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Sometimes I wonder if China is a real place. We lose manufacturing jobs: China did it. Covid started where else China. I don’t think we’d have so many products from China if American businesses weren’t profiting. My question is how do we get a realistic view of China? I don’t know about you but I wonder how all these companies actually operate.

I think the question is who literally pays the tariff, i.e. how is it collected by the US. The consumer will pay more to the retailer, and the retailer pays more to the importer, who pays the tariff to customs. “When the U.S. imposes tariffs on imports, U.S. businesses directly pay import taxes to the U.S. government on their purchases from abroad” I see you logic: add a tariff raise the price. But is only valid if your goal is the lowest price. Couldn’t you also say if the price is raised then the China washer now costs as much as the U.S. washer and the labor is more balanced to support the U.S. manufacture? The tariffs will lose money at first but in the long term help the workers. J.D. Vance said in the debate that we listened to the experts and they shipped manufacturing overseas. This didn’t work. It didn’t even help the people of the countries the manufacturing went to. They had slave labor. Experts aren’t always right. Bruce Schneier would describe it as businesses hacking the laws for personal profit. Also if you put tariffs on only China there products will cost more than say a Korean LG washer. So if they pass the tariffs off to the consumer the price of the Chinese washer will be less competitive. But again the danger is not price. Instead it is “revenge” tariffs on U.S. goods sold in China. i don’t know how to balance these things because I’m not an economist. You may boast one business and hurt many others.

@StringJunky I will tell you what I told my friend: “Next week is crunch time. The election. Three States will choose between two candidates that one state chose to get a result nobody wants.”

I’m not saying put political ads on Amazon. People hate ads. But say Amazon recommends a product. It looks like a suggestion and not an ad. It is an ad. But the message of the ad was target to that specific shopper. Now we have ad blockers and ignore ads. But since the person targeting you the browser knows your browsing history they can influence you. The ad doesn’t have to be in the form of a pop-up. Like you mentioned in the form of YouTube or a news article. You could see if the browser searched Harris and show a group of news articles as Trump being a jerk. If a person was maga you could show Jan 6th or Trumps cabinet saying he’s dangerous. To me the Generals and advisors saying he shouldn’t be president will decide the election. Trump has many policies I agree with but the only reason he would lose if the anti Trump fuels voters. I really don’t know what Harris stands for but she is running on: “Not Trump.” But 5 states will determine the election anyway. I see the political ads and wonder how and who they are trying to influence. I think the political cartoons are interesting. Political cartoons are the most credible political ads. I did some graphic artwork for a few months. We called them products but they were ads. It was simple stuff like events or signs. Nothing as devious as trying to win an election. But putting out messages like these can be with great power comes great responsibility. One group in the graphics shop made a slogan: “One Nation.” Which in the U.S. is patriot but means “one race” in a different country. So with its unpredictability and no rules we see all these garage ads. But these problems weren’t discovered by me. The U.S. Government is battling social media and at the same time exploiting media for their own purposes.

I did not explain this well. I mean not Amazon themselves choosing a candidate but an entity that could target ads like Amazon does for “things you may like.” I mean target ads like Amazon. I am glad some things aren’t political. Bruce Schneier says stuff like this is possible in his book Data and Goliath. I don’t have perfect knowledge of all the wars. They are not going to say what information influenced their decision. I only know what the news and media organizations say. And those are the same as the ones trying to influence me. I’m just figuring the real issues aren’t being addressed. Both sides are liers. Then there is the issue that voting doesn’t scientifically work. But that is another issue.

