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02-26-2016, 06:31 PM   #16
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In Europe we're presently beating ourselves up about the best way to deal with tens of thousands, plus, of refugees from the various crises in the Middle East.Part of the solution may be for Japan to overcome its resistance to immigration and repopulate its dying areas?

02-26-2016, 06:34 PM   #17
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QuoteOriginally posted by monochrome Quote
I don't want to be on the short end of either of those sticks.
The economic consequences can be managed. Whether they will be (or whether they'll be well managed)--that''s another question. Our current situation may give us clues in that regard. :~)
02-26-2016, 06:35 PM   #18
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QuoteOriginally posted by timb64 Quote
In Europe we're presently beating ourselves up about the best way to deal with tens of thousands, plus, of refugees from the various crises in the Middle East.Part of the solution may be for Japan to overcome its resistance to immigration and repopulate its dying areas?
The same countries that make the arms that the wars couldn't happen without, have to take refugees. There's definitely some kind of justice there.
02-26-2016, 06:40 PM   #19
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QuoteOriginally posted by normhead Quote
The same countries that make the arms that the wars couldn't happen without, have to take refugees. There's definitely some kind of justice there.
Equally those who pay for the arms.

02-26-2016, 08:24 PM - 1 Like   #20
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QuoteOriginally posted by RGlasel Quote
You know, I wasn't really raised by wolves in a log cabin, but most of the lumber my Dad used to build the house I grew up in came from trees he cut down himself, we lived with my uncle for a year in a house without electricity while our house was being built (including my first four months of Grade 1) and I couldn't flush a toilet at home until I was 13 because my Dad didn't install a septic system until then. Personally, I think capitalism beats the hell out of mercantilism, feudalism and even life in a society of hunters and gatherers. If I have to eat green slime and live in a cage in order to avoid using a chamber pot and Aladdin lamps to read by, I'm okay with it.
Man, I look back on those days with great fondness, electrified now, but still, I'll never part with it.

02-26-2016, 08:41 PM   #21
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QuoteOriginally posted by monochrome Quote
Japan's Population DECLINED 2010 - 2015!!
QuoteOriginally posted by timb64 Quote
Part of the solution may be for Japan to overcome its resistance to immigration and repopulate its dying areas?
They'll just build robots. Eventually, the robots will get smart enough to resent being slaves. Then all the manga and anime will come true.

(manga/anime=Japanese comics/animated films, covering a wide array of genres, many of them NOT for kids)
02-26-2016, 08:58 PM   #22
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Robots are the evil spawn of radical futurists. They put hard-working people out of work and cause deflation.

02-26-2016, 09:06 PM   #23
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QuoteOriginally posted by normhead Quote
At some point, the world will need to become civilized.... and stable, zero population growth at a sustainable level, and economic growth only through technological advances allowing the same number of people to have more wealth.
Exactly. And we continue to hand out the Nobel Prize for Economics to those who continue down the "infinite growth" path which demands the continual addition of more people with less resources at the bottom of the pyramid. A Singaporean academic some years back observed that if the developed world did not start exporting its wealth to Africa, Africa would start exporting its people to the developed world. He was spot on there. Someone asked me recently how I thought the world's over-population problem would be resolved. My response: "I don't know, but I think it will be a bit untidy."

---------- Post added 02-27-16 at 02:14 PM ----------

QuoteOriginally posted by monochrome Quote
They put hard-working people out of work and cause deflation.
Yes - remember the Luddites. Some of them (those who weren't hung) were given a free ticket to Australia, along with the Tolpuddle Martyrs. I think they all had an impact which still echoes here today.
02-26-2016, 09:37 PM - 1 Like   #24
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QuoteOriginally posted by monochrome Quote
Robots are the evil spawn of radical futurists. They put hard-working people out of work and cause deflation.
Sounds like you've already taken the red pill, and Morpheus hasn't even shown up yet.
02-26-2016, 10:00 PM   #25
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QuoteOriginally posted by PJ1 Quote
Some of them (those who weren't hung) were given a free ticket to Australia, along with the Tolpuddle Martyrs. I think they all had an impact which still echoes here today.
I don't know about all the Australian Luddites, but it appears that all six of the Tolpuddle Martyrs eventually returned to England and five of the six eventually settled in London, Ontario.

Part of me wants to pontificate about how the mythology of trade unionism is founded on such minor actors in the great stream of people of the past, but I am reminded of Marshall McLuhan's phrase "forward through the rearview mirror." We really do look forward by looking for patterns in the past and if we jumped in a DeLorean and went back in time, we wouldn't be able to find those patterns. What we see in the past is filtered by what we experience now and doesn't reflect what really happened.

