Well, the EU just screwed everyone by putting demands on the short delay. Brexiteers do not fear the option of a no-deal Brexit so it does exactly 0 to improve the chances of a deal Brexit. Then May started blaming MPs which does exactly 0 to improve her chances of them supporting her, however right her assessment is.

If the goal is to avoid a no deal brexit. The EU should offer a 2 year extension, no strings attached but that the UK continues to meet all its obligations towards the EU during that period. That offer is mutually beneficial and can be done based on the friendship that exists and is Brexiteers' worst fear because a lot can happen in 2 years.

Wigner: "Hey, that cat is either dead or alive."
Friend: "Yeah, I know which one!"
Wigner: "No, you don't, it's either dead or alive."
Friend: "I'm telling you it's dead."
Wigner: "Oh, I see, indeed yes, it's dead."

The funny stuff aside; how can you "measure" a superposition or how can a measurement be in a superposition? I thought any observation causes the wave function to collapse in a single eigenstate and a measurement, I would think, involves an observation.

I'm a bit unclear on what the article means what it says:

Wigner can even perform an experiment to determine whether this superposition exists or not. This is a kind of interference experiment showing that the photon and the measurement are indeed in a superposition. — technology review

I thought that saying a system is in a superposition is a description of its possible states and not a statement of its actual state if you would measure it.

What am I missing here?

Now that Parliament has voted in favour of an extension, Brexiteers are faced with the choice of May's deal or a possibly long extension in which a lot can happen. Looked at that way, Tusk did May a favour by offering an extension making that risk more real.

excellent idea then of Tusk to try and give her an extension... :rofl:

However, the vote was for a "no-deal Brexit" in the context of Brexit still supposedly happening. It's not yet a vote to cancel Brexit. — boethius

Wait, they voted against a "no-deal Brexit" right?

I think your assessment of the Tory strategy is unfortunately quite accurate. We'll see today I suppose.

Third time is the charm apparently as May is going to submit the same deal yet again! I doubt a 100 MPs will be cowed into voting for it after the discussions yesterday. She's obviously out of ideas that she's trying it again.

[ Well Parliament just voted against no deal and they voted against what the EU says is the best deal possible. How much sense does it make to put the same question to the people in a referendum? And what if it's a piddling majority again?

I thought a referendum was more likely, whereas from what I understood you thought a deal would be more likely. Of course all positions were fairly speculative at the time. — boethius

That's correct, I thought a referendum would've been impossible in the given time frame before March 29.

In other words, there seems to me now no alternative to a second referendum (which of course implies extension). Do you agree with this, or do you think there's another option? — boethius

I think the second and better option would be to have a general election. The current MPs should be shipped to Madagascar for being unable to keep the common good on their radars and working towards a solution that has broad support and would've been in the best interest of UK citizens within the boundaries necessarily resulting from any negotiation.

The previous discussion revolved around a referendum before March 29. Any extension of the deadline will require that the UK has a concrete reason for it or the EU would not agree to it. One of those reasons can be a referendum or a new general election. Assuming Parliament will vote against a no deal brexit today, it's one of three remaining options on the table (the third being scrapping the whole process). So a referendum is a lot more likely at this point.

A referendum would be easier I think but at the same time the current sitting members of Parliament have lost a lot of legitimacy by not resolving Brexit so a general election would be better. I haven't read any recent statements on these issues to have a sense what's more likely at the moment.

Any referendum should be remain or the brexit deal. A three way option (deal - no deal - remain) would skew the results in favour of an exit; basically a loaded question.

No deal according to the UK Parliament. A few retards are yelling "transition without a backstop", because, of course, the Good Friday agreements aren't important at all.

So. Manafort got a slap on the wrist because the judge identifies better with the perpetrator than the victim(s). Class justice.

EDIT: How is it even relevant Manafort doesn't stand trial for collusion? That's like doing a search in a house because of an investigation in theft and finding drugs. It's not even remotely relevant to the sentence.

What would be interesting to see if Ellis has dealt with tax fraud before and whether he thought the guidelines were excessive then as well and that he reached very low sentences too.

C'mon we've been through this. Unicorns can never exist. A potential person can. We make political, ethical, and daily decisions all the time based on future people. That's a strawman to compare future people to unicorns. — schopenhauer1

Based on future people that will exist. Those aren't potential people. That's an important difference. A potential person doesn't exist, eg. it's nothing. That makes the comparison entirely apt.

