admiralteal

There's also a totally plausible and far more insidious answer to what's going on with the experiences people have of the ads matching their conversations.

That explanation is advertising works. And worse, it works subconsciously. That you're seeing the ads and don't even notice you're seeing them and then they're worming their way into your conversations at which point you become more aware of them and then start noticing the ads.

Which does comport with the billions of dollars spent on advertising every year. It would be very weird if an entire ad industry that's at least a century old was all a complete nonsense waste of money this whole time.

To me, this whole narrative is just another parable about why we need to do everything possible to limit our own exposure to ads to avoid being manipulated.

Did planets form because of electromagnetism?

For myriad reasons, the answer to this is an emphatic yes.

Gravity may attract particles towards each other, but the force that actually causes them to interact with each other is almost entirely electromagnetism. The collisions of grains of cosmic dust are caused by electromagnetic fields interacting with each other. As is the gradual loss of kinetic energy -- the friction -- that allows some amount of potential energy to get converted to heat, allowing the particles to slow down and, as you described it, clump.

Absent electromagnetism, the actual particle nuclei would need to directly hit each other to cause an interaction via the nuclear forces, which is VERY improbable in the vastness of space. Improbable doesn't mean it wouldn't happen, but in this case it does mean the universe is way too big and young. Without electromagnetic interactions, particles just form orbits. Which again, that's what a "dark matter halo" is. It's all the dark matter stuff orbitting around a galaxy's center of mass because it doesn't get easily trapped in the center. It's all the dark matter in a gravitational system constantly whizzing back and forth across the center of mass since there's no electromagnetic force to rob them of the potential or kinetic energy and stop them from heading back out.

And, conveniently, these halos are just what our observations seem to indicate dark matter is doing in a typical galaxy. The observations and theory align well

We observe patterns of behavior -- orbits, movement, gravitational lensing -- that are exactly what we would see if, for example, there were great clouds of matter or other galaxies in those places. But we don't see the hydrogen gas. We see non-uniform distributions of dark matter mass that imply there is not simply some consistent calculation error, but rather that there is dark matter that is not uniformly distributed. Again, read up on the Bullet Cluster because it shows a VERY clear example of what I am talking about, where the regular, electromagnetically-interacting matter behaves one way but the apparent shadow of dark matter behaves in a different way that is consistent with lack of electromagnetic interactions.

We've also discovered things like ultradiffiuse galaxies -- likely remnants from ancient collisions -- that have apparently been stripped of their dark matter. MOND cannot explain these observations because these galaxies essentially behave in a Newtonian manner that would be impossible in a MOND framework.

if it has mass, why does it not just clump together?

Why does stuff clump together? For all non-dark matter, the answer is electromagnetism. Outside of the extreme cases of neutron stars and black holes, where gravity overwhelms and defeats electromagnetism and the nuclear forces theoretically take over to create degeneracy pressure, electromagnetism is the reason things clump. Absent electromagnetism, what would cause clumping? Essentially nothing, stuff would whizz straight through other stuff and go into orbits. Potentially HUGE orbits, which is why there's so many theories around dark matter "halos". Maybe if there were DIRECT collisions of theoretical DM particles, that might cause an energy-releasing event -- this is one of the things current dark matter detectors are looking for and may yet find within the upcoming years.

are there any theoretical works on what kind of particle this could be, matching the pattern?

Yep, and more than a handful Many that make specific predictions we can test for and so are testing for. For example, you could look at axions, which are a theoretical particle predicted by an entirely different theory that may be a good fit for the dark matter particle.

The observations of systems like the Bullet Cluster imply that dark matter is actual material -- baryonic matter. Stuff that exists in specific locations and has mass. Modifying the math of the physical laws does not explain these observations without absolutely going into contortions where dark matter explains them quite elegantly.

The Bullet Cluster, among several other systems, are very strong evidence that dark matter is actual baryonic matter that does not experience significant (or any) electromagnetic interactions. What we see when we look at these kinds of systems is that there is all evidence of STUFF there, but we cannot see the stuff. It's not an indication of a poorly-performing math model missing a function term.

It would be like if we saw ripples in the water like we know exist around a rock. But we don't see a rock. Sure, MAYBE we just fundamentally need to rewrite our basic rules of fluid mechanics to be able to create these exact ripples. But the more probable explanation is that there's a rock we can't see, and falsifying that theory will require just HEAPS of evidence.

