Social science: Diversity in Human Concepts

When there is disagreement, people talking about politics and religion tend to talk past each other and misunderstand reasons for disagreement. Being constantly bombarded by disinformation, misinformation, lies, deceit, irrational emotional manipulation and the like is a major source of honest misunderstanding. But a recent research paper, Latent Diversity in Human Concepts, focuses on a another major source of honest misunderstanding. Specifically, humans use certain words to refer to certain concepts, but the actual meaning of those words varies widely among individuals.

Scientific American comments on the paper:

These discrepant views—[e.g., differing personal] concepts of penguins—are the kind of information researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, elicited from participants in a study that was published last month. The team’s results show that even the plainest of nouns can invoke dozens of distinct concepts in individuals’ mind. “People have wondered for a long time how to put a number on how much overlap there is, and it’s really low. It blows my mind,” says psychologist Celeste Kidd of the U.C. Berkeley, who was senior author of the study.

To make matters worse, the researchers found that people are usually oblivious to these differences and believe that most other people think like they do even when almost nobody does. This may be one reason people so often are at loggerheads. “We think it can explain a lot of disagreements people have,” Kidd says. “It’s an approach to understanding why people talk past each other.” Being more aware of how often we might not be comprehending one another may help us “get on the same page when it matters,” she adds.  

It is well known that abstract, high-concept words such as “knowledge” and “fairness”** provoke frequent debates about exactly what is meant. But researchers have struggled to formally characterize how people’s concepts differ and to quantify how often that happens. Past efforts have stumbled, Kidd says, because we do not fully understand what concepts consist of. 

** And, one of my favorites, “fascism.”  

Participants believed around two thirds would agree with them when the actual proportion was usually much smaller. In some cases, people believed they were in the majority when virtually nobody agreed. This shows that people are typically oblivious to the extent to which others share their concepts. “That was cool,” Gelman says, “and may have implications for when we think we’re communicating but aren’t.”  

The study may offer hope that we can sometimes overcome our differences by simply becoming aware of them. “When people disagree, it might not be for the reasons they think,” Kidd says. “It could just be because their concepts aren’t aligned.” Her advice: “Hash it out,” she says. “Questions like ‘What do you mean?’ can go a long way toward preventing a dispute going off the rails.”

That last paragraph states why I look to find stasis with people I disagree with. Stasis is a point in mutual understanding where people know why they disagree. Since minds in disagreement rarely change, getting to mutual understanding is about the best that can be done. In my opinion, reaching stasis is pro-democracy and usually or always in the public interest. Leaving disagreements unclarified is pro-authoritarianism and usually in the elite's interests.

The paper includes these comments:

Many social and legal conflicts hinge on semantic disagreements. Understanding the origins and implications of these disagreements necessitates novel methods for identifying and quantifying variation in semantic cognition between individuals. .... Our results show at least ten to thirty quantifiably different variants of word meanings exist for even common nouns. Further, people are unaware of this variation, and exhibit a strong bias to erroneously believe that other people share their semantics. This highlights conceptual factors that likely interfere with productive political and social discourse.  

Even when two individuals use the same word, they do not necessarily agree on its meaning. Disagreements about meaning are common in debates about terms like “species” (Zachos, 2016), “genes” (Stotz et al., 2004), or “life” (Trifonov, 2011) in biology; “curiosity” (Grossnickle, 2016), “knowledge” (Lehrer, 2018), or “intelligence” (Sternberg, 2005) in psychology; and “measurement” in physics (Wigner, 1995). Ernst Mach and Albert Einstein even disagreed about what constitutes a “fact” (de Waal & ten Hagen, 2020). In contemporary society, social issues often hinge on the precise meaning of terms like “equity” (Benjamin, 2019), “pornography” (Stewart, 1964), “peace” (Leshem & Halperin, 2020), or the “right to bear arms” (Winkler, 2011). Sometimes these debates are settled by fiat—for example, the U.S. Supreme court decided that a tomato counted as a vegetable (not a fruit) for tax purposes because the law should follow the “ordinary meaning” of words rather than their botanical meaning (see Goldfarb, 2021; Nix v. Hedden, 149 U.S. 304, 1893).  

Despite the frequency of such terminological debates, these conflicts have not been characterized using cognitive psychology methods.

This kind of misunderstanding arises mostly (completely?) from essentially contested concepts (ECCs). The ECC is a concept that was first prominently articulated in 1956, but was known at least by propagandists and deceivers for millennia. This linguistic phenomenon is not new. It's just inherent in the human condition. According to the recent paper and despite knowledge about this important aspect of human cognition, this kind of research is new. I suspect that in the last couple of years, the severity of the plague of ECCs has dawned on social science generally. That's probably what motivated researchers to begin studying the phenomenon.

As usual, this kind of knowledge is sharp and maybe at least two-edged. It will be used by propagandists, tyrants and deceivers ('bad people') to get what they want if this kind of knowledge can be leveraged that way. If so, then it would also be useful for societies to add to their defenses against the dark arts that bad people use to manipulate and deceive.

My conception is broader:

Two different things or arguments are asserted 

or implied to be about the same when their actual 

differences make them significantly dissimilar

News bits: Continuing GOP attacks on elections; Clueless Democrats; Etc.

A wild card in the 2024 elections will be how effective Republican Party efforts to suppress non-Republican voters and rig elections in their favor will be. That alone could tip the election to Trump. The NYT writes in an opinion piece:

When Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, announced her campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in February, she remarked that the Republican Party had “lost the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections.” That, she said, “has to change.”

Her fellow Republicans appear to disagree. Across the country, Republican officeholders and activists have abandoned any pretense of trying to win over a majority of voters. Last week, for example, Cleta Mitchell — a top Republican lawyer, strategist and fund-raiser — told donors to the Republican National Committee that conservatives had to limit voting on college campuses and tighten rules for voter registration and mail-in ballots. Only then, she said, could Republicans level the playing field for the 2024 presidential election. “The left has manipulated the electoral systems to favor one side — theirs,” she said in her presentation. “Our constitutional Republic’s survival is at stake.”

The Republican Party’s hostility to popular government is most apparent on issues where the majority stands sharply opposed to conservative orthodoxy. Rather than try to persuade voters or compromise on legislation, much of the Republican Party has made a conscious decision to insulate itself as much as possible from voters and popular discontent.  

In the face of public opposition to their unpopular views on abortion, Republicans had three choices: make the case to voters that tough abortion restrictions were worthwhile; compromise and bend to public opinion; or change the rules so that their opponents could not protect abortion rights against the will of a legislature that wants to ban the procedure.  

