"The zero voltage state describes one of the two distinct dynamic behaviors displayed by the phase particle, and corresponds to when the particle is trapped in one of the local minima in the washboard potential. [...] With the phase particle trapped in a minimum, it has zero average velocity and therefore zero average voltage. [...] The voltage state is the other dynamic behavior displayed by a Josephson junction, and corresponds to the phase particle free-running down the slope of the potential, with a non-zero average velocity and therefore non-zero voltage."

So, we're not even talking about actual fundamental subatomic particles anymore. We're talking about phase oscillations, and renaming that as if it were a "particle" because, hey, particle/wave duality, so why not?

Hand-wavey math permits us to equivocate that a current induced on a wire, by way of the transfer of many actual electrons across substrates, can serve to prove the premise of a "teleportation device" also.

See? If we play our game of three-card monte, change phase oscillations, wiggle our noses, and tilt our heads a little, it's all very obvious that faster-than-light information transfer can be generalized to fit in the same picture, because this tuning fork makes that tuning fork ring in harmony, but only when we choose to notice.

We measure a Bell signal S of 2.0732 ± 0.0003, exceeding the maximum value |S| = 2 for a classical system by 244 standard deviations. In the experiment, we deterministically generate the entangled state, and measure both qubits in a single-shot manner, closing the “detection loophole”[11]. Since the Bell inequality was designed to test for non-classical behavior without assuming the applicability of quantum mechanics to the system in question, this experiment provides further strong evidence that a macroscopic electrical circuit is really a quantum system [7]. https://web.physics.ucsb.edu/~martinisgroup/papers/Ansmann20...

That says in plain English that they have not assumed that this system behaves according to quantum principles. In fact, it is precisely the opposite: the quantum nature of this system is a conclusion of their results. It would be statistically impossible for any system following classical rules to produce the same data.

(It bears repeating that the math underlying that conclusion is truly not very complex, and it is very, very well studied. If you can show that it’s flawed somehow, don’t bother publishing— just post your proof here and I’ll, uh... pick up the Nobel for you.)

The only caveat is that this experiment closes the detection loophole, but not the locality loophole; it is theoretically possible that a classical signal could be sent from one qubit to the other quickly enough to fabricate this data. There’s no particular reason to suspect a secret signal is in play, but it isn’t theoretically prohibited.

Assuming you haven’t found a flaw in their mathematics, and that you aren’t alleging that the researchers deliberately fabricated their data, the locality loophole is your best (and likely only) avenue to dispute their conclusions. However, if you wish to pursue that, you should keep in mind that there are many other experiments which close the locality loophole but not the detection loophole, and, since 2015, several that close both. Three-card monte may be a better investment of your time.

What I did clearly state, and insist as quite relevant, is that entanglement and double slit experiments are hocus pocus and irrelevant distractions. In fact, I stated that this experiment says basically nothing because it merely simulates quantum phenomena within a circuit.

Hello? Yes. Electrons are quantum entities, and assuredly interact with photons which are also quantum entities. This is demonstrated by the photo-electric effect, which we can all notice by placing tin foil in a microwave. Therefore a circuit is indeed a quantum system, since it assuredly deals in electrons.

Wow! Didn't even need to publish a paper about qubits to draw that conclusion! Amazing!

The implication here is that Bell is waste of time, and so is his theorum: such that emission doesn't determine state, especially when you don't look at it.

Great, thanks Bell. I'll be sure to not look at anything until I want to know what it is. True genius at work.

I don’t believe that you could, even theoretically, produce the data from a loophole-free Bell test without invoking superdeterminism, superluminality, or quantum entanglement.

Can you describe how this would be theoretically possible?

And yet, with relativistic particles, the wild claims are made that splitting photons through a substrate, and then passing them through the wall of a polarizing lens, means we can declare ourselves capable of rewriting and erasing history. Eh, not quite.

But hey, where there's smoke, there's fire, so something must be true, right? Let's just make up whatever.

