.com.unity Forums - America the Police State

.com.unity Forums (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/index.php)

- Space Empires: IV & V (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=20)

- - America the Police State (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=22593)

America the Police State

I am reading an article about the over criminalization of US Society. LINK (Foxnews.com)

Quote:

"When you start moving to that third-world model, where even law abiding people are afraid of police, it�s a big step backward for civilization, and even law enforcement in general," Kopel said

Quote:

The book chronicles several horror stories.

There�s 8-year-old Hamadi Alston (search) of New Jersey, who was put in a jail cell in 2003 for five hours for using an L-shaped piece of paper he found in a book as a play gun in the schoolyard. There have been numerous reports of people � even children � being arrested and detained with handcuffs for eating in Washington, D.C., subway stations.

Schoolteacher Hope Clarke was hauled off a cruise ship in 2003 allegedly for not paying a fine for leaving marshmallows at a Yellowstone National Park campsite. After being detained for 10 hours, she was taken into shackles before a judge, who by that time acknowledged she really did pay the fine.

Dave Kopel of the Independence Institute (search) in Denver said aggressive law enforcement has become increasingly a problem since the 1990s, when more agencies incorporated SWAT teams and governments wanted tougher zero-tolerance policies.

We know first hand around here about stupid laws. A car prowler cought by the car owner is let free, with a ticket, and the car owner is arrested and charged with assualt. Go figure.

Re: America the Police State

Yep, it kinda makes you wonder.

First thing that comes to mind is:
Do you have to fail an IQ test to be a cop in the inner city?

Second thing is:
If a cop stops you and you are less than fully polite, is there is always some law that you are in violation of?

Third thing that comes to mind is:
Why does every state legislature have to pass a bunch of new laws every year? Wouldn�t it be more efficient to just enforce the ones already on the books? And how often do you hear about old laws being removed from the code?

Re: America the Police State

No, but it helps.

Dunno. Do you have one of those federally approved and mandated trash bags in your car that they stopped making a few dacades ago?

Because they have to be seen as Doing Something to get re-elected. Yes, but when has government been about efficency? Besides, do you really want them enforcing what's actually on the books (see above)? Oh, about 1% as often as I hear about them passing a new law... if that.

Re: America the Police State

You want an old law? Brazilian Comercial Code of Laws: Published in 1850 and still in use (with some modifications)... it�s funny to read it, it was created when Brazil was still a Monarchy and is full of strange lingustical expressions, and it even have a chapter (now invalidated) that regulates the comerce of slaves...

Re: America the Police State

Quote:

Dunno. Do you have one of those federally approved and mandated trash bags in your car that they stopped making a few dacades ago?

You know that I once got a ticket for this. I told my Grandfather about it and he called his friend, Bill. Bill was a lawyer at the time, nearing retirement. We disputed the ticket and it was thrown out.

That was in 1988.

I now keep a trash bag in the car at all times. STUPID LAWS are on the books so STUPID COPS / PROSECUTING ATTORNEYS can make your life hell and steal your money and your freedoms.

Re: America the Police State

Ah, but do you have the specific, mandated variety? If not, theoretically you can still get a ticket for not having it....

Re: America the Police State

You know whats funny, the laws are seldom if ever inforced against those who wrote them. Take for instance the law that states that a senator or congressman are not to be paid for days the do not work. Senator Kerry tops the list for days missed with pay. He was paid over 600k that he was not entitled too. Yet do you think he, or all the others, will give the money back? Hell I was once hounded by the IRS for owning them $14.50 one year. The fines and fees brought that amount to nearly $120.00 a year later when they kept most of my return to pay it. Yet senators and congressmen can keep several hundred thousand dollars of our money without question even though there is a law against that?

It is extremly frustrating to know that the rich keep getting richer while the poor are made to pay more and more.

In France they knew how to deal with injustices like this. They simply did the unthinkable and beheaded everyone.

Re: America the Police State

Careful! If the wrong person reads that, you could be labeled with the T word!

Re: America the Police State

Quote:

Jack Simth said:
Careful! If the wrong person reads that, you could be labeled with the T word!

ROTFLMAO If the peeps at Homeland Insecurity ever run this forum past their filters, they will think they have cracked a huge cell of anarchists.

Re: America the Police State

POST

US GOVERNMENT
DEPARTMENT OF AMERICAN PATRIOTISM

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT:

William Christopher, AKA Atrocities, has been placed under arrest for suspicion of anti American behavior.

When contacted by Government Officers, YOU WILL, comply with their demand that you provide testimony against William Christopher or face co-conspiratorial charges.

END POST

Re: America the Police State

Well, the T hunt is slightly improved over the pervious C and W hunts. A few actual T's at least caused serious, local trouble before the hunt started. Not that it's much of an improvement, for practical purposes.

Re: America the Police State

Heh, america is only describable as the land of ehm, well, overreacting...

versus anything.

it's like a woman, with moodswings and sudden outbursts of anger you dont have any idea where they came from. and irrational fears and reactions upon them.

I think the woman analogy (albeit stereotypical-woman analogy) is the best fitting I found so far.