The evidence we have suggests overwhelmingly that there is actual stuff that has mass that we simply do not have the tools to observe. Which isn't all that surprising given that we are only JUST starting to build instruments to observe cosmological phenomena using stuff other than photons of light.

Cosmic Inflation is a good one to read up on if you never have. Because the slow acceleration we observe right now in the expansion is actually vastly inadequate to explain what we see now, so the big bang theory currently involves spacetime itself having to go through a few phase changes that are hard to wrap your head around.

All of physics is a "math model". One we attempt to falsify. And when a scientist does prove some part of the model wrong, the community leaps up in celebration and gets to working on the fix or the next.

Dark matter started as exactly a catchall designed to make the model work properly. We started with a very good model, but when observing extreme phenomenon (in this case the orbits of stars of entire galaxies), the model didn't fit. So either there was something we couldn't see to explain the difference ("dark" matter), or else the model was wrong and needed modification.

There's also multiple competing theories for what that dark matter is, exactly. Everything from countless tiny primordial black holes to bizarre, lightyear-sized standing waves in a quantum field. But the best-fitting theories that make the most sense and contradict the fewest observations & models seem to prefer there be some kind of actual particle that interacts just fine with gravity, but very poorly or not at all with electromagnetism. And since we rely on electromagnetism for nearly all of our particle physics experiments that makes whatever this particle is VERY elusive.

Worth observing that once, a huge amount of energy produced by stars was an example of a dark energy. Until we figured out how to detect neutrinos. Then it wasn't dark anymore.

In short, you're exactly right. It's a catch-all to make the math model work properly. And that's not actually a problem.

Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND). It's been the dissenting voice in the modern Great Debate about dark matter.

On one side are the dark matter scientists who think there's a vast category of phenomenon out there FAR beyond our current science. That the universe is far larger and more complex than we currently know, and so we must dedicate ourselves to exploring the unexplored. The other side, the

On the other you have the MOND scientists, who hope they can prevent that horizon from flying away from them by tweaking the math on some physical laws. It basically adds a term to our old physics equations to explain why low acceleration systems experience significantly different forces than the high-acceleration systems with which we are more familiar -- though their explanations for WHY the math ought be tweaked I always found totally unsatisfactory -- to make the current, easy-to-grock laws fit the observations.

With the big problem being that it doesn't work. It explains some galactic motion, but not all. It sometimes fits wide binary star systems kind of OK, but more often doesn't. It completely fails to explain the lensing and motion of huge galactic clusters. At this point, MOND has basically been falsified. Repeatedly, predictions it made have failed.

Dark matter theories -- that is, the theories that say there are who new categories of stuff out there we don't understand at all -- still are the best explanation. That means we're closer to the starting line of understanding the cosmos instead of the finish line many wanted us to be nearing. But I think there's a razor in there somewhere, about trusting the scientist who understands the limits of our knowledge over the one who seems confident we nearly know everything.

IDGAF if it feeds into the narrative. It also shuts down a recruitment pipeline. It reduces their reach. It makes the next generation less likely to continue the ideology. De-platforming is a powerful tool that should be reserved for only the most crucial fights, but the fight against Nazi is one of those fights.

The Nazis were already full-blown conspiracy theorists. EVERYTHING is spun to feed into their narrative. That ship has sailed.

A platform operator needs to AT MINIMUM demonetize the content and censure it, and is likely only being responsible if they ban it outright. If you aren't prepared to wade into the fraught, complex world of content moderation, don't run a content platform.

The problem being we basically know that's not how it works.

If you push them underground, the main result is fewer Nazis. Intentionally platforming them helps them maintain a facade of normalcy that makes it WAY easier to recruit people into the organizations and further radicalize them. Not to mention the simple amplification effect of having a platform.

The idea that the underground Nazis are going to be a more distilled, pure, volatile form of Nazi SOUNDS theoretically sensible. But if that's your argument, the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate it actually happens. And even if it sometimes does, if there's only 10 of them it barely matters.

The simplest solution, to shut down the recruitment pipeline, is also the correct choice for a platform operator to make.

Condone (transitive verb): To overlook, forgive, or disregard (an offense) without protest or censure.

Neat.

You mean like... verifying it is a legitimate request from law enforcement? That kind of security hoop? Ensuring there is a warrant or subpoena? Ensuring proper security in transmitting the sensitive personal information?

Civil rights matter more than making cops' jobs easy.