Interesting Links for 31-12-2023

[andrewducker]

1. For the Safety of Jews and Palestinians, Stop Weaponizing Antisemitism

(tags:Jews Israel Palestine bigotry )

2. The British now basically blame Brexit for *everything*

(tags:UK Europe polls )

3. Generative AI produces copyright infringements from the vaguest of prompts

(tags:ai copyright )

4. China's Xi goes full Stalin with purge

(tags:china politics authoritarianism )

5. New theory claims to unite Einstein's gravity with quantum mechanics

(tags:gravity relativity physics quantum )

Comments

[ninetydegrees]

3) Good. The fact that generative AIs are currently basically unregulated is ludicrous.

[dewline]

1. Likud and Hamas are problems for both Israel and Palestine. Of that, I'm certain. The problem this article describes further enables both organizations to the detriment of those countries and of the wider human world.

2. I'd blame Brexit's organizers.

4. Not a surprise. Disturbing, yes, and still not a surprise.

[calimac]

1) It's definitely true that criticism of Israel is sometimes incorrectly labeled as anti-semitism. But it's equally true that anti-semitism is sometimes disguised as legitimate criticism of Israel. The difference lies in the nature and basis of the criticism. The writer of this piece mentions putting things to the "smell test," and some of this definitely reeks. The current crisis has flushed out a lot of previously hidden anti-semites as well as hysterical over-reactors on the other side.

[zz]

> The British now basically blame Brexit for *everything*

misleading. "has brexit made X worse" is a different question than "what is the primary cause of X getting worse"

[simont]

#5: the thing that interested me most was the part that said

The infamous and problematic "measurement postulate" of quantum theory is not needed, since quantum superpositions necessarily localize through their interaction with classical spacetime.

Unless I've totally misunderstood, this sounds as if large superpositions wouldn't be stable – you can still do the thing with one electron and two slits, but nothing involving, say, a cat in a box is going to do anything weird.

So where's the boundary between those? In particular, what limit does it place on quantum computers?

[hairyears]

4: There are three reasons for firing people in a country's nuclear weapons programme:

Disloyalty, real or perceived or manufactured;

The delivery systems (or the warheads) have failed a readiness test and, in all probability, the organisation has been concealing reliability and maintenence problems for years;

The truth about nuclear safety standards and disposal practices is starting to come out, and it's catastrophically bad.



Look up Arzamas-19 and Lake Karachay for a hint of how bad it can be, and recall that one of America's plutonium lines in Nevada had to be closed down by the Secret Service.