NOTE: I offer a bit of a riff about the rarity of science - not just on Earth but possibly across the cosmos - at the end.
We are gadually trying to resume 'normal' life after our family suffered a 'disruption' in our living arrangements that has left us frazzled, with little time for blog updates. But things are a bit better now, so here is... a roundup of recent* space news and updates.
*(Well, 'recent' as of when these postings were actually drafted, in January, before we realized how crazy things were gonna get!)
== Heading for the moon ==
The landers contain scientific instruments to analyze the lunar regolith and magnetosphere, and set up a moon-based global navigation system, laying the groundwork for future lunar missions.
*As of March 30... well... any space junkies know how it went.
== Rogue planets all over! ==
One of the imperfectly insufficient (by itself) but substantially plausible theories for the Great Silence or “Fermi Paradox” (terrible name) is that interstellar travel… even at just 10% of light speed… is made very difficult by a minefield of hidden obstacles. No, I am not talking about my short story “Crystal Spheres.” But rather, these would be rogue planets that are untethered from stars. Every year we find they are more common in the galaxy.
For example, the infrared-sensitive Webb Telescope has found hundreds… down to Saturn size, just in the Orion Nebula, alone! Forty-two of them are in binary pairs. Wow. Implicit: billions of free-floating planets in the darkness between the stars.
One more incredible accomplishment by this fantastic instrument that this fantastic, scientific civilization created, in our steady and accelerating progress as apprentices in the Laboratory of Creation!
And yet some ignore the almost (or actual) theological significance of these incredible accomplishments (Robots roaming Mars! New human-made life forms! The new skills to save this beautiful world from … ourselves!) Okay, grad students in Creation’s Lab should respect those who clutch the Kindergarten text given to illiterate shepherds. Fine.
But those who wage all-out war vs science are clearly the real heretics, here.
See more incredible Webb Wonders! A way-kewl podcast from Fraser Cain.
== Monitoring Methane Emissions ==
Among the worst criminals alive today are those who are deliberately venting methane into the atmosphere. After GOP Congresses deliberately canceled or slashed the satellites to track down vents and Trump delayed them, we now, at last, have the policing tools. A satellite that measures methane leaks from oil and gas companies is set to start circulating the Earth 15 times a day next month. Google plans to have the data mapped by the end of the year for the whole world to see. (Thanks Sergey.)
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas estimated to be responsible for nearly a third of human-caused global warming. Scientists say slashing methane emissions is one of the fastest ways to slow the climate crisis because methane has 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over a decade. Though farming is the largest source of methane emissions from human activities, the energy sector is a close second. Oil, gas, and coal operations are thought to account for 40% of global methane emissions from human activities. The IEA says focusing on the energy sector should be a priority, in part because reducing methane leaks is cost-effective. Leaking gas can be captured and sold, and the technology to do that is relatively cheap.
Two new methane-detecting satellites - Carbon Mapper and MethaneSAT/EDF are now surveying the planet's climate. Because the Biden admin pushed through the quality methane satellites, the information will be so widely seen that members of the public will be able to act on their own - even despite a suborned EPA and Justice dept. A case where the right may be bitten by the 'market/consumer alternative to government' that they have long raved about.
== Dark comets, Dwarf galaxies - and Dark Matter ==
If I had followed my original scientific path – not lured away by the likes of you telling me to write more scifi – I’d likely have been in the mix of these studies of “dark comets,” whose orbits get significantly altered by gassy or dusty emissions, the way it happens with regular, icy comets, but without any visible signs of watery volatiles. “dark comets are different from another intermediary category between asteroids and comets, known as active asteroids, although there may be some overlap. Active asteroids are objects without ice that produce a cloud of dust around them, for a variety of reasons…”
Only the Dark Comets – and some include the odd cigar-shaped interstellar visitor ‘Oumuamua' – still have no firm explanation. Though some theories suggest emission of some volatile substance that doesn’t leave an ionized spectral trace.
Dark matter might not just be the silent partner of the universe—it could be the secret to understanding how supermassive black holes unite in their deadly dance.
Attempts to figure out dark matter have pinned hopes on the possibility that the dark… bits… whatever they might be… interact with regular matter in some way – even very slightly – beyond just gravity. At least that’s been the hope of particle physicists with their big machines. So far, the indicators suggest ‘only gravity.’ But this study of nearby anomalous dwarf galaxies hints there might be just a little something more.
== A couple of final notes about you-know-what ==
Science is - above all - about chasing down what's true about objective reality, even when the results conflict with your wishes or preconceptions.
This human-invented process has led to all of the benefits of enlightenment: unprecedented wealth, comfort, knowledge, safety and - yes - comparative peace... along withg our recent ambitions to overcome a myriad errors through cheerful exchange of criticism. Errors like prejudicial assumptions about whole classes of people. Errors like mismanaging a fragile planet.
Alas, science is a rare phenomenon. Rare across human history and -- given the way that evolution works -- probably rare across the universe. (My own top explanation for the Fermi Paradox, by the way.)
Across human history, science - and its ancillary arts like equality before law - almost never happened. Instead, people in most societies preferred stories. Incantations about the world, told by their parents and then by priests and by kings. I know about this, having had successful careers in both science and storytelling. I know the differences and the overlaps very well.
While romance and stories are essential to being human, they also can lead directly to horrors and Auschwitz, if they allow evil incantation-spewers to rile up whole populations toward hatred and cauterized hope.
Anyone who does not recognize what I just described as THE essential thing now happening across the globe is already lost to reason.
Moreover, if the recent trend - reverting human civilization back to 10,000 years of nescient rule by inheritance brats and chanting incantation spinners - does succeed at suppressing the rare era of science, then we'll truly have our answer for why no voices can be heard ac ross the cosmos.
98 comments:
The real threat to American science is its gravitation to concerns over diversity, equity, and inclusion rather than hard core scientific progress and talent. We have been sinking for decades. "Networking" and socialization is much easier than hard core science. Now easy socialization factors play a major role in personal advancement and decisions on who gets funding.
The good thing about the rogue planet 'minefield' theory is this. We are close to having the tech req'd to reach them (maybe light days instead of light years away) and to unlock the energy needed to make them livable (so no star req'd).
The bad thing is this. They make the Great Silence even more puzzling.
And yes, the JWST is changing everything.
"Implicit: billions of free-floating planets in the darkness between the stars."
Maybe trillions.
Some quick research and back of the envelope calcs show:
250,000,000,000 total stars in galaxy (average between estimates of 100 to 400 billion)
1,000 ly radius of galactic core
10,000,000 number of stars in galactic core
50,000 ly radius of galaxy
1,000 ly thickness of galaxy
7,853,981,633,974 ly^3 volume of galaxy
31.42 ly^3 / each stellar density (rough average with wide variance between galactic core, spiral arms and space between the spiral arms)
3.16 ly cube dimension (seems reasonable since Alpha Centauri is 4.2 ly away)
At an estimated 20 rogue planets per star we have the following tally for total numbers of various stellar objects:
5,000,000,000,000 rogue planets
100,000,000,000 brown dwarfs
1,000,000,000 neutron stars
100,000,000 black holes
10,000,000,000 4.00% white dwarfs
160,000,000,000 64.00% red dwarfs
15,000,000,000 6.00% yellow dwarfs
55,000,000,000 22.00% orange dwarfs
10,000,000,000 4.00% red giants (+1000 blue super giants)
250,000,000,000 100% total
But if you are looking for habitable planets you have to stick to the donut region of the "galactic habitable zone" (inner core has too many densely packed stars whose gravitational pull is hurtling planets out of orbit or are frying them with gamma rays; and the outer ring having too low of metallicity to have anything but gas giants).
1,000 ly inner radius of galactic habitable zone
33,000 ly outer radius of galactic habitable zone
1,000 ly thickness of galactic habitable zone
3,418,052,807,106 ly^3 volume of galactic habitable zone
40.00% percent of total
100,000,000,000 total stars in galactic habitable zone
2,000,000,000,000 rogue planets
40,000,000,000 brown dwarfs
400,000,000 neutron stars
40,000,000 black holes
4,000,000,000 4.00% white dwarfs
64,000,000,000 64.00% red dwarfs
6,000,000,000 6.00% yellow dwarfs
22,000,000,000 22.00% orange dwarfs
4,000,000,000 4.00% red giants (+1000 blue super giants)
100,000,000,000 100% total
But to avoid the "three body problem" only single stars in the GHZ are likely to have planets in stable solar systems (75% of white and red dwarfs are single stars, about 50% of yellow and orange stars are single, and 85% of re/blue giants are single), which gives us:
2,000,000,000,000 rogue planets
40,000,000,000 brown dwarfs
400,000,000 neutron stars
40,000,000 black holes
3,000,000,000 75.00% white dwarfs
48,000,000,000 75.00% red dwarfs
3,000,000,000 50.00% yellow dwarfs
11,000,000,000 50.00% orange dwarfs
1,600,000,000 85.00% red giants (+1000 blue super giants)
40,000,000,000 total
Most planets would be destroyed by the explosion that created the white dwarf and the expansion that created red/blue giants.
