We know how to construct worlds with different physics. We do it all the time. Video games, or if you don’t accept that example we can construct a world consisting of 1 bit of information and 1 time dimension. This bit flips every certain increment of time. This universe obviously has different physics than ours. Also as the other person mentioned, a probability space is the space of all possibilities organized based on whether statement Q is true, which is isomorphic to the space all universes consistent with your previous observations. There is, as far as I am aware, no way to logic yourself into the belief that pi could somehow have a different digit in a different universe, given you use a sufficiently exclusive definition of pi(specifying the curve of the plane the circle is upon being the major example)

It seems to me that, in fact, it’s entirely possible for a coin to come up aardvarks. Imagine, for a second, that unbeknownst to you a secret society of gnomes, concealed from you(or from society as a whole), occasionally decide to turn coins into aardvarks(or fulfill whatever condition you have for a coin to come up aardvarks. Now, this is nonsense(obviously). But it’s technically possible in the sense that this race of gnomes could exist without contradicting your previous observations (only perhaps your conclusions based on them). Or, if you don’t accept the gnomish argument, consider that at any point there is a near infinitesimal chance that quantum particles will simply rearrange themselves in vast quantities into a specific form. Thus, it’s impossible for anything to have probability zero, except in the cases where you assert something which is impossible from the principles of logic, like P and not P. Bayesian(and other logical) equations seem to make sense with 1 and 0, but that does not mean that they can ever exist in a real sense

I don’t think there’s really much association with partisan sorting in this case. Most people espousing traditional gender roles aren’t clamoring to travel to India or such. It seems like partly a natural response to financial incentives created by cheap manufacturing and tech job offerings. Besides, ‘endgame’ in my opinion won’t last because at some point productivity will become too high and the work structure will collapse

Why are we to be so skeptical of congressional insider trading? I haven’t seen much evidence that Hillary’s commodity trading was faked by anyone, only not impossible to have been legitimate(just lucky) and thus not prosecutable. In general, without any evidence either way, my priors would lean heavily towards congressional insider trading because of how obvious it is as a process and how profitable it would be. On Ziobrowski’s 2004 paper, I can’t access it, but the later one which mimics the original but with the House doesn’t mention these large trades(unless I missed it in my skimming and ctrl-f)

Very interesting. Love the idea of torturing mathematicians by making them calculate these crazy-precise orbits, but I guess machines can do most of that(a shame). How often could a tether actually be used for resource launches though? Assuming only one tether is in operation, would its orbital cycles be quick enough to transport materials consistently for a large lunar mining operation? Also, I’m not super informed on lunar space debris, but I imagine that would pile up quickly as lunar space operations began. I think most debris here on Earth would be outside the domain of tethers, but I can’t find many numbers on the hypothetical orbits of lunar debris. I assume, though, that it would be very different due to the lack of atmosphere to burn up debris and the differing gravity. I figure you could make a tether capable of withstanding this, but how would orbits be calculated and rockets properly tethered with interference? Assuming that this is an actual problem.

Bit of a tangent, but I think space debris is one of my favorite hypothetical future problems, because it has a very similar and equally interesting set of fields which it intertwines with as climate change, while also not being a real problem I have to worry about killing me(like climate change)

Are lunar tethers feasible? I don’t think a LLO(Low Lunar Orbit) is really doable except with really low speeds, which would probably render any tethering attempt inefficient. How does earth tethering compare to standard lunar launches, then, in terms of fuel requirements?

Some notes on self-replicating machines: Complexity/precision: The dexterity required to move a few wires into a crude machine is far in excess of the dexterity of that crude machine. Generally, designing something which can produce itself is complex for that reason, the relationship between complexity and ability to create complex things is nonlinear, difficult to affect in useful ways, and hard to measure without creating real test objects. Very complex objects(like organisms) can assemble ‘copies’ of themselves, through complex and error prone processes.

I would suggest but one fundamental statement which we can accept without circular or infinite reasoning: The things which I observe reflect reality in some consistent and knowable way. (This exact wording has some problems, I ask you to ignore them) This statement can be untrue, but if it was it would be reasonable to say that we are completely uncertain on the state of reality. Thus we can create two possible mindsets, based on whether the claim is true: (1): We have no idea what is going on (2): The mindset that we generally take(too long to describe) It’s clear that (1) is completely useless at predicting the one thing that we care about: Moving towards pleasure and away from pain. Even if the claim is false, (1) will not be more effective at predicting pain than (2)(On average). If the claim has some arbitrarily small chance of being true, we expect a higher return on acting as if it is correct than if we act any other way. Thus, we should always act as if the claim is true and use the mindset (2).

I will pick out a specific and somewhat irrelevant part of this post because I want to leave a comment but don’t feel qualified to talk about any other part. This part is the segment about Ender’s game. It’s really going to depend on whether we are talking about the books or the movies how hard battle school is. In the movie, battle school is effectively a summer camp for learning how to kill aliens. In the books, however, battle school represents years of psychological torment and isolation which actually occur in multiple locations.

These predictions, of course, are obviously nonsensical. If I had to guess, it’s a combination of: many crypto users being right-wing and the media they consume has convinced them that this is more likely than it would be in reality, and climbing crypto prices discouraging betting leading to decreased accuracy. I’ll say that the climbing value of the currency as well as gas fees makes any prediction unwise, unless you believe you have massive advantage over the market. I’d personally pass on it, but other people are free to proceed with their money.