Prices of the electricity we use to charge

[Ghost1951]

That story was tested in court and the plaintiffs reps could not back it up.
The footage posted by End Wokeness was recorded nearly 14 hours after the leak, many hours after it was resolved.
Fact Check: Does CCTV Show 2020 Ballot Stuffing in Georgia?

"
Frances Watson, chief investigator for the Georgia Secretary of State, said in an affidavit that the counting of votes was not affected.
The affidavit said: "The Secretary of State's Office opened an investigation into the incident at State Farm Arena. Our investigation revealed that the incident initially reported as a water leak late in the evening of November 3rd was actually a urinal that had overflowed early in the morning of November 3rd, and did not affect the counting of votes by Fulton County later that evening."

The footage posted by End Wokeness was recorded nearly 14 hours after the leak, many hours after it was resolved.
As for the suitcases, multiple fact-checking debunks, including from FactCheck.org, AP and PolitiFact, found that these were ballot containers on wheels. This was also stated by Gabriel Sterling during his press conference on January 4, 2021.
The claim by End Wokeness that workers were forced out is also wrong. At the press conference, Sterling said that the video showed two groups of people at State Farm Arena: cutters, who open stack and prepare ballots for scanning, and scanners.
In the video, the cutters began putting away their equipment as Sterling said everyone had been under the impression that everyone would be going home. Later, however, scanners were asked to stay and continue working.
Watson corroborated this account in her affidavit, saying that "observers and media were not asked to leave. They simply left on their own when they saw one group of workers, whose job was only to open envelopes and who had completed that task, also leave."

The affidavit also said that "review of the entire security footage revealed that there were no mystery ballots that were brought in from an unknown location and hidden under tables."
"Video taken hours before shows the table being brought into the room...at 8.22 a.m.," Watson said. "Nothing was underneath the table them [sic].
"Around 10 p.m., with the room full of people, including official monitors and the media, video shows ballots that had already been opened but not counted placed in the boxes, sealed up, stored under the table.
"This was done because employees thought they were done for the night and were closing up and ready to leave."
"When the counting continued into later in the night, those boxes were opened so that the ballots inside could then be counted."
While observers were not present during some of the scanning, this is not a requirement under Georgia Code § 21-2-408 regarding poll watchers. As stated by the United States Election Assistance Commission, each state has its own laws on when and where observers can be present."

 

[Ghost1951]

" What is truth?"

The words of Pontius Pilate - John 18:38

Never a more serious question than it is now.

 

[Woosh]

" What is truth?"

The words of Pontius Pilate - John 18:38

Never a more serious question than it is now.

Truth is like reality, whatever you believe really.

 

[Ghost1951]

Truth is like reality, whatever you believe really.

I disagree. The word 'truth' means something objective. A proposition can't be true and false at the same time, even though it is true that many people think they are entitled to say, 'that's my truth'.

If I say that, 'Donald Trump often says things as facts which are not.' that is an absolute fact. I think you and I will agree that. For example, he once claimed and doubled down on the claim that no President had ever had such crowds at his inauguration. It was false. Those challenging what he said easily showed video evidence of previous inaugurations. His was less well attended than others. He had told an untruth, so my proposition that he says things that are false is TRUE.

Then you might examine my use of the word 'often'. It would not take anyone very long to find many more examples of his false statements. Therefore, he does OFTEN say things as facts which are not .

In the end to establish if a thing is true in ordinary life we look for evidence. Actual empirical evidence that we can see and hear and smell and touch. If I say that nettles can sting you, we can test it. Usually they do. If you wilt them, or crush them, surprisingly, they don't. I know because sometimes I pick and eat them.

In formal disciplines like science, we have a particular method which tries to establish what is true. The scientists have arrived at a method which only actually claims a thing is true 'for the time being', until further examination either continues to support it, or perhaps overturns what was thought before. It is called the scientific method and in my view, the more we apply those principles to other aspects of life the better we will be in establishing whether things are true or not. This is one reason why I am committed to changing my mind if good evidence suggests that what I thought before is not in fact the case.

 

[Ghost1951]

When will it end for Boeing?

Boeing made satellite breaks up in orbit.