Since habitable planets around red dwarfs are tidally locked "eyeball planets" life is not likely there.
So that leaves about 14 million yellow/orange stars where life is reasonably possible, about 6% of the total stars in the galaxy.
We learn that improved infrared scanning techniques reveal the existence of copious normal matter (in the form of rogue planets, comets, rubbish, etc) which occupies & fills the un-illuminated spacial interstices between the stars and then, only a few moments later, we are regaled with more unsupported claptrap about the assumed mystical & magical qualities of similarly un-illuminated 'dark matter' that is believed to occupy the same interstellar spaces.
So, which is it? Is interstellar space filled with un-illuminated normal matter or supranormal matter made magical by virtue of being dark, un-illuminated & largely unseen?
This belief that extraspecial 'dark matter' fills the un-illuminated & unvisualized spaces of the greater universe, it's the intellectual equivalent of writing 'Here Be Monsters' on an old-timey vellum map.
Best
Having vast archipelagos of brown dwarfs and rogue planets between the stars may actually make it EASIER to explore the galaxy (though it would take a lot longer).
But maybe we won't have to make giant leaps to actual stars. Maybe we can take small steps to "Brown Dwarfs" (can't we come up with a cooler name, like Dark Stars?) that occupy the vast space between the stars. Who knows, there may be dozens of BDs between the stars for every visible star:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/11/could-nasa-wide-infrared-survey.html
"The other headline would be the discovery of a brown dwarf that is even closer to Earth than the nearest star, the Alpha Centauri system at 4.3 light-years. Brown dwarfs are objects that form along with stars but do not have enough mass to trigger or sustain nuclear fusion. They are so cool and dim very little is known about their distribution in the galaxy"
and:
http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue183/labnotes.html
"What if space is littered with these failed stars, scattered between the bright ones like a stellar Polynesia, making interstellar travel a series of short hops, rather than a single gigantic one? What if a simple fusion reactor carried just enough fuel to push a spacecraft to our solar system's Planet X in reasonable time? What if it could refuel there, harvesting just enough hydrogen or deuterium or helium to limp along to another dark neighbor, and another, and another? Granted, it would take a long, long time to get to Alpha Centauri that way, and probably a much, much longer time to find a planet somewhere that looked even remotely like our rain- and sun-drenched Earth. But given the likelihood of tidally warmed moons, and the obvious possibilities for life there, we may just find that the cold, dark spaces are where most of the action is anyway."
There may be dozens or hundreds of mini-solar systems between Sol and Alpha Centauri. With the discovery of BDs, free floating planets between the stars, and extra-solar planetoids like Sedna, future space explorers may find plenty to keep them occupied in our own solar neighborhood for millennia to come. While not the galaxy spanning empires and federations of science fiction, it would be enough for our species to explore far into the future.
And since these mini-solar systems and planets are a stone's throw away, they can be reached without exotic warp drives or hyperspace. Simple solar sails, laser sails or nuclear rockets will do just fine. Exploration missions can visit and return in a matter of years, instead of centuries or millennium. Interstellar "empires" and "federations" can be created using slower than light space travel. Maybe Capt. Kirk and Obi Wan Kenobi wouldn't be impressed, but we’ll be half way to Alpha Centauri.
"It's life, Jim, but not as we know it"
The above assumes "life as we know it" - water based relying on visible spectrum photosynthesis.
There are at least two other possibilities.
What if BDs turn out to be scattered by the hundreds or thousands in the space between the stars? And what if most of them have mini-solar systems (like Jupiter and Saturn) capable of supporting life because enough heat is generated by the BD to allow liquid water and photosynthesis based on infrared frequencies? It's easy to imagine life based on infrared photosynthesis on moons orbiting brown dwarfs which give off heat but not light. Not just imagine it, we already know of such life here on Earth, green sulfur bacteria. And if BDs floating between the stars greatly outnumber suns, then visible light spectrum based life may be the exception instead of the rule.
In addition to infrared based life, Cornell researchers have modeled methane based life forms that don't use water and could live in the liquid methane seas of Titan or frozen ocean worlds like Europa or frozen ocean rogue planets. Methane based life forms by themselves are a fascinating concept. But ironically the potential "Goldilocks" zone for such life is far greater (extending across the range of Jovian worlds out to the Kuiper belt) than our narrow zone for water based life forms.
So "life as we know it" based on water and the visible light spectrum photosynthesis may be the rare exception in a universe dominated by methane based life and life that utilizes infrared photosynthesis.
"The landers contain scientific instruments to analyze the lunar regolith and magnetosphere, and set up a moon-based global navigation system, laying the groundwork for future lunar missions."
Found this interesting study on potential iron deposits on the moon (from impacted iron/nickel asteroids) that have the potential to be extracted economically.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017JE005397
Iron Abundances in Lunar Impact Basin Melt Sheets From Orbital Magnetic Field Data
Data summary:
Name Diameter Volume Mass % wt iron Total Mass
km km^3 kg (from study) tonne
(1400 kg/m^3)
Humboldtianum 618.00 299,962.41 4.20E+17 0.12 5.04E+13
Mendel-Rydberg 650.00 331,830.72 4.65E+17 0.45 2.09E+14
Nectaris 885.00 615,143.48 8.61E+17 0.11 9.47E+13
Serenitatis 923.00 669,103.47 9.37E+17 0.17 1.59E+14
Crisium 1,076.00 909,315.14 1.27E+18 0.41 5.22E+14
1.04E+15 total tonnes of iron ore
2.50E+09 Current Earth annual iron production
414,149.06 years worth of lunar iron
Maybe we should have hundreds of prospector robots running all over the lunar surface.
Tom M is a perfect example of the masturbation Big Lie justifying the mad right's insane War on Science. So I'll make it plain. Hey Tom! Styep up like an actual man. You and me and 5 neutrals will visit 20 random labs and offices of science types aty any nearby research university and see if ANYTHING that your mad cult now says about science is even remotely true.
Loser pays winner $5000 plus all of the trip's expenses. Deal? If you actually believe that crap you just spewed, you should WANT MY MONEY! If you were any sort of a man of honor, you would back up your slanders.
But you aren't and you won't, you f***g liar traitor.
DFeal?
As usual, locum raves a sneer instead of asking questions about the scale of mass needed to explain rogue planets vs to explain the virial/zwicky orbital dynamics of a spiral galaxy. The scales are WAY different and the Macho vs Wimp debate was settled against Machos decades ago.
But the issue is curiosity. Among the major traits of an enlightenment civilization most despised by the gone-mad right.
Dude. Dark Matter is well supported by evidence. We just don't know what it is even though we know it is there. What we DO know is a bunch of things that it is NOT. Zillions of rogue planets aren't enough to explain galactic rotation curves and the 'too early' formation of young galaxies.
If you want to hold onto your skepticism, aim it at Dark Energy. It is possible that exists too, but uncertainties related to how much happen to include 'none'.
Dr Brin
If Tim Urban is correct then Tom M is not that far from the target!
He is talking about the start of the process - getting the grant, getting the job/position
THAT is where the SJF "filter" is being applied - its not a very effective filter! - but is filtering out at least some research and some researchers
You are 100% correct about the actual process - and the people doing the work
But that critical first step has been badly damaged
It was always one of the weaker parts of the process
Oh dear! You have been out of touch! In case you didn't hear: Blue Ghost landing went well. They even caught a picture of the lunar eclipse. Elon managed to bombard the populace with another rocket blowup. Petty of me, perhaps, but I'm past caring what SpaceX is up to.
I've been following the progress of MethaneSat for a while now. Partly in response to conversations with a local MP who lamented(?) their inability to do anything about 'scope 3' emissions. Scope 1, on the other hand, are emissions at extraction source.
