Thanks for breaking it up for us. Yeah, I thought so... nothing about Marxism.

the obvious and necessary qualifier "also" from their anti-racist cri du coeur which should have been, more aptly, BLACK LIVES ALSO MATTER. — 180 Proof

BLAM!!! :ok:

Lastly though (just riffin' here mind you), perhaps more fundamentally, many white people (seem to me/us to) feel threatened merely by discussing "racism" because they do not believe the survivors of white terror and their continually brutalized descendents only want "Social Justice" and "Equality", but, what we're really after instead, I believe whites believe, is revenge. We say "Reparations", they (most?) hear "revenge" (i.e. "Race War"). — 180 Proof

Whites have a lot of angst. All that virtue signalling and stuff from one side and then delirious fears from another side.

And yes, your right, some Americans are very fearful of the fact that "whites" aren't going to be a majority soon (meaning 30 years or so from now). For the genuine racists this is the biggest fear. Of course what they don't understand at all that there isn't going to be a new majority: hispanics aren't going to be 50% and surely african americans won't be a majority. But who cares about little things as facts. All they need to see is a documentary from South Africa about the crime there and think "OMG, it's going to be here THE SAME!" That's the new racism. Just like the ludicrous idea of Europe (and especially Sweden) being soon Islamic.

not to resist or protest or break the law is immoral and indefensible, and to seek to protect one's property at the expense of those who oppose and resist is doubly indefensible. Thus spake the Lord. — unenlightened

How do people in Hong Kong protest the Chinese authorities by burning their own property down? Why would the store owners be the culprits there? You genuinely think that Beijing cares about that?

There has happened huge losses for democracy and freedom just now in Hong Kong and in Russia, and people here are disgusted about someone daring to say that looting and destroying private property isn't the way, even if they totally agree on the issue and have no problem with non-violent protests. That's crazy.

(Besides, are there huge riots in the US anymore? I'm sceptical about this, I think the vast majority of the protests have been totally peaceful and they have made their mark.)

I just don't buy this. — BitconnectCarlos

:up:

The estimates I've seen tell me that the alternative oil extraction methods are not only unacceptably detrimental to the environment and use unsustainable quantities of water, draining and polluting aquifers, streams and so on, but that just to break even they need oil prices to be $50-100 dollars a barrel. — Janus

There's also the additional cost of accidents, such as the Deepwater Horizon spill, as drilling is forced to harder to access and risky sites. — praxis

Yes, and now we come in my view to a more interesting part of the debate: natural resources aren't going to finish, our societies aren't going to collapse, but the impact that we have for example to the environment is (and in some places has already been) dramatic. As I said earlier just as one example, we nearly finished all whales in World thanks to using whaling oil, and it was a miracle that they came back.

Same is for mineral resources and metals. The only resource precious enough to mine underwater is in a small scale gold. But otherwise, the oceans have like the same amount of copper, cobalt nickel and other resources. Now, it doesn't take a genius to understand that this would be a new way humans could damage the environment.

Now for the ocean floor:



And as I earlier William Forster Lloyd's Tragedy of the commons, there are real pitfalls in free market competition without institutional limits and oversight. Capitalism needs institutions and rules, that's all.

It was lazy of me to not get my facts right. Anyway, coal couldn't have fueled the economic growth that developed with cheap oil, yes? — praxis

Interesting question, however we have to remember that electric cars are quite an old invention and without oil there would have been a huge scramble for other technologies.




Besides, coal powered ships and trains aren't a problem, perhaps only aircraft are the one transport type that has really needed gas engines.

The point is that increased efficiency and substitution can't ever match the cheapness of oil, and if we've reached peak oil then 'American will never be great again'. — praxis

Why do you think that?

Notice that there has happened huge leaps in renewable energy production, so it's not just science fiction like fusion energy still is for us. For example solar energy has really come down from the 1970's.



From the below you can see the energy production from 1830 to 2010. You can observe the transformations that have happened: first it was biomass (burning wood etc), then came coal, then oil and gas, then nuclear, then renewables.



I think what will happen is that simply the role of fossil fuels will steadily decrease in their share. Yet the transformation will take few decades. But then again, it's already two decades from the turn of the Millennium.

Well let me take it somewhere else, where it might seem less strange. Like Vichy France. — unenlightened

This sounds good.

your average boulanger wants to get on with baking and selling bread as best he can, and protests his innocence. — unenlightened

Yes. My options are a) continue as a civilian or b) take part in the resistance or c) try to join the Free French under DeGaulle somehow. If I choose b) and arm myself and start shooting at the first German I see, I'll be an illegal combatant. Hence if I get caught, I can be taken to the nearest forest and shot (with the ease that people can get banned here :snicker: ) and my execution won't be a warcrime.