What is Amazon promoted one Presidential candidate over another? I mean they are pretty good at showing things that I may be interested in. And they can change the price to influence me. Bruce Schenier’s Data and Goliath book states that personal data is collected, shared, and sold. It has all your demographics and psychological profile. They can essentially read your mind. But my questions are how are both candidates using this information? And.does it change your mind and influence your vote. It doesn’t have to be a formal ad. For instance if I see the war in Ukraine is brutal and the people are fighting hard to fight Russia, but we limit what weapons and support we give them. And then the President of Ukraine want 6 billion dollars…I think there is something wrong…they have just created a war economy. But then next time I watch the news Trump says he can end the war. We laugh at this. After all Trump and Putin are friends. They are dictators. I try and apply scientific method: Trump’s term had no wars. But America would not fight or support an unjust war. And communism is bad. I know we always think our own opinions are correct. But you can see this is debatable. But our decisions could mean we were psyoped. I mean we don’t have perfect information. We only know what we are shown and they know how to influence us. But why would they want us to pick a side and divide us. Instead of the truth they give us 2 incomplete descriptions and they know best. Vote for what you believe in. I just wish there was science to combat the misinformation. Maybe if we had Trump and Harris’s Internet profiles we could predict what they would do in office. And we could send them ads to influence decisions towards a better world.

At everyone. If sex is bad then why can humans do it on command while animals wait till mating season? That is just what the nature show on PBS said. I think the strong desire for sex in humans is so the species reproduces. But men treating women badly is more than about sex. I think here it is the culture versus Christianity. It isn’t the religion it is the beliefs a person has. Just on 60 Minutes the Priest was selling babies to the U.S. The Priest is Christian and probably thinks he is doing right. To him these babies were from unwed mothers. But religion aside we are all making decisions that may seem right but aren’t. We have the capacity but we also have the decision power to not be animals. But what if your environment forces you to become animalistic? Someone in war will be forced to become a killer. So it comes down to what we think and make the decision. Me and iNow discussed mis-information and subliminal ads. How can we stay sexually pure with everything around us promoting sex? All the ads and websites; and sex is just a small fraction of our lives.

I think this verse is talking about the differences of people. Instead of different heritages and sexes everyone belongs to Jesus. I don’t read it as Paul being homosexual, but homosexuals are part too. For marriage it is one flesh. Like the U2 song 2 hearts beat as one.

Immune? Nope. Aware and actively taking steps to mitigate it? Yes. I think it is an impossible task. You have to go with what you believe in. There is no way to separate misinformation from fact unless it is blatant. We have to compare the misinformation to what we already know. Even if you used the scientific method you could still get it wrong. Look at Covid. They say there is no vaccine. Do your job. There is a voluntary vaccination. Even if you worked without a vaccine you will lose your job if you don’t get vaccinated. That example is why misinformation starts. The vaccine will kill you. Covid is fake. It seems you could just use science but both sides have their own science. This is for psychologists. I’d rather crunch numbers. I see no solution to this problem.

And you feel you are immune to it? You dislike Trump because of his tweets and how they portray him on tv. I’m not trying to sway voters. Trump comes with a bunch of problems. But I my opinion just watching Biden news conferences the mission behind all the wars wasn’t clear. Almost like he had no options or no decision. I don’t know how we got these candidates. There are major problems no matter who wins. My issues are world stability and economy. Maybe the misinformation generaters have already won. They have use believing that our candidate is better and the other will destroy the world. I don’t know if there is a misinformation thread in the psychology thread but it would be interesting to explore further.

Again you avoid the debate of the pagers and applying game theory to world conflicts. But nowhere have I attacked Kamala Harris. I typed her name because I am on a phone and couldn’t look it up. My name is frequently pronounced wrong. I feel that in my discussions had quality points to explore further. I don’t care if you disagree. If your opinions were identical to mine we wouldn’t need to discuss anything. You assume I’m maga. I haven’t voted for Trump in the past 2 elections. I just think compared to Harris, Trump is anti war. Vets and military love him. What I think about the pagers is it came out of a spy movie. I think it is selective in getting terrorist leaders with bombing hospitals. However it could be considered an act of war by those that blew up. I talked about Ukraine not because I am for letting Russia off. But if I was an ambassador I’d be in peace talks. Also I discussed media misinformation because the way those not involved in the war rely on getting information. If other countries want to influence the election how are they doing that? There are so many opinions how is a facebook ad going to make me vote for the candidate they want to win? These are my topics for discussion. And you should Google Camela.