Already, there are some results worth noting:
- First, it probably comes as no surprise that methane emissions are substantially higher than estimated. (this result comes from an aerial survey)
- There may be more to this than a strong incentive to under-report. Intensity of emission sources have been observed to vary significantly over time. (this one *is* from MethaneSAT)
Incidentally, you can now subscribe to ClimateTRACE's monthly newsletter following global emission rates
People who don't like the 'ideologically impure' science* of DEI probably aren't comfortable with knowing that non-binary behaviour is observed in all phyla of the animal kingdom, and won't find this commentary on empathy interesting either.
* What will be the modern equivalent of heliocentricity? Who will be burned first? Vaccines are first off the rank. Fortunately, the relations to the book smugglers of Timbuktu have reconstructed the original CDC website.
From last thread…
Larry,
…a semantic argument that the revealed information wasn't classified--that verb being used in the active sense.
There is an angle a lawyer could use to defend them. Information has to BE classified before it becomes an offense to leak it. As you said… there is the verb.
Thing is, the info that got leaked likely already was. Chances are high the details were already in a written form that had to be read on an accredited system in a SCIF. If one reads the details there and then discusses them on an unclassified system, that IS a leak in the very legal sense of the word.
Chances are very high that the revealed information was already classified by a proper OCA (original classifying agent) and NO ONE down stream is allowed to just wave their hands and declassify it. There is a process to be followed. That process was invented and refined for damn good reasons.
———
Much of what passes for US classification processes we learned from the Brits in WWII. We had our own arrangements, but they were clearly better at it. What we have now has been honed by the Cold War and the fact that even our allies engage in some level of espionage against us. Especially France. 8)
Ok, Dr Brin, I've been waiting since your long absence for a less heated moment to ask a question about Glory Season, which I re-read over the winter for the first time in 20 years.
Ok, this isn't so much a question as a request for conformation of an observation.
The Peripatetic is you, isn't it? I mean, not exactly literally, but he's not simply a generic earthman either. He's kind of your personal doppelganger written into the story. The things he pays attention to, the observations he makes about the planet's society, and his musings on his continual frustration at being surrounded by attractive but unattainable women--that's the way you yourself would think and act in the situation. N'est-ce pas?
Since we’ve been discussing forms of courage recently, I want to related a story from today.
My wife and sister-in-law attend weekly protests. They hold up their signs, make lots of noise, and find the people who drive by are largely supportive. (We live in a fairly blue part of California.) Today they got their mother (almost 80 yo) to join them to hold the sign expressing concern over Social Security impacts.
Attending these protests requires at least some courage. The ‘battlefield’ isn’t deadly, so the expressions aren’t courage in the classical (Aristotle) sense. Still… we tend to recognize people who stand up at the risk of social consequences too.
Today’s protest involved about 30 people. Men and women. Mixed ages though mostly older.
Today’s protest also involved the first expression of violence. A younger man walked into the group and punched one of the guys who is about my age. So… a 30’s kinda guy punching a 60’s kinda guy. The younger one was obviously a Trump supporter and probably figured his action would only result in a bunch of angry words. Didn’t turn out that way. The guy he punched immediately decked him. Thoughtless flash response. Wham! The younger one wound up in the bushes, had to extract himself, and then leave quickly. This all happened so fast my mother-in-law never quite figured out why there was a guy in the bushes in the first place… and no one told her. 8)
I’m relating this not as encouragement to go deck someone. Far from it. I do it so the folks among us who worry about a lack of apparent response can understand they might not be seeing it or correctly guessing the emotional states and likely responses of their friends. I’d bet serious money the older guy who punched back didn’t think before he struck. Chances are he finished the day on an indignation high.
I don’t think the MAGA fools quite realize what those pwned libs are going to do. I think they expect cowardice. They’ll be lucky if the worst that happens is being knocked into the bushes.
"…a semantic argument that the revealed information wasn't classified--that verb being used in the active sense."
There is an angle a lawyer could use to defend them. Information has to BE classified before it becomes an offense to leak it. As you said… there is the verb.
I'm usually pretty good at sussing out the particular loopholes that a speaker is exploiting to assert a falsehood without technically lying. A "tell" is that they'll keep repeating a specific sentence without ever phrasing it any differently. Like for instance, I knew exactly what Bill Clinton meant when he said that "There is no improper relationship," with Monica Lewinsky, and that it depended on what the definition if "is" is. Or why one of the right-wing apologists on the old Cerebus list insisted that "Bush Junior" didn't do something or other--because there is no such person (George W Bush is not technically "junior" to George Herbert Walker Bush, as they don't quite share a full name).
I suspect that the dithering over whether "war plans" were or were not discussed on an open channel hinge on the fact that we are not in a declared war.
There is an angle a lawyer could use to defend them.
To keep them out of Guantanamo, sure.
Legal technicalities don't excuse the behavior, though. Being careless with information that could jeopardize an active situation is something that should be looked at seriously in terms of job evaluation. Trump's nominations for department heads and Republican congressmen's shameful acquiescence thereto are demonstrating for all to see that they are in completely over their heads. Criminal liability is not the main issue.
Chances are he finished the day on an indignation high.
IMHO, he deserves that much of a reward at the least.
In Malcolm Nance's video to which I referenced in the last thread, he, speaking as a former signals intelligence intercept officer, explains why he believes the incident was the greatest national security breach in American history.
"What you call a telephone, I call the lucky jackpot of idiots that are going to give me everything they ever thought they could hide...if you want to gouge how much intelligence Russia has gotten from us, don’t intercept their communications. They’re secure. Start monitoring all the champagne and caviar stores in Moscow because they’re buying them all up! ...These guys (Russia/China/Iran) are laughing their asses off at us. And if they weren’t in (the group chats member's) phones and were trying to get to these phones and Signal, they now have their own working groups going backwards and scrubbing the giant servers to see if they have had access...and can get something of historic value out of it.
Oh David. As I pointed out before I am a phd physicist and spent decades in the research environment. Hundreds of referred journal pubs and almost 100 us patents. Distinguished professor and fellow in multiple physics societies. Look at recent issues of physics today or optics and photonics news or APS news. No need to tramp around asking individuals. The societies speak for themselves.
Dr Brin - extending my previous comment - if you do go and randomly select those rooms and speak to the people there is an additional question you could ask them
Ask them about their own experience in getting their funding
Ask them about the "DEI" - SJF - hoops they had to jump through - and about what that did to their feelings about the Democratic party
These are OUR PEOPLE - and "we" are trying to drive them away!
Only one? Probably best to nip things in the bud before they get to this scale.
Alfred defends dark matter with all the zeal of a religious acolyte, even though the Dark Matter Hypothesis is an unproven THEORY put forth to explain calculated Galactic Rotation Curves & gravitational mass effects that suggest that up to 85% of the universe's total mass is not currently visible for an undetermined reason, either because this hypothetical 'dark matter' is composed of extraordinary invisible materials or because there's simply insufficient illumination for us to 'see' these unseen masses with available technology.
Furthermore, he demonstrates his utter ignorance of the exponential function when he asserts that there simply cannot be enough real ordinary matter in the Universe to explain galactic rotation curves & the 'too early' formation of young galaxies, as (in his opinion) "Zillions of rogue planets aren't enough".
It's tragicomic, this apparent lack of mental flexibility.
Best
Tom M I don't give a lab rat's patoot what credential you yammer here. It's the same crap, raving ASSERTIONS. In your case designed to discredit all fact using professions. Name one exception.
What matters is that you are a yammering coward. If you were a man of honor you would accept my challenge. Step up with confidence in your assertions and TAKE MY MONEY.
I offer a process that should satisfy anyone, chacking for ourselves, in the presence of neutral witnesses and arbiters. In fact, I will bore the others here by pasting in my standard offer, below.
In fact, science has never been better. Any anecdotes you can cite of lapses in quality WERE DISCOVERED AND DENOUNCED BY OTHER SCIENTISTS. It's the way it works. They comprise the tiniest sliver of modern science and I DEMAND that you act like an actual man and take part in the visit to random labs at a nearby research university...
...to see what the best and smartest living humans think of your man treason cult.
Here's my standard (paste-in) wager demand. "Have your atty verify $10k escrowed stakes. We'll put evidence to a RANDOM panel of retired Sr military officers. (Most former Republicans.) Pool with fellow MAGAs. Take MY $$!
*Grand juries across USA (mostly white retirees in red-run states) indicted ~100X as many top Repubs as Dems! ~80x convictions!Your cult is a criminal gang. Bets?
*Fact-check any RANDOM 10 of Trump's >>150,000 registered lies. Or evidence of ANY election 'steal.' Or name 1 fact-profession NOT hated-on by Fox?
