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Cont: The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Reopened Part V

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MarkCorrigan said:
It's the magic spell style of argumentation.
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That's a good label. How many times has Vixen simply hurled the phrase, "the law of Archimedes!" irrelevantly at a question, like so much Expecto patronum?

I recall in the Jabba thread him attempting to use the names of logical fallacies (hilariously incorrectly) as if just saying the words "ad hominem" made the other persons argument wrong.
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That's an attractive spell because people try to say they're being personally attacked simply because people oppose their claims. I've been guilty in the past of addressing claims tersely by simply giving the name of the relevant fallacy. Nowadays I try to explain why I think that was the fallacy committed. It cuts the other way too. When I name a fallacy Vixen has deployed, she digs in and insists I don't know what the named fallacy means.

Jabba also threw around a lot of pseudo-statistics mumbo jumbo. He couldn't actually work the Bayesian formula or describe how it could be justifiably parameterized to achieve his results. He didn't care. It was the magic incantation that proved him right, and no amount of instruction or discussion from skeptics could shake him.

I'd like to explain yet again that I'm a complete layman when it comes to any of the maths and physics presented in this thread.
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Oh, sure, any of us can quickly think of a body of expertise in which we are individually all at sea (pun intended).

I've never understood the almost pathological need in some people to be seen as a polymath.
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People desire greatness. Each person defines that differently. For some people, being broadly smart or clever or especially insightful is what they think will make them great. If they can't get there legitimately, some fake it.

A neuroscientist named Biderman or Biederman (I forget which) found evidence of a neurological payoff from the belief that one has discovered, or is privy to, hidden or secret information. For some, I suspect greatness comes in this form.

Watching this thread as an interested layman is like watching Kasperov and Fischer double team someone who keeps arguing that the castle moves diagonally.
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Haha, exactly. Apropos, like many people, I know the rules of chess. I know there are strategies, but I don't really have a head that appreciates them. I look at openings and transcripts of great games, but it's largely chaos to me. I don't mind that this is how I perceive chess. I know that for others it is instinctive, well-ingrained, or otherwise conducive to expertise. But I know that if I tried to formulate a chess opening on my own, it would be strictly out of comparative ignorance. I don't know what makes a good opening. And certainly if Kasparov told me that my opening was gibberish, I wouldn't argue.

For me, greatness is not tied up in understanding chess or playing it especially well. If it were, I fear my mediocrity would be an impediment to genuinely achieving greatness. I might therefore behave in a way that reinforces a belief in my proficiency without regard to the real world.
 
Vixen said:
Heh, that's for you to ask and for me to tell ;):D
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The source—whatever it may have been—is irrelevant. What you posted is facially absurd from a physics standpoint. It cannot be salvaged by naming its source.

You, however, can be legitimately held to account for attempting to teach your betters from a position of abject ignorance. How do you excuse that?
 
JayUtah said:
That's a good label. How many times has Vixen simply hurled the phrase, "the law of Archimedes!" irrelevantly at a question, like so much Expecto patronum?



That's an attractive spell because people try to say they're being personally attacked simply because people oppose their claims. I've been guilty in the past of addressing claims tersely by simply giving the name of the relevant fallacy. Nowadays I try to explain why I think that was the fallacy committed. It cuts the other way too. When I name a fallacy Vixen has deployed, she digs in and insists I don't know what the named fallacy means.

Jabba also threw around a lot of pseudo-statistics mumbo jumbo. He couldn't actually work the Bayesian formula or describe how it could be justifiably parameterized to achieve his results. He didn't care. It was the magic incantation that proved him right, and no amount of instruction or discussion from skeptics could shake him.



Oh, sure, any of us can quickly think of a body of expertise in which we are individually all at sea (pun intended).



People desire greatness. Each person defines that differently. For some people, being broadly smart or clever or especially insightful is what they think will make them great. If they can't get there legitimately, some fake it.

