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Another tricky by-election defence for the Tories – politicalbetting.com

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  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,177

    I'd also question that it's only lazy thinking that presents a challenge to current societies, because it's irrational.

    This is to be unable to escape our own prejudices ; there was nothing lazy about Gallileo's thinking, but he was considered not just mad and bad, and evil and dangerous, but axiomatically irrational, too, because the centrality of the Earth was thought to be the combined moral-rational summit of intellectual understanding, too. Now one could conceivably argue that Galileo provided much more worked-through scientific proof than David Grusch, and which eventually helped to expand our understanding and societies rather than muddy them, but that could just be because we're at the start of the process. I honestly have no idea, on that last point.

    With Galileo, it was more that he deliberately and gratuitously insulted the Pope. Insulting Renaissance Princes was not a brilliant plan.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,260
    edited June 2023
    viewcode said:

    Grusch doesn't give simple answers ; he claims...that this technology is interdimensional rather than interstellar, and the number of crashes are tiny compared to the number of visits. He also claims that part of his motivation in coming forward...is to advance this level of understanding of physics which is not being shared beyond a few defence contractors.

    I have no idea if this is true...

    I'll go with "it's false".

    :)

    We need evidence either way. The US inspectorate of intelligence and Congress are interested and combing through evidence without making their minds up yet, so I don't think anyone else should necessarily yet, either.

    Otherwise there may be the precise danger of falling into the trap of axiomatic cultural prejudice over empirical evidence discussed. It sounds too far outside our current understanding, therefore move on.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,177
    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    There is s difference between seeing how it works out and why it works. You were denying its very existence. Yet IO demonstrate its existence every time I switch on the light bulb.
    I didn’t deny its existence at all. I was making the point that we accept it is real because the scientists tell us it is real, despite it being very hard to understand even for expert physicists. As per the quotes adduced. Do keep up
    We accept it’s real because it predicts a whole mess of real world stuff, without which modern society wouldn’t function.
    You’re confusing the difference between an incomplete explanation of real world phenomena, and something which might (probably doesn’t, without new evidence) exist.

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    There is s difference between seeing how it works out and why it works. You were denying its very existence. Yet IO demonstrate its existence every time I switch on the light bulb.
    I didn’t deny its existence at all. I was making the point that we accept it is real because the scientists tell us it is real, despite it being very hard to understand even for expert physicists. As per the quotes adduced. Do keep up
    We accept it’s real because it predicts a whole mess of real world stuff, without which modern society wouldn’t function.
    You’re confusing the difference between an incomplete explanation of real world phenomena, and something which might (probably doesn’t, without new evidence) exist.

    Among other things, it predicts the behaviour of nm scale silicon chips. Which we are all using to post on PB.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    Your choice. After all, as I've alluded to before, I just make a living teaching people this stuff.

    And yes, if you're looking for a meaning in the symbols, you're going to have a struggle. If you're asking why it works that way, I don't think anyone has that good an answer. But that's not what you said to start with;

    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it...

    And the fact is that you can see it fairly easily if you look in the right place.

    (As for the quotes, I used to start QM lessons with a selection of them- my favourite is Erwin Schrödinger — I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. But most came from the early days, when there was still hope for a deep meaning to go with an accurate description of what happens. Nowadays, the attitute among physicists tends to be characterised more as David Mermin's Shut up and calculate.)
    I love the way idiots like Leon pontificate on stuff on which they haven't the first clue on the maths and feel confident to argue with, you know, actual experts and aren't in the slightest bit embarrassed. Just quote a few bits out of context or out of date will do.
    It's a trait that seems to be shared by many philosophy graduates, as least the ones I've met. They must all take a module titled "Why philosophers understand any subject better than anyone without having to actually study it".
    Or, Philosophy simply gives you a wider understanding of the world than a narrow field of science

    Scientists are no more than car mechanics. Guys with spanners under the hood. Except less macho

    Remember that “the science” told us it came from the wet market, and leading “science journals” published letters from “top scientists” that any other idea - like lab leak - was a baseless conspiracy

    Then another top science journal - Nature - published a pack of lies called proximal origins which dismissed any other idea than wet market, a position from which its authors are now awkwardly recanting

    The science. Lol

    This is why you need philosopher travelers with a wider and wiser grasp of the world, especially guys who have swived several hundred girls so they also understand the wiles of that devious and infernal creature: Woman

  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    edited June 2023
    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    There is s difference between seeing how it works out and why it works. You were denying its very existence. Yet IO demonstrate its existence every time I switch on the light bulb.
    I didn’t deny its existence at all. I was making the point that we accept it is real because the scientists tell us it is real, despite it being very hard to understand even for expert physicists. As per the quotes adduced. Do keep up
    We accept it’s real because it predicts a whole mess of real world stuff, without which modern society wouldn’t function.
    You’re confusing the difference between an incomplete explanation of real world phenomena, and something which might (probably doesn’t, without new evidence) exist.

    Newtonian physics successfully predicted the world and offered great utilty for hundreds of years. We now know, in fundamental ways, that it was spectacularly wrong

    And in future we will learn that QM was about as accurate as malcolmg’s predictions of imminent Scottish independence
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,281
    edited June 2023

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    There is s difference between seeing how it works out and why it works. You were denying its very existence. Yet IO demonstrate its existence every time I switch on the light bulb.
    I didn’t deny its existence at all. I was making the point that we accept it is real because the scientists tell us it is real, despite it being very hard to understand even for expert physicists. As per the quotes adduced. Do keep up
    We accept it’s real because it predicts a whole mess of real world stuff, without which modern society wouldn’t function.
    You’re confusing the difference between an incomplete explanation of real world phenomena, and something which might (probably doesn’t, without new evidence) exist.

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    There is s difference between seeing how it works out and why it works. You were denying its very existence. Yet IO demonstrate its existence every time I switch on the light bulb.
    I didn’t deny its existence at all. I was making the point that we accept it is real because the scientists tell us it is real, despite it being very hard to understand even for expert physicists. As per the quotes adduced. Do keep up
    We accept it’s real because it predicts a whole mess of real world stuff, without which modern society wouldn’t function.
    You’re confusing the difference between an incomplete explanation of real world phenomena, and something which might (probably doesn’t, without new evidence) exist.

    Among other things, it predicts the behaviour of nm scale silicon chips. Which we are all using to post on PB.
    A point many of us have made upthread.
    Leon simply doesn’t understand the difference between science - and scientific uncertainty - and random weird stuff.
    The latter might be interesting, but isn’t particularly useful.
  • Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    Your choice. After all, as I've alluded to before, I just make a living teaching people this stuff.

    And yes, if you're looking for a meaning in the symbols, you're going to have a struggle. If you're asking why it works that way, I don't think anyone has that good an answer. But that's not what you said to start with;

    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it...

    And the fact is that you can see it fairly easily if you look in the right place.

    (As for the quotes, I used to start QM lessons with a selection of them- my favourite is Erwin Schrödinger — I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. But most came from the early days, when there was still hope for a deep meaning to go with an accurate description of what happens. Nowadays, the attitute among physicists tends to be characterised more as David Mermin's Shut up and calculate.)
    I love the way idiots like Leon pontificate on stuff on which they haven't the first clue on the maths and feel confident to argue with, you know, actual experts and aren't in the slightest bit embarrassed. Just quote a few bits out of context or out of date will do.
    It's a trait that seems to be shared by many philosophy graduates, as least the ones I've met. They must all take a module titled "Why philosophers understand any subject better than anyone without having to actually study it".
    Or, Philosophy simply gives you a wider understanding of the world than a narrow field of science

    Scientists are no more than car mechanics. Guys with spanners under the hood. Except less macho

    Remember that “the science” told us it came from the wet market, and leading “science journals” published letters from “top scientists” that any other idea - like lab leak - was a baseless conspiracy

    Then another top science journal - Nature - published a pack of lies called proximal origins which dismissed any other idea than wet market, a position from which its authors are now awkwardly recanting

    The science. Lol

    This is why you need philosopher travelers with a wider and wiser grasp of the world, especially guys who have swived several hundred girls so they also understand the wiles of that devious and infernal creature: Woman

    QED
  • MuesliMuesli Posts: 202
    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    IanB2 said:

    I see that there are now suggestions that there’s a super-injunction out regarding the lying clown’s honours list?

    So, please, no questions about any young seemingly unqualified people who are about to make it into the House of Lords.

    An attractive young blonde employed on maternity cover gets a seat in the House of Lords?
    What could that super injunction possibly be about?
    Who knows? The peerage for Ross Kempsell shows you don't have to be a fruity blonde to be given a life peerage by Bozza.

    The central mystery pesists, though. If Ross Kempsell and Charlotte Owen are really such brilliant young talents, why dump them in the House of Hasbeens before they have the chance to change the world in their own right? If they're that good, they ought to be parachuted into safe seats in the Commons.
    Mystery?
    Occam's razor suggests they aren't brilliant.
    But are owed something by someone.
    We can guess who easily.
    Speaking of rewarding people for their silence, was it ever confirmed that Sir Gavin Williamson returned to the cabinet after walking in on Boris Johnson teaching Carrie Symonds (as was) how to play the skin flute?
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,424
    edited June 2023

    viewcode said:

    Grusch doesn't give simple answers ; he claims...that this technology is interdimensional rather than interstellar, and the number of crashes are tiny compared to the number of visits. He also claims that part of his motivation in coming forward...is to advance this level of understanding of physics which is not being shared beyond a few defence contractors.

    I have no idea if this is true...

    I'll go with "it's false".

    :)

    We need evidence either way.
    Fair enough. I'll go with the assumption that "it's false" and wait for somebody to produce evidence that we are being visited by beings from another dimension in spherical interdimensional craft.

    Meanwhile I will leave you with this historical document of such a craft being opened in Canary Wharf in the 2000s.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606

    I'd also question that it's only lazy thinking that presents a challenge to current societies, because it's irrational.

    This is to be unable to escape our own prejudices ; there was nothing lazy about Gallileo's thinking, but he was considered not just mad and bad, and evil and dangerous, but axiomatically irrational, too, because the centrality of the Earth was thought to be the combined moral-rational summit of intellectual understanding, too. Now one could conceivably argue that Galileo provided much more worked-through scientific proof than David Grusch, and which eventually helped to expand our understanding and societies rather than muddy them, but that could just be because we're at the start of the process. I honestly have no idea, on that last point.

    With Galileo, it was more that he deliberately and gratuitously insulted the Pope. Insulting Renaissance Princes was not a brilliant plan.
    No it wasn’t. @WhisperingOracle is right. Galileo challenged the prevailing scientific orthodoxy - a process then known as “heresy” - and he barely escaped with his life. I’ve actually stayed in the villa where he was kept under house arrest during his trial for that heresy. Villa Medici in Rome. You could do worse


    https://www.lonelyplanet.com/italy/rome/tridente/attractions/villa-medici/a/poi-sig/390035/1321004
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    kamski said:

    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    Your choice. After all, as I've alluded to before, I just make a living teaching people this stuff.