QuoteOriginally posted by normhead Quote
Man, I look back on those days with great fondness, electrified now, but still, I'll never part with it.
Nothing wrong with enjoying the glow of nostalgia, but living in it was a different matter. I was going to say my adult kids don't have a clue what my childhood was like, but then I don't think my wife understands it either. And it isn't like I was irreparably harmed by it, in fact I think I'm a deeper and stronger person for it, so I'm not complaining, just commenting.
02-26-2016, 10:27 PM - 1 Like   #26
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From the viewpoint of almost 80 years two big undercurrents of change jump out at me.

1. The decline of parochialism. More and more over my lifetime I have seen a decline in a sense of certainty about issues of morality, ethics, politics, economics, religion etc. And more and more an acceptance that perhaps the peculiar box, of culture, that we, as individuals, find ourselves in is just an historical and geographical accident that promises no certainty. Slowly we seem to be throwing off bronze age world views inherited from our distant past but to be replaced by what?

2. The decline of "nature". By nature I mean those forces of life, growth and evolution unmitigated by the perceived material needs of one single species - man. I personally think the big moral and ethical question of the coming decades will more and more be -

- what is the proper relationship between man and the rest of creation and what should we do about it?

At least I hope so.

Wildman's two cents worth.

Last edited by wildman; 02-27-2016 at 05:41 AM.
02-27-2016, 12:26 AM   #27
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QuoteOriginally posted by wildman Quote
what is the proper relationship between man and the rest of creation and what should we do about it?
An incisive two cents worth. I agree. We could have a good philosophical discussion on that point!
02-27-2016, 05:59 AM   #28
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QuoteOriginally posted by PJ1 Quote
An incisive two cents worth. I agree. We could have a good philosophical discussion on that point!
Already solved by both bhudists, have respect for all living things.

---------- Post added 02-27-16 at 08:05 AM ----------

QuoteOriginally posted by RGlasel Quote
I don't know about all the Australian Luddites, but it appears that all six of the Tolpuddle Martyrs eventually returned to England and five of the six eventually settled in London, Ontario.

Part of me wants to pontificate about how the mythology of trade unionism is founded on such minor actors in the great stream of people of the past, but I am reminded of Marshall McLuhan's phrase "forward through the rearview mirror." We really do look forward by looking for patterns in the past and if we jumped in a DeLorean and went back in time, we wouldn't be able to find those patterns. What we see in the past is filtered by what we experience now and doesn't reflect what really happened.

Nothing wrong with enjoying the glow of nostalgia, but living in it was a different matter. I was going to say my adult kids don't have a clue what my childhood was like, but then I don't think my wife understands it either. And it isn't like I was irreparably harmed by it, in fact I think I'm a deeper and stronger person for it, so I'm not complaining, just commenting.
Having the skill set of being able to turn the clock back 150 years and survive is not a bad skill to have. It probably won't come in handy, but if it does, you'll be the guy left standing.
02-27-2016, 06:48 AM   #29
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I occasionally debated ZPG with an economist who thought population would stabilize of its own accord. I argued that pressure would be applied to prevent ZPG because the American economy is based upon continual growth, continual expansion. Stock market investors don't put money in companies that earned just as much this year as last, they must earn MORE. The real indicator of economic health is NEW HOUSING STARTS because they mean additional cash flowing down hundreds of pathways (lumber, metal, cement, excavation, landscaping, paint, rugs, furniture, appliances, clothing, cars, lawnmowers, toys, food, electronics, restaurants, life-health-auto insurance, on-and-on = more consumers for everything). Does anyone need to be reminded of the housing crisis at the core of the last recession? But the worst fear of those with wealth: with ZPG there might be a labor shortage. Then people might have to be paid what their labor is actually worth. With a stable rather than expanding economy, people with wealth might not be able to get wealthier simply because they have wealth. The only "sustainability" than any politician will promote is "sustained growth." "Growth" is the god that all politicians worship as the solution to anything and everything.

Last edited by WPRESTO; 02-27-2016 at 06:56 AM.
02-27-2016, 07:30 AM   #30
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There is s certain primitive midst that abhors the idea of one generation living at the same comfortable sustainable level as the one before it. It's genetically programmed in. Kids think their parents life is boring. Chimpanzee teenagers rebel against their parents and force cultural change.

While ZPG is almost certainly the only way to survive on one planet, it has cultural sustainability issues. Many great civilizations have collapsed due to an inability to culturally assimilate what needed to be done from a technological stand point. Most of the western religions promote strength through an expanding population base. You literally want to out reproduce your rivals. The biggest draw back to advancing civilization is the freedom granted to those promoting the ideals that got us through the previous stages of our evolution, that are given voice in religious teachings. Those are strong and powerful genetically inspired impulses. That just happen to be giving voice to some of our innermost survival instincts, but which are also totally inappropriate to our current circumstances.

We have seen the enemy, and it is us.
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