Ahead of an effort to enshrine abortion rights into the state Constitution with a ballot measure that would go to voters in a November general election, Ohio Republicans are advancing a ballot measure that would raise the threshold for passing such a measure to 60 percent. If they get their way, the measure could go to voters in an August special election (previously, Ohio Republicans had opposed August special elections). This new rule requiring a supermajority would take only a simple majority to pass.

This is what the American tyranny of the minority looks like. Elections have to be subverted. Contrary public opinion has to be blocked from manifesting itself, e.g., in the form of voter initiated ballot measures, which is what the GOP is doing right now.

The point is simple: American radical right authoritarians have not given up on subverting elections. In their minds, the job is not done yet. Subverting the 2024 elections is a high priority fascist Republican Party goal. The fascists are right about one thing here. Our constitutional Republic’s survival is at stake.

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From the Clueless Democrats Files: The AP writes:

AP Interview: Pelosi says Ukraine, democracy ‘must win’

The steady stream of arrivals in Kyiv has served to amplify a political and military partnership between the U.S. and Ukraine for the world to see, one that will be tested anew when Congress is again expected this year to help fund the war to defeat Russia.

“We must win. We must bring this to a positive conclusion — for the people of Ukraine and for our country,” Pelosi said.

“There is a fight in the world now between democracy and autocracy, its manifestation at the time is in Ukraine.”

Pelosi truly does not understand where the main threat to democracy lies. It lies here in the US. The leader of the radical right GOP has made his opinion on this completely clear. If he is re-elected in 2024 as president, he will let Putin annex the entire Ukraine. 

If democracy falls in the US, it will fall everywhere else. The leadership of the Democratic Party either simply does not understand the domestic authoritarian threat to democracy and elections, or it does not believe it is a serious threat. Either way, the clueless Dem leadership is tragically wrong. 

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Poll on gun safety laws: A recent poll indicates that solid majorities of Americans want some significant gun safety laws passed. Recent politics indicates that (i) Americans in red states are not going to see any significant gun safety laws passed, and (ii) the Supreme Court will continue to overturn existing gun safety laws nationwide. That is how tyranny of the minority deals with inconvenient public opinion.

That poll also indicates that 61% favor banning assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons. 52% oppose the idea of encouraging more people to carry guns to defend against attackers, while 45% support it.

Judicial rot watch: Supreme Court whines about criticism; Comment on jury duty

Jezebel writes:

Sam Alito Says Criticism of Supreme Court Is 'Unfair': 

'Practically Nobody Is Defending Us'

"We are being hammered daily, and I think quite unfairly in some of these instances," the justice complained to the Wall Street Journal amid ethics scandals 

Alito told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published Friday that attacks on the “legitimacy” of the high court are “new during [his] lifetime.”

“We are being hammered daily, and I think quite unfairly in a lot of instances. And nobody, practically nobody, is defending us,” he said. “The idea has always been that judges are not supposed to respond to criticisms, but if the courts are being unfairly attacked, the organized bar will come to their defense.” But “if anything,” the justice continued, “they’ve participated to some degree in these attacks.”

Jaw dropping, cynical arrogance is insufficient to describe that. 

Q: Why would Alito think anyone would step up and defend the indefensible? 

A: Because he is a radical authoritarian who actually, or more likely cynically, believes our unethical and deeply corrupt Supreme Court is ethical and therefore its corruption is actually defensible.

That is not the standard

for the US Supreme Court

It has no moral benchmarks

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By contrast with Alito's blatantly pro-corruption, anti-democracy mindset, the judge in our dinky little misdemeanor crimes case was a flamethrower about a rigid set ethics that applied to himself, the attorneys, the defendant, witnesses, the bailiffs, the court reporter and us jurors. The slightest hint of any appearance of favoritism or bias, a form of corruption, had to be immediately reported to the bailiff, who would report it to the judge. Nothing other than people breathing happened in that courtroom until the microphones recording the proceedings were turned back on and the court officially called into question. Nothing was off the record.

When I complained to the bailiff about the lights being too bright for slides to be clearly seen, I had to report it to the bailiff as a juror. The bailiff reported that a juror complained about lights being too bright, but the judge not only didn't know my juror number, he also didn't know my name. 

The judge gave us an example of an example of possible favoritism or bias that had to be reported to him on one of his cases some years ago. This example was trivial, but it still counted. At a break, one juror was in the bathroom with one of the attorneys on the case. The juror said to the attorney that she liked her shoes asked the attorney where she bought them. The attorney, didn't answer, walked out and reported the incident to the bailiff. The problem the attorney had was a catch 22. If she answered, it could bias the juror in favor of that attorney, but if she didn't answer, perceived rudeness could bias the juror against that attorney. 

Now, compare that level of concern for ethical conflicts by a state lower court, with the shocking disregard for ethics by all nine justices sitting on our corrupt, morally rotted US Supreme Court. 

Qs: Is it just me being hyperbolic about corruption, morals and ethics, or is there maybe something more than trivially wrong with our Supreme Court's ethical standards, which BTW, exist only in cynical lip service and no actually meaningful form? Can anyone see the gigantic double standard here?

If the judges are so moral and ethical, why do they resist applying ethics rules to themselves? What manner and amount of sleaze and corruption are they hiding?

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About rules for judges, apparently except US Supreme Court judges:

Code of Conduct for United States Judges

The Code of Conduct for United States Judges includes the ethical canons that apply to federal judges and provides guidance on their performance of official duties and engagement in a variety of outside activities

Canon 2: A Judge Should Avoid Impropriety and the Appearance of Impropriety in all Activities

(B) Outside Influence. A judge should not allow family, social, political, financial, or other relationships to influence judicial conduct or judgment. A judge should neither lend the prestige of the judicial office to advance the private interests of the judge or others nor convey or permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence the judge. A judge should not testify voluntarily as a character witness.

Canon 5: A Judge Should Refrain from Political Activity

(A) General Prohibitions. A judge should not:

(1) act as a leader or hold any office in a political organization;

(2) make speeches for a political organization or candidate, or publicly endorse or oppose a candidate for public office; or

(3) solicit funds for, pay an assessment to, or make a contribution to a political organization or candidate, or attend or purchase a ticket for a dinner or other event sponsored by a political organization or candidate.

(C) Other Political Activity. A judge should not engage in any other political activity. This provision does not prevent a judge from engaging in activities described in Canon 4.

Sounds good in theory. In practice, not so much.

