difference with nuclear, is that you're taking the wives and kids across the tightrope along with you.

So how would you propose that small nations prevent large aggressive nations from absorbing them into the larger nation? Surrender? That is the only option I see. This eventually results in a one world nation ripe for internal civil wars at the very least. How do we allow smaller countries to maintain their independence? 

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

They are both run by unstable deluded people for one thing, and that's enough on it's own. And the reason that I think they are less safe, is that a loony with a nuclear weapon is as much danger to themselves as anyone else. Dissent from within might spark off some drastic desperate actions. 

Another reason they are less safe is the obvious incentive for nervous neighbours to get their own cover, whether it be via an ally, or their own domestic bombs. 

yes but Putin couldn't intimidate his victims if he didn't have nukes, his regular military can't do shit. 

It's amazing how many people are aggressor nation apologists in this scenario. I wonder if it was their nation that was being invaded and taken over would they still be apologists for the aggressors? It's not like Putin or Hitler just wanted some breathing room to ride their horses. 

While I am not and would not be in favor of my country invading and taking over another nations territory I am in favor of my nation defending me against such actions. Yes I said "defending me" that is one big reason we live in nations. Our ancestors sought safety in numbers and i doubt they or we really think that aggression to take over someone else's territory is the same as defending their territory. 

Yes the world would (maybe) be a safer place if no nukes existed but I think it's arguable that nukes have prevented an all out WWIII type scenario from occurring since WWII,  Yes I know small wars have occured and continue to occur but large scale conflicts have been avoided and I think it's arguable that nukes have played a big part in this avoidance. Constant large scale conflicts could be a game changer for civilization and prevent any real world order. 

There have been several potential world wide conflict triggers since WWII but the threat of nukes being used has helped mitigate the scale and ferocity of these conflicts and provided a real reason for the parties involved to sue for peace. Is it a perfect system... no of course not... but trusting aggressor nations to keep to their own "side" has never worked and appeasement has only ever resulted in the appeased wanting more and more. 

Putin apologists are no better now than Hitler apologists were in preventing aggression that leads to widespread warfare. IMHO Putin intended to use his nukes to intimidate the world into allowing him to retake all of the "lost" appendages of the USSR and with an almost certain intent to take much more of the world under his "wing" to protect them from the peace and prosperity of being free nations. Putin/Russia/China/DPRK and other nations have motives that are simply not part of allowing a world where nations exist to peacefully coexist on the world's stage. 

I know the "West" isn't exactly pure as the driven snow in it's motives but at least actively invading and taking over other countries via warfare is at least officially illegal.  Large aggressor nations should be opposed by smaller nations combing their efforts to thwart the ambitions of larger aggressive nations.  

And yes i know my nation isn't innocent but we can be better and that can't happen if nations like russia can use the threat of nukes to straight up intimidate other nations into surrender. 

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

That's absolute rubbish. Where's your evidence? They could easily have retaken Georgia. But didn't. They stopped when they had control of areas that had mostly Russian populace, who had been under attack. And haven't done anything since. 

Crimea they re-took, but Ukraine and Crimea are a special case. Ukraine has historically been a region of Russia for centuries, and Crimea only became part of Ukraine as a meaningless gesture to Krushchev (a Ukrainian), on his birthday. About thirty years ago, Ukraine was given independence in a gesture of goodwill, and gave in return assurances that the Russian Black Sea Fleet would have continuous access to Sevastopol, and Ukraine would stay neutral. 

Since both of those commitments were going to be abandoned, the Russians could either roll over and take it, or do something. They chose the latter. 

Your claim that they intend to take back all of the former Soviet states is pure empty imagination, straight out of your own head.          

Actually Putin has said this but it doesn't really matter, they had no reason to take back anything. The countries involved are sovereign states and did not ask russia to invade them and kill their citizens.  

So you are a russian apologist? They have claimed they have a right to take back alaska, claim they were cheated by the US. How do you think that is going to go over? Ukraine is kicking their asses so badly they have resorted to making nuclear threats, anyone who trusts Russia and Putin is foolish. 

So we all just surrender to the Russians? Or the Chinese or whatever aggressive power decides to invade us and take over? The people of Finland didn't join NATO to prevent being vaporized they did it to prevent the Russians from invading them. There is safety in numbers, as for nukes... if everyone didn't have them I would be all about preventing anyone from getting them but at this time even minor players can get nukes, DPRK would seem to be a good example and if you believe Russia won't invade ask Ukraine. Russia has made it plain they intend to take back all of the Soviet former states and then some. And they are not shy about rattling around their nuclear capabilities. I'm not sure how you keep rogue states from using the threat of nukes to intimidate and even invade their neighbors but I am quite sure not having nukes to deter their use will not do it.    

Thanks guys, I think i see where my mind went wrong, thanks again. 

6 hours ago, Genady said:

Any instant transmission in one frame violates causality in other frame. There is no physical difference between frames.

5 hours ago, swansont said:

It would violate it just as explained in the video. Instantaneous is just the most extreme case of FTL.

In the video it shows as it's first example that an instantaneous signal does not violate causality... I've watched it over and over, he does say this and shows it by moving through the diagram to show that from the stand point of all three, the supernova, earth and vega that causality is not violated. I'll watch it yet again. I can't understand why only I am seeing this.  

