DShomshak

Heard this week on the radio, and read about in The Economist: LIGO has detected a third pulse of gravity waves. As The Economist notes, gravitational wave detection is transitioning from physics experiment -- just proving that the waves exist -- to astronomy, as a technique to observe events not observable in other ways.
 
Dean Shomshak

In the June issue of Scientific American, theoretical physicist Yasunori Nomura discusses an idea he's had to resolve one of the big problems with the Cosmological Inflation theory. I hope that I understand him well enough to adequately summarize his argument.
 
The starting point is that a fraction of a second after the Big Bang singularity, the nascent universe experiences a moment of incredibly fast expansion that flattens out space-time, accounting for the near-perfect flatness of space seen today. The problem is that the phase change from the inflation phase to normal expansion can't be perfect: Parts of space keep inflating, almost instantly becoming bigger than the "normal" universe. Bits of space-time keep bubbling out of the perpetual inflation, creating new universes in a "multiverse."
 
Unfortunately, it follows that in such an endlessly multiplying Multiverse, anything imaginable -- no matter how improbable it may seem -- not only happens, it happens an infinite number of times. This makes the whole notions of probability and prediction meaningless.
 
Nomura, however, tries to link inflation with another theory that seems to predict everything: the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. In this interpretation, every possible outcome of a quantum mechanical event actually happens, in an endlessly splitting "tree" of diverging universes. The math works; it's just hard to imagine the universe actually functioning this way.
 
Nomura also draws on a similarity he sees between the event horizon of a black hole and the "event horizon" of the observable universe. Just as no matter or energy can pass from the interior of a black hole to the outside (but information possibly can), nothing beyond a particular distance can ever affect us because it's receding faster than the speed of light.
 
Nomura thinks the bubbling multiple universes of inflation theory do not exist in a super-energetic but otherwise ordinary, larger space-time. Rather, he thinks they exist in the probability "space" of Many Worlds quantum mechanics. Even if every possible outcome in some sense occurs, they still have different mathematical probabilities. (How, I don't know. I just take mathematicians' word for it.)
 
Now, I tend to roll my eyes when another theoretical physicist says his Great Idea will Revolutionize Everything if the math pans out. Nomura, however, says his theory has produced a testable prediction: The universe should include observable areas of negatively curved space. (He doesn't spell out how one detects negatively curved space, but I presume the effect would resemble that of a negative gravitational field. Perhaps "gravitational" lensing, but the lens is concave instead of convex?) If the "conventional" inflation theory is correct and all the multiple universes exist in a wider space, any instances of negative special curvature can still exist, but the curvature should be much less -- so much less that Nomura doubts they could be detected at all.
 
So, that's one more thing for the deep-space astronomers to look for. Kudos to Nomura for producing a theory that can be tested.
 
Also, unrelated: I just heard that LIGO detected another pulse of gravitational waves.
 
Dean Shomshak

In the June issue of Scientific American, theoretical physicist Yasunori Nomura discusses an idea he's had to resolve one of the big problems with the Cosmological Inflation theory. I hope that I understand him well enough to adequately summarize his argument.
 
The starting point is that a fraction of a second after the Big Bang singularity, the nascent universe experiences a moment of incredibly fast expansion that flattens out space-time, accounting for the near-perfect flatness of space seen today. The problem is that the phase change from the inflation phase to normal expansion can't be perfect: Parts of space keep inflating, almost instantly becoming bigger than the "normal" universe. Bits of space-time keep bubbling out of the perpetual inflation, creating new universes in a "multiverse."
 
Unfortunately, it follows that in such an endlessly multiplying Multiverse, anything imaginable -- no matter how improbable it may seem -- not only happens, it happens an infinite number of times. This makes the whole notions of probability and prediction meaningless.
 
Nomura, however, tries to link inflation with another theory that seems to predict everything: the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. In this interpretation, every possible outcome of a quantum mechanical event actually happens, in an endlessly splitting "tree" of diverging universes. The math works; it's just hard to imagine the universe actually functioning this way.
 