News bits: Brett Kavanaugh's nastiness files; Military secrets leaker mindset; Dem Party corruption

The Guardian reports about what we all knew long ago:

Revealed: Senate investigation into Brett Kavanaugh 

assault claims contained serious omissions

The 2018 investigation into the then supreme court nominee claimed there was ‘no evidence’ behind claims of sexual assault

A 2018 Senate investigation that found there was “no evidence” to substantiate any of the claims of sexual assault against the US supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh contained serious omissions, according to new information obtained by the Guardian.

The 28-page report was released by the Republican senator Chuck Grassley, the then chairman of the Senate judiciary committee. 

In an interview with the Guardian, Maxey confirmed that he was still a senior in high school at the time of the alleged incident, and said he had never been contacted by any of the Republican staffers who were conducting the investigation.

“I was not at Yale,” he said. “I was a senior in high school at the time. I was not in New Haven.” He added: “These people can say what they want, and there are no consequences, ever.”

How long ago did we know? At least since Sept. 2021. Way back then it was obvious to those with open minds that (i) Kavanaugh was a drunken sex predator, (ii) a liar, and (iii) Trump ordered the FBI to Whitewash the beer boofer's record. 

My Sept. 19, 2021 post quoted the WaPo:

Earlier this summer, reports said the Justice Department had confirmed that, in 2018, the FBI received more than 4,500 tips against Kavanaugh and sent “relevant” ones to the Trump White House, where they disappeared. This month, Kavanaugh joined the 5-to-4 ruling allowing a Texas antiabortion bounty-hunting law to take effect, though it plainly violates court precedents upholding a constitutional right to abortion. To many, that provided further evidence — along with his previous support for a Louisiana antiabortion law — that he’d bamboozled Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who provided the linchpin vote for his confirmation after he assured her that he respected those precedents as “settled law.”

The hearing record signaled that Kavanaugh was a Republican with an ax to grind long before his televised tirade in 2018 dismissing the misconduct allegations as a Democratic “political hit” — payback for Donald Trump’s election and Kavanaugh’s role in Ken Starr’s Javert-like pursuit of the Clintons.

He warned us then: “What goes around comes around.”

Yeah, no shit Sherlock. What filthy unfairness you falsely thought came around to you, crapped on us in your enraged, self-righteous Christian fanatic decision to support taking abortion rights away from all of us in your Christofascist decision in Dobbs. 

Q: Is an assessment that Kavanaugh is a lying sex predator hyperbole or otherwise unfair or unjustifiable?

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Apparently, that fine young man who leaked damaging military secrets was really angry and wanted human slaughter. The AP reports:

WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — The Massachusetts Air National guardsman accused of leaking highly classified military documents kept an arsenal of guns and said on social media that he would like to kill a “ton of people,” prosecutors said in arguing Thursday that 21-year-old Jack Teixeira should remain in jail for his trial.

But the judge at Teixeira’s detention hearing put off an immediate decision on whether he should be kept in custody until his trial or released to home confinement or under other conditions. Teixeira was led away from the court in handcuffs, black rosary beads around his neck, pending that ruling.  

In Teixeira’s detention hearing, Magistrate Judge David Hennessy expressed skepticism of defense arguments that the government hasn’t alleged Teixeira intended leaked information to be widely disseminated.

“Somebody under the age of 30 has no idea that when they put something on the internet that it could end up anywhere in this world?” the judge asked. “Seriously?”

I guess the rosary beads this fine young Christian Catholic carried was evidence that God approved and encouraged his desire for mass slaughter of innocents. 

But, one has gotta hand it to the defense attorneys to argue that the enraged traitor had no idea that stuff he posted on the interwebs could be seen by the public. That is evidence of how blatantly ridiculous that stupid nonsense arguments in court can be and still not trigger sanctions against the attorneys. Those outrageous arguments are considered reasonable and acceptable.

IMO, that judge should be impeached and the attorneys run for president on the Republican Party ticket. (I know, none of that makes any sense. But it makes the same amount of sense as what the traitor's attorneys argued.)

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Democrats can be incredibly stupid and/or corrupt: ABC News reports that all nine Supreme Court justices don't want any ethics rules:

There's no conservative-liberal divide on the U.S. Supreme Court when it comes to calls for a new, enforceable ethics code.

All nine justices, in a rare step, on Tuesday released a joint statement reaffirming their voluntary adherence to a general code of conduct but rebutting proposals for independent oversight, mandatory compliance with ethics rules and greater transparency in cases of recusal.

The implication, though not expressly stated, is that the court unanimously rejects legislation proposed by Democrats seeking to impose on the justices the same ethics obligations applied to all other federal judges.

"The justices ... consult a wide variety of authorities to address specific ethical issues," the members of the high court said in a document titled "Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices."

It appears to be the first time an entire court has publicly explained its approach to ethics issues and attested to specific parts of federal law governing their conduct.

"This statement aims to provide new clarity to the bar and to the public on how justices address certain recurring issues," they wrote, "and also seeks to dispel some common misconceptions."

Well, what can one say to that hard kick in the groin? 

Back when she was House speaker, Pelosi reluctantly agreed to support a law making insider trading by members of congress and their staff and families illegal. In essence, Pelosi openly supported corruption, but only the optics of the thing got her reluctant support.** Now, all three Democrats on the US Supreme Court have publicly endorsed corruption by justices on the bench that secrecy and no ethical rules effectively shields. 

** I don't know if that law ever passed. For all I know, insider trading in congress is rampant, fun and legal. 

Two initial reactions:

1. Maybe I am not going to vote for Biden in 2024 because the Democratic Party is too fracking corrupt. The Dems are trying hard to push me away and maybe I'll just have to give in and walk away.

2. Impeach all nine justices on what is essentially a corrupt, illegitimate court -- they are all traitors, crooks and/or liars, actively, implicitly or by whatever other ways one can be a traitor, crook and/or liar.

Q: Are my initial reactions unwarranted, unjustifiable and/or unwise? (I'm in a foul mood this morning 😡)

Politics bits: Possible bipartisan issues; Unsettling videos & commentary about Biden v. Trump

Possible bipartisanship? 

At this point, criticizing radical right Republican Party authoritarianism often seems mostly redundant. At least it is a way to keep tabs on how the threat is developing and the tactics being used to kill democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law. Guess there's some value in that.

At present, Biden frames his campaign as one of finishing the job of stopping Trumpist extremism, which he says he was elected to do in 2020. That platform, coupled with Trump's platform of stopping corrupt, evil, socialist Democratic Party tyranny and atheism is probably most of what the public is going to hear from now until the Nov. 2024 elections. Which side is out to defend democracy and oppose tyranny and which is out to destroy democracy and establish tyranny will be the focus. Both sides accuse the other of being the democracy destroying tyranny supporters. Aside from that, there will probably be limited policy debate. 

