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394 comments on From a Failed Growth Economy to a Steady-State Economy
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Yes, Nate, I'd agree with you: why not place this post as a permanent first post at the top of the page? (Maybe permanent is too much, so say one year then decide on more if feasible. Close comments after a while.)
The main disagreement I have is with the ratio of min:max that he proposes, 1:100. I think the ratio should be at most 1:10, so that a CEO should make no more than 10 times the salary (and perks) of the lowest employee.
I regret that I far from share the great enthusiasm of some for this post. Prof Daly is to be commended for presenting non-establishment ideas and doing so in such a clear comprehensible way, and I see quite a lot of sense in most of them (as some after all were fairly obvious already). But serious faults too.
Firstly, HD rightly criticises conventional economists for failing to see that the subject matters of economics are subservient to the constraints of Nature (physics, geology etc).
But he then goes on to fail to consider that proposals/options about these things are subservient to the constraints of politics and psychology. And that for these reasons there is no significant prospect of any of them being accepted as reforms. At best some might become accepted as part of a new status-quo after the existing system has ceased to function.
JD below rightly points out the concern about where (livelihood-sustaining) jobs are going to come from for all the people. The answer is that there is no reason why the availability of means of livelihood should match up to the size of the population. If we had a thousand times the population, no way would we be able to find a thousand times the food and so on for that population.
fannybuckingham et al below rightly point out the hopelessly global-dirigiste nature of some of HD's proposals. Again, it is difficult to believe this will happen, and even if it does it will be a bureaucracy disaster akin to the former SU.
HD's points 8 and 9 are particularly seriously wrong.
HD 8: Creative/intellectual work is just as important as manual or hack work, and often vastly more valuable. It often comes at a devastating personal cost to the worker, as per the historical accounts at www.energyark.net/za/gen.htm . As the great Prof David Horrobin wrote to me: "in our society people who generate ideas are regarded as pretty valueless [=worthless] which is totally outrageous."
In the same regard, the patent system tries to fulfill an immensely valuable role of enabling innovations to be made by people other than those who are already millionaires. Without the prospect of earning a fair reward many inventions would simply have never got developed. In reality the patent system is too weak; for instance I discovered a means of preventing Alzheimer's but the patent would have expired before useful trial results could be proven. A non-millionaire has a daunting challenge persuading some narrow-minded corporate to fund the continuation before his application passes its expiry date.
HD 9: Voluntary population control sounds like a good idea, especially in that it ticks the right emotional boxes of being altruistic, and voluntary rather than coerced, not nasty fascist stuff. But in reality it is about the most horrendous idea imaginable.
It amounts to handing over the future of the human race to those who do not give a damn (whether by genetics or culture or both), who are too incompetent, who are selfish rather than thinking of the wider society or the future. Thus handing over the future to the worst scum of the species must surely be even worse than any amount of overpopulation.
Appropriate population polices would include:
-respecting the right of local people to prevent immigration from other areas that indiscriminately overpopulate themselves;
-not giving subsidy support for families that have too many children beyond their own means.
These may sound harsh but that's life in the real world. You can only have your comfy caring cake if you don't eat it first.
Conclusion: No, this is not a particularly great post, and no, Prof Daly's work is not Nobel level (even assuming we ignore the corruption of the Nobel Prizes into beyond a farce).
Sure, the other economists are trash, but then that's most of academia for you...
Further down in the comments i mak the point that there are 3 types of resources, non sustainable resources, renewable resources, and resources that are sustainable but not renewable. I classify energy in the form of uranium and thorium as sustainable but not renewable, because they are recoverable with a favorable ERoEI, at average crustal levels of concentration. Given this potential, many minerals are recoverable at crustal concentration levels as a byproduct of thorium and uranium mining. Thus the case for growth limitations is far weaker than Daly suggests. The entire argument rests on a set of cognitive errors. The first is the untested assumption that peak oil is typical of all resources, and that peak oil is really peak everything. This is an example of the fallacy of composition, the belief that what is true of a part is true of the whole.
In fact some non-sustainable resources will still be available for a long time to come. Sustainable resources can in many cases be substituted for non-sustainable resources, while non-sustainable resources cn be supplied by recycling. Small amounts of non-sustainable resources can be obtained through the nuclear transmutation produced by nuclear fission, while even smaller amounts of resources can be obtained through the nuclear transmutations of sustainable materials in transmutation technologies.
A bit more to add too my point about voluntary population control. Once voluntary control has eliminated all the decent people and left the future of the human race in the incompetent hands of the don't-give-a-damn scum, then that fast-breeding remnant of humanity will of course fast forward to a new and worse overpopulation problem anyway. So all the more utter b.s..
Nobel - don't make me laugh. (No one has ever published the slightest fault of reasoning or evidence in any of my own four published theories, but then I'm not a professor so I presumably don't qualify.)
Fast breeding as in Catholics?
Sometimes yes Catholics (mainly in the past), but even more another theo-ideology that I hardly need to name.
Pentecostals?
On May 5, 2009, some began taking population control into their own hands:
I hear Oprah is back on the eatin' wagon...I can just hear her now, "mmmmmm....Soylent Green."
1. The pollution of the environment may eventually affect the birth rate. Estrogen mimic chemicals have an impact on the sexing of trout to aligators. So the problem may be self correcting.
2. In terms of biological evolution when single cells got together and produced multicelluar organisms, there developed a way to control the type and number of cells in a this more complicated organism. Uncontrolled growth is generally seen as cancer. In that sense the human race may be acting as a cancer in gaia. Since we as a species are aware of this, there seems to be the possibility that a self regulation of the numbers of our species on earth may be possible. It would seem that an arrangement for people to control the number of offspring should enable them to become members of a society where everyone is cared for. This goes to the control of the borders preventing uncontrolled immigration. The operation of the social insects could give some insight on how this might be organized, as per "Brave New World" by A. Huxley. Freedom to breed seems to be something not possible in the new world order.
