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Everything posted by MigL
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I don't know, CharonY. I thought that is what we were discussing. I have stated that, in my opinion, the mechanism is flawed. and I gave historical evidence of where the mechanism was used for " bad' purposes with resulting disastrous effects ( American slavery ), and even where the mechanism was used for " good' intentions, with negative effects also ( Canadian Residential Schools ). If you can give me an example of 'racial' discrimination where 'good' intentions resulted in 'good' outcomes, I can be convinced otherwise.
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The following is an easy to understand overview of derivatives. Read it very carefully … calculus_note_intro_derivative.pdf Come back and ask questions when you're done ... Don't seem to be able to attach this file ?? calculus_note_intro_derivative.pdf Haven't done this for a long time. Can anyone offer advice ?
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Could be someone sitting in his car, on the street in front of your house, with his pants around his ankles, hacked into your wi-fi, and searching for porn. Don't laugh; I've read of things like that happening .
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It is no stretch that genetic markers that are responsible for differing traits of certain groups are also related to inheritable diseases. The amount of melanin ( skin pigmentation ) of some Italians is greater than some people who identify as Black. I myself. get my moles checked out whenever I visit my doctor. I have previously stated that the Emancipation Proclamation did not identify Blacks, but slaves. While the Underground Railroad had many participants who were not Black, and, sought an end to oppression and slavery. So while those programs/laws/ efforts identified a station in life ( for lack of a better term ), or a genetic marker that leads to a certain trait, they are not explicitly 'racial'. It is only when we generalize, and attribute that station in life ( slavery ), and those traits ( high concentration of melanin ), to a separate 'race', that the trouble begins. I can see the immediate benefits of putting 'racial discrimination' to 'good' use. But remain of the opinion that a mechanism for sorting according to 'race', is inherently flawed, whether used for 'good' or 'bad'. Just over 100 years ago the Residential School system in Canada was thought to be a 'good' way to assimilate Native Canadians into Canadian society, and instead of living on Reservations, be productive members of society. It is now considered a huge flop, which abused/damaged a lot of lives, and far from being 'good', is now considered criminal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system . What is 'good' or 'bad' today, may not be so tomorrow.
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No studies or data to back this up... I suppose a person who has been victimized, and is embarrassed/ashamed to have put themselves in that position, might feel that anyone else who does the same, ought to have known better. They might equate doing something dumb, to being at fault. I base this on how critical former smokers, who have since quit, are of smokers who don't quit. After they, themselves have quit, they consider other smokers, who haven't quit, almost criminal. ( no, I don't smoke and never have )
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No apology necessary; I'm fairly thick-skinned. I just found it galling that you would complain about something which you also do. Do you mean like this ... Just what exactly do you think 'discriminate' means ? dis·crim·i·nate /dəˈskriməˌnāt/ verb 1. recognize a distinction; differentiate. Discrimination is simply the act of sorting according to some criterion. I think that we can all agree that discriminating, or sorting, according to the criterion of 'race' is wrong as it has led to oppression, slavery and genocide. Even worse, there are no actual 'races', but the one; it is essentially sorting according to distinguishing features, that has caused all these problems. Yet you guys feel it is still OK, because you're using it for 'good'. edit I miss the Physics forum where words are strictly defined, and meanings are not colored by the subjective life experiences of the user
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Seriously Zap ??? You guys pick and choose snippets of my posts to attack, without taking them in context of the rest of the post, and MSC has the balls to accuse me of doing that ? What is wrong with the sentence above ? That when all is equal ( the goal ), the only consideration should be grades and attitude ? Go ahead and call me racist; you've already accused me of using Trump's playbook. If the mechanism ( sorting according to race ) used to combat racism is the exact same mechanism ( again sorting according to race ) that created it in the first place, you are going to have problems. I am suggesting that mechanism is flawed; not suggesting racism does not exist. I am also suggesting you are further polarizing race relations, but I would expect nothing less of Americans. That's out of Trump's playbook too, isn't it Zap ? I'm out.
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No one should have to be reminded that generalising is only partially right ( or partially wrong ). My opinion has always been that, a victim can be dumb … ( -assaulted while walking through Central Park, alone, at night -raped while the only female , wearing revealing clothing, at a drunken frat house party -hit by bus while crossing the street wearing headphones, a hoodie, and not looking both ways -etc. ) but certainly cannot be blamed, or faulted.
