I've decided to stop arguing with this point. I think you should keep it up all the way to November 2020. Reporters on the ground in Iowa and other early primary states report that nobody cares about Russiagate. All the Dems can do is get Trump reelected. Now I'm no fan of Mr. Trump. But compared to what the Dems are offering these days? Not much of a choice, but ... like I say ... keep it up till election day. See how it works out for you. — fishfry

What was my point again? Because I didn't even mention the Russians but pointed out your statement on obstruction was false. Even if I did mention the Russians, just because nobody in Iowa would care about it certainly isn't an argument for me not to care about it.

We can both care about "Russiagate" and conclude Republicans and Democrats are entrenched in their party loyalties for it not to matter for the election. They are separate things.

Mueller found no collusion and no obstruction — fishfry

You complain about people not reading Greenwald but Mueller had described several instances of what could be considered obstruction and yet this is your take away. Have you read it? It's because a sitting president cannot be indicted that Mueller doesn't reach conclusions with respect to obstruction. Here's a nice visual that shows at least 4 instances described by Mueller are basically hard evidence of obstruction:

Lawfare Blog

what makes you think it's about these issues to begin with? It's a big marketing campaign about who's popular. There were barely any policies debates in the last election.

As I said :it's fine if you don't see it. Carry on.

Okay, show me how then? — I like sushi

I certainly don’t dispute that religious people, and a number of prominent theologians, have built upon the reasoning of the Greeks and Romans and carried through their legacy through the ages. — I like sushi

You already did. It's glaringly inconsistent to me but if you don't see it, that's fine.

Religious institutions have continually tried to block scientific investigation and still do so today. — I like sushi

This is demonstrably false. They've also been patrons of science and started many universities and schools. Your interpretation is reductive and results in a caricature of religion that isn't warranted.

Personally, I don't like institutionalised religions because such structures can be co-opted for political indoctrination. But so can any set of belief systems. Technology = civilized = good reason to colonise barbarians. Misguided nationalism = ubermensch = good reason to take what's rightfully ours. Etc. They're all equally shit.

It reads as if you're anticipating some candy.

The democrats have too many factions that strongly disagree on different issues. A black woman who is accepting of certain democratic-socialist policies and environmentalism seems to be the only chance of uniting them. I would like to think that hating trump is enough for unification, but it didn't work last time. — ZhouBoTong

A white male (sorry Pete, straight) war veteran appeals to Trump's base more I'd think. Additionally no #metoo references is a bonus.

If you don't dispute it then it should be clear that religion isn't fundamentally opposed to science or reason. Giordano Bruno doesn't change a thing about that. The point is that this talk about "Christianity did this or Islam did that" is the wrong way to approach the entire subject.

I think it's counterfactual to blame religions for being antithetical to science and reason when both Islam and Christianity have been patrons of the sciences at various times in history even when they formed theocracies. So it isn't a fundamental aspect of either.

Christianity was a huge threat to reason and science and today the threat is Islam. — I like sushi

That brush is too broad in both cases.

Mad skillz.

It would then try, first and foremost, to take away the position of the City of London enjoys in the financial markets. — ssu

That is financially not feasible without seriously undermining the banking book of every EU bank in the process. They'd pay through the nose to move their cleared swaps from LCH to EUREX, ICE and EuroCCP. If you want to move it, it will have to be done gradually by grandfathering existing portfolios and requiring new euro-denominated swaps to be cleared with a CCP established in the EU27. To have the bulk move would then take about 10 years and for all the historic portfolios to close about 30 years. But LCH offers more than just clearing of euro-denominated swaps and would probably be recognised as a third country equivalent CCP any way, which you'd want if you want your EU banks to operate meaningfully internationally.

I've heard the anti-Muslim immigration and to be honest, I support it, I don't think the West has been even remotely responsible with it so far. — Judaka

Why and which part of it? What things have been done and were left done that you consider irresponsible?

It's a very difficult situation. I would not agree with treating Australian-Muslims differently based on their religion but here's the problem with rhetoric in politics, attacks on individuals and beliefs are interpreted as assaults on the group.

But politicians know quite well how their words will be interpreted by most. A lot of people think Muslims are the problem, where before 9/11 it wasn't Muslims but Johnny Foreigner in general. The discourse changed and so did people's attitude to groups. Nuance dies a quiet death in most discussions about this subject.