A neuroscientist named Biderman or Biederman (I forget which) found evidence of a neurological payoff from the belief that one has discovered, or is privy to, hidden or secret information. For some, I suspect greatness comes in this form.



Haha, exactly. Apropos, like many people, I know the rules of chess. I know there are strategies, but I don't really have a head that appreciates them. I look at openings and transcripts of great games, but it's largely chaos to me. I don't mind that this is how I perceive chess. I know that for others it is instinctive, well-ingrained, or otherwise conducive to expertise. But I know that if I tried to formulate a chess opening on my own, it would be strictly out of comparative ignorance. I don't know what makes a good opening. And certainly if Kasparov told me that my opening was gibberish, I wouldn't argue.

For me, greatness is not tied up in understanding chess or playing it especially well. If it were, I fear my mediocrity would be an impediment to genuinely achieving greatness. I might therefore behave in a way that reinforces a belief in my proficiency without regard to the real world.
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No, I don't desire greatness. I am just being myself. Sorry if my interest in the Estonia disaster upsets you.
 
Myriad said:
Did ChatGPT write that?
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Vixen said:
Heh, that's for you to ask and for me to tell ;):D
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Jack by the hedge said:
If it did, I shall relax a bit from worrying the robots are about to take over the world.
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Vixen said:
You can relax.
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Logically, these consecutive posts by Vixen (including the posts Vixen was responding to for context) tell us that ChatGPT did write the cacophony of equations. As to the veracity of Vixen's statements, that's another matter.
 
Vixen said:
No, I don't desire greatness. I am just being myself.
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And that self pretends she can solve distant crimes and transportation accidents from the comfort of her armchair, and wants others to acknowledge her proclaimed skill at such things.

Sorry if my interest in the Estonia disaster upsets you.
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You're not merely "interested." You have a strong notion that something nefarious happened in the loss of MS Estonia, that the mainstream narrative is compromised by a conspiracy, that you have the skills and knowledge to question the work of experts in order to uncover that conspiracy, and that part of your role in this thread and at this forum is to educate others whom you seem to think are benighted because they believe the conventional narrative.

If you were merely interested, we could have a productive discussion. What irritates people, insofar as they are irritated, is your consummate arrogance in the face of obvious ignorance. You don't know what you're talking about, but you behave as if people should appreciate that you do. In a skeptics forum that's going to net you well-deserved mockery.

Sorry if real life upsets you.
 
Vixen said:
Heh, that's for you to ask and for me to tell ;):D
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If, as you imply, you were quoting an AI response to a question you asked, I think it illustrates a problem: If you hope it will give you something smart to say about a topic you really don't grasp, it tries to answer your question as posed instead of saying "What I suspect you're trying to ask me is...".

Its reply told you how to calculate some or other value you thought should apply specifically to a 15,000 ton ship, but you didn't even notice the formula took no account of the mass of the ship. That's an awfully big clue for everyone else that you really did not understand what you thought you were talking about.
 
Roger Ramjets said:
I have to disagree with you there. Many witnesses thought the ship was in trouble before it began to list, and several thought that something was wrong at the bow. It didn't sink quickly, but went though a series of abrupt lists that had passengers fighting to get out. Eventually it rolled over with some people still on the hull, then it sank. Several witnesses in the water saw this happen in the moonlight.
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The key fact is that those who survived quickly surmised there was a problem, and got out of the bowels of the ship quickly. This means most of these survivors were alert, and the rest just not comfortable traveling in rough seas. The fact that most of the dead are still in the ship is a good indication of the speed of the accident, with most waiting too long to begin their exit.

The Titanic's situation was not ideal. After the lights went out everything was dark and it was impossible to know whether the ship had broken up. You could surmise that breaking up was the cause of the lights going out, but you couldn't know that.
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And yet a number of survivors reported the breakup. While the official inquests in England and the US did not accept this scenario in their final reports, White Star sent their Olympic Class liners back to drydock to alter their expansion joint, as verified later by divers inspecting the Britannic wreck.