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You are falling into the same trap here. What do age, gender and clinical ability have to do with education ? I don't think you want to introduce gender, age and disability discrimination into the equation too. The goal is that even financial situation should not matter, and the only criteria should be academic standing ( grades ) and attitude. That is my point exactly. If we continue to measure race ( ? ), gender, age or even clinical ability, human nature being what it is, the result will be discrimination/sorting according to all those extra criteria which should have no bearing on whether you get an education or not . edit Sorry, I previously said that would be my last post on the topic. I lied.
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Sorry Zap, I hadn't seen the Emancipation Proclamation, or the Underground Railroad in your original list, or I would have separated them, like I did with the testing for medical conditions in black folks, for the reasons given above. I am exploring an argument here, not advocating for one way or another, of doing things. But I don't seem able to effectively communicate that argument, and perhaps, that is confusing you. I will try one last time ... Say your car pulls to the right as you're driving down the road. The advocated solution seems to be steering to the left, so as to keep going straight. ( thank Phi for all for the 'steering the ship in the opposite direction' analogy ) I'm suggesting that is just as bad, and will lead to even more problems with your tires/bearings/steering linkage. The best solution is to take care of the problem by getting an alignment done. Not trying to counteract the problem.
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IIRC, A Lincoln's words identified slaves, not black people, to be freed, while there were many whites who participated in the underground railroad to bring slaves to freedom. The act of targeting a group was wrong when slavery was established, and can be argued to be wrong when those same methods are used to correct the original wrong. Do we murder murderers ? Do we take possessions away from thieves ? When is 'an eye for an eye' ever a good policy ?
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Not quite, CharonY. I'm trying to explain ( to the best of my ability ), that even for a just cause, sorting/selecting according to racial traits is using 'racism'. The fact that we are willing to use 'race' to discriminate between people, when we consider the cause just, means we will discriminate using 'race' when another cause comes along that we consider just. Just, is simply a moral justification for doing/saying something. As their livelihood depended on slavery, I'm sure the Confederate States though discriminating according to 'race' was just. I'm saying sorting/discriminating according to 'race' is a bad thing, Zap. For one thing, there is only one race, so you are actually sorting/discriminating according to group traits. The fact that this bad thing can be used to do even worse things like subjugate, enslave or even commit genocide, seems like a good reason not to use it at all.
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In the equation Y=3x2+25 setting x=0 means considering what happens to that function when x=0 You get y=3(0)2+25 y=0+25 y=25 IOW, the function crosses the Y axis at 25 when x=0 ( origin of x axis )
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We most certainly can. As a matter of fact, education ( for all) would go a long way towards ridding the world of racism, but will not eliminate it completely. ( please keep in mind that I've said the cause is noble, and justified, but, I also like to explore other viewpoints, so as to have a discussion ) The two choices you give are not satisfactory. Yes, to an innocent bystander who got hurt during the protests, or to a store-owner who was looted, they most certainly were antagonistic. Arrest of the 4 cops involved, and protesting their police department ( who enables and protects those kinds of cops ) would be reactionary. If, on the other hand, you want to stretch the 'enabling' part to all of society ( including blacks who enable their own oppression ? ) then yor question might be valid. But there are many models of Affirmative Action. I have claimed, that all other qualifiers being equal, basing the final decision on race ( whatever that means; should be distinguishing characteristics of a group ) is inherently racist. That IS the meaning of the word. You are probably right. But I would say that the people who most often use the word ( if I had to label them it would be progressives, but I dislike labels ) have twisted it to imply only the bad aspects of 'discriminating', or sorting, by race. In a perfect world where there is no racism ( HaHa, impossible since it can be argued that it is an evolutionary trait ), all the programs and institutions that you mentioned ( except for medical studies on black men, which recognises that some of these group traits have health consequences ), Zap, would be racist, as they use race as the sole criteria.