Re: America the Police State

Quote:

boran_blok said:
Heh, america is only describable as the land of ehm, well, overreacting...

So true.
"Nipplegate" anyone? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: America the Police State

Quote:

Atrocities said:
POST

US GOVERNMENT
DEPARTMENT OF AMERICAN PATRIOTISM

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT:

William Christopher, AKA Atrocities, has been placed under arrest for suspicion of anti American behavior.

When contacted by Government Officers, YOU WILL, comply with their demand that you provide testimony against William Christopher or face co-conspiratorial charges.

END POST

Not as crazy as you may have though it sounded. The "Department of Homeland Security" and the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act have also been hugely abused.

The PATRIOT Act protects us from:

# People eating curry.
http://www.alternet.org/story/15770
# Improper storage of cocoa and marshmallows
http://www.hypocrites.com/article17498.html
# Possession with intent to distribute of a counterfeit Rubik's Cube
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=206591
# Violation of a work visa (after the employer was ordered to fire him)
http://www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=140_0_2_0_C
# Bribing city officials to let customers touch topless dancers
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/st...110410819.html
# Photographing Cheney's Hotel
http://www.2600.com/news/view/article/1441
# Finding sensors on public land near area 51
http://www.prisonplanet.com/terroris...t_area_51.html

Re: America the Police State

Quote:

Baron Munchausen said:

Quote:

I researched this and have found nothing to support it. No huge round ups of people or violations of peoples civil liberties. Nothing. So without supportive fact, I would say that of this is just consiritory fear and hog wash.

Then again, if they can keep the UFO at Area 51 secret for all of these years, and that Stargate program, then anything is possible.

Re: America the Police State

Quote:

boran_blok said:
Heh, america is only describable as the land of ehm, well, overreacting...

What do you mean America? People in general, all over the world, overreact quite frequently...

Re: America the Police State

I don�t remember who said it, but it is true:

"One person is intelligent and reasonable, but a group of persons is a beast controlled by basic and irrational instincts."

Re: America the Police State

Quote:

Imperator Fyron said:

Quote:

boran_blok said:
Heh, america is only describable as the land of ehm, well, overreacting...

What do you mean America? People in general, all over the world, overreact quite frequently...

it's more apparent in america because:

1: more people united than any other country.
2: more power to do things (read: army & economic power)

Re: America the Police State

This is an interesting topic that appeared on this forum. The past few weeks I have been reading articles about Someone who went by the name John Titor. http://www.johntitor.com/
I found the story thought provoking and strange. Many small points made it seem real or one of the greatest Hoax's of our time.
Essentially John Titor indicates that a civil war starts in america about now and you can recognize the enemy because they arrest people and you never hear from them again. Just strange that this topic shows up at the same time that I am wondering about this John Titor fellow.
I think we now have a pretty big chance of federal abuse of power right now than at any time in our history. The first Civil war in america was at the start fought because of states rights. The idea that the power of the federal government over the power of the states was supreme. At any rate read the John Titor story and tell me what you think.

Re: America the Police State

I had a link to a site where a professor blows all of Titor's "science" out of the water. Wish I could find it, but the bottom line is people will believe what they want to believe.

Re: America the Police State

Yes, "John Titor" makes some rather eerie predictions. The out-right civil war doesn't start until 2008, though. Some sort of civil unrest is supposed to start around the 2004 election, and I suppose it's entirely possible that some protest movement might get going in the next few months. The confrontations between government agents and resistors keep getting worse and worse (he described it as 'a Waco type situation every month, constantly getting worse' as I recall) until it reaches a critical mass around 2008 and people realize it's outright war between the government and the resistance. You're right that one of the people talking to him asked 'how will we know who is the enemy' and he responded 'they'll be the ones arresting people and holding them without due process'. That sounds pretty accurate after the so-called 'Patriot Act' and additions were passed.

Re: America the Police State

Quote:

sachmo said:
I had a link to a site where a professor blows all of Titor's "science" out of the water. Wish I could find it, but the bottom line is people will believe what they want to believe.

Actually, you cannot 'blow Titor's "science" out of the water' because he doesn't explain it in enough detail. And he admitted he's not a scientist so anything 'wrong' about it could just as easily be his own misunderstanding. I don't think you can refute the Titor material based on science. We either need proof of who he was (i.e. a real person living here & how has to be shown to be the hoaxer) or we need to see history go in a completely different direction than he predicted. Right now it looks like his take on history was frighteningly close. The one thing that baffles me is how the EU would send an army against the Russians. Now there's a truly 'off the wall' prediction. Still, if people here in the US start shooting at each other by 2008 I'd be thinking about getting a 1950s style nuclear bunker in the backyard before 2015 arrives... or maybe moving to Australia.

Re: America the Police State

Quote:

Baron Munchausen said:

Quote:

Well sir, try this:

http://communities.anomalies.net/cgi...=000482#000000

It was good enough for me, anyway. Titor was entertaining, and he sure fooled a lot of people, but...