    And yes, if you're looking for a meaning in the symbols, you're going to have a struggle. If you're asking why it works that way, I don't think anyone has that good an answer. But that's not what you said to start with;

    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it...

    And the fact is that you can see it fairly easily if you look in the right place.

    (As for the quotes, I used to start QM lessons with a selection of them- my favourite is Erwin Schrödinger — I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. But most came from the early days, when there was still hope for a deep meaning to go with an accurate description of what happens. Nowadays, the attitute among physicists tends to be characterised more as David Mermin's Shut up and calculate.)
    I love the way idiots like Leon pontificate on stuff on which they haven't the first clue on the maths and feel confident to argue with, you know, actual experts and aren't in the slightest bit embarrassed. Just quote a few bits out of context or out of date will do.
    It's a trait that seems to be shared by many philosophy graduates, as least the ones I've met. They must all take a module titled "Why philosophers understand any subject better than anyone without having to actually study it".
    Or, Philosophy simply gives you a wider understanding of the world than a narrow field of science

    Scientists are no more than car mechanics. Guys with spanners under the hood. Except less macho

    Remember that “the science” told us it came from the wet market, and leading “science journals” published letters from “top scientists” that any other idea - like lab leak - was a baseless conspiracy

    Then another top science journal - Nature - published a pack of lies called proximal origins which dismissed any other idea than wet market, a position from which its authors are now awkwardly recanting

    The science. Lol

    This is why you need philosopher travelers with a wider and wiser grasp of the world, especially guys who have swived several hundred girls so they also understand the wiles of that devious and infernal creature: Woman

    The 1970s just called, they want their pillock back
    I am a prophet without honour
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,714

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Since when has Leon been a philosopher? I thought UCL let him in with one N in the 1980s and he spent the entire three years playing Pac Man.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,260
    edited June 2023

    I'd also question that it's only lazy thinking that presents a challenge to current societies, because it's irrational.

    This is to be unable to escape our own prejudices ; there was nothing lazy about Gallileo's thinking, but he was considered not just mad and bad, and evil and dangerous, but axiomatically irrational, too, because the centrality of the Earth was thought to be the combined moral-rational summit of intellectual understanding, too. Now one could conceivably argue that Galileo provided much more worked-through scientific proof than David Grusch, and which eventually helped to expand our understanding and societies rather than muddy them, but that could just be because we're at the start of the process. I honestly have no idea, on that last point.

    With Galileo, it was more that he deliberately and gratuitously insulted the Pope. Insulting Renaissance Princes was not a brilliant plan.
    I wouldn't really agree with this. His central docrine was considered heretically irrational, and in fact, almost personally insulting, by many people.

    It was partly considered irrational because it was also immoral ; God had intended not just for all his priests but for all his scientists to be at the centre of things.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,064
    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    Your choice. After all, as I've alluded to before, I just make a living teaching people this stuff.

    And yes, if you're looking for a meaning in the symbols, you're going to have a struggle. If you're asking why it works that way, I don't think anyone has that good an answer. But that's not what you said to start with;

    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it...

    And the fact is that you can see it fairly easily if you look in the right place.

    (As for the quotes, I used to start QM lessons with a selection of them- my favourite is Erwin Schrödinger — I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. But most came from the early days, when there was still hope for a deep meaning to go with an accurate description of what happens. Nowadays, the attitute among physicists tends to be characterised more as David Mermin's Shut up and calculate.)
    I love the way idiots like Leon pontificate on stuff on which they haven't the first clue on the maths and feel confident to argue with, you know, actual experts and aren't in the slightest bit embarrassed. Just quote a few bits out of context or out of date will do.
    It's a trait that seems to be shared by many philosophy graduates, as least the ones I've met. They must all take a module titled "Why philosophers understand any subject better than anyone without having to actually study it".
    Or, Philosophy simply gives you a wider understanding of the world than a narrow field of science

    Scientists are no more than car mechanics. Guys with spanners under the hood. Except less macho

    Remember that “the science” told us it came from the wet market, and leading “science journals” published letters from “top scientists” that any other idea - like lab leak - was a baseless conspiracy

    Then another top science journal - Nature - published a pack of lies called proximal origins which dismissed any other idea than wet market, a position from which its authors are now awkwardly recanting

    The science. Lol

    This is why you need philosopher travelers with a wider and wiser grasp of the world, especially guys who have swived several hundred girls so they also understand the wiles of that devious and infernal creature: Woman

    That's not true, politicians masquerading as scientists said all that. Almost all of my university friends were on the lab leak side very early on, simply they work in labs and realise how difficult it is to maintain such a high level of biosecurity and that China's standards are lax.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,509
    malcolmg said:

    DougSeal said:

    malcolmg said:

    ydoethur said:

    Malc, has it been a bad year for turnips? You've been getting really mad at everyone and not threatened to throw a single one.

    ydoethur, I am mad at only one person on here and if I could he would have several turnips inserted in every orifice and a few he did not realise he had.
    I am fully aware if your position regarding my good self Malc. I too will one day shuffle off this mortal coil. I hope it makes you feel better.
    Most certainly not you Doug, you are among the good guys. I am talking about the only scumbag on the site, a gammontastic arse at that.
    @DougSeal
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,913
    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    There is s difference between seeing how it works out and why it works. You were denying its very existence. Yet IO demonstrate its existence every time I switch on the light bulb.
    I didn’t deny its existence at all. I was making the point that we accept it is real because the scientists tell us it is real, despite it being very hard to understand even for expert physicists. As per the quotes adduced. Do keep up
    We accept it’s real because it predicts a whole mess of real world stuff, without which modern society wouldn’t function.
    You’re confusing the difference between an incomplete explanation of real world phenomena, and something which might (probably doesn’t, without new evidence) exist.

    Newtonian physics successfully predicted the world and offered great utilty for hundreds of years. We now know, in fundamental ways, that it was spectacularly wrong
    You'll really struggle to find differences between Newton's theory and reality. It might be the case that there are more than suspected because the other effects are large, but it was only really celestial mechanics where it failed.

    Quantum mechanics is an insanely more accurate theory - the merest wibble of a wobble is modelled apparently without error. And then something comes up that's wrong like Radiohead, pineapple pizza, and breakfast tv, all rolled into one.

    There is something deeply odd about the goodness of fit that Newton, then Einstein, and in parallel Schroedinger, Heisenberg, Einstein (again), etc managed to find.

    And none of it seems quite right! (My guess is that surely something in physics must be)
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,281
    Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday interrupted opening remarks by African leaders seeking to mediate in the Ukraine conflict to deliver a list of reasons why he believed many of their proposals were misguided.
    https://twitter.com/phildstewart/status/1670133001164931072

    The ‘let’s settle with Putin’ crowd are, IMO, deluded.
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 8,188

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Since when has Leon been a philosopher? I thought UCL let him in with one N in the 1980s and he spent the entire three years playing Pac Man.
    Leon on Physics is a great demonstration of another controversial theory - the Dunning Kruger Effect. An near perfect example... :D

  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    Your choice. After all, as I've alluded to before, I just make a living teaching people this stuff.

    And yes, if you're looking for a meaning in the symbols, you're going to have a struggle. If you're asking why it works that way, I don't think anyone has that good an answer. But that's not what you said to start with;

    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it...

    And the fact is that you can see it fairly easily if you look in the right place.

    (As for the quotes, I used to start QM lessons with a selection of them- my favourite is Erwin Schrödinger — I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. But most came from the early days, when there was still hope for a deep meaning to go with an accurate description of what happens. Nowadays, the attitute among physicists tends to be characterised more as David Mermin's Shut up and calculate.)
    I love the way idiots like Leon pontificate on stuff on which they haven't the first clue on the maths and feel confident to argue with, you know, actual experts and aren't in the slightest bit embarrassed. Just quote a few bits out of context or out of date will do.
    It's a trait that seems to be shared by many philosophy graduates, as least the ones I've met. They must all take a module titled "Why philosophers understand any subject better than anyone without having to actually study it".
    Or, Philosophy simply gives you a wider understanding of the world than a narrow field of science

    Scientists are no more than car mechanics. Guys with spanners under the hood. Except less macho

    Remember that “the science” told us it came from the wet market, and leading “science journals” published letters from “top scientists” that any other idea - like lab leak - was a baseless conspiracy

    Then another top science journal - Nature - published a pack of lies called proximal origins which dismissed any other idea than wet market, a position from which its authors are now awkwardly recanting

    The science. Lol

    This is why you need philosopher travelers with a wider and wiser grasp of the world, especially guys who have swived several hundred girls so they also understand the wiles of that devious and infernal creature: Woman

    That's not true, politicians masquerading as scientists said all that. Almost all of my university friends were on the lab leak side very early on, simply they work in labs and realise how difficult it is to maintain such a high level of biosecurity and that China's standards are lax.
    Not true. Read the signatories of the Lancet letter or the authors of the Nature paper. Proper scientists - lying or deluded scientists, but scientists nonetheless

    However you were indeed one of the smarter PBers who realised lab leak was likely from the get go. So kudos

  • Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    There is s difference between seeing how it works out and why it works. You were denying its very existence. Yet IO demonstrate its existence every time I switch on the light bulb.
    I didn’t deny its existence at all. I was making the point that we accept it is real because the scientists tell us it is real, despite it being very hard to understand even for expert physicists. As per the quotes adduced. Do keep up
    We accept it’s real because it predicts a whole mess of real world stuff, without which modern society wouldn’t function.
    You’re confusing the difference between an incomplete explanation of real world phenomena, and something which might (probably doesn’t, without new evidence) exist.

    Newtonian physics successfully predicted the world and offered great utilty for hundreds of years. We now know, in fundamental ways, that it was spectacularly wrong

    And in future we will learn that QM was about as accurate as malcolmg’s predictions of imminent Scottish independence
    What you are demonstrating is a spectacular lack of understanding of the way that science works. Did you sleep though your lectures on, for example, Karl Popper's theories of empirical falsification as the basis of science? You don't seem to have got past the "lol nerds" stage yet.

    Newtonian physics is only wrong in the sense that all models are only approximations of reality. In fact, Newton's theories of motion are still taught in schools and universities, and are widely used in many areas of engineering. They have not been superseded, rather, limits have been discovered to their applicability. Indeed, all models of the physical world have limits to their applicability, and one of the cornerstones of understanding a scientific field is an appreciation of these limits.

    But you won't learn from this. You're a philosopher and already know everything worth knowing. And have shagged lots of women.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,049
    @viewcode

    I wonder if the man heading this up is a Professor Stahlmann ?

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/china-drill-one-worlds-deepest-holes-earth-8rlxc3j26
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606

    I'd also question that it's only lazy thinking that presents a challenge to current societies, because it's irrational.

