Sure, in the sense that one can lazily call any large power an empire. But in the sense of a huge area under a single sovereignty, the US doesn't qualify. That's what I've been noting all along.
Saying but they have a big military (especially when the military isn't that big compared to historical examples) isn't enough. Saying that they have a global presence (without the sovereignty I might add!) isn't enough.
Again, they're claiming that they can determine an eventi is a 1 in 700 year occurrence from 150 years of data. Statistics doesn't work that way because you don't have suficient duration for the claim in question.
I provided the example of the once every 700 years storm which was claimed to be derived from at most 150 years of data. This is an example of speculation from insufficient information which I would consider a "shifty" act.
In other words, you are a liar. And a stupid one
You have yet to provide a "reference" for your assertion.
the evidence that you are in fact lying is only a couple of posts above the lie itself.
Except that it isn't evidence for your assertion and hence, not a "relevant" reference. Which boxes should I be checking off for you? Stupid? Lying?
You crucify climate scientists for less, so no whining.
I'm sure they're wincing considerably from my "crucifying".
I'm describing basic rules of thumb for statistics. You can do these things, such as what you label "counting", without even having to understand the particular methodology used.
That is sheer desperation. Sure, if you construct a fantasy world in which other nations have more military power than the United States, you would have a point. But let's stick to reality instead of your imagination:
In the Second World War, even the neutral countries had large militaries. Spain's military peaked at 750,000 men; Sweden's at 600,000, and Switzerland to almost 500,000. It still takes considerable effort to go from raw numbers to an effective military.
If you know of another nation that comes close to the size, scope, or ambition of the current US military apparatus, please feel free to provide similar statistics. And a source, of course.
Again, so what? It's a relatively large military for the present time with a bit of real estate. The English empire in the mid to late 19th century was bigger, for example, with their occupation of India/Pakistan, Southern Africa, and Australia as well as a number of strategically valuable ports and islands.
Since when is asking someone to back up an assertion an argument from authority?
The quote was
I fail to see references.
First, it wasn't a question. Second, references are a very specific sort of backing - a publication or statement from some sort of authority.
At the time, I backed my assertion with the recent example of some shifty stochastic analysis of Hurricane Sandy's trajectory which was a story passing through Slashdot in the last couple of weeks. You failed to acknowledge that.
So you were willing to accept "backing" from an authority assuming you would ever choose to accept it as such (your "relevant" authority), but not backing from a real world example. I can't be bothered to play that game.
When you're in a hole, continuing digging is a bad idea.
"over 328,000 service members and 38,000 civilian [employees]... stretching from California to India...
That's not very many for a so-called empire.
Additionally, the United States have over 700 military bases all over the world, and has more aircraft carriers, fighter jets, nuclear warheads, tanks, and destroyer class vessels than all other nations combined.
But again, there isn't that much militarization in today's world. There are a number of states and super-states that could easily eclipse the US's current military, if they were to put significant effort into it.
If that's not an empire, I am not sure how to define one.
I use a dictionary.
a major political unit having a territory of great extent or a number of territories or peoples under a single sovereign authority; especially : one having an emperor as chief of state (2) : the territory of such a political unit
And there's the easy second definition.
something resembling a political empire; especially : an extensive territory or enterprise under single domination or control
So sure, you can call the US and its sphere of influence an "empire" by the second definition, because it kind of looks like one. But it's not an empire since there isn't a single sovereign authority.
A better term is hegemony.
preponderant influence or authority over others
or
the social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence exerted by a dominant group
Depends how you do it, doesn't it? For example, the US has several divisions of power, federalism and the breaking of the national government into legislative, executive, and judicial. And other democracies have similar setups (a common additional division being separation of executive powers to a head of state and administrator).
I see need for more divided power as the size of the group increases. So there's not much need for divided power in a small family grouping (though traditional families have two parents), but there is in a nation of millions or larger.
but don't completely know where to stand on authority
What is bizarre are the people who advocate authoritarian measures and then reverse themselves when the other side gets into office. It's ok when your side is reading library patrons' reading lists, having the IRS prosecute rival political factions, or sending SWAT after people you don't like. But things change when you're on the other end of the barrel.
The weird thing is that they can't seem to get that this behavior could possibly backfire on them.
So where's the evidence that the US is an empire? A few invasions over centuries? I notice your quote merely states that the US has a strategic interest in the Far East. So do many other countries and NGOs.
They can react with all kinds of things normally found in their environment. For example, literally all plastic bottles leach toxics into their contents
Leaching is not a reaction. And you neglect that dosage is a big part of what makes "toxics" toxic.