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New interpretations of physics that lead to experiments
MigL replied to POVphysics's topic in Speculations
Notice I wrote 'loose ends', meaning some are works in progress, some are incomplete, and some are already adequately explained. I did not have the time to sort out your list. If information is carried by something moving ( or even expanding ) at the speed of light, it follows that in an expanding universe, at a certain distance, you have causality violation. If the speed of light cannot cover the distance to a far-away point because of the finite sped of light, how does that far-away point know to have the exact same constants ??? ( this was one of the original reasons for the A Guth inflationary universe; at some point in the past, ALL the universe had to be in causal contact ) Earlier, I told you that you don't understand the meaning of 'interpretation', apparently you don't understand the meaning of mathematical model either. The model ( wave function ) describes properties and actions of the real, to a certain extent. But there are areas where it fails. ( and why interpretations like Copenhagen, or ManyWorlds, become non-sensical at some scales ) See above regarding causality violation with distance. You tie this expansion with the universe's expansion from a point ( ? ), but no one, other than the first conjectures of the Big Bang, have ever claimed the universe started from a point. That would imply infinite original density, which, to anyone who understands a little Physics, means that the model we use to get to that infinite density, is way past its area of applicability ( and why most people are waiting for a quantum gravity model, which may be more applicable to the reality of such situations ) Have you even suggested a mechanism for your 'graviton's expansion ? ( like the inflationary universal expansion caused by the 'injection' of energy into the universe as it rolled from a false zero vacuum energy point, to a lower ( true ? ) zero point due to the Electroweak symmetry break ) And if graviton already has a well defined meaning within the Physics community, why do you insist on using the same name for your conjectured phenomenon ? Call it something else, post it in Speculations, and be willing to support it. Edit Wasted post At least for 3 days. -
Fair enough. But prejudice, discrimination and antagonism are 'perceived' actions. Any action that distresses, offends or makes a person feel bad, can be classified as prejudice/discrimination/antagonism. It follows, then, that any action simply based on race, is racist. I don't have an example to refer to regarding racism, but perhaps one about sexism can be substituted. We've had discussions on this very forum, as to whether the words "that woman" is sexist. I was arguing on the other side that time ( hey, someone's gotta present an opposing viewpoint ), but the consensus was that, if the words are perceived as offensive then they are sexist. IOW, actions or words based on gender can be ( and often are ) perceived as sexist, even though they are simply a statement of gender. edit Almost forgot to answer the question. As AA is ultimately ( all else being equal ) based on race, it is inherently racist.
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You are aware that you actually don't 'consume' water, but simply recycle it ? If you 'consumed' 1 gallon of water everyday, would result in your weight gain of 2900 lbs after a year.
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I wonder if 00 years ago people didn't feel the same way about slavery, in the American south. Maybe I'm going about this the wrong way, Zap. If you claim that is not the definition of 'racism'. maybe I should be asking for your definition, so that we can be on the same page and have a mutually beneficial discussion.
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New interpretations of physics that lead to experiments
MigL replied to POVphysics's topic in Speculations
A photon or electron can be ( at times ) considered point particles. Yet the Kaluza-Kline theory is a 5dimensional theory ( GR with one added dimension ) which produces classical gravity AND electromagnetism. You gave a list ( 2 pages back ) of all the 'loose ends' your theory attempts to 'fix'. Theories are simply models, and by definition, cannot be the reality. There are always loose ends, or areas where the model is not applicable. If the standard model, which is largely based on observational evidence, suggests that the graviton is a spin 2, chargeless, massless quantum particle, what evidence do you base your description of the graviton on ? -
I shouldn't have to post this, because I know where you're coming from, but I will for the sake of good discussion... rac·ism /ˈrāˌsizəm/ noun noun: racism prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized. I will add that sometimes even the majority is marginalized; South Africa under Apartheid. The point being that you don't get to redefine racism because the end is justified. Similarly, you don't get to redefine tolerance to only the beliefs you agree with. Or free speech to only what you want to hear. No matter how noble the cause. ( yes, I've said the cause is noble, but that doesn't change the fact that arguments can be made against it ) You and Zap had better grab onto something; that's a pretty slippery slope you're on.
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So we are in agreement, then, Zap ? Racism to combat racism ?
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You don't know the meaning of 'interpretation', do you ?
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New interpretations of physics that lead to experiments
MigL replied to POVphysics's topic in Speculations
Those were all valid reasons for Religion, many years ago. Some of us have moved on, and try to do real Physics. It's a hard, time consuming process, that doesn't simply rely on guesses. -
Getting tired of these 'expanding gravitons' ( as I'm sure Swansont is also ), which are not real gravitons. How about you tell us what evidence you have for their existence ? And if a ( graviton predictive ) theory, how about posting some math ( or a link, if you don't do LaTex, like me ) and some other testable predictions to back it ?
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New interpretations of physics that lead to experiments
MigL replied to POVphysics's topic in Speculations
On the contrary, we know exactly what it should look like. Spin 2, chargeless, massless and therefore, of energy related to their frequency. Unfortunately, you don't type in 'graviton' into a search engine at the LHC, and its track magically appears. If they exists, their interaction with massive matter has an extremely low cross section, making their detection almost impossible.