Boeing-made communications satellite breaks up in space

The "total loss" of the communications satellite has affected Intelsat customers around the world.

www.bbc.co.uk

I would be pretty reluctant to get on a Boeing plane. I reckon it might be safer to drive to my destination on my motorbike.

I am wondering if there is foul play going on here. This satellite was not in one of the crowded low earth orbits where it might have crashed into or been hit by some space junk. It was about 23,000 miles up which necessarily spaces out man made objects such as other communications satellites. The further out they are the more room there is between them. As far as available information goes the satellite was not running its thrusters for station keeping, but it has broken up into a lot of pieces like it had been hit or blown up.

I wonder of this might be part of Russian pranking. They have been implicated in arson and murders in the west, and they have done this sort of thing before with their own defunked satellites as a demonstration project.

A Large Satellite Mysteriously Broke Up in Space, But Why?

A large communications satellite has broken up in orbit, affecting users in Europe, Central Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Australia, and adding to the growing swarm of space junk clouding our planet's neighbourhood.

www.sciencealert.com

 

[Woosh]

In formal disciplines like science, we have a particular method which tries to establish what is true.

even in science, truth is challenged all the time and often corrected.
Most of the time, truth is relative. You could say that legal truths may be quite different from popular truths or I am more right than you. The key point about scientific truth is one arrives at the conclusion by deductions whereas popular truths are arrived at by inferences, like LLMs really.

 

[Ghost1951]

even in science, truth is challenged all the time and often corrected.
Most of the time, truth is relative.

Of course in science the truth is challenged. That is at the heart of the scientific method. Researchers are supposed to start by challenging their assumptions. That is what they do. Then they construct experiments to test them. Once things loook like they are going one way with a good degree of certainty (there is only a five percent chance that the data is happening by chance) they construct a 'theory' that explains what they think is going on. But theories are only EVER temporary. Other scientists disconnected from the first lot are supposed to do the research again following the same methods and see if it is repeatable. If it is or isn't the data and outcomes are made public. This is why you constantly see research papers being published and argued about. If the theory is flawed then a new theory, or an adapted theory is published.

I don't think that means it is relative - except if you mean, relative to better research and more precise discovery. Truth in science is conditional and it ought never to be settled. This is why I get cheesed off to see people in the area of climate science talking about the science being settled. It is NEVER settled unless the workers have walked away from the scientific method.

You could say that legal truths may be quite different from popular truths or I am more right than you. The key point about scientific truth is one arrives at the conclusion by deductions whereas popular truths are arrived at by inferences, like LLMs really.

Deductive reasoning is not science. In science, experiment is based usually on empirical data - actual measurements and carefully constructed experimental research designed to rule out confounding variables and people's assumptions and beliefs.

That said there are some areas of work where experiment is impossible to do, such as research into black holes or something like the Big Bang theory. There you just have to do the best you can in refining your measurements and theories.

LLMs are pretty useful, but as we all know, including the people who make them, they are just delving into the mass of data they have been trained on and answering the questions we put to them. What I am most amazed at in using LLMs is how well they understand what I am asking them. If you prepare a decent question, they will usually come up with a very good answer. As the designers of these AI machines make clear though - they can find the wrong answer too, because they are using material prepared by humans. As long as they don't include the speeches and pronouncements of Donald Trump and half of the MAGA bloggers - we might have a half decent chance of getting the right answer. I don't make that joke because I am against right of centre thinking; I make it because I am against people publishing made up boll ox as if it was true.

 

[Woosh]

Deductive reasoning is not science. In science, experiment is based usually on empirical data - actual measurements and carefully constructed experimental research designed to rule out confounding variables and people's assumptions and beliefs.

deduction is the only way math is built. You can't say it's not science.

 

[Ghost1951]

deduction is the only way math is built. You can't say it's not science.

Maths long pre dates the scientific method - the ancient Sumerians and Greeks and Islamic world were doing maths. Science as we now operate it arrived in the eighteenth century really and it has a particular method which depends on empiricism.

I just did a bit of empirical research into the range of my Argos folder. Previously, I had ridden it about 24 miles in its middle power setting in which it provides power to between 12.6 and 13 miles an hour. Today I fully charged it and ran it 18 miles in its high setting, riding it at 15 miles an hour but letting it run for nearly all of that with the motor providing power.