Nomura also draws on a similarity he sees between the event horizon of a black hole and the "event horizon" of the observable universe. Just as no matter or energy can pass from the interior of a black hole to the outside (but information possibly can), nothing beyond a particular distance can ever affect us because it's receding faster than the speed of light.
 
Nomura thinks the bubbling multiple universes of inflation theory do not exist in a super-energetic but otherwise ordinary, larger space-time. Rather, he thinks they exist in the probability "space" of Many Worlds quantum mechanics. Even if every possible outcome in some sense occurs, they still have different mathematical probabilities. (How, I don't know. I just take mathematicians' word for it.)
 
Now, I tend to roll my eyes when another theoretical physicist says his Great Idea will Revolutionize Everything if the math pans out. Nomura, however, says his theory has produced a testable prediction: The universe should include observable areas of negatively curved space. (He doesn't spell out how one detects negatively curved space, but I presume the effect would resemble that of a negative gravitational field. Perhaps "gravitational" lensing, but the lens is concave instead of convex?) If the "conventional" inflation theory is correct and all the multiple universes exist in a wider space, any instances of negative special curvature can still exist, but the curvature should be much less -- so much less that Nomura doubts they could be detected at all.
 
So, that's one more thing for the deep-space astronomers to look for. Kudos to Nomura for producing a theory that can be tested.
 
Also, unrelated: I just heard that LIGO detected another pulse of gravitational waves.
 
Dean Shomshak

In the June issue of Scientific American, theoretical physicist Yasunori Nomura discusses an idea he's had to resolve one of the big problems with the Cosmological Inflation theory. I hope that I understand him well enough to adequately summarize his argument.
 
The starting point is that a fraction of a second after the Big Bang singularity, the nascent universe experiences a moment of incredibly fast expansion that flattens out space-time, accounting for the near-perfect flatness of space seen today. The problem is that the phase change from the inflation phase to normal expansion can't be perfect: Parts of space keep inflating, almost instantly becoming bigger than the "normal" universe. Bits of space-time keep bubbling out of the perpetual inflation, creating new universes in a "multiverse."
 
Unfortunately, it follows that in such an endlessly multiplying Multiverse, anything imaginable -- no matter how improbable it may seem -- not only happens, it happens an infinite number of times. This makes the whole notions of probability and prediction meaningless.
 
Nomura, however, tries to link inflation with another theory that seems to predict everything: the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. In this interpretation, every possible outcome of a quantum mechanical event actually happens, in an endlessly splitting "tree" of diverging universes. The math works; it's just hard to imagine the universe actually functioning this way.
 
Nomura also draws on a similarity he sees between the event horizon of a black hole and the "event horizon" of the observable universe. Just as no matter or energy can pass from the interior of a black hole to the outside (but information possibly can), nothing beyond a particular distance can ever affect us because it's receding faster than the speed of light.
 
Nomura thinks the bubbling multiple universes of inflation theory do not exist in a super-energetic but otherwise ordinary, larger space-time. Rather, he thinks they exist in the probability "space" of Many Worlds quantum mechanics. Even if every possible outcome in some sense occurs, they still have different mathematical probabilities. (How, I don't know. I just take mathematicians' word for it.)
 
Now, I tend to roll my eyes when another theoretical physicist says his Great Idea will Revolutionize Everything if the math pans out. Nomura, however, says his theory has produced a testable prediction: The universe should include observable areas of negatively curved space. (He doesn't spell out how one detects negatively curved space, but I presume the effect would resemble that of a negative gravitational field. Perhaps "gravitational" lensing, but the lens is concave instead of convex?) If the "conventional" inflation theory is correct and all the multiple universes exist in a wider space, any instances of negative special curvature can still exist, but the curvature should be much less -- so much less that Nomura doubts they could be detected at all.
 
So, that's one more thing for the deep-space astronomers to look for. Kudos to Nomura for producing a theory that can be tested.
 