I think creating a new person gives you different responsibilities for, not just to your child, but society compared to the childless. — Andrew4Handel

By the way, I agree with this sort of thing and other comments you've made about the responsibilities of parents.

But I don't really understand what you're saying here:

People often use the phrase "our children" as if we have collective responsibility or are all endorsing the same thing. I see having a child as an endorsement of everything, everything you are exposing them to. — Andrew4Handel

You cannot claim someone consented to being created or signed some kind of contract with life. — Andrew4Handel

Sure, I can say a lot of things that appear to make sense on the surface. Language is rather fascinating in that way.

The above is true but nobody disputes it. The problem is you think it's profound where it is only trivially true. For starters, it's a false analogy to compare nothing with an unconscious person. An unconscious person has a will but is incapable of expressing it, nothing doesn't have a will. It's not just incapable, it's that it doesn't have any.

And yes, I can imagine another person existing that doesn't exist yet. But I can imagine unicorns and dragons to exist too. That doesn't mean they become moral actors because of it and something I need to take into consideration when making ethical choices.

So, we do agree the decision to have children is an ethical one.

For an antinatalist the lack of consent involved in creating a child is a deterrent from doing this. — Andrew4Handel

I think you missed the point (which admittedly wasn't worded clearly) I was trying to make when I say that something that doesn't exist doesn't have a will, so it cannot be subject to consent either. It doesn't make sense to expect or demand consent from a rock, because it's clear it doesn't have any. Why are you expecting consent from nothing (eg. an unborn child)? And how does that work?

I think consent is one of the biggest problem. — Andrew4Handel

Something that doesn't exist doesn't have a will. How do you suggest this works?

I'm going to abbreviate my main arguments against anti-natalism given the time I've already spent on it in the past:

1. Yes, being alive is necessary to be able to suffer but it isn't sufficient. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessity_and_sufficiency;
2. The definition of "suffering" employed by pessimists/anti-natalist is not normative free and not acceptable in any type of everyday usage of the word. This is the "whiny" part in my view, where boredom all of a sudden become suffering. You're not suffering, you're just bored;
3. It assumes a utilitarian ethical framework, which I do not accept (as a virtue ethicist).

From what I read in the newspapers it was really entertaining.

Funny because it's true...?

And that's the key point: sexual selection and natural selection can lead to divergent evolutionary outcomes. Specifically, sexual selection can make a species less than optimized to its environment, making it evolutionarily worse-off than it otherwise would be. This is why runway selection is such a big deal: once selection starts to occur due to aesthetic criteria (rather than criteria of pure survivability), you get a divergence in selective parameters, as it were. You get two dimensions along which to measure evolutionary success, each of which can, depending on the situation, complement or conflict with each other. — StreetlightX

This apparently even happens with what you consider natural selection sans sexual selection. Monkeys who like unripe fruit which is more difficult to open the less ripe it is so only the strongest monkeys can open the really hard ones. Only to die from poison.

Well it's now clear that nobody in the UK has an idea what alternative arrangements should be, which explains the vague terminology to begin with. What I seriously don't get is what motivates some to prefer no deal over the existing deal. What exactly is so bad about it that all the bad stuff of no deal is preferable? Or are there benefits to no deal like disaster capitalism and those who benefit have this much influence?

This, though, is a non-sequitur through and through. The whole question of intentionality is an irrelevancy - the question is simply: is sexual selection an independent evolutionary mechanism to natural selection, yes or no? Is mate choice a driver of evolutionary change in its own right, or not? Whatever the 'metaphysics' of 'choice' at work here is irrelevant. Ironically, one of the reasons sexual selection was so violently rejected as an independent evolutionary mechanism in the time after Darwin theorized it was because the very idea that animals - specifically females! - could play any causative role in driving evolution was nothing less than an offence to Victorian puritan mores. That same regressive hangover remains an infection on our understanding of evolution today. — StreetlightX

How so? Darwin dinstinguishes artificial selection from natural selection by pointing to human intentionality. Based on that distinguishing feature, sexual selection would fall within the scope of natural selection. I also don't see how sexual selection falls outside of the four principles of natural selection. Obviously, I'm reading a bit on this left and right and the easily accesible sources describe sexual selection as a mode of natural selection as well. Also, see andrewk's commenton "accidental selection"; it is in that sense relevant whether there's intentionality or not. At least in my view.