But from the point of view of the resistance, there is no neutrality; you are part of the resistance or you are a collaborator. — unenlightened

Question: does this apply to children? How about invalids or old people like Bitter Crank? If the resistance decides to plant a bomb using a local six year old boy, Maurice, and an old timer like Bitter Crank posing as his grandfather and both aren't so hot about it, can they be shot as collaborators? Because there's no neutrality! Their dead bodies will surely bring the message home to others that there's no messing around with the Spanish Inquisit, sorry, the French Resistance!

Of course things are not that bad — unenlightened

When Americans here start saying that it is really so bad, then I'll really get worried where the US is going.

but it is a judgement to be made, how bad they have to be before Joe Public's private property becomes part of the battleground. How many corpses does it take before your property is at the disposal of the resistance? — unenlightened

Do they come to me and ask: "Bonjour monsieur! We've noticed that there are many Germans shopping in your bakery so if you don't mind, we'll blow them up while they are inside your bakery! Yes, mon ami, you or your employees and your ordinary customers might be killed too, but, it's war, vive La France!"

And now I don't think it's even war. Yet actually your question is simply when should I take the law into my own hands?

There might be reasons for that, certainly, but is it really necessary on this occasion? StreetlightX surely thinks so, who I think is at another continent (or a foreigner in the US). Yet I've noticed a massive outcry right from the start in the media and a response from even politicians. Do you think that NOTHING would have happened if nothing would have been burnt or looted? The only thing that has been strange is simply that those that have mentioned that burning and looting private property isn't good have gotten flak on this thread. I think the rioting has been a side issue here and has been more of the talking point in Fox News. Besides, I'm not seeing the American cities burning, so is this not even a current issue.

Are these Iraqi people a) protesting American invasion or b) rejoicing the downfall of Saddam Hussein or c) doing something else?

You say “the only thing” like is was a small thing, as though the economic growth the world has seen since the beginning of the industrial revolution weren’t entirely dependent on it. — praxis

Wrong.

You forgot Trumps favorite energy source, coal. That was the primary energy source of the industrial revolution. John Young set up his small business of refining crude oil only in 1848 and the world's first oil refinery was built in 1856. Before the Petroleum Industry got going, oil was got then from whale oil and thanks to that, all whales were nearly killed to extinction in the 19th Century (remember Moby Dick). Result: nobody uses whale oil in the kerosene lights, if they have one today.

With the commercial development of the petroleum industry and vegetable oils, the use of whale oils declined considerably from its peak in the 19th century into the 20th century. In the 21st century, with most countries having banned whaling, the sale and use of whale oil has practically ceased.

That's the way how non-sustainable energy sources disappear: they become oddities. You can already see it if you have a very old car. You don't get the gas the car was designed to use anymore from your local gas station.

Never forget that there are always alternative energy resources to oil. So if to produce a barrel oil would cost 10 000$ dollars, only some very rich car collectors would dare to run their combustion engines. But we still would have transports.

I'm talking about the fact that you cannot have capitalism without some kind of wage labour, and you cannot have wage labour without economic inequality. You could move to a cooperative basis, where all workers have equal share in the company, as is being done successfully atm, but -- gulp! -- evil socialism!!! — Kenosha Kid

Cooperatives have nothing to do with state socialism,btw. They haven't been formed by the state and given some monopoly decree. Cooperatives fit into a capitalist economy perfectly. We have large cooperatives that are run very well. I think the largest food store chain here is a cooperative, a retail cooperative, with (ghasp!) nearly 40 000 employees and hence being one of the largest firms in the 5,5 million country. Some large cooperatives that come to mind are Crédit Agricole, Co-op Kobe, Arla foods, S-group here are among millions of cooperatives around the World. But of course, large firms are evil.

So let's break this down.
1. Thanks to capitalism, there has been a trend toward universal prosperity in the last 100 years.
2. There has been a worldwide population boom over the last 100 years.

And your conclusion from this is that capitalism-driven universal prosperity reverses population growth. Ab initio, I guess :rofl: — Kenosha Kid

Yes, because your now confused on what you are referring to. That population boom doesn't happen anymore in the rich industrialized countries. Check out the countries with the highest fertility rates and all of them are poor countries. It's called a Demographic Transition, how countries shift from high birth rates to low birth rates. Check the link and learn something new.

51% in the agricultural industry that you believe will drive population recession. — Kenosha Kid

What are you talking about? I have now no clue what you are saying.

Like climate change, the expectation ought to be that this will continue toward catastrophe. — Kenosha Kid

And this is your belief you have. To utter that lithurgy makes you better.

Is the forum just a reflection of the world, that we’ve reached a sort of evolutionary point of weariness without any reason to struggle or make things new? Is there really nothing new to come, is it out there ahead of us or do we have to create it? — Brett

Forums like these need new members.

Questions like is 0,999=1 and the poor guy venturing here after reading Ayn Rand and wishing a discussion about her work is what keeps up these places. Some philosophical questions pop up all the time.

I never underestimate the collective wisdom in PF. From this forum (or was it the predecessor) I got great responses that I have used in real life. I've also gotten really good advice on mathematic literature, which helped me a lot.