Also, unrelated: I just heard that LIGO detected another pulse of gravitational waves.
 
Dean Shomshak

In the June issue of Scientific American, theoretical physicist Yasunori Nomura discusses an idea he's had to resolve one of the big problems with the Cosmological Inflation theory. I hope that I understand him well enough to adequately summarize his argument.
 
The starting point is that a fraction of a second after the Big Bang singularity, the nascent universe experiences a moment of incredibly fast expansion that flattens out space-time, accounting for the near-perfect flatness of space seen today. The problem is that the phase change from the inflation phase to normal expansion can't be perfect: Parts of space keep inflating, almost instantly becoming bigger than the "normal" universe. Bits of space-time keep bubbling out of the perpetual inflation, creating new universes in a "multiverse."
 
Unfortunately, it follows that in such an endlessly multiplying Multiverse, anything imaginable -- no matter how improbable it may seem -- not only happens, it happens an infinite number of times. This makes the whole notions of probability and prediction meaningless.
 
Nomura, however, tries to link inflation with another theory that seems to predict everything: the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. In this interpretation, every possible outcome of a quantum mechanical event actually happens, in an endlessly splitting "tree" of diverging universes. The math works; it's just hard to imagine the universe actually functioning this way.
 
Nomura also draws on a similarity he sees between the event horizon of a black hole and the "event horizon" of the observable universe. Just as no matter or energy can pass from the interior of a black hole to the outside (but information possibly can), nothing beyond a particular distance can ever affect us because it's receding faster than the speed of light.
 
Nomura thinks the bubbling multiple universes of inflation theory do not exist in a super-energetic but otherwise ordinary, larger space-time. Rather, he thinks they exist in the probability "space" of Many Worlds quantum mechanics. Even if every possible outcome in some sense occurs, they still have different mathematical probabilities. (How, I don't know. I just take mathematicians' word for it.)
 
Now, I tend to roll my eyes when another theoretical physicist says his Great Idea will Revolutionize Everything if the math pans out. Nomura, however, says his theory has produced a testable prediction: The universe should include observable areas of negatively curved space. (He doesn't spell out how one detects negatively curved space, but I presume the effect would resemble that of a negative gravitational field. Perhaps "gravitational" lensing, but the lens is concave instead of convex?) If the "conventional" inflation theory is correct and all the multiple universes exist in a wider space, any instances of negative special curvature can still exist, but the curvature should be much less -- so much less that Nomura doubts they could be detected at all.
 
So, that's one more thing for the deep-space astronomers to look for. Kudos to Nomura for producing a theory that can be tested.
 
Also, unrelated: I just heard that LIGO detected another pulse of gravitational waves.
 
Dean Shomshak

That's what compounds the idiocy--the Paris accords are nonbinding. It's literally not possible for it to have been an unfair "deal" for America. There was no downside to staying in it. Conversely, the symbolic value is yuge. Making a big show about abandoning the accords instantly trades America's leadership position on clean energy for one that is literally behind every other country on the planet. Economically, investors faced with a choice of which country to invest their clean energy dollars in will look at this administration's attitude and go to China or Germany instead.
 

Ouch! Feel better soon.

Also: the new May issue of Scientific American has an article about Boyagian's Star, a.k.a. the WTF ("Where's The Flux?) Star -- the one whose brightness dips irregularly, both in degree and duration. Just as strangely, Boyagian's Star shows a gradual 4% drop in brightness over the 4 years of its observation by the Kepler mission, and astronomers who looked back over old records see evidence of a 15% decline over the last century.
 
None of the explanations so far proposed have strong evidence for them, and most have pretty strong evidence against them. That includes the proposal that is the focus of the article: alien megastructures in orbit around the star -- perhaps vast light-collectors for a yet-incomplete Dyson shell. The authors point out that if an alien civilization is collecting this much starlight for energy, all that energy must eventually be re-radiated as heat. Or something. And Boyagian's Star doesn't show infrared anomalies, which incidentally rules out many of the natural explanations. OK, so maybe the aliens found a way to vent the heat in some way we don't detect (yet), such as lasers or radio beams or something we can't imagine yet. But it's a problem.
 