* Tally NDAs & hush payments! Which party wants to BAN them?
*Come to sea with me and a Ph meter! Bet whether CO2-caused acid is killing the oceans.
*Check Fox 'scientists are sheep!' rants. Let's knock on 20 RANDOM labs at a research university!
*Compare DEATH rates of those who refused vaccines!
*Bet which party is ALWAYS more fiscally responsible? Compare economic outcomes!
*Or if Red-States (except Utah) average higher on EVERY turpitude from gambling, STDs, teen sex to domestic violence, crime...
*Which party's pols have 3x as many WIVES?
No MAGA/Putinist ever shows manly guts to back up their blab, as grampa would've. Blowhards flee the ruins of their macho.
LH so? What'ss so surprising about the resemblance?
I might have to retract some of this story. The protesters know each other and talk online. They've been comparing their notes. It seems they don't all agree that the younger guy was a Trump fan. What they DO agree upon is he was pretty creepy toward one of the women and the older guy told him to knock it off. Not hard to predict what happened next.
The virtue on display by the older fellow might not have been courage as a result. It might have been justice. There are things we reasonably expect of each other. Rules both written and unwritten. The younger fellow was probably breaking an unwritten rule. "Don't pursue the woman who thinks you are creepy."
Maybe he was a MAGA idiot. Maybe he was just an incel. He wound up demonstrating cowardice, though, when he retreated by throwing angry words back instead of an apology. Either way, the older fellow earned his indignation high.
Ha!
You are on my research turf you idiot.
(It's been awhile, but you can look me up.)
I know the evidence and the various theories proposed to explain it.
Whatever out there is doing it doesn't interact with electromagnetism. Much.
Congrats on going to several protests. I've been to one so far - first time in my life - and there were enough of us to line the street alongside a park in downtown Spokane with a scattered presence on the other side. Many signs and a piper giving us Celtic Angry songs on his bagpipe*. No threats or punches, plenty of support from passing cars and only one MAGAT arschloch in a pickup giving us coal and uncomfortable speed for a couple of drive-bys. Cops tried to keep people off the sidewalk but no other response.
Pappenheimer
*Rising of the Moon, Minstrel Boy, etc.
Dr Brin
Your "wagers"
I would agree with every one of them - as would a hell of a lot of people who either didn't vote - or who held their noses and voted GOP anyway
Its those people that you/we need to peel away from the GOP - and showing how BAD the GOP is does not help when they already know that but consider the Dems to be - just as bad (but in a different way)
The SJF and DEI nonsense is where the GOP can point to the Dems and say - look they are WORSE
And the SJF and DEI nonsense directly effects millions of Americans
I don't think I'd call it the worst in American history, but it DOES demonstrate a stunning failure by those involved.
Time for definitions I suppose...
TS: Containing or being information whose unauthorized disclosure could result in exceptionally grave danger to the nation
S: Containing information whose unauthorized disclosure could endanger national security
C: Containing information whose unauthorized disclosure could be prejudicial to the national interest
I think my DoD customer uses slightly different words for defining top secret, secret, and confidential. There is also a broad category called CUI for 'controlled unclassified information' that replaces FOUO.
Leaking information about when the bombs will drop is at least Secret. If you do it in a way that could get pilots killed it is likely Top Secret. Getting our war fighters killed over stupid shit like this definitely does exceptionally grave harm to our national interests.
I'd also point out this. If I had done this I'd already be in prison and the FBI would be talking to all of you.
Today's protest for us was near the county office complex for Ventura county here in California. Their security folks (just one guy sent out to watch) try to keep us ON the sidewalk... and off their grounds. Makes sense. The county offices should appear neutral in all this.
On previous days, my wife HAS recognized one of the guys who raves from across the street. He hasn't recognized her yet. They both work in the same school district. 8)
What is "SJF and DEI nonsense" and what is legitimate political activism* for you?
Be precise!
Show your Homework!
*Unless you believe someone other than old wealthy straight white christian male should be quiet. Then, maybe, the whole concept of democracy or human rights might be alien to you.
Der Oger
The USA is a bit more racist than most countries - that is true
the IDEA of "Social Justice" and "DEI" is completely laudable
HOWEVER
The Social Justice Fundamentalists REQUIRE everybody to believe
(1) Only whites are racist
(2) All differences in somebodies standing are entirely due to racism/misogyny
(3) Anybody disagreeing with this is a racist/misogynist
In the American schools they require all teachers to teach according to these principles
Companies and Universities advertising for jobs FIRST look at the applicants SJF and DEI activities (you have to be actively campaigning) BEFORE looking at minor things like Education and Experience
If people say things that do not comply with these "rules" then they will be hounded out of their position
Something like asking if Affirmative Action policies actually "work" is enough to get you pushed out
Google had a campaign against them because they did not have 50% female engineers
One of their senior guys pointed out that Google's ratio of female engineers was about the same as the ratio of female engineering graduates - he was pushed out of his job
Read Tim Urban's book - its full of examples! -and its horrific!!
In the American schools they require all teachers to teach according to these principles
IRC, teachers are more and more forbidden to talk about the genocide of Native Americans, the slavery, Critical Race Theory, sexual education and LGBT stuff. Books are more and more banned. Now, protests against the Israeli government are labeled "Anti-American".
If people say things that do not comply with these "rules" then they will be hounded out of their position
Which "rules" and why the brackets? Specify!
Der Oger
Those horrible rules are in REACTION to the SJF rules!
Its not a static thing!
The "Red States" are reacting to the SJF and DEI - and as usual over-reacting!
How many times has science developed? I can think of at least three times.
There was the Hellenistic Period, centered around Alexandria. This ended with the Roman conquests and the enslavement of much of the educated class.
There was the Islamic period centered around Baghdad. This ended because of anti-scientific developments within Islam.
And then there is the current scientific period which really took off in England in the Seventeenth Century. As with the Hellenistic Period it developed out of predecessor movements elsewhere.
What I think is the most important thing in common with these three movements was the flow of information from many regions into the regions where science took off. In the case of the Hellenistic Period and the Islamic Period this was due to conquests and movement of educated people. In the case of the current period it was due to increased communications due to trade and the increase in size of the educated class due to the printing press.
Again, which rules?
Not surprising. Amusing.
duncan cairncross:
In the American schools they require all teachers to teach according to these principles
You're talking about university level, right? I ask because in the past, right-wingers were telling me that elementary teachers were forced to treat then-President Obama as a North Korea-style Dear Leader. And that just wasn't jibing with my experience with my own child at the time.
Companies and Universities advertising for jobs FIRST look at the applicants SJF and DEI activities (you have to be actively campaigning) BEFORE looking at minor things like Education and Experience
I still don't get why the actions of universities reflect one way or another on the Democratic Party. And even less so for companies.
Google had a campaign against them because they did not have 50% female engineers
One of their senior guys pointed out that Google's ratio of female engineers was about the same as the ratio of female engineering graduates - he was pushed out of his job
Again, where does the Democratic Party come into this, except on FOX?
Those horrible rules are in REACTION to the SJF rules!
Its not a static thing!
The "Red States" are reacting to the SJF and DEI - and as usual over-reacting!
And SJF and DEI were reactions to social injustice. This is kinda like figuring out who started hostilities in the Middle East.
But that's not my point. I'm not sure it's true that they only react negatively to unreasonable demands. They're just as anxious to push back on not being able to say "retard" and other more offensive slurs. And I'm including some of "our own" prominent voices like Bill Maher who is ostensibly on the anti-fascist side but couldn't abide the inconvenience of COVID remediation*.
If you are correct, voters are turned off to Democrats appealing to inconvenient conscience, it's not just overreaching rules in academia and corporations that they are turned off by. It's any attempt to make it shameful to let one's asshole freak flag fly.
And now that I've had that say, I do want you to know that I don't misunderstand where you are coming from. Apparently the Democrats (though being scapegoated in my opinion) are playing the role of "conscience" in Kurt Vonnegut's scenario from God Bless You Mr. Rosewater :
“Samaritrophia is the suppression of an overactive conscience by the rest of the mind. ‘You must all take instructions from me!’ the conscience shrieks, in effect, to all the other mental processes. The other processes try it for a while, note that the conscience is unappeased, that it continues to shriek, and they note, too, that the outside world has not been even microscopically improved by the unselfish acts the conscience has demanded.
