That chicken or egg question is unanswerable?

Hey, has anyone else noticed how often physicists from Brisbane seem to get mentioned in despatches, so to speak, about quantum experiments?   It makes me feel like I'm living in a smarter city than southerners like to give it credit for. 

This time its the University of Queensland being mentioned in a somewhat complicated explanation about a quantum experiment that seems to indicate that causation becomes very confusing in quantum systems:

Over many trials, the physicists implement different combinations of shape changes in the two paths, like choosing among a handful of setting for two different knobs. If each photon definitely takes one path or the other first, the correlations between the knob setting and the photon’s final polarization must obey certain limits. However, if both take both paths first, the correlations will exceed those limits, which is exactly what the physicists observe in a paper in press at Physical Review Letters.

As it stands, the experimenters chose the operations in the two paths independently. However, in principle the experiment shows that quantum mechanics allows for the possibility that the two processes could trigger each other, says Cyril Branciard, a physicist at the NÉEL Institute in Grenoble, France, who worked on the experiment. “One may have situations where some event A causes another event B, while at the same time B causes A.”

I suppose it's appropriate that I mention another recent report, this one about how a quantum entanglement experiment  used light from distant quasars to help rule out "freedom of choice" loopholes.

Don't worry, I'll explain later.  Or not.

Taleb - smart idiot

Nassim Taleb is always a good reminder that being technically smart is no guarantee of having common sense in political judgment, and can certainly be accompanied by an obnoxious personality.   Here's a tweet today indicating he is sympathetic to the ridiculous White House bleating about tech company "censorship" of the internet:

AI modelling of religious belief

I forgot to link to this interesting article in The Atlantic from July, about using computer programs to model the social effect of religious beliefs.  It starts:

Imagine you’re the president of a European country. You’re slated to take in 50,000 refugees from the Middle East this year. Most of them are very religious, while most of your population is very secular. You want to integrate the newcomers seamlessly, minimizing the risk of economic malaise or violence, but you have limited resources. One of your advisers tells you to invest in the refugees’ education; another says providing jobs is the key; yet another insists the most important thing is giving the youth opportunities to socialize with local kids. What do you do?

Well, you make your best guess and hope the policy you chose works out. But it might not. Even a policy that yielded great results in another place or time may fail miserably in your particular country under its present circumstances. If that happens, you might find yourself wishing you could hit a giant reset button and run the whole experiment over again, this time choosing a different policy. But of course, you can’t experiment like that, not with real people.

You can, however, experiment like that with virtual people. And that’s exactly what the Modeling Religion Project does. An international team of computer scientists, philosophers, religion scholars, and others are collaborating to build computer models that they populate with thousands of virtual people, or “agents.” As the agents interact with each other and with shifting conditions in their artificial environment, their attributes and beliefs—levels of economic security, of education, of religiosity, and so on—can change. At the outset, the researchers program the agents to mimic the attributes and beliefs of a real country’s population using survey data from that country. They also “train” the model on a set of empirically validated social-science rules about how humans tend to interact under various pressures.

Curious about Right wing reaction to this...

From NPR:

British Prime Minister Theresa May said she will make major investments in Africa. While on a three-day tour of the continent, May pledged 4 billion pounds ($5.1 billion) of support for African markets. May's goal of deepening trade ties with Africa, the world's second most populous continent, comes ahead of Britain's departure from the European Union next year.

I just can't imagine this being particularly well received by the British Brexiteers who were either populist nationalists, or small government types who are always leery of foreign aid and assistance. 

STD talk, again

Vox has an article about the worrying rise of STDs in the US, including the one that keeps making appearances in this blog - syphilis.

They have a map showing the different rates for that disease across America, and it's pretty hard to make sense of it.   While one might think that the number of gay men (amongst whom unsafe sex has been rising) in California accounts for the high rate in that state (and, perhaps, Florida), there are some very Red states with very high rates too:

And I presume that the lesson of Alaska might be that cold weather means less illicit sex?

Anyway, readers who have not been following my fascination with a particular STD might find this previous post useful - because it shows that even at the higher rates shown above, they are still only roughly 1/5 the rate of what they were in the 1940s.   The extraordinary historical rate of the disease (and its social effect) is still something that I say does not appear in fiction as often as you would expect...

To Berlin

Did you see last night's Foreign Correspondent about young Jewish folk migrating to Berlin to get away from the atmosphere of stifling perpetual conflict in Israel?   It was fascinating, and yet another example of the type of excellent and informative program making that only the ABC does.  

