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[Max™]

Do you really want to give politicians prototype treatments? That's how you get nanomachines, son.

Oh shit... but if I could get nanomachines... hmmm.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. What does the average temperature measure?
2. Does that mean: CO2 causes temperature changes, temperature changes influence CO2 levels, both are influenced by other factors in a similar fashion, or it is a coincidental correlation?
3. Does that mean it is not possible, or does it mean nobody understands the system well enough to accurately simulate it, or does it mean there is no money in simulations which don't achieve certain results, or perhaps the flawed understanding is coincidentally able to produce similar enough results when certain other assumptions are included?
4. Doesn't #3 imply that models are good at simulating climate trends? Are they? Do you understand how they work, and how they achieve their results?

1. Average planet-wide temperature.
2. CO2 causes temperatures to rise. We have known this since the nineteenth century.
3+4. Moot.

1. Temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy in an ensemble of particles. The temperature of a glass of water refers to how energetic the molecules bouncing around inside the glass are on average. What is the average temperature of a glass of ice water and a cup of fresh coffee? What property of the ice water+fresh coffee system does that average temperature represent? Is there a way to measure average temperature? What property of the global oceanic/surface/atmospheric system does that average temperature represent? "The average average kinetic energy of the ensemble of all gas, liquid, and solids on the planet?" What do changes in this average average kinetic energy mean? What effect if any does it have on the boundary conditions of the system?

2. It has been proposed that CO2 behaves in a way which for some reason is equated to a greenhouse, there are numerous problems with certain arguments drawn from this hypothesis. Several of these problems have been known since the 19th century. I've done experiments on this myself. Naturally they are hardly the final word, and I was mostly testing a different hypothesis, but it so happened that I could include a bit of exploration on the effects of CO2 on my apparatus, so I did. If you're curious send me a PM and I'll try to dig it back up, I had most of it on a failing hard drive so it's all scattered from the frantic transfer process, but if not that's cool too. I'm comfortable being doubted because science is a process, not something you can call "settled" in any way.

3+4. If models are used to justify policy and support political agendas in the guise of science, how are they moot?

[Amperzand]

On the one hand, the effects of high CO2 are not particularly strong, being only about 3% of all factors effecting the earth's approximate mean temperature. On the other, 3% of a whole bunch is still kinda big, and it doesn't take a lot of change to make more vulnerable regions very unhappy.

[Orange Wizard]

1. I'm guessing that scientists measure the temperature at a bunch of different places and, y'know, average them.

2. Submit your research somewhere reputable if you think it'll challenge overwhelming scientific consensus

3+4. Models are pretty useful but the ones you're proposing are based on the idea that greenhouse gases are not linked to climate change, and therefore irrelevant

[penguinofhonor]

Inconsequential Kentucky primary update: Clinton won 46.8% to 46.3%, by less than 2000 votes. Kentucky allots delegates proportionally, though, so they're splitting them 27-27. A good showing for Sanders, especially in such a conservative state, but he needs more than 50% of the remaining delegates to pull ahead.

Also... Martin O'Malley got 5720 votes. The guy who hasn't been running for three months.

[Egan_BW]

I have a very important and serious question: does the hover platform support more betterness?

[mainiac]

What about neutrality?

[Egan_BW]

More Neutralness is a fundamentally flawed view when compared to More Betterness, which is why I support a policy of As Much Neutralness As We Had Before.

[smjjames]

Inconsequential Kentucky primary update: Clinton won 46.8% to 46.3%, by less than 2000 votes. Kentucky allots delegates proportionally, though, so they're splitting them 27-27. A good showing for Sanders, especially in such a conservative state, but he needs more than 50% of the remaining delegates to pull ahead.

He actually needs more than 100% of the delegates and win by huge margins to pull ahead.

Also, what's up with DC holding it's democratic primary so late? It doesn't have all that many delegates anyway.

Edit: And we'll have to see if the same chaos that happened with Nevada convention happens with later delegate conventions down the road. Seems like we're headed for a rocky national convention for both parties.

[Cruxador]

1. Temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy in an ensemble of particles. The temperature of a glass of water refers to how energetic the molecules bouncing around inside the glass are on average. What is the average temperature of a glass of ice water and a cup of fresh coffee? What property of the ice water+fresh coffee system does that average temperature represent?

Why do you answer a question and then ask it?

Is there a way to measure average temperature?

Measure temperature in a bunch of different places, then average it.

What property of the global oceanic/surface/atmospheric system does that average temperature represent? "The average average kinetic energy of the ensemble of all gas, liquid, and solids on the planet?"

No, the numbers you normally hear are atmosphere, since that's what we're in. People measure oceans separately, and mantle/core temperature is generally only of interest to geologists since neither we nor any of our food sources live there.

What do changes in this average average kinetic energy mean?

We get hotter, weather patterns shift, and ice melts.