The point being there where 700 people in boats, surrounding the Titanic. While most were in a state of shock, they sat on a flat-calm sea, and yet over half did not see the ship snap. The Estonia survivors had so many life-or-death issues to deal with at every step from the moment they started for the upper decks, and then into a raging, freezing ocean that their worlds shrank into mind-numbing immediacy. While their testimonies are very important, ultimately the wreck is the final witness.

And due to this ridiculous thread, I've enjoyed hundreds of hours of good Youtube documentaries about ships, ship wrecks, and other maritime disasters.

The best one on the Titanic survivor's mixed accounts of the breakup can be found here, at Oceanliner Designs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FLsr-t1mSY

This one runs 15 minutes, and he gives us a quality recreation of how it would have looked that night at the 13:00 mark.
 
Vixen said:
The poster needs to specify which post he is referring to when he claims I wrongly supposedly endorsed the conspiracy theorist Christopher Bollyn.
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Start reading here.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13696685&postcount=3722

You alleged a fact for which you gave no source. The allegation was that Sweden "disappeared" two Egyptians in 2001, which does not accurately describe what happened. Others discovered that the source for the particular spin you alleged was likely an article by Christopher Bollyn. You denied that Bollyn was your source, but you declined to say what your source was instead. The allegations and reasoning you deployed follows Bollyn's article reasonably closely. You asserted merely that you "looked it up" without giving important details. Absent better information from you, it's reasonable to conclude that your source was Bollyn and that you don't want to admit it, despite having apparently cited Bollyn previously as authority for a different question (per Reformed Offian).

Either your source was Bollyn, whom you you admit is not reputable, or you declined to name your source for your particular (and wrong) claim regarding Sweden. Either way, you cannot claim that all your allegations have been supported by reputable sources.

"Endorsement" is your straw man. The question is not whether you endorse his claims, or whether you stated or disavowed anywhere that you do. The question is whether he was your source for a claim that he clearly made and you repeated, and for which you provide no alternate source.
 
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MBDK said:
In lieu of your enlightenment on this matter, I see my post #3330 was incorrect regarding the context of your contrast in testimony post. Since I accepted Vixen's comment at face value that, "Axxman said in the case of the Titanic there were witnesses to the fact it hit an iceberg", I erroneously assumed, and wrote - "Axxman300's point being the witnesses viewed the definitive initiating cause of the disaster." Though it made logical sense to me that this could have been your argument, it is my mistake for not following through on confirming your original post on the matter. My apologies.

Regardless, you are correct, of course, that eye witness testimony is abysmal for reconstruction of actual events.
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No worries. She has the same affect on everyone. I'm no longer sure English is her first language based on how much gets past her in everyone else's posts.
 
Vixen said:
Any half-educated bod on the investigations board would be well aware of the Baltic Sea's rocky seabed. Eastern Sweden, Estonia and the whole of Finland used to be the equivalent of the Northern Alps - it was a mountainous region with peaks as high as 4km, covering the whole area. It was the passing of the Ice Age that caused the formation of the Baltic Sea in the first place.
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Not relevant. Long ago, in the original thread, I posted a link to the bathymetry of the area where Estonia sank. In that post, I also said the shape of the sea floor would have contributed to wave action, specifically rough waves like the ones that hammered the bow visor off. You continue to post data that unmines your claim, and supports the official report's findings.

It is not a given that a rocky outcrop caused the massive breach along the hull, which is in almost a straight line. It is a working theory.
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Up close you should see it's not a "straight line", the seam in that area of the hull has buckled, and it's in the shape of the rock outcrop it landed on. I'm not an engineer, but I like Play-Doh. And you've posted the diagram showing the wreck is on a steep incline, meaning it rolled a bit on impact, as verified by the indent on the sea floor in the shape of the side of the keel. Again, you have that pesky gravity working on the wreck, both upon impact with the bottom, and then working with the currents and time to continue the ship's roll as it wants to end up in deep water.

