Trump / Musk (other than DOGE)

[finesse]

Every outcome is equally likely. No output is more likely than another.

If one output is more likely than another then there is some order being imposed on the system externally, and it's by definition not random anymore.

Maybe this is the math/verbal divide because the stipulation of an equal likelihood seems like the imposition of some sort of order. I understand, I think, the math concept but it leaves my mental concept unsettled.

 

[Ddseddse]

Maybe this is the math/verbal divide because the stipulation of an equal likelihood seems like the imposition of some sort of order. I understand, I think, the math concept but it leaves my mental concept unsettled.

I get that. For me it helps to think of primeval chaos. Undifferentiated nothingness. No order or structure. What other result could there be but everything equally likely? As soon as any one thing becomes more likely than another, then you have imposed order upon on the primeval chaos.

 

[superrific]

ETA: I really don't have a stake in this fight. I'm mostly just arguing because it a) helps keep me sharp, b) is fun (I believe most lawyers share this belief) and c) I need an outlet for nervous energy. BTW, Super, I have an actual legal question over on the Jeff Jackson thread that I feel is right up your alley.

I don't know if I would call it "fun" but those reasons for continuing to discuss this are all valid.

 

[finesse]

I get that. For me it helps to think of primeval chaos. Undifferentiated nothingness. No order or structure. What other result could there be but everything equally likely? As soon as any one thing becomes more likely than another, then you have imposed order upon on the primeval chaos.

Chaos, to my mind, suggest anything but uniformity. It demands anything but, including for order to manifest but not stabilize. How, in a chaotic system, can a pattern even allow all chances be equal at one time. It almost insists that it be all chances are equal at some time.

 

[Ddseddse]

I think you're missing the point. That historian on the other board, who seems not to have made it here, would do the same thing.

The word random is not co-extensive with a computer scientist's definition of the word. Computer scientists coopted the word random and turned it into a word meaning uniform probability distribution. That's fine for their purposes, but it doesn't mean they now own the word random. They are using a word with broader meaning as a token to denote a more specific meaning.

The word random has its origins in Middle English and French, where it meant "at great speed." That connoted carelessness (I wonder if that comes from a military application), and then purposelessness. But for two centuries, the word has been used in English to mean unpredictable, not uniform probability distribution.

Thus have you inverted the causality. I'm not using some imprecise approximation of the word random. I'm using the word (or trying to) as it has been used in the language for centuries. Your logic here would produce odd results elsewhere:

1. "Work." In physics, work is force * distance. So moving boxes all day involves a lot of work. Seeing patients all day as a doctor actually involves little work at all. Even less work is required when lawyers stay up for 18 hours straight finalizing a merger or drafting a brief. Yet if you told that lawyer or doctor that they haven't done any word today, they would look at you like you were crazy. Or, depending on the extent of sleep deprivation, punch you.

2. "Obese" is defined by doctors as a certain body mass index. By BMI, I'm guessing Lebron James is obese. But if you called him obese, people would look at you like a crazy person. Likewise, most people who BMI considers obese are considered "overweight" in our culture, or not even that.

I don't have time for more examples. Hopefully you get the point.

Ah, unpredictable. You'll agree with me that a result can be more, or less, unpredictable, no? "Kamala Harris will win NC" (more unpredictable) vs. "Kamala Harris will win CA" (less unpredictable)... What discriminates one result as more unpredictable than another? The flattening of the probability distribution function, of course.

Squirm as you might, the flat probability function is at the core of randomness, there's no escaping that.

 

[Ddseddse]

Chaos, to my mind, suggest anything but uniformity. It demands anything but, including for order to manifest but not stabilize. How, in a chaotic system, can a pattern even allow all chances be equal at one time. It almost insists that it be all chances are equal at some time.

That's just lie told by Arioch, Lord of Chaos, to deceive his mortal followers. Primordial chaos is ultimately sterility and death

 

[finesse]

That's just lie told by Arioch, Lord of Chaos, to deceive his mortal followers. Primordial chaos is ultimately sterility and death

I have all those.

ETA: I do my homework now.