At 18 miles the battery had not yet shut off, but it was down to the last light on the controller. I will estimate or deduce that the bike might do 20 miles like that, but only if the last two were on the flat. It is a pig to ride without power, so I didn't want to make it go until it cut off far from home. I KNOW empirically that it will go 18 miles in that power mode, and I am deducing that it might do another 2, but I do not KNOW that.

You can only KNOW something if you have the data that proves it. You can only get that data from empirical measurement and not from deduction.

 

[Woosh]

LLMs are pretty useful, but as we all know, including the people who make them, they are just delving into the mass of data they have been trained on and answering the questions we put to them. What I am most amazed at in using LLMs is how well they understand what I am asking them. If you prepare a decent question, they will usually come up with a very good answer. As the designers of these AI machines make clear though - they can find the wrong answer too, because they are using material prepared by humans. As long as they don't include the speeches and pronouncements of Donald Trump and half of the MAGA bloggers - we might have a half decent chance of getting the right answer. I don't make that joke because I am against right of centre thinking; I make it because I am against people publishing made up boll ox as if it was true.

I run Llama3.2 on my PC. I ask it what truth is.
Here is a portion of its response (the LLM is not connected to the internet):

**Traditional perspectives:**

1. **Correspondence theory**: According to this view, truth corresponds to an objective state of affairs or facts in the world.
2. **Coherence theory**: This perspective suggests that truth is achieved through logical consistency and coherence within a system of beliefs or ideas.
3. **Pragmatism**: Pragmatic thinkers argue that truth is determined by its practical consequences and usefulness.

**Philosophical debates:**

1. **Subjectivism vs. Objectivism**: Some philosophers, like David Hume, argue that truth is subjective and dependent on individual perspectives (subjectivism). Others, like Immanuel Kant, contend that truth is an objective feature of the world independent of human perception (objectivism).
2. **Social constructivism**: This perspective posits that truth is socially constructed, existing only within a shared framework of norms, values, and language.
3. **Postmodernism**: Postmodern thinkers often challenge traditional notions of truth, arguing that it's a relative concept shaped by power structures, cultural narratives, and individual perspectives.

**Modern understandings:**

1. **Fuzzy logic**: In recent years, fuzzy logic has emerged as a way to capture the complexities and nuances of truth in situations where absolute certainties are difficult or impossible to achieve.
2. **Post-truth politics**: The concept of post-truth highlights how language, narratives, and emotional appeals can shape our understanding of reality, often bypassing objective facts.
3. **Epistemology**: Epistemological inquiry explores the nature of knowledge and truth, examining the relationship between our perceptions, experiences, and cognitive processes.

**Subjective perspectives:**

1. **Personal truth**: An individual's personal truth might be unique to their experiences, values, and beliefs.
2. **Emotional truth**: Emotions can provide a subjective, intuitive understanding of reality that may not align with objective facts or rational analysis.
3. **Intuitive truth**: Intuition can offer an immediate, unmediated sense of what feels true, even if it's based on incomplete information.

**Philosophical paradoxes:**

1. **The liar paradox**: If a statement says "this sentence is false," does the sentence have a truth value?
2. **The Sorites paradox**: How many grains must be removed from a heap before it ceases to be a heap? Is there a precise point of transition?

As you can see, the concept of truth is multifaceted and complex, influenced by various philosophical perspectives, cultural contexts, and individual experiences. The nature of truth continues to evolve as we grapple with new knowledge, ideas, and challenges.
--------------------------
when it's political debates, then 2. **Post-truth politics** applies, 'often bypassing objective facts'.

 

[Ghost1951]

I run Llama3.2 on my PC. I ask it what truth is.
Here is a portion of its response (the LLM is not connected to the internet):

**Traditional perspectives:**

1. **Correspondence theory**: According to this view, truth corresponds to an objective state of affairs or facts in the world.
2. **Coherence theory**: This perspective suggests that truth is achieved through logical consistency and coherence within a system of beliefs or ideas.
3. **Pragmatism**: Pragmatic thinkers argue that truth is determined by its practical consequences and usefulness.

