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It is right to see dialectics in science, but it appears after the fact as a consequence of observation and theory rather than as an epistemological requirement. Certain scientific theories, such as relativity, do not admit a dialectical interpretation due to a lack of actors to play out the dialectical process, or of contradictions between them.

This is correct, but it’s not like there is ever a contradiction between mathematical and dialectical methods. Natural scientists only prefer to work with mathematics because their subject is benign enough to admit mathematical descriptions yielding precise, quantitative results, while social scientists need dialectics because their mathematical models suffer from crippling vagueness and complexity and are quickly outdated. Where mathematics can describe a system to which dialectics happen to also apply, e.g. phase transitions, it naturally produces models that mirror the dialectic because they both describe the same thing.

You are in the midst of committing a category error. Dialectics is the model that describes changing historical, social, and philosophical systems and processes. Analogies from physics are frequently used to explain how dialectics work, but that doesn’t mean dialectics govern physics, only that dialectical thinking has historically been inspired by physical processes.

The logical role that dialectics fulfills in social science is fulfilled in natural science by mathematics. So rather than taking the dialectical method and filling it with natural objects and laws at random, you should study the mathematical relationships between measurable quantities and interpret the dynamic expressed in the equations governing them. I know you might not want to hear this because mathematics is hard, but the only way to understand the inner workings of gravity is to sit your ass down with a book about general relativity and do the exercises.

“Surely they can’t kill me if I help them win”

Gas Gas Gas

The better a country becomes at using surveillance technology, the better it also becomes at hiding that it does. Until recently, China has had very little such experience, and thus everything it did was in plain sight. While in the West, intelligence agencies were already watching your moves, listening to your phone calls, and evaluating your metadata through your appliances, you could still see the massive security cameras from the past century on Chinese crosswalks. This is not a question of ideology or economics, every major country and organisation will inevitably try to keep pace as best it can with the evolution of vulnerabilities and threats. The perception of being a surveillance state, on the other hand, depends on the aesthetics of its technology, on the degree that you have the feeling of being stared at by it. Once China replaces the last of its last clunky old cams with more elegant models, citizens and tourists will eventually let go of that perception.

I sometimes read nothing for months and then binge a 2000-page novel over a single week

I just bought a VR game set in medieval Europe, why is there nobody you can pay to cover you with their clothes while you shit in a bucket in the middle of the town square? I demand to relieve myself in the comfort of a human outhouse, it is crucial to my enjoyment of the immersion

If they have something we don’t have, it’s theft; if they know something we don’t know, it’s fraud; and if they do something we don’t do, it’s sabotage

Maybe I’m not American enough to understand this, but how does this get bought? How do you store and cool this big-ass jar once you open it, how do you use it up without getting sick of the stuff, why wouldn’t you just buy it in a tube or a bottle, and why would anyone spend 20 bucks on a condiment?

Stock markets are to economics what bouncy castles are to architecture

Between this and the balloon thing, the US seems to have a broadcast malfunction where the audio channel is CNN and the video channel is Looney Tunes

I’m not pretending I know anything about working in a factory or a warehouse, but I have done quite a bit of walking recently, and you really feel much, much better if you wear additional pairs of socks especially if the shoes tend to rub against your ankles

I mean I suppose it is technically impressive but these morticians are still making a mockery of the trade

Don’t waste your fucking time arguing with a billionaire!! He’s in on it, they are all in on it, he’s trying to buy time

In commemoration of the massacre at Tiananmen square on the Fourth of June 1989, I shall now repeat the names of all the brave freedom fighters who died there:

idk why but the woman in this picture looks about to unhinge her jaw

The main difference is that a chatbot is actually available to talk to you

You’re not a light otaku until you can recite from memory at least 25 crystals that are used used in solid state lasers