    This is to be unable to escape our own prejudices ; there was nothing lazy about Gallileo's thinking, but he was considered not just mad and bad, and evil and dangerous, but axiomatically irrational, too, because the centrality of the Earth was thought to be the combined moral-rational summit of intellectual understanding, too. Now one could conceivably argue that Galileo provided much more worked-through scientific proof than David Grusch, and which eventually helped to expand our understanding and societies rather than muddy them, but that could just be because we're at the start of the process. I honestly have no idea, on that last point.

    With Galileo, it was more that he deliberately and gratuitously insulted the Pope. Insulting Renaissance Princes was not a brilliant plan.
    I wouldn't really agree with this. His central docrine was considered heretically irrational, and in fact, almost personally insulting, by many people.

    It was partly considered irrational because it was also immoral ; God had intended not just for all his priests but for all his scientists to be at the centre of things.
    You’re absolutely right. Stick to your wicket. The idea Galileo got hassle simply because he “annoyed some Renaissance Princes” is total ahistorical bollocks. He fundamentally challenged central church doctrine
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,049

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Since when has Leon been a philosopher? I thought UCL let him in with one N in the 1980s and he spent the entire three years playing Pac Man.
    Leon on Physics is a great demonstration of another controversial theory - the Dunning Kruger Effect. An near perfect example... :D

    Rather akin to someone else here who was insistent an app cost 37 Billion quid in spite of evidence to the contrary.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,679

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    There is s difference between seeing how it works out and why it works. You were denying its very existence. Yet IO demonstrate its existence every time I switch on the light bulb.
    I didn’t deny its existence at all. I was making the point that we accept it is real because the scientists tell us it is real, despite it being very hard to understand even for expert physicists. As per the quotes adduced. Do keep up
    We accept it’s real because it predicts a whole mess of real world stuff, without which modern society wouldn’t function.
    You’re confusing the difference between an incomplete explanation of real world phenomena, and something which might (probably doesn’t, without new evidence) exist.

    Newtonian physics successfully predicted the world and offered great utilty for hundreds of years. We now know, in fundamental ways, that it was spectacularly wrong

    And in future we will learn that QM was about as accurate as malcolmg’s predictions of imminent Scottish independence
    What you are demonstrating is a spectacular lack of understanding of the way that science works. Did you sleep though your lectures on, for example, Karl Popper's theories of empirical falsification as the basis of science? You don't seem to have got past the "lol nerds" stage yet.

    Newtonian physics is only wrong in the sense that all models are only approximations of reality. In fact, Newton's theories of motion are still taught in schools and universities, and are widely used in many areas of engineering. They have not been superseded, rather, limits have been discovered to their applicability. Indeed, all models of the physical world have limits to their applicability, and one of the cornerstones of understanding a scientific field is an appreciation of these limits.

    But you won't learn from this. You're a philosopher and already know everything worth knowing. And have shagged lots of women.
    Patience of a saint.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    There is s difference between seeing how it works out and why it works. You were denying its very existence. Yet IO demonstrate its existence every time I switch on the light bulb.
    I didn’t deny its existence at all. I was making the point that we accept it is real because the scientists tell us it is real, despite it being very hard to understand even for expert physicists. As per the quotes adduced. Do keep up
    We accept it’s real because it predicts a whole mess of real world stuff, without which modern society wouldn’t function.
    You’re confusing the difference between an incomplete explanation of real world phenomena, and something which might (probably doesn’t, without new evidence) exist.

    Newtonian physics successfully predicted the world and offered great utilty for hundreds of years. We now know, in fundamental ways, that it was spectacularly wrong

    And in future we will learn that QM was about as accurate as malcolmg’s predictions of imminent Scottish independence
    What you are demonstrating is a spectacular lack of understanding of the way that science works. Did you sleep though your lectures on, for example, Karl Popper's theories of empirical falsification as the basis of science? You don't seem to have got past the "lol nerds" stage yet.

    Newtonian physics is only wrong in the sense that all models are only approximations of reality. In fact, Newton's theories of motion are still taught in schools and universities, and are widely used in many areas of engineering. They have not been superseded, rather, limits have been discovered to their applicability. Indeed, all models of the physical world have limits to their applicability, and one of the cornerstones of understanding a scientific field is an appreciation of these limits.

    But you won't learn from this. You're a philosopher and already know everything worth knowing. And have shagged lots of women.
    I’m driving as fast as I can to Lexington to get some cocktails and I have to admit I skimmed most of this but I did read the last paragraph, and, fair play, you are completely right
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,424
    Taz said:
    It would obviously generate an inferno of controversy... :)
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,177
    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    There is s difference between seeing how it works out and why it works. You were denying its very existence. Yet IO demonstrate its existence every time I switch on the light bulb.
    I didn’t deny its existence at all. I was making the point that we accept it is real because the scientists tell us it is real, despite it being very hard to understand even for expert physicists. As per the quotes adduced. Do keep up
    We accept it’s real because it predicts a whole mess of real world stuff, without which modern society wouldn’t function.
    You’re confusing the difference between an incomplete explanation of real world phenomena, and something which might (probably doesn’t, without new evidence) exist.

    Newtonian physics successfully predicted the world and offered great utilty for hundreds of years. We now know, in fundamental ways, that it was spectacularly wrong

    And in future we will learn that QM was about as accurate as malcolmg’s predictions of imminent Scottish independence
    No, the Newtonian model wasn’t wrong. It didn’t take into account forces and effects that only become evident at certain scales and energies.

    So when I build a trebuchet, all I need is Newton, because at that scale and energy, the answer is indistinguishable from the more advanced models.

    In fact the relativity and QM were and are, often applied as an additional correction to the basic Newtonian answer for orbital mechanics, for example.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,281
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,468

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    There is s difference between seeing how it works out and why it works. You were denying its very existence. Yet IO demonstrate its existence every time I switch on the light bulb.
    I didn’t deny its existence at all. I was making the point that we accept it is real because the scientists tell us it is real, despite it being very hard to understand even for expert physicists. As per the quotes adduced. Do keep up
    We accept it’s real because it predicts a whole mess of real world stuff, without which modern society wouldn’t function.
    You’re confusing the difference between an incomplete explanation of real world phenomena, and something which might (probably doesn’t, without new evidence) exist.

    Newtonian physics successfully predicted the world and offered great utilty for hundreds of years. We now know, in fundamental ways, that it was spectacularly wrong

    And in future we will learn that QM was about as accurate as malcolmg’s predictions of imminent Scottish independence
    No, the Newtonian model wasn’t wrong. It didn’t take into account forces and effects that only become evident at certain scales and energies.

    So when I build a trebuchet, all I need is Newton, because at that scale and energy, the answer is indistinguishable from the more advanced models.

    In fact the relativity and QM were and are, often applied as an additional correction to the basic Newtonian answer for orbital mechanics, for example.
    And even at Peak Physics Theory Hubris, around 1900 or so, the niggles that became relativity and quantum mechanics were known about- it was just that nobody really knew what to do with them. RIght now, there are bits of theory that don't really join up, but equally there aren't any observations crossing the join.

    It's obviously dangerous to say "We're finished, folks. Physics can take the summer off." but there's not much out there saying that we have to come up with a big new theory. After all, scientists don't just make up new theories for the hell of it.

    Unlike philosophers, for example.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,177
    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Since when has Leon been a philosopher? I thought UCL let him in with one N in the 1980s and he spent the entire three years playing Pac Man.
    Leon on Physics is a great demonstration of another controversial theory - the Dunning Kruger Effect. An near perfect example... :D

    Rather akin to someone else here who was insistent an app cost 37 Billion quid in spite of evidence to the contrary.
    It is very hard to tell something to someone who explicitly doesn’t want the correct answer
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 8,188
    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Since when has Leon been a philosopher? I thought UCL let him in with one N in the 1980s and he spent the entire three years playing Pac Man.
    Leon on Physics is a great demonstration of another controversial theory - the Dunning Kruger Effect. An near perfect example... :D

    Rather akin to someone else here who was insistent an app cost 37 Billion quid in spite of evidence to the contrary.
    Well, for quite some time that was the information in circulation. It was almost as if the govt wanted us all to think that vast sums were being spent.

  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,913
    edited June 2023

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    There is s difference between seeing how it works out and why it works. You were denying its very existence. Yet IO demonstrate its existence every time I switch on the light bulb.
    I didn’t deny its existence at all. I was making the point that we accept it is real because the scientists tell us it is real, despite it being very hard to understand even for expert physicists. As per the quotes adduced. Do keep up
    We accept it’s real because it predicts a whole mess of real world stuff, without which modern society wouldn’t function.
    You’re confusing the difference between an incomplete explanation of real world phenomena, and something which might (probably doesn’t, without new evidence) exist.

    Newtonian physics successfully predicted the world and offered great utilty for hundreds of years. We now know, in fundamental ways, that it was spectacularly wrong

    And in future we will learn that QM was about as accurate as malcolmg’s predictions of imminent Scottish independence
    No, the Newtonian model wasn’t wrong. It didn’t take into account forces and effects that only become evident at certain scales and energies.

    So when I build a trebuchet, all I need is Newton, because at that scale and energy, the answer is indistinguishable from the more advanced models.

    In fact the relativity and QM were and are, often applied as an additional correction to the basic Newtonian answer for orbital mechanics, for example.
    And even at Peak Physics Theory Hubris, around 1900 or so, the niggles that became relativity and quantum mechanics were known about- it was just that nobody really knew what to do with them. RIght now, there are bits of theory that don't really join up, but equally there aren't any observations crossing the join.

    It's obviously dangerous to say "We're finished, folks. Physics can take the summer off." but there's not much out there saying that we have to come up with a big new theory. After all, scientists don't just make up new theories for the hell of it.

    Unlike philosophers, for example.
    "After all, scientists don't just make up new theories for the hell of it"

    I think they rather do, and it's their job.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    There is s difference between seeing how it works out and why it works. You were denying its very existence. Yet IO demonstrate its existence every time I switch on the light bulb.
    I didn’t deny its existence at all. I was making the point that we accept it is real because the scientists tell us it is real, despite it being very hard to understand even for expert physicists. As per the quotes adduced. Do keep up
    We accept it’s real because it predicts a whole mess of real world stuff, without which modern society wouldn’t function.
    You’re confusing the difference between an incomplete explanation of real world phenomena, and something which might (probably doesn’t, without new evidence) exist.

    Newtonian physics successfully predicted the world and offered great utilty for hundreds of years. We now know, in fundamental ways, that it was spectacularly wrong

    And in future we will learn that QM was about as accurate as malcolmg’s predictions of imminent Scottish independence
    No, the Newtonian model wasn’t wrong. It didn’t take into account forces and effects that only become evident at certain scales and energies.

    So when I build a trebuchet, all I need is Newton, because at that scale and energy, the answer is indistinguishable from the more advanced models.