Does this reflect the World? Perhaps so much as a small community of more than average educated and informed people who write English can.

Now your are not making at all sense.

Universal prosperity would kill capitalism stone dead. — Kenosha Kid

What on Earth are you talking about? How has the universal increase in prosperity from the early 19th Century to early 21st Century killed capitalism stone dead? Why do you think that more prosperity would be so bad? It would be great if the average Chinese or Indian would be as prosperous as the average American.

And what is your argument for capitalism to need inequality between nations? On the contrary, if countries are more prosperous, there is more demand for stuff that capitalism pushes around. Capitalists would just love if all Asians and Africans would be more prosperous. Seems like you have no idea that markets are made of both supply sides and a demand side.

More prosperity means more consumers, which means more demand, bigger markets. For companies bigger markets mean more profits. Would Finland want as it's neighbour Sweden or the Dominican Republic? Sweden, of course (and Dominican Republic surely wouldn't want to leave the warmth of the Caribbean). Both have roughly the same amount of people, but the GDP of Dominican Republic is a mere 16% of the Swedish GDP. The Dominican Republic at our Western border would be a very lousy trading partner. Without Sweden next to it Finland would be economically worse. We really wouldn't be better of even if some Finnish textile maker could opt to establish a plant in our western neighbour rather than outsourcing the production to Asia.

We adapt very well when the resources are there to sustain our adaptation. problem is the resources are dwindling and the demand for them is growing. If you don't see this as a problem; then I would say you are being willfully ignorant; indulging in wishful thinking. — Janus

And I'd say that you are willfully ignorant about how a) markets work and b) that dwindling resources has been the new norm already for ages, and that you c) forget the role of technological innovation in the equation. You could have made that argument in the 1900s, the1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s, the 1990s, the 2000s and the 2010s. So would have been indulging myself in wishful thinking for the last 120 years?

Let's take the example of oil.

In the 1970's several forecasts estimated that Peak Oil would happen the year 2000. In the year 2000 or so forecasts estimated Peak Oil to happen this year or earlier. It can be argued that "Peak conventional oil", meaning production from traditional oil reserves has peaked in 2006, so I am genuinely not saying that the forecasts were wrong. Yet global production hasn't peaked.



Just now there's no scarcity of oil as we are in an economic depression, but we do know what happens when Peak Oil happens and you have diminishing production. So assume that a war breaks out in the Persian gulf and Saudi, Gulf state and Iranian production is destroyed and the World faces an oil shock. What happens?

The price of oil rises.

If it rises too high, the global economy puts on a handbrake, but with higher prices alternative oil production methods before financially unprofitable kick in. That simply means we change the definition of what "Oil production" means as oil shale and light crude are literally quite different. Also alternative energy resources gain even more ground. Transports can use alternative energy resources even now and the drive to transform the transportation fleet will increase. The only thing that oil basically has is it's very cheap price. Technological advances drive the cost of both alternative production methods and alternative energy resources to adapt to the situation. We have already seen this, so this isn't just optimistic speculation.

Yeah kinda. Companies don't outsource production because they want to spread the wealth. They do it because poorer countries have low production costs, especially human labour. — Kenosha Kid

Companies are surely driven by profit and not by charity. Yet their actions are just part of the whole.

But let's think of your argument about outsourcing.

So you think the World would be better when all manufacturing WOULD STAY in the rich Western countries? That is pure 19th Century Imperialism, when you on purpose DENY the possibility of ANY manufacturing, any competition to your own market, rising in other places (then colonies). Well, it's not the age of imperialism as it was a hundred years ago.

Because just ask yourself: what else have the poorest Third World countries have to compete with the richest countries other than cheap labour and natural resources? My country didn't have much else to offer in the 19th Century. Hence the really important question is, can a poor country transform itself when those clothing factories and sweat shops emerge to offer jobs for the otherwise rural people working the fields as subsistence farmers? Can the labour force then be trained? Can the better educated and skilled labour find work at home or does it migrate somewhere else? Can and do other industries emerge also? Does then this lead to higher wages? With higher wages you will start to have more demand for things like the service sector and the rise of the middle class. There's many ways that things can go wrong, and that's why I believe a mixed economy approach is the best as it isn't idealist and understands that there are many ways things can go wrong.

Is this bad? Because this statistic here is what drives manufacturing away from China to places like Africa:


Clothing industry is usually a kickstarter industry.

From the West...


via Asia...


to Africa. What's wrong with that?

I agree, some people are so smitten with an ideology that they'll believe it is a cure-all despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary — Kenosha Kid

These people typically won't find anything good in the other sides arguments.

So really you're political ideology is: not socialism! Okay we can agree we're not likely to solve the problem with socialism. — Kenosha Kid

Yes. However coming from a country that seems by many as a bastion of social democracy as our neighboring country in the West, I would actually promote a mixed economy. Libertarianism/liberalism and especially capitalism is hard in a country where one doesn't have strong institutions, which are necessary. My political ideology actually is this: extremist movements who want a totally new world are terrible for the World, especially those that think killing people will make the World a better place.