“They rebel at last. They pitch the tyrannous conscience down an oubliette, weld shut the manhole cover of that dark dungeon. They can hear the conscience no more. In the sweet silence, the mental processes look about for a new leader, and the leader most prompt to appear whenever the conscience is stilled, Enlightened Self-interest, does appear. Enlightened Self-interest gives them a flag, which they adore on sight. It is essentially the black and white Jolly Roger, with these words written beneath the skull and crossbones, ‘The hell with you, Jack, I’ve got mine!’”
the inconvenience of COVID remediation*.
I forgot what I had asterisked.
Maher's assertion that he didn't need a vaccine because he must have natural immunity after having had COVID four times is bizarre in its illogic.
Der Oger:
Again, which rules?
Dude, I say this as a friend who is totally on your side of this argument. Duncan has presented evidence several times and has pointed to a source that presumably has even more. Push back on that argument and present evidence for a counterargument, but continuing to ask this question comes off more than anything else as sealioning.
Peace.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2025/Items/Mar31-6.html
A week ago, [Columbia president Katrina] Armstrong groveled in the dirt in an attempt to have Trump not cancel $400 million in contracts and grants to which the university has a legal right by dint of having negotiated and signed agreements to do certain work for a certain payment. That didn't save her. Nothing could have. Trump is angry because there were pro-Palestinian demonstrations and encampments at Columbia last year—aimed at Joe Biden, not at him.
I know it doesn't ultimately matter, but I still wonder if Trump and other Republicans understand how important those Genocide Joe protests that they now find unconscionable were to their own elections.
I'd add China to that historical list. Different, but with an elite academic culture.
I see China as, like Rome, having contributed a lot to engineering but not much to understanding of the natural world.
Agreed, but scientific thinking is a repudiation of the supernatural, which is also what got it in trouble with Islam. That's what I meant by China being 'different'; more a collection of 'isms' than of 'ities'.
Fun excerpt from Macleans where TASAT is used as a way of identifying stories with the same problem, rather than the same technology.
T.S.: I see social media as kind of a grim necessity—that it’s basically evil and life is elsewhere. ... If you stay offline, it’s like treading water: you may not be improving yourself, but at least you’re not sinking. I want to remember that social media is a different, non-human realm that’s calling out to us all the time, but that we don’t necessarily have to listen to it.
Interviewer: Like Gollum with the ring.
T.S. That’s a funny analogy because a lot of people in the tech world are big Tolkien fans. In addition to controlling our attention, like the ring does with Frodo and Bilbo and Gollum, it’s also turning us from that nice Sméagol character into that Gollum character.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/business/trump-tariffs-higher-prices.html
Mr. Trump’s ability to convince consumers that it is acceptable to pay more to support domestic manufacturing and adhere to his “America First” agenda could determine whether the president’s second term is a success or a calamity.
...
In confronting anxiety over the trade uncertainty, Mr. Trump and his top economic aides have resorted to asking Americans to think about the bigger picture. They espouse the view that Mr. Trump’s trade wars are necessary to correct decades of economic injustice and that paying a bit more should be a matter of national pride.
That's going to be a harder sell than it would have been if the Republicans hadn't spent the last four decades or so convincing us that cheap labor and cheap products were objective goods, and that the free market is all-wise in determining efficient uses of capital.
I'm genuinely curious why the Dow Jones average is going up today. Do investors believe that Trump will back off of "Liberation Day" tariffs?
Push back on that argument and present evidence for a counterargument, but continuing to ask this question comes off more than anything else as sealioning.
I usually reserve this method of discourse to situations when I have the suspicion that someone is a bad actor and keeps shouting statements with no factual base, evading a closer look & inspection, and I have a feeling that bringing forth counterarguments is futile and exhausting.
That said, there are some points why I think that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion strategies are important for a society.
First of all: DEI leads to employers having to employ means by which certain groups can contribute to the general labor market and economy. For example, providing accessibility to workplaces for physically disabled persons. They work, so they do not put a strain on society and support the economy. Their talent is not wasted.
Second: Making people invisible - like, removing PoC from databases and galleries or allowing employers to exclude them from the main labor market - is one of the first steps on the road to Ausschwitz.
Third: Elite networks. The upper 1% prefer to remain among themselves if they are left to their own devices, building informal networks between politicians, top lawyers, business leaders, and even academics and scientists. These networks start in schools and continue to grow as people move through life. I think I need not stress how bad these networks can be for democracies, meritocratic systems, economic and scientific progress.
Fourth: HR realities. Employers tend to employ those who they think "fit" into their companies. Though it is a basic right to exclude whoever they deem "unfit" for their companies or public services, bubbles form with certain overall weaknesses (like, for example, a culture of silence.) without the strength, perspective, societal acceptance and variety of talents a more diverse group has. In emphasizing a sort of monoculture in employee selection, an incestous atmosphere begins to grow. If, for example, sexual transgressions are the norm instead of a sanctioned misbehaviour, one can ask what else you can get away with in those places. Spoiler: That's what gave us a caste of managers that spawned Trump.
We can certainly argue about whether a tool used to enhance participation and break up oligarchic networks is effective or not; we cannot argue that those tools must exist.
Finally I would address what I see as the basic problem in this discussion. It is not Social Justice or Climate activism pe se, but toxic leadership. It consists of three elements:
1) A toxic leader (with charisma, narcicist, psychopathic and/or Machiavellian characteristics)
2) Supporters (which can be divided into people with similar goals and personality traits like their leader, and easiliy winnable people with low self-esteem)
3) Fertile Grounds (the totality of structures and conditions that allow those toxic leaders to grow).
It is the duty of the political center to salt the ground for toxic leaders to rise, and here we see a paradoxon: While the radical left can be weakened by appeasement, the same is not true for the radical right. If you appease the right, they grow stronger (at least, that is the current tenor of studies, afaik, but can be witnessed in the rise of the populist right everywhere on the world, though certainly not as the sole determining factor).
A good example for a leader who had to contend with both ends of the spectrum and did it in these ways was Charles de Gaulle, who first had to contend with with a right-wing coup attempt after giving Algeria it's independence, and then with a leftist near-revolution in May 1968. The uprising of the conservatives was mercilessly squashed, while he offered concessions and new elections to the left. He expected to loose the election; he had a landslide victory.
Trump is targeting Colombia to the tune of $400m because of a failed real estate deal he wanted with them. To the tune of $400m.
Every billionaire* on earth is a petty asshole who will bend the heavens and earth to defeat anyone that dares get in the way of them making more money. The only counter-examples are folks who are actively trying to give away their billions, and even then, pay attention to the pettiness those people display as well.
*Trump may not have been a real billionaire before. He certainly is one now, though.
It can't have hurt DeGaulle to be an actual war hero who escaped a Nazi prison camp iirc and forced the Allies' hand to liberate Paris at the soonest moment possible.
Not that I didn't disagree with much of his politics but I'll give the bloke his due.
Pappenheimer
Pappenheimer
Once popular with magical thinkers & religious zealots, there are certain strains of illogic that run rampant on these pages.
Alfred provides the first example in the defence of the currently popular Dark Matter hypothesis:
I know the evidence and the various theories proposed to explain it. Whatever out there is doing it doesn't interact with electromagnetism. Much.
The obvious counter argument being the Inverse Square & Cube Rules which state that 'the strength of EM force decreases exponentially as the distance between the interacting objects increases'.
So, as opposed to the conclusion that dark matter is MAGIC, maybe a better explanation maybe that all that rogue matter lurking in interstellar space is just too far apart to effect our crude EM detection techniques MUCH ?
Then, there's Dr Brin who uses REDEFINITION to support his wager argument, mostly by attempting to redefine manliness, courage & honor in terms of foolish wagering:
What matters is that you are a yammering coward. If you were a man of honor you would accept my challenge.
Please note that this is virtually the same argument that the Insane Left uses to redefine 'manliness' as the courage to cut off one's penis.
**See Alfred's fine definition for Courage, offered up earlier on this site, which states that too little of this quality constitutes cowardice & too much represents foolishness.**
Best
I usually reserve this method of discourse to situations when I have the suspicion that someone is a bad actor and keeps shouting statements with no factual base,
Fair enough.
I perceive something slightly different going on. Duncan claims to have just read a book that explains so much. I've been in that situation a few times myself--most embarrassingly with Ayn Rand almost 30 years ago. For at least a while, it's going to look as if the thesis of that book explains everything. Until either it really does, or else it runs into hard reality on a metaphorical battlefield.