2. If so, do you think a non-flawed Bell test experiment could be done?

3. If so, do you have a definite opinion about whether or not it would yield a Bell inequality violation?

4. If so, would it yield a Bell inequality violation or not.

5. If you think all Bell test experiments ever done were flawed, can you pick one, preferably one commonly considered a good one, and point out what exactly you think the flaw in the experiment is?

6. If you think Bell inequality violations are or could be real, how do you want to explain them?

Note that those are all yes no questions, well, at least all but the last two. I don't need and want more than a yes or no for the first four because from your comments alone it is not clear, at least to me, what your position actually is.

We’ve made real-world measurements here that correlate with measurements made at the exact same time over there in a way that mathematically cannot be accounted for without some species of intuition-violating spookiness. It’s all very real.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments#Hensen_e...

When you watch a big cat torture and eat a prey animal, do you not have any sense at all that maybe the prey would prefer that not to happen? Or that, all else being equal, if the tiger could eat something that doesn’t seem to mind being eaten, that would be at least as good for everyone?

Like, obviously we can’t really do anything about that without killing all the cats, which we don’t really like any better, and even that would probably end up killing all the prey species too... so we’re kind of stuck with things this way.

But — again, genuinely asking — does the intractability of that problem really force you, personally, to assign zero moral weight to the experience of animals? Or do you sincerely just... not care?

I really do have zero problem with animals killing and consuming other animals.

> When you watch a big cat torture and eat a prey animal,

I don't think it's fair to say that a big cat 'tortures' a prey animal. I suspect it's practice. Torture to me requires intent that I don't think the big cat has.

> do you not have any sense at all that maybe the prey would prefer that not to happen?

I do have a sense that the prey does not want to die. What they want doesn't really matter though to the carnivore.

> Or that, all else being equal, if the tiger could eat something that doesn’t seem to mind being eaten, that would be at least as good for everyone?

If the world could exist in a different state that had less suffering, that might be good. Not sure what it would cost though.

> But — again, genuinely asking — does the intractability of that problem really force you, personally, to assign zero moral weight to the experience of animals?

I think you misunderstood me, or I failed to explain well. I don't see any moral problem with animals consuming other animals. Killing animals for no reason I would find morally wrong. Killing animals for food I find morally neutral. Reducing sufferring where possible is morally good (whether in raising the animal, or the mechanism of killing the animal), but is separate from actually killing the animal in my opinion.

If you killed an animal painlessly, would there be any moral problem in consuming animals?

> Or do you sincerely just... not care?

I care immensely in making sure animals do not suffer needlessly. I care that animals are well taken care of while they are alive and that they are killed humanely and for a purpose. My livestock has, without question, healthier, more secure and more prolific lives than they would in the wild.

> I really do have zero problem with animals killing and consuming other animals.

> If the world could exist in a different state that had less suffering, that might be good. Not sure what it would cost though.

The first sounds like you agree with my posit “I sincerely don’t care.” The second sounds like you agree with my posit “I care a small amount, but not enough to make the unworkable solutions attractive.” The rest of your comment makes the latter seem more likely, and I’m inclined to believe that since it seems like a more coherent and defensible ethical framework.

If that’s the case, I think we’re basically in agreement: there is some problem with wild animals eating other wild animals. Terminology aside, predation clearly involves unnecessary suffering. (Not only on the prey, but on sick or injured predators, who painfully starve for want of prey!)

All else being equal, it would be preferable for that suffering not to happen, but since we can’t make it any better, we tacitly consent to the current state of affairs.

The only part I find curious is that where I would call that “a slight moral force”, you would call it “morally neutral”. Why is that? Why does the question “do you have any problem with this” make sense to you, when it sounds like you agree there is a self-evident — though nuanced, and relatively minor — problem?

I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m arguing with you. In fact, to reinforce our agreement:

> If you killed an animal painlessly, would there be any moral problem in consuming animals?