 

[superrific]

Ah, unpredictable. You'll agree with me that a result can be more, or less, unpredictable, no? "Kamala Harris will win NC" (more unpredictable) vs. "Kamala Harris will win CA" (less unpredictable)... What discriminates one result as more unpredictable than another? The flattening of the probability distribution function, of course.

Squirm as you might, the flat probability function is at the core of randomness, there's no escaping that.

1. Flattening of a probability function isn't the same thing as a completely flat probability function. That's just not how language works. Language is rarely taken to the logical extreme.

For instance, let's talk about the word "tall" as used to describe people. You can define tall operationally as the number of meters required to traverse a vertical plane starting at a person's feet and ending at their head (I know this isn't a plane per se, but I don't remember the right word. Surface?). But that doesn't mean that tall only refers to the tallest people. Indeed, to the contrary, tall usually has an implied reference to some sort of cutoff. You can put the cutoff in different places depending on your purposes -- maybe tall is someone whose body is longer than average? Or 80th percentile? 90th? -- but in the end, the word applies when the threshold is met. It doesn't continue further.

So too with random. That randomness is connected to flat probability distributions does not imply that only perfectly flat distributions are random, as the word is used in ordinary language. There's a threshold, and once crossed, the word applies.

Most adjectives I can think of work this way, because logical purity is not an important or valuable function of ordinary language. To the contrary, language is most useful when it's generalizable. If I apply for a job, and my resume is thrown out because HR rolls a 3d6 for each received resume and tosses any that come up 5 or less . . . well, I think I'd have a right to complain about that, and in formulating that complaint, I'd use the word random, as in "it's not fair to toss out resumes randomly like that." The function of the word is to contrast that selection process with something principled. I don't think anyone would dispute the use of the word there, nor in any similar way that might violate technical randomness as you've defined it.

In ordinary language, in fact, random often means "unimportant" or "arbitrary." For instance, if the employer tosses all resumes for people whose last name starts with the letter F, we'd call that exclusion "randomly." We'd say, "they have so many applicants that they can toss resumes out at random." That there was a method to the madness isn't really important, because the method is not considered acceptable.

2. I guess the main point here is that ordinary language and technical language have different functions in our society, and the desirable qualities of each are different. When you demand that ordinary language follow technical language -- there's just no justification for it. Computer scientists don't have special powers to change our language just because they define concepts with math.

If ordinary language borrows from technical language, the case for your position is stronger. For instance, DNA did not exist as a term until it was coined by biologists. So in this instance, biologists might be more justified in insisting that DNA refer to specific molecules in cells. But generally, they don't. People say, "doing the right thing is no longer in Boeing's DNA" even though obviously a company can't have DNA. Basketball analysts refer to players' gravitational pull -- meaning that their abilities, especially shooting abilities, require the defense to keep multiple players near them at all times. Obviously this isn't the same as gravity. And yet, many of those analysts are trained in math or physics and they don't object.

But in the usual case where technical definitions borrow from ordinary language, I just don't see how it can possibly be appropriate for a technical community to insist that its definition of the word has supplanted other usages as the correct definition. Are we going to need a new word for a small round dessert snack often filled with chocolate chips, because programmers defined "cookies" to refer to bits of information?

 

[Calheel]

Almost every single rnd() function ever coded is correctly classified as a pseudo-random number generator. The correct use of the term "pseudo" here provides insight into what the precise meaning of random is (i.e. it's "pseudo" because it can't provide a perfectly flat distribution function).

But your example still proves MY point. Even though it is pseudo-random, it does it's very best to mimic the essential quality of randomness, which is a flat distributional function. If you want an unequal distribution functions you need to apply additional operation on top of rnd() (because even though it's pseudo-random, it's doing the best it can to provide an flat probability distribution.

If you use the "random" function rnd() it'd never going to do anything other than it's level best to give you a flat distribution function.

When we are sloppy with our language we sometimes increase the scope of the word "random" to include non-flat distribution functions (e.g. "randomly" flipping though a book), but that is a departure from the core meaning of the term.

Again, a jurist will chose or reject whatever definition based on the case they want to make (much as you are doing here, and hey, that's fine, that's the law profession), but none of that changes the essential nature of what randomness is.