Re: America the Police State

Or for those who don't like links:

Quote:

With Dr. Robert Brown's permission I am posting his replies to my emails to him regarding his opinion of the Titor saga.

I haven't posted his email address. I've been in contact with him as has a member of the Above Top Secret board. He's been very kind in spending a considerable amount of time in considering and formulating his replies. As you can see in his reply below, he's agreed to spend even more time on this but he also requests that the number of persons inquiring be very limited. I'll post his replies without editing them and I respectfully ask that you let me be the person who contacts him...I do not want this kind and valuable source to dry up:
------------------------------------------------
> From: "Robert G. Brown"
> Date: 2003/09/08 Mon AM 11:34:00 EDT
> To: "E. W. Darbyshire"
> Subject: Re: Thank You For Your Replies Re. John Titor
>

> Well, I'm not really an expert in differential geometry or general
> relativity, although I'm pretty competent in E&M and special
> relativity, including the "grown up" forms (group theory and arbitrary
> boosts and rotations via generators, not just kiddie-physics Lorentz
> transformations).
>
> However, I'd listen to Kaku, if nobody else, reason being some of
> "Titor"'s time-travel "facts" sound suspiciously like they came
> straight from Kaku's "Hyperspace", right down to the "who couldn't
> love strings" discussion. What, Kaku's book is STILL popular reading
> in 2036? I thoroughly enjoyed it myself, but don't see it surviving
> until then any more than anybody goes around reading "1-2-3 Infinity"
> any more.
>
> In my previous replies, I really haven't gotten started on Titor's
> physics -- or his engineering, which is even more egregious. Just
> this one last time, I will waste a few hours on this by pointing out
> only a few of the problems. Most serious physicists would probably
> not bother to waste the time -- you are just lucky I'm not a serious
> physicist;-)
>
> For example, he asserts that his black holes are "the size of an
> electron" in several places.
>
> Say what?
>
> An electron is an elementary particle. Elementary particles in
> physics have no structure -- they are not composite particle bound
> together with some additional force and hence possessed of a spectral
> structure. Contrast the electron with the atom (made up of nucleus and
> electrons; we ARE part of the structure inherent to this system:-).
> With the nucleus (neutrons and protons, glued with nuclear force,
> plenty of shell structure:-). With the proton and the neutron
> (elementary quarks glued with gluons, and yes, there is structure in
> the form of an SU(3) particle zoo). In all these cases the particles
> have a "size" consisting of the physical extent of the composite
> particle wavefunction.
>
> An electron or quark is NOT made up (so far as we can tell) of smaller
> particles glued together. As far as we can tell, with very high
> energy collisions, they have no physical extent and are >>truly
> pointlike entities<<. In fact, we EXPECT elementary particles to be
> pointlike entities, as if they are not pointlike (and if they are
> charged) we have to figure out what ADDITIONAL force binds all the
> charge together -- the particle suddenly has a rather large energy
> associated with its binding.
>
> So why say his BH's are the "size of an electron" when there ain't any
> such thing? Why not say they are "1.7 fermi in diameter" or "the size
> of a proton" (same order of magnitude, and this is a number that
> actually exists at least to some approximation). Or just give us the
> mass -- 10^12 kg, for example. Perhaps because there are some
> PROBLEMS with that mass, hmmm.
>
> There is actually a lot of interesting physics associated with the
> notion of e.g. electron size. Without boring you with details, there
> are lovely papers by Dirac, McManus and others concerning radiation
> reaction, preacceleration, electron size/shape in the classical
> regime. However, the most amusing result of all of this in the current
> context is that there IS one (classical) sense in which an electron
> can be assigned a "size" (and another in a quantum sense, but that is
> clearly not what he means here as the BH would be much too large to be
> believable, not that this one IS believable).
>
> If one assumes that the electron is a ball of uniform charge, and that
> the self-energy of all of this charge (bound together with some
> mythical charge-glue for which there isn't a shred of evidence to the
> best of my
> knowledge) is equal to the mass energy, then one gets (ignoring scalar
> factors of order unity and using "latex" to do ascii algebra, hopefully
> fairly clearly):
>
> \frac{ k e^2} {a} = m_e c^2
>
> which can be solved for a, the classical electron radius:
>
> a = \frac{k e^2}{m_e c^2} \approx 3 fm
>
> which is not at all coincidentally the same order as the size of the
> proton or the nucleus of your choice, which DOES confine a net charge
> of order e with a stronger attractive force but (consequently) has a
> much larger mass. The Schwarzchild radius for the electron mass is
> determined from a very similar computation (again neglecting scalar
> factors order unity)