Although for your several reminders about increased Chinese prosperity, it is worth remembering that it wasn't that which lowered their population growth. — Kenosha Kid

And that's why I earlier noted India. It genuinely hadn't the stupid one child policy as China, which is a huge problem for them now. Another example is Singapore: earlier they were panicking that there would be too many Singaporeans and imposed strict rules and now they panic about Singapore women having too few babies. Demographics of nations simply aren't decided by politicians. Usually the politicians fail miserably with such policies. If we skip genocides and the like, that is.

Yet the demographic transition is a reality. It is more likely that your great grandparents were from larger families with more siblings than you have, if you live in the West. It might not be actually so, but more likely as the fertility rate has come down.

It's not. But this already depends on massive economic disparity between the trader and the place if production. This is not the universal prosperity dream you're selling. — Kenosha Kid

Does it?

Well, you just ask yourself how have countries that were poor and now are rich made it? If you separate the countries that were drawn around oil fields, and inspect countries that had an "economic miracle" of some sort, it's a good way to look at this question. My country was far poorer than Argentina in the start of the 1900s. South Korea was very poor especially after a bloody war and before it had been a colony. So what happened?

Economic history tells us a story what happened, but usually we don't want to hear it as we are obsessed about some righteous or ideological agenda.

I wonder why I am so hard to understand. Can you perhaps let me know what two different things I am talking about and whether or not one of them is the same thing that BC is being consistent about? That will make it easier for me to correct you if you are wrong. — unenlightened

Sure, sorry for responding a day later.

To be nonchalant of other people if they are private business owners because they are more easy targets (while trying similar tactics to the actual object of the protest would be more riskier) sounds strange, when you say it's all about human rights and equality. Talking about being against unfair and unequal treatment and supporting the basic human rights. Well, basic human rights are usually divided into civil and political rights, but also economic, social and cultural rights.

I imagine that because of the money and big players involved it's difficult to know who's telling the truth about peak oil, climate change, and the like. — praxis

Read, learn and use more than one reference, that's all it takes. If you read enough you will notice that neither peak oil or climate change clearly are fake. For such complex issues there's no distinct "truth" or a yes or no answer. Peak conventional oil has already happened some years ago. We already have seen what happens with over 100 dollar prices (the global economy halts) and that we can be in a situation of negative oil prices in the US (because, hey, it's a casino). And climate change is similar, quite true thing.

Perhaps the answer is in being critical of the worst, most dire and most alarmist forecasts made about anything. This doesn't mean the same as totally opposing the thing. The worst/most alarmist forecasts about anything are usually made to "wake up" people, to get the media to pick the issue up, for us to notice it. It approaches more the rhetorical side. Simply there is an agenda to promote than an observation of the facts. This doesn't mean that all is fake. It may seem lame then to say "well, it's not going to be that bad", but usually that is the most realistic case. We humans adapt very well.

After all, we are now living during the worst pandemic in a century (and perhaps in the worst economic depression too) and the World hasn't collapsed around us. Likely will be there for 2021 too.

Not a Mad Max world yet.

Except they wouldn't, I think.

You see that 300 000 square meters is the total of all floors combined. The area you calculated is if the similar amount of square meters in 800 000 Burj Khalifas would be built in single floor homes. Yes, that might be close to the area of Uganda. Yet the Burj Khalifa, the actual building, I think is takes far less than 10 000 square meters of the real estate land in Dubai where it stands.

So the one huge American style city built with suburbs for that much people would take the size of Uganda, with no 2-floor or higher buildings. (Then the traffic jams...)

Wasted infrastructure is the result of an overestimation. Endless economic growth is inherently short-sighted because it's unquestionably unsustainable. — praxis

Better to build homes, make the largest high speed rail system than spend the billions in stock buy backs.





Then there is the highway system, here compared with the US highway system (that was basically built during the Eisenhower/Kennedy/Johnson administrations).



Dividends have a point, but trillions of dollars buybacks when the income disappears in a stock market crash? Or right, we don't have those because the central banks support the markets (so long free markets). In the end, there are more stupid ways to use money than building infrastructure, even if part of those investments are stupid.

Economic downturns will become more frequent and longer lasting, in fact this may already be happening. — praxis

Drastic economic downturns have been with us for at least 250 years.

The economic growth of China and other countries will inevitably fall to the rates of developed economies and by that time global resources or in particular cheap energy, the backbone of economic growth, will be further diminished — praxis

Yes. Nobody is forecasting a 20% growth in the US economy and why should it be so? If the poorer countries get more wealthy, sure, the growth rates will come down. And if the global population growth stops and starts to diminish, why would we need rapid economic growth?

And the scarcity problem?

