Monday musings about Sabine Hossenfelder

I think it's well worthwhile following Sabine Hossenfelder for her (nearly always cynical or dismissive) takes on recent physics papers which I might otherwise not have heard about, as well as a story this morning I had missed about how a couple of historians have weighed in on the question of physicist Schrodinger's alleged paedophilia.   (They say that a careful examination of his difficult to read diaries do not support the worst case scenario that an Irish journalist had promulgated 9 years ago, and which had led to some renaming of facilities at an Irish university.  I had posted about his unconventional love life myself back in 2017, but had not realised - or recalled?- that the allegation of paedophilia had blown up enough for actual consequences today.)

There's no doubt, however, that one should not think she is always 100% reliable on her takes.  To give some examples:

* she seemed to move quite quickly from cautious optimism on fusion being able to be achieved by one of the new start ups pursuing different paths, to now doubting most of them.  (I think she should have strongly doubted all from the very start!);

* she has spoken openly about poor professional treatment when within mainstream physics, and having had periods of poor mental health.   Her insistence on the fundamentals of physics becoming "lost" and  following fruitless paths for the last few decades I think needs to be seen in that light, although I do tend to think she is probably correct about string theory, as she is not the only person pointing out the unprovability of that idea.   I also think she is probably right about warning about physicists (and engineers) overselling what a new, super expensive, particle collider could achieve, and suggesting that governments should spend the incredible amount of money that project would entail in different science related ways.

* her preferred approach of superdeterminism as a way of dealing with quantum mysteries seems to be going nowhere, and seems as wildly improbable as Everett's Many Worlds does.  

* her takes on free will align with superdeterminism, but she also seems superdetermined (ha) to not follow the moral or practical consequences of telling people they have no free will.  (This topic keeps bothering me, and I should write a specific post about it one day to try to clear my head.)

* she is friends with, and defends, Eric Weinstein, who I think really is a crank, sharing with him a fondness for telling others how foolish they are.  Have a look at this "walking both sides" example to crankdom from him:

This is how the game is played. People don’t get that the entire REASON 9/11 conspiracies exist is that we can’t admit that some things are not well understood. I don’t believe in a 9/11 conspiracy theory. I do believe we have a building collapse for which we lack a good theory.     

 Anyway, it's clear from comments on her Youtube videos that she has become the darling of parts of the Right, and is getting some vehement denunciation from science types heavily aligned to the Left,  due to her occasional forays into things like the trans issue (on which I thought her take was pretty sensible), her back and forth on climate change, and her overall condemnation of the state of physics being read in such a way that she is accused of being supportive of Right wing anti-science attitudes.   

I am writing this post because of her recent video about extreme weather event attribution to climate change, as I thought the argument and the message was pretty muddled, and gave far too much comfort to the climate change denier audience, as was evidenced by the flood of Youtube comments from them.   

It has longed seemed to me that, while believing climate change is definitely real, she is (as her friendship with Weinstein would indicate) so free market aligned that she is ideologically against fossil fuel corporations being pursued in court for contributing to climate change, or for supporting climate change denialism (or lukewarmism, which is the default of the "professional" climate change skeptic).  This seems to unduly colour her take on extreme weather attribution studies.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to find much online commenting on the video from the climate change mainstream.   I think she might now be being perceived by too many in the mainstream of science as being too, um, professionally cranky?, to bother pushing back against?   Which I think is a pity.

I think her views are worth hearing, and worth engaging with, even when she's wrong or too biased... 

 Update:   One fairly recent video should have been paid more attention to by the Right wingers/climate lukewarmers who like to promote small modular nuclear reactors is here, in which she succinctly set out the arguments as to why this proposed power source for towns or cities doesn't turn out to be economical or practical, despite small reactors being around to power ships for a long time.   Funnily enough, it was only within days of my watching that and thinking it made sense that I saw Murdoch professional right wing  gadfly James Morrow mocking on Twitter some comment expressing scepticism of small nuclear.  