**Philosophical debates:**

1. **Subjectivism vs. Objectivism**: Some philosophers, like David Hume, argue that truth is subjective and dependent on individual perspectives (subjectivism). Others, like Immanuel Kant, contend that truth is an objective feature of the world independent of human perception (objectivism).
2. **Social constructivism**: This perspective posits that truth is socially constructed, existing only within a shared framework of norms, values, and language.
3. **Postmodernism**: Postmodern thinkers often challenge traditional notions of truth, arguing that it's a relative concept shaped by power structures, cultural narratives, and individual perspectives.

**Modern understandings:**

1. **Fuzzy logic**: In recent years, fuzzy logic has emerged as a way to capture the complexities and nuances of truth in situations where absolute certainties are difficult or impossible to achieve.
2. **Post-truth politics**: The concept of post-truth highlights how language, narratives, and emotional appeals can shape our understanding of reality, often bypassing objective facts.
3. **Epistemology**: Epistemological inquiry explores the nature of knowledge and truth, examining the relationship between our perceptions, experiences, and cognitive processes.

**Subjective perspectives:**

1. **Personal truth**: An individual's personal truth might be unique to their experiences, values, and beliefs.
2. **Emotional truth**: Emotions can provide a subjective, intuitive understanding of reality that may not align with objective facts or rational analysis.
3. **Intuitive truth**: Intuition can offer an immediate, unmediated sense of what feels true, even if it's based on incomplete information.

**Philosophical paradoxes:**

1. **The liar paradox**: If a statement says "this sentence is false," does the sentence have a truth value?
2. **The Sorites paradox**: How many grains must be removed from a heap before it ceases to be a heap? Is there a precise point of transition?

As you can see, the concept of truth is multifaceted and complex, influenced by various philosophical perspectives, cultural contexts, and individual experiences. The nature of truth continues to evolve as we grapple with new knowledge, ideas, and challenges.
--------------------------
when it's political debates, then 2. **Post-truth politics** applies, 'often bypassing objective facts'.

It is AMAZING that tools like that are so readily available these days. I often remember back to my first computer - a ZX81 in about 1984 (give or take). It cost me a hundred pounds THEN and it had 1k of ram and it was a useless tiny processor probably not as powerful as the controller in your ebike. It could do nothing useful - which disappointed me at the time...

What about the answers you got there?

Well, a lot of that is not about what the truth is, but is about how a variety of different types of people construe what the truth is. These are not the same thing are they. How Trump construes the truth and how most of us construe the truth are not in the same universe - are they.

I am a dyed in the wool bigot about what truth is. And I won't budge from it. TRUTH is what you can PROVE with empirical evidence that comes up the same when tested by objectively minded strangers.

Anything else is a BELIEF.

Now we all have beliefs, but they are not certain. They are tentative. They are our best guess, after making an honest appraisal of rather weaker evidence than you get from empirical testing.

So I might believe that conservative approaches to the running of the economy, such as not borrowing too much, or not paying out too much in benefits to make work less worthwhile for the lazy, are likely to bring the most successful economy and greatest benefit for all, but it is only a belief. It is FAR less certain than something which has a whole lot of objective, testing and data based on empirical observation. It is a hunch and only a hunch and it stands way below something that I KNOW, because things that I know have been fully, and objectively tested.

Another feature of good empirical data and experiment is that you make sure that you rule out what are called confounding variables - those are things which get in the way of knowing what actually caused something, so you design the research so that other variables are ruled out. As an example, if i was designing a piece of research to assess the effect of diet on heart health, I would need to make pretty sure that I had taken the confounding variable of cigarette smoking out of the sample, because we know that smoking damages the heart and vascular system, so we need to control that variable if we really want to know the impact of diet on heart health.

When you look at those definitions of 'truth' your LLM gave up there, quite a few of them are playing fast and loose with the concept of truth.' Intuitive truth', 'personal truth', and 'emotional truth' are NOTHING of the kind. They are entirely subjective, they vary from one person to the other and are just sloppy boll ocks typical of that other thing it mentioned - the post truth era... This is just a disaster of people turning their back on objective reality. They are the sorts of things airy fairy people say. I just walk away from that. It is nonsense and an abuse of language. Some things are right, and some are not and people who confuse that are doing nobody any favours.

People DO say these things and operate as if they were truths, but they are no more true than claiming that sacrificing to the river gods will improve the fishing.