This list of issues focuses on what PD believes might be a basis for some policy discussion and bipartisanship that might appeal to people looking for something more than which side is evil and which is good.

1. Rural poverty 

2. More food banks 

3. Better hospitals 

4. End social promotion in high schools*  

5. More (equalized) education spending in poor zip codes 

6. Discuss social class concerns and policies to deal with problems, e.g., stagnant wages and cost of living increases 

7. Pass the Afghan Adjustment Act to keep out allies from being sent back and slaughtered by the Taliban in Afghanistan; the Act provides a path to permanent residency for the more than 70,000 Afghans paroled into the United States in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan

* I didn't know that was an issue

The problem with Biden

A couple of videos and comments that PD cite have cast the election differently for me, but not in a good way. The problem is that, bad as the Biden vs. Trump possibility is, it seems inevitable to too many people. In this video, Steve Schmidt lays out the problem of Biden vs. Trump.

• Biden failed to stop the American radical right extremist movement or its threat to democracy

• Most people will be voting against the side they believe will hurt them the most

• Biden won the 2020 election by a few thousand votes spread across three states - Trump absolutely can be re-elected

Here Schmidt argues that because of his age, Biden is not a good choice for 2024.

PD comments: You know I have ambivalent feelings about Steve Schmidt. But he made a statement acknowledging that nobody really wants Biden (65% of Dems surveyed would prefer he not run), and that he didn't really "start the job" he wants to "finish" re: putting Trump and his minions out to pasture. However, note the way he frames the "rematch" as almost "inevitable"-- as if the second time there would be a recognition of Biden's victory if he won, and the claims that we have an illegit president could be put behind us. He doesn't say that in those exact words, but I think one can infer the message by paying attention to subtext that lies between the lines. Maybe you'll hear it differently though. So, here's a link to Schmidt's statement on Biden's run. It *might* be an interesting way to raise the question about whether or not DP readers feel let down or not by Biden's performance, and whether they think this "rematch" is a road that could lead to both the GOP moving past the claim that Biden's not our "legit" president as it was "stolen." Also, it might be asked whether they have any faith that Biden and his admin (esp. including the AG) will really do anything more than they did this time. Just a suggestion. Here's the link to Schmidt's insightful but in my personal opinion carefully phrased, ironic endorsement for someone he admits he'd rather not see running: Steve Schmidt: No one wants Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden in 2024 election | The Warning

Biden's re-election announcement.

Biden says he wants to finish the job. But to a large extent he can't finish one key job because he and his useless Attorney General Merrick Garland failed to prosecute Trump. Time for prosecuting the at least the four or five obstruction of justice felonies Trump committed during the futile Mueller investigation has run out. The same is happening with other prosecutable Trump felonies. 

If it were not for the mountain of evidence of treason and crime the House 1/6 Committee forced into the public spotlight, Garland would not have even tried prosecute any Trump crime. Biden and Garland left the head of the snake untouched. Now, it is too late. Poll data indicates that Republicans are going to vote for Trump even if he is convicted of a crime, which GOP propaganda will easily dismiss as a partisan witch hunt. By May of 2021, it was obvious to me that Garland had no intention of even investigating Trump, much less prosecuting him. I was criticized for being too impatient at that time, but I was right. Garland was and still is a total failure and a disgrace. 

Simply put, Biden has failed to deliver on what he claimed was his key reason for running and being in office.

PD comments: Biden and his admin (esp. AG Garland) have done so little about MAGA that as he now concedes, they're not only back but strong enough to get the executive branch, and thus he sells himself as all that stands between US and Trump/ism. How exploitive. How manipulative. So this is one of those occasions where my advice to talk about Dems seems pertinent.

One last open question: Is it really a "done deal" or fait accompli-- this "rematch?" Mightn't Biden -- and for that matter Trump -- lose the primaries?" I mean stranger things happen. Why frame this as "inevitable" which seems to accept the cynical quasi-emotional blackmail of Biden's basic message-- "Hey, it's either me or Donny?"-- and is that really self evident? If everyone who says they don't want him (including those who didn't love him the first time round such as now-Biden supporting Bernie and the Progs) criticized this move by Biden as yet another broken pledge (he strongly implied he would be a 1 term -- transitional president -- a bridge to get us safely past the plague of Trump which, he said, is what made him want to run ) might he not lose credibility on being the anti-maga default to guy??

His anti-democracy talk has been all about East Europe and Taiwan, with nary a word devoted to our own tenuous democratic footing here at home. If media, social media, blogs, etc. all called him out on the BS that he's any kind of MAGA fighter at all, his whole appeal to saving Democracy at home might founder. There may be other qualified and younger, more contemporary thinking candidates being eclipsed by this power hungry guy who has compared himself (seriously) to FDR. Anyway, I'd be interested to learn more about what DP readers think about his launching a campaign so explicitly tethered to "finishing the battle for Democracy at home" against Trump/ism/MAGA. Just a suggestion.

In one of my replies to your question about suggestions, I mentioned another case of Democratic hubris and hypocrisy during a time of emergency level crises in the judiciary. Again we have Biden defending the destructive behavior of Diane Feinstein who has prevented the 1 person majority (hers is the swing vote) Judiciary Committee from making up for decades of lost time in bothering to appoint good democratic judges. Everyday, Biden and most Dems plead powerlessness due to GOP capture of the judiciary, and here we have BIDEN, SCHUMER, PELOSI AND DO-NOTHING DURBIN ALL CIRCLING THE WAGONS AND PROTECTING THEIR FRIEND DF WHO WON'T EVEN BE RUNNING AGAIN (i.e. she knows her health makes it all but impossible). Schumer's cynical ploy to pretend he would get a "temporary replacement" (as if he's so stupid as to not know Repubs won't oblige!); Pelosi's low-shot in suggesting this is all about sexism and ageism (when actually the age question is one that has been discussed openly for both male and female politicians-- including an editorial in the NYT which questioned the wisdom of Biden running again for that reason) and Durbin's strange combination of using DF's absence as an explanation for his own inaction and yet his support that she "have the time she needs to make her own decision" right down to Bernie Sanders stating that nobody should tell her what to do, she should only step down if that's what she wants-- all of this smacks of do-nothingness, of weird complacency as all methods of abortion continue to be stripped away in plain view.

It's hard for me to argue against that. There is no way to deny the failures of Biden and the Democratic Party leadership to defend democracy. 

The question is this, what should be done at this point? Write letters to younger, prominent Democrats asking them to run and be as bipartisan as they can? I'm at a loss.

