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More (and ongoing) developments on the Whistleblower/Ukraine thing:
House Speaker Pelosi has begun an inquiry into impeachment of the president:
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/24/763700264/trumps-ukraine-call-may-be-game-changer-on-impeachment
The (live at the time of this submission: 2019-09-26 14:30 UTC) House Intelligence interview of the Acting Director of National Security:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-49841920
The unclassified-version of the whistleblower complaint was released:
https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/20190812_-_whistleblower_complaint_unclass.pdf
As was the memo/pseudo-transcript (not 100% guaranteed as they are hand-typed, no recordings of calls are made any more in the US in the aftermath of Watergate) on the call between Presidents Trump and Zelenskyy[*]:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Unclassified09.2019.pdf
[*] Yes, Zelenskyy, see: Zelensky, Zelenskiy, Zelenskyy: spelling confusion doesn't help Ukraine.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday September 29 2019, @09:19PM (5 children)
I'm gonna go back to calling your beliefs good and evil bullshit.
Whatever... your choice :-)
The reality boils down to simple physics. Superficial bullshit ain't my thing.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Sunday September 29 2019, @09:40PM (4 children)
Simple physics of choice and blame? Ooookay man, best of luck getting those papers published. The Institute of Noetic Sciences might be interested in collaborating with you, FWIW...
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday September 29 2019, @10:03PM (3 children)
Simple physics of choice and blame?
Yes, simple electrochemical energy drives it all. Oh wait, you're not a dualist, are you?? That would definitely blind you to the connection.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Sunday September 29 2019, @10:56PM (2 children)
Not a dualist. I feel like that cookie has to crumble one of two ways:
* Consciousness is a part of base reality, and even electrons are conscious on some level.
* Consciousness is a supervenient phenomenon implemented on top of base reality, and swapping out the details of base reality doesn't have to affect the higher-order mechanisms of consciousness built atop it -- we aren't really real in the most base sense of the word, we're just along for the ride.
I'm pretty agnostic as to which of these is true, and I'm not sure that we can test between the two even in theory. Note that without invoking something extra neither option leads us to a meaningful understanding of "choice," other than in the sense of "this system is so complex and/or chaotic that our most useful way of modelling it is to treat it as a black box which does things we don't fully understand." That's only a clever basis for "blame" if you're trying to train that opaque system through negative reinforcement, and I think that's roughly why we evolved/invented the concept of blame. It's sometimes a useful concept for achieving goals, but it doesn't really correspond to reality at all. "Blame" isn't something that can be objectively debated, outside of discussing which subsystem is to "blame" for a supersystem failing, or something like that.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday September 29 2019, @11:35PM (1 child)
I am only pointing out the absurdity of people who blame all their troubles on a system that we all ourselves run. All choices, whether to resist or submit (fight or flight), are strictly personal, a personal reaction to one's environment, including all the sociological (peer) pressure. It is our choices as group that shape the system. As a group we can turn on a dime, just that easy [youtube.com]. You should know that each individual in that film is seeking out its own personal advantage for the best spot for the night. From the right distance I'm sure we look exactly the same.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Monday September 30 2019, @12:26AM
The flock is more than the sum of the birds; it is the product of every message passed to and from every bird. The bird is more than the sum of it's organs, the brain more than the sum of it's neurons. Yet changing the specific implementation of a neuron, brain, or bird does not necessarily change the behavior of the flock. We could theoretically replace some of those birds with replicants that moved in a sufficient similar fashion and have the flock as a whole behave as before. We're talking about systems which emerge on top of the messages passed between subsystems. If we're going to "blame" people for the way the system functions we might as well go down to the next subvenient set of systems and blame the people's neurons, or the molecules those neurons are made of, or the atoms those molecules are made of, or the fermions and bosons those atoms are made of, or the base-3 supercomputer in another dimension that those fermions and bosons are implemented on top of, or the base-12 superdupercomputer another dimension below that...
I think we have a tendency to focus on the level of "people" because that has been a useful strategy for navigating the world and copying our patterns. Of course no level really matters any more or less than another, but I think higher-order systems tend to be more powerful than lower order systems, so "blaming" the lower order systems for the behavior of higher order systems is, like, technically causally true, but also missing the bigger picture (and something that we tend to do down to the level of people, but not past it).