>
> \frac{ G m_e^2} {r_s} = m_e c^2
>
> or
>
> r_s = \frac{G m_e^2}{m_e c^2} = \frac{G m_e}{c^2}
>
> which is number so tiny as to be meaningless (order 10^-57 meters,
> smaller than the Planck length and hence it IS meaningless).
>
> An amusing computation: Suppose r_s = 1 fm (somewhat smaller than "an
> electron"). Then m_BH = r_s*c^2/G, right? Plug 'n' chug. On my
> calculator, 10^-15 * 9x10^16/6.67x10^-11 \approx 10^12 kg. Let's see,
> that would be, um, a billion metric tons, the mass of a cube of water
> 1000 meters to the side (as 1000^3 = 10^9 and water conveniently
> masses a metric ton, 10^3 kg per cubic meter. How come nobody in your
> group actually did these simple computations?
>
> His suitcase contains TWO of these? He carried this suitcase on a 67
> Chevy? Man, they must put a hell of a suspension in those babies...
>
> Maybe he meant some other "radius of the electron". Alas that I don't
> know of any, as the electron doesn't have a radius in the first place
> and even the classical radius above is thus a fairly meaningless
> artifact. Still, let's suppose that he (a lay person and
> self-confessed physics idiot) was "confused" and that he meant that
> the BH's in question were around 10^-24 meters in radius, which is what
> I get for BH's that mass >>1<< metric ton. We'll use this number
> below just for the hell of it, since I vaguely recall hemming and
> hawing by him on the list that suggested that this is the order of
> magnitude of the size of his BH's. Ha.
>
> Next, Titor claims to shoot electrons into his BH to keep up its mass
> and do all sorts of other things. Oh my sweet Jesus.
>
> If you "shoot electrons into a BH", this has the unfortunate side
> effect of making the ball more and more negatively charged. This has
> all sorts of interesting (classical) consequences:
>
> a) It becomes harder to shoot each additional charge in. It is
> easy to think "Oh my, it is a black hole and hence gravity MUST be the
> strongest force present", but this is not only not the case it isn't
> even CLOSE. Compare ke^2 \approx 10^-28 to GM_b m_e \approx 10^-29
> and one sees that within a factor order ten they are the SAME, with
> electrostatic repulsion likely somewhat higher, and this is assuming,
> BTW, that the BH mass is 10^12 kg and not 1000 kg.
>
> b) Wait! Doesn't that mean that if I shoot one electron in
> (charging the black hole to -e) that the SECOND electron I shoot into
> a BH of mass around 10^12 kg is precisely unbound at the black hole
> radius? So that the black hole may be black for a lot of things, but
> not electrons? It does. For a black hole to remain bound, the NET
> FORCE on its components has to create accelerations of order c^2/r_s.
> Two electrons inside radius a have a repulsive energy (NOT attractive)
> on the same order as the gravitational binding energy of the entire
> black hole of the same radius to the same electron. Shooting the
> second electron into the black hole has a significant chance of
> knocking the first electron OUT of the black hole (as it becomes
> unbound) and REDUCING its mass. Or worse.
>
> c) Wait again, don't we have to think about quantum mechanics
> somewhere in here? We do indeed. Even in quantum mechanics the
> "classical electron radius" is an important number. It is the
> separation point where two electrons possess enough energy to think
> seriously about engaging in pair production (scattering
> electron-positron pairs out of the vaccuum), as they have enough
> energy to do so, if they have some mass around to use to conserve this
> and that in the process.
>
> In fact, another way of viewing the process classically described in
> b) is that the second electron gets close to the charged black hole,
> creates a virtual electron-positron pair while scattering off of it,
> the positron falls in (attracted by that negative charge AND gravity)
> where it annihilates an electron in the BH. The two electrons -- the
> one you shot in and the leftover from pair production -- scatter to
> infinity and "escape". The black hole itself has more internal
> kinetic energy (is "hotter"), is less massive, and less stable.
>
> IIRC the c) process roughly describes one of Hawking's instabilities,
> except that he envisions it occurring continuously near the event
> horizon of small black holes. Any charge imbalance or field imbalance
> in the electromagnetic force would be nearly instantly neutralized out
> of the vaccuum at the expense of the BH mass, and even when neutral
> vaccuum polarization makes decay a steady process. Titor shrugged off
> Hawking, which he could likely get away with since Hawking is likely
> too smart to waste his time on this sort of nonsense. If only I were
> as smart myself...:-)
>
> One could go on and on, so I will. We argue above that a BH this size
> cannot stably be charged (or be stabilized by shooting charged
> particles into it). Can it have a magnetic moment? Not without a
> charge and a spin and it cannot have a charge (although I'm almost
> surprised that Titor didn't assert that his BH contained magnetic
> monopoles, given all his other tall tales:-). Without a charge or
> magnetic moment, how do we hold on to it? How do we ENGINEER
> confinement, even in 2036? See below.
>