Satanists bring their abortion extremism to Boston for 'SatanCon'; Christians respond

 As the Satanic Temple kicks off what is billed to be the largest gathering of Satanists in history this weekend in Boston, one pro-life leader warns about the "connection between Satanism and abortion" as churches are bracing for the influx of Satanists in the city.  

Known as SatanCon 2023, hundreds are slated to gather between Friday and Sunday for a sold-out event hosted by a group known for making fun of Christians and theologically conservative beliefs. 

Many of those gathered are likely to display their support for abortion as the Santinic Temple promotes what it calls abortion rituals and has filed legal challenges against state restrictions on legal access to abortion, arguing that abortion is a religious right. 

Priests for Life National Director Frank Pavone said in an interview with The Christian Post that while many attendees will deny that they are coming together to worship Satan, he was "very sensitive to the connection between Satanism and abortion."

"These Satanists who are gathering will claim that they do not worship the devil. In fact, they will claim that they do not even believe in a personal spiritual being called the Devil or Satan," Pavone said. 

"Anything that even appears to be worship of the devil or being elite with the devil is dangerous stuff because the devil is real."   😈 

https://www.christianpost.com/news/satanists-bring-abortion-worship-to-satancon-christians-respond.html

A Christian event called "ReviveBoston" is also planned in Boston this weekend, with organizers calling for thousands of Christians to overcome evil by gathering for worship, prayer and evangelizing the city.

Good Luck, Jamie!

A decent man who has been through a lot.  Mucho respect.

"Tuesday I thanked nurses, doctors & pharmacists at

@MedStarGUH who serve with splendid kindness—and saved my life over 5 months. I finished 6 rounds of 5-day chemo sessions—which they organized so I didn’t have to miss votes or hearings—and I rang the bell! A new chapter begins."

Tuesday I thanked nurses, doctors & pharmacists at @MedStarGUH who serve with splendid kindness—and saved my life over 5 months. I finished 6 rounds of 5-day chemo sessions—which they organized so I didn’t have to miss votes or hearings—and I rang the bell! A new chapter begins. pic.twitter.com/lAtpGyBG5b

— Jamie Raskin (@jamie_raskin) April 27, 2023\

 

 

 

News bits: The radical right movement to crush transparency; The evolving Twitterland hellscape

Clarence Thomas' failure to disclose his financial entanglements reflects his long-standing opposition to public disclosure laws. The Atlantic writes:

The justice has publicly stated that the failure to comply with the law by disclosing his financial entanglements with Crow was an unintended error, but if so, it was a mistake that is remarkably consistent with his ideological position that people who use their money and influence to steer the American political system ought to be able to do so in complete secrecy. This error was curiously convenient, in that it just happened to conceal a deep financial relationship with a very politically active right-wing donor who has bankrolled organizations that have a winning record before the Court. Perhaps more significant, Thomas’s idiosyncratic views about speech, democracy, and accountability have become more popular among the justices themselves as Republican appointments have moved the Court to the right. As Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern write at Slate, Thomas has argued over decades that laws compelling such disclosure are unconstitutional.  

In the 2010 Citizens United decision striking down limits on corporate electioneering, Thomas was the only justice to argue that the Court “should invalidate mandatory disclosure and reporting requirements,” because donors to the California anti-marriage-equality referendum Proposition 8 had been subject to threats, harassment, and verbal criticism. The first two are potentially illegal acts, and the last is a form of constitutionally protected speech. The conflation foreshadows the current right-wing discourse on free speech, the core of which is that conservatives have a right to prevent others from disassociating from them because they find their views noxious.  

Put simply, the conservative position had moved from heeding Scalia’s reminder in Doe v. Reed of the importance of transparency and civic bravery in a democracy, to embracing Thomas’s 2010 Citizens United opinion, which conflates threats, violence, and harassment with people thinking you’re a jerk.

I post this to warn about a growing sentiment among elite radical right Republicans and other right wing American extremists.* They increasingly see serious danger to their bigoted authoritarian (fascist IMO), pro-corruption and anti-democracy agenda in public disclosure laws. With that kind of an agenda, they should be concerned. Sunshine kills rot, or at least slows its spread.

Deep corruption like what Thomas operates comfortably with can be disrupted by public disclosure law. This important new front in the radical right's authoritarian war on democracy needs to be made well known to all Americans who fear for the fate of our democracy. 

* Another example of authoritarians imposing secrecy by crushing sunshine laws to hide sleaze and to deceive the public about what radicals are doing is happening in Florida (not surprisingly). There, the state legislature passed a law that shields the travel agendas of the governor's office. A news outlet in Orlando FL recently wrote: Florida Senate approves bill that shields travel records and who visits Gov. DeSantis' mansion -- The measure would create a public-records exemption for information held by law-enforcement agencies related to 'security or transportation services'. Given how broadly one can claim security or transportation services are, that covers just about everything the governor does. In other words, DeSantis has gone mostly dark to the public, but not to corrupt rich elites who always meet in secrecy, behind closed, usually guarded doors.

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Regarding the evolving Twitterlandia hellscape: The NYT writes about the toxic early aftermath of Elon Musk forcing people to pay to have their accounts verified: 

In the 24 hours after Twitter last week eliminated the blue check mark that historically served as a means of identifying public agencies, at least 11 new accounts began impersonating the Los Angeles Police Department.

More than 20 purported to be various agencies of the federal government. Someone pretending to be the mayor of New York City promised to create a Department of Traffic and Parking Enforcement and slash police funding by 70 percent.

Elon Musk’s decision to stop giving check marks to people and groups verified to be who they said were, and instead offering them to anyone who paid for one, is the latest tumult at Twitter, .... 

The changes have convulsed a platform that once seemed indispensable for following news as it broke around the world. The information on Twitter is now increasingly unreliable. Accounts that impersonate public officials, government agencies and celebrities have proliferated. So have propaganda and disinformation that threaten to further erode trust in public institutions. The consequences are only beginning to emerge.  

Some cheered the changes.

“Now you can even find me in the search,” tweeted Margarita Simonyan, the editor in chief of RT, the Russian state television network that has been accused of rampant misinformation and hate speech aimed at Ukraine. She signed off the tweet by saying, “Brotherly, Elon @elonmusk, from the heart.”

Well, at least people like authoritarian thugs, liars, grifters, rabid theocrats and crackpot QAnon-level conspiracy freaks will probably be mostly OK with Musk's new and improved Twitter. 

Russian professional liar Simonyan is pleased 

with the new and improved Twitter 

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Tales from abortion wars: A WaPo opinion comments on a hearing a Senate committee held to consider real-world impacts of forced birth laws:

The most compelling and heartbreaking testimony came from Amanda Zurawski, who lives in Texas. During her prepared remarks, she explained that after sending out invitations to her baby shower she began experiencing symptoms, her membranes ruptured, and she was “told by multiple doctors that the loss of our daughter was inevitable.” However, her doctors “didn’t feel safe enough to intervene as long as her heart was beating or until I was sick enough for the ethics board at the hospital to consider my life at risk and permit the standard health care I needed at that point — an abortion.”