Speaking for myself, I certainly do have far less issue with eating an animal that I can be personally assured has only had “one bad day”. I don’t think animals care that they live in a cage, iff the cage is big enough; in fact, they probably prefer it. This opinion is overwhelmingly common among the other vegetarians I know. Those who dissent are generally worrying about other less-humane-seeming things such as premature separation of young from parents— and those concerns are always tempered with the acknowledgement that it’s still far more humane than the common practice.

(Primary reasons such people still do not eat meat: One, this type of meat is prohibitively expensive in most urban areas, and would be very infrequent; two, eating meat that infrequently has a tendency to make folks feel ill.)

Again, I’m mostly curious why you would have expected any other answer, since it seems like it’s the answer you believe is reasonable. Why do you expect us to disagree, here?

Digressing, I’ve noticed something curious about the cultural perception of vegetarians, in these comments and elsewhere. Folks like yourself, who have clearly thought quite a bit about the ethics of your practice, I think see vegetarians basically eye-to-eye, and we can agree to disagree about exactly where to draw the line personally.

But think about your typical suburban meat eater who deliberately avoids learning more about how livestock is raised or slaughtered, since that makes them feel uncomfortable about eating meat. I think that person is genuinely a bit concerned that if they thought too hard about it, they would realize that it’s wrong in their own moral code to thoughtlessly consume factory-farmed meat, and then they’d have to change their lifestyle in an unpleasant way.

So maybe it’s soothing for that person to believe that all vegetarians are pursuing some radical or fallacious reasoning to an absurd conclusion. But the thing is... we’re really just not.

Myself, and every (ethical) vegetarian I know, we’re using the same boring moral principle that applies to pre-verbal infants, PVS patients, chimps and dolphins, mammals culturally coded as pets, and so on: if it is not absolutely necessary to save another life, it is respectively [impermissible..very not-ok] to kill and eat that thing.

Yes, we expand the circle of concern by a single logical step. The rest is just... normal ethics. Whatever are the moral beliefs you think a reasonable person would consistently hold after taking that step, yeah, of course we hold those. Why on earth wouldn’t we?

I think your understanding of my reply is not correct. I have zero problem with animals killing other animals for food because it very typically is the only way they are able to eat and survive. I have read about (over the years, I don't have any sources) animals killing for "fun" or without eating their kill. I would have a problem with those cases.

> I think we’re basically in agreement: there is some problem with wild animals eating other wild animals.

We are not in agreement. I do not think there is any problem with wild animals eating other wild animals.

> Terminology aside, predation clearly involves unnecessary suffering.

I disagree with this. The suffering is necessary for wild animals. If lions could eat antelope without causing any fear or pain to the antelope, that would be nice - but these species have evolved in opposition to each other so there is no other way in nature for the lion to eat the antelope other than to catch it and kill it, which unfortunately causes suffering. As a human, I am more able to catch and kill my prey with minimal suffering, which is nice. I don't actually know if animals suffer for any length of time after being shot in the head, but if they do, it is reasonable to think that it is sub-second in duration. Sometimes things can go wrong, and suffering lasts longer. That is to be avoided.

> The only part I find curious is that where I would call that “a slight moral force”, you would call it “morally neutral”. Why is that? Why does the question “do you have any problem with this” make sense to you, when it sounds like you agree there is a self-evident — though nuanced, and relatively minor — problem?

I am not following you here I think. When I said "Killing animals for food I find morally neutral," I mean I have a right to eat and the animal has a right to survive. Those interests are in opposition. As far as hunting, given a fair chance - sometimes the animal will win and sometimes I will win. This is neutral to me. As far as farming there is an exchange - I provide food, shelter and protection for a short while, the animal provides me with nourishment. This is also neutral to me.

> Speaking for myself, I certainly do have far less issue with eating an animal that I can be personally assured has only had “one bad day”. I don’t think animals care that they live in a cage, iff the cage is big enough; in fact, they probably prefer it. This opinion is overwhelmingly common among the other vegetarians I know. Those who dissent are generally worrying about other less-humane-seeming things such as premature separation of young from parents— and those concerns are always tempered with the acknowledgement that it’s still far more humane than the common practice.