More plausible, perhaps -- but still strange -- is that an interstellar dust cloud is between us and Boyagian's Star, and denser portions cause the dips in brightness. One wild possibility is a black hole with a huge set of dust rings, like Saturn's but the size of our Solar System.
 
The article also mentions the suggestion that the star is dimming because something caused it briefly to get brighter, such as collision with a planet or brown dwarf. Now it's settling down to its normal luminosity. But it's not clear how this would explain the light dips.
 
Research continues, and Boyagian has obtained crowdfunding for time on a radio telescope to study the star further.
 
Dean Shomshak

Also: the new May issue of Scientific American has an article about Boyagian's Star, a.k.a. the WTF ("Where's The Flux?) Star -- the one whose brightness dips irregularly, both in degree and duration. Just as strangely, Boyagian's Star shows a gradual 4% drop in brightness over the 4 years of its observation by the Kepler mission, and astronomers who looked back over old records see evidence of a 15% decline over the last century.
 
None of the explanations so far proposed have strong evidence for them, and most have pretty strong evidence against them. That includes the proposal that is the focus of the article: alien megastructures in orbit around the star -- perhaps vast light-collectors for a yet-incomplete Dyson shell. The authors point out that if an alien civilization is collecting this much starlight for energy, all that energy must eventually be re-radiated as heat. Or something. And Boyagian's Star doesn't show infrared anomalies, which incidentally rules out many of the natural explanations. OK, so maybe the aliens found a way to vent the heat in some way we don't detect (yet), such as lasers or radio beams or something we can't imagine yet. But it's a problem.
 
More plausible, perhaps -- but still strange -- is that an interstellar dust cloud is between us and Boyagian's Star, and denser portions cause the dips in brightness. One wild possibility is a black hole with a huge set of dust rings, like Saturn's but the size of our Solar System.
 
The article also mentions the suggestion that the star is dimming because something caused it briefly to get brighter, such as collision with a planet or brown dwarf. Now it's settling down to its normal luminosity. But it's not clear how this would explain the light dips.
 
Research continues, and Boyagian has obtained crowdfunding for time on a radio telescope to study the star further.
 
Dean Shomshak

The March 18 issue of The Economist had a brief article about Fast Radio Bursts, which as their name suggests are extremely brief (milliseconds) bursts of radio waves. The first one detected -- or at least noticed in old radio astronomy data -- came from one of the Magellanic Clouds. As usual with very brief phenomena that do not repeat, it's hard to figure out what they are because by the time you detect them, they're gone.
 
All the mechanism so far proposed for FRBs are pretty weird, such as rapidly spinning stars collapsing to black holes. The point of the article, though, is that a couple astronomers (Manasvi Lingam and Abraham Loeb) have a paper due to be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters in which they suggested FRBs could be beams that alien civilizations use to propel solar sails. (Just radio instead of light.) Not all the radio beam hits the sail, and as the beam and the Earth both move through space, we intercept the beam for a fraction of a second.
 
The authors do not, of course suggest this *must* be the source of FRBs; just that it makes as much sense as anything else proposed so far. Maybe more, since they run some numbers on how to build such a radio beam projector. (It's really really big, but within known technology.)
 
Dean Shomshak

The March 18 issue of The Economist had a brief article about Fast Radio Bursts, which as their name suggests are extremely brief (milliseconds) bursts of radio waves. The first one detected -- or at least noticed in old radio astronomy data -- came from one of the Magellanic Clouds. As usual with very brief phenomena that do not repeat, it's hard to figure out what they are because by the time you detect them, they're gone.
 