Zurawski couldn’t very well drive to a “safe” state. (“Developing sepsis — which can kill quickly — in a car in the middle of the West Texas desert, or 30,000 feet above the ground, is a death sentence, and it’s not a choice we should have had to even consider.”) Instead, she had to wait — for either the fetus’s heart to stop or to get really sick. She nearly died from sepsis, which is why the standard of care in such circumstances is to perform an abortion before the woman gets very sick and risks death.

In a matter of minutes, I went from being physically healthy to developing a raging fever and dangerously low blood pressure. My husband rushed me to the hospital where we soon learned I had developed sepsis — a condition in which bacteria in the blood develops into infection, with the ability to kill in under an hour. Several hours later, after stabilizing just enough to deliver our stillborn daughter, my vitals crashed again. In the middle of the night, I was rapidly transferred to the ICU, where I would stay for three days as medical professionals battled to save my life. I spent another three days in a less critical unit of the hospital — all because I was denied access to reasonable health care due to Texas’s new abortion bans.

If she had been alone or had lacked good medical care to rescue her, she would have died.

As we all know, forced birth laws will kill some women, including even some who want a baby. That blood is on the hands of forced birthers, and if anything, whatever is left of their moral conscience (as I define it, not as forced birthers define it). 

Comments on jury duty

Sidebar at the bench

Perry: You're crazy!

Judge: I want another opinion

Perry: OK, and you're ugly too!

The case is over and verdicts were unanimous. Defendant not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of misdemeanor domestic violence, assault or battery, and not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of misdemeanor petty theft. 

This kerfuffle could have come from one of those impossibly bizarre domestic squabbles that Judge Judy decides all the time on TV. What a toxic domestic mess this couple was and still is. Married last December, marriage lasted 5 weeks then it blew up at the end of January. That was a couple of days after husband finds out his lovely bride was allegedly cheating on him with five different guys. He looked at the emails on her phone and his head exploded. That caused a serious drop in IQ and some really dumb behavior. 

The elephant in the room was the beyond a reasonable doubt standard of evidence the prosecution had to provide. The prosecuting attorney honestly believed there was plenty of evidence to convict, but it just wasn't there according to those pesky jurors.  

Did he beat her up as alleged? Maybe a little, but not by beyond a reasonable doubt. The alleged punch in the eye? The medical report said no physical damage. The eyeball photo showed no physical damage. The body bruises in the other photos were hard to see unless the lights in the courtroom got turned way down, and then by golly, there were some mild bruises sort of where the lovely bride, her sister and mom said they sort of should have been, kind of, maybe.

My contribution to the case and justice generally was me complaining to the bailiff at the first break after the prosecution started that the court room lights to too bright. Us jurors could not see what was being shown very well. After that first break, it got lots darker in the room when evidence slides were being shown. Germaine struck a huge blow for justice!! Germaine wondered why this issue had not come up in prior cases in that court room.

There was lots of he said-she said stuff in evidence. He allegedly beat her up multiple times. She allegedly tried to strangle him in public at the JC Penny jewelry counter when the happy couple were looking to buy their wedding rings. She allegedly flew into a snit when he wanted to buy a lower cost ring and she wanted a big rock. She allegedly was falling down drunk at a night club where the lovely bride's mom and dad were to be told that the toxic couple were married. Surprise mom and dad, he's not my boyfriend, he's my husband! 

At the club that same night, the husband allegedly lost his wedding ring when he kept catching her as she was falling down due to allegedly waaaay too much alcohol in the lovely bride. The lovely bride and her mom both testified she only had one or two regular margaritas. Singles, mind you, not doubles. Allegedly.

There were some shocking gaps in the evidence. Well, shocking to me at least. One was how far from the apartment window was the car where the alleged domestic violence happened? The sister testified that she saw him hit her from that window. The question was, could she really see in that car from the apartment window? All that had to be done was effing measure the damned distance to give some idea of the distance. Instead we got incoherent blither from the judge, and one or both attorneys about how far away the car was. I had no idea and neither did any other juror. It was pure speculation. We were told that we could not speculate, so how were we to weigh the sister's assertion that she saw the defendant hit her sister? 

Another evidence gap arose from bias. The cops assumed the male was the "dominant attacker" and the female was the victim. They did not pursue the defendant's side of the story. The testimony from the husband was that he was the victim. All in all, that sounded like it might be true. Both could have been domestic abusers of each other. This truly was a toxic couple in a toxic marriage, allegedly (because the marriage certificate was not in evidence and everyone kept calling the husband the boyfriend - my God this case was confusing out the wazoo).

There were some other things in play that us jurors absolutely, positively could not speculate about in deciding, so we didn't. One was, who among the people involved in or close to this drama, were legal residents. There was very little testimony on this at all, only one comment in passing by the accused husband. Nonetheless, it was pretty clear that most everyone involved or close here were probably not US citizens and probably not legal residents. Only the lovely bride and her sister appeared to probably be US citizens. Maybe.

Four thoughts stand out:

1. Circumstantial evidence is just as good as direct evidence. The judge said so and that's that.

2. In he said-she said type criminal cases, the beyond a reasonable doubt evidence standard is a real monster. Now I see why it is so freaking hard to convict rapists, domestic violence perpetrators and the like. 

 3. I'll probably call the judge and ask him to consider putting a suggestion box in the jury deliberation rooms (that we were locked into). Some things really need to be done a lot better than they are being done. For example, when the attorneys questioned the mom (who could not speak English), the translator was translating at the same time the attorney was still talking. It was confusing as hell with two people talking two different languages at once. In my opinion, that is fubar.*

* Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition 

4. California state law forbids jurors from selling their stories for at least 90 days after the end of a trial. So sorry, I can't sell this yet, so I am just giving it away. Well, most of it. There's still a lot of bizarre that's not mentioned above.

Legal argument helps persuade jurors

News bits: Ted Cruz supported 1/6 coup attempt; Etc.

Keeping eyes 👀on rationality: The Daily Beast reports:

New Audio Shows Ted Cruz Scheming to Steal 2020 Election

The audio was from obtained by MSNBC from a cache of recordings taken by Fox whistleblower Abby Grossberg

According to the files, Cruz reportedly tried to sell his plan to Fox host and Trump ally Maria Bartiromo on Jan. 2—four days before the Capitol riot—pitching a scheme to overthrow the 2020 election by blocking the certification of Joe Biden’s win on Jan. 6, then establishing a commission to investigate the nonexistent claims of fraud which would ultimately “decide” who to inaugurate.