This sounds like you would not have a problem running your own farm and eating your own livestock. If you are able to take the enormous responsibility of animal husbandry seriously, it can be hugely rewarding and fulfilling.

That is, suppose A desires to kill B, and B desires to kill A, but neither A nor B desires to die. These interests are irreconcilable. “A and B kill each other with equal probability” is a potential resolution to the dilemma, but to my mind, that does not make it morally neutral. To wit, it is morally dispreferable to the universes where A and B resolve their differences, forget each other exists, hallucinate having succeeded in killing each other without actually doing so, and so on.

The preferred resolutions may be outlandishly infeasible to implement, but that won’t ever convince me that they are all morally equivalent.

Since we’re aligned on taking practical steps to minimize unnecessary suffering, we probably won’t gain anything from debating principles, but hopefully that helps you understand my surprise at your question.

I think it’s likely that you do apply my sort of reasoning in other situations, as I likely do yours. Something to muse on, maybe.

> This sounds like you would not have a problem running your own farm and eating your own livestock.

No substantial moral problem, no. On the other hand I also have no substantial moral reason to do so, and it would be an unpleasant change to my current lifestyle :)

I would assume there will be accommodations made for folks with dietary restrictions that require them to eat meat, whether that’s through a simple waiver or a massive lawsuit.

I wouldn't be so sure.

> They don't have an obligation to reimburse

They don't have an obligation to hire people, either, but if hiring doesn't make reasonable accommodations for disability, it's still illegal.

For what it’s worth, I’m a vegetarian and broadly in support of this policy, assuming it can be made compliant with the law.

Cloud Atlas employs the same structure deliberately, with wonderful narrative impact. You have to climb up the mountain in order to climb back down.

I do think GEB is the same way. The first half of the book is the climb. The second half is merely the question, what can we see from way up here?

The allegation is that Zimbardo orchestrated his project in order to produce a more dramatic narrative of spontaneous cruelty that wasn’t scientifically justified. It would be (it is alleged) as if Milgram had passed participants a note under the table that said, “FYI the subject is an actor— just go along with it, we’re trying to prove a point.”

Whether or not the Milgram results are valid, that certainly wouldn’t be a good demonstration of them.

https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/12/12/interviews-with-milgram...

I'm not weighing in one way or the other on the Milgram experiments, but we should not take reported experiences at face value in psychology experiments especially when there is a strong incentive for the subject to engage in self-deception.

Milgram's Experiments are often casually tossed around as proving that people blindly follow orders, but they actually showed the opposite. Teachers complied when they believed they shared a common cause with the experimenter (advancing science.) When this common cause was taken away, compliance rates plummeted. Removed from the prestige of Yale, compliance rates dropped; when the experimenter was not appealing to the necessity of science, compliance rates dropped.

What this demonstrates contrary to popular wisdom is that Adolf Eichmann's "I was just following orders" excuse was a load of shit. When the Milgram experiment results were first made public the narrative sold to people is that any common person would have become a Nazi had they been on the receiving end of those orders, just like Eichmann pleaded. The public was sold a bogus narrative about the experiments and this bogus narrative was subsequently reinforced by claims of the experiments being replicated (they were, but like in the original the experiments weren't demonstrating what they were claimed to demonstrate; that people blindly follow orders.)

Adolf Eichmann was not merely following orders, he was a true believer. This of course was revealed in quotes that came to light later:

>"Hätten wir 10,3 Millionen Juden getötet, dann wäre ich befriedigt und würde sagen, gut, wir haben einen Feind vernichtet. … Ich war kein normaler Befehlsempfänger, dann wäre ich ein Trottel gewesen, sondern ich habe mitgedacht, ich war ein Idealist gewesen." [If we would have killed 10.3 million Jews, then I would be satisfied and would say, good, we annihilated an enemy. … I wasn't only issued orders, in this case I'd have been a moron, but I rather anticipated, I was an idealist.]