That could be. Biden strategy could be stall the progression while still standing against Putin. But the cost is the lives of the Ukrainian people. Game theory again. How do make Russia “pay” (deter Russia) without mass casualties? I’m not saying let Russia off the hook. I am just saying what path do we take. Arming Ukraine slows the decision, but it doesn’t solve the problem. Conflict equals more conflict. The elephant in the room is “how do we end this war.”

What is Russia’s goal behind the invasion? I know it is said Putin wants to rebuild the Soviet Union. But why would he believe such a thing is possible? I always try and think “what is the true goal.” This is no easy task. I only know about this war from the media. The democrats say Russia influence the election. It wasn’t that no one liked Hillary. Trump says the election was rigged. It wasn’t that elections are unpredictable. I mentioned game theory. Do you have any interest there? I don’t know the goals of the World. That is why you have to go with the goals you think are right. I don’t mean to put yourself above others. People going for their own goals is how we got this problem. And we are not always in a position for our goals to make a difference. But a problem where a military system is systematically killing civilians should have a clear goal that can easily be identified. I know finding this goal is not easy to identify. But can you apply game theory to misinformation? @MigL Ok you don’t give up half of Ukraine how do you end the war? I emailed a radio show before that UN should put officers in Ukraine. If Russia doesn’t invade the Ukraine doesn’t join NATO. However if Russia invades Ukraine becomes part of NATO. Brinkmanship. High reward; WWIII if it doesn’t work.

Well I was referring to after WWII when Germany was East and West. It took 40 years but the wall was torn down. I agree the Ukraine situation is urgent because innocent people are dying. But innocent people are always being needlessly killed. You can’t always enter a conflict based on this. It isn’t that another country doesn’t want to help but quick action may make things worse. We are scientists. What is the game theory behind entering a conflict? I would agree WWII was a must act. But what about Vietnam? We just killed our young men. The French were whipped so it doesn’t make sense to enter this conflict saying it’s to stop the spread of communism. The U.S. pulls out of Vietnam and we’re friends. Why didn’t we become friends before all the killings? It is because we didn’t make a deal.

@MigL I don’t like that Russia gaining land that isn’t theirs. But is losing land worse than losing an entire population? And I think the loss would be the least damaging. Why? Didn’t Russia divide Germany. Like North and South Korea. Diplomacy is slow but it is effective. All of these small wars where super powers fund are going to escalate.

Why would spelling her name phonetically be racist? I’m no good with names. I actually voted for Biden last time. If I had my choice I would put both Vice Presidents in office. We don’t get a choice on who runs. But you are looking at Trump the twitter. Look at Trump the policy maker. I think the economy and World relations are the top issues. I don’t think the democrats will offer diplomacy to these wars. Three years of wars and all they offer is weapons. To me this is the most important thing. In the last 3 years are there any indications that the democrats will stop these wars?

“If you can’t explain it simply you can’t explain it.” Remember the Iraq war with weapons of mass destruction? Obviously the U.S. had a strategic reason to be there. The Senators all voted for it. But they tell the media it’s wmd. Likewise the Israelis want to occupy the land that surrounds them for defense in a larger conflict. Their wmds are freeing the hostages. For Russia they have invaded Ukraine. I don’t know the reasons behind this war. The media hasn’t given the Russia’s view. I say Trump will fix it because he is going to make a deal. We are going to compromise and may lose many resources but the result is peace. Camela would spend trillions on the war machine. We will continue to arm Ukraine for what? So they can be killed slowly. Camela has no plans for peace. Look what the Biden administration did in Afghanistan.