What actually is different from the end of the 19th Century, because you could have made similar arguments then as, oh wait, I think Malthus already did it already in the end of the 18th Century? (So a hundred years earlier, sorry). And after him it was William Foster Lloyd with his essay "The Tragedy of Commons" from 1833. So anything here isn't really new. I'm not saying that either Malthus or Lloyd don't have a point or that they are utterly wrong, they do make good points, but putting their theories on a pedestal and treating them as some sacrosanct truths isn't useful. Doom & gloom is so trendy, it's so hip now and has been for ages. Any hint of optimism seems to some that the optimist is either naive or that he or she is totally uncritical of everything. Because we are surely fine to the living we have now than the situation we had prior to the industrial revolution.

Your ideal vision was to make the world prosperous. If you understand that capitalism is "less than perfect", how consistent can it be with this perfect world you believe possible? — Kenosha Kid

I don't believe the World is perfect, but I can see when some things work better than others. History tells it. Starting from the most clear examples of when a countries have been divided into two with one part going with capitalism and the other with socialism. A better example could not be given.

And I don't believe in ideologies and idealists like anarcho-capitalists or marxists. The fact is that you need a so-called mixed approach when you look at countries that have truly prospered. You need free markets, but also you need labour laws, functioning labour unions, functioning and effective institutions that do prevent corruption, lawlessness and guarantees even the poor their rights to their property etc.

The reality is that I put my competitors out of business by undercutting them, making them poorer and me richer. — Kenosha Kid

You underestimate the competition. You think they would stand idle when they simply could copy your technology? You could bitch and moan about intellectual theft, of course. But no way you can buy a monopoly from all the power elites of the world.

(Kenosha Kids competition. In so-called "communist" China, of course)

My next move would be to do a Shkreli and hike up the price of my battery. Because I am a capitalist. That is my job: to take money from the many and put it into my hands. — Kenosha Kid

You know, the Byzantine court used the predatory pricing in silk production to bankrupt private competition and gain monopoly, but notice that monopolies aren't typical in our globalized World. If you would be successful, then you would be one of the ten or so battery makers in the World. And we seem to forget that in the history of capitalism trust-busting happened too: there's no Standard Oil today as there was earlier. We just now have forgotten that the US did something about the robber barons, as they were called in their day.

And presumably I'm not hand-making these personally, right? To undercut my competitors I'm probably going to rely on the economic disparity between my prosperous country and somewhere much less prosperous in East Asia somewhere. And if not, I'm certainly going to have to rely on wage labour. — Kenosha Kid

So let's say you would be a genuine risk taker and go for the cheapest labour anywhere with in mind to shorten your manufacturing distances. So why wouldn't you take the bold move to produce the batteries right there where the raw materials are extracted in the DRC?

Yep, just look how low the salaries are in the DRC!


Fine. So why would it be bad if one of the most poor countries in the World suddenly get an advanced and extremely competitive tech industry that uses domestic resources giving a headache to Chinese battery manufacturers? I think the Congolese would be happy about it.

(Kenosha Kid, on the left, showing his new Congolese battery factory to the local DRC elite?)

The existence of China's never inhabited ghost cities may indicate that the promise of economic growth to lift populations out of extreme poverty may be somewhat overrated, or at least shortsighted. — praxis

Does central planning work so great all the time?
And is the following statistic inherently bad?



You should remember that the size of the Chinese economy was at the start of the 1990's equivalent to the size of the GDP of Netherlands. And now it's bigger. And povetry has been reduced. The fact is that it hasn't been overrated or short sighted what the Chinese have been able to do. The country has genuinely gotten more prosperous. Sub-Saharan Africa, not so.

Do notice the media where published.

But we can see the Trumpist response already: it didn't happen, all the various intel was dubious (as if then it would be taken to NSC to think about the response). It's the Deep State against Trump! It's all a sham. A conspiracy. And note that everything about it will be now top secret.

Only afterwards we'll see from the documents that indeed the President was briefed about the issue. As always. Above all, now as it is "a hoax" or "unconfirmed intel", Trump will not do anything. Because "he wasn't informed" lie goes only so far as now he surely is informed.

And hence the reason why Putin would in the first place indeed do such a thing.

At least Trump is getting his version of angry mothers of killed soldiers that Russia has "had a problem with" since the first war in Chechnya: Mothers of military sons killed in Afghanistan want probe of Russian death bounties.

Profit always has to be at someone's detriment. — Kenosha Kid

And this is the core error that has been and still is ever so popular on the leftist side. Note the word "always", which is the problem. Not that sometimes, but always. That improvement, that profits have to be taken from someone else. To profit one HAS TO BE stealing from others. Wealth cannot be created, but only taken away from someone else.