This doesn't debunk anything. The thesis was that people would unquestioningly obey "an authority figure". What your observation shows is that people don't attach the same authority to scientists with less eminent affiliations which makes perfect sense.

I'm not saying that Milgram's experiment isn't flaweed, it most certainly is [0] but your analysis is weak.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/rethinkin...

It debunks precisely that. The phenomena of obeying authoritiy figures is not ideologically neutral as the popular narrative suggests. Rather people make a decision about whether or not to comply with the authority figure based on whether or not their personal ideology aligns with the goals and motivations of that authority figure. In other words, it's not unquestioning obedience. People question the circumstance, question the motivation of the authority figure, and then make a decision about whether or not they will comply.

To put a finer point on it, people who follow orders from Nazis do so because they are themselves Nazis. People who follow orders from scientists do so because they believe in science. Demonstrating that x% of the general population near [university] during [year] follow the orders of scientists does not demonstrate that x% of that same population would follow orders from Nazis. This is contrary to the popular Milgram narrative that was sold to the public.

I don't want to spend too much time on this, but your position is itself informed by ideology.

I don't believe you fully grasp what went on in WW2 and are happy to promulgate a hurdurr bad guys narrative, which is fine to be honest but is antithetical to the tradition of "unconditional positive regard" upon which modern psychology is built, and so I believe any "good faith" analysis of this study is impossible for you.

Actually, this has also seen some recent dispute. Here it is brought up as part of an old radiolab podcast: https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/180092-the-bad-show/

The Milgram study needs to be contextualised in that participants will follow the orders as part of a scientific experiment, when prompted by the experimenter. You can see this in the order of prompts they were given when showing hesitation:

1. Please continue. 2. The experiment requires that you continue. 3. It is absolutely essential that you continue. 4. You have no other choice, you must go on.

It would be interesting to see a similar experiment outside of a "this is for science" setting, although I'm not sure what that would look like and how unethical it would be.

I put together my own IoT infrastructure in our apartment. I did everything by hand: I wrote the embedded code, I wrote the server code, I pieced together the hub with a router and RasPi I had lying around. I spliced cheap WiFi relays into our IKEA lamps— and just to keep things simple, I also removed the original hardware switches.

The upshot is we have this nice web-accessible home automation system for a total parts outlay of probably under $100. It works really well! (As long as the Let’s Encrypt cron job is set up properly...) And most importantly, I know that I own it.

The thing about that is... I own it. I’m the only one in the world who understands how it works. I’m the only one who can fix it if it breaks. But I don’t live alone. If I pack up and leave, my partners aren’t going to be able to turn the lights on without going out to buy brand new lights.

And wow, that’s a huge amount of trust to put in me! Of course my partners do trust me that much, but it’s striking that I didn’t take that into consideration at all when I started the project.

I think what is absent in your cost description is the value of them.

And in the commercial world, we seem to have products that ameliorate that cost in part through the state of their security. Whether neglectful, or deliberate (e.g. the whole "advertising model" with respect to much Web content). I don't know enough to describe how this works in the hardware/firmware world, but I suspect nonetheless that it's a factor.

I'm not saying anything novel, here, except that often we leave the cost of expertise out of our pricing and expectations.

Whether our own, or paying for someone else's.

And... marketing too often attempts to substitute image for reality. High prices, with just a showman behind the curtain.

It was then that the realization set in in the subreddit: after all these years, after hundreds of thousands of hours of theorizing and plotting and thinking and organizing, they might never find out the true identity of Lyle Stevik. His identity was known to the police, and to DNA Doe, but it was never revealed to the subreddit. And it might never be; as of press time, the family has declined to share the information.

It seems like there’s two ways to look at this. The first is... the subreddit didn’t materially contribute to solving the case, apart from putting up $1500 for DNA sequencing. The critical research was done by a specialist volunteer org, and law enforcement located and contacted the family.

