Big Think: Here's how to prove that you are a simulation and nothing is real

In fact, if we don't believe we are simulations, concludes Bostrom, then "we are not entitled to believe that we will have descendants who will run lots of such simulations of their forebears." If you accept one premise (that you'll have powerful super-computing descendants), you have to accept the other (you are simulation). [...]

Simulating the whole universe, including all the details "down to the quantum level" requires more computing oomph, to the point that it may be "unfeasible," thinks Bostrom. But that may not really be necessary as all the future humans or post-humans would need to do is to simulate the human experience of the universe. They'd just need to make sure the simulated minds don't pick up on anything that doesn't look consistent or "irregularities". You wouldn't have to recreate things the human mind wouldn't ordinarily notice, like things happening at the microscopic level. [...]

A fascinating outcome of all this speculation is that we have no way of knowing what the true reality of existence really is. Our minds are likely accessing just a small fraction of the "totality of physical existence." What we think we are may be run on virtual machines that are run on other virtual machines - it's like a nesting doll of simulations, making it nearly impossible for us to see beyond to the true nature of things. Even the posthumans simulating us could be themselves simulated. As such, there could be many levels of reality, concludes Bostrom. The future us might likely never know if they are at the "fundamental" or "basement" level. [...]

What are other implications of these lines of reasoning? Ok, let's assume we are living in a simulation – now what? Bostrom doesn't think our behavior should be affected much, even with such heavy knowledge, especially as we don't know the true motivations of future humans behind creating the simulated minds. They might have entirely different value systems.

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Slate: The Price of Equality

Yeah, I love that [Duggan quote]. I am responding to that line of thinking, absolutely. But I would add that I’m also approaching this as a sociologist, and there’s this whole body of sociological research that shows how marriage is a “greedy institution.” Once people get married, because contemporary marriage requires focus and you’re supposed to just be totally focused on your partner, it sucks all your time and energy away from your broader community. Research on heterosexual marriage shows that married people, they volunteer less. They spend less time with friends. They talk to their neighbors less. So as a sociologist, I’m just curious if we are going to see marriage being quite so greedy for queer folk as well or not. [...]

I think there are a few. One of the things that I found most interesting was the extent to which a kind of social etiquette seemed to make these once very critical people, or even people who still felt very critical of marriage as an institution, feel like they couldn’t express that as freely anymore. Because suddenly you’re getting wedding invitations in the mail. And it’s not this abstract debate that you’re having. Your good friends that you’ve known for years are getting married. And it might be seen as insulting to decline. Or, even more than to decline, to challenge them. Do you say, wait a minute, what about all those debates we used to have? I think there was this kind of self-policing going on. People realized that it just wasn’t seen as appropriate anymore to critique marriage as an institution because they were worried that if they did, it would come across as a personal attack. [...]

Sure. It wasn’t just that the people were keeping [their criticisms] in or felt like they couldn’t express them anymore. Over time, reluctantly or not, they acknowledged to me that their views had softened. People would tell me, well suddenly we were going to these weddings and you know, I couldn’t believe how overcome with emotion I was. I couldn’t believe how happy I felt for these people getting married. And so, the emotional power of marriage was really striking. You could have these intellectual critiques of marriage as an institution, but then all of a sudden it was happening and people got very, very swept up in the emotion of it. Like, people saying: How could you not be moved by watching an elderly couple on the news that had been together for 50 years suddenly being able to tie the knot? It was always sort of unhuman not to be moved by them. [...]

I suppose what I would say about the legacy is that there’s a loss. There’s a price to social inclusion. I heard this from my respondents in all kinds of ways. I have another piece that I wrote, which is about the loss of organized community. There is this sense the more included you are, the less need people felt for any kind of organized LGBT community. And so [after marriage] all these once vibrant groups and organizations started shutting their doors. So that’s one thing.