It doesn't follow that because it landed amongst rocks that therefore the rocks did the damage.

For a 15,000 tonne vessel to sink in 80 metres of water, it will and with a force of some 803.6 meganewtons. However, that doesn't mean it will ipso facto fracture the ship.
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On what planet and or dimension is this true?

Again, I'm not engineer, but don't think large ships are designed to lay on their side. I don't even think they'd try that in drydock. And almost all large sunken ship hulls show deformation and buckling from impact with the sea floor, even mud.
 
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Vixen said:
No, I don't desire greatness. I am just being myself. Sorry if my interest in the Estonia disaster upsets you.
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That's blatantly nonsense. Your continuing attempts to make out that you're the teacher here makes it clear that you want to be seen as an expert despite your regular attempts at false modesty in claiming that isn't what you're doing.
 
JayUtah said:
And that self pretends she can solve distant crimes and transportation accidents from the comfort of her armchair, and wants others to acknowledge her proclaimed skill at such things.



You're not merely "interested." You have a strong notion that something nefarious happened in the loss of MS Estonia, that the mainstream narrative is compromised by a conspiracy, that you have the skills and knowledge to question the work of experts in order to uncover that conspiracy, and that part of your role in this thread and at this forum is to educate others whom you seem to think are benighted because they believe the conventional narrative.

If you were merely interested, we could have a productive discussion. What irritates people, insofar as they are irritated, is your consummate arrogance in the face of obvious ignorance. You don't know what you're talking about, but you behave as if people should appreciate that you do. In a skeptics forum that's going to net you well-deserved mockery.

Sorry if real life upsets you.
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Praise and criticism are all the same to me.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
If, as you imply, you were quoting an AI response to a question you asked, I think it illustrates a problem: If you hope it will give you something smart to say about a topic you really don't grasp, it tries to answer your question as posed instead of saying "What I suspect you're trying to ask me is...".
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Its responses are limited. You must ask the right question. And yes, the answer Vixen posted is obviously in the idiom of ChatGPT. I've been giving it various engineering problems phrased in plain (but correct) language, and it's only gotten one right so far. Most of the answers are conceptually wrong in one way or another.

The bits and pieces of Newtonian physics that it wants to bring into each problem seem very sensitive to what language is used in the prompt. A lay person might easily interchange "force" and "pressure" when phrasing a prompt, and this sends the AI off in wildly different directions. It's also affected by changing the order in which the terms of the problem are stated.

The closest I was able to get ChatGPT to the correct solution for the sinking-ship impact problem was one that tried to reckon it from potential energy and the resulting kinetic energy. Not one solution included hydrodynamic drag or residual buoyancy. And I say "close" in this case only because the solution is accidentally the correct method given in Bate's manual on astrodynamics for an energy-only formulation for orbital mechanics!

You can't make this stuff up. Except that Vixen does, and then pretends this qualifies her to talk down to people who actually know how to work these problems.

Its reply told you how to calculate some or other value you thought should apply specifically to a 15,000 ton ship, but you didn't even notice the formula took no account of the mass of the ship. That's an awfully big clue for everyone else that you really did not understand what you thought you were talking about.
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Ironically ChatGPT actually committed one of the classic blunders that often entraps beginning students: the conflation of density with pressure. Hydrostatic pressure increases with depth, according (in part) to fluid mass density. But for seawater and most other liquids, density itself does not. And only density matters for this problem. Buoyancy is reckoned from density, not pressure (even though the integration of pressure is part of the derivation). Hydrodynamic drag is reckoned from density, not pressure. For both those purposes, and for practical tolerances, seawater density is the same at a depth of 1 m as it is at 10,000 m. Therefore buoyancy and hydrodynamic drag do not change substantially as one dives deeper.

That's by no means all that's wrong with the answer. But I'm amused that this answer errs in a particular way that inexperienced humans do.
 
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