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > (Darby's Question): Is there any chance that you can identify the attached jpg? It was
> > posted by Titor as a cutaway schematic of his gadget. It appears to
> > me to be a vacuum tube based piece of 1960's technology. It was
> > suggested to me that it's a pre-internet Arpanet server - but I
> > haven't a clue. I sent a copy to UC Santa Barbara to see if they
> > can ID it. So far, no luck.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>
> Naw, I have no idea what it is -- maybe a klystron unit of some sort
> for a radar at a guess -- but who cares? This schematic is ridiculous
> as a BH confinement/manipulation mechanism. Let's start by addressing
> the question of how we hold onto a black hole that we cannot stick a
> significant charge or magnetic moment on. Or even one where we can.
>
> We don't. Not ONLY do we have to create the damn thing, we have to
> keep it from falling into Earth's welcoming gravitational well.
> Clearly, if it masses 10^12 kg, we don't. Period. Ever. I don't
> care if you are an advanced society that has been around evolving
> brain for a million years LONGER than humans -- if you start playing
> with billion-metric-ton black holes near the surface of your planet
> you are only here for a visit. This is E.E. "Doc" Smith level (e.g.
> crap) science fiction.
>
> Now, if they mass LESS than a metric ton, I don't know why one would
> bother making them at all, and as noted above this is sort of the
> number I recall from some fraction of the online discussion, so let's
> pretend that the BH's are 10^3 kg each and that Titor knows just about
> as much about the radius of the electron as the history major he
> claims to be might know.
>
> We now have TWO of these pups, each weighing a metric ton, inside of
> the little chassis below (the size of an oversized suitcase, again
> from list discussion, at any rate small enough to fit into a pickup
> truck)?
>
> Hmmm. A suitcase that weighs half as much as my Ford Excursion.
> Hmmm, my Excursion supports its not inconsiderable weight on big,
> heavy, steel girders. Even my wimpy Ford Contour (which weighs just
> about as much as this suitcase and its two black holes) uses quite a
> bit of steel in its construction, and one would really hate to run
> over a toe with its far more lightly loaded steel belted radial tires.
>
> We thus have TWO very serious engineering problems that immediately
> come to mind. Well, actually more than two, more like thirty or forty
> or fifty. However, one is keeping the black hole containers from
> ripping through the bottom of the suitcase itself. Think of the BH
> containers as being leedle support posts, cross sectional area of a
> few centimeters squared each, HOLDING UP A FORD CONTOUR. Hmmm, think
> we need a little more than four little reinforced corners on the box
> that look sort of like thingies you'd find on the corners of
> loudspeakers or a suitcase or something else with cardboard sides.
> And wait, where are the four inch I-beams in the flooring? Where are
> the grappling eyes on the side (or are humans supposed to lift this
> thing in and out by HAND?). And this thing was riding in the back of
> a small pickup truck? Hmmm, not so sure that a SMALL pickup truck
> could support my Contour as well and not blow out its tires and wreck
> its suspension, especially a pickup truck that was 70 years old and
> hard to get parts for.
>
> Then there is the even more interesting question: Fine, perhaps they
> have new materials. Maybe the case has synthetic diamond struts in
> the bottom, laced into a steel cementation so that one cm of thickness
> is enough to support a metric ton without any sort of localized
> bracing or structural forms, spread out over may 100 cm^2.
>
> EVEN SO, INSIDE of those little BH container are the BH's themselves.
> They have to be held, far from any contact with matter, by means of
> raw E&M forces (unless we're going to suggest new physics, and new
> physics here would be indefensible I assure you).
>
> The mere thought of this has me ROTFL. Seriously. I >>teach<<
> graduate E&M, and I assure you that the problem of magnetic
> confinement of thermonuclear plasmas is child's play compared to the
> problem of confining an object 10^-25 meters across with a metric ton
> of mass against the Earth's gravitational field, the presumed motion
> of the long-suffering Chevy pickup truck (gawd, accelerations in
> arbitrary
> directions!) and so forth. You see, all the fields involved have to
> satisfy the laplace equation, and this means that it is almost
> impossible to create an even weakly attractive region capable of
> suspending wimpy things like atoms that is STABLE in both a vertical
> direction and its transverse plane. Try suspending the equivalent of a
> small car not on the head of a pin, not on an atom, not on a classical
> ELECTRON, but on an area that aspires to be a mathematical point. Ho,
> excuse me, I have to wipe my eyes again. Really, a delicious picture.
> I'd sooner believe in the time travel part.
>
> And wait, where the HELL is the hardware for accomplishing this
> fu**in' miracle? Oh, yeah, those leedle balls. Hey mon, we don't
> need no stinkin' massive magnetic coils, no gigavolt capacitors, no
> bus bars the thickness of your wrist. No mon, we got room temperature
> superconductors, we got new magnetic materials mon, we got monopoles.
> We can stabilize the BH, mon, and move it around and make it bounce in
> waves. Hawking? Who is this Hawking mon? Sure, it stable against
> pair-production-mediated decay. So what if its Schwarzchild radius is