 

[Woosh]

Anything else is a BELIEF.

in political debates, what's the difference between truth and belief? Trump does not want fact check. Half of the US agree with him!

 

[Ghost1951]

in political debates, what's the difference between truth and belief? Trump does not want fact check. Half of the US agree with him!

A VERY great deal of talk in politics is based on belief, but it is presented as if it had an objective basis, which it rarely has. Politics is almost always based on nothing more than simple belief. This is why so much of politics comes to ruin. People speak for a policy they CLAIM is marvellous, but it very rarely is what it was pretended to be.

Another problem with politics is that in our country - the UK, a very large number of politicians and think tank wonks (people who wanted to be politicians and didn't make it) studied a truly horrible and useless (my belief) subject called PPE, which stands for philosophy, politics and economics. This is all about learning ancient theories and arguing. They actually get rewarded in this waste of time garbage for arguing successfully for ridiculous positions. They then graduate from this, go and work in athink tank full of failed politicians advocating for bad and untested policies and then the most gifted gabblers among them land up in the House of Commons where they do the same thing they did as students - arguing rubbish in the most convincing way they can. This ends up costing all of us many billions of pounds as they bring forward truly terrible policies which generally don't work and even if they seem to work, they are probably working for different reasons than the ones they think made them work.

I think we need many fewer PPE people in Parliament, and many fewer Lawyers. What we need is more more more scientists of note, engineers and people who have done REAL things out in the world. We definitely need fewer bankers and finance geeks. I don't want to see trade union people there either. They are as bad as the others. Anybody who has spent even a part of a career disingenuously arguing with people need not apply.

 

[Ghost1951]

in political debates, what's the difference between truth and belief? Trump does not want fact check. Half of the US agree with him!

Well we all know why some people don't want fact checking don't we. It is because they are frequently playing fast and lose with the so called facts. They are fundamentally dishonest people who lie all the time. We can all make a mistake and say something which turns out wrong, but some politicians just lie and paint a terrible picture of their opposite number or they construct a picture which appeals to the people they want to vote for them. It doesn't matter to Trump for example that he makes up a picture of migrants eating people's pets as if this was a large scale issue... He doesn't care. He cared about a whole lot of scum hillbillies cheering when he said that and confirming that they would come out and vote for him. Anyone who would do that is beneath contempt.

Honesty matters. The President has the power to do things which will make a difference not just in the USA, but all around the world. If he or she is a known and prolific liar there is terrible trouble ahead. Putin is a massive liar, and look where that is taking us.

I believe (I don't know) that we are quite possibly already at war with Russia in the same way as the so called 'phoney war' of the first few weeks after war was declared in 1939.

 

[MikelBikel]

She no working senor, is flat!

 

[soundwave]

Rechtszaak Bill Gates gaat door, rechters vinden zich bevoegd

De rechtszaak tegen zakenman en filantroop Bill Gates gaat door. Hij wordt door een Nederlandse groep coronasceptici beschuldigd van ’vaccinatieschade’ door coronavaccins.

www.telegraaf.nl

 

[MikelBikel]

Realistic? Says got it for £1500, but needs a battery!
("Only use half capacity for long life. So if one wants to travel 150km return, get a 300km batt car. These no good senor)

 

[saneagle]

there are plenty of videos showing and explaining exactly what really happened, not the reps version. I tried not to make those reps who made that video looking like they are cheats. If you want, I'll post them here. That video did not hold up to examination in court. It's simple enough for the reps to prove that the video is not edited.

The court ruled that what you see doesn't prove that the dems cheated. The court never said that the video didn't show cheating. What common sense shows you to be the truth is not sufficient to convict anyone. In this case, the court and the prosecutor were known to have been crooked, so the burden of proof would have been much higher. The fact-checkers never provided any evidence that it wasn't cheating. The alternative interpretations that they offered were implausible. Most of them just referenced what the court said.

 

[soundwave]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/22/rudy-giuliani-defamation-georgia-election-assets

he should of just shot them

 

[MikelBikel]

What happened here? Batt at 50% is toast and he says he may get £6k for it. Thought he was fair, if pricey!
(No mention of Nissan batt renewal on warranty)