“As we were looking at this Jan. 6 certification, all of the options that were being discussed were problematic,” Cruz explains.

“And so I wanted to find a path that was consistent with the Constitution and the law, and that address these very real serious claims.”

Among the possibilities here, two stand out. First, Cruz was stupid and jaw droppingly naïve because he actually believed the 2020 election was stolen. Second, Cruz was a cynical, liar who pretended to care about the rule of law to maintain plausible deniability that he intended anything tyrannical, treasonous or illegal. Based on his education and experiences in schools and universities**, it is reasonable to believe that Cruz was and still is neither stupid nor naïve.

By those facts and analysis, it is most likely he was just being a cynical, treasonous liar who was looking to build and maintain plausible deniability for his treasonous, fascist intentions.

Q: Is the assertion that Cruz is a cynical, treasonous liar mostly unreasonable or mostly reasonable?

** Wikipedia: 

Ted Cruz education: Princeton, undergraduate BA, Harvard Law School JD.

For junior high school, Cruz went to Awty International School in Houston. Cruz attended two private high schools: Faith West Academy, near Katy, Texas; and Second Baptist High School in Houston, from which he graduated as valedictorian in 1988. During high school, Cruz participated in a Houston-based group known at the time as the Free Market Education Foundation, a program that taught high school students the philosophies of economists such as Milton Friedman and Frédéric Bastiat.

After high school, Cruz studied public policy at Princeton University. While at Princeton, he competed for the American Whig-Cliosophic Society's Debate Panel and won the top speaker award at both the 1992 U.S. National Debating Championship and the 1992 North American Debating Championship. In 1992, he was named U.S. National Speaker of the Year and, with his debate partner David Panton, Team of the Year by the American Parliamentary Debate Association.

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Regarding Republican deceit tactics: By now, it is undeniable that GOP elites, donors and major propagandists are disciplined, practiced and without any shred of moral qualm about routinely slathering thick gobs of dark free speech on the public. Lies, slanders, deflections, projections, unwarranted opacity and crackpot reasoning are the norm for radical right (fascist) Republican elites. Knowing that much or maybe most of the public opposes the kinds of gigantic cuts the fascist GOP wants to impose, it needs to deal with how to sell the public on things it does not want. Few or none of the cuts are in the public’s interest, so public opposition is rational. The NYT writes about GOP deceit tactics to deal with this public relations (propaganda) problem: 

Don’t Call It a ‘Cut’: G.O.P. Tries to Rebrand Its Plan to Reduce Spending

House Republicans pitched their 2011 debt limit bill aggressively, trumpeting a zeal for deep spending cuts. Their latest fiscal plan tiptoes around them, with a milder slogan to match

In 2011, as a wave of populist fervor swept through Congress, delivering a restive class of anti-spending Republicans who had no appetite for raising the debt limit, House G.O.P. leaders rallied their members around a bill with a blunt, snappy slogan: “Cut, Cap and Balance.”

But this time, in a bow to political reality and economic necessity, it is a substantial retreat from what hard-right Republicans once sought, and it carries a kinder, gentler catchphrase to match: the Limit, Save, Grow Act.

These days, Republicans have all but excised the phrase “spending cuts” from their lexicon. When Mr. McCarthy took to the House floor last week to announce the bill, he did not utter the term. Asked last week on CNBC where House Republicans planned to cut spending, Mr. McCarthy replied: “I don’t call them cuts because I call them savings.”

So, domestic spending cuts are savings, not cuts. See how fun and easy dark free speech is? As always, how effective will this softer, gentler brand of fascist deceit and manipulation be? We’ll probably find out after the 2024 elections, maybe some time sooner.

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Lawsuit watch: Devin Nunes loses his defamation lawsuit because the allegations he objected to were true. In defamation law, truth of the allegedly defamatory allegations is a valid legal defense against liability. Politico writes: 

A federal judge has thrown out libel suits former Rep. Devin Nunes and his relatives filed over a 2018 Esquire article alleging that a dairy farm owned by Nunes’ family members hired undocumented workers.

U.S. District Court Judge C.J. Williams ruled Tuesday that the claims at issue in writer Ryan Lizza’s story — “Devin Nunes’s Family Farm is Hiding a Politically Explosive Secret” — were essentially accurate. The judge said that conclusion was fatal to the suits brought by Nunes, his relatives and the company used to operate the dairy, NuStar Farms.

“The assertion that NuStar knowingly used undocumented labor is substantially, objectively true,” wrote Williams, an appointee of former President Donald Trump.

It is good to know that this particular Trump judge as not gone fascist rogue in this lawsuit. Some of his other judges are enemies of the state, including his three Supreme Court fascists.

Devin and his cow

Even crackpots fear The Devin

Respecting The Devin

Science: Reality, including humans, may be a hologram projection

For a general audience 

An unproven but now accepted possibility is that our perception of a 3 dimensional spatial reality, length, width, depth) (plus the non-spatial time dimension) arises from a 2 dimensional universe (just length and width in curved space). In other words, we and what we perceive as the universe might be a holographic projection of a 2 dimensional reality. This idea arose about 25 years ago.

The hologram hypothesis was applied to concerns that when matter got sucked into black holes, the information inherent in the matter was lost by being crushed into oblivion by gravity. Information here means everything needed to be known to perfectly reassemble the exact thing that fell into the black hole, including the exact location of every single atom in the thing. One hypothesis arose that as matter fell in, all of its information content was conserved at the black hole’s event horizon. Once this understanding arose, it was immediately obvious that it could apply to the entire universe. That led to the thought that actual reality is two dimensional and the geometry of space is curved instead of flat. 

At present, existing data says the geometry of space in our universe is flat . This is different from saying space is not flat because it has three dimensions, length, width, and depth.  

Flat space geometry means Ω0 = 1 in the image below

The mind blower here is about geometry, not spatial dimensions or time. The geometry of space could look like one of these:

The Goldilocks scenario for our universe, Ω0 = 1, is the most plausible based on current data. Most cosmological evidence points to the universe’s density as being just right — the equivalent of around six protons per 1.3 cubic yards — and that it expands in every direction without curving positively or negatively. In other words, the universe is flat. (Perhaps this will come as some consolation to anyone, i.e., flat Earthers, disappointed by Earth’s roundness.)