    In fact the relativity and QM were and are, often applied as an additional correction to the basic Newtonian answer for orbital mechanics, for example.
    And even at Peak Physics Theory Hubris, around 1900 or so, the niggles that became relativity and quantum mechanics were known about- it was just that nobody really knew what to do with them. RIght now, there are bits of theory that don't really join up, but equally there aren't any observations crossing the join.

    It's obviously dangerous to say "We're finished, folks. Physics can take the summer off." but there's not much out there saying that we have to come up with a big new theory. After all, scientists don't just make up new theories for the hell of it.

    Unlike philosophers, for example.
    Except that serious physicists are suggesting we live in a simulation and other physics are seriously suggesting we live in one of an infinite series of parallel universes and others say this universe will end with eternal darkness and others say it’s in an eternal cycle of expansion and collapse and others say etc etc etc

    I’d say there’s still a TINY bit of work to be done. No?

    Lol. Scientists are always like this. Car mechanics. All you can see is the carburettor and say Look, it works
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,260
    edited June 2023

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    There is s difference between seeing how it works out and why it works. You were denying its very existence. Yet IO demonstrate its existence every time I switch on the light bulb.
    I didn’t deny its existence at all. I was making the point that we accept it is real because the scientists tell us it is real, despite it being very hard to understand even for expert physicists. As per the quotes adduced. Do keep up
    We accept it’s real because it predicts a whole mess of real world stuff, without which modern society wouldn’t function.
    You’re confusing the difference between an incomplete explanation of real world phenomena, and something which might (probably doesn’t, without new evidence) exist.

    Newtonian physics successfully predicted the world and offered great utilty for hundreds of years. We now know, in fundamental ways, that it was spectacularly wrong

    And in future we will learn that QM was about as accurate as malcolmg’s predictions of imminent Scottish independence
    No, the Newtonian model wasn’t wrong. It didn’t take into account forces and effects that only become evident at certain scales and energies.

    So when I build a trebuchet, all I need is Newton, because at that scale and energy, the answer is indistinguishable from the more advanced models.

    In fact the relativity and QM were and are, often applied as an additional correction to the basic Newtonian answer for orbital mechanics, for example.
    And even at Peak Physics Theory Hubris, around 1900 or so, the niggles that became relativity and quantum mechanics were known about- it was just that nobody really knew what to do with them. RIght now, there are bits of theory that don't really join up, but equally there aren't any observations crossing the join.

    It's obviously dangerous to say "We're finished, folks. Physics can take the summer off." but there's not much out there saying that we have to come up with a big new theory. After all, scientists don't just make up new theories for the hell of it.

    Unlike philosophers, for example.
    Hmm, not forgetting, though, that Einstein spent thirty-five fruitless years trying to come up with a unified field theory.

    He was very concerned that the current state of affairs, with unresolved conflicts between quantum physics and relativity was dangerously unsatisfactory, which played a major role in spurring so much speculative theoretical physics work afterwards, and which then has in turn ended up being represented in all sorts of ways in popular culture and science fiction. So in fact, much of this hunger for a more comprehensive universal theory in fact originally comes from the anxieties of physicists themselves, not from a need for simplicity over complexity in popular culture.
  • Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    There is s difference between seeing how it works out and why it works. You were denying its very existence. Yet IO demonstrate its existence every time I switch on the light bulb.
    I didn’t deny its existence at all. I was making the point that we accept it is real because the scientists tell us it is real, despite it being very hard to understand even for expert physicists. As per the quotes adduced. Do keep up
    We accept it’s real because it predicts a whole mess of real world stuff, without which modern society wouldn’t function.
    You’re confusing the difference between an incomplete explanation of real world phenomena, and something which might (probably doesn’t, without new evidence) exist.

    Newtonian physics successfully predicted the world and offered great utilty for hundreds of years. We now know, in fundamental ways, that it was spectacularly wrong

    And in future we will learn that QM was about as accurate as malcolmg’s predictions of imminent Scottish independence
    No, the Newtonian model wasn’t wrong. It didn’t take into account forces and effects that only become evident at certain scales and energies.

    So when I build a trebuchet, all I need is Newton, because at that scale and energy, the answer is indistinguishable from the more advanced models.

    In fact the relativity and QM were and are, often applied as an additional correction to the basic Newtonian answer for orbital mechanics, for example.
    And even at Peak Physics Theory Hubris, around 1900 or so, the niggles that became relativity and quantum mechanics were known about- it was just that nobody really knew what to do with them. RIght now, there are bits of theory that don't really join up, but equally there aren't any observations crossing the join.

    It's obviously dangerous to say "We're finished, folks. Physics can take the summer off." but there's not much out there saying that we have to come up with a big new theory. After all, scientists don't just make up new theories for the hell of it.

    Unlike philosophers, for example.
    Well, there is dark matter and dark energy: where's the missing mass that's holding the galaxies together, and why's the expansion of the universe accelerating? And how can we make QM and relativity compatible with one another? And what about consciousness - an emergent phenomenon, or something else?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,036
    That’s a less than optimistic pitch inspection under the umbrella!
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,947
    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    Your choice. After all, as I've alluded to before, I just make a living teaching people this stuff.

    And yes, if you're looking for a meaning in the symbols, you're going to have a struggle. If you're asking why it works that way, I don't think anyone has that good an answer. But that's not what you said to start with;

    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it...

    And the fact is that you can see it fairly easily if you look in the right place.

    (As for the quotes, I used to start QM lessons with a selection of them- my favourite is Erwin Schrödinger — I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. But most came from the early days, when there was still hope for a deep meaning to go with an accurate description of what happens. Nowadays, the attitute among physicists tends to be characterised more as David Mermin's Shut up and calculate.)
    I love the way idiots like Leon pontificate on stuff on which they haven't the first clue on the maths and feel confident to argue with, you know, actual experts and aren't in the slightest bit embarrassed. Just quote a few bits out of context or out of date will do.
    It's a trait that seems to be shared by many philosophy graduates, as least the ones I've met. They must all take a module titled "Why philosophers understand any subject better than anyone without having to actually study it".
    Or, Philosophy simply gives you a wider understanding of the world than a narrow field of science

    Scientists are no more than car mechanics. Guys with spanners under the hood. Except less macho

    Remember that “the science” told us it came from the wet market, and leading “science journals” published letters from “top scientists” that any other idea - like lab leak - was a baseless conspiracy

    Then another top science journal - Nature - published a pack of lies called proximal origins which dismissed any other idea than wet market, a position from which its authors are now awkwardly recanting

    The science. Lol

    This is why you need philosopher travelers with a wider and wiser grasp of the world, especially guys who have swived several hundred girls so they also understand the wiles of that devious and infernal creature: Woman

    This is like one of the conversations I have with my sister in law, an actress, who understands nothing about anything scientific., but is willing to have an argument. It is like banging your head against a brick wall. It is pointless. You are an arse. You talk about stuff that you don't have any knowledge of and argue with people who do. It is spectacularly arrogant.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,260
    edited June 2023
    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    Your choice. After all, as I've alluded to before, I just make a living teaching people this stuff.

    And yes, if you're looking for a meaning in the symbols, you're going to have a struggle. If you're asking why it works that way, I don't think anyone has that good an answer. But that's not what you said to start with;

    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it...

    And the fact is that you can see it fairly easily if you look in the right place.

    (As for the quotes, I used to start QM lessons with a selection of them- my favourite is Erwin Schrödinger — I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. But most came from the early days, when there was still hope for a deep meaning to go with an accurate description of what happens. Nowadays, the attitute among physicists tends to be characterised more as David Mermin's Shut up and calculate.)
    I love the way idiots like Leon pontificate on stuff on which they haven't the first clue on the maths and feel confident to argue with, you know, actual experts and aren't in the slightest bit embarrassed. Just quote a few bits out of context or out of date will do.
    It's a trait that seems to be shared by many philosophy graduates, as least the ones I've met. They must all take a module titled "Why philosophers understand any subject better than anyone without having to actually study it".
    Or, Philosophy simply gives you a wider understanding of the world than a narrow field of science

    Scientists are no more than car mechanics. Guys with spanners under the hood. Except less macho

    Remember that “the science” told us it came from the wet market, and leading “science journals” published letters from “top scientists” that any other idea - like lab leak - was a baseless conspiracy

    Then another top science journal - Nature - published a pack of lies called proximal origins which dismissed any other idea than wet market, a position from which its authors are now awkwardly recanting

    The science. Lol

    This is why you need philosopher travelers with a wider and wiser grasp of the world, especially guys who have swived several hundred girls so they also understand the wiles of that devious and infernal creature: Woman

    This is like one of the conversations I have with my sister in law, an actress, who understands nothing about anything scientific., but is willing to have an argument. It is like banging your head against a brick wall. It is pointless. You are an arse. You talk about stuff that you don't have any knowledge of and argue with people who do. It is spectacularly arrogant.
    I don't think I'd entirely agree with this.

    There are also some whiffs of culturally scientistic, rather than purely scientfic, arrogance, every now and again on PB, which also just reflects our times, and is visible on plenty on other fora, too.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    There is s difference between seeing how it works out and why it works. You were denying its very existence. Yet IO demonstrate its existence every time I switch on the light bulb.
    I didn’t deny its existence at all. I was making the point that we accept it is real because the scientists tell us it is real, despite it being very hard to understand even for expert physicists. As per the quotes adduced. Do keep up
    We accept it’s real because it predicts a whole mess of real world stuff, without which modern society wouldn’t function.
    You’re confusing the difference between an incomplete explanation of real world phenomena, and something which might (probably doesn’t, without new evidence) exist.

    Newtonian physics successfully predicted the world and offered great utilty for hundreds of years. We now know, in fundamental ways, that it was spectacularly wrong

    And in future we will learn that QM was about as accurate as malcolmg’s predictions of imminent Scottish independence
    No, the Newtonian model wasn’t wrong. It didn’t take into account forces and effects that only become evident at certain scales and energies.

    So when I build a trebuchet, all I need is Newton, because at that scale and energy, the answer is indistinguishable from the more advanced models.

    In fact the relativity and QM were and are, often applied as an additional correction to the basic Newtonian answer for orbital mechanics, for example.
    And even at Peak Physics Theory Hubris, around 1900 or so, the niggles that became relativity and quantum mechanics were known about- it was just that nobody really knew what to do with them. RIght now, there are bits of theory that don't really join up, but equally there aren't any observations crossing the join.

    It's obviously dangerous to say "We're finished, folks. Physics can take the summer off." but there's not much out there saying that we have to come up with a big new theory. After all, scientists don't just make up new theories for the hell of it.

    Unlike philosophers, for example.
    Except that serious physicists are suggesting we live in a simulation and other physics are seriously suggesting we live in one of an infinite series of parallel universes and others say this universe will end with eternal darkness and others say it’s in an eternal cycle of expansion and collapse and others say etc etc etc

    I’d say there’s still a TINY bit of work to be done. No?

