Hub of Reason - 2014-09-01

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1:13 PM

@Oddthinking "There is no doubt that AIDS is responsible for some tough experiences" is also not original, i.e. it exists elsewhere: at more than one other place, so I wouldn't know which one to cite as the original.

3 hours later…

3:48 PM

@ChrisW Yeah, I was going to edit in the sources for some of the plagiarised text, but it was difficult to work out where the OP originally found it. There seems to be a cultural gap of what we each think "plagiarism" is.

Some parts are now difficult, because the OP originally copied some text word-for-word, and then when I complained about it being misleading, edited it. Now it is neither a direct quote nor original.

4:19 PM

"See my proposals at SA: Exopolitics, Metaphysics, Astral, New Age, Forex."

got to love that list leading ending with Forex.

user35386

5:12 PM

Looks at the metaphysics proposal

user35386

Its not actually about metaphysics

9:56 PM

lol

10:07 PM

did you read the EU directive? what part are you skeptical of?

@Sklivvz Actual rules paragraph 1 limits power and mandates an annual energy consumption. Skeptics argue that they can't mandate how people use vacuum cleaners so annual consumption can't be mandated.

@Sklivvz To be fair, if the rest of the regulations work (ensuring actual performance) then the power limit might be irrelevant .But that would be a good component of an answer.

of course it can be mandated. there's a fixed amount of dust that needs to be removed each year.

@Sklivvz Ah, but that requires that the performance assumptions and people's behaviour remain consistent. That isn't obvious which is why people have argued about it.

it requires nothing of the sort

how much energy is required to remove 1kg of dust?

that's a fixed amount

@Sklivvz You need to make an assumption about how effective cleaners are. Clearly people disagree: hence the rush to buy high-power cleaners.

10:15 PM

no, it's mandated

it's irrelevant anyways

@Sklivvz How does the EU mandate people's behaviour? if people spend more time vacuuming, then power consumption will be higher.

the regulator can take a sample of the vacuum cleaner, pass it over its "model carpet" and see how much energy it used

@Sklivvz You make a very strong assumption that power depends solely on dust removed .That's a big assumption that many don't agree with.

no

matt, choose one sentence out of the law that you are skeptical about

@Sklivvz so what does "that's a fixed amount" mean?

@Sklivvz I'm sceptical that control of power achieves control of energy used.

10:18 PM

that's not a sentence in the directive

> Measurements of the relevant product parameters should
be performed through reliable, accurate and reproducible
measurement methods

"— annual energy consumption shall be less than 62,0 kWh/year,
— rated input power shall be less than 1 600 W" first two parts of para 1.

and you are skeptical of?

@Sklivvz I'm skeptical that bullet 1 can be achieved by bullet 2.

it's not claimed

it's two conditions, they must both be met

in practice they are forcing efficiency

@Sklivvz The question is whether bullet 1 can be mandated at all and whether, as the directive seems to assume, bullet 2 achieves this.

10:21 PM

the directive does not assume that at all. if it did, it would not mandate it.

@Sklivvz Let me repeat: how can they mandate total energy saving if they can't control people's behaviour?

they obviously have a model to calculate that.

@Sklivvz So: is that model consistent with evidence about people's behaviour and how vacuums work? Maybe it is, but it isn't obvious.

annex II contains the model

@Sklivvz So, do we accept it or question it? It's the EU. Not everything they do makes sense.

10:24 PM

> Annual energy consumption
The annual energy consumption AE is calculated, in kWh/year and rounded to one decimal place, as follows:
for carpet vacuum cleaners:
AEc ¼ 4 Ü 87 Ü 50 Ü 0,001 Ü ASEc Ü
Í 1 – 0,20
dpuc – 0,20 Î
for hard floor vacuum cleaners:
AEhf ¼ 4 Ü 87 Ü 50 Ü 0,001 Ü ASEhf Ü
Í 1 – 0,20
dpuhf – 0,20 Î
for general-purpose vacuum cleaners:
AEgp = 0,5 × AEc + 0,5 × AEhf
where:
— ASEc is the average specific energy consumption in Wh/m2 during carpet test, calculated as provided below
— ASEhf is the average specific energy consumption in Wh/m2 during hard floor test, calculated as …

the point is: this is what they mean by annual energy consumption. it's a definition