Rooting out Islam extremist, preventing terrorism, handling immigration responsibly and with the intention of assimilation, criticising aspects of Islam like sharia law and many negative interpretations. All that and more is valid and necessary and if it makes Muslims feel like they don't belong here or non-Muslims feel that Muslims don't belong here then the solution can't come from failing to do those aforementioned things and much more, which is all necessary.

Why must it be assimilation? If I were to move to Saudi-Arabia or Abu Dhabi am I supposed to give up my cultural roots? I'm not supposed to listen to Dutch music, not go to church but should go to a Mosque? Not eat potatoes but couscous instead? etc. etc. There's examples of "ghettos" that are very successful in lining up second generation immigrants to participate (more) fully in the host country, without significant loss of cultural heritage.

As to Sharia. There's an interesting discussion to be had about freedom of choice, contract and religion here as well. Why should I not subject myself to a Sharia tribunal if I were to choose that freely? There's certainly an issue where people are forced or coerced to accept a Sharia tribunal but that is not the same as having issue with the application of Sharia to begin with, which you seem to do.

I mean, is it really so different to enter into a contract between two Dutch persons (where I live) and elect a Hong Kong tribunal and Hong Kong law to govern the contract? This is entirely possible now. Why is Sharia to be treated differently than Hong Kong law? If the result isn't contrary to ordre public there's no reason for the local legal order not to accept giving effect to it.

As to not feeling like they belong; I think the foreigner, irrespective of his religious persuasion, belongs in the Netherlands if he got here legally. Why should the feelings of people who feel this foreigner doesn't belong be taken more seriously than my feelings? It's all well and good you think Muslims shouldn't belong in Dutch society but I happen to disagree.

I think what is needed in, for instance, Dutch society, is a broad discussion on what we think a fair and just immigration policy should look like. I don't think that should focus on Muslims but should be general and true for anyone wishing to permanently settle in the Netherlands from outside of the EU. What's too much and what isn't? What about fugitives?

The EU benefits if there is some agreement on trade between the UK and its constituents. Instead of disrupting trade unnecessarily due to a hard Brexit, they've opted for a delay. That is still making a choice.

So Wigner's friend measured a definite value while Wigner measured a value in superposition? I am trying to decide if it is worthwhile to read this paper. — i aM

I don't think a superposition is measured as the measurement collapses the superposition. I think, from what I read, the paper reiterates Bell's inequality and that the test setup was rather impressive.

Hmmm. Let me think.

If different observers give different accounts of the same sequence of events, then each quantum mechanical description has to be understood as relative to a particular observer. Thus, a quantum mechanical description of a certain system (state and/or values of physical quantities) cannot be taken as an “absolute” (observer independent) description of reality, but rather as a formalization, or codification, of properties of a system relative to a given observer. Quantum mechanics can therefore be viewed as a theory about the states of systems and values of physical quantities relative to other systems. — StreetlightX

This can't be about observing several quantum events right because the observation would cause a collapse resulting in only one outcome? And since we can't do simultaneous measurements...? To me Wigner and his friend don't have conflicting views but different levels of knowledge. So what sort of sequence of events are we talking about?

I get the point about it being a relational thing and it would be inappropriate to not include the observer in a description of a quantum measurement.

Thanks for your replies. Also for the example of the tuning fork. I understood the hunt to be for quarks which my comment was aimed at. Anyhoo, my subconscious preference for Bohm is no surprise. About 10 years ago I worked at ESA and Bohmian mechanics was popular with a lot of the younger physicists that raised a lot of discussions because it certainly wasn't the prevailing theory. As a lawyer I only understood half of it but something apparently stuck.

No, it's not basically a tie. That's just how you want to spin it. There isn't a winning side and a losing side in a tie, so it can't be a tie, "basically" or otherwise. There were set rules before the event, the event went ahead, both sides were happy enough to get right into campaigning, the vote took place, the results were announced, revealing a winning side and a losing side, not a tie. That the leave side secured over a million more votes made them the winning side. You know that as well as I do. Sorry, Benkei, but you don't get to make up your own rules and declare your own results. That's make believe.