The mind blower analogy

Start walking along the edges of a room square room until you get back to your starting place. It takes four 90 degree turns to get back to start. That is flat space, i.e., Euclidean geometry. But in a universe where Ω0 < 1 (gravity eventually pulls all matter in the universe back into a single point), space is curved into a sphere. Start walking from a point on the equator of Earth to the North Pole, turn 90 degrees and walk back to the equator, and then turn 90 degrees again and walk back to the starting point. Only three 90 degree turns were needed to get back to start. That is curved space. 😵‍💫😶‍🌫️

Researchers still cannot prove that there is a 2 dimensional universe and what we perceive is a 4 dimensional projection via quantum entanglement. Physicists and cosmologists are still trying to figure out experiments that would prove or disprove the hologram hypothesis. 

Wikipedia: The holographic principle is an axiom in string theories and a supposed property of quantum gravity that states that the description of a volume of space can be thought of as encoded on a lower-dimensional boundary to the region, such as a light-like boundary like a gravitational horizon [e.g., a black hole’s event horizon].

Germaine’s warranty is void 

if this hologram sticker is removed

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For science wonks

dS (de Stitter space) = our 4-D (four dimensional) universe (length, width, depth, time)

CFT (conformal field theory) = 2-D (or other dimensional) space where angles between lines and curves are always preserved (at least length and width)

Scientific American writes:

A quarter of a century ago a conjecture shook the world of theoretical physics. It had the aura of revelation. “At first, we had a magical statement ... almost out of nowhere,” says Mark Van Raamsdonk, a theoretical physicist at the University of British Columbia. The idea, put forth by Juan Maldacena of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., suggested something profound: that our universe could be a hologram. Much like a 3-D hologram emerges from the information encoded on a 2-D surface, our universe’s 4-D spacetime could be a holographic projection of a lower-dimensional reality.

How could a theory that included gravity be the same as a theory that had no place for gravity? How could they describe the same universe? But the duality has largely held up. In essence, it argues that we can understand what happens inside a volume of spacetime that has gravity by studying the quantum-mechanical behavior of particles and fields at that volume’s surface, using a theory with one less dimension, one in which gravity plays no role.

.... spacetime may not be fundamental—it may be something that emerges from quantum entanglement in a lower-dimensional system. These advances all involve the theoretically plausible spacetime of anti–de Sitter space, which is not the de Sitter space that describes our universe. But physicists are optimistic that they’ll one day arrive at a duality that works for both. If that were to happen, it could lead to a theory of quantum gravity, which would combine Einstein’s general relativity with quantum mechanics. It would also imply that our universe is in truth a hologram.

The idea took some time to sink in. “There were hundreds, thousands of papers, just checking [the duality] because at first, it [seemed] so ridiculous that some nongravitational quantum theory could actually just be the same thing as a gravitational theory,” theoretical physicist Mark Van Raamsdonk says. But AdS (anti-de Sitter space )/CFT (conformal field theory) held up to scrutiny, and soon theorists were using it to answer some confounding questions.

The connection between entanglement entropy in the CFT and the geometry of spacetime in the AdS led to another important result—the notion that spacetime on the AdS side emerges from quantum entanglement on the CFT side, not just in black holes but throughout the universe. The idea is best understood by analogy. Think of a very dilute gas of water molecules. Physicists can’t describe this system using the equations of hydrodynamics because the dilute gas does not behave like a liquid. But suppose the water molecules condense into a pool of liquid water. Now those very same molecules are subject to the laws of hydrodynamics. “You could ask, originally, where was that hydrodynamics? It just wasn’t relevant,” Van Raamsdonk says. 

Something similar happens in AdS/CFT. On the CFT side, you can start with quantum subsystems—smaller subsets of the overall system you’re describing—each with fields and particles, without any entanglement. In the equivalent AdS description, you’d have a system with no spacetime. Without spacetime, Einstein’s general relativity isn’t relevant .... But when the entanglement on the CFT side starts increasing, the entanglement entropy of the quantum subsystems begins to correspond to patches of spacetime that emerge in the AdS description. These patches are physically disconnected from each other. Going from patch A to patch B isn’t possible without leaving both A and B; however, each individual patch can be described using general relativity.

Now, increase the entanglement of the quantum subsystems in the CFT even more, and something intriguing happens in the AdS: the patches of spacetime begin connecting. Eventually you end up with a contiguous volume of spacetime. “When you have the right pattern of entanglement, you start to get a spacetime on the other side,” Van Raamsdonk says. “It’s almost like the spacetime is a geometrical representation of the entanglement. Take away all the entanglement, and then you just eliminate the spacetime.” Engelhardt agrees: “Entanglement between quantum systems is important for the existence and emergence of spacetime.” The duality suggested that the spacetime of our physical universe might simply be an emergent property of some underlying, entangled part of nature.

Van Raamsdonk credits the AdS/CFT correspondence for making physicists question the very nature of spacetime. If spacetime emerges from the degree and nature of entanglement in a lower-dimensional quantum system, it means that the quantum system is more “real” than the spacetime we live in, in much the same way that a 2-D postcard is more real than the 3-D hologram it creates. “That [space itself and the geometry of space] should have something to do with quantum mechanics is just really shocking,” he says. 

 

Climate change legal development

In what is a real surprise, the Republican Supreme Court has allowed American cities to sue major polluters like oil companies for climate change damages in state courts. I did not expect this. The polluters have been fighting this for years. The Guardian writes:

‘Like a dam breaking’: experts hail decision to let US climate lawsuits advance

Cities bringing climate litigation against oil majors welcome US supreme court’s decision to rebuff appeal to move cases to federal courts

The decision, climate experts and advocates said, felt “like a dam breaking” after years of legal delays to the growing wave of climate lawsuits facing major oil companies.

Without weighing in on the merits of the cases, the supreme court on Monday rebuffed an appeal by major oil companies that want to face the litigation in federal courts, rather than in state courts, which are seen as more favorable to plaintiffs [cities].

ExxonMobil Corp, Suncor Energy Inc and Chevron Corp had asked for the change of venue in lawsuits by the state of Rhode Island and municipalities in Colorado, Maryland, California and Hawaii.

Six years have passed since the first climate cases were filed in the US, and courts have not yet heard the merits of the cases as fossil fuel companies have succeeded in delaying them. In March, the Biden administration had argued that the cases belonged in state court, marking a reversal of the position taken by the Trump administration when the supreme court last considered the issue.

Maybe this will mark a shift in the balance of power in America's climate change wars. Up to now, the polluters had all the power by corrupting the federal government in their favor. The next key questions to be answered are whether (i) the polluters will be found liable in state courts, and (ii) state court verdicts will be upheld after the polluters appeal to the rigidly pro-capitalism and pro-pollution Republican Supreme Court.

This just might turn out to be a game-changer.