Also, I'm wondering whether we're really saying different things. You quoted someone calling sexual selection the handmaiden to natural selection where my original comment concerned the juxtaposition between artificial selection and natural selection (which Darwin makes in his origin of species) and the claim that instead Darwin was comparing/juxtaposing sexual selection and natural selection that I disagreed with.

I don't agree it's either confusion or violence to language. I don't like the word "artificial" (or "natural" for that matter) for the reason that it is often quickly followed by appeals to nature and the like. I try to avoid such terms as much as possible as a result. It's also not that I do not understand what people try to convey or that it's necessarily wrong, I just think - as in this case - there are better and clearer terms.

As I said, it really depends on your definition where to put the line between natural and artificial and that is arbitrary. Artificial is meant as "man made rather than occuring naturally". My issue with that, is that anything man made is natural in my view. Perhaps it's easier to just do away with "artificial" and simply say man-made as something understood as a more specific process found in nature.

But it would fall in the realm of natural selection on any sensible reading of Origins, where sexual selection is a paragraph within the Chapter on natural selection. The title of the book is a dead give away as well, which, if sexual selection was a thing apart would've been in there. It's not as if he was trying to be brief with the title, which reads in full : On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

I haven't read Descent, so quite possibly Darwin had a change of heart but then I still have a conceptual problem with the distinction. How are aesthetics in natural selection separate? Time and again it is established that what we find aesthetically pleasing in mates has everything to do with survivability (hips and tits as a sign of fertility, strength for virility and protection). And even if we couldn't link it to survivability it's not as if it wouldn't become just another selective pressure that has no intentionality whatsoever as I don't control who I'm attracted too. If we did, the religious could rejoice and start "curing" gay people.

Since it seems posters are distinguishing natural from artificial selection, it's worth noting that we, humans, the master craftsman of the aritificial, have become the single greatest selection pressure in nature. Our ways affect almost every lifeform, from the microscopic to the blue whale. — TheMadFool

I think the distinction is a bit meaningless anyway. It's not clear what sort of human behaviour is no longer natural but artificial. Or at what point natural behaviour produces an artifact. Monkeys using a branch, tearing of leaves and twigs to make a stick, to reach ants in a tree bark made an artifact out of the branch. Or possibly not. It depends on your definition, which is a bit arbitrary.

:lol: I understand from this you can't read very well or know how to use Google or indeed understand the meaning of the word unsubstantiated. You claim "no cigar" without any reference whatsoever and I give you a a site and chapter to find the correct answer. Unsubstantiated indeed.

No. You can derive it from the contents description in his book, the first paragraph of Chapter IV and by reading Chapter IV in its entirety. You can find it when you google "sexual selection" as well. I don't need to repeat verbatim what can be easily found by following the link or using Google.

I'm certain sexual selection is a mode of natural selection. See Chapter IV of Darwin's book: http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/contentblock?itemID=F373&basepage=1&hitpage=1&viewtype=side#

You assume those jobs would be lost. Where's the proof? Under Eisenhower you had 8 years of a top tax bracket of over 90% and the economy was doing well. Inequality has negative effects on economic activity in a country. See for instance: Why inequality is such a drag on the economy Trickle-down economics just doesn't work.

Moreover, you're counting entirely the wrong thing. It's not the number of jobs that count, which is just counting exploited people. It's about the level of subsistance those jobs provide and the dignity that ought to go with it.

I would imagine the good billionaires would in fact stay as they recognise the negative consequences of inequality and would be supportive of change in that area. Warren Buffet himself has derided the tax system as resulting in him paying less taxes than his secretary.

Finally, You've only dealt with a situation where we'd try to make changes within the system. What about my proposal for changing the system?

That suffers too. But Archie's smile makes up for it!

I say she could. Although not explicitly provided for, because the EU Court's decision only came after A50 had been invoked, I believe it follows from the grant of powers to invoke Article 50 - that there's an implied power to revoke Article 50 - given the EU Court's decision.