The Murdoch/IPA led right wing campaign against the national broadcaster makes me sick. 

Should never read Adam Creighton in isolation

I managed to find Adam Creighton's "ha ha, Labor is wrong about income inequality" piece in The Australian which takes the "glass is half full" analysis approach to a Productivity Commission report on inequality in Australia.   (I wonder, if Creighton's so sure about this, why does he campaign on abandoning compulsory superannuation as being the only way to let low income workers get ahead?)

Then I read The Guardian's report on the same matter, and came away with a much more balanced view of what the Commission's report said.

Update:  it just occurred to me that there is another bit of opportunistic hypocrisy in Creighton's reporting on this - he's been one to complain about how much tax is paid by the top end of town, compared to how none is paid by the bottom end.  Yet Creighton quotes this:

Launching the report in Canberra yesterday, Productivity Commission chairman Peter Harris said 27 years of economic growth had led to “significantly improved living standards” for people at every income level, while the nation’s “highly targeted” welfare system had reduced inequality — as typically defined — by 30 per cent.

Creighton:  always best ignored.

An alert for Barrie Cassidy

Deep forehead wrinkles may signal a higher risk for cardiovascular mortality 

Or maybe he was just born with a mightily crinkled forehead?   (I shouldn't be mean - he's a very likeable journalist/commentator.)

Where did the immigration panic come from?

I don't understand why or how the Australian wingnutty Right seemingly decided overnight that immigration levels to Australia were at (what they think) is a crisis level.

I mean, I know Judith Sloan has been doing a NIMBY, pearly clutching exercise about how her Melbourne suburb is changing with too many apartments being built for too many immigrants for quite a while now, but it just seems to have been taken up in an almost unified way amongst all Right wingers in a concerted panic attack on the issue. 

Is there an explanation?   Is it a matter of the Sydney wingnut broadcasters getting really annoyed at the George Street light rail delay disrupting their drive to work and them deciding to blame it all on TOO MANY IMMIGRANTS?   But what's going on in Melbourne (apart from the African gangs issue) that led Bolt and Sloan to ramp up their attack on immigration more generally?

Fruity news

*  Am I the only person who has noticed how cheap, big (and good quality) pineapples are at the moment?    I don't normally notice them, but this year they have caught my attention and we've bought a few since my daughter has decided they are just about her favourite fruit.   A $3 gigantic one does last a long time, cut up in the fridge.

* Radio National this morning was talking about some Queensland strawberry farmers going out of business because of the ridiculous oversupply which is seeing them sold for $1 a punnet (less than the cost of production.)    While farmers not having the business sense to see an oversupply coming is part of the problem, they did talk about the big supermarket contracts with set prices as being relevant too.  I guess it's sort of obvious that something goes wrong in situations like this, but is doing anything other than letting the market sort itself out worse than the disease?     I don't entirely trust the distorting power of the big supermarket contracts, though. 

Too soon

I thought Four Corners and Media Watch last night on the Liberal leadership changeover last week were both pretty dull with nothing interesting to add. I think the basic problem with the Four Corners show was that it was made too soon - you need more time before more politicians will talk about it in the detail necessary to give some new information we don't already know.

Media Watch seemed pretty bland and cautious on the question of media commentators involvement - particularly given this morning that Alan Jones was on 7.30 (apparently - I didn't see it) saying that he was ringing government members privately about the need to dump Turnbull.  And he says that it was to do with the energy policy, which is, at its heart, about emissions and climate change.   I continue to feel that the media is not emphasising enough the fact that this changeover was at its heart about climate change denialists in the media insisting that Turnbull be dumped because he wants to reduce emissions.

(It's true that Turnbull hurt his credibility by seeking to placate the denialists in his party,  but it was absurd hypocrisy that it was Abbott - a man with a kama sutra history of positions on climate change - who was the one criticising Malcolm for not being consistent on the matter.)

But the extracts that Media Watch played of Bolt, Jones, Credlin and Murray criticising Trunbull, do show how nasty and ridiculously over the top their criticism of a politician can be.  This Fox News-ification of right wing commentary in Australia is very unfortunate, and is destined to poison political discourse here just as it has in the US.  

Says it all

Pretty remarkable, isn't it?   Goes to show that at least previous leadership change plotters were right to think hat a new PM would be at least a bit more popular than the current one. 