To me, it does at least explain some things. The political left can become off-putting in the manner of a nagging conscience that is never satisfied. I can understand people turning to a leader and a party that assures them, "Your inner asshole is nothing to be ashamed of. Embrace it!"
Where I differ from duncan is in how to overcome that perception. I don't think that abandoning social justice (small letters) is the way to go. Democrats tried being "Republican lite" in the nineties and most of this century, and even when they did win power, they had trouble doing anything useful with it and could not forestall a backlash.
At this point, the best strategy may be "Let the Republicans dig themselves a hole," demonstrating the difference between the parties not in ideology, but in competence. Not only might they be going too far, erasing all mention of women and minorities in history, but Signalgate/Whiskeyleaks is demonstrating that they can't be trusted with national security--something Republicans pride themselves on caring about.
I didn't see Duncan say anything about abandoning social justice. Sounds to me like he thinks that social justice is something necessary for a society to have a chance at being decent, and that unfortunately in recent years some extremists have tainted the ranks. Sounds like he'd like to see those extremists rendered ineffective so that real social justice can continue doing the necessary good work we probably would all like to see.
I can only think that Der Oger is not aware of the "bad" social justice policies and activities of the past several years in the US and some other nations. Things that make a mockery of real social justice and that seem more like a fundamentalist religion.
Or possibly Der Oger simply doesn't believe what he has heard about it. Or possibly Der Oger is an extremist.
For just one of the crazy things that have come out of the extreme end of social justice in recent years, take a look at the Cass report and the history that lead to it.
Umm, electromagnetic effects do not decrease exponentially with distance. They decrease as the inverse square of distance, something quite different.
And I never heard anyone describe 'manliness' as the courage to cut off one's penis. I think that claim is a whopper.
Larry Hart
I'm NOT in America - I can only look at the evidence - as in Tim's book
Schools - not Universities - Tim has lots of examples of schools teaching and requiring the SJF nonsense
This does get distorted - its NOT "CRT" - which is a University level subject - its much simpler
Schools are teaching that
All "whites" are racist
Only "whites" are racist
All outcomes are because of racism
NOT "CRT" - and also NOT "DEI"!
I 100% agree that abandoning actual "Social Justice" is NOT the way to go!
Reigning in the extremists is the solution - simply shutting your eyes to the problem is not helping
Der Oger is also NOT in America - the US situation is far more extreme than Europe and more extreme than here (NZ)
The baseline racism is much higher - the legacy of slavery and the hundred years after slavery when only whites had civil rights in much of the country
Because that "baseline" is higher the "reactions" - on both sides - are more extreme
Tim Urban's book is full of actual examples - things that can be looked up and verified
duncan cairncross:
First of all, I'm after the same outcome you are. If that book gives good advice on how to get there, I'm open to it. I just want to still be the good guys when we win.
Now, on to...
Schools are teaching that
All "whites" are racist
Only "whites" are racist
All outcomes are because of racism
It's hard to tell semantically if you mean "Some schools are teaching..." or "Schools as a rule are teaching...". What I know is that the schools my daughter attended here in a well-off-but-not-rich suburb of Chicago weren't teaching anything of the sort. My brother, who teaches high school in the "Alabama" part of Pennsylvania would probably have mentioned that sort of indoctrination to me as well. I have a hard time envisioning that schools in rural Alabama or Mississippi or Oklahoma are teaching that sort of thing either.
So please excuse my cognitive dissonance. You obviously have good reason to believe this explanation for why Trump is popular, and it makes a certain amount of common sense as well. But my lying eyes are telling me something different.
Monotheism can create an environment favourable to science. It can discourage superstition and encourage the idea that Nature shows a divinely created order. This happens with much of Christianity and used to happen with Islam.
But in the later part of the Middle Ages and in sections of Christianity now we have rise of occasionalism. This sees a natural order, cause and effect as restraints on the will of God. It sees everything as happening because God separately wills every event. Something does not fall because by its nature it is affected by gravity but because God makes it fall.
But other monotheists see God as creating a pattern of events rather than individual events and that pattern includes cause and effect relations.
...and I do agree that what we're doing isn't working. So I'm not as averse to changing tactics as I come across here. It's just that knowing why we're off-putting doesn't provide a battle plan.
I know, "reigning in the extremists," but short of arrest and deportation in violation of the First Amendment, that's not so easily accomplished. The firebrands will be there always, and they've proven that they won't strategically be quiet in order to acquire power.
...rise of occasionalism. This sees a natural order, cause and effect as restraints on the will of God. It sees everything as happening because God separately wills every event. Something does not fall because by its nature it is affected by gravity but because God makes it fall.
Oh wow. I see an opportunity to apply Dr Brin's wager strategy to make some real money betting on sure things like whether the sun rises in the east tomorrow, or whether a dropped hammer hits the ground.
Careful, now, Larry. Take this lesson from Prachett's Hogfather:
“WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HADN'T SAVED HIM?
"Yes! The sun would have risen just the same, yes?"
NO
"Oh, come on. You can't expect me to believe that. It's an astronomical fact."
THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN.
...
"Really? Then what would have happened, pray?"
A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD.”
(meaning that the Auditors' real target was Human imagination)
Larry Hart
I suspect that you are like me in the grandfather age group - not the father of school age children!
These changes according to Tim have crept in in the last 15 years or so - they will have much less effect on somebody who is already a teacher and has been for some time like your brother
As you say it will not be universal - but it does not have to be to make a difference
If "my kids are OK" - but my cousin's children are being taught that it would be enough to feed the "Both sides are as bad as each other"
Fixing it
Tim talks about stages
(1) - Keeping quiet when somebody else is being punished for questioning the SJF bollocks
(2) - Making statements in support of the SJF bollocks (when it keeps you out of trouble
(3) - Joining in in punishing the blasphemer
Todays Democrats have gone past step (1)!!
What you need is prominent sensible people like Bernie and AOC to come out in support of people who are being persecuted
Duncan,
Re: DEI...
An Idaho teacher is in trouble for the posters in her classroom stating that 'everyone is welcome here'. She was ordered to take them down, but reconsidered and replaced them. One poster shows children's hands in many different skin tones.
That's the closest she came to 'all whites are racist' or 'only whites are racist'
Which (echoing what Larry has observed) I've never heard in any school or heard from my children when they were in school.
Was this Tim guy observing the same USA that I'm in? I don't recognize it.
And would you consider the example above objectionable? The Idaho school administration above this teacher did. Nearly half the states in this country - Often low population/squarer ones - think that even emphasizing equality of opportunity is 'woke'.
I hesitated to engage here but I think I'm seeing some false equivalence.
And by the Goddess! My Fullbright girl has filled me in on stories of her experiences in university music departments where enforcement of DEI standards went from little to horrifyingly none - lip service only and no complaints investigated.
Pappenheimer
Computer security researcher vanishes. What are the Feds doing? Did he run? Is he in custody? Has he been "disappeared"?
https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/03/computer-scientist-goes-silent-after-fbi-raid-and-purging-from-university-website/
Pappenheimer and Larry Hart
You both accept that Universities have been "infected"? - which is pretty clear
Where do you think school teachers come from? - the stork ?
I'm outside so I can't tell how deep the problem is - Tim Urban thinks its pretty bad - probably more important is how bad the average voter thinks the problem is
From the rabid response from the GOP everywhere that they have control I would say that some voters think its BAD!
Remember its the third of American voters who don't vote that is the target
Oh David, David. You just don't get it. I don't care about your money. I care about your intellect and have concern for it when you refuse to have rational discussions. The publications of the American Physical Society and Optica (used to be Optical Society of America but that was not inclusive enough) such as Physics Today, Optics and Photonics News, APS news, etc. allow readers to discern the focus of the physics and optics branches of today's scientists. Individuals with a stake in the system cannot speak freely as their funding, prestige, and invited speaker status would be at risk. I focus on objective evidence not personal testimony - you know like a scientist. You can call me names if you like. I will not reciprocate. You are correct that science is still healthy - but thats in China, for example. You might check total publications in refereed journals world wide. The US used to lead all other countries by a large margin. Now it is China where ability is still the prime factor that decides who does science. Take care. Still liked your books.
Der Oger has lately been using grand generalities to ibscure the toxic effects of execrably bad tactics.
"That said, there are some points why I think that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion strategies are important for a society."
Um... so? That is a truism. Are you claiming that I don't believe in them? Only our resident yammer trolls disgree with this. Everyone else here wants those things. The question is:
Can they best be achieved the way they ALREADY have been 90% achieved, through incremental reforms and changing cultural values?