    Lol. Scientists are always like this. Car mechanics. All you can see is the carburettor and say Look, it works
    Newton was a profoundly serious physicist who was a Nontrinitarian Arian and spent a lot of time looking for codes in the Bible. He was absolutely right about physics at certain scales, his other beliefs would have put him in the fringe occult. The simulation thing likely belongs in the latter category. At a guess.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,164
    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    Your choice. After all, as I've alluded to before, I just make a living teaching people this stuff.

    And yes, if you're looking for a meaning in the symbols, you're going to have a struggle. If you're asking why it works that way, I don't think anyone has that good an answer. But that's not what you said to start with;

    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it...

    And the fact is that you can see it fairly easily if you look in the right place.

    (As for the quotes, I used to start QM lessons with a selection of them- my favourite is Erwin Schrödinger — I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. But most came from the early days, when there was still hope for a deep meaning to go with an accurate description of what happens. Nowadays, the attitute among physicists tends to be characterised more as David Mermin's Shut up and calculate.)
    I love the way idiots like Leon pontificate on stuff on which they haven't the first clue on the maths and feel confident to argue with, you know, actual experts and aren't in the slightest bit embarrassed. Just quote a few bits out of context or out of date will do.
    It's a trait that seems to be shared by many philosophy graduates, as least the ones I've met. They must all take a module titled "Why philosophers understand any subject better than anyone without having to actually study it".
    Or, Philosophy simply gives you a wider understanding of the world than a narrow field of science

    Scientists are no more than car mechanics. Guys with spanners under the hood. Except less macho

    Remember that “the science” told us it came from the wet market, and leading “science journals” published letters from “top scientists” that any other idea - like lab leak - was a baseless conspiracy

    Then another top science journal - Nature - published a pack of lies called proximal origins which dismissed any other idea than wet market, a position from which its authors are now awkwardly recanting

    The science. Lol

    This is why you need philosopher travelers with a wider and wiser grasp of the world, especially guys who have swived several hundred girls so they also understand the wiles of that devious and infernal creature: Woman

    No, a twat is not the missing particle we are looking for to balance up the required mass of the universe. Especially one who has only been in the US for a short while but already forgotten how to spell properly.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,929
    Anyone know what has happened to arrse.co.uk?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,164

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Since when has Leon been a philosopher? I thought UCL let him in with one N in the 1980s and he spent the entire three years playing Pac Man.
    Leon on Physics is a great demonstration of another controversial theory - the Dunning Kruger Effect. An near perfect example... :D

    ” According to the metacognitive explanation, poor performers have not yet acquired the ability to distinguish between good and bad performances. They tend to overrate themselves because they do not see the qualitative difference between their performances and the performances of others. The statistical model explains the empirical findings based on two effects. It combines the statistical effect known as regression toward the mean with the cognitive bias known as the better-than-average effect. The rational model holds that overly positive prior beliefs about one's skills are the source of false self-assessment. Another explanation claims that self-assessment is more difficult and error-prone for low performers because many of them have very similar skill levels.”
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,913
    It's pretty much all change in politics in the UK - certainly for the Tories the old guard are out, and it's long been the case that Labour have ejected the beard folk. The Greens move on a little too, and no doubt the LDs will follow.

    Who though are the future stars? I'll suggest two - for the Tories it's Alex Chalk, and for Labour, Matthew Pennycook.

    I don't view these as next leader material in either case, but one day. I'm not surprised that I can't name a possible Green star, but I am a little surprised that I can't find a good LD prospect.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,164
    Omnium said:

    It's pretty much all change in politics in the UK - certainly for the Tories the old guard are out, and it's long been the case that Labour have ejected the beard folk. The Greens move on a little too, and no doubt the LDs will follow.

    Who though are the future stars? I'll suggest two - for the Tories it's Alex Chalk, and for Labour, Matthew Pennycook.

    I don't view these as next leader material in either case, but one day. I'm not surprised that I can't name a possible Green star, but I am a little surprised that I can't find a good LD prospect.

    With so few seats, it’s a thin pool, made thinner by the LibDem’s obsession with selection by identity.

    Daisy Cooper is almost certainly next leader.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,260
    edited June 2023
    Omnium said:

    It's pretty much all change in politics in the UK - certainly for the Tories the old guard are out, and it's long been the case that Labour have ejected the beard folk. The Greens move on a little too, and no doubt the LDs will follow.

    Who though are the future stars? I'll suggest two - for the Tories it's Alex Chalk, and for Labour, Matthew Pennycook.

    I don't view these as next leader material in either case, but one day. I'm not surprised that I can't name a possible Green star, but I am a little surprised that I can't find a good LD prospect.

    Matthew Pennycook ? Almost as good a name as Miss Thangam Debonnaire.

    All we need now is a Paluvia Twennywinkle, to complete the Dickensian collection.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,147

    Omnium said:

    It's pretty much all change in politics in the UK - certainly for the Tories the old guard are out, and it's long been the case that Labour have ejected the beard folk. The Greens move on a little too, and no doubt the LDs will follow.

    Who though are the future stars? I'll suggest two - for the Tories it's Alex Chalk, and for Labour, Matthew Pennycook.

    I don't view these as next leader material in either case, but one day. I'm not surprised that I can't name a possible Green star, but I am a little surprised that I can't find a good LD prospect.

    Matthew Pennycook ? Almost as good a name as Miss Thangam Debonnaire.

    All we need now is a Paluvia Twennywinkle.
    Ms Debonnaire chose that name herself. It is a great moniker.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,217

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    Your choice. After all, as I've alluded to before, I just make a living teaching people this stuff.

    And yes, if you're looking for a meaning in the symbols, you're going to have a struggle. If you're asking why it works that way, I don't think anyone has that good an answer. But that's not what you said to start with;

    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it...

    And the fact is that you can see it fairly easily if you look in the right place.

    (As for the quotes, I used to start QM lessons with a selection of them- my favourite is Erwin Schrödinger — I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. But most came from the early days, when there was still hope for a deep meaning to go with an accurate description of what happens. Nowadays, the attitute among physicists tends to be characterised more as David Mermin's Shut up and calculate.)
    I love the way idiots like Leon pontificate on stuff on which they haven't the first clue on the maths and feel confident to argue with, you know, actual experts and aren't in the slightest bit embarrassed. Just quote a few bits out of context or out of date will do.
    It's a trait that seems to be shared by many philosophy graduates, as least the ones I've met. They must all take a module titled "Why philosophers understand any subject better than anyone without having to actually study it".
    Or, Philosophy simply gives you a wider understanding of the world than a narrow field of science

    Scientists are no more than car mechanics. Guys with spanners under the hood. Except less macho

    Remember that “the science” told us it came from the wet market, and leading “science journals” published letters from “top scientists” that any other idea - like lab leak - was a baseless conspiracy

    Then another top science journal - Nature - published a pack of lies called proximal origins which dismissed any other idea than wet market, a position from which its authors are now awkwardly recanting

    The science. Lol

    This is why you need philosopher travelers with a wider and wiser grasp of the world, especially guys who have swived several hundred girls so they also understand the wiles of that devious and infernal creature: Woman

    This is like one of the conversations I have with my sister in law, an actress, who understands nothing about anything scientific., but is willing to have an argument. It is like banging your head against a brick wall. It is pointless. You are an arse. You talk about stuff that you don't have any knowledge of and argue with people who do. It is spectacularly arrogant.
    I don't think I'd entirely agree with this.

    There are also some whiffs of culturally scientistic, rather than purely scientfic, arrogance, every now and again on PB, which also just reflects our times, and is visible on plenty on other fora, too.
    It’s something I think that reflects the times just gone, but not necessarily the present or future.

    For the best part of a century since WW2 we’ve been in this era of ever greater specialisation. The renaissance man, the intellectual decathlete, had never had it so bad. Business logic demanded it - the silo, the deep specialist, the precision technology - and academia required it. Any paper purporting to explore anything beyond the esoteric immediate study wasn’t worth its salt. That was as much the case in the arts and humanities as the sciences.

    Synthetic thinking was out. Even the archetype of the synthetic subjects, geography, attempted to specialise itself out of existence for a while.

    I’m not sure that’s the case now. Technology does much of the deeply technical scientific heavy lifting now. And in the arts few are interested in pure esoterica anymore. They want art that’s grounded and worldly. So I think we’re heading to a time where the renaissance person is valued again.

    Arts grads are founding tech start ups. Geography degrees are more popular than ever. Scientists have been taking to Twitter to discuss and debate with laypeople, and popular science publishing is booming. All of which is a good thing.

  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,217
    IanB2 said:

    Omnium said:

    It's pretty much all change in politics in the UK - certainly for the Tories the old guard are out, and it's long been the case that Labour have ejected the beard folk. The Greens move on a little too, and no doubt the LDs will follow.

    Who though are the future stars? I'll suggest two - for the Tories it's Alex Chalk, and for Labour, Matthew Pennycook.

    I don't view these as next leader material in either case, but one day. I'm not surprised that I can't name a possible Green star, but I am a little surprised that I can't find a good LD prospect.

    With so few seats, it’s a thin pool, made thinner by the LibDem’s obsession with selection by identity.

    Daisy Cooper is almost certainly next leader.
    Yes Daisy’s next in line. I think she’ll do well, better than Swinson, Cable or Farron (I think Davey’s quietly doing a very good job).

    But for dearth of star quality look at the greens. Even the clown show that is Refuk manages to turn out people with bucket loads more charisma than the current green crop, post Lucas.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,401

    Omnium said:

    It's pretty much all change in politics in the UK - certainly for the Tories the old guard are out, and it's long been the case that Labour have ejected the beard folk. The Greens move on a little too, and no doubt the LDs will follow.

    Who though are the future stars? I'll suggest two - for the Tories it's Alex Chalk, and for Labour, Matthew Pennycook.

    I don't view these as next leader material in either case, but one day. I'm not surprised that I can't name a possible Green star, but I am a little surprised that I can't find a good LD prospect.

    Matthew Pennycook ? Almost as good a name as Miss Thangam Debonnaire.

    All we need now is a Paluvia Twennywinkle, to complete the Dickensian collection.
    Actually a locality-derived name. Small town near Edinburgh.

    Anyone know what has happened to arrse.co.uk?

    Seems to work fine ...
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,961
    Omnium said:

    It's pretty much all change in politics in the UK - certainly for the Tories the old guard are out, and it's long been the case that Labour have ejected the beard folk. The Greens move on a little too, and no doubt the LDs will follow.

    Who though are the future stars? I'll suggest two - for the Tories it's Alex Chalk, and for Labour, Matthew Pennycook.

    I don't view these as next leader material in either case, but one day. I'm not surprised that I can't name a possible Green star, but I am a little surprised that I can't find a good LD prospect.

