The real issue is the concentration of power. WeChat is the gatekeeper and moderator of basically everything in China. They decide what apps and services are allowed to be successful. If they see something doing well, they have the data and the control to make a copy of it and replace the original with it. Sort of like Amazon does in the retail space.

It is! I also found this video later that I think does a better job of explaining reflection: https://youtu.be/1n_otIs6z6E

Elon is working on replicating it now with “X”. He’s already said he wanted something like that for the US

That was always my assumption about why it happened, but it turns out that’s not the case at all: https://youtu.be/CUjt36SD3h8

Reflections involve the material absorbing and re-emitting photons back the other direction.

The curvature of light from gravity is actually space-time itself being curved by mass. The light continues on a straight path through a curved space-time. It looks like it changes direction from the outside, but that’s just the shape of the universe in that area.

That’s why we feel gravity. The space-time around earth is curved inward, so going forward in time would actually mean falling towards the center if we were stationary in space. The ground is constantly accelerating us upwards. Light does not get accelerated that way, so it follows the curvature.

If you want to get really deep into the reflection topic: https://youtu.be/rYLzxcU6ROM

In aggregate, yes, but any individual wave of light is still traveling at c. You get the appearance of a slower wave because secondary waves are generated that cancel the original one in such a way that it makes a combined wave that appears to be slower.

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this part and what it means for cause and effect for a while. I think Feynman said something like a photon is only ever emitted when the source and destination agree to exchange one. Which makes sense if the exchange is instantaneous to the photon. But how can billions of years pass for us in the mean time?

To be pedantic, photons never accelerate. They only ever travel at one speed in one direction

Unfortunately the politicians representing them now don’t seem to be. I wish we could somehow get a party that supports conservative policies with reasonable people and sound politics. Not this cult-like anti-truth, anti-science, fear-based messaging we have now. The US really needs a system that supports more than 2 parties

Nice to see some reasonable and grounded conservative content. I don’t agree with most conservative social and economic positions, but I can respect someone who supports them in good faith. Pretty much everything I see coming from people who consider themselves conservative in the US today is…not that. I guess this is what you get when Fox News becomes the core of your party