Well, they do not have an explanation. They are not attempting to explain how the physical universe works. They are throwing up a smoke screen in order to obscure the issue. Much like a magician might throw up a smoke-screen as a means of misdirecting the audience. Except in this case they are throwing up a field as an illusion, as a trick in order to try to avoid having to explain how reality works.
So, that is what he means by math-magician. Which is a term we quite like here at Metaphysics of Physics and which you are going to hear more of on this show. Especially when quoting Mr Gaede.
How else should we describe people that try to throw up illusions of doing science? Illusions that attempt to distract us from the fact that they are not doing physics, but mathematics. Even though they are trying to fool us that they are doing physics.
Math-magician indeed…
Alright, that brings us to the end of this segment. Yes, we know we barely started discussing the video. But we got a fair bit out of it. We will return to it next episode or the episode after that.
Current Affairs Segment
We have not done one of these segments since the first one several weeks ago. So, let’s see what we have for you today.
Since Avengers: Endgame came out recently perhaps now we can talk a bit about the villain of that movie: Thanos. If you have not seen Avengers: Infinity War and do not want any spoilers then you might want to stop listening now. Although, all we are discussing is the main villain’s motivation, which is not much of a spoiler. And something a lot of people are vaguely aware of.
If you are still listening, you are about to receive spoilers for the movie Avengers: Infinity War. Last chance to turn back!
Alright, since you are still listening, you know that at the end of the movie, Thanos wants to snap his fingers and destroy half of all the life in the universe.
Why? Because he thinks overpopulation is a universal problem and which is his place to try address. Which seems to be the reason he sought to go to the trouble of acquiring the Infinity Stones and assembling them into the Infinity Gauntlet in the first place.
So, is committing genocide and killing half of the universe justified in order to achieve this goal? Of course not!
Granted, the writers do not seem to want us to think this. We are clearly meant to disapprove of his methods and to judge them as evil.
But, what about his motivation itself? What are we meant to think of that? Is his desire to cure overpopulation a noble one that should be solved using less radical methods?
Yes, it would seem that’s what they are going for. Infinity War goes out of its way to make it clear that we are meant to sympathize with his motivation. And with the character himself. It goes to great lengths to make us think that he is a somewhat sympathetic character with good intentions taken too far.
Does Thanos have a valid point? No, not really. This is based on long-debunked and fallacious claims of the scarcity of resources that have never been supported and long contradicted by known facts.
Virtually no resource of great importance has become critically scarce and many become far less scarce as populations grow. This is because populations can typically only grow to the extent that resources allow them to do so. If resources were as scarce as such theories allege, populations would not be able to reach these levels in the first place.
As resources expand, assuming people are free to use their minds and innovate, we can expand our access to resources and develop or discover new ones. So, even if we were to use all the oil today, we would be able to replace it with a new resource or find a way to do without that resource.
But, more than this, the resources in question have proved to be practically inexhaustible. There is so much oil, precious metals and other valuable resources in the ground that it would take inconceivable amounts of time to exhaust the Earths supply! And most supplies of manmade resources can be resupplied or replaced without great catastrophic effect.
So, it is practically inconceivable that overpopulation could come up. Given that populations only tend to grow as far as their resources allow. The resources available to use allow us to support far greater populations than is likely to ever be an issue.
Notice how similar Thanos’ means are to the logical end of environmentalists. The logical conclusion of environmentalists is that humans should all die so that the environment is safe from human impact.
Perhaps all this is a thinly disguised form of environmentalism. Which has never concerned itself with facts anyway. And which wishes to commit genocide on a far wider scale than Thanos the Mad Titan.