ETA: I really don't have a stake in this fight. I'm mostly just arguing because it a) helps keep me sharp, b) is fun (I believe most lawyers share this belief) and c) I need an outlet for nervous energy. BTW, Super, I have an actual legal question over on the Jeff Jackson thread that I feel is right up your alley.

But is anything in the universe truly random? Universal causation would suggest not.

But none of these philosophical questions should be determinative of Elon's stupid argument about the lottery.

 

[superrific]

But is anything in the universe truly random? Universal causation would suggest not.

But none of these philosophical questions should be determinative of Elon's stupid argument about the lottery.

I think this argument has been, for a page or two, more philosophical than anything connected to the law, and that's OK.

In fairness to the other poster, science is full of terms describing idealizations that don't exist. Nothing in the universe is at absolute zero. That doesn't mean the concept is meaningless. I just think it's weird for us to assume that ordinary language should work that way. I mean, there zero is being used metaphorically.

 

[Ddseddse]

Of course the term "random" in common parlance is not absolute, but rather relative. The difference between how I would use the term in common parlance and you want to use the term in common parlance is that I am using it in a sense that is directionally closer to the true meaning and you want to use it in a sense that is directionally farther from it's true meaning. If this were a court of law, I would tell the judge that my usage is the more correct usage than your usage and I should win!

 

[tarheelbillie]

What real shit is he getting done? Can we get a list?

Paving political inroads for government favors to enrich himself.

 

[nycfan]

Rubio unsurprisingly signals the doors are wide open.

 

[MOUNTAINH33L]

That traitor Flynn will have a role.

 

[Awinisawin]

I can hardly wait for Kandy to ruin our health system. This is seriosuly efffed up

 

[Icky Mettle]

Scary people.

 

[WaynetheDrain]

Get your kids vaccinated while you can, folks.

 

[nycfan]

“…
Even now, Trump has skirted the conventional transition process and refused to sign ethics agreements that would allow his campaign to begin working with the Biden administration on the handoff, a process that typically starts six months before the election. The holdup stems from Trump’s deep mistrust of federal agencies, certainly those not run by his own loyalists. This means his team has not had to disclose donors to his transition process but has also been blocked from national security briefings and from receiving millions of dollars in funding to aid the transition.

As the struggle over the wording in the agreements has become protracted, resulting in the missing of key deadlines, Trump’s aides are unable to obtain security clearances. (Some have floated conducting their own without the FBI.)

… Trump has a raft of executive orders, policy papers and regulation reversals ready to go as soon as he’s inaugurated, two sources familiar with the plan have said.

As they look to staff the new administration, Trump and his aides have made clear they are seeking loyalty above all else, stung by the high-level appointees that turned on Trump from the last administration. Trump has pointed to his personnel decisions as perhaps the biggest mistakes of his first presidency. …”

 

[nycfan]

 

[rodoheel]

“…
Even now, Trump has skirted the conventional transition process and refused to sign ethics agreements that would allow his campaign to begin working with the Biden administration on the handoff, a process that typically starts six months before the election. The holdup stems from Trump’s deep mistrust of federal agencies, certainly those not run by his own loyalists. This means his team has not had to disclose donors to his transition process but has also been blocked from national security briefings and from receiving millions of dollars in funding to aid the transition.

As the struggle over the wording in the agreements has become protracted, resulting in the missing of key deadlines, Trump’s aides are unable to obtain security clearances. (Some have floated conducting their own without the FBI.)

… Trump has a raft of executive orders, policy papers and regulation reversals ready to go as soon as he’s inaugurated, two sources familiar with the plan have said.

As they look to staff the new administration, Trump and his aides have made clear they are seeking loyalty above all else, stung by the high-level appointees that turned on Trump from the last administration. Trump has pointed to his personnel decisions as perhaps the biggest mistakes of his first presidency. …”

That would make more sense if Republicans didn't control the Senate. But in any event, it's not surprising. One constant of Trump and those around him is the desire to consolidate power in the President's hands and make both Congress and the administrative state increasingly irrelevant.