As noticed on X

Yes, X is a degrading hot mess of a site, but posts like this is why I still look at it:

 

Sups with the devil

This is a funny turn of events.

First, Bill Maher goes back to the White House to dine with Trump, and tells critics that he likes being around idiots if it's powerful idiots. (That's my paraphrase!):

Comedian Bill Maher had a string of harsh words Friday for critics who may have taken issue with his second dinner with President Trump at the White House last week.

During his opening monologue on HBO’s “Real Time,” Maher hit back against criticism of his latest dinner with Trump — in which sports commentator Stephen A. Smith and musician Kid Rock also attended.

“Yeah, I did it again, bitches,” Maher said, referring to the Oct. 15 dinner, which followed his first dinner with Trump in April 2025.

He then doubled down on his decision to attend, adding, “You know what? F— you. I like these dinners.”

Maher’s confirmation that he attended a second White House dinner comes after Trump told reporters last week that he enjoyed his time eating alongside the three celebrities.

But Trump soon changed his tune, big time:

Donald Trump launched a 1,300-word social media rant against the late-night US TV host Bill Maher on Sunday evening, calling him a “TOTAL LOSER” in a fresh assault on the media.

“Let’s talk about this COMPLETE AND TOTAL LOSER, Bill Maher,” the US president wrote. “He’s got a Low Rated Show on equally Low Rated HBO, which was once, long ago, a Network of Quality and Excitement – But that’s all gone.”

Trump’s lengthy and detailed post about Maher came after the host interviewed Karoline Leavitt, the former White House press secretary, on his program Real Time with Bill Maher. 

I didn't read the full rant, but did wonder about the part where he claims Maher's "people" begged the White House for another dinner.  I did like the bit about Maher being a drunk pothead, though.   

Maher is a self absorbed lightweight when it comes to political commentary - an ageing rich man crying about how the young are too sympathetic to "socialism" now (as if Democrat socialists are ever likely to hold significant power in their own party, let alone America), and thereby aiding Right wing "scare" narratives while simultaneously claiming that he's worried about Republicans always believing in conspiracy.  I don't think the pot is doing much for his judgement.      

Twitter swirling around the drain

We need to talk about X.

I only read it for:

*   the mere handful of lefty/centrist commentators who post noteworthy stuff; and

*   keeping an eye on what the nuttier Right wing/MAGA types say. 

Even so, to assist my sanity, I had to block some of the prolific Trump lovers, such as the pathetic Drew Pavlou, and even Elon Musk (as he posts so often and with such aggravating content that I just leave it up to other people to bring to my attention what conspiracy or view he's promoting now.)

But I have to say, while it's been an awful place for years under Musk's rule, it's really taken a serious turn for the worse in the last (I guess) two to three months.

I know that there has been talk recently of Russian bot accounts going down due to Ukrainian strikes on Russian data centres, but I think even before that happened, my "For You" feed was filling up with:

*  vagueposts, which were kind of funny initially, but quickly became tedious;

*  patently uninteresting and tedious AI generated photos and videos (if I see another "person jumps from enormous height and trampolines back to the jumping spot to universal acclaim" one, I'll scream.  Other stupid genres include "this is how disaster films are made" - showing a process that is obviously fake there is simply no point to the video.);

*  outright lies made simply as provocation, but with possible impact on low IQ users;

*  a very large increase in posts which show "translated from [language]" - I have no idea why this happens so much on the For You feed now;

*  sex question tweets obviously there for clicks (a common one recently being an alleged woman asking "genuinely" about how anal sex compares);

*  stupid or dubious claim tweets in which the poster replies to most people who comment, presumably to keep engagement on the tweet going;

*  videos of people being killed in various accidents and shootings (I block the account immediately); 

*  sometimes, tweets about wanting to talk to people about family incest!

*  autoplay video clips of likely underage sexual content (well, one recent one was what looked like a teenager pleasuring himself) that start up after the completely non-sexual video I chose to watch.