Those involved in this one - nope, just wanted Turnbull gone because he had an energy policy that, despite being pretty useless, climate change denialism still couldn't accept. 

Back to physics and the universe

In all of the political intrigue of last week, I overlooked the news that Roger Penrose thinks he may have found some observational evidence for his pet cyclical universe alternative theory to the normal Big Bang with inflation.

Phys.org wrote about it, but then Sabine Hossenfelder expresses some mild to moderate skepticism of the whole theory at Backreaction.

The worst news I am likely to read all day

So, Kevin Rudd has a big spray on the political power of Rupert Murdoch today.

While what he says sounds very true, it would feel more appropriate if it wasn't coming from someone who had sucked up so much to the media - including News Corp - for his own political gain.

I had forgotten until I read the other piece in Fairfax about Kevin's piece that he was personally close to Chris Mitchell:

Mr Rudd courted News Corp editors during his time in politics and was the godfather to the son of Chris Mitchell, former editor-in-chief of The Australian.

I have my doubts they send each other Christmas cards any more.

But here's the worst thing about the Nick O'Malley piece:   I don't follow international media intrigues all that closely, but I had always assumed that the Murdoch kids were likely more liberal and had more morals than Rupert, who looks physically frail and can't be with us for too much longer, surely.  But it seems that may be wrong:

Political and News Corp sources have also told Fairfax Media that they believe that News Corp co-chairman Lachlan Murdoch has a particular dislike for Mr Turnbull. They also believe that over the years Lachlan Murdoch has become even more conservative in his world view than his father, and far more conservative than Mr Turnbull. They also confirmed that Lachlan is known to be close to both Ms Credlin and Mr Abbott.

Still, if the Packer family is any guide, things still won't be the same when the Dad dies and the rich kids get to make all decisions.

I'm getting a bit frustrated

While lots of commentators on the Liberal leadership mention climate change denial as a key factor in why Liberal conservatives could never tolerate Turnbull, I still feel that there is inadequate emphasis on this as the reason why the Liberals cannot continue to be an attempted coalition between climate change denialist/conspiracists and the moderates who believe science and the need for a policy to reduce emissions.

You see, this is typical of what Trump loving, alternative reality so-called Australian conservatives believe about climate change and energy policy:

We've all read the continual stream of climate change denialism from Bolt, Blair, Ackerman, lots of guest writers in the Australian, and in the posts and comments at Catallaxy for more than a decade, and one thing is clear:   nothing  will change their minds.    They are convinced by ageing fools who will never concede error, and argue in various combinations of bad faith, ideological blindness, and self interest.   

It has become a core belief aligned with nearly all social conservatives (and with most libertarians) that climate change is not real and/or is nothing to worry about.

Here's the thing:  IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO HAVE NEGOTIATIONS IN MUTUAL GOOD FAITH ON ENERGY POLICY WITH A SIDE WHICH DENIES THERE IS ANY NEED TO REDUCE EMISSIONS IN THE FIRST PLACE.  


It's that simple.


Remember in 2012 that show on the ABC where a young global warming advocate travelled around with Nick Minchin trying to convince him that his climate change "skepticism" was wrong?  I posted about it at the time.   At the end, there was a fake resolution in which Minchin said he would agree that it wasn't a bad thing to encourage renewables because fossil fuels were not going to last forever.

This was a disingenuous attempt to come up with some sort of "we can work this out" happy ending, but which didn't make sense for a denialist or realist - Australia could easily burn coal for hundreds of years if it kept it to itself and had no concerns about emissions.   And no climate change denying "conservatives" has ever agreed with Minchin, then or now.

So, yeah - as I say, it is that simple.

The Liberals are never going to be come up with an energy policy which will keep a significant chunk of their Federal members (and I do mean "members") or their apparently increasingly right wing "base" happy.

The party will be stuck in internal conflict about this forever, or at least - I would guess - another 10 to 20 years, while we wait for Rupert Murdoch and all of the handful of ageing contrarian scientists who keep the denialism alive to literally die off.

It needs to split, or it is going to be hobbled by that internal conflict for that long

Update:  On Insiders this morning, I saw an extract from Malcolm Turnbull's farewell press conference in which he said word to the effect that it seemed that for the Liberals there were some with ideological reasons preventing agreement on energy policy.

True, but it is not enough to just mildly say that on the way out.  They need to be called out as  simply wrong in their climate change denial and they need to get out of the party!

