Edward Frenkel is a bigshot mathematician who has worked with Ed Witten. But starting at 2:41:30 here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_oPMcvHbAc&t=9690s

he points out the failure of string theory - and worse, how the leaders of string theory have not yet acknowledged this failure.

He mocks the string theorist Andy Strominger, who now says string theory's original goal of unifying all the forces and particles was "really a small thing."

Frenkel says:

"Remember Moses? He took the Israelites out of Egypt and he told them that he would lead them to the promised land. Imagine that Moses, after 40 years of wandering in the desert, says 'You know guys? This idea of a promised land - it's not such a big thing. Look how much we've learned! We've learned about the desert. We've learned so much about the sand. Who cares about the promised land?'"

"People call it "moving the goal-posts". This is not moving the goal-posts! This is going to a different stadium and starting to play a different game - like you used to play soccer at one stadium, and you move to a different stadium and start playing baseball, but you say you're still playing soccer."

The best part is that he admits his own small role in this game - playing along, acting like string theory is doing better than it is.

"I have been paying lip service to this community, and I have to admit - you see, in the interest of following my own admonition... I was never a string theorist, but I paid lip service because it was convenient to me, it was nice for me to feel I was collaborating with such great physicists."

#SciArtSeptember Day 27: amethyst

This #anatomy #embroidery, nave of vibration (2017) is an inner ear stitched on purple cloth. The inner ear also contains crystals called otoliths. #SciArt

This is why I use the term "parasite" when talking about the ultra-wealthy: they siphon away wealth & resources that could go to the collective good, while the rest of the population has to make do with less.

#ultrawealthy #oligarchy #billionaires #inequality

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2023/09/24/how-the-rich-get-richer/

SO good -- the best follow the money reporting on who's behind the global attack on digital privacy yet.

TLDR: it's law enforcement x AI companies posing as NGOs w a commercial interest in selling scammy mass scanning tech. Deeply cynical, deeply shady.

https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the-eus-fight-over-scanning-for-child-sex-content/

Sometimes business as usual just isn't an option. Sometimes you quickly put out the fire or the house burns down.

Ukraine's GDP dropped 30% when Russia invaded. Unless we take immediate action the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries expects a 50% decline of worldwide GDP by about 2070-2090, due to global warming. (Compared to if there were no global warming.)

And this, they drily point out, will be "exceptionally challenging" for investors.

They write:

"The pace of warming is also uncertain. However, some scientists now estimate warming of 0.3˚C per decade or around 1˚C every 30 years, which would imply warming of greater than 2˚C by 2050 and 3˚C by 2080. This is well within life expectancy for many in workplace schemes now and in range for the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) who have specified 80 years as long range for the Own Risk and Solvency Assessment (ORSA)."

"Put another way, at what point do we expect 50% GDP destruction? – somewhere between 2070 and 2090 depending on how you parameterise the distribution. It is worth a moment of reflection to consider what sort of catastrophic chain of events would lead to this level of economic destruction."

"This analysis provides a compelling logic for net zero becoming part of fiduciary duty, as if we do not mitigate climate change, it will be exceptionally challenging to provide financial returns."

Read the whole report for the reasoning behind this:

• The Emperor’s New Climate Scenarios: limitations and assumptions of commonly used
climate-change scenarios in financial services, https://actuaries.org.uk/media/qeydewmk/the-emperor-s-new-climate-scenarios_ifoa_23.pdf

Interested in associative memory and hopfield networks? Join us for the AMHN workshop at Neurips, linking #neuroscience and #ML #AI . I am very excited to support the organisers as part of the program committee!

General information:

https://amhn.vizhub.ai

Call for papers:

https://amhn.vizhub.ai/cfp/