Yes, I browsed over your link. It was simplistic, I'll grant you that much. For instance, it starts with an obvious and irrelevant fact which you get with just about every single political vote on just about anything: absence of a full turnout. When has there ever been a full turnout on any vote ever? What a joke! How about the fact that this was the highest turn out in a political vote in the UK in a very long time? That's of far greater significance. It is clearly one of those pieces which has a specific goal in mind, namely to trivialise the results, and then sets about trying to manipulate the reader into agreement. — S

What are you on? The article is dumbed down for a broader audience and you take issue with it. It's not spin, it's actual statistical methodology. Here have fun with this then : https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.06552

And since you browsed it but didn't read it we can rest assured you don't know what you're talking about.

We may be having a translation problem, but it sounds like you're saying that superposition can be understood as a classical physical state, the particulars of which are only known to us by probability. — frank

Not what I meant. The probability describes the possible outcomes of measurement not that at any given moment before measurement it is accurate to say it has a singular position that we just don't know and will discover through measurement. The measurement just brings out a specific property of the object at the expense of all other possible properties "disappearing".

It's definitely not a matter of knowledge. — frank

Heisenberg agreed with me by the way, which is why he uses the term reduction and not collapse.

You're not seeing the problem, again. You're simply asserting that it isn't real. — Wayfarer

This is my first reply with a position. I asked a question previously so that seems an odd start is your reply.

They do not really exist, but they're not non-existent. — Wayfarer

This just violates the law of non-contradiction.

Why measure for position to begin with if the theory does not predict it will be there? They all, even the Copenhagen interpretation, assume when measuring position it will return a result.

The ones that do usually say that it's not appropriate to talk about location prior to the collapse. Waves don't have specific locations the way particles do. — frank

But they all do. The particle is somewhere within the range of possibilities provided by the probability field. It is true that by measuring position the thing measured behaves as a particle and not a wave for that measurement but this is a result of it really being neither a wave nor a particle and a limit of language.

There's no need to attack the referendum itself or the results.

There's nothing wrong with having a referendum on membership of the European Union after 40 years, setting rules, voting, counting votes, and declaring a winner based on the agreed upon rules. That's just democracy in action. — S

You seem to be unable to understand the distinction between criticism of the method of democratic process, (which was also shit as most referenda are), and criticism of drawing the wrong conclusions based on the result of that process. It was basically a tie so interpreting the result as "the will of the people" is simply political expediency and nothing more. That's a criticism of your political class and media.

So no, that isn't democracy in action. It's a lack of understanding how referenda work to begin with and a subsequent abuse of the result because of it.

I'm starting to think you're not just asking questions to get to know more. And the line of questioning feels like there's an underlying reason to it. Is my use of language at issue here?

I'm no expert on this matter as an English language understanding can only get you so far without an understanding of the underlying mathematics (which I do not understand at all) but I'm not going to preface everything with "as far as I know" as that is now a given. I might state something with conviction and it might be wrong but I'm sure that will be picked up by more knowledgeable posters. That said, I'd answer your questions as follows.

Quantum particles are even smaller, aka subatomic particles, and not properly described as particles but that's language for you.

What do you mean "from an epistomological point up to when it's observed"? — frank

An electron orbiting a nucleus is in a superposition around it. It doesn't come into existence because of a quantum measurement establishing its position, it has a position independent of the measurement that we cannot predict but we can probabilistically describe it. Hence we know we do not have to put a measuring device on the moon to establish the position of an electron for an atom in a lab in San Francisco. Epistomologically its position was indeterminate until we measured it.

Are you saying the particles have location and momentum and so forth prior to observation, it's just that the information is unavailable to us? — frank

I'm saying that wave function collapse is a matter of knowledge. The information isn't entirely unavailable to us, we know it has location and momentum and we know the possible states, we just don't know which one until we measure.

If so, does that quantum theory have a name? What is it? — frank

I'm confused by this as I'm under the impression I'm describing something the various theories agree on.

Did you read the link I provided? It's simple statistics.

The quarry - atomic particles in this case - were found not to have an independent reality, and they were supposed to be the fundamental building blocks of nature. — Wayfarer

Just because something has an indeterminate state from an epistomological point, up to when it's observed, does not mean it does not exist "independently". (Also, quantum particles, not atomic). You're confused about the implications of QM experimental results if you think a particle requires an observer to exist. It's a shitty article with an even shittier headline.

Is a particle really there when there's no one to observe it? Yes, otherwise experimental physicists would be out of a job or wouldn't bother to share the results with us.

Or as Dustin Lazarovici reacted to the paper: "A group of physicists claims to have found experimental evidence that there are no objective facts observed in quantum experiments. For some reason, they have still chosen to share the observations from their quantum experiment with the outside world.