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CityLab: Berlin Will Freeze Rents for Five Years

The Berlin senate on Tuesday voted in favor of what could be the most radical rental laws anywhere in Europe. The decision, which awaits final ratification by the same assembly members in October, is the most drastic step yet in a city that has already gone further than most in its attempts to keep rents affordable. [...]

Once fully ratified in October, the law would be retroactive to June 18. Rent increases on Berlin homes would be banned for five years, with the exception of already subsidized public housing and newly constructed apartments. In practice, this means rental rates will remain in place on 1.5 million of the city’s 1.9 million homes.

To enforce the rule, tenants who sign new contracts could have them checked by the city to verify that rents have not been raised illegally. Meanwhile, existing tenants who pay a rate that the city deems too high could apply to have their rent lowered. (It hasn’t been decided yet what rates are considered too high.) [...]

This is already fairly strict, but its effect is to steadily pace rent increases, rather than halt them altogether. This has thus far prevented rents from galloping up year by year, which could cause real social chaos in a city where 85 percent of homes are rented. [...]

In a city where even relatively wealthy, well-connected people rent, this has led to a growing popular movement for greater collective control of the housing market. Berlin is already being swept by a campaign to renationalize former public housing blocks and ban mega landlords, one that may well be the subject of a city-wide referendum in 2020. Meanwhile the state has become more heavily involved in new housing provisions, though here it is currently falling behind its ambitious targets.

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TLDR News: Tactical Voting in the Leadership Election

Throughout the Conservative leadership contest theirs been speculation that candidates have encouraged their supporters to vote tactically. With the final two candidates selected we look back over the process and examine if there really been tactical voting going on.

Smithsonian: Scientists Identify Exotic Birds Depicted in Peru’s Mysterious Nazca Lines Read

But a new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports introduces a complicating factor to these theories: As a trio of Japanese researchers—Masaki Eda of the Hokkaido University Museum, Takeshi Yamasaki of Yamashina Institute for Ornithology, and Masato Sakai of Yamagata University—writes in the paper, an ornithological analysis of the Nazca Lines’ avian glyphs reveals that many of the birds in question were previously misidentified. [...]

Ultimately, the researchers reclassified three of the 16 glyphs studied. According to Live Science’s Stephanie Pappas, an etching once identified as a hummingbird actually portrays a hermit, a subgroup of hummingbird known to live in the forested regions of northern and eastern Peru rather than the southern desert where the lines are situated. Per Ars Technica’s Kiona N. Smith, the hermit was recognized on the basis of its three pointed toes; long, thin beak; and elongated tail feathers. Comparatively, most hummingbirds have forked or fan-shaped tails. [...]

Smith writes that the researchers were unable to identify all 16 of the birds, as some had morphological traits anathema to both their previous classifications (for example, condors and flamingoes) and that of any living species native to Peru. It’s possible, therefore, that some of the drawings represent extinct lineages or are simply inaccurate.[...]

Moving forward, the researchers plan on comparing the glyphs to birds “drawn on pottery, modeled as vessels, and used in religious activities.” By identifying additional members of the avian group, or perhaps gaining a clearer understanding of why the featured species were so important to the Nazca, the team hopes to further unravel the secrets of the still-mysterious Nazca Lines.

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Reuters: Kushner's economic plan for Mideast peace faces broad Arab rejection

The lack of a political solution, which Washington has said would be unveiled later, prompted rejection not only from Palestinians but also in Arab countries with which Israel would seek normal relations.

From Sudan to Kuwait, commentators and ordinary citizens denounced Kushner’s proposals in strikingly similar terms: “colossal waste of time,” “non-starter,” “dead on arrival.”

Egyptian liberal and leftist parties slammed the workshop as an attempt to “consecrate and legitimize” occupation of Arab land and said in a joint statement that any Arab participation would be “beyond the limits of normalization” with Israel. [...]

Thousands of people marched through the Moroccan capital Rabat on Sunday to express their solidarity with the Palestinians and their opposition to the Kushner plan. [...]