In the cool worlds video starting at 10:45 to 13:40 only after he puts a STL ship on the diagram does causality violations show up. To me it seems that the STL ship sending a FTL message back to Earth causes the problem. If the STL ship couldn't send the message then causality would not be violated except the STL ship would be confused by the message if it could receive it. But if the STL ship could nether send or receive the FTL signal the causality would be preserved from from everyone's point of view.

Vega might receive the message before it could see the light but this info wouldn't be able to cause a time loop unless vega could send a signal to before the earth saw the nova. Am i making any sense here or am i just totally off the rails? The time paradox could be avoided by the moving ship not being able to send a FTL signal and would be totally avoided if the STL ship couldn't receive a FTL signal either. I see how this is contrived but the fact is can be contrived to not violate causality seems to indicate the FTL signal could be sent and received just not by small moving objects. 

All of a sudden I do see the problem and where I made my mistake but it doesn't seem completely impossible to send an FTL message and the size and maybe mass of the object sending the signal are at the crux of the issue.  I guess i am too much of an optimist to think this is impossible but the circumstances do seem to need to be rather "special".  

Just now, Genady said:

A transmission that is instantaneous in the Earth frame goes parallel to the Earth's space axis, the horizontal axis on the diagram.

A transmission that is instantaneous in the ship frame goes parallel to the ship's space axis, the slopped dashed line on the diagram.

So an instant transmission directly to vega from sol would not violate causality as is explained in the video but a instant transmission from a spacecraft would? 

5 hours ago, Trurl said:

I’m going to ruin the Matrix Trilogy like Amy ruined Indy Jones for Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory. She ask why Indy stopped the Germans will they opened up the Arc and died anyway.

 

So why did the machines in the Matrix use humans for batteries when they have the ability to reach the atmosphere and space. In the first movie Morpheus says we scorched the sky. ( A attempt to eliminate solar power?) But in the 3rd movie Neo and Trinity fly above the scorched sky.

 

So if machines don’t need us for batteries, why not destroy humans and we go to all the trouble of a simulated world?

 

I think the machines didn’t want to destroy their creators, the humans. Maybe the simulated world is to prevent wars between machines and humans? Maybe it means the human mind is superior to the machines? Maybe the machines are wondering if they have a soul? Maybe the machines know the human body is a machine and there should be similarities between machines and humans?

 

But why do machines fight for the Earth when they can inhabit all of space? And who governs the machines? Do the machines have free will?

 I have been told that the story was going to say the human brains were being used as part of the matrix AI's artificial brain then the changed it to being a battery. It is after all science fiction and in this case not particularly good science fiction... or at least not a very good premise.   

1 hour ago, swansont said:

It’s not even Lorentz transforms being shown. Just x vs ct.

Light travels at c, so it shows up as a 45 degree line (the null line). If you go slower it takes longer to go some distance x, so that will appear above (steeper). FTL would go below. Both cases are depicted - one for the FTL signal, one for the STL ship.

If you didn’t move it would show up as a vertical line - motion through time but not space.

The Lorentz transforms would show up if you rotated this to be in the ship’s frame.

43 minutes ago, Genady said:

It is fundamental for theories and tested in experiments and observations on all levels of physics: quantum field, standard model, high energy, astrophysics, gravitation, cosmology, etc. AFAIK, there is no hint that it will or might go away.

 

When they compare the order of events between the Earth frame and the ship's frame on the same diagram, they apply Lorentz transforms implicitly.

How does instantaneous transmission of a signal show up?  

1 hour ago, Genady said:

They are diagrammatic representations of Lorentz transformations, which connect spacetime coordinates between inertial frames moving relative to each other.

Sadly I guess this is just one more thing I'll have to accept on faith or at least my trust in others who know more than me... ok, no other choice I guess. I but I do have to ask is this final or could some other breakthrough in science like solving the connection between the quantum mechanics, relativity, and gravity bring about an understanding that makes this diagram obsolete? Is there any work in that direction at all?     

7 minutes ago, Genady said:

Straight from special relativity.

I do understand that and I understand Special Relativity came from Einstein but why or how does that result in this diagram?   

I have a question, where does the space diagram come from and how do we know it is an accurate representation of reality? The diagram seems to be the fly in the ointment, I know it is assumed to be accurate by the youtube poster and by everyone here but why? 

5 hours ago, swansont said:

I’m only responding to what you say when you quote me. That’s presumably a reply to me.

I'm sorry I thought I was quoting Genedy, my bad, and my bad for not understanding what the video is saying. It's been bothering me since I first watched it, I know what everyone says about FTL being time travel but for some reason I see something different in the diagram as explained by the guy in the video. I know what I am supposed to see but it looks quite different to me for some reason that I can't quite put my finger on. 

1 hour ago, MJ kihara said:

According to that diagram effect occur before cause for STL Ship ...look at it's space axis...I think if there is an error is from the way he obtained STL space axis it doesn't seem to be on the same space axis with Earth and Vegas.

I think in science progress is brought by discussions, arguments,reexaming what you know... accepting challenges... nothing like looking stupid.

The problem is my misperception, for some reason the diagram is tripping me up.