All the mechanism so far proposed for FRBs are pretty weird, such as rapidly spinning stars collapsing to black holes. The point of the article, though, is that a couple astronomers (Manasvi Lingam and Abraham Loeb) have a paper due to be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters in which they suggested FRBs could be beams that alien civilizations use to propel solar sails. (Just radio instead of light.) Not all the radio beam hits the sail, and as the beam and the Earth both move through space, we intercept the beam for a fraction of a second.
 
The authors do not, of course suggest this *must* be the source of FRBs; just that it makes as much sense as anything else proposed so far. Maybe more, since they run some numbers on how to build such a radio beam projector. (It's really really big, but within known technology.)
 
Dean Shomshak

The March 18 issue of The Economist had a brief article about Fast Radio Bursts, which as their name suggests are extremely brief (milliseconds) bursts of radio waves. The first one detected -- or at least noticed in old radio astronomy data -- came from one of the Magellanic Clouds. As usual with very brief phenomena that do not repeat, it's hard to figure out what they are because by the time you detect them, they're gone.
 
All the mechanism so far proposed for FRBs are pretty weird, such as rapidly spinning stars collapsing to black holes. The point of the article, though, is that a couple astronomers (Manasvi Lingam and Abraham Loeb) have a paper due to be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters in which they suggested FRBs could be beams that alien civilizations use to propel solar sails. (Just radio instead of light.) Not all the radio beam hits the sail, and as the beam and the Earth both move through space, we intercept the beam for a fraction of a second.
 
The authors do not, of course suggest this *must* be the source of FRBs; just that it makes as much sense as anything else proposed so far. Maybe more, since they run some numbers on how to build such a radio beam projector. (It's really really big, but within known technology.)
 
Dean Shomshak

The March 18 issue of The Economist had a brief article about Fast Radio Bursts, which as their name suggests are extremely brief (milliseconds) bursts of radio waves. The first one detected -- or at least noticed in old radio astronomy data -- came from one of the Magellanic Clouds. As usual with very brief phenomena that do not repeat, it's hard to figure out what they are because by the time you detect them, they're gone.
 
All the mechanism so far proposed for FRBs are pretty weird, such as rapidly spinning stars collapsing to black holes. The point of the article, though, is that a couple astronomers (Manasvi Lingam and Abraham Loeb) have a paper due to be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters in which they suggested FRBs could be beams that alien civilizations use to propel solar sails. (Just radio instead of light.) Not all the radio beam hits the sail, and as the beam and the Earth both move through space, we intercept the beam for a fraction of a second.
 
The authors do not, of course suggest this *must* be the source of FRBs; just that it makes as much sense as anything else proposed so far. Maybe more, since they run some numbers on how to build such a radio beam projector. (It's really really big, but within known technology.)
 
Dean Shomshak

That's because candidates are defining themselves as Whizzo Butter. Buy Whizzo Butter, and you will go to Heaven. It's irrelevant that it's indistinguishable from a dead crab. Heaven!

Well, science is evil. The great biologist (and epigrammatist) J. B. S. Haldane had an excellent discussion of this in his brief 1923 book, Daedalus; or, Science and the Future. To paraphrase: The moral virtues (though not the intellectual virtues) are means between extremes, and conditioned by what people can actually do. If human capabilities change, so do institutions and morals.
 
One of his examples was the Great War, still very much in mind. As Haldane put it, for most of history patriotism was "a flame upon the altar." And it meant fighting and winning wars. But the powers of modern science and industry have so magnified the destruction of war as that the flame on the altar has become an inferno that can devour the world. In the wake of World War One, millions of people -- ordinary people, not just a few elites -- see the need for some form of world government. Not that Haldane was sure it would begin with the League of Nations (and it didn't), any more than with the Somethingth Internationale (Communism; it didn't, either). And we still aren't there, but many people do still believe that this just can't go on: There must be a law to govern the nations.
 