@Sklivvz But that is based on test behaviour. People don't always behave in ways that match tests.

where is it claimed that it's a realistic model?

for example: "50 is the standard number of one-hour cleaning tasks per year"

@Sklivvz If you word it like that, then the question is whether the model is realistic. People don't all think so, which needs the same critical analysis.

does it matter whether it is a realistic numebr?

call it foo. foo is related to power and efficiency. they want to reduce foo.

you are saying, but foo isn't bar. bar maybe won't be reduced and maybe it can't be measured.

@Sklivvz We could say all such regulations are bullshit. But I'd prefer to know whether laws have a point other than giving bureaucrats something to do.

10:28 PM

i can't see a good, answerable question.

@Sklivvz Does the model relate to the real world? That is what people have assumed when reading it. Which is why the have disagreed with it.

@Sklivvz The regulation clearly affects the real world. We want to know whether that is justified or just the result of an arbitrary and irrelevant model.

UK politicians disagree with the EU for political reasons

@Sklivvz Yes. But that is why analysing the reasoning and reality behind regulation is important. Maybe this is good legislation that can be supported with facts.

i still don't see a question for us. you can't make up a claim because it's implied.

@Sklivvz Clearly a lot of people have read a clear implication. Almost every newspaper has repeated the claim this way.

10:35 PM

it's a law that dictates some parameters about how vacuum cleaners should be made. it's just like any other law about product manufacturing.

you can ask whether the law claims what they think it claims.

"does the EU directive claim to be a realistic model of the world"? answer, trivially, no.

@Sklivvz The preamble to this group of regulations clearly imply they are designed to have an effect on the environment. Is that right? Do they?

it's a law. it's designed to do something, not guaranteed to achieve it, like any other law.

@Sklivvz In fact, I think you are making an incredibly narrow and literalistic reading of the regulation to argue like this.

As I said multiple times: find a citable claim; cite it; ask "is it true?".

@Sklivvz But it clearly is intended to fit with plans to save the environment by reducing energy consumption. Is it an effective way to achieve that goal?

10:40 PM

That would be a bad, but probably acceptable question.

@Sklivvz If the EU mandated that all computers must have a power consumption lower than 50W peak, would that just be an arbitrary law and irrelevant to your work?

A much better question, in my opinion, would be whether the EU law is based on a evidence based model.

but the problem, in both cases, is that I can't see a claim of that anywhere.

@matt_black that's just confusing the issue

@Sklivvz I really thought I'd already achieved that in the latest version of the question. That claim is repeated everywhere people have been skeptical of the regulation.

@Sklivvz I may have con used the issue by quoting the regulation rather than discussion of it.

@Sklivvz confused not con used

Pollitt simply makes a claim about a possible future effect of the law, not about the law itself, if you see what I mean.

He could say, for what it's worth, that the EU directive will increase cancer.

@Sklivvz how is that relevant?

10:48 PM

it's as relevant as Pollitt's comments.

@Sklivvz IF the actual effect of a law is likely to be different to the intended effect is that now worthy of analysis?

can you quote the intended effect?

also, what evidence can we examine about a possible future effect?

@Sklivvz "...having significant environmental impact and presenting significant potential for improvement in terms of their environmental impact without entailing excessive costs." scope paragraph 1

@Sklivvz We can examine whether current evidence about behaviour is compatible with the simple savings model.

Note the "potential" in there.

Are you saying that including the word "potential" means legislators can avoid any attempt to analyse their work?

10:52 PM

@matt_black this would be a theoretical answer. we can't prove that current evidence apply to vacuum cleaning behavior

@matt_black no i'm saying that they are not claiming certainty

How do you know there is no evidence? The question has no answers because it is closed.

besides, if the presence of uncertainty is an issue this site should eliminate about 95% of all answers. There is no such thing as certainty.