Quantum computer sighted

It occurred to me this afternoon that I had no idea what a quantum computer physically looked like.

So I Google it, and found this photo from an Engadget article earlier this year, showing the innards of an IBM 50 qubit quantum computer:

Cool.

Actually, it does literally need to be very cool - but the article does a very poor job of explaining how exactly it is cooled down to liquid helium temperatures.   Does the whole thing sit in a liquid helium bath?  

Doubting the choice

I had forgotten how much I disliked Scott Morrison as Immigration minister under Abbott until I searched back through posts here.   He has, deliberately, softened his image since then; and to be honest, I think I did feel more kindly towards him after he appeared with Annabel Crabb on her one-on-one in the kitchen show.

But, he really does strike me as a blustering flim flam man at heart in interviews.  

In a way, I think he shares a bit of the same (in)sincerity problem that Shorten suffers from.   Something about both of their deliveries in interviews and debates often hits notes of blustery insincerity.  

But Labor does not have at its heart a corrosive internal culture war/climate change denial fight going on for its soul.  And, genuinely, they have been doing decent policy work on at least tax.

Labor will deserve to win the next election, and I would be very surprised if Morrison can help the Liberals avoid a significant defeat.

Lulz, as they say (and by the way - just split, Liberals)

Morrison and Frydenberg.  They're not really to be trusted on climate change, but nor are they rabidly into denying it, and so are already being declared a major disappointment for the right wing/conservative denialists in the party.   (Catallaxy commenters are appalled.)  

The decades old, fundamental problem in the party is still unresolved.

Just get out of the way and let Labor govern for a while.

Public butchery not a good idea

I see that The Sun has run an article showing graphic pictures of the animal sacrifices taking place, often on roads or other public places, for Eid in Muslim countries.   (A few posts back, however, I noted how at least one big city - Cairo - was trying to stamp out the practice on public health and hygiene grounds.)

Having a look at the photos - which I don't really recommend - it reminds of me of my theory as to why public attitudes towards gruesome executions have changed so much in the West.   (Even allowing for some people wanting to shock themselves by looking up real life beheadings and gruesome mangled bodies on the 'net, it's pretty much impossible to imagine anything other than public outrage in the West at the idea that public should want to watch any criminal beheaded, hung, or drawn and quartered, when such things did use to be a public spectacle in Christian countries.)

I think that that commonplace public butchery of animals is a possible reason why people used to be not shocked at seeing a "deserving" person butchered in public as well.  But when such animal butchery got hidden away from the market to the interior of a slaughterhouse, public sensitivity to seeing humans broken and cut increased over time too.

And you would have to say that it is Islamic nations (public beheading in Saudi Arabia) and Islamic terrorism that is the main source of such maltreatment of human bodies now. 

I know that you can argue that the public slaughter of animals is more "honest" about how those of us who enjoy meat get our food - many people say that a visit to a slaughterhouse is one of the best ways to be converted to vegetarianism - but being sensitised to the slaughter of animals by keeping it hidden has the added advantage of sensitising people to the slaughter of humans too.

And that is actually a good thing.

So yeah, I wish Muslim countries would stop the public slaughter of animals, for the sake of all of us.

PS:   a handy update on the matter of when and why Judaism stopped animal sacrifice.

PPS:   it is an interesting intellectual exercise to wonder what would happen to Islam if, in an equivalent to the Temple being destroyed in 70CE, its key sacred sites in and around Mecca were to be destroyed.  (Was it one of the three sites fake nuked in Mission Impossible 6?  I forget.)    I guess the immediate aftermath would depend on who caused the destruction.   An asteroid strike might raise particularly difficult questions as to how to interpret it! 

Imre surprises

I have never known much (or more accurately, anything really) about Imre Salusinszky beyond the fact that he was presumably pretty conservative since he and Tim Blair had a short lived stint on ABC radio in one of the early attempts to give a right wing balance, which was cut short and seems to have made Blair absolutely obsessed with wanting to destroy the organisation and all within it ever since. 

But on his twitter feed, he has been fully supporting Chris Uhlmann's attach on the Right wing media's direct and private intervention in cajoling Liberals to dump Turnbull.   He sees no equivalence with Left leaning journalists criticising, say, Abbott:

Well, good on him.

Does he talk to Tim Blair any more?   I can't see that Bolt would want to talk to him after this, either.