The two existential crises of the 21st century

[Blue Crab]

Inequality -in law- is fixable.
In fact, it's necessary.

we've been down this rocky road before. Gots to remember the distinction between de jure and de facto. One matters. One doesn't.

 

[Steam Flyer]

we've been down this rocky road before. Gots to remember the distinction between de jure and de facto. One matters. One doesn't.

They both matter.
As for inequality, I'm puzzled why you're willing to accept being officially stamped inferior. Does not seem American, to me.

 

[Jules]

Time for a serious chat denizens. Seems to see that there are two existential crises that the world faces in the next decades - note I say decades, not years, both of these will be critical for the remaining years of those reading this.

• Climate - This has been thrashed around for years. We are slowly making progress but more needs to be done everywhere. Current state of affairs - https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/
• Demographic transition - I think this one may be as serious as climate change but is only emerging into prominence. Just a few examples of the impact.

And both have been worsened by greed. Government leaders have been instrumental in the shift of wealth to the top. This is especially true in the US.

• As people began paying more and more attention to warnings by scientists that the world must reduce carbon emissions, politicians stepped in and vilified scientists to the benefit of their corporate donors, who would have had to pay millions to reduce their contribution to carbon emissions.
• Greed also has played a part in raising the age of retirement and cutting healthcare. Governments don't have the money because politicians passed laws intended to put more money in the pockets of their fat cat donors (and thus their own pockets) instead of into the tax coffers.

Profit over the people. Profit over the planet.

 

[billy backstay]

• Greed also has played a part in raising the age of retirement and cutting healthcare. Governments don't have the money because politicians passed laws intended to put more money in the pockets of their fat cat donors (and thus their own pockets) instead of into the tax coffers.

Profit over the people. Profit over the planet.

Privatize the profits and socialize the losses. Prop up ailing Corporations and Banks and let the individual people fail, like the Big Short Recession in '07-08.

The Golden Rule is the American way. Those with the most Gold will make all the rules. Same as it ever was, and ever shall be....................

 

[Blue Crab]

Inequality creates conflict. Humans will kill each other before the world decides to do something drastic.

They both matter.
As for inequality, I'm puzzled why you're willing to accept being officially stamped inferior. Does not seem American, to me.

Doug, looks like you're trolling for affirmative action again but the conversation is about a global inequality.

 

[Bristol-Cruiser]

The US gives them to the world.

IPs / Patents in the US are a government created tool to give monopoly protection for a period of time. For those technologies, simply remove the protections. Essentially, just run out the protection clock to 0 years and they fall into the public domain.

The folks who are smart and creative will take advantage of them first.

In truth, there's less 'there' than 'there'. Most of that development happened decades ago already and it's just 'onion shields' at this point anyway. But it would remove an impediment to broader adoption.

African industrialization is the main event for climate and biodiversity and ultimately, the world's climate is going to be dependent on their choices. I'd like to empower them as much a possible. But, in the end, it will be their choice - unless Empire makes a comeback.

On a percentage basis GDP growth in Africa is higher than on any other continent. The problem is two-fold, 4% of a small base number is a small number, and population growth eats up a lot of the growth in wealth. I think two, OK, three, things have to happen. One - help them grow in a responsible way, e.g. using solar/wind rather than coal; Two - encourage lower fertility rates - it has been shown repeatedly that the best way to do this by empowering women; Three - develop without too much of a rich/poor divide. I volunteered in Lesotho for a time after retirement. In Maseru, the capital, there was a shopping mall and KFCs and lots of private cars. Out in the boonies where I was working many people had nothing and survived only be growing their own food. Each of these is a huge problem and must happen internally with the rich countries, including China contributing what they can.

 

[Steam Flyer]

Doug, looks like you're trolling for affirmative action again but the conversation is about a global inequality.

Nah, that's just in your rear-view mirror

It's true that I was thinking more locally than globally. In theory, legal equality translates into economic equality... in practice, it can be very slow coming.

 

[Raz'r]

I'm not sure humans are above a mass extinction event.

Lots of other animals have shown remarkable resilience and then died out.

Pockets of humans may indeed survive, may even repopulate a greater area.

But considering us different to other animals seems a fools errand.

We may even evolve into another "homo" species.

Homo not so fucking stupid...

Humans have barely even been on this planet. Couple hundred thousand years at most, and the vast majority of that time was small groups scattered widely. Dinos were the dominant life for what, 275 million years? And a space rock tossed them off.

 

[Raz'r]

Time for a serious chat denizens. Seems to see that there are two existential crises that the world faces in the next decades - note I say decades, not years, both of these will be critical for the remaining years of those reading this.

• Climate - This has been thrashed around for years. We are slowly making progress but more needs to be done everywhere. Current state of affairs - https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/
• Demographic transition - I think this one may be as serious as climate change but is only emerging into prominence. Just a few examples of the impact.
  • Aging populations needing support, healthcare and otherwise. In richer western countries this might mean delayed retirements (hello Macron), pension schemes at risk (US), strains on hospitals and other parts of the system. China has passed a law saying that children must look after their parents, and by extension, grandparents, i.e. give them somewhere to live and feed them. Social media is busy with discussion of a man who abandoned his children 20 years ago and is now demanding his son and DIL take him in. The court ruled in his favour btw. It is a particular problem since most of the children are of the age that they were born during the One Child Policy so the couple have four parents (and possibly grandparents, and no siblings to share the load.
  • A shortage of the labour force as people age. China has raised retirement age (a lot) and France just did it. Other countries are considering similar actions.
  • Some countries are attractive to immigrants who can fill in gaps in the workforce but in many countries this is seen as threat to existing cultural structures. As I mentioned in another thread I just came back from Iceland which is now accepting many immigrants as the fertility rate declines and thee economy is strong. Virtually all Icelanders speak English, as do the vast majority of immigrants. The result is that the economy mainly operates in English. Many fear that, given a generation or two, the Icelandic language and much of the traditional culture could disappear.
  • The potential destruction of the real estate market. Most people have much, or all, of their wealth tied up in their homes. What happens if the country's population declines by 10%, by 50%? These are realistic scenarios for this century for countries like China and Japan whose populations have only started to decline. The rates of decline will only get worse as fewer and fewer women have fewer children (South Korea's TFR is less than 1.0 - that means every two people will produce (less than) one child to replace them. What happens when there is a large and growing housing glut?
  • There are military implications, especially for countries that rely on boots on the ground rather than tech to fight their wars. Russia is experiencing this now. Ukraine has a lower TFR than Russia but is only able to make up for the shortage with more women in uniform, older folks fighting, some foreign fighters and just a higher motivation to fight.