It seems like being able to identify folks using genetic ancestry is a really valuable service; it also seems like a good thing that, to the average redditor, this service is a black box that produces a single bit of output. If the person (family, in this case) who has been identified doesn’t want their name to be public, that should be their choice.

So, that all is working as intended. But at the same time...

In 20 years, nobody ever put up the money for DNA testing. Why would they? There must be millions of cases like this, and for most of that time sequencing cost a lot more than $1500.

The price is still going down, so eventually someone would have done this. Maybe once the cost of sequencing hit $50, or $1. I don’t know, at what point do we start DNA testing every single cold case Doe, since forever? Probably not for a long, long time. Maybe long enough to be forgotten entirely.

The folks on the subreddit cared, is my point, when no one else did. They picked this person to care about, out of all the unsolved mysteries to choose from. I don’t think there’s any particular explanation; he just happened to catch their fancy, and then they spent a lot of time thinking about him. In a weird digital-era way, he was kind of their friend.

And it makes a lot of sense that there would be some shock and isolation at having their care rejected, having their “friendship” invalidated. I can get that. And I kind of think that if the family grokked how much these folks cared about their person, and how little anyone else did, their response might be a little different.

But perhaps some still feel otherwise. What happens if some stranger starts "caring" about their depression and anger over their "loss"? There's a real problem when people cannot recognize that some boundaries should not be crossed.

But I think the point I’m trying to make is that there’s a lot of distance between “right to intrude” and “none of your business”. The fact is that the identity of this person was their business, for a decade, simply because it wasn’t the business of anyone else.

Of course there’s no right to know the name of a stranger. But I am glad they made it their business — I’m glad someone cared — and I’m sorry the outcome hurt them. It’s not any more complicated than that.

I get that a lot of people invested a lot of time into this, but there's a suggestion in TFA that implies that this effort merits some special privileges, whether that inlcudes knowing the identity of the suicide or some other kind of recognition. It doesn't.

It was a voluntary act, perhaps a kind act, perhaps not from the perspective of the family. The implication is that the family either wanted to know or ought to have wanted to know. We have no information to evaluate those judgments, and there's enough gray there that it's irritating as an assumption.

The reality is that it is morally no different than participating in a subreddit on cats or submitting articles and commenting on them on HN. We're all voluntarily spending time on the internet rather than doing something else.

The implication is that the family either wanted to know or ought to have wanted to know. We have no information to evaluate those judgments, and there's enough gray there that it's irritating as an assumption.

I think if someone has died — even if it was a fairly long time ago — it’s safe to presume that there are people somewhere who still care about them, still think about them, would like to know what happened. From a state of ignorance about who those people are, I think it’s compassionate to try to let them know, especially when no one else is trying.

And naturally, the same compassion instructs one to respect their wishes after that point. Again, all working as intended.

1. Schulte agreed as a condition of his pretrial house arrest not to own, possess, or use a computer or any other form of internet access. Surveillance showed internet connections from his house, accessing his personal email as well as the TOR network.

His attorneys argue that these connections were Schulte’s cousin (who lives with him) checking his email (and TOR?) on his behalf, which after all the Court never said he couldn’t do.

2. At his bail hearing, the prosecutor mentioned a photograph (apparently recovered from Schulte’s phone) showing an unconscious person (apparently Schulte’s roommate) being sexually assaulted (apparently in their shared bathroom). The identity of the assailant having not being established, this wasn’t taken into consideration at pretrial. But...

Since that hearing, the cops in Virginia followed up and have a reasonable suspicion that the person seen in a photograph on Schulte’s phone, sexually assaulting Schulte’s unconscious roommate, in Schulte’s house, might indeed be Schulte himself. So it sounds like he’s facing sexual assault charges in Virginia, as soon as his federal child-porn-cum-treason prosecution gets sorted out.

So... well, even if these additional allegations don’t change your perspective on his character, they proooooobably cut against any presumption of doubt based on dude’s mastery of opsec.