Hence if you Kenosha Kid lets say invent a battery for smart phones that uses 50% less raw materials giving 80% more power with half of the production cost, obviously you could sell it at half price compared to other battery makers and people likely would opt for the cheaper far better battery. So for who's detriment, from who would you rob your dirty profits? What diabolical evil would you do? That other battery producers would be forced to change to use your technology also? Or would the narrative simply be that you are simply using predatory pricing and hence forcing poor workers to be unemployed at other factories with your cheap batteries, so shame on you? Forget the "improvements" in your battery design, you make things worse as people buy more smart phones! So F*k you and your inventions! Who needs better battery technology?

The result of uniform prosperity is not to make the world as prosperous as the developed West, but to reduce the prosperity of the West down to some Goldilocks zone with everyone else, which in itself is fine. — Kenosha Kid

Hence basically you are against the idea of more prosperity. You basically believe that poor countries today could not have it as good as we have it now.

It isn't about sustainable development, recycling, protecting the environment and tackling the problems we have etc. but truly an idea of REDUCING PROSPERITY. Let that just sink in for a moment. The actual inherent evil in this craving for a better more simple time and being against the materialism would be seen if this truly happened. It hasn't happened, but who cares. The discourse is disjointed from the real world to a narrative of ideals that simply don't bother with facts. And what is so bad in increasing prosperity and reducing povetry? As if increasing prosperity means rampant hedonistic materialism and being utterly uncritical of the present system. Or is the only morally correct way to decrease povetry through income transfers? Is it bad for poor or middle class people to be more affluent?

Because what on Earth would be that "Goldilocks zone" you would deem appropriate for us? The US of the 1980's? Western Europe of the 1990's? Even if we take the present as the goldilocks, is really the goldilocks zone a world where we still die from heart attacks and have corona viruses? What would be so wrong in a World where people on average live to be 100 years or over and have less disease than now and have at their home a fridge, electric oven and clean drinkable running water?

(Data from Canada obviously missing)


The basic problem is that people who think all of our problems are because capitalism simply don't make much effort to understand how the economy works and how much improvement there actually has happened in the last fifty years. Perhaps it's confusing to be both critical of the problems that capitalism has and do exist, yet acknowledge that many things have improved under our less than perfect capitalist system.

More prosperous societies can solve those problems that have emerged (and there are many) far better than poor societies.

I'd say it really won't be, if we are smart.

I think that Amartya Sen, the Indian nobel-economist, has a point when he argues that basically famine is the result of the collapse of the market. Many times it's a war fighting strategy. These issues are more complex than the simple answer given sometimes to us.

Yet we can feed ourselves. With more efficient agriculture we could feed far more with it being more environmentally friendly and sustainable. As I said, the difference between a Western farmer and agriculture and a African subsistence farmer plowing his or her land is huge. Yet Africa could be the next bread basket of the World.

I'd say that climate change is a bigger issue. The nightmare scenario is of course that globalization and international cooperation just collapses. Like a conflict between China and the US (or Russia or both).

I'd love to hear what the brightest minds have to say about our greatest problems and the one greatest problem that is behind them all; overpopulation. — Janus

The point is that we cannot feed the world population sustainably. — Janus

Not the brightest here anyway, but here's my five cents.

Firstly, Let's first look at how the amount of people dying of famine has gone:



Just like with absolute povetry, there has been a huge transformation in the World in our time that we, typically in the West, don't notice as our economic growth has been crappy.



Yes, there are areas like the Sahel that indeed are facing problems, but the large scale povetry of the 20th Century and the widespread famine experienced in the last century is basically diminishing.

Secondly, human populations sustain their numbers and only grow if women have more than 2,1 children on the average (that's the fertility rate). And as especially Asia with China and India are having lower fertility rates, this has a huge impact on global population. See just how many countries are below the replacement rate here. This is how the situation is on the map:



India is the perfect example here in that it never made such drastic measures as China on child policy, yet the fertility rate has gone down thanks to economic growth and the country isn't facing a demographic problem like China:



So, you do understand that you might even see THE PEAK OF HUMAN POPULATION in your lifetime as it might be that in 2100 there are less people than at the height of this Century. Demographics can estimate quite well the next fifty years or so, you know.



Fertility rates fall if people come more prosperous. Rich people have fewer children. And more prosperous societies have the ability to take care more of their environment. Hence in truth if people want to tackle overpopulation, the real cure might at first sound totally absurd: take care that the economy improves, that people aren't so poor and have children as a retirement plan (someone that will look after them). More prosperous societies can institute dramatic change on agriculture and increase the efficiency of the production dramatically. Let's remember that THE NETHERLANDS is the second biggest exporter of agricultural products (in billions of dollars) in the World, so the possibility to get global agricultural production to the level where it's now in the Netherlands is a real answer here. Subsistence farming isn't the answer, it's the problem.

Is this the future:


Or this:


Simple naive solutions can backfire: Drastic cuts that just force the poorest countries int a huge depression and ending globalization can make the situation go back where it was last century, with more perilous consequences now and create a vicious circle. International cooperation, smart policies that ensure that poor countries prosper and have the ability to tackle their problems as richer countries have done is the answer.