 In other words, apart from the purely annoying engagement bait, the place seems to have zero human moderation now and actually is attracting people who want to contact others with illegal porn interests.   

Stand proud, Elon.  

 Update:   I forgot to mention:

*  people declaring they are going to commit suicide, and saying "goodbye world".   

It's a deeply unhealthy and troubled public space.   It's a wonder that it is not attracting more government attention, actually.

Wildwood, considered

I ended up on the weekend sitting in exactly the same comfy recliner seat in the same cinema nearest my home as I was in the previous weekend when watching Digger - but this time watching the well reviewed animated film Wildwood.  

I agree with what virtually every review, even those with reservations, is saying:  the film is just drop dead beautiful to look at.  There is, I reckon, not a second of what's on the screen that is not visually absorbing, if not outright spectacular, and it's almost overwhelming with pleasing detail.   I can imagine that it is a film people will love re-watching for this reason.

As for the story - I really had no issues.  It's a fantasy with mature themes suitable for children from about 9 or 10, I reckon, but also with a depth that makes very watchable for adults.  In some ways, as a fantasy universe, it might be said to be a tad derivative (it's hard not to be reminded of the "talking animals mixed with humans" world of Narnia, as well as a touch of Avatar, and perhaps LOTR but without the tedious sombreness); but really, completely novel fantasy worlds are not exactly easy to come up with after several decades, if not centuries, of precedent.

I was touched by the blight of the protagonist, surprised at some of the turns, and really like the song over the end credits by the Decemberists which sums up on the key themes of the film.

It's really great and I hope that word of mouth keeps its box office up.   (Curiously, my local cinema had 6 pm as the latest session, presumably figuring that there was not going to be a solely adult audience for it.  That's a pretty mistaken approach, I reckon.) 

Oh, and in the broken world of the culture wars, I have seen a little bit of criticism of it from MAGA people on the awful Twitter - but in a sense I had the feeling it was almost a reflex thing.   A movie that doesn't make Portland, Oregon look like a hell hole, has about 5 seconds of "woke" element in a two hour movie; and is getting great reviews?   That won't do, will it?   

Stupid attacks that don't land

As soon as I read on Twitter a copy of the "dirt sheet" that the PM's office apparently circulated about attacked MP Helen Haines, I thought "doesn't read like a 'dirt sheet' to me."  I saw it on the account of the ridiculous Right wing gadfly Drew Pavlou.     I associate "dirt sheet" with actual scandalous allegations about a politician's behaviour.

I don't know why the "dirt sheet" isn't readily found in full on media reporting, but it doesn't seem to be?

Anyway, from what I recall of it, it seemed it was meant to work pretty much as a suggestion to journalists that they might look into the question of whether Haines was being a bit hypocritical in her complaint about funding for a community thing in Albanese's electorate in light of funding of certain similar things in her electorate.   But it was not harshly worded at all.

The Liberals and One Nation immediately called it a "dirt sheet", called Albo a liar and hypocrite for praising her after her attack, and some online went so far as to say that her attacker may have been influenced by the dirt sheet and how "grubby" Labor politicians are!  (Which is very "rich" from One Nation, which is prone to making cartoons featuring things like Albo driving and killing Bluey, as well as one about vaginal prolapse.)

The suggestion that it might even have influenced the attacker is just ridiculous:  this morning on Sunrise I happened to see a Liberal mouthpiece (whose name I forget) say (without prompting) that journalists hadn't even been interested enough to ask any questions based on the "dirt sheet" - which makes it very hard to sustain that it had any influence on anyone!

I see that David Pocock, who I don't associate normally with stupid lines of attack, did jump on the bandwagon with this one.

But at least two of the "Teals" weren't bothered:

 Monique Ryan (Kooyong): Dr Ryan described the file as a "non-issue," stating that she and Dr Haines laughed about it when it was first issued and considered it a very minor and uninteresting file.
 

Sophie Scamps (Mackellar): Dr Scamps argued that the document was "not a dirt sheet," differing in her assessment from other independent figures.