> WAY WAY smaller than the radius where vaccuum polarization electron
> pair production begins to be significant and there is enough energy in
> the gravity well to knock particles out of the vaccuum. It just
> doesn't happen.
>
> But by damn, we still got old-fashioned BNC-style wiring connectors
> mon, labelled 11. We still got klystrons and big, heavy power
> switches. And we don't need no stinkin' radiation protection mon --
> the fact that we have to shoot about eleventy-zillion electrons at
> very high energy in an intense electron beam to get ONE ELECTRON to
> impact on a highly repulsive sphere with a radius of ~10^-24 meters
> (without creating a shower of secondary particles that cause the BH to
> DECAY) means nothing, mon. We definitely don't need no bending
> magnets, no quadrupolar lenses, no accelerator. Hell mon, we can put
> a gigavolt accelerator inside of a coffee pot now mon -- it's 2036 and
> we're very tribal now -- and run it with an ordinary eco-approved
> household battery! Although we don't have to, the suitcase comes with
> its own fusion generatory mon...it could run a small city if only we
> could plug it in.
>
> Seriously, I could go on and on and on. I haven't even gotten to the
> raw thermodynamics of it all. That suitcase would require a small
> lake to cool in operation, for example. And then the culture capable
> of these miracles of technology that indicate total mastery of
> materials science, quantum mechanics, gravity, superconductors, a
> society that has in its possession a star drive (for the goddamn thing
> would clearly work as such as easily as a "time machine" -- arbitrary
> translation in four space is arbitrary translation in four space and
> they have to play all sorts of games to NOT go off into space FTL)
> then is sending somebody back to our time to get an IBM 5100, a piece
> of **** computer that is an embarrassment to IBM to this day, because
> it is somehow capable of some translation chore that appears to be
> beyond them and is related to the Unix non-problem of a 4 byte
> unsigned int counter for its current time?
>
> This is so clearly a joke that I still cannot believe anybody at all
> fell for it. It's not even a good joke (believe me, I programmed
> briefly on the 5100 and I know:-).
>
> What, did all the programmers in the world suffer brain damage in the
> war? Physics got really popular and they could no longer get anybody
> to learn to program? Computers do all the programming now and
> programming in C or perl is a lost art? Computers have come to life
> and are on strike for better working conditions so they are reduced to
> finding and bringing "back" an IBM 5100 (out of ALL THE COMPUTERS THAT
> WERE EVER
> BUILT) in preference to just bringing back a goddamn programming
> reference for the language(s) they need to translate and building a
> translator with e.g. perl on a 2036 teraflop PDA?
>
> Let me be very, very clear on this. I know that there is a tendency
> to want to suspend disbelief on things like this. Heck, it is a nifty
> story, kind of science fiction thing, Orson Welles War of the Worlds
> internet style. It's "fun" to pretend to believe and kick this sort
> of thing around, but:
>
> WHO COULD POSSIBLY TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY?
>
> Screw the physics -- although I personally am by no means convinced
> that physics even >>permits<< the kind of singularity free time travel
> they (for this was surely a consortium of jokers) propose. The
> ENGINEERING is ludicrous. The COMPUTATION is ludicrous (where are the
> goddam computers in the suitcase? Where is the programming and
> control interface? Are we supposed to believe that this box has one
> knob and a switch as a control interface? Where are all the wires?).
> And as I explained in a reply to somebody else, the entire multiverse
> story totally ignores the problems of chaos, conservation laws,
> thermodynamic balance and oh, so much more -- the mere EXISTENCE of a
> multiverse has consequences in terms of detailed balance and entropy
> flow in the universe we occupy, and time travel creates a HUGE phase
> space for global entropy to increase in. You'd never get home again,
> not without a theory that permitted you to very precisely steer. You'd
> never get close. Period.
>
> I personally have never liked time travel stories (although I've read
> plenty of them) because they are so difficult to disentangle on the
> basis of chaos alone (as explored in at least one memorable story,
> where a single butterfly was killed in a visit to the Jurassic or the
> like, and upon return the entire Universe was totally different -- as
> it would be if a single ATOM were displaced a single ATOMIC RADIUS,
> let alone a butterfly). I do somewhat enjoy multiverse stories, and
> have even written (but not yet published) one.
>
> In my opinion, this isn't even a good multiverse story. Somebody is
> going to come forth one day and publish a whole book on how they made
> fun of the entire Internet with a bad story, a sad reflection on the
> gullability of our culture.
>
> And before you ask, yes, y'all can feel free to republish any or all
> of my replies on your lists, as long as you don't ask me to join them
> and keep my time-wasting interface to a minimum of a couple or three
> people. The sooner this matter is really put to rest, the sooner we
> can all return to leading useful and productive lives DOING SOMETHING
> ELSE:-)
>
> Pardon me while I blow my nose and dry my eyes. There. I feel much
> better now.
>
> Now let's leave it alone, shall we?
>
> rgb
>
> --
> Robert G. Brown > >Duke University Dept. of Physics>
>
>