Demographics are destiny, indeed.

 

[Go Left]

I rest my case,

I wonder how many people are discretely peeing in that pool?

You know Maginot Line would.

 

[Blue Crab]

In theory, legal equality translates into economic equality... in practice, it can be very slow coming.

And therein lies the distinction between de jure and de facto. 🙄 Legal "equality" isn't actual equality no matter how often you say it. I'm a licensed pragmatist.

 

[Steam Flyer]

And therein lies the distinction between de jure and de facto. 🙄 Legal "equality" isn't actual equality no matter how often you say it. I'm a licensed pragmatist.

And yet, without legal equality, there is no actual "equality" either. It's a fairly recent development.

 

[giegs]

So we blame the Christians, revitalize our city centers, debase our currency, and have a string of really bad leadership?

Not all bad, really.

 

[Tomfl]

And therein lies the distinction between de jure and de facto. 🙄 Legal "equality" isn't actual equality no matter how often you say it. I'm a licensed pragmatist.

The classic legal example of de jure v de facto is how the speed limit is enforced. On the ICW it is bad enough but don't even think about going the speed limit on Interstate highways.

 

[Fah Kiew Tu]

The classic legal example of de jure v de facto is how the speed limit is enforced. On the ICW it is bad enough but don't even think about going the speed limit on Interstate highways.

When I lived in Arizona, the posted limit was 70. Everyone drove at 80. If you drove at 85+ you'd likely get pulled over.

Ergo the actual speed limit was 80.

FKT

 

[BeSafe]

On a percentage basis GDP growth in Africa is higher than on any other continent. The problem is two-fold, 4% of a small base number is a small number, and population growth eats up a lot of the growth in wealth. I think two, OK, three, things have to happen. One - help them grow in a responsible way, e.g. using solar/wind rather than coal; Two - encourage lower fertility rates - it has been shown repeatedly that the best way to do this by empowering women; Three - develop without too much of a rich/poor divide. I volunteered in Lesotho for a time after retirement. In Maseru, the capital, there was a shopping mall and KFCs and lots of private cars. Out in the boonies where I was working many people had nothing and survived only be growing their own food. Each of these is a huge problem and must happen internally with the rich countries, including China contributing what they can.

My experiences with Africa largely come from collaborating with a non-profit called Opportunity International for about 7 years, working on rural electrification, telecom towers, and remote banking services, mostly in the western sub-Saharan area. And yea, you learn a lot from dealing with people directly - what are their actual problems, not what google says are their problems. That was a very enlightening experience and I absolutely empathized with the needs in the rural communities and how quickly the wealth curve can drop off. They're literally talking watts of power per person.

Grow in a responsible way is very important. I worked pretty hard to listen to what they wanted and help them achieve their goals as best as possible, while trying to minimize negative downstream impacts. But at the end of the day, I also had to work within the framework of what they had.

Helping with family planning is super complex, particularly in the rural communities, and is outside my scope of expertise. I do know that people would come in and open a savings account for the equivalent of about $1 in their kids name - not because they really planned to use banking services, but because they wanted the ID - which had a picture ID and biometric information. That ID was more reliable than what the actual government offered. And inheritance customs were.. kinda shitty actually. What I found personally is that people tended to drift toward fewer kids the safer they felt and things like birth control helped accelerate that trend. Education also helped - bored people have sex. Go figure.

The rich/poor distribution question is pretty hard because of human nature. There's always some predatory behavior. The best we could do was distributed services, which often indirectly conflicted with the short term goals of 'going green'. Larger scale plants were good for efficiency and economy of scale, but also lead to concentration in power and monopolistic control. I found that goal of spreading out the wealth is almost always in conflict with 'the most efficient possible'. I was often at odds the more environmentally aggressive folks who wanted 'zero now', all the while being paid for by VCs who were going to cash out to the highest bidder when the project was done. Efficient and resilient aren't the same thing, unfortunately.

Thanks for the dialog.

 

[Ease the sheet.]

I read somewhere that a Repub pov is that innovation will keep ahead of need.

This is wrong thinking.

Innovative comes after need.

We fuck up, we fix it.

Not every fuck up will be fixable...

 

[kent_island_sailor]

When I lived in Arizona, the posted limit was 70. Everyone drove at 80. If you drove at 85+ you'd likely get pulled over.

Ergo the actual speed limit was 80.

FKT

Years ago our State Police let on that while 55 was the posted limit, they actually decided it was 72.

 

[Ease the sheet.]

I found that goal of spreading out the wealth is almost always in conflict with 'the most efficient possible'.

This is just an effect of poorly defined goals.

Prioritising short term money over long term people....

 

[Ease the sheet.]

Years ago our State Police let on that while 55 was the posted limit, they actually decided it was 72.

Any law can be made stupid by poor enforcement.