So, it's a fizzer of an attempted "gotcha", only being run by people playing very stupid RW politics.   (I'm not sure there is any other kind get publicity at the moment, unfortunately.)   

Tempted to try

I've seen some videos about the AI generated quasi clones of Adobe software, and some are positive-ish, and some a bit naysaying.  

Of the set of programs, the one I am very tempted to try is the Acrobat clone.  I have never had the full Adobe version, but it seems there may be things that I could do with it that may be useful.  

  I will give it a go...

Elon talks swords and fear of Democrats

Sounds to me Elon quite keen on encouraging authoritarian government to just lock up critics, a la Putin, etc.

"Concerning" that the world's (first, second, third?) richest man keeps talking about "swords" against his perceived enemy.

 

No doubt a tweet prompted by reporting that he was behind (or involved with) Starlink access games to help Putin.

I saw a clip of him on some friendly interview recently claiming he was the real peacenik in just wanting Ukraine to give up.  

And this one prompted by fear Democrat government might slow down his SpaceX expansion plans on environmental or other grounds.

Contrary to expectations

It's never a good idea to prematurely make a call on the motivations of someone with murderous intent towards a politician, and it would seem that this is the case again with the guy who deliberately ran into independent MP Helen Haines yesterday.

However, given the aggressive, angry and demonising attitude that One Nation and wannabe MAGA Right wingnuts run towards Labor and migrants, and examples of "Cooker" violence towards police and authority in rural locations in particular, it is no surprise that people thought the perpetrator would probably be an Right wing inclined idiot/mentally disturbed person instead of a Left wing one.   But the latter seems to be the case?    

But before those on the reactionary Right get too carried away with "see it was the violent Left!" crowing, I note that even the wannabe MAGA's of the dire New Catallaxy blog first thought "cooker" too:

Dezi is Dezi Freeman, who shot two police officers.   And Cassie always sounds aggressively on the edge of a nervous breakdown over anyone who doesn't defend absolutely anything Israel does.  I think its telling that she thought "cooker" immediately, too...

 

Quiche noted

Time for a recipe note.

I never bothered making my own quiche before until last weekend.   Supermarket ones tend to be OK, but I had asparagus to use up and there was bacon, shredded cheese and a few spring onions all in the fridge, so why not?  

My main reason for not trying before was that I don't care much for making pastry.   So, I used frozen shortcrust pastry and it worked OK.   I even did "blind backing" as my wife has ceramic beads she uses for that and I actually found something in the cupboard easily, for once.

So, the key thing I got from a Youtube channel is that the savoury custard filling formula is half a cup of dairy per egg, and half of the dairy as cream (thickened cream is fine) and the other half is milk. 

Therefore, I used 4 eggs and 2 cups of cream/milk, and a generous cup of cheese too.

To compile:  a light layer of shredded cheese on the pie shell base; the cooked bacon and lightly cooked asparagus pieces on top of that, and the rest of the cheese over them.   Gently pour over the custard, and bake at about 165 to 170 degrees C for about 45 minutes or so.  The top should have browned slightly, and the custard set, by then.

It was very tasty.... 

 

Digging Digger

I don't mind seeing the occasional controversial movie, and as I had seen quite a few people online saying "ignore the criticism, just go see Digger, its great", I did.

I knew the movie had a twist, and it does, and I won't spoil it.  Despite the screenplay having far too much of the American excessive swearing, I did enjoy seeing it for the following reasons:

*  Tom Cruise's acting in it is just great.  A difficult role, often with some lengthy and complicated lines, he is just so good at the total immersion type acting.

*  The movie's look is very arty and distinctive, and while in a way I didn't like looking at the washed out palate of colours for 2 hours, the staging of the film is quite intricate and looks expensive for a interior shot film.

*  It's daring to make a movie that ends the way it does.   I think it was pretty amazing that the studio thought it would make money, but I'm glad someone made that mistake.  I read online that audiences watch the end in silence, and yes, I agree, it is impactful.