Like I said, people believe what they want to. Just don't pay too much for that shelter, ok Baron? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: America the Police State

Quote:

Makinus said:
I don�t remember who said it, but it is true:

"One person is intelligent and reasonable, but a group of persons is a beast controlled by basic and irrational instincts."

Men In Black. - Tommy Lee Jones

Re: America the Police State

yeah, that�s it! i knew it was in a movie but i didn�t remember wich one!

Re: America the Police State

Interesting thought, considering whether the containment of singularities is possible in such a small device rather than worrying about the truth of the time travel discussion. But as I said, any errors of scientific fact can be attributed to his own misunderstanding of the processes involved. The actual predictions are much more important.

If his predictions turn out to be more-or-less correct, it's probably smarter to leave the country than to build a shelter anyway. And besides that, travel can be interesting and worthwhile for other reasons than fleeing conflicts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: America the Police State

The tech is totally bogus.

The discussion the political statements generate is the only thing about it that really matters.

Re: America the Police State

Quote:

Baron Munchausen said:
Interesting thought, considering whether the containment of singularities is possible in such a small device rather than worrying about the truth of the time travel discussion. But as I said, any errors of scientific fact can be attributed to his own misunderstanding of the processes involved. The actual predictions are much more important.

If his predictions turn out to be more-or-less correct, it's probably smarter to leave the country than to build a shelter anyway. And besides that, travel can be interesting and worthwhile for other reasons than fleeing conflicts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Well, I wouldn't lose sleep over his predictions turning out correct.

So the bit of science that Titor offers is debunked by someone who seems to know what they are talking about, and we can just sidestep this by saying that Titor himself didn't "understand science"?

It's a good study in human behavior, I'd say, but a bit sad, too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: America the Police State

A degree doesn't make you automatically right. The 'debunker' makes several obvious mistakes himself, such as the mass of the black holes. It is clearly stated in Titor's posts that they are around 200 pounds each, so that the machine is around 500 pounds total. And yet he insists on claiming that he couldn't possibly have a machine that size with a metric ton (2,200 lbs) of black holes in it. Well, since he doesn't claim to have one, the impossibility of this 'fact' doesn't amount to a 'disproof' of anything, does it? This is called the 'straw man' in logic. A fake rebuttal of something that the other party didn't claim.

I repeat, he didn't claim to know the science, so his knowledge of the science isn't a worthwhile test of his reliability. Would you like to compare "Titor's" description of how his time machine works with the current 'man on the street' description of things like nuclear power plants or even plain old consumer PCs or passenger cars? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

The internal consistency of the predictions is much more interesting. There are some potential problems, but it's been a while since I read the material and don't have the time/motivation to go back and find the problems I had noticed again.

Re: America the Police State

Well The american police state strikes a nerve in me. We can see at this moment in time that Security in all phases of american life is if not the topmost concern in the top ten at least. When I saw this Titor thing I had several conflicts with it. But after reading the original exchanges little tidbits began add up.
1. Mad cow desiese is becoming more wide spread including deer and Elk populations in the midwest and recent research shows that just about all tissues are suspect and it is jumping from species.
2. Titor is asleep when he time travels for a soldier( I was in the Marines) you sleep when you can and that statement lends itself to authenticty.
3. The sabbath was moved back to Saturday. Very interesting as the Bible indicates that the Sabbath should be on a Saturday.
4. "internet nodes" I have done research and this technolgy is just now in it's infancy and it is being aimed at small towns and rural areas.
5. In just this past year solar cells new and improved are getting ready to enter the market.
6. Open sourced programming is just now starting to nibble at the Quality of our software and pushing improving it.

I am looking for seeds of the predicted civil war and I am hard pressed to detect it. But I think back on the War of northern aggression and wonder if more than a handful could see a fullblown war coming. With our 20/20 hindsight it is easy to pick out the signs.

As far as the american police state and noticing that more and more people are going to jail and wondering when the next terriorist attack will occur and the militant supporters of the anti-republicans and the a weird fact that hardly anyone trust the media.
Well this Titor fellow is hitting close to home. I hope most of it is just coincidence. But it does not hurt to be cautious.

Re: America the Police State

Quote:

He was being generous with the extra weight.
A truck sagging ton is the biggest size you could hope for without blowing the whole story on a blatantly obvious level.
Unfortunately, even with a hole of 10^12 kg you can't keep TWO electrons in the hole.
Making them smaller makes them even more insanely unstable.

---

PS:
Ignorance of the law is no excuse for supposed violations.
Would you believe him if he claimed to have a perpetual motion machine, just because he dosen't know how it works?

Re: America the Police State

This thread needs a sanity check, methinks.

Re: America the Police State

Cthulu bless america and the republican party. Don't choose the lesser evil, vote Cthulu

Re: America the Police State

Hah! If you want the greater evil, vote Virigar.

* Virigar eats puny Cthuhlu. Or however you spell it.

Re: America the Police State

Well, technically if you wanted to vote the evil ticket you could vote for me...

Re: America the Police State

You don't strike me as particularly evil.

Re: America the Police State

Quote:

Atrocities said:

Quote:

Makinus said:
I don�t remember who said it, but it is true:

"One person is intelligent and reasonable, but a group of persons is a beast controlled by basic and irrational instincts."

Men In Black. - Tommy Lee Jones

Ahh yes. "A Person is smart, people are dumb, dangerous panicky animals and you know it!" So true.

Oh, Atrocities, Thanks for the laugh today, When you mentioned the french revolution thing a while back all I heard in my mind in an evil over-stereotyped french voice was "Say Bonjour to Madame Guillotine!" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: America the Police State

You should vote for Stisnera when you cast your ballot Narf. Only she can create true happiness, and politics will be greatly simplified once she arrives to power. Besides, she is both a woman and belongs to a minority (the Tieflings), so she is certainly the perfect candidate for another kind of democracy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: America the Police State

Quote:

Gozra said:
But I think back on the War of northern aggression...