It has been proposed that CO2 behaves in a way which for some reason is equated to a greenhouse, there are numerous problems with certain arguments drawn from this hypothesis. Several of these problems have been known since the 19th century. I've done experiments on this myself. Naturally they are hardly the final word, and I was mostly testing a different hypothesis, but it so happened that I could include a bit of exploration on the effects of CO2 on my apparatus, so I did. If you're curious send me a PM and I'll try to dig it back up, I had most of it on a failing hard drive so it's all scattered from the frantic transfer process, but if not that's cool too. I'm comfortable being doubted because science is a process, not something you can call "settled" in any way.

That's a whole lot of words to say "there's evidence that this is wrong" without providing anything that begins to even hint at any actual evidence.

3+4. If models are used to justify policy and support political agendas in the guise of science, how are they moot?

If that's all it was, the opposing political view would be able to fund models which showed their own viewpoint. The operative fact isn't that every model relies on human CO2 emission, but that no model exists which is predictive without it. That's why I phrased it the way I did.

[SalmonGod]

He actually needs more than 100% of the delegates and win by huge margins to pull ahead.

See... this bothers me.  I keep seeing it.

On one hand, we have people questioning the existence of superdelegates and how they relate to a democratic process.  Early in the race, people were calling foul that Clinton had 22% of the delegates needed for nomination in the bag before a single count had voted.  The response to that criticism was always "Those are just projections!  We don't know how superdelegates will actually vote until the convention.  So they're only a theoretical factor in her lead, based on nothing but public statements indicating who they are likely to support."

But now for at least the last couple months, that whole line of reasoning has completely fucking dropped.  The same people who were saying those things to try and calm people down have now been saying "Bernie's been mathematically eliminated.  There's no way he can win!  He'd need more than 100% of remaining delegates!  Hillary needs your support now to prevent Trump!"

But it looks to me like their difference in pledged delegate counts is only 279, and there are 946 still available.  So this mathematical elimination line that the media has been pushing really hard and most everyone has been buying into is based on completely contradicting what the official story was to cool down sentiments regarding superdelegates early in the race.  Shit like this is why anti-establishmentarianism is skyrocketing in American culture.

[mainiac]

See... this bothers me.  I keep seeing it.

See... this bothers me.  I keep seeing it.

Clinton is ahead by 279 delegates and there are 946 still available.  She is certainly going to win the nomination.  Your dude fucking lost.  Instead of manning up and getting the fuck over it you accuse the other side of cheating.  Know who didn't do that?  Hillary Clinton 8 years ago.

Every time that you accuse the Clinton camp of cheating you show that your "movement" is worse then the worst things that were said about it.

[Rolan7]

Er...  If I'm reading this right, Sanders could still technically win more pledged delegates.  It's not going to happen, but it's possible?  Which makes the imbalance of superdelegates still kinda relevant.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/primary-calendar-and-results.html?_r=0
There are 930 delegates remaining, of which 564 are superdelegates.  So there are 366 pledged delegates we still get to vote for.
Clinton: 1,767 pledged delegates so far
Sanders: 1,488 pledged delegates so far
So if he got all 366...  Or even, um, 323/366 (82%), he'd be ahead in pledged delegates.  And the superdelegates would be deciding the primary.

Of course, realistically he isn't going to get 323/366 of the pledged delegates, so Clinton is going to win cleanly without needing the superdelegates.

[smjjames]

He actually needs more than 100% of the delegates and win by huge margins to pull ahead.

See... this bothers me.  I keep seeing it.

On one hand, we have people questioning the existence of superdelegates and how they relate to a democratic process.  Early in the race, people were calling foul that Clinton had 22% of the delegates needed for nomination in the bag before a single count had voted.  The response to that criticism was always "Those are just projections!  We don't know how superdelegates will actually vote until the convention.  So they're only a theoretical factor in her lead, based on nothing but public statements indicating who they are likely to support."

But now for at least the last couple months, that whole line of reasoning has completely fucking dropped.  The same people who were saying those things to try and calm people down have now been saying "Bernie's been mathematically eliminated.  There's no way he can win!  He'd need more than 100% of remaining delegates!  Hillary needs your support now to prevent Trump!"

But it looks to me like their difference in pledged delegate counts is only 279, and there are 946 still available.  So this mathematical elimination line that the media has been pushing really hard and most everyone has been buying into is based on completely contradicting what the official story was to cool down sentiments regarding superdelegates early in the race.  Shit like this is why anti-establishmentarianism is skyrocketing in American culture.

It's not just the math, it's also that he has to win by bigger margins than he has been doing.

I'm still voting for Bernie Sanders regardless to give him as much of an advantage as possible.

[wobbly]

Seems to me it's irrelevant whether she has it in the bag or not. Presumably she needs a fair chunk of the Sanders supporters to win the general election & has to pay attention to how many voters preferred someone else & a different set of policies.

[Shadowlord]

Just because some people think that death threats are an acceptable way to deal with losing doesn't mean we all do...

Crap. Now I know what it's like for those people who claim allegiance to GamerGate but say it isn't represented by the people who send death threats to female developers.