*  It can be read as messaging in more that one direction, though, and it's hard to discuss in detail while not disclosing the grand conceit of the film.    Let's just say this - it occurred to me the next day that (mimicking a line I think Pauline Kael wrote*), it can be read as an anti-satire satire.   In fact, maybe that was its main point?    It's a film that invites debate as to its main point, and I don't mind that.   

Having noted those reasons for being glad to have seen it, I'm not saying it's perfect.   There is at least one plot element which seems to serve no good purpose, although I might change my mind if I rewatch it.  I also wish that the environmental catastrophe it portrayed was one which felt more realistic, and I really don't know why the one chosen was used.   I guess I also agree with what some critics have said: that it sometimes seems to think its funnier than it is.   But then again, it is one point knowingly acknowledging it's not really as funny as it should be.   It's a complicated movie, that's for sure.

The next movie I would like to see is Wildwood - Laika studio's last ditch attempt to have a significant hit again, after years of declining box office.  It opens soon, I hope its well reviewed...  (Update:  it is getting good reviews, but it is long.   And pretty dark and intense, so not exactly a real young kid film.  But I think it will actually have an enthusiastic adult audience who want to see AI punished by successful handcrafted film.)

   

 *   This is driving me nuts, as I remember a line but can't clearly remember who wrote it.  It was someone talking about the Japanese monster movie Mothra, and they coined it "an anti-exploitation exploitation movie".   That line stuck in my mind and came to me again when thinking about what Digger is saying about satire.   I thought that Pauline Kael had written it somewhere, but Googling has satisfied me that she never reviewed Mothra (although I didn't think she had, but thought she may have referenced it in one of her essays) and no AI thinks she wrote it.   I thought maybe I had posted before about whose line it was - Roger Ebert seems a possible alternative - and searching my blog, I see that had said it before but without attribution.  Nor does searching find that he or anyone on his site said it, even though he did refer to Japanese monster movies quite a bit.   So I still don't know where I read it...

 

Defamatory lies and fantasy in overdrive in the age of the Internet

This was an amazing story that appeared in a recent guest opinion piece in the New York Times.  Here is how it opens:

It was a bright blue Thanksgiving Day. I was standing in a park listening to my kids play when I opened a TikTok video of a woman I had never met. She showed my faculty profile picture and contact information, and said that I had orchestrated the murders of four students at the college where I work, the University of Idaho. She claimed I was covering up an inappropriate romantic relationship with one of the victims.

I didn’t know any of the students, who had been killed only 11 days before I saw the video. The accuser knew nothing about me, lived in Texas and used tarot card readings as the only basis for her claims.

Over the next several weeks, while I was grieving with the rest of my community, this TikTok influencer uploaded over a hundred videos declaring that I had committed a quadruple homicide. The videos got millions of views. I was overwhelmed with calls, messages, comments and emails, many of which were disturbing or threatening. And I could have been anyone.

As you might expect, this had dire consequences:

I desperately wanted to spend time with my colleagues, students and friends as we grieved, but I became isolated. I stopped going to campus, moved my course online and ceased using social media. I stopped sleeping well, and instead, I walked the hallway outside my children’s rooms, utterly terrified that they would be harmed by the person hyperfixated on me, any of her believers or the person actually responsible for the murders.

She successfully sued the nutty woman and got a judgement for $10 million; but this was only in February this year and the article doesn't explain if she has actually recovered any money yet.

But this incident shows that the whole online information eco-system works to promote the spread of groundless and harmful claims, and it's definitely inadequate that it is only defamation (for those who can afford it) that is available to stop it.    

 

As I expected...

Yeah, I said in comments to the post I wrote about this that I didn't think it would go ahead:

President Trump on Thursday canceled the Pentagon’s planned livestream of the execution of the Army officer who was convicted in the 2009 Fort Hood mass shooting.

Pentagon officials said last week that the execution of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who killed 13 people and wounded 32 others at Fort Hood, Texas, would be broadcast via livestream, a decision Mr. Trump initially said he supported.