For a less extreme example, Haldane looked at the decline of the English estate. As he put it, it used to be that the lord of the manor probably died around age forty and was succeeded by his son who grew up there and knew it well. "Now," Haldane said, "he dodders on until about eighty." His heir is by then "perhaps a moderately succdessful Army colonel or stockbroker, but knows nothing about running an estate." He manages incompetently; or he hires a manager whom he cannot competently supervise to prevent corruption. Either way, he gets a poor return. "And ascribes to Bolshevism what he should really blame on vaccination."
 
Haldane expected that science and technology would bring more such disruptions, at every scale. Nothing could survive unchanged, Some disruptions would be evils of the past, magnified until they became intolerable, or useful -- even benign -- institutions that had become untenable. Others would be wholly new. But most people are committed to the institutions and morals of their past and present. And so, "The inevitable result of scientific progress is to turn good into evil."
 
Haldane represents this aspect of science through the mythic inventor Daedalus, one of the few figures in Greek mythology for whom gods were simply irrelevant. He was never punished for abetting the breeding of the Minotaur, nor for flying like a god. (His son Icarus was merely careless in following safety tolerances.) Haldane suggested that in time, more scientists might come to resemble Daedalus in their challenge to traditional gods and morals... and proud of it.
 
(Write up your own supervillain.)
 
Dean Shomshak

Yep. As the Economist observed in one of its editorials, his whole campaign was built around the idea that governments was easy, that common men with plain horse-sense (i.e., a flattering vision of his admirers) could do better than the effete experts and corrupt elites.
 
It's a deeply rooted myth in American culture. But like so many myths, it's just not true. Sorry, Mr. Smith, but it's not helpful for you to go to Washington.
 
Dean Shomshak

Yep. As the Economist observed in one of its editorials, his whole campaign was built around the idea that governments was easy, that common men with plain horse-sense (i.e., a flattering vision of his admirers) could do better than the effete experts and corrupt elites.
 
It's a deeply rooted myth in American culture. But like so many myths, it's just not true. Sorry, Mr. Smith, but it's not helpful for you to go to Washington.
 
Dean Shomshak

Makes you wonder which of his past lives was so strenuous...
 
"in 61 BC, I was creating economic opportunity for Rome as a foot soldier... I had to lock shields as we butchered some fleeing Suebi Gaul, very tedious, very tiring... but we we amazing. We had the best leader, and I take credit for Julius... I called him Julie... because I'm a people person. There was an arena later on... Jules idea of a joke for my little nick name. I don't like lions. Still.... easier than president which is very hard. Oh, and the idea to build a wall in Britannia and make the Picts pay for it? Totally mine... Hadrian was a hack."

Trump says he thought being president would be easier than his old life

The guy really was clueless.

In the late 1960s the Canadian government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau popularized the concept of Canadian society being a "mosaic," with many different ethno-cultural groups together making up the Canadian whole. In principle that diversity is assumed to make the whole stronger. There's explicit assurance that immigrants don't have to give up what they were before in order to become Canadian.
 
Of course the reality since then hasn't been so simple, and in some areas there's been strong pushback to the idea; but for most Canadians the mosaic model has become as much a feature of our identity as the "melting pot" is for Americans.

Last year, I read Daniel Moynihan's Pandaemonium, based on a series of lectures he gave on the subject of ethnicity in politics. He had a fairly extensive discussion of the mischief Woodrow Wilson helped unleash with his phrase, "the right of national self-determination." Like many truly bad ideas, it sounds simple and laudable -- until you consider the details of who, exactly, constitutes a "nation" and how they can obtain "self-determination" without stepping on other people's rights. Particularly in places like the Balkans, where populations are so fragmented and mixed.
 
Nationalism -- the political doctrine that the legal institution of the state should coincide with, as closely as possible, the cultural territory of a nation, is also a particularly bad idea for the United States of America, because "American" is not a nationality in the sense of a group of people who share a language, cultural identity, common descent and a territory they have inhabited since time immemorial. The Japanese are a nation. The Welsh are a nation. The Navajo are a nation, Americans aren't. It's all backwards: The legalities come first, and the cultural identity grows from adherence to the ideas behind them. You have to be born Japanese, but you become American through the legal process of citizenship.
 