As an aside, your supposed "maximum profit" here became dealing with reactor accidents, including several meltdowns, so that they didn't get worse. How would the people who supposedly care about other people do better here? Protect emergency workers by keeping them away from the self-destructing nuclear reactors? How much harm would be caused by a policy of allowing uncontrolled meltdowns to just go on for years?
This is is the single most dangerous error in thinking when dealing with new technologies.
If it really were, then there'd be no point in listening to you since you've just described a rather meaningless error. To the contrary, when new technologies do bad things, we see those consequences.
It is the person who introduces the unnatural who needs to have the burden of proof
Like the people who make unfounded claims of unusual harm from some ambiguous thing called "nanoparticles"? That's pretty unnatural.This sort of talk reminds me of the self-contradictory "Precautionary Principle" which, if applied to itself, would have to reject its own use.
as Nassim Taleb says in Antifragile
So let me get this right. An author of a book that advocates the virtues of chaos supposedly says that people who introduce change should should have to "prove" the change first? Somehow that seems very shoot-your-foot contradictory.
Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.
Well, All you have to do is show evidence. If you can't do that as a self-appointed defender from new technology, then I'm going with evidence of absence.
So if you're dealing with something that has potential large, hidden, and delayed costs, your first question should be, does the perceived benefit outweigh the risk? Sometimes yes, and sometimes -- most 3D printing uses, seems to me -- no.
That's ok. It probably would be very unwise for human society to adopt your preferences. I don't see a reason to consider what you think of benefits and risks.
The point is, you need to have a lot more data in order to know that you have a 1 in 700 year event. This need not be direct measurements of the event in question. More frequent related events could be studied.
For example, we have a pretty good idea of the distribution of asteroids in the Solar System (they follow rather closely a power law with distribution proportional to their cross-section area). So even though we don't see a lot of large asteroid collisions (apparently the last big one was about 14 million years ago), we see plenty of the smaller ones and can extrapolate with reasonable accuracy to sizes around a few kilometers (before the larger asteroids get scarce enough that the power law approximation breaks down).
I see in your previous post a veiled attempt at the fallacy of argument from authority. Now, I see the ad hominem fallacy. It's interesting who seems to have trouble with basic rhetoric.
No, it's just a indicator of a person that understands arithmetic but not statistics.
When you're trying to extrapolate to a considerable degree events more infrequent in occurrence than the duration of your sampling, then you aren't doing statistics.
Again, if it is legal, then it isn't a crime - by definition.
We should be going through our banking system one banker at a time searching all their records and looking for anything they may have done which was complicit in causing the crash and going after each and every one of them personally, no point in going after the banks themselves if we are just going to bail them out.
You need probably cause for that in the US. You don't have that, but just some vague feeling that they should have broken laws by acting as they did.
The cooling system was damaged by the earthquake. It wasn't known at the time but has since come to light that some of the pipework was broken and water pumped in to cool the one of the cores never reached it.
If that were true, then that reactor would have overheated in the nine hours of cooling effort before the on site batteries were drained. Instead, that overheating happened afterward.
Remember that Fukushima was only designed to withstand a magnitude 7.7 earthquake.
Remember that Fukushima wasn't at the epicenter of the earthquake. The actual shaking it received was about 20% over its upper design threshold.
I fail to care. The reference to Hurricane Sandy and the stochastic analysis of its likelihood is a reference whether or not it fails to look like a reference to you.
Our body evolved and *adapted* to deal with parasites, viruses, etc, you dumbfuck. It didn't adapt to this shit.
I'd have to disagree with that, but only because you're wrong here. The natural world has a lot of small crap in it, including a lot of toxic, sharp and otherwise dangerous to breathe stuff. Even asbestos dust occurs naturally though probably not in quantities large enough to affect our evolution.
And I wonder what our relatively high resistance to toxins like round up comes from? I'd say evolutionary exposure to other such toxins in what we eat and breathe.
Second, you clearly aren't considering dosage or the kind of materials used in 3D printing, you know, basic toxicology stuff. Apparently the level of "nanoparticles" produced is lower than running an electric toaster or flushing a toilet. And last I checked, most 3D printers don't use asbestos or round up in the printing process. Imagine that, assuming you ever had the capability to do so.
Slashdot Mirror
They are both empires.
Sure, in the sense that one can lazily call any large power an empire. But in the sense of a huge area under a single sovereignty, the US doesn't qualify. That's what I've been noting all along.
Saying but they have a big military (especially when the military isn't that big compared to historical examples) isn't enough. Saying that they have a global presence (without the sovereignty I might add!) isn't enough.
It doesn't "fail arithmetic".