@matt_black i simply misread the message i answered to, sorry

@matt_black there's such a thing as claiming certainty. there's a such a thing as claiming certainty within a specified error

What I'd like to see is an answer that discusses the model and evidence about whether people behave as the critics claim.

the law claims to have no overall effect. it does not say "we will achieve an effective reduction of X"

0

Q: Did Niccolo Machiavelli advocate to fake your own death?

Well it is getting September the 13th pretty soon and it will then be 18 years ago that 2Pac (Tupac Amaru Shakur), the famous American gangster rapper, was murdered in Las Vegas. There are a lot of conspiracy theories behind his death and although most of them are not worth debating, there is an ...

^ I wonder what kind of evidence would allow a person to answer "no".

Perhaps this is question which can only be answer with a "yes" or not at all?

10:58 PM

@ChrisW an extensive search?

The law claims a specific energy saving (in bureaucratic language). In the context of improving environmental performance by reducing energy use.

@ChrisW list all the works, list all the keywords. It's verifiable evidence. We've done it before -- it requires no specific knowledge (well, maybe of italian, but...)

I don't think you allow searches. For example, if I read all his books and decided no, what evidence could I present on the site?

@ChrisW we allow repeatable searches, why not? not a google search.

ok

I thought that would be 'original research' or something.

11:00 PM

link all the books from a known source (e.g. gutenberg) and list all the search keywords, eg "morte".

well you need to reference that the list of texts you search is exhaustive. Also, if the claim is notable, maybe some expert on Machiavelli gave his view on the matter?

@matt_black

what about this: "The Commission has carried out a preparatory study to
analyse the technical, environmental and economic
aspects of vacuum cleaners typically used in households
and commercial premises. The study has been developed
together with stakeholders and interested parties from
the Union and third countries, and the results have
been made publicly available."

I think that if there is any claim to verify, it's going to be in that document and not in the law proposal

11:17 PM

@matt_black the study is here: ebpg.bam.de/de/ebpg_medien/tren17/017_studyf_09-02_complete.pdf

11:29 PM

I'll read it tomorrow. It's my bedtime.

user35386

@matt_black since the question is about the mutually exclusive claims in the penultimate paragraph, my suggestion for improvement is to isolate them. Remove them from the context of the directive and criticism about the directive. It distracts from the simple assessment of the claims, and introduces room for people to disagree with your summary and interpretation of the directive or the assumptions behind it.

user35386

Just ask: is it true that people will vacuum for a fixed amount of time regardless of cleanliness? Or is it true that people will vacuum a fixed amount of time regardless of the number of watts of the vacuum machine (or whatever the actual assumption is that you want examined)

@Sklivvz Machiavelli experts giving their views on a theory that's notable because it's 2Pac conspiracy theory?

Seriously.

oll.libertyfund.org/people/niccolo-machiavelli allows his works to be searched.

Does something like oll.libertyfund.org/search/author?q=death&id=3801 plus the corresponding search for "die" prove anything, in your opinion?

@Articuno note that that's the opposite of what it's claimed by the model of the directive. The model simply assumes that people will vacuum until the dust is removed, or at least that's how i read it.

@ChrisW you might want to answer "probably not: here's what i tried" versus "no because i can't find it". The former is a conclusion supported by the evidence you find, the latter clearly not.

Thanks for the suggestion.

That seems dangerously close to saying "I haven't found evidence that he did say that."

11:42 PM

the evidence is what it is, sometimes it's not very good, thus the answer must be coherent with that. You might be wrong

... which (unlike "I have found evidence that he didn't say that") doesn't seem like a good answer.

if your search is good enough, i don't see why you shouldn't consider it evidence that it's unlikely.

remember the hippocrates answer i gave though. i said "he probably did not say it" and it turned out that he did, I simply couldn't find it. On the other hand, the key is reproducibility and not to jump to conclusions. I think my answer on that question is still interesting and valid, even though yours is much better (and definitive).

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