In each of his previous wins, the margin of victory was razor thin - he can’t afford to lose ANY votes... and yet, in a jaw-dropping and unforced error, there he is on the top ten list of politicians taking money from #AIPAC.
A portion of the US population is getting nervous due to doomsayers spouting frightening rumors about the coming eclipse on April 8. Misinformation and bogus claims are rampant, particularly with the religious-minded, who regularly use world events to scare people back into the fold.
It’s as if we never had a solar eclipse before in the world!
Even though it sometimes feels like we’re regressing, we are in the 21st century. Eclipses have happened repeated, around the world, in the past century. They are predictable and explainable. We can factually document that catastrophes do not accompany them. Yet, here we are… with too many in the audience expecting some cataclysm in the wake of the moon shadow.
The reasons for this are complex and social. Most people still don’t understand nature and they succumb to social pressure to be fearful. Things that sound sciencey are convincing, whereas actual science gets ignored.
An eclipse occurred and nothing happened
A solar eclipse is when the moon passes in a specific alignment between the earth and the sun so that the sun’s light is blocked out for a short while. The shadow moves across the earth’s surface because the earth is turning and the moon is moving. There is nothing particularly dangerous about this condition (unless you aren’t expecting it).
The last solar eclipse in the US occurred on Aug 21, 2017. Self-styled prophet and Nostradamus superfan, John Hogue, self-published a book around that time suggesting that there would be great upheavals as totality passed over two seismic zones – the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ) and the Cascadia zone in the northwest. That didn’t happen. To hedge his bets, in case no earthquakes occurred, he also suggested the event was also an omen of bad times to come. We didn’t need an eclipse to signal that since in 2017 more than half the nation were already well aware of suffering through “interesting times”. No psychic powers were needed. I don’t think it’s reasonable to link the eclipse to the pandemic and wars, etc., years later, but being reasonable isn’t cool these days.
A solar eclipse in Hong Kong in July 2009 generated a rumor that a tsunami would occur. People were warned people to stay away from beaches. Again, nothing happened.
These ideas about catastrophes related to eclipses didn’t die even though none of the predictions ever came true.
The buildup
Hullabaloo around the April 8 event is getting louder as we get closer. At first we heard of cities and states in the path of totality declaring states of emergency so extra funds could be used for deploying responders. This is not because of the potential for natural catastrophe but for the possibility for a human disaster. Visitors who want to view the event will be heading into areas that can’t handle the volume. Officials guessed that overcrowding, traffic, potential violent incidents, injuries, and stresses on utilities and other necessary services might be a concern. So they are preparing.
There are rumors of power cuts or outages during the eclipse. This is from a rumor that solar cells will suddenly stop producing during the darkening. I’m always amazed that people think the smart people who run complex systems haven’t thought of this.
From the NY Times:
“I don’t think anything is as predictable as an eclipse,” said Pedro Pizarro, president and chief of executive of Edison International, a California power company, and the chairman of the Edison Electric Institute, a utility trade organization. “You can prepare.”
There are so many superstitions about eclipses – really dumb ones persist, such as the idea that it’s dangerous to be out during the event, particularly for pregnant women. It’s true that animals do act strange because they get confused about the sudden night fall but, again, there is nothing dangerous about it.
Storms are unrelated to the eclipse
The temporary diminishment of solar radiation will cause darkness, a drop in temperature and maybe small changes in wind speed and direction because of the reduction in convection. The cooling only happens for a few minutes. There is no connection to thunderstorms. A misappropriated weather forecast on March 15 in Orlando had some people thinking that the eclipse would generate a giant storm front. This BS hype is par for the course on Reddit.
Earthquakes are unrelated to the eclipse
The connection between eclipses and earthquakes goes back to the Bible. Even though many places around the world have experienced total eclipses and weren’t leveled by a massive quake, the unfounded connection persists. Eclipses and earthquakes have long been viewed as portents from God or “gods”. This wacky idea still hangs on in modern times even though we know they are not arbitrary events – they have a natural cause. The doomsday hype about earthquakes appeared at the time of the 2017 US solar eclipse.
Some religious leaders, who think themselves very special in that they can interpret the Bible and strike fear into their followers, saying that a large quake could occur that would cause massive damage. They encourage people to be prepared. Being prepared for a quake is not unreasonable. But suggesting that a large quake may occur during this time is dangerous and irresponsible. In particular, Tennessee evangelist Perry Stone uses “information” he just learned about the NMSZ (like, yesterday) to convince listeners that Jesus might have been talking specifically about 2024 in the Bible verse that connects earthquakes (in various places) to famine, pestilence and signs from heaven. The sign from heaven is the eclipse, he says. From his videos, Stone Ministries specializes in scaring people with nonsense claims about End Times and evil. This interpretation is a stretch. We are asked to believe that a predicted solar eclipse that occurs in a short time span over the US will herald a global catastrophe. Considering the track record of religious prophecies, I’m going to play the odds and say, “Nah”.