It's a theoretical question. I think I'm right, and it's quite likely I am right. — karl stone

Oh great, now you're being purposefully obtuse. The Bill sets out which Acts need to be repealed to give effect to revoking the Article 50 Notice. Hence, both you and Evola were wrong to mention only one Act when there are several that need to be repealed, among them both the Acts you both mentioned.

Parliamentary vote is necessary. It's called parliamentary sovereignty.

... ministers cannot frustrate the purpose of a statute or a statutory provision, for example by emptying it of content or preventing its effectual operation. ... rather than the Secretary of State being able to rely on the absence in the 1972 Act of any exclusion of the prerogative power to withdraw from the EU Treaties, the proper analysis is that, unless that Act positively created such a power in relation to those Treaties, it does not exist. — SCUK

Unless all those Acts mentioned in the Bill positively created the power for the government to repeal them, there is no royal prerogative to do so. Since those Acts do not positively create such power, May cannot revoke the article 50 notice.

Repeals

If the duty of the Prime Minister under either section 1(1) or section 2(3) is
25e ngaged the following Acts are repealed-
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017;
European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018;
Haulage Permit and Trailer Registration Act 2018;
Taxation (Cross-Border Trade) Act 2018;
30Nuclear Safeguards Act 2018;
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018.

You've shed absolutely zero light on the subject, behaved like a complete idiot, gone out of your way to offend me repeatedly, and you presume thanks are due! You're not welcome. Not in the least. Stop trolling. — karl stone

It sets out which acts need to be repealed, clarifying you were both wrong. Parliament gets to vote. It's not that difficult.

By the way, well done on playing victim.

It's good faith. — karl stone

It is. See? Not so hard to admit you're wrong is it?

And as you raise the idea, do you think wading into someone else's disagreement without a clue what it's about, like a troll - trying to get a rise, is acting in good faith? If it's not acting in good faith, and if you don't know, for certain - what the answer to the disagreement is, by both your own standards, should you not shut up now?

Yes, it's precisely because this is a forum it is in good faith to take issue with someone pretending to know the answer when in fact they don't. That doesn't require me to know the answer to the discussion but here it is any way: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/2017-2019/0306/cbill_2017-20190306_en_2.htm#l1g3

You're welcome.

https://en.bab.la/conjugation/english/behove

http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-beh1.htm

As a forum participant it behoves you to act in good fate which you're not when you're bluffing. I call it out. And you can pretend it was just a discussion between you and another person but it wasn't as you posted it in a forum which is a free for all for anybody to react to anything.

Edit: anyway, I've made my point. You can expect another reaction to your next unsubstantiated claim posited as fact.

I'm not wrong — karl stone

You don't know and it would behove you to act accordingly. If you don't know for certain and argue the way you did then you're not doing philosophy but you're just bluffing.

She crafted that rock herself.

I don't think that's likely. I'll gladly run the risk of being wrong on such a minor point of fact. It's almost inescapable. Can you tell me off the top of your head how the EU court's decision, that Article 50 can be revoked, plays out with regard to the specific powers afforded Theresa May in the Notification of Withdrawal Bill - not to be confused with the Withdrawal Bill, or the Withdrawal Agreement? Would you spend two days researching it, just to make some minor point on an obscure forum? No? Well, neither would I. — karl stone

Or you can try not taking a position on a minor point you're running a risk of being wrong on and instead try to find out the answer by asking a question. Just taking a position whichever one strikes your fancy in the moment just makes you sound like a loudmouth that thinks his opinion is relevant on every (minor) topic. Just a tip, eh!

Never got round to doing it. Too busy with a second child, my job and attempts for a startup. I always thought entrepreneurship was something flashy and quick but it's slower than a snail's turd.

The point at issue is a minor one, hidden in the comparison of two lengthy legal documents - and it's just not worth the effort. I haven't called anyone stupid. But don't let that fact get in the way of your inferiority complex. — karl stone

Or perhaps you can not be so opiniated about matters you don't know the details of.

I don't care. I'm not willing to go into the granular detail of the matter. I'd have to examine the EU court's decision, that says in general terms - the UK can revoke Article 50, and compare that to the powers given under the Notification of Withdrawal Act 2017, and that's a lot of work - only to get noped! — karl stone

Yes, don't let facts get in your way of feeling righteous about how stupid all the politicians and Brexiters are.