I am SO not going to bite. Look at me not biting. Not at all.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: America the Police State

Quote:

Baron Munchausen said:
A degree doesn't make you automatically right. The 'debunker' makes several obvious mistakes himself, such as the mass of the black holes. It is clearly stated in Titor's posts that they are around 200 pounds each, so that the machine is around 500 pounds total. And yet he insists on claiming that he couldn't possibly have a machine that size with a metric ton (2,200 lbs) of black holes in it. Well, since he doesn't claim to have one, the impossibility of this 'fact' doesn't amount to a 'disproof' of anything, does it? This is called the 'straw man' in logic. A fake rebuttal of something that the other party didn't claim.

I repeat, he didn't claim to know the science, so his knowledge of the science isn't a worthwhile test of his reliability. Would you like to compare "Titor's" description of how his time machine works with the current 'man on the street' description of things like nuclear power plants or even plain old consumer PCs or passenger cars? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

The internal consistency of the predictions is much more interesting. There are some potential problems, but it's been a while since I read the material and don't have the time/motivation to go back and find the problems I had noticed again.

Your username just clicked with me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I'm not going to get into a dragout over this, Baron. It seems that Titor has protected himself from skepicism by claiming "not to know much about" certain subjects.

In my experience, the most logical conclusion is generally the correct one. The simplest and most logical conclusion is that Titor is a fraud, and he did not time travel. Reading the explination of this scientists was more than enough evidence to support that conclusion for me, but as I've said before, you can slice it any way you wish, discount whatever you want, to make something true.

Sort of reminds me of the way religion works, but I think I'll let that one lie for now. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: America the Police State

Just an interesting article that appeared today
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4229545.stm

I suppose a very well informed hoaxer who is probably a very intelligent person can create a lot of havoc when they have plenty of time to do reseach. I am amazed at this very intricate hoax that John Titor put together in 3 months. Makes me want to really study it closer to see what else he managed to get right or wrong.

Re: America the Police State

Quote:

Gozra said:
Just an interesting article that appeared today
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4229545.stm

I suppose a very well informed hoaxer who is probably a very intelligent person can create a lot of havoc when they have plenty of time to do reseach. I am amazed at this very intricate hoax that John Titor put together in 3 months. Makes me want to really study it closer to see what else he managed to get right or wrong.

They were building one of those in Texas, but funding was cut. It's now a mushroom farm. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: America the Police State

Fang, Farmer Maggot's dog bites you. Fang, Farmer Maggot's dog bites you. Fang, Farmer Maggot's dog bites you. You die...
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: America the Police State

Which roguelike is that?

Re: America the Police State

Angband or one of its many variants.

Re: America the Police State

Quote:

Ed Kolis said:
Fang, Farmer Maggot's dog bites you. Fang, Farmer Maggot's dog bites you. Fang, Farmer Maggot's dog bites you. You die...
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

I kell him with broken pottery!

Re: America the Police State

Quote:

There is the problem of verification. If the self-described time traveler 'predicts' things that you can see developing yourself, he looks 'convincing' because you already believe these things. The CERN super-collider has been in the works for decades, and they have been talking all the while of generating quantum singularities. No 'expertise' beyond reading some popular science magazines is necessary to have learned about this. So saying that quantum singularities were produced at CERN and led to time travel is already semi-believable because we're primed for it. Similarly, the split in US society has been apparent since at least the 1960s, and I think anyone who paid any attention to the Waco debacle and the aftermath (the 'militia' movement) can see the growing hostility (and numbers) of the anti-government groups on the fringes of our society. A civil war is a very real possibility for the future of the US, but I would have put the expected date a few more decades into the future -- prior to the 9-11 events, that is. So a prediction of a civil war in the US is not too difficult to believe either. Blend these trends and some other information (like the 'many worlds' hypothesis) into a coherent narrative and you've got a decent SciFi story -- or maybe a good hoax -- because it jibes with what we already expect of the future.

If the time traveler describes something completely off the wall, on the other hand, we don't want to believe it because it doesn't meet our expectations. The EU attacking Russia, for example. It's very difficult to figure out how this could come about, but it's one of the things that Titor claimed happened in his history. But who would have believed him if he'd said that a terrorist attack on the US mainland would kill thousands before the year was over? (And he gave good reasons for not being so specific, so the fact that he did not point out this obvious event is not an automatic disproof of his knowledge.)

So judging the 'veracity' of a claimed time traveler is a pretty tricky thing. Going by our expectations is not useful because the real world doesn't have to follow our expectations. John Lennon is credited with the saying 'Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans' but I think someone else said it first. We'll just have to wait & see how things develop.

Re: America the Police State

Everyone who beleives in time travel, you have -5 minutes to tell me, in person. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: America the Police State

Sorry Narf, but I dont want to relive the last three days over again... so you are going to just have to accept that if I wanted to I could have done back to 2/4/05 8:00pm then traveled to tell you by 10:09 pm...

Rasorow