KJW

Even though I live nearly half a world away from the insanity that is the Trump administration, I have been taking a very keen interest in what is happening in the US. It seems clear to me that Trump is now shoehorning everything into "foreign relations" because that is where he claims to have presidential power beyond the reach of anyone, including the Supreme Court. It seems inevitable that he will claim "foreign interference" as a pretext to taking control of the midterm elections. And this may even become true if he enlists some of his mates at the "Board of Peace" to create "foreign interference". What do you think? And what can be done about it?

You asked a question and I answered it. Yes, I read what was written. My answer stands.

The number of moles is inversely proportional to the molar mass.

How useful a printout of a digital ID depends on whether it is accepted as a proof of identity. One may need to get the printout authenticated by some official. But even if one does have a printout of a digital ID that is accepted as a proof of identity, it is still a physical ID. Are you referring to what I personally call the "mixing chlorine with ammonia dilemma"? By this, I mean the dilemma associated with people knowing that mixing chlorine with ammonia is dangerous. Both chlorine and ammonia are readily available to ordinary people, so the likelihood of people without chemistry knowledge mixing them is not insignificant¹. Thus, for the sake of safety, people should be made aware that they should never mix these two substances. On the other hand, people with evil intent may choose to deliberately mix these substances together for evil purposes, and that the more people who know of the danger, the more likely it is that there will be someone who will do so deliberately with evil intent. Thus, there is a benefit to restricting the availability of such knowledge, in conflict with the benefit of widely distributing such knowledge. ¹ Although I'm aware of the chemistry, I have never actually mixed these substances and do not know what actually happens. I will admit to being tempted to find out. Chemistry tells me the result is anything from the release of toxic gases to fire and/or explosion, and that the precise conditions are important. This is similar to but not quite the same as the case of scientists studying nuclear physics, where the benefits are not the opposite side of the same coin as the dangers. These are essentially saying the same thing. And they are both based on the fascist belief that some people are better and more entitled than other people. So the argument is actually begging the question. The fundamental problem with this fascist belief is that it is ultimately incompatible with peace as the "inferior" people decide to assert that the "superior" people are maybe not so superior after all. I'm not a subscriber to the view that evil is only subjective. One can axiomatically assert the "golden rule" and derive the notions of good and evil from that. I see that as the fundamental reason a computer is beneficial to society; the judiciary shouldn't be negotiable... About 30 years ago, I would've agreed with you. The appeal of computers was their ability to operate fairly, without benefitting one group of people at the expense of another group of people. However, I suspect you interpret "negotiate" to mean influential people using their influence to bend the system to their will. But I could've easily said that one can't reason with a computer. The example I gave (my inability to prove that I was not a robot) was of a computer being unreasonable.

Me too. +1

I imagine part of the reluctance towards batteries is the perception that they are a fire hazard and that installing them would be tantamount to installing a bomb in their homes. This is not an unjustified view as there have been recall ads for solar batteries in recent times, as well as the numerous houses on the news that have burned down due to e-scooter batteries catching fire in garages.

The printing press? Why are you bringing up this straw man from the 15th century? I never suggested that all technology encroaches on freedom and control. I pointed to particular technology, indicating how they are making us vulnerable to authoritarianism. One technology I didn't mention because, although it poses a substantial risk to our freedom and privacy, it also exposes the evil actions of overlords, is the proliferation of cameras. The thing about a lot of technology is that it provides us with benefits that results in us accepting the technology into our lives only to find that the technology can also be used against us. It perhaps should worry us that we voluntarily carry a tracking device with us wherever we go. And that tracking device could also be a listening device. That may be paranoia, but can any of you say for certain that a mobile phone is not acting as a listening device? That's a problem with much of technology: the users of the technology cannot know exactly how it works. Australia has recently banned under-16-year-olds from accessing social media. Many people support this as social media can be a dangerous place for children. But the consequence of this is that all (adult) Australians now have to somehow identify themselves to use social media. At present, a VPN may be able to get around the age-verification process. But as more countries adopt age-based restrictions on accessing the internet, and as VPN detection becomes more effective, VPNs will become less effective as a means to bypass age-verification. Gradually, we are finding that our ability to use the internet anonymously is being eroded away. I'll admit to some resistance to new technology based on a natural desire to maintain the status quo. But I can see the benefits of particular technology. And I can also see the dangers of particular technology. About 30 years ago, I was a believer of the idea that a fair society should be run by computers. But since then, having experienced glimpses of what such a society would be like, I no longer believe in a society run by computers. The fundamental problem with dealing with computers is that one can't negotiate with them. For example, a few years ago, I wanted to create a new Outlook email account. However, before I could do that, I had to prove that I was not a robot. But due to the arms race between producing tasks that robots can't solve, and producing robots that can solve such tasks, the requirement that ordinary humans are able to solve the tasks was forgotten. Unable to solve the task, I had to abandon creating a new Outlook email account and go with Gmail instead. Subsequently, Microsoft realised their mistake and reverted back to something that doesn't require a savant to solve. Usually, the option of an alternative task is provided (for the visually impaired), but for some reason this didn't work. Whether AI will make computers easier to negotiate with is hard to say, but I suspect that AI will be more idiosyncratic to deal with. Are you mocking me?! Computers were fine, albeit expensive, when only nerds had them. But now that every man and his dog have them, criminals now see computers as a lucrative avenue to rip people off. And now we all have to use security software that we are forced to trust, ensure that all our software has the latest updates (hoping those updates don't crash our system), treat with suspicion all our online (and other) communication, etc. The notion of authoritarianism isn't limited to governments. Private enterprise also has authoritarian tendencies in their quest for increasing profit. And criminals use scare tactics to extract money from people. And it seems that the more technology we have, the more vulnerable we are to people who want to take advantage of us.

