That was my thought when seeing the thread title. I thought it was going to be a thread about all the experimental evidence against the idea of a unif...
On a more general note: this conflict seems to have reversed the trend towards trying to create smaller, more flexible formations as the primary unit ...
Sure, they gave up on the quick victory plan. That doesn't mean they never expected it to work. A lot appears to have hinged on bribes and the expecta...
I wouldn't even grant this. Market equilibrium is an emergent phenomenon; no one state and certainly no small group of people is "in control" of globa...
Russia withdrew from the Kyiv and Sunny axes. It left Kharkiv retreating past Kupiansk because of a general rout in which it turned over warehouses fu...
For some levity, check out the accents on this "intercepted radio call" by American mercenaries in Ukraine. Seems the Bradley's are all being destroye...
Weren't they trying to liberate their Ukrainian brothers and sisters from the Nazi regime? Generally you don't liberate people by getting frustrated t...
In general, it's not a good sign if you've geared up for a big offensive and your soldiers begin driving into obvious mine emplacements, sometimes dis...
Yeah, hard to see how this theory is consistent with Russian messaging early in the war or the info they produced for domestic consumption. This was M...
So, the attempt to encircle Kiev was a feint? The attempt to encircle Kharkiv was also a feint? The Sumny axis was a feint too? Russia took Kherson ju...
Apparently. There is a hilarious level of faith in this supposed "real Russian military," that is just waiting to take the gloves off. How many pairs ...
How is Russia going to get to the Moldovan border? They haven't exactly been making much by way of progress since last summer. Even where they have mo...
Interesting. I've never heard the argument that past and future are different substances. Substance is generally supposed to be able to undergo change...
And like twenty different things to boot! I've seen: Realist = time and change exists Realist = substrate independent, diffuse entities like economies...
Bit of an aside: I find it funny how often Aristotle's ordering of physics vs metaphysics comes up in all sorts of discussions and texts on this point...
I don't think you can put one necessarily before the other. The relationship is often circular. For example, metaphysics deals with how we think about...
You are correct. I was thinking specifically of states like the DRC of CAR, extremely low income and patchy state control of territory, where the stat...
I will be unhelpful and say it depends. Some taxes aren't moral in the first place, e.g. poll taxes based on race. It seems like it may be fair to try...
Bernardo Kastrupt's "The Idea of the World," throws together most of the best arguments against mainstream physicalism in an easy to follow, analytica...
An important distinction is "high tax rates" versus "high tax revenues." High tax revenues relative to GDP track much better with quality of life. A h...
This is a very old old post, but I can't help but note that this seems like cherry picking. First, Switzerland has the fifth highest top marginal tax ...
Sure, but how do you ever know what are actually initial conditions and what just appear to be the earliest initial conditions you can make out? This ...
Also, I don't see why observing seemingly unlikely phenomena requires positing any sort of creator or designer. Why can't we just assume some sort of ...
Seeing text written in English using galaxies wouldn't undercut the Copernican Principal? I mean, the universe would be writing in human language on t...
The problem with putting initial conditions off limits is that virtually everything we observe in the universe is dependant on initial conditions. Tha...
Historically, the line of reasoning has gone in the opposite direction. One of the most compelling arguments for the Big Bang was that, in an eternal ...
Yes, I suppose it depends on what you mean as "direct." I think the comparison is between "what we have," and "what we can envision as an idealized ty...
Does anyone have a good recommendation on CS Pierce? On the one hand, his collected works are free in many places. On the other, they aren't particula...
Part of the problem is getting people to decide on what the real transistors are. Makes me recall a polemic I came across in a physics journal that li...
Materialism = physicalism in common usage. Reductive materialism = all phenomena can be examined in terms of fundemental physics, at least in theory, ...
Sure, but this is speculative. It implies that you can get the "Big Bang," under highly different conditions. Perhaps one only gets a Big Bang under s...
If nothing can be said about likeliness vis-á-vis the early universe how do you vet any scientific theories about it? How can you say "this explanatio...
I don't recall Bakker rejecting emergence vis-á-vis consciousness, he just rejects "spooky emergence," (and I don't recall ever seeing a satisfactory ...
This is a great point. Suppose for the sake of argument that AI can become significantly better than man at many tasks, perhaps most. But also suppose...
Q1 - I don't think so. However, the most ground breaking theories tend to overturn long held assumptions in shocking ways, so we may be surprised. Ind...
I don't think it's that simple; plenty of business elites have sunk a lot of their personal wealth into anti-immigration campaigns. There is a bidirec...
I think there is an option between tripling the capital gains tax and leaving it where it is. You could simply have it taxed on a level with income. I...
No, although that's a good reason to use it as an example. I just thought of it because it is one of many very poor countries (24% poverty rate but mu...
Also of note, whenever someone brings up how Japan has stagnated so badly due to an aging population + lack of immigration... https://www.ft.com/__ori...
Unfortunately, it has some limitations :rofl: . https://i.redd.it/chatgpt-is-hella-confused-about-prime-numbers-v0-qbl5tfz8b45a1.jpg?width=1170&format...
The relationship with the Past Hypothesis is that it is exceedingly combinatorically unlikely to have a low entropy universe. Borrowing Penrose's math...
I would question the part about tax receipts being unable to go above 20%. This is a common argument made by opponents of tax hikes and I believe it i...
Right, and there is evidence of Microsoft, how else do you explain PCs all functioning the same way, the huge corporate HQ, the very real dividends in...
Thanks. Perhaps I'm not fully understanding your point, but does this actually reduce the number of computations required or just the length of the al...
You're quite right about the same incentives to reproduce inaccurate information existing before the digital agent. I don't mean to put that forward a...
Yes, that is a conceit of Le Place's thought experiment. I don't mean to assert that this is a realistic experiment (the magic force field and all). I...
Unfortunately, this doesn't work financially. Total costs per K-12 student are $8,200 per year, just $1,200 from the Feds. CHIP, the program for child...
The T-54 has finally shown up in Ukraine. I suppose a tank from 1948 is better than no tank. The inexhaustible supply of Russian tanks seems to be get...
Let me try another explanation of the original point. Suppose we have ourselves a Le Place's Demon. This is a supercomputer that, given precise inform...
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