    Alex Chalk will probably lose his Cheltenham seat to the LDs at the next election.
  • CorrectHorseBatCorrectHorseBat Posts: 1,761
    Was lovely to watch Hawks walk in against Surrey, who gave up about 5 minutes in
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,401
    edited June 2023
    Foxy said:

    Omnium said:

    It's pretty much all change in politics in the UK - certainly for the Tories the old guard are out, and it's long been the case that Labour have ejected the beard folk. The Greens move on a little too, and no doubt the LDs will follow.

    Who though are the future stars? I'll suggest two - for the Tories it's Alex Chalk, and for Labour, Matthew Pennycook.

    I don't view these as next leader material in either case, but one day. I'm not surprised that I can't name a possible Green star, but I am a little surprised that I can't find a good LD prospect.

    Matthew Pennycook ? Almost as good a name as Miss Thangam Debonnaire.

    All we need now is a Paluvia Twennywinkle.
    Ms Debonnaire chose that name herself. It is a great moniker.
    Quite. Curiously, but distinctively, it is spelt that last little bit uniquely, too:

    https://members.parliament.uk/member/4433/

    "Thangam Debbonaire is the Labour MP for Bristol West ..."
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    Christ. Lexington
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 43,504
    TimS said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    Your choice. After all, as I've alluded to before, I just make a living teaching people this stuff.

    And yes, if you're looking for a meaning in the symbols, you're going to have a struggle. If you're asking why it works that way, I don't think anyone has that good an answer. But that's not what you said to start with;

    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it...

    And the fact is that you can see it fairly easily if you look in the right place.

    (As for the quotes, I used to start QM lessons with a selection of them- my favourite is Erwin Schrödinger — I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. But most came from the early days, when there was still hope for a deep meaning to go with an accurate description of what happens. Nowadays, the attitute among physicists tends to be characterised more as David Mermin's Shut up and calculate.)
    I love the way idiots like Leon pontificate on stuff on which they haven't the first clue on the maths and feel confident to argue with, you know, actual experts and aren't in the slightest bit embarrassed. Just quote a few bits out of context or out of date will do.
    It's a trait that seems to be shared by many philosophy graduates, as least the ones I've met. They must all take a module titled "Why philosophers understand any subject better than anyone without having to actually study it".
    Or, Philosophy simply gives you a wider understanding of the world than a narrow field of science

    Scientists are no more than car mechanics. Guys with spanners under the hood. Except less macho

    Remember that “the science” told us it came from the wet market, and leading “science journals” published letters from “top scientists” that any other idea - like lab leak - was a baseless conspiracy

    Then another top science journal - Nature - published a pack of lies called proximal origins which dismissed any other idea than wet market, a position from which its authors are now awkwardly recanting

    The science. Lol

    This is why you need philosopher travelers with a wider and wiser grasp of the world, especially guys who have swived several hundred girls so they also understand the wiles of that devious and infernal creature: Woman

    This is like one of the conversations I have with my sister in law, an actress, who understands nothing about anything scientific., but is willing to have an argument. It is like banging your head against a brick wall. It is pointless. You are an arse. You talk about stuff that you don't have any knowledge of and argue with people who do. It is spectacularly arrogant.
    I don't think I'd entirely agree with this.

    There are also some whiffs of culturally scientistic, rather than purely scientfic, arrogance, every now and again on PB, which also just reflects our times, and is visible on plenty on other fora, too.
    It’s something I think that reflects the times just gone, but not necessarily the present or future.

    For the best part of a century since WW2 we’ve been in this era of ever greater specialisation. The renaissance man, the intellectual decathlete, had never had it so bad. Business logic demanded it - the silo, the deep specialist, the precision technology - and academia required it. Any paper purporting to explore anything beyond the esoteric immediate study wasn’t worth its salt. That was as much the case in the arts and humanities as the sciences.

    Synthetic thinking was out. Even the archetype of the synthetic subjects, geography, attempted to specialise itself out of existence for a while.

    I’m not sure that’s the case now. Technology does much of the deeply technical scientific heavy lifting now. And in the arts few are interested in pure esoterica anymore. They want art that’s grounded and worldly. So I think we’re heading to a time where the renaissance person is valued again.

    Arts grads are founding tech start ups. Geography degrees are more popular than ever. Scientists have been taking to Twitter to discuss and debate with laypeople, and popular science publishing is booming. All of which is a good thing.

    Incidentally, some of the best programmers I have known have had geography degrees. Some of the worst have had comp sci degrees. No idea why that is, aside from sample bias.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,424
    edited June 2023
    Leon said:

    Christ. Lexington

    Well, at least it's not aliens. Go on. Regale us with your tale of another arse-end of the Confederacy-ish.
  • CiceroCicero Posts: 3,126
    Andy_JS said:

    Omnium said:

    It's pretty much all change in politics in the UK - certainly for the Tories the old guard are out, and it's long been the case that Labour have ejected the beard folk. The Greens move on a little too, and no doubt the LDs will follow.

    Who though are the future stars? I'll suggest two - for the Tories it's Alex Chalk, and for Labour, Matthew Pennycook.

    I don't view these as next leader material in either case, but one day. I'm not surprised that I can't name a possible Green star, but I am a little surprised that I can't find a good LD prospect.

    Alex Chalk will probably lose his Cheltenham seat to the LDs at the next election.
    That is a very high chance, but he is reputed to be looking for a different seat.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,049

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Since when has Leon been a philosopher? I thought UCL let him in with one N in the 1980s and he spent the entire three years playing Pac Man.
    Leon on Physics is a great demonstration of another controversial theory - the Dunning Kruger Effect. An near perfect example... :D

    Rather akin to someone else here who was insistent an app cost 37 Billion quid in spite of evidence to the contrary.
    Well, for quite some time that was the information in circulation. It was almost as if the govt wanted us all to think that vast sums were being spent.

    It wasn’t the information in circulation at any time from any official source. It was just conspiracy theory guff on social media that people happily accepted if it suited their agenda.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,049
    viewcode said:

    Taz said:
    It would obviously generate an inferno of controversy... :)
    I wonder if they are all wearing eye patches. 😂
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,049
    Leon said:

    Christ. Lexington

    Sounds like the name of a US TV presenter from an episode of The Day Today.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    viewcode said:

    Leon said:

    Christ. Lexington

    Well, at least it's not aliens. Go on. Regale us with your tale of another arse-end of the Confederacy-ish.
    Remember this is where @SeaShantyIrish2 told me to go after he claimed I was seeking out American urban dystopia. He said this would be very different
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,424

    Incidentally, some of the best programmers I have known have had geography degrees. Some of the worst have had comp sci degrees. No idea why that is, aside from sample bias.

    Many, most, some...
    • How many people are in the set of "geography"
    • How many of those people are in the set of "best"
    • How many of those people are not in the set of "best"
    • How many people are in the set of "compsci"
    • How many of those people are in the set of "best"
    • How many of those people are not in the set of "best"
    • How many people are in the set of "people who applied with geography degrees"
    • How many people are in the set of "people who applied with comp-sci degrees"
    Alternate explanations include:
    • You have overlooked the number of best with compsci, and worst with geography
    • You had more geography applicants than comp-sci
    • You have more geography employees than comp-sci

  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,401
    edited June 2023
    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Well yeah. I’m not a physicist. And even physicists struggle to understand quantum physics


    “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”

    RICHARD FEYNMAN

    “Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense”

    ROGER PENROSE



    No offence but I’ll go with them over “@stuartinromford”
    Your choice. After all, as I've alluded to before, I just make a living teaching people this stuff.

    And yes, if you're looking for a meaning in the symbols, you're going to have a struggle. If you're asking why it works that way, I don't think anyone has that good an answer. But that's not what you said to start with;

    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it...

    And the fact is that you can see it fairly easily if you look in the right place.

    (As for the quotes, I used to start QM lessons with a selection of them- my favourite is Erwin Schrödinger — I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. But most came from the early days, when there was still hope for a deep meaning to go with an accurate description of what happens. Nowadays, the attitute among physicists tends to be characterised more as David Mermin's Shut up and calculate.)
    I love the way idiots like Leon pontificate on stuff on which they haven't the first clue on the maths and feel confident to argue with, you know, actual experts and aren't in the slightest bit embarrassed. Just quote a few bits out of context or out of date will do.
    It's a trait that seems to be shared by many philosophy graduates, as least the ones I've met. They must all take a module titled "Why philosophers understand any subject better than anyone without having to actually study it".
    Or, Philosophy simply gives you a wider understanding of the world than a narrow field of science

    Scientists are no more than car mechanics. Guys with spanners under the hood. Except less macho

    Remember that “the science” told us it came from the wet market, and leading “science journals” published letters from “top scientists” that any other idea - like lab leak - was a baseless conspiracy

    Then another top science journal - Nature - published a pack of lies called proximal origins which dismissed any other idea than wet market, a position from which its authors are now awkwardly recanting

    The science. Lol

    This is why you need philosopher travelers with a wider and wiser grasp of the world, especially guys who have swived several hundred girls so they also understand the wiles of that devious and infernal creature: Woman

    No, a twat is not the missing particle we are looking for to balance up the required mass of the universe. Especially one who has only been in the US for a short while but already forgotten how to spell properly.
    On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence of particle-wave duality, and parallel reality multiplication, of the Leon quantum soliton.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,424
    Taz said:

    viewcode said:

    Taz said:
    It would obviously generate an inferno of controversy... :)
    I wonder if they are all wearing eye patches. 😂
    What really worries me is that I know without Googling the anecdote you are referring to... :(
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    America is fucked
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    viewcode said:

    Leon said:

    Christ. Lexington

    Well, at least it's not aliens. Go on. Regale us with your tale of another arse-end of the Confederacy-ish.
    Er, a key factor in the course and outcome of the US Civil War, was fact that Kentucky did NOT secede from the Union.

    Though plenty of individual Kentuckians did support the Confederacy and joined the rebel army. And KY was represented (sorta) in the Confederate Congress.

    Following attack on Fort Sumter, Abraham Lincoln (KY born) made a point of NOT pushing things tooo far in Kentucky. Specifically NOT sending Union troops into the state, despite highly strategic geography of far western KY.

    Whereas Jefferson Davis (also KY born) authorized Confederate troops to invade Kentucky, specifically to occupy key locations at Columbus KY on the MIssissippi River, and the mouths of Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers on lower Ohio - gateways to Nashville and beyond further southward.