Or are they best achieved by screeching in everyone's faces about linguisitic minutiae like pronouns* while demanding that all injustices be resolved overnight. And anyone who does not prioritize excactly the list of proper priorities is therefore an evil person!!!
Or whether the endorphin rush of sanctimony and "I am so much more righteous than any of you!" is helpful in the long process of building a coalition for reform.
While the left's teleology of human improvability has been proved right, overall, across the last 250 years, it was never moved ahead via impatient, sanctimony-drenched transcendentalism. NAME such a revolution that ever achieved what the moderate western reformist incrementalism has, across those 2+ centuries. Please. Name one. France 1789? Russia 1917? Germany 1933? China 1947?
Incrementalism is slow but it ratchets forward. Hollywood pushed images in movies from the 1930s onward that propelled changes in racist attitudes. Until Today even Fox News runs commercials showing interracial couples and that formerly horrific notion is now shrugged off by all of their viewers...
...allowing them to feel deep resentment when they are called 'racist!' Many of them ARE racist! But it's not their parents' racism. And the left's inability to adapt to that helped to ensure than vast swathes of middle Americans... and millions of blacks and hispanics... deserted the coalition and left us in this mess.
And so the right's teleology of utter hopelessness and resignation and acceptance of rule by priests and inheritance brats now has the upper hand. And yes, I blame the sanctimony junkies on the left! They did this. The drug/sancimony addicts destroyed the last remnants of the Rooseveltean coalition. And they MUST be banished from any power in the liberal political movements.
* The pronoun thing was utter hypocrisy! English is already BY FAR the least influened in grammar etc by sex and gender, of all major languages. Those demanding INSTANT (rather than gradual) gender neutrality weren't just bullies. They also were hypocrites shrieking that "The assumptions I grew up with in the least-gendered language must now dominate the world!!!"
Hispanics especially resented it, knowing it would be impossible for them to comply in their native tongue. It was the very essence of domineering yankee imperialism. "My way is the only way!" Ugly Americans v 2.0
He's using his dimly remembered pre-med classes to recall things like the inverse square law for electrostatics without understanding WHY the inverse square law holds. Pre-meds don't get that far. Most grad students don't either. My group did. It falls out as a consequence in theories that require 'continuity' for stuff (conservation of charge for example) and have three spatial directions. It's a matter of geometry. Euclid would have been tickled.
The primary problem with having matter capable of interacting via E&M be responsible for the observed galactic rotation curves is simple. There would be A LOT of it. WAY more than in all the stars. It would show up in how stars form and also make more stars.
Peak star formation in our universe is over. Happened in the first few billion years. Been downhill ever since.
-------
I should probably do a treatment on the classical virtue called Temperance to point out his distinct lack of it. Not the alcohol forbearance type. Just the "Can I hear truths spoken by others" type.
I don't know about this particular case, but we do occasionally see espionage activities caught MANY years after they begin. The people doing them get old or sloppy or both.
I'm not saying this happened, but for information about him AND his wife to vanish, I'd have to consider it as a possibility. Deep cover agents do exist.
If it turns out to be true, he will likely show up in training material the rest of us have to learn every year.
Um... so? That is a truism. Are you claiming that I don't believe in them?
I had doubts lately.
Can they best be achieved the way they ALREADY have been 90% achieved, through incremental reforms and changing cultural values?
Let's look closer in various areas.
Social security: We are definitivly loosing ground here. We Europeans (and even Russians) slower than you, but cuts to the social systems are made.
Worker's Rights: You might loose what little protections you had, here they are under constant assault by law firms and lobbyists.
Social mobility: Downwards, everywhere. Stagnating wages, inflation and rising real estate prices and rents are destroying chances. Add in student debts.
Criminal justice system: If I remember correctly, the militarization of police, mass incarceration and private prison industrie increased during the last fifty or so years. Death sentences are still handed out.
Racism: Better than 90 years ago, conceded, but currently on a steep downward course.
LGBTQ+ rights: Once nearly the top, now receding.
Free Speech: If you tolerate swastika flags and Hitler Salutes, you also have to tolerate leftist Anti-Israel protests. You can't have both*.
Women's rights: Downwards.
Freedom of Research and Universities: Hahahahahahaha.
NAME such a revolution that ever achieved what the moderate western reformist incrementalism has, across those 2+ centuries.
Your statement is vague, but I'll try:
The reforms of Frederick II of Prussia, ending serfdom, among other stuff
The American Revolution of 1789
The End of slavery after the Civil War
Irelands independence
Germany 1919** and 1949
The independence of former colonies
The cultural and social changes of the 60s
The Warsaw Pact 1989
End of Apaartheid in South Africa
The "Color" Revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia
End of the Baath regimes in Iraq and Syria
Coups in central Africa ending western stranglehold on their economies.
All examples of rapid developments with lasting effects. Some violent, some not. Many with outside "help".
The pronoun thing was utter hypocrisy! English is already BY FAR the least influened in grammar etc by sex and gender, of all major languages. Those demanding INSTANT (rather than gradual) gender neutrality weren't just bullies. They also were hypocrites shrieking that "The assumptions I grew up with in the least-gendered language must now dominate the world!!!"
I tend to agree on that one but honestly I don't care personally and find the outrage over evolving languages overblown and hypocritical. If the same people who insist on dead-naming trans people showed the same fervor when it comes to newer words (like lol, for example), that would be at least honest.
But I tell you something:
You will need them in the upcoming struggles.
You need their loud protests. You need their anger. You need their energy. You need people who are experienced and capable of organizing and leading protests and waging online campaigns. Across different camps.
Give up the daydream that the moderately conservative voter will help you in what is to come; they will most likely shut the curtains when the GOPstapo arrest squads come and "didn't knew nuthin" afterwards.
I also concede that universities are the centers of an angry far left. But why?
Because the right suceeded in seperating the population from the universities, turning them into reservations and besieged castles.
Let me introduce you to the wonderful concept of Schützengrabenmentalität, or trench mentality: The more you are under stress and attack, the more aggressively try to hold your ground. Inevitably, you start overreacting. During Covid, not only Anti-Vaxxers have radicalized, but hospital staff, too.
And, again, the more entrenched a group of people are, the more desperate they become, the more vulnerable they become for toxic leaders. Removing them from public discourse will increase their radicalization, to the point they will build bombs (again).
*Actually, chanting that song is now the same level of crime over here as waving swastikas.
**For all it's flaws, Weimar gave us women suffrage and worker's co-management of companies. Among other things.
I had my first direct experience with DEI when I signed up to be a volunteer with the Red Cross last year. DEI is one of the training requirements. The Red Cross' version is pretty good! They get the main points across - i.e. pay attention to everyone (check your biases) because a good idea can come from anywhere. Absolutely no suggestion that all ideas have equal merit. The specific example they used is to make sure obviously shy people are asked for their input in meetings. They made it as inoffensive as possible while being useful. I guess like anything else not all DEI is the same and the devil is in the details.
Reposted for formatting...
@duncan, first of all I want to say that I'm not entirely disagreeing with you. So don't take every sentence as an argument.
I suspect that you are like me in the grandfather age group - not the father of school age children!
Yes and no. I am in my sixties, but I reproduced in my forties. My daughter began kindergarten almost 20 years ago, began high school a little less than 10 years ago, began college in the COVID year of 2020, and is now doing graduate work in Boston.
So I'm not as out of touch with the local educational system as my age alone might suggest.
Admittedly, I'm not an expert on the nation's educator requirements as a whole. That's why I wish you'd list some examples that Tim's book gives, so I can compare them to what I do know.
1) - Keeping quiet when somebody else is being punished for questioning the SJF bollocks
...
Todays Democrats have gone past step (1)!!
There, I'll agree. I wish there was a functioning major party in the US that actually defended the First Amendment, and for selfish reasons I wish that party was the Democratic one.
What you need is prominent sensible people like Bernie and AOC to come out in support of people who are being persecuted
I am becoming quite a fan of AOC and of Jasmine Crockett. And Bernie Sanders's stock has risen greatly in my esteem since the time he lost the Democratic nomination for president. Fact is, I'd rather have him as a Senator. I think he does more good in that role.
As you say it will not be universal - but it does not have to be to make a difference
It doesn't have to be universal, but for your thesis to be correct, it has to be prevalent enough to feel true. And that's where I differ from you in the evaluation of the problem.
To you, the root cause is the leftist extremists and the capitulation of the Democratic Party.