I mean, you could, but if there is malice involved, what they will say (and have been saying) is that they suspect it is fake and take you in anyway. I think my broader point is that the mechanism of compliance is largely irrelevant if there is malicious intent involved. I.e. if the system is inherently untrustworthy, any part of it becomes a liability and protections are merely illusion. It might help folks to sleep at night, but it won't offer objective protection. I should point out that I'm not living under a Nazi regime where one has to carry "papers" with them just in case one is stopped in the street by the Gestapo. When I mentioned showing ID, it was for things like opening a bank account rather than proving my entitlement to exist. Having a physical ID is a rigorous proof of identity from my perspective, whereas a digital ID may become unavailable due to some form of technological glitch that I have no control over. In the scenario you mentioned, if the Gestapo consider your physical ID to be fake in the absence of any evidence, then they were always going to take you into custody, and the ID becomes irrelevant. The point of what I said in my original post is that the holder of a physical ID has control over the ID, whereas the holder of a digital ID no longer has control over the ID, that control having been transferred to the administrating body of the digital IDs. While there are scenarios in which a physical ID might not be sufficient, there are more scenarios in which a digital ID might not be sufficient, including every scenario in which a physical ID has been revoked. Bear in mind that this thread is about hidden authoritarianism. The scenario you mentioned seems to me to be about a full-blown dictatorship. But whereas the opening poster seems to be discussing the intrinsic limitations of a democratic system, I am focusing on the way technology is gradually encroaching on freedom and privacy.

Offline papers are just as easily revoked as the respective administrations typically have broad powers about them. At least with a physical ID, even if it is somehow revoked, the person is still in possession of that physical ID and can show it to someone who requests that ID be shown. That the physical ID has been revoked would require the person requesting the ID to check a database, something that isn't done in my experience. And if the rules change to require that a database be checked, then that is effectively a digital ID.

I don't think a solution in terms of radicals includes infinitely nested radicals. However, it is my (possibly incorrect) understanding that all quintic equations can be solved in terms of the Bring radical (an ultraradical).

This thread reminds me of the sequence: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, ?

Great insight! Never thought about it from this particular angle, though in retrospect it seems obvious +1 People intuitively accept that the distance between two points in three-dimensional space depends on the path between them. But for whatever reason, this intuition doesn't seem to extend to four-dimensional spacetime, although it is perhaps the notion of spacetime itself that is where the intuition fails. Actually, the failure of ds in the metric to be an exact differential is easier to prove than usual. Usually, one would be considering integrability conditions involving the commutativity of mixed second-order partial derivatives. But in the case of the metric, the proof is algebraic (an invertible matrix cannot be the tensor product of two vectors).

The intrinsic properties of a manifold depend entirely on the manifold itself without any reference to a higher-dimensional embedding manifold (a coordinate transformation is an embedding of a manifold into a manifold of the same dimension). The distance between two points of a manifold depends on the path between the two points. That is, for the expression: (ds)2 = guv dxu dxv ds is not an exact differential (there does not exist a function s(..., xu, ...) for which ds is the differential). This btw is why there is no absolute time in relativity. If ds were an exact differential, then: [math]ds = \dfrac{\partial s}{\partial x^u} dx^u[/math] and therefore: [math](ds)^2 = \dfrac{\partial s}{\partial x^u} \dfrac{\partial s}{\partial x^v} dx^u dx^v[/math] [math]g_{uv} = \dfrac{\partial s}{\partial x^u} \dfrac{\partial s}{\partial x^v}[/math] But the RHS of this expression, as a matrix, has zero determinant, contrary to the requirement that the metric tensor is invertible. [If the above LaTeX doesn't render, please refresh browser.]

When it comes to the "mechanism of hidden authoritarianism in Western countries", there seems to me to be a pushing of society towards a dependence on technology, and away from traditional things such as cash. It bothers me immensely that I am often being forced to have a smartphone and use it online to verify my identity instead of using a password (that should be my choice, not the online platform's imposition which is non-negotiable). It also bothers me that it is society itself that is complicit in the push towards dependence on technology, especially the push towards a cashless society. I recently read an article about the push towards digital licenses and digital IDs in general, with the scary possibility that these can be revoked remotely, thus putting a person at risk of becoming an "unperson".

My own guess - the field equations for torsion in ECT contain no derivatives, and at the same time torsion is completely determined by local matter fields. This implies that torsion vanishes in regions where T=0, and no wave-type equation exists for torsion to “radiate” through vacuum. So it can’t have any propagating degrees of freedom - it’s purely a local phenomenon subject to the local presence of matter. It occurred to me that pure gravitational curvature would have to be free of the torsion tensor in Einstein-Cartan theory just as pure gravitational curvature is free of the Einstein tensor in general relativity. It's actually not clear to me what the equivalent of the Einstein equation is in Einstein-Cartan theory. However, if the gravitational curvature is sourced from the Einstein tensor, because the Einstein tensor contains the torsion tensor, the torsion tensor ought to act as a source for some of the gravitational curvature even if it is somewhat hidden (note that even the covariant differential operator contains the torsion tensor). One could move all instances of the torsion tensor (including its partial derivatives) over to the source term in the standard Einstein equation of general relativity (assuming integrability conditions are satisfied). I find it interesting that general relativity can deal with rotating objects whereas the torsion tensor seems to be required to deal with (quantum mechanical?) spin. Note that I'm not considering the torsion tensor as a propagating field, in the same sense that the Einstein tensor appears not to be a propagating field.