    This tipped the balance in Kentucky toward the Union, and though it was a battleground for much of Civil War, the Confederacy was contained - mostly - well south of the Ohio River, a major transportation artery AND the southern flank of the Midwestern states critical to Union manpower, logistics and morale.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,049
    Leon said:

    America is fucked

    What makes you say that ?
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,424
    Leon said:

    viewcode said:

    Leon said:

    Christ. Lexington

    Well, at least it's not aliens. Go on. Regale us with your tale of another arse-end of the Confederacy-ish.
    Remember this is where @SeaShantyIrish2 told me to go after he claimed I was seeking out American urban dystopia. He said this would be very different
    People on YouTube don't seem to think it's rubbish, although it appears it has a lot in common with many mediocre US cities, like all the wiring is on poles instead of underground, and chain-link fences which are really ugly. Is it better or worse than you were anticipating?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31lcUpcWk-c
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-AXSpbAApM

  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    Leon said:

    viewcode said:

    Leon said:

    Christ. Lexington

    Well, at least it's not aliens. Go on. Regale us with your tale of another arse-end of the Confederacy-ish.
    Remember this is where @SeaShantyIrish2 told me to go after he claimed I was seeking out American urban dystopia. He said this would be very different
    Last time I was in Lex it was OK, albeit with lots of suburban sprawl. Downtown was nice, as was campus of U of KY.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,913
    TimS said:

    Anyway, on the topic of art and science it’s open studios weekend in 2 weeks’ time and my wife has been hanging up her pieces today, all based in some way on either physics or meteorology, and I get to be the proud husband plying visitors with free wine.






    I really like the first one.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,424

    viewcode said:

    Leon said:

    Christ. Lexington

    Well, at least it's not aliens. Go on. Regale us with your tale of another arse-end of the Confederacy-ish.
    Er, a key factor in the course and outcome of the US Civil War, was fact that Kentucky did NOT secede from the Union.

    Though plenty of individual Kentuckians did support the Confederacy and joined the rebel army. And KY was represented (sorta) in the Confederate Congress.

    Following attack on Fort Sumter, Abraham Lincoln (KY born) made a point of NOT pushing things tooo far in Kentucky. Specifically NOT sending Union troops into the state, despite highly strategic geography of far western KY.

    Whereas Jefferson Davis (also KY born) authorized Confederate troops to invade Kentucky, specifically to occupy key locations at Columbus KY on the MIssissippi River, and the mouths of Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers on lower Ohio - gateways to Nashville and beyond further southward.

    This tipped the balance in Kentucky toward the Union, and though it was a battleground for much of Civil War, the Confederacy was contained - mostly - well south of the Ohio River, a major transportation artery AND the southern flank of the Midwestern states critical to Union manpower, logistics and morale.
    [which is why I edited it to "Confederacy-ish". :smiley: ]
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,177
    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    I recommend a full viewing of the UFO whistleblower interview

    It is extraordinary. For a start his CV checks out. He really is - or was until recently - a senior US intel officer. He was working on UFOs. He does have specialised scientific training

    And his claims are toys-in-the-attic insane. The Vatican knows about UFOs. Mussolini had one (it crashed in Italy). They may come from other dimensions. They have killed people. We are not alone!

    https://twitter.com/ackmeni/status/1668148960668819456?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    As you watch it your brain toggles between several different interpretations. Is he simply mad? No, he doesn’t seem mad. Is he being paid to do this, or ordered to, as part of some psy ops against China or whatever? Maybe - but then why make such outrageous claims that sound SO bonkers. The pope, really?

    Is it a joke? If it is - what’s the pay off? He is risking his reputation and career - his life, really - by saying this stuff. Does he actually believe everything he says? Perhaps. Perhaps it is true. But then you come back to the WTF stuff about the Vatican. It can’t be true

    Maybe he has been brilliantly manipulated, perhaps even drugged

    I confess I have no idea, no answer really covers all the bases. My point is: this level of insanity cannot be sustained and we are surely reaching the moment when the truth will out, whatever that might be

    A space YouTuber I've started watching again recently (angry astronaut) has started doing stuff on UFOs as well as his usual fare of space industry stuff. The reason? It gets a heck of a lot more hits and engagement. People like UFO stuff.

    And that might be your answer: this gentleman may be risking his career, but his reputation amongst the UFOlogists will be massive, and will keep him in lucre for a long time.

    Look at AA's video views: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAngryAstronaut/videos

    "If UFOs are alien, where are they from? What do they want?" - 125k views.
    "So you want to be a Martian? How to be a SpaceX colonist!" - 11k views
    "Government Whistleblower: Alien Craft recovered! Pentagon, NASA reveal more spherical UFOs!" - 321k views
    "Will China's new Starship clone bury NASA and Artemis?" - 17k views

    Basically, UFO ones get 10 time or more views.
    Similar story with the antivaxx stuff - there's a very good living indeed to be made out it for some.
    That explanation doesn’t cover 85% of the stuff coming from high levels of the US Establishment

    In fact, I don’t think it explains this guy. A highly respected, ambitious, intelligent intel officer with an extremely bright career ahead of him. He’s still young

    He throws that all away and comes out with absolutely ridiculous claims about the Vatican handing a crashed UFO to America after WW2. He exposes himself to global ridicule. His career is over. He risks prosecution by his own side. And he does all this because… he might make a few quid on niche UFO websites? Does that look like a good deal?

    It doesn’t. If he is simply a devious grifter he would not have made such outlandish statements that beggar any belief. He’d have reined it in

    Same goes for psy ops. This isn’t very good psy ops. It’s too surreal. “These beings may exist in parallel dimensions”. That’s not going to frighten Beijing

    We are left with two options: he is mad or he really believes all this. Or both. He doesn’t look mad
    Until some actual evidence of something
    comes out, I don't much care either way.
    Wake us up when it does.
    What “actual” evidence do you have for the truth of quantum physics? None. You can’t see it, hear it, taste it, and I doubt you even understand it (this is not a personal jibe, it is famously hard to understand even for mega brained boffins)

    Yet you believe it is true because experts tell you, despite quantum physics having some outrageous implications - Schrödingers cat, the uncertainty principle, superpositions, instantaneous transmission of info across the universe etc
    Greatest of respect, you're talking tosh. Because you're a philosopher and journalist, not a physicist.

    Many of the philosophical implications of QM are outrageous, but often that comes from asking questions that seem like they should have an
    answer but turn out not to. Take the uncertainty principle- you can't know where something is and how fast it's moving to perfect precision. Sounds outrageous, because we're used to doing that for big objects. But in the situation where QM matters, it turns out impossible anyway. If you have a single atom and shine light on it to see where it is, the knock of the light makes it wobble a bit, so we don't know position and speed exactly. Like QM says.

    And for proof that QM happens, all you need is coloured garden lights, preferably battery or solar powered. As the battery runs down, the blue goes first and the red last. That's because particles of blue light have more energy in them than for red. And that's the guts of QM. It works. It's just that the maths is hard.

    https://youtu.be/iGw_qjUT5DA
    Since when has Leon been a philosopher? I thought UCL let him in with one N in the 1980s and he spent the entire three years playing Pac Man.
    Leon on Physics is a great demonstration of another controversial theory - the Dunning Kruger Effect. An near perfect example... :D

    Rather akin to someone else here who was insistent an app cost 37 Billion quid in spite of evidence to the contrary.
    Well, for quite some time that was the information in circulation. It was almost as if the govt wanted us all to think that vast sums were being spent.

    It wasn’t the information in circulation at any time from any official source. It was just conspiracy theory guff on social media that people happily accepted if it suited their agenda.
    But a Tweet from someone who has no actual information is The Truth.

    An actual set of accounts on an official website, detailing the actualise spending, Googleable in seconds, is Not Information.

    Didn’t you get the memo?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,177
    viewcode said:

    viewcode said:

    Leon said:

    Christ. Lexington

    Well, at least it's not aliens. Go on. Regale us with your tale of another arse-end of the Confederacy-ish.
    Er, a key factor in the course and outcome of the US Civil War, was fact that Kentucky did NOT secede from the Union.

    Though plenty of individual Kentuckians did support the Confederacy and joined the rebel army. And KY was represented (sorta) in the Confederate Congress.

    Following attack on Fort Sumter, Abraham Lincoln (KY born) made a point of NOT pushing things tooo far in Kentucky. Specifically NOT sending Union troops into the state, despite highly strategic geography of far western KY.

    Whereas Jefferson Davis (also KY born) authorized Confederate troops to invade Kentucky, specifically to occupy key locations at Columbus KY on the MIssissippi River, and the mouths of Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers on lower Ohio - gateways to Nashville and beyond further southward.

    This tipped the balance in Kentucky toward the Union, and though it was a battleground for much of Civil War, the Confederacy was contained - mostly - well south of the Ohio River, a major transportation artery AND the southern flank of the Midwestern states critical to Union manpower, logistics and morale.
    [which is why I edited it to "Confederacy-ish". :smiley: ]
    It is fascinating how the myth of The Biggest Losers In American History* has spread beyond the actual Confederacy.

    *Native American culture has survived, a bit. The Confederacy, which lasted a shorter time than the presidency of B. Obama, was exterpated. The modern bullshit Lost Cause stuff has no actual relationship to it. Apart from the racism.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    edited June 2023

    Leon said:

    viewcode said:

    Leon said:

    Christ. Lexington

    Well, at least it's not aliens. Go on. Regale us with your tale of another arse-end of the Confederacy-ish.
    Remember this is where @SeaShantyIrish2 told me to go after he claimed I was seeking out American urban dystopia. He said this would be very different
    Last time I was in Lex it was OK, albeit with lots of suburban sprawl. Downtown was nice, as was campus of U of KY.
    It’s obviously much richer than Charleston WV, and they have preserved more period buildings and there are far fewer bleak litter strewn car lots in the middle (the parking is multi storey and more discreet)

    So as an urban scape it’s OK, even nice

    But on the way in there is a five block slice of the inner city where clearly drugged up zombified homeless dudes and dudettes (fentanyl? Meth? Tranq) are wandering aimlessly about, sometimes in the middle of the road. You have to swerve to avoid hitting them

    And some of them are doing that mad crazy hand waving opioid crack ketamine whatever jitttery shouting thing

    And there’s a few of them right here in the middle as well. It is quite unnerving. For a European

    Is this new then?

    I’d take photos to prove what I’m saying but obvs that’s hard
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,662
    I'm currently in Salem. MA. Which, confusing, is only about 30 miles from Salem, NH.

    It's charming and busy. Lots of pretty houses, a surprisingly great museum that dates back to the late 1700s.

    And, yes, there are lots of silly witch exhibits. But it's hard to see this as anything other than a bustling little town on the edge of a big metropolis.

    It is, however, raining.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 63,137
    Jack Shaw
    @JackTShaw
    New research from me in the FT shows that allocations from the Shared Prosperity Fund in 2022-23 remain largely unspent, with Gateshead, Stoke-on-Trent and Cornwall spending 5 per cent or less of their allocation. The GLA spent 11 per cent.

    https://twitter.com/JackTShaw/status/1670362959934103553
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    rcs1000 said:

    I'm currently in Salem. MA. Which, confusing, is only about 30 miles from Salem, NH.

    It's charming and busy. Lots of pretty houses, a surprisingly great museum that dates back to the late 1700s.