Again, they're claiming that they can determine an eventi is a 1 in 700 year occurrence from 150 years of data. Statistics doesn't work that way because you don't have suficient duration for the claim in question.
No, you asserted something was shifty.
I provided the example of the once every 700 years storm which was claimed to be derived from at most 150 years of data. This is an example of speculation from insufficient information which I would consider a "shifty" act.
In other words, you are a liar. And a stupid one
You have yet to provide a "reference" for your assertion.
the evidence that you are in fact lying is only a couple of posts above the lie itself.
Except that it isn't evidence for your assertion and hence, not a "relevant" reference. Which boxes should I be checking off for you? Stupid? Lying?
You crucify climate scientists for less, so no whining.
I'm sure they're wincing considerably from my "crucifying".
You're confusing counting with statistics.
I'm describing basic rules of thumb for statistics. You can do these things, such as what you label "counting", without even having to understand the particular methodology used.
That is sheer desperation. Sure, if you construct a fantasy world in which other nations have more military power than the United States, you would have a point. But let's stick to reality instead of your imagination:
In the Second World War, even the neutral countries had large militaries. Spain's military peaked at 750,000 men; Sweden's at 600,000, and Switzerland to almost 500,000. It still takes considerable effort to go from raw numbers to an effective military.
If you know of another nation that comes close to the size, scope, or ambition of the current US military apparatus, please feel free to provide similar statistics. And a source, of course.
Again, so what? It's a relatively large military for the present time with a bit of real estate. The English empire in the mid to late 19th century was bigger, for example, with their occupation of India/Pakistan, Southern Africa, and Australia as well as a number of strategically valuable ports and islands.
Since when is asking someone to back up an assertion an argument from authority?
The quote was
I fail to see references.
First, it wasn't a question. Second, references are a very specific sort of backing - a publication or statement from some sort of authority.
At the time, I backed my assertion with the recent example of some shifty stochastic analysis of Hurricane Sandy's trajectory which was a story passing through Slashdot in the last couple of weeks. You failed to acknowledge that.
So you were willing to accept "backing" from an authority assuming you would ever choose to accept it as such (your "relevant" authority), but not backing from a real world example. I can't be bothered to play that game.
When you're in a hole, continuing digging is a bad idea.
You may want to listen to your own wisdom.
"over 328,000 service members and 38,000 civilian [employees]... stretching from California to India...
That's not very many for a so-called empire.
Additionally, the United States have over 700 military bases all over the world, and has more aircraft carriers, fighter jets, nuclear warheads, tanks, and destroyer class vessels than all other nations combined.
But again, there isn't that much militarization in today's world. There are a number of states and super-states that could easily eclipse the US's current military, if they were to put significant effort into it.
If that's not an empire, I am not sure how to define one.
I use a dictionary.
a major political unit having a territory of great extent or a number of territories or peoples under a single sovereign authority; especially : one having an emperor as chief of state (2) : the territory of such a political unit
And there's the easy second definition.
something resembling a political empire; especially : an extensive territory or enterprise under single domination or control
So sure, you can call the US and its sphere of influence an "empire" by the second definition, because it kind of looks like one. But it's not an empire since there isn't a single sovereign authority.
A better term is hegemony.
preponderant influence or authority over others
or
the social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence exerted by a dominant group
Depends how you do it, doesn't it? For example, the US has several divisions of power, federalism and the breaking of the national government into legislative, executive, and judicial. And other democracies have similar setups (a common additional division being separation of executive powers to a head of state and administrator).
I see need for more divided power as the size of the group increases. So there's not much need for divided power in a small family grouping (though traditional families have two parents), but there is in a nation of millions or larger.
but don't completely know where to stand on authority
What is bizarre are the people who advocate authoritarian measures and then reverse themselves when the other side gets into office. It's ok when your side is reading library patrons' reading lists, having the IRS prosecute rival political factions, or sending SWAT after people you don't like. But things change when you're on the other end of the barrel.
The weird thing is that they can't seem to get that this behavior could possibly backfire on them.
It's a lot easier to deescalate a situation that doesn't start with SWAT surprising an innocent, armed man.
So where's the evidence that the US is an empire? A few invasions over centuries? I notice your quote merely states that the US has a strategic interest in the Far East. So do many other countries and NGOs.
Arguably, everything is arguable.
It was the multinationals that made a mess in the 19th century.
Like England, France, Russia, Germany, Belgium, etc.
The answer isn't to simply shift power around. It's to devolve and extinguish power completely.
Can't be done. Someone will always be stronger, smarter, or have a hold on someone else.