I think everybody here is arguing the same thing, that is they don’t like war. I think the pager thing is great that they targeted the leaders and not bomb the entire city. But if they did that to our leaders we would bomb them. I'm going to make a prediction. A prediction the forum won’t like but looking at history is true. If Harris is elected we will become more involved in these wars. Trump will fix it. Israel is our ally but shame on us for turning our head while they kill 40,000 people. Joe Rogan once said on his podcast that they wanted to impeach Trump for something stupid. He said we’d have to impeach G.W. Bush for all his wars. In the Steve Jobs bio they interviewed WOZ. Woz said the company grew but Jobs was ruthless. (Paraphrasing here.) But Woz wonders if it could be done any other way. That is the question we should ask ourselves. We look to live better but we are killing each other. Can’t I live even better. Why are we killing millions of innocent people that have nothing to do with the military threat. I just wanted to add that Israel’s intention is probably not to cause mass casualties. They probably cleared out the Strip to gain the strategic ground. In doing so they stop the enemy’s path into the country. Again they should have ask is there any better way to do this without killing civilians. But this move may have saved lives on both sides by deterring more conflict. This is pure speculation by me. But I want to believe this is the reason for the military operation.

I’m quite serious about a one way ticket function where the public key is built into the public encryption algorithm. The idea would solve key distribution and add security. You could say that Eve the attacker could just reverse what Alice chose to encipher but it is more secure than that. Alice would encipher the message with any random key and these random numbers would have substitutions and super positions only Bob knows. Alice would encipher her message according to her own random key but the algorithm would encipher the text before it was returned to Bob. I know that it sounds like a possible protocol but as far as I know no one has tried it yet. Which could be because it doesn’t work. Is this how cryptocurrency works? Is this how bitcoin is traded anonymously? I don’t know how the ledger works. But a system like this gives most of the power to Bob.

Is posting links to files permissible? I ask because I have Mathematica files on the web that can be downloaded safely and securely. I have been inserting the Mathematica files into the code on SFN, but for clarity I would like to share the notebook files themselves. I posted the following idea as a teaser. I believe the protocol would work. But could someone invent math to make it secure? My odometer turned 10099 to 10100 to 10101; then 100999 to 101000 to 101001 An odometer is like a combination lock, Caesar Cipher, Pagoda, M209, Enigma Machine. But what if the odometer was set to an equation. Different combinations of the cylinders is crackable. That was proven by history, I guess. It would be strong encryption with secret keys, but how would you ever share a private key for asymmetric encryption (public key)? 100899 100900 100901 But what if we took the one way asymmetric encryption and put it on its side. The odometer would be a way. Instead of a public key Bob gives away an odometer in the form of an algorithm. He tells Alice to encipher he message by turning the algorithm (odometer) to encode the message with any key she turns into the odometer. Bob has taken the time to substitute numbers along this odometer. For example number 10 on the odometer could be substituted with a 2. (This could be a substitution in numbers or revolutions.) Eve only has access to the numbers that Alice encoded and a partial algorithm that is public. The key is unique and not symmetric because Alice picked a random key and only Bob knows the substitutions of the numbers on the odometer. Will this equal public key protocol? I don’t yet have the math. I did not want to attach this to the Simple Yet Interesting post because the idea is nonsense. But reading it you should start to wonder if it is in fact possible. It may work but would need some math magic to make it strong against deciphering.

I just read my short story of Einstein again. Does it make you laugh? It is like a serious philosophical discussion in every paragraph and that discussion makes Einstein sound simple minded. It reads like: “I am Einstein. I make bomb. Germans should not have bomb. It could blow up.” It is like the 1960’s Batman tv series. Einstein spells out his every move, but in doing so looks like a blundering idiot. You are right it is silly. But the more you read it you will find a science fiction philosophy in every paragraph.

I wanted to share a great story that I didn’t write. Do a web search for: John Titor This story is as real as science fiction gets.

I’m glad you liked it. I think good science and good science fiction go hand in hand. I think science is the art of discovery and science fiction is how it relates to our lives and humanity. I probably wouldn’t be interested in science if it wasn’t for Spider-Man and Dr. Victor von Doom. It is still challenging to write good stories. Presentation of the story is everything. I just wanted to update my opinion of Einstein’s thought experiments originating in science fiction. I don’t believe it. I know that most ideas aren’t purely original, but these thought experiments have to originate with Einstein. Does anyone agree?