It isn't a nation-state; it's a philosophical state. But unfortunately, many people are not philosophers.
 
Here endeth the ranting digression.
 
 
Dean Shomshak

Last year, I read Daniel Moynihan's Pandaemonium, based on a series of lectures he gave on the subject of ethnicity in politics. He had a fairly extensive discussion of the mischief Woodrow Wilson helped unleash with his phrase, "the right of national self-determination." Like many truly bad ideas, it sounds simple and laudable -- until you consider the details of who, exactly, constitutes a "nation" and how they can obtain "self-determination" without stepping on other people's rights. Particularly in places like the Balkans, where populations are so fragmented and mixed.
 
Nationalism -- the political doctrine that the legal institution of the state should coincide with, as closely as possible, the cultural territory of a nation, is also a particularly bad idea for the United States of America, because "American" is not a nationality in the sense of a group of people who share a language, cultural identity, common descent and a territory they have inhabited since time immemorial. The Japanese are a nation. The Welsh are a nation. The Navajo are a nation, Americans aren't. It's all backwards: The legalities come first, and the cultural identity grows from adherence to the ideas behind them. You have to be born Japanese, but you become American through the legal process of citizenship.
 
It isn't a nation-state; it's a philosophical state. But unfortunately, many people are not philosophers.
 
Here endeth the ranting digression.
 
 
Dean Shomshak

Last year, I read Daniel Moynihan's Pandaemonium, based on a series of lectures he gave on the subject of ethnicity in politics. He had a fairly extensive discussion of the mischief Woodrow Wilson helped unleash with his phrase, "the right of national self-determination." Like many truly bad ideas, it sounds simple and laudable -- until you consider the details of who, exactly, constitutes a "nation" and how they can obtain "self-determination" without stepping on other people's rights. Particularly in places like the Balkans, where populations are so fragmented and mixed.
 
Nationalism -- the political doctrine that the legal institution of the state should coincide with, as closely as possible, the cultural territory of a nation, is also a particularly bad idea for the United States of America, because "American" is not a nationality in the sense of a group of people who share a language, cultural identity, common descent and a territory they have inhabited since time immemorial. The Japanese are a nation. The Welsh are a nation. The Navajo are a nation, Americans aren't. It's all backwards: The legalities come first, and the cultural identity grows from adherence to the ideas behind them. You have to be born Japanese, but you become American through the legal process of citizenship.
 
It isn't a nation-state; it's a philosophical state. But unfortunately, many people are not philosophers.
 
Here endeth the ranting digression.
 
 
Dean Shomshak

George W. Bush ran on a similar (though less extreme) platform of dealing primarily with domestic issues. Once he was in the Oval Office he also discovered that no country today, particularly one as powerful and influential as the United States, can shut out the rest of the world. As President, America is your house, and when the world inevitably comes knocking you have to answer. How you answer is up to the the individual holder of the office; whether to invite it in or tell it to get off your lawn.

(From Jesse McLaren's twitter)
 
PEPSI: Check out this PR disaster.
 
UNITED: That's amateur hour. Watch -this-!
 
SEAN SPICER: Hold my beer.

Acting on the impulse de jour is the very last thing I would want a man with access to the most powerful military on Earth to be doing. Obama thought about his actions and knew they would have consequences. Obama's steps in Syria were halting at best, but he was clearly looking for something that would have a positive outcome, and never found it. Trump is just reacting, in a knee-jerk fashion, to stimulus. And that response was at best ham-fisted and at worst mutton-headed.
 
Impulsive actions havi8ng long-term consequences is a concept that Americans seem to have lost track of in our pursuit of instant gratification. We see that in a lot of the personal decisions people make (how many of us have hit the 1-Click button on Amazon and gotten something it turns out we didn't really want?), and now it's becoming endemic in politics. And this is a bad thing, especially when you can get caught in quagmires that exact a huge toll in human life.