...

In particular, it doesn’t mean that measurement outcomes, once obtained, are not objective. It rather reminds us that a measurement is not a purely passive perception but an active interaction that “brings about” a particular outcome and can affect the state of the measured system in the process."

Basically, the only way we would have to let go the assumption of an objective reality is if we were to insist on locality (against this and other experimental results) in which case nothing really exists but thank God it's local! (pace Tim Maudlin)

Before you can discern the will of the people, you have to decide the extent of the people. — unenlightened

Even apart from the implications you're getting at, the extent of the people in this case (eligible voters in the UK) have a rather big impact on the ability to discern the will of the people. 51.9% voted in favour of leave with a turn out of 72%. We can ask whether that's significant. Luckily someone did and the answer is, no it isn't. So the will of the people is basically not known.

What is known is that Tories know what's good for themselves.

A number of reports published by CIS have been described as false or misleading by scholars on immigration, fact-checkers such as PolitiFact, FactCheck.Org, Snopes, media outlets such as Washington Post, CNN and NBC News, and immigration-research organizations. John Tanton who founded CIS was opposed because of racist reasons. So what can I say when you don't bother to check out your sources. - copied or abbreviated from wikipedia

Fact of the matter is illegal immigrants are a fraction of what it used to be as immigrants report to the authorities almost immediately in most cases. So you can hardly claim that is the issue with US immigration policy.

18,500 people — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Legal or illegal?

How do you explain the year on year reduction of illegal entry in the US through the border if the system is broken?

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Selected_Unauthorized_Immigration_Statistics.png#mw-jump-to-license

Calm down. Picture yourself on that balcony on Caïro. In what way do you think QM puts an independent reality radically to question? And independent from what?

Wait, you can compromise and be flexible? Are you sure you're bwiddish?

BoJo is the least of the UK's problems. He'll change his political opinions like his clothes, according to the fashion. It's that pretentious and pedantic Moggle who lies at every turn about how business will be better off. They won't be because they will immediately be confronted with tariffs when exporting to the EU and increased bureacracy to trade with the EU. And there will be issues with obtaining base materials for production of UK goods. It's going to suck for UK exporters and manufacturers.

And the real barometer for UK's long term economic performance will be what happens to foreign direct investment, which has enabled the UK to run a year-on-year trade deficit without it affecting wealth in the UK. If the FDI goes down significantly, it will be the main driver for less wealth in the UK in the long run. Whether that will happen is anyone's guess and depends in large part to what extent FDI is the result of investors seeing the UK as a convenient and efficient gateway into Europe or not. If that share is significant, then FDI will drop, if it isn't the UK will be fine in 10 years time despite short term losses.

I've got you covered: https://www.ah.nl/producten/product/wi206448/marmite-yeast-extract

https://www.jumbo.com/marmite-yeast-extract-125g/235881POT/

Those are the two largest supermarket chains in the Netherlands and they both sell it. Whether it will remain in stock is another question but the product is owned by Unilever, which has a co-headquarter in Rotterdam so they'll probably move production somewhere that has a trade deal with the EU to avoid tariffs. That will be the case until such time the UK gets with the program and agrees to some sort of deal after first crashing out without one.

You have about 9 hours and 12 days left to move to Europe. You're still welcome.

You'll definitely be poor after spending so much money on injecting crap into your body.

So Theresa tries to clinch the MV3-deal by offering BoJo and Moggle potential power by resigning, if either wins the Tory vote for class president. That might work. But you can ask whether the split is all that meaningful. The withdrawal agreement explicitly states:

The Union and the United Kingdom shall use their best endeavours, in good faith and in full respect
of their respective legal orders, to take the necessary steps to negotiate expeditiously the agreements
governing their future relationship referred to in the political declaration of 25/11/ 2018 and to
conduct the relevant procedures for the ratification or conclusion of those agreements, with a view
to ensuring that those agreements apply, to the extent possible, as from the end of the transition
period.

The exact agreements implementing the future relationship still need to stay within the boundaries of the political declaration. So a vote for the withdrawal agreement is a vote for the political declaration as well; especially when read in light of the considerations prefacing the withdrawal agreement.

I just read it in the morning news. Absolutely bonkers. Parties are not willing to compromise, they're not in dialogue and nothing has changed in that respect in 2 years. Fucking amateurs.