Also, if it fails arithmetic, then it fails statistics. The things I mentioned are warning signs that statistics isn't being done.
They can react with all kinds of things normally found in their environment. For example, literally all plastic bottles leach toxics into their contents
Leaching is not a reaction. And you neglect that dosage is a big part of what makes "toxics" toxic.
As an aside, your supposed "maximum profit" here became dealing with reactor accidents, including several meltdowns, so that they didn't get worse. How would the people who supposedly care about other people do better here? Protect emergency workers by keeping them away from the self-destructing nuclear reactors? How much harm would be caused by a policy of allowing uncontrolled meltdowns to just go on for years?
You know what makes alpha particles different from helium? One has electrons and the other doesn't,
For a small bit of time until the alpha particles acquire electrons, then all you have are helium atoms.
This is is the single most dangerous error in thinking when dealing with new technologies.
If it really were, then there'd be no point in listening to you since you've just described a rather meaningless error. To the contrary, when new technologies do bad things, we see those consequences.
It is the person who introduces the unnatural who needs to have the burden of proof
Like the people who make unfounded claims of unusual harm from some ambiguous thing called "nanoparticles"? That's pretty unnatural.This sort of talk reminds me of the self-contradictory "Precautionary Principle" which, if applied to itself, would have to reject its own use.
as Nassim Taleb says in Antifragile
So let me get this right. An author of a book that advocates the virtues of chaos supposedly says that people who introduce change should should have to "prove" the change first? Somehow that seems very shoot-your-foot contradictory.
Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.
Well, All you have to do is show evidence. If you can't do that as a self-appointed defender from new technology, then I'm going with evidence of absence.
So if you're dealing with something that has potential large, hidden, and delayed costs, your first question should be, does the perceived benefit outweigh the risk? Sometimes yes, and sometimes -- most 3D printing uses, seems to me -- no.
That's ok. It probably would be very unwise for human society to adopt your preferences. I don't see a reason to consider what you think of benefits and risks.
The point is, you need to have a lot more data in order to know that you have a 1 in 700 year event. This need not be direct measurements of the event in question. More frequent related events could be studied.
For example, we have a pretty good idea of the distribution of asteroids in the Solar System (they follow rather closely a power law with distribution proportional to their cross-section area). So even though we don't see a lot of large asteroid collisions (apparently the last big one was about 14 million years ago), we see plenty of the smaller ones and can extrapolate with reasonable accuracy to sizes around a few kilometers (before the larger asteroids get scarce enough that the power law approximation breaks down).
I see in your previous post a veiled attempt at the fallacy of argument from authority. Now, I see the ad hominem fallacy. It's interesting who seems to have trouble with basic rhetoric.
No, it's just a indicator of a person that understands arithmetic but not statistics.
When you're trying to extrapolate to a considerable degree events more infrequent in occurrence than the duration of your sampling, then you aren't doing statistics.
We should be going through our banking system one banker at a time searching all their records and looking for anything they may have done which was complicit in causing the crash and going after each and every one of them personally, no point in going after the banks themselves if we are just going to bail them out.
You need probably cause for that in the US. You don't have that, but just some vague feeling that they should have broken laws by acting as they did.
The cooling system was damaged by the earthquake. It wasn't known at the time but has since come to light that some of the pipework was broken and water pumped in to cool the one of the cores never reached it.
If that were true, then that reactor would have overheated in the nine hours of cooling effort before the on site batteries were drained. Instead, that overheating happened afterward.
Remember that Fukushima was only designed to withstand a magnitude 7.7 earthquake.
Remember that Fukushima wasn't at the epicenter of the earthquake. The actual shaking it received was about 20% over its upper design threshold.
I fail to see references.
I fail to care. The reference to Hurricane Sandy and the stochastic analysis of its likelihood is a reference whether or not it fails to look like a reference to you.
Our body evolved and *adapted* to deal with parasites, viruses, etc, you dumbfuck. It didn't adapt to this shit.
I'd have to disagree with that, but only because you're wrong here. The natural world has a lot of small crap in it, including a lot of toxic, sharp and otherwise dangerous to breathe stuff. Even asbestos dust occurs naturally though probably not in quantities large enough to affect our evolution.
And I wonder what our relatively high resistance to toxins like round up comes from? I'd say evolutionary exposure to other such toxins in what we eat and breathe.
Second, you clearly aren't considering dosage or the kind of materials used in 3D printing, you know, basic toxicology stuff. Apparently the level of "nanoparticles" produced is lower than running an electric toaster or flushing a toilet. And last I checked, most 3D printers don't use asbestos or round up in the printing process. Imagine that, assuming you ever had the capability to do so.