The bolded qualify FDT aka "Individual-1" as a traitor vis-à-vis knowing about and ignoring Russian bounties on US troops in Afghanistan. — 180 Proof

And that the whole thing was brought up in March in the NSC, which isn't an intelligence gathering entity, but a policy decision making entity, makes it clear that this was not just speculative intel. As if Trump didn't know it? Nonsense.

I have said earlier and I will say again that the Trump Presidency is the greatest intelligence win in history ever achieved by anybody. And those denying it now will deny, forget it and move on just like those who believed that Saddam Hussein conspired with Al Qaeda and then that President Bush just got bad intel. But that of course is little compared to Trump. But I'm an optimist: Trump will be the worst President in US history.

Putin can only hope that indeed he has been successful of dividing the US that facts don't matter anymore. (He is now just paving the road to be the Russian president until 2036, btw)

Yes, people not endorsing or condoning looting and violence obviously is the huge attitude problem they have here. — ssu

That's not remotely what I am saying. What I am suggesting is that there is a disparity between the condemnation of violence in defence of the human right to fair and equal treatment, and the support of violence in defence of property rights. — unenlightened

No. the real real problem is the unfair and unequal treatment of people and the violation of their most basic human rights. — unenlightened

If the problem is with the state/the system why not go after them as opposed to random private businesses? — BitconnectCarlos

Hit em where it hurts, not where you get annihilated. — unenlightened

Seems to me, and do correct me if I'm wrong, that you are talking about two different things whereas BC is talking about the same issue.

I think the stats still resemble reality and are roughly in line with statistics from other European countries. Sure, they may put a positive twist, but I'm not sure they actively forge the statistics. Those do tell that the UK has the pandemic less in control than most EU countries.

Yet it's not so different as it is with the situation in the US.

I have always waited for a judge in Texas to issue an arrest warrant for the whole Islamic Republic and rule the state of Iran unlawful.

Or do we already have that sentence already?

So Biden is against defunding the police. Great way of wasting an opportunity to consolidate a lead. Do Democrats want to lose? I mean, at least lie about it like every other politician just to get the goddamn votes. — Benkei

Remember that Joe Sixpack isn't like Daan, the Heineken drinker, from your country.

Biden's objective now is to get those never-Trumper Republicans, who after voting for Donald (in their disgust of Hillary) now feel they are actually never-Trumpers or born again never-Trumpers. But they are still Republicans, so I guess Joe won't go "full Bernie/AOC".

What should the US do about that now? Terribly sorry you don’t like the US, we’ll stop being the word’s currency, just for you. — Wheatley

I do like the US, Wheatley. Yet is being truthful and realistic an act of hostility?

You could do what many have already said you should do: if you still have this lucrative opportunity, do something productive with it. Invest in R&D, in infrastructure, do something about your ultra-expensive health care system which performs so poorly. List goes on, but I think you know it too...

And he’s still doing a better job than any grandiloquent, Ivy-league lawyer that has dominated the position until now. That’s the best part: I get to watch Trump reveal the ineffectiveness of establishment politicians, and a better country to boot. — NOS4A2

Just like the stats here show how a great job he has done:



And as a Canadian, you don't have anything to fear as your government has it far better in control too.

At least GOP never Trumpers are more vocal, which is in my view is a great sign.

What is it about selectively reporting almost exclusively favourable sounding out of context statistics to support a political agenda, despite the reality being quite opposite, which is not Animal Farm shit? — fdrake

The oxymoron was right wing doing Animal Farm. It's like Marxists privatizing industry, pacifists rearming, etc...

Well, at least it is fortunate for the UK that you aren't in the situation of the US where the containment failed.

Right wing rags doing Animal Farm shit is a hilarious oxymoron.

That's not remotely what I am saying. — unenlightened

That's good.

What I am suggesting is that there is a disparity between the condemnation of violence in defence of the human right to fair and equal treatment, and the support of violence in defence of property rights. — unenlightened

Is it really? I'm not so sure about that. It think that there's a difference between people here rejecting violence and looting and right wing commentators instilling fear of looting and violence with the objective to divide people (for the elections). The latter are the real problem, not the people with ideas similar to PF.

As you are so clearly a man of peace, no doubt you also condemn the use of violence to defend property rights, in which case you will support and applaud my efforts to point out the need for even-handedness in these matters, so as to minimise the tendency to violence. — unenlightened

Coming from a country where you simply DO NOT get a licence for a firearm for personal protection and killing a burglar would likely get you yourself in court, I'm not at all a fan of the "If you step on my lawn, I will shoot" thinking. But I can assure you that I'm not a pacifist, far from it.

The US is a country that has already a huge security system enlarged after the "War on Terror" there just waiting to pick a "credible threat" for it to tackle. I do worry about the situation IF it would get worse. Yet the cities aren't burning, so no need to be too alarmist. Similar rioting happens in France all the time and still Paris is a wonderful city.