    And, yes, there are lots of silly witch exhibits. But it's hard to see this as anything other than a bustling little town on the edge of a big metropolis.

    It is, however, raining.

    I’ve been to Salem. Yes it’s nice but touristy

    Alexandria VA was nice in the same way
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 10,011

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.

    The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain

    The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.

    Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/mortgage-bomb-middle-class-britain/

    Very first world problem to have!
    Indeed.

    Fraser’s monthly mortgage payments have gone up from £8,300 a month to £20,000. “If things were to carry on this way, we would be looking to pull our three kids out of school – which costs us £45,000 a year – and possibly be looking to sell the house too.”
    How come the stupid bastard didn't go for a long term fixed rate?

    I saw this coming eighteen months ago and I'm no expert. Is he an investment fund manager or something if he's that dim and overpaid?
    It's completely idiotic and I have zero sympathy. I do feel for people on average incomes who over extended themselves to buy a normal house in our crazy housing market, but anyone with that kind of money can afford a decent home without going massively into unaffordable debt. I used a decade of good earnings to pay off our mortgage on our perfectly nice but not huge or luxurious house completely rather than leveraging myself up to the eyeballs to buy a show home I can barely afford. Interest rates go up as well as down. Now he has to take his kids out of private school? Oh no, how will they cope! What an over entitled prick.
    But probably a labour voter
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,217
    Omnium said:

    TimS said:

    Anyway, on the topic of art and science it’s open studios weekend in 2 weeks’ time and my wife has been hanging up her pieces today, all based in some way on either physics or meteorology, and I get to be the proud husband plying visitors with free wine.






    I really like the first one.
    So do I. Rusted iron.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 63,137
    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    America is fucked

    What makes you say that ?
    The 5th G&T?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    This is what I came through. The East End


    “I’m not against the homeless, I’m a social worker, and I’ve worked with the homeless about 15 years. But this is different, this is a different kind of homeless” said Mallory.

    Billie Mallory says her concerns are with people at the Third Street and Martin Luther King corner and Third Street and Elm Tree corner.

    She says she has seen an increase in property damage, loitering, and violence.

    “They’re all over this neighborhood and they’re just, they’re very threatening” said Mallory.“

    https://www.wtvq.com/concerns-over-the-homeless-population-in-lexingtons-east-end/
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    Last time I was in Lexington, I arrived on a Greyhound bus from Ashland in eastern KY.

    The Lex bus "station" turned out to be a convenience store on the outer fringes, had to take a couple city buses to get to downtown. Took about three hours, winding our way through mucho suburbia.

    Downtown was pretty nice, actually, at least to my untutored eye, some nice old building plus a few biggish office buildings and hotels, etc. Mary Todd Lincoln house, U of KY campus, Transylvania U, couple of used bookstores.

    Still had to get my sorry butt to the LEX airport. Which proved to be impossible via the burg's rudimentary public transit.

    So thinking quickly, I went to one of the hotels . . . and caught their shuttle to the airport.

    I was the only passenger, and confessed to the driver that I had NOT been a guest at the hotel, go could I give him whatever to cover cost? He said, don't worry about it, he was on the clock anyway.

    Hope that Leon can have at least half as positive a visit!
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,260
    edited June 2023
    These are the results of having a very much reduced social safety net compared even to Britain , since the Reagan years, and the pharmaceutical companies running riot, due to lobbying.

    You then get a huge unsupported homeless population with very easy access to originally mass-produced drugs. The homeless population in the U.S. is supposedly around 500, to 750,000.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606

    Last time I was in Lexington, I arrived on a Greyhound bus from Ashland in eastern KY.

    The Lex bus "station" turned out to be a convenience store on the outer fringes, had to take a couple city buses to get to downtown. Took about three hours, winding our way through mucho suburbia.

    Downtown was pretty nice, actually, at least to my untutored eye, some nice old building plus a few biggish office buildings and hotels, etc. Mary Todd Lincoln house, U of KY campus, Transylvania U, couple of used bookstores.

    Still had to get my sorry butt to the LEX airport. Which proved to be impossible via the burg's rudimentary public transit.

    So thinking quickly, I went to one of the hotels . . . and caught their shuttle to the airport.

    I was the only passenger, and confessed to the driver that I had NOT been a guest at the hotel, go could I give him whatever to cover cost? He said, don't worry about it, he was on the clock anyway.

    Hope that Leon can have at least half as positive a visit!

    I have found a very nice breezy Italian restaurant. About a block from the scary fentanyl addicts

    It’s most odd. It’s like a rather prosperous if weirdly car centric and modern European city - Lyon or munich - but with zombies
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,401
    Omnium said:

    TimS said:

    Anyway, on the topic of art and science it’s open studios weekend in 2 weeks’ time and my wife has been hanging up her pieces today, all based in some way on either physics or meteorology, and I get to be the proud husband plying visitors with free wine.






    I really like the first one.
    I do like the hill triptych. Lake District?
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    Leon said:

    This is what I came through. The East End


    “I’m not against the homeless, I’m a social worker, and I’ve worked with the homeless about 15 years. But this is different, this is a different kind of homeless” said Mallory.

    Billie Mallory says her concerns are with people at the Third Street and Martin Luther King corner and Third Street and Elm Tree corner.

    She says she has seen an increase in property damage, loitering, and violence.

    “They’re all over this neighborhood and they’re just, they’re very threatening” said Mallory.“

    https://www.wtvq.com/concerns-over-the-homeless-population-in-lexingtons-east-end/

    East End = predominately African American, historically and today. (Tpoff being corner of 3rd and MLK.)

    Always been deprived area. Even more so by COVID and post-pandemic fentanyl-homeless epidemic.
  • kamskikamski Posts: 5,208
    Pagan2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.

    The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain

    The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.

    Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/mortgage-bomb-middle-class-britain/

    Very first world problem to have!
    Indeed.

    Fraser’s monthly mortgage payments have gone up from £8,300 a month to £20,000. “If things were to carry on this way, we would be looking to pull our three kids out of school – which costs us £45,000 a year – and possibly be looking to sell the house too.”
    How come the stupid bastard didn't go for a long term fixed rate?

    I saw this coming eighteen months ago and I'm no expert. Is he an investment fund manager or something if he's that dim and overpaid?
    It's completely idiotic and I have zero sympathy. I do feel for people on average incomes who over extended themselves to buy a normal house in our crazy housing market, but anyone with that kind of money can afford a decent home without going massively into unaffordable debt. I used a decade of good earnings to pay off our mortgage on our perfectly nice but not huge or luxurious house completely rather than leveraging myself up to the eyeballs to buy a show home I can barely afford. Interest rates go up as well as down. Now he has to take his kids out of private school? Oh no, how will they cope! What an over entitled prick.
    But probably a labour voter
    If the Conservatives have lost the vote of people who live in 7m quid houses, and spend 45k a year on private schools then they really are going to be wiped out...
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606

    These are the results of having a very much reduced social safety net compared even to Britain , since the Reagan years, and the pharmaceutical companies running riot, due to lobbying.

    You then get a huge unsupported homeless population with very easy access to originally mass-produced drugs. The homeless population in the U.S. is supposedly around 500, to 750,000.

    It’s not just the evil drug companies and the lack of welfare (tho they are certainly an issue) - it’s the drugs themselves. Fentanyl and tranq. Incredibly addictive and incredibly dangerous - inducing psychosis etc

    There is a theory that China (which makes most of these appalling drugs) deliberately pumps them into America via Mexican cartels: so as to fuck up America. Revenge for the opium war

    China is prepared to export a pandemic so this is not an outlandish theory
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,929
    Video emerges of Rishi Sunak making a joke about trans/men with penises etc

    https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/leaked-video-rishi-sunak-trans-b2359829.html
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    Leon said:

    Last time I was in Lexington, I arrived on a Greyhound bus from Ashland in eastern KY.

    The Lex bus "station" turned out to be a convenience store on the outer fringes, had to take a couple city buses to get to downtown. Took about three hours, winding our way through mucho suburbia.

    Downtown was pretty nice, actually, at least to my untutored eye, some nice old building plus a few biggish office buildings and hotels, etc. Mary Todd Lincoln house, U of KY campus, Transylvania U, couple of used bookstores.

    Still had to get my sorry butt to the LEX airport. Which proved to be impossible via the burg's rudimentary public transit.

    So thinking quickly, I went to one of the hotels . . . and caught their shuttle to the airport.

    I was the only passenger, and confessed to the driver that I had NOT been a guest at the hotel, go could I give him whatever to cover cost? He said, don't worry about it, he was on the clock anyway.

    Hope that Leon can have at least half as positive a visit!

    I have found a very nice breezy Italian restaurant. About a block from the scary fentanyl addicts

    It’s most odd. It’s like a rather prosperous if weirdly car centric and modern European city - Lyon or munich - but with zombies
    They've got a social safety net that mostly works, it seems.

    We've got an old boot with big holes, that ain't working for shit.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,987
    Hard to see Somerton and Frome as anything other than a LD hold. Was LD held from 1997 to 2010 with Jacob Rees Mogg's siste Annunziata Conservative candidate in 2010 when she narrowly lost it by just three per cent
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    Certainly hope that Big Bone Lick does NOT turn out to be a Big Bust!
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,260
    edited June 2023
    Leon said:

    These are the results of having a very much reduced social safety net compared even to Britain , since the Reagan years, and the pharmaceutical companies running riot, due to lobbying.

    You then get a huge unsupported homeless population with very easy access to originally mass-produced drugs. The homeless population in the U.S. is supposedly around 500, to 750,000.

    It’s not just the evil drug companies and the lack of welfare (tho they are certainly an issue) - it’s the drugs themselves. Fentanyl and tranq. Incredibly addictive and incredibly dangerous - inducing psychosis etc

    There is a theory that China (which makes most of these appalling drugs) deliberately pumps them into America via Mexican cartels: so as to fuck up America. Revenge for the opium war

    China is prepared to export a pandemic so this is not an outlandish theory
    That's not impossible, but it would also very helpfully shift a lot of the blame for many of the U.S's own idiotic and backward social policies, which recent Tory welfare policies have also tried to emulate, to an outside and convenient well-known enemy or adversary instead, which makes me somewhat sceptical.

    The U.S has so much potential, but it's been subject, like Britain, to an almost equally extreme ideological experiment.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,987
    Omnium said:

    It's pretty much all change in politics in the UK - certainly for the Tories the old guard are out, and it's long been the case that Labour have ejected the beard folk. The Greens move on a little too, and no doubt the LDs will follow.

    Who though are the future stars? I'll suggest two - for the Tories it's Alex Chalk, and for Labour, Matthew Pennycook.

    I don't view these as next leader material in either case, but one day. I'm not surprised that I can't name a possible Green star, but I am a little surprised that I can't find a good LD prospect.

    Chalk is good but will almost certainly lose his Cheltenham seat next year
This discussion has been closed.