To me, it is the portrayal of those things by the ubiquitous right-wing mediasphere and social media. Isolated outrages by the left are portrayed as threatening to everyone everywhere, and hammered over and over again until it feels like accepted truth. I disagree that taming those on our side, even if it were possible, would fix the problem. There will always be out of control firebrands on any political side, and the media would continue to portray the most egregious leftists as representative of liberalism.
Finally, I think Stonekettle was correct when he said, "Americans don't mind the things that Democrats do; they just want Republicans to be the ones doing them." He was talking about policy issues like protecting Social Security and food safety, but I think it's equally true with cultural issues like cancel culture. Republicans are supported for pushing back on freedom of speech (for themselves) and against cancel culture (against themselves), even as they engage in actual repression of speech and themselves cancel the likes of Colin Kaepernick. Apparently, voters believe that extremism in defense of faux-patriotism is no vice.
The market is up again today? WTF do the investor class know?
Dr Brin:
The pronoun thing was utter hypocrisy!
But actual Democratic Party officials and candidates weren't saying that. Not even AOC or Bernie. That's why I've been arguing that the problem isn't so much that people get flamed by leftists on Twitter as that the ubiquitous right-wing mediasphere convinces people that those extreme leftists represent mainstream liberalism and the Democratic Party.
Democrats didn't say "Defund the police" either. Joe Biden specifically ran against that. But it doesn't matter because even pundits on our side like Bill Maher treated "Defund the police" as a plank in the Democratic platform.
I'd say most voters were turned off by the sight of pro-Palestinian protestors taking over campus buildings and such. Those were protests against Joe Biden. So the argument is that distaste with anti-Biden protests caused people to vote for Trump? That makes no sense except in the 1984 world we live in where MAGAts believe whatever Trump just told them, even the things that contradict the other things.
...allowing them to feel deep resentment when they are called 'racist!'
I have trouble with the syllogism. We call Trump supporters racist. They (Trump supporters) don't feel racist, so they are angered at being called racist. So they vote for Trump?
They were already Trump supporters. "How could it be worse? Jehovah! Jehovah!"
The same was the case for Hillary with "basket of deplorables." She never said all Trump supporters were deplorable. She distinguished between the ones who are deplorable--the ones who we could never reach--and the others who (she thought) could be reasoned with on issues.
So the non-deplorable Trump supporters were so offended at (not) being themselves called deplorable that they self-identified with the deplorables? Again, this is not rational behavior.
When Trump said that Mexicans were rapists and murderers (and maybe some good people too), did the good Mexicans wear "Proud Rapist and Murderer" t-shirts? Of course not. It never happens in that direction.
* * *
My point being that while I agree with you and duncan that the Democratic brand is currently toxic, I disagree that that was something we did to ourselves and is within our power to remedy. The Murdochs and Kochs and Limbaughs of the world did it to us, aided and abetted by Republicans in government. And as Von Schitzenpantz put it, even if we cured cancer, that wouldn't alter the media blitz against us.
I have kids in middle school / high school in very liberal Oregon. They are not taught that only whites can be racist. Nothing resembling what Duncan and Darrell are alleging as "DEI."
What the GOP are doing are rolling back all the gains of the civil rights era, while claiming to be fighting an imaginary DEI bugbear.
Examples = Anecdotes? What are the statistics? How does the excessive enforcement of political correctness in education compare to racist behaviour in education in terms of numbers?
There's the problem of finding the rogue planets; and terraforming is a slow process. They'd make distant colonization easier but much slower.
Things are challenging here at the IRS. I survived the culling of the probationary employees by one week. But I don’t know if I will survive the RIF. News reports suggest that 27% of my division will be terminated. Maybe they can do that with retirements. But then, I don’t know if I might get bounced out of my job by someone with seniority who has the qualifications for my position.
I was a frequent tele-work employee. For some odd reason, they assigned me to an office overlooking 100 miles from my home instead of the office that was just 6 miles away. That was not a problem when I only had to go in 1 day per week. But now I have to go in every day. I tried hotels…ugh. I could only afford cheap ones. I tried driving every morning…not good on my old bones and back. I just rented an apartment on a month-to-month lease.
I asked my union steward for help; they said there is nothing they can do. However, the management team above me came up with an idea…I will request a hardship relocation. Ordinarily, such a request would only be granted if the specific division has a vacancy in the specific office…which is not the case here. However, once an employee makes the request, management can make the change. So I am in the strange situation where management and HR are working to help me while my union won’t. Strange world.
Is anyone else watching Senator Corey Booker in the 20th hour of an honest-to-God Mr Smith Goes To Washington filibuster? It's apparently not being covered by the media at all except for C-SPAN. The man is phenomenal.
@GMT,
The chaos and the cruelty is the point:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/us/politics/federal-workers-return-to-office.html
...
For some federal employees, returning to the office has meant an expansion of their duties to include cleaning toilets and taking out the trash. For others, it has been commuting to a federal building only to continue doing their work through videoconferencing.
Some showed up at the office just to be sent home. Others showed up early and had nowhere to sit. Some employees with the Federal Aviation Administration returned to an office where lead had been detected in the water. And spending freezes have meant a shortage of toilet paper in some buildings.
Federal workers have been returning to offices in stages since President Trump issued an order to do so right after being sworn in. He has described the requirement as a way to ensure that workers are actually doing their jobs while believing that it could have the added benefit of leading more government employees to quit.
“We think a very substantial number of people will not show up to work, and therefore our government will get smaller and more efficient,” Mr. Trump said.
...
Specifically relevant for you:
...
The Internal Revenue Service faced similar problems.
Jeff Eppler, a retired manager at the Internal Revenue Service, said some employees who work directly with Americans on their tax returns did show up at the office on the first day they were set to return, March 10, only to be sent home.
“So instead of working that day, they spent time hanging out in the office and then were eventually sent back home to do the work that they would have been doing the whole day,” he said.
In some cases, I.R.S. managers contacted employees on the weekend before the return date to tell them to continue to work remotely. One I.R.S. employee described having to choose between reporting to an office knowing there was not enough space or continuing to work from home in violation of agency rules.
Another I.R.S. employee described working while sitting on the floor during part of the first day back in the office because a cubicle the employee had reserved was no longer available.
...
"I yield for a question while retaining the floor." is becoming almost as inspiring phrase as, "I need ammunition, not a ride."
Matthew, are you familiar with the Cass report and the history that led to it?
The one problem with allowing Republicans to dig themselves in a hole, we are realizing, is that we might not be able to dig ourselves out of that hole when it's over. :(
A.F. Rey:
The one problem with allowing Republicans to dig themselves in a hole,...
"It's not a question of letting, Mister!" - Captain America #177
Apparently, Strom Thurmond has the current record with a 24 hour and 18 minute filibuster against the Voting Rights Act. Cory Booker is about an hour and a half away from being Hank Aaron to Thurmond's Babe Ruth.
I've seen strong criticism of the Cass report from people with gender dysphoria and those treating them. I have not looked at it in detail. There has been a history of transphobia in the UK, apparently mostly backed by TERFs (Trans Exclusive Radical Feminists), the feminist faction that denies that trans women are really women.
One of my professors once told me that you don't really understand the physics until you understand the math. :)
Before you wave your hands again, pull out the equations and show us, mathematically, just what you mean and how it would work. Otherwise, admit that you may not really know if you're solution is a viable one.
I'm familiar with sealions.
WHo are you and what have you done with 'matthew"? I have no problems with any of your 3 sentences above. Though what they cannmot roll back is the cultural shifts in attitudes toward say interracial marriage, which is accepted now even by Fox viewers.
In fact, it is their refusal to recognize such changes while screaming "racist!!" at neighbors who don't view themselves as racist (though many are) that is one of the five Great Crimes against the Rooseveltean coalition committed by the Sanctimony left.
As someone once commented, if Democrats are so gung-ho about Trans people and Trans rights, why can't anyone name the Trans speaker at the last Democratic Convention? ;) How could a party, so entrenched in shoving Trans acceptance down our throats, not include a Trans speaker to demonstrate their solidarity with the Trans movement at their biggest convention??
GMT the idiocy of dems is bottomless. BLATANTLY THE SOLE ACTUAL AIM OF DOGE is the IRS. To remove the Pelosi reforms and boosts that threatened oligarch with actual jail time. ALL of the other DOGE cuts are meant to distract attention from that. Demo politicians tend to be decent folks. But they undestand tactics as well as a slime mold does.
Post a Comment