What Feldman finds is notable: the correlation between poverty and susceptibility to fatal police violence that exists for white people is much stronger than for black and Latino people. In other words, white people who live in the poorest neighborhoods are at high risk of getting killed by a police officer, but black people are at high risk everywhere.". — StreetlightX

You should forget the Native Americans. And there's how the systemic racism shows itself.

As for the police killings, even if more whites are killed, for African American proportionally twice more are killed. For the police to use force is far more likely in an encounter with an African American than with a white person. In a country with more firearms than people the police basically behave as engaging with a possible Taleban fighter. This creates a culture were the police responds with force. Add short training times and distrust in the police and you have many underlying problems.

Do you think all attention and pressure on the US has benefited it? Keep in mind all the foreign terror attacks and wasteful wars. — Wheatley

How about having the ability to print trillions of dollars with the World accepting the printed money (or treasuries) and finance the state through all that debt financing? Sorry to say, but part of your wealth (which is distributed quite inequally, as you know) exists because of your Superpower status.

You see, other countries would have had long time ago a current account crisis.

What makes you think the USA will never recover. Other countries recovered from much worse. Even Germany recovered after Hitler. — Wheatley

Let's put another way. It's unlikely that the US will ever be in a position it was in the Eisenhower era. Now it's rather unlikely that the US will find itself in the position where it was at the end of the Cold War.

The downfall is in issues really like Global leadership. Things like what the US President says doesn't matter (yeah, people don't read the tweets no, but I mean in the classic sense). People in other countries don't care and vaguely even know what the US leadership is doing. Just like, well, with China now. Do we really care what the Chinese leader has said lately? Someone can vaguely know the "One Belt, One Road"-initiative.

That's the "downfall". And as long as the US dollar enjoys the status it has, there's not so much that actually changes for Americans.

So how are we going to convince what appears to be a majority of people on this site for intelligent people, that their attitudes are the problem? — unenlightened

Yes, people not endorsing or condoning looting and violence obviously is the huge attitude problem they have here. The reason, I guess, has to be their utter ignorance about the issues at hand thanks to their white priviledge, their false understanding of history and/or their hidden racist tendencies they have not have had to come to terms with. No other reason can exist, right?

And here you guys promised us the next Hitler... — NOS4A2

Nah.

He simply is inept at leadership and a very ignorant person with huge personal flaws, even if he's a great populist orator for a certain type of crowd. Trump is not the culprit of the downfall of US leadership and Superpower status, he is just contributor that makes the downfall even more rapid.

As reported here & elsewhere, months ago the
M_oscow
A_ss(et)
G_overning
A_merica
was told that his "handler" Putin has been paying Afghan Taliban to kill US troops. Told months ago. And, like the Covid-19 outbreak, the pos-in-Chief has ignored this danger to Americans & our national interests. 'Treason' by inaction - depraved indifference mass homicide - at best. — 180 Proof

180 Proof, many Americans really don't care at all about "national interests". National interests are the agenda of the evil political elites, so in their mind Trump is doing a great job!

NOS4A2, there's plenty of red meat for every kind of conspiracy theorists to go around in the Weimar USA.

And many times you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist. Implosion of the economy with a pandemic going on will assure the continuation of this… even if Trump isn't re-elected.

In any case, I think we can agree that far reaching reforms of police that is supported by Republicans and Democrats alike is better than such reforms only being supported by Democrats. Or that it becomes an identity politics issue and as a consequence automatically marginalised. — Benkei

Or part of the so-called "Culture war". To portray this as being part of a "culture war" is the way to try to marginalize this (and as you said, identity politics). Fox News is all over it. Yeah, I know, it's watched just by old people, but old people tend to vote and what they have their focus on the next elections.

Okay, but that consensus about classic racism wasn't reached by merely talking to eachother. It was the result of a hard fought battle, and not only metaphorically. — ChatteringMonkey

That's true, but those times are really far away. You don't have eugenics departments in the university anymore.

Let's think about the present. According to Pew research center:

84% of black adults said that, in dealing with police, blacks are generally treated less fairly than whites; 63% of whites said the same. Similarly, 87% of blacks and 61% of whites said the U.S. criminal justice system treats black people less fairly.

Others might disagree with me on this subject, but I think change can happen peacefully on the matter. How this majority view is used to reform the system is the big question.

I have no idea what you're babbling about here. — StreetlightX

I genuinely believe you don't, Aussie.

In compromising maybe you avoid some tensions, and that can be a reason, but you probably also lose some of the integrity that a certain set of ideas has as a self-contained whole. — ChatteringMonkey

Seeking consensus doesn't mean inherently mean compromise. I think your view here is that if you make something in the democratic process and find a point that the majority can agree to do, usually it's some kind of compromise. What I referred here to "consensus" is something different. There is a consensus that openly racist views and classic racism, not just bigotry, isn't tolerated. Hundred years ago it really wasn't so.