Arab analysts believe Kushner’s economic plan is an attempt to buy off opposition to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land with a multi-billion dollar bribe to pay off the neighboring hosts of millions of Palestinian refugees to integrate them.

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CityLab: Paris Wants to Grow ‘Urban Forests’ at Famous Landmarks

Under a plan announced last week by Mayor Anne Hidalgo, thickets of trees will soon appear in what today are pockets of concrete next to landmark locations, including the Hôtel de Ville, Paris’s city hall; the Opera Garnier, Paris’s main opera house; the Gare de Lyon; and along the Seine quayside.

The new plantings are part of a plan to create “islands of freshness”—green spaces that moderate the city’s heat island effect. It also falls into an overall drive to convert Paris’s surface “from mineral to vegetal,” introducing soil into architectural set-piece locations that have been kept bare historically. As a result, the plan will not just increase greenery, but may also provoke some modest rethinking of the way Paris frames its architectural heritage.

While “forest” might be far too big a term for plots this modest in size, the plans as a type are necessary if Paris is to meet its ambitious greening goals. By 2030, city hall wants to have 50 percent of the city covered by fully porous, planted areas, a category that can include anything from new parkland to green roofs. This means that, when it comes to planting, pretty much any urban space needs to be up for grabs. [...]

As the mayor notes in this interview with newspaper Le Parisien, traffic on Paris’s roads has been reducing at a rate of 5 percent every year during her term, a reduction that is not always apparent on the roads because car lane space has also been reduced. With the number of cars steadily falling, Hidalgo has suggested steadily removing parking spaces and replacing each one with mini-gardens, a process that is due to start already this year on Avenue Daumesnil, an axial thoroughfare bisecting the city’s southeast.

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The Observer view on Boris Johnson’s Brexit fantasies

When politicians can spread untruths with little accountability and few electoral consequences, an irreversible rot starts to set into the political system. There’s no greater indicator that this is happening in Britain today than the fact that a man within spitting distance of Downing Street is getting away with deploying utterly misleading information about what might happen in the aftermath of a no-deal Brexit, in order to strengthen his leadership bid. [...]

Johnson’s claims contradict the views of trade experts. The House of Commons library summarises it thus: “Trade law experts have repeatedly and authoritatively dismissed the view that the relevant rule offers an easy solution to UK trade with the EU in the case of ‘no deal’.” So Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, was entirely correct to reject Johnson’s assertion. If there is no withdrawal agreement when Brexit happens, Britain and the EU will have to trade under WTO tariffs, unless they choose to lift tariffs for other countries. [...]

A no-deal Brexit will have destructive economic and political consequences for the country. The government’s forecast is that it would depress GDP between 7.7% and 9.3% over a 15-year period and it is the least affluent areas of the nation that will be hit worst in terms of jobs and growth. Moreover, a no-deal Brexit risks the breakup of the UK; it would increase the pressure for a vote on Irish unity and fuel the campaign for Scottish independence. This does not seem to worry the Conservative members who will select our next prime minister. One poll last week suggests they are so ideological about Brexit that they are happy to countenance significant economic damage, the breakup of the union and the destruction of their own party in order to see it happen. Johnson is currently expected to secure a comfortable victory among them, despite the fact that 40% believe he cannot be trusted to tell the truth.

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statista: Lebanon Has By Far The Most Refugees Per 1,000 Population

Turkey hosts the most refugees of any country worldwide with 3.7 million in total at the end of 2018, ahead of Pakistan (1.4 million) and Uganda (1.2 million). As a share of the population, however, Lebanon hosts the most by far with 156 per 1,000 of its inhabitants. Jordan comes second with 72 per 1,000 of its population while Turkey rounds off the top three with 45 per 1,000 of its people. Prior to the war in Syria, Lebanon only hosted 8,000 refugees and the huge influx has pushed its socio-economic absorption capacity to the very limit.

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