swansont

There’s a gap between “molecules bump into each other randomly” and “living matter” that you can drive a galaxy through The results of atoms and molecules bumping into each other is decidedly not random.

So not only is the mind not from the brain, it doesn’t even require life? And it existed prior to the universe? Those are rather bold claims, and not consistent with your previous definition of mind.

! Moderator Note Please comply with rule 2.7, or stop wasting our time

I think various things with Boeing have pointed out that a lack of independent oversight is not a wise path to take regarding safety. We see it in other industries but the damage there is not quite as spectacular (e.g. banking failures ruin lives, too, but not quite as dramatically)

Yes, we do interference with them in a controllable fashion. With sound, as MigL has offered; there are also examples of levitation with sound waves. We do diffraction and interference with light, and we make holograms.

And what does this have to do with this topic?

But you don’t know that it won’t work, only that it hasn’t, which is true of all research at some point.

And yet when I asked about this, you said “the numbers don't matter” If you can’t actually support your argument this is just ignorance-based ranting

What randomness are you talking about?

If your issue is the ethics of Australia rejecting nuclear power you should have posed it that way. But you didn’t. What is unethical about fusion research? No R&D effort has had a successful launch before completion. If you’re going to criticize it, at least use the same standard. It’s like complaining about not breaking the sound barrier before Yeager did it.

What do you mean by “real”? Sounds real if you can explain what it is. Is it that time isn’t a physical object? Consider length. The same issues exist. How would one confirm this experimentally? Considering that you can’t have a situation with no motion. Wait until you study more physics. Lots of mathematical constructs out there. It’s simply not an issue.

Not at all. If there was an impasse or outright failure, sure, continuing would be the sunk cost fallacy, but knowledge diffusion is a real thing, even in programs that aren’t being cancelled. Some key person retiring or dying can impact a program. Researchers are not interchangeable parts. That’s not the case, though. It’s progressing. There’s no guarantee that a working, net-energy producing reactor will ever be built, but there’s no denying that the state of development is beyond where it was, say, 10 years ago. EAST, NIF and KSTAR have each set some kind of record of a fusion parameter in the past few years. And let’s not forget that the premise here is that there is some ethical issue because of the “vast” amount of power that fusion programs use

The problem with putting any particular research “on the back burner” is that knowledge diffusion kills it. The researchers move on to other projects and you won’t be able to reassemble the same researchers. Any institutional knowledge, any tricks of the trade, will be lost and have to be re-learned if you try and restart. If you decide you need fusion, however far away we currently are, you would have added extra years to reaching the end goal, since you’ll have to duplicate previous work.

And I wonder how that was achieved. Could it be by investing in R&D, even when the return on such investment wasn’t (yet) being realized? There are discussions here, from not too long ago, about how solar isn’t viable because it was so expensive. Good thing those calls weren’t answered.

Biden bowing out at this point would be viewed as weakness and desperation, much like McGovern replacing Eagleton with Shriver as his running mate in ‘72. Any new candidate would be basically unvetted, and whatever skeletons are in their closet will have to be dealt with in real time. Exposure at the last minute will be like “but her emails” and be similarly blown out of proportion by the press even if it’s much ado about nothing. And yet few of these people ran in 2020. Booker did and dropped out pretty quickly - his polling wasn’t high enough to keep him in the debates. Why would they garner national support now, when they are not nationally known? I think you overestimate how much attention the average person pays to politics, especially outside of their own state. You’re talking about energizing a small subset of the voters, while the rest are wondering who these people are

And we have a thread on the support team Trump will install, to basically dismantle the government from within. Why is it that we can’t hold both men - who have a track record in office, and whose plans for the next four years are known - to the same standard? You want a POTUS who can lead and show strength in meeting foreign leaders. Who do you think has the respect of them right now? Is Trump going to magically develop these traits? Why aren’t we discussing why the convicted felon, rapist and fraudster, who regularly engaged in corruption, should withdraw?

Are you the OP? Did I say you had an agenda? A G E N D A Are you eligible to vote in US elections?

The evidence does not make this clear. The OP broached the topic of cognitive decline 4 years ago. Biden has done a pretty good job as president despite that alleged decline. Smells like an agenda to me.

No math = no prediction

And what about Trump? The propaganda is, as always, meant to shift focus. Every accusation is seemingly an admission. And while everyone is entitled to their opinion, I’m leery when these proposals come from folks on the outside. Calls for Biden to step aside from people who can’t even vote or wouldn’t vote for a democrat can easily be bad actors attempting to stir the pot. Must be? Have they examined him? Run tests? There’s no link to any story. Exactly. The only BBC medical story I can find is about his physical earlier this year, declaring him fit https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68429773

IOW, propaganda is effective

Find out what the known reserves are, and how much is being used each year to justify the concern. Science discussion, instead of gloom and doom rhetoric (Aluminum is not mined, BTW. Bauxite is, and processed) Lead is about $2000 a ton. That should suggest how difficult it is to obtain. It’s not a rare substance. If it becomes rare, such efforts might be economically feasible. With ~25 million tons mined in 2021, I think the amount list to bullets is probably minuscule by comparison

Biden had a cold. Kindly stop with the GOP lies/talking points https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4744889-joe-biden-has-a-cold-debate/ Nobody. It’s too late in the process, and you’d be throwing away the advantage incumbents have (name recognition, track record)

Clean energy is only a small fraction of total energy — 80% of energy is still from fossil fuels. Even if we just look at electricity, renewables only account for 29% https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/raising-ambition/renewable-energy How can you be sure we don’t need to pursue fusion? Do you have some crystal ball that can see into the future? Your “knowledge” isn’t based on any facts or analysis that you’ve shared. It’s just been rhetoric, with a vague assertion that this is an ethics issue. Your points thus far has been that we’re using vast amounts of energy to achieve fusion, but we aren’t, that the money could be better used elsewhere but haven’t explained how. You’ve had several people explain how research isn’t fungible but that doesn’t seem to have had any effect. Your point also seems to include the notion that since the efforts have not yet been fully successful that we should pull the plug, but somehow my examples of other efforts that took time and multiple iterations before success was achieved are somehow irrelevant. One thing you haven’t discussed is the advances in technology that are part of any large multidisciplinary research effort, that can be exploited by others. The benefit is not limited to the end product. Is it ethical to shut down research that has helped make (and could continue to make) e.g. medical device advances?

Is there some analysis that stokes this fear?