The path of totality does, again, pass over the centrally-located NMSZ along the Mississippi in Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas and Kentucky, (and the Wabash Valley Seismic Zone to the northeast) however, this means nothing. The NMSZ is still poorly understood. The large earthquakes it generated in 1811-12 would be devastating if they occurred today. Many people still assume that the next “Big One” could occur in the next century. This is unlikely, though small quakes are frequent. Current research even suggests the fault system may be shutting down, not “overdue” for another large release.
https://i0.wp.com/sharonahill.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/map-with-SZ.jpg?resize=819%2C573&ssl=1Map of the path of the eclipse of 2017 and that of 2024. The New Madrid and Wabash Valley Seismic zones are roughly located in the red oval. Both eclipse paths cross this area. Geologically, that has no signficance. The moon passing in front of the sun has no bearing on tectonic plates (or volcanic eruptions). Yet, most people know that the phase of the moon affects the earth’s ocean tides. The extra gravitational effects from a new or full moon phase on the entire planet is slight, but we see it in the oceans, which are unbounded and slosh around.
The exerted force on the crust is negligible, except for the small possibility that a large fault already set to rupture gets broken by that little extra push. The data that suggests this may be the case is not fully accepted by seismologists and, regardless, has no practical use in seismic hazards prediction. These small changes associated with tidal stresses on the earth have not convinced scientists that we should worry more about earthquakes every two weeks in line with moon phases. Yet, many crackpots still proclaim that earth tides can predict quakes. They see the celestial bodies in alignment and assume the gravitational pull is increased, but it’s not. The same misapplied ideas may also be leading to those same wind bags spouting about tsunamis or large tidal effects. None of it shakes out.
There are many large earthquakes around the world every year. And there are several lunar and solar eclipses every century. The odds that events will sometimes coincide is inevitable. But they are not caused by each other. If a quake occurred in the US during this eclipse, the chances are that the quake would be small, because there are dozens of small quakes that occur every day. And, if that were to happen on April 8, anywhere in the US, or even weeks later, it would be difficult to stop people from assuming they are related. Human brains want to make connections and attribute causes to a direct observation, and usually to an agency – like God, the Devil, or the government – to form a story in their own minds. But correlations, in the context of our narrow human views, do not mean the events have a causal relationship. Sadly, few people are well versed in understanding natural phenomenon and applying critical thinking. They prefer to believe a dramatic story and share it with others. Thus, we have these kinds of social commotions about interesting events, swirling with misinformation and pseudoscience.
Consider this:
When the U.S. Constitution was drafted human beings were entirely capable of comprehensively understanding nearly every aspect of how the world around them worked.
How to grow food. Run a business. Understand emerging topics in science, math, philosophy and the arts. The optimism running through the renaissance thinkers is not surprising.
The drafters of the Constitution were masters of their world (to often unfortunately include slaves). They were confident in their direction moving into the future because they could predict the future --- based on their comprehensive knowledge of their present.
#AI#GenerativeAI#Law#Prediction: "In the past, AI evaluation has relied on static, automated benchmarks. As AI starts to get more useful in the real world, this approach is breaking down, because the gap between benchmarks and deployment scenarios grows ever wider. What we need are socio-technical assessments carried out in the specific context in which the AI system would be deployed. In the past, this would have been summarily rejected as cost-prohibitive, but if AI developers want to make headway in consequential domains such as law, they must greatly increase the amount of time and resources devoted to evaluation."
#Prediction time: within ~5 years a AAA game studio will release an absolutely beautiful game with a world populated with AI powered NPCs. You’ll be able to talk with literally anyone you encounter (that isn’t trying to kill you).
The game will be hated because:
NPCs instruct players to do impossible things
unscripted interactions will leave players confused as to what they should do next
Prediction for the Houston Marathon (Sunday): many calls for treating hypothermia among runners, real possibility for a MCI (Mass Casualty Incident) if enough runners are affected. 32F wind chill + exhausted runners = hypothermia. #prediction#Houston#Marathon#TXwx#hypothermia
It's been cloudy/partly cloudy all day, apparently the WX prediction and modeling at the NWS is not doing a great job today (which says it is "Mostly Sunny" -- haven't seen sunlight yet. #CAwx#wx#prediction
“There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.” — George Orwell, 1984 #Quote#Prediction
My prediction of the future (which will come true) is I will not be winning the $1.73 billion Powerball Lottery tonight. Anyone want to wager on that with a bet? #lottery#prediction
This comic is less than 10 years old and had the subtitle: "In CS, it can be hard to explain the difference between easy and virtually impossible".
10 years ago object identification was virtually impossible - now it is everywhere.
My personal #prediction of future note to water users in one year: "In anticipation of a wet winter, we drew down the reservoir, in order to make room for rainfall. Unfortunately, predictions for a wet winter did not pan out, and instead, we have been forced into the uncomfortable position of drastically limiting our supply of water to our customers. We are surprised and disappointed that Mother Nature has put us into this situation."
#Prediction: if #Threads follows through with #Fediverse support by using #ActivityPub, and especially if #Wordpress and #Tumblr join the party, #ATProtocol will be all but dead. AP will be the standard for social online, regardless of any benefits of AT. #BlueSky will effectively die with it, unless they switch to AP (unlikely as then they’d just be one instance amongst many). Threads joining the Fediverse would hurt BlueSky (and to some degree #Twitter) a lot more than it would hurt #Mastodon.