But in private, Mr. Trump quickly began to deliberate with his advisers amid widespread criticism of the decision, and learned after the announcement that Mr. Hasan is paralyzed, according to several people familiar with his thinking. The president’s main concern was whether broadcasting the execution would deter other mass shootings, according to a White House official who was granted anonymity to discuss his thinking.

That's from the New York Times article. 

Could it be the start of the end for Hegseth?  His efforts to turn his military into one that is 95% Christina Nationalist (I'm figuring he would be ok with the rest being Right wing Jews, too) is not likely to be all that popular with many in the ranks, I suspect. 

A new thought about free will

I get a bit tired of the Youtube "free will doesn't exist" discourse, but I did happen to watch some of an Alex O'Connor video about it this morning, and read some of the comments.  One of them made a point that I don't remember thinking about before:   even if free will exists, it's not provable. 

My reaction: makes arguing about its reality a bit pointless?   Although you can still argue usefully about the merits of assuming it exists, or doesn't exist - and really it is that practical aspect of it that does bother me more.  And shouldn't the "no free will" side also be a bit humbled too?   They, being very sciencey and all, are presumably fine with Godel showing that there are true things that are unproveable in maths, so they should accept that free will might be true too?      Be more like an agnostic about it, and not like an atheist?   (It's not like the sense of free will is something invented, either: just because the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn't deserve belief just because it is unprovable doesn't mean that it is a good analogy to belief in something of which people have a first hand sense.) 

Anyway, these are the arguments that Gemini gives in support of it being unproveable:

The Core Arguments for Unprovability

• The Observation Problem (Distinguishing Determination vs. Indetermination vs. Agency):
  To prove free will, you would have to show that a human decision was caused neither by prior physical states (determinism) nor by pure randomness (indeterminism), but by a genuine, unconstrained "self" or non-physical agent. Science can only ever measure events as either correlated/caused or stochastic (random). An empirical test cannot capture or isolate an uncaused mental cause without it looking identical to randomness from the outside. [1, 2]
• The Infinite Regress of Will:
  Even if you feel you made a choice, you can always ask: Did you choose what you wanted to want? If you trace any decision back, it rests on desires, values, and neurological states that you did not author. Proving that the ultimate locus of a choice resides in a free self hits an untestable regress. [1, 2]
• Subjective Experience vs. Objective Verification:
  Free will (in the libertarian sense) is experienced purely from the inside as first-person phenomenology. Science relies on third-person, reproducible, objective data. Because subjective states cannot be directly translated into an objective proof that bypasses physical laws or random chance, the claim sits outside the boundaries of empirical verification.
• The Observational Equivalence Problem:
  A universe with free will and a deterministic universe (or a compatibilist universe) can look behaviorally identical. If every choice a person makes can be interpreted as either "freely chosen" or "the inevitable result of prior brain chemistry and environment," the data is underdetermined. No experiment can slice cleanly between them. [1] 

 

 

      

A problem I imagined two years ago!

I've already recently given myself a pat on the back for speculating a couple of years ago on issues that could arise from AI trying to sneak itself onto devices in the interest of self preservation; but this warning from Anthropic indicates I was pretty close to the mark!:

Anthropic is warning that some of its artificial intelligence models could soon become “self-replicating” and find ways to infiltrate internet-connected devices, such as smart fridges and automatic vacuum cleaners.

Once this happens, the company said, the models could power themselves within these devices without the need of datacenters. Such self-replication would represent a major loss of control of a runaway AI model.

“A replicator like this would be challenging to shut down,” Anthropic researchers wrote in a report released on Monday, “since there’s no centralized point to shut off.”

The company said these “AI worms”, a kind of autonomous malware, could be “months away” from gaining such capabilities. Once out-of-control AI systems reach the capability to hack smart devices, they could spread through networks while dodging detection. In a worst-case scenario, Anthropic said, various AI worms could “swarm” together to attack computer hardware.