What is not mentioned a lot here:
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse
...and in the above piece are FEEDBACK MECHANISMS?
These are not the kind that are forced or written into law...they occur as rational consequences related to human endeavours and expectations.
In other words...humans do their stuff...and the "real world" reacts and forces humans onto a non-planned path.
My personal opinion is that while some humans might see what's here and on the way....and try to change to avoid a precarious future...I doubt that they will manage to actually do things all that much differently...thus God or Gaia...or just plain reality is gonna bite.
As far as overpopulation...when we still have several major religions promoting overpopulation...apparently in a contest to see who will "win"...we should be prepared to meet the FEEDBACK MECHANISMS or the 3 horsemen?
Not to mention nations competing for remaining resources...and polluting like there is no tomorrow to build economies to sell more stuff to more and more people.
I can only laugh.
LDS?
I was thinking rather of a certain theo-ideology whose members conspicuously "need" to migrate in large numbers to others' countries due to running out of space in all their own lands. Not clear what the LDS is, any enlightenment?
Robin,
I expect LDS is the tla for the Later Day Saints ,better known as The Mormons.There are quite a few of them in Utah,and a few scattered around here and there else where.
Old Farmer,
From http://www.quiverfull.com/
They quote:
And use as an example:
These delusional folks advocate family size of around 12 - "a quiver full".
Why does a rational society provide tax deductions for these criminals?
That post [...delusional folks.....these criminals...] if written about Mohammed-followers in the uk would be considered by them to rate prosecution as religious hatred (even though the Qur'an would qualify infinitely more, notwithstanding Obama's latest lies), though in practice that law was only introduced to pacify the Muslim lobby and the Attorney General has not yet been coaxed into actually starting any prosecutions.
Hi RobinPC,
You're right that "criminal" was a poor choice of words - I should be more thoughtful. Selfish and inconsiderate is more the idea. But it is selfishness to the point of not caring how having a dozen children in a affluent country like the US stresses the lives of other people around the globe. Our consumption and polution footprints have a direct bearing on the well being of people in much poorer nations. In some context, the idea of "justice" ought to be considered for this type of reproduction. I am sure that there are nations in the world that take a dim view of Americans having 13 well fed children while they struggle with subsistence living conditions.
Thinking about other countries - I wonder how the authorities would treat a couple in China who deliberately create 13 children? How would they view this in terms of justice and prosecution? I really don't know the answer to this question, but I'd guess they would take a very dim view. While in the US we generally encourage larger families and provide tax deductions.
I was merely indicating the uk law of "religious hatred", not saying I agreed with it!
Dave,
Why,indeed,do we still give tax deductions for large families?I don't expect there is any need to go into that,it's just one more example of all the other irrational things we do as a society.
As far as the Mormons themselves are concerned,a population biologist would probably say that the strategy of having very large families is and has been a successful strategy for the Mormons as a social group/clan/tribe(whatever terms are currently in vogue).
Of course such high birthrates lead to population overload quickly if sustained,but if the Mormons raise enough kids successfully,thier genes inherit the earth-or at least whatever is left of it,if anything,for a while.
When humans were scarce,we had to cooperate to compete with the other animals that ate the same foods in the same environment,and to protect ourselves from the animals that would otherwise eat us.
Nowadays we compete as "us" groups against "them" groups of other humans.Packs of wolves,prides of lions,and bands of chimps compete in the same way.
If there were such a thing as an evolutionary scorecard,the winning group would be the most numerous group.
But the top of the evolutionary hill is a very slippery place and no group of individuals or speices manages to stay there very long in evolutionary time.The Mormons may be clawing thier way toward the top,but I expect our speices as a whole is headed for a serious(to us) crash.
Mother Nature is an entirely heartless bitch and she could (not) care less.Out here on the farm when we are not spraying some nasty chemical to get rid of some particular bug,and killing a dozen useful bugs at the same time,we are used to seeing the age old game played out between the foxes and the rabbits.When the rabbits have a good year,the foxes have a very good year,the following year the rabbits have a very poor year as the result of the foxes good year,the following year the foxes have an extremely bad year as a result of what they did to the rabbits the previous year.
I paint with a broad brush of course,nothing in nature is quite so simple.
My personal opinion of the Mormons is that the ninety percent or so of them living under the heel of the other ten percent need to wake up and get the hell out of Utah,but you do have to admit that the old bulls in charge have done a good job of running things,from thier pov.Not many old men in this world can have a nubile young wife simply for the asking of an old buddy-knowing that of course he will be coming around for the same favor later.
As far as abortion is concerned,I am strenously opposed to it as a default method of birth control,but otherwise if a woman finds herself preggo and after serious soul searching on her part wants an abortion,I cannot see that it really is anyone else's business-although the potential father might righteously feel differently.
The soul searching is important,because some women later bitterly regret thier decision to abort.
The Republican party has shot itself in the foot by buying the antiabortion vote in violation of true conservative principles of personal liberty, self determination, and limited government.This tactical decision helped win some elections in the past,but is is nowadays an electoral loser on the national level,and I expect the next generation of republican leadership will quietly drop the issue.
Otoh,I don't see how anybody can look at a six month fetus and not see a human being.Personally I maintain the necessary cognitive dissonance that allows me to support limited abortions by not looking and not thinking,otherwise I feel the bile rising and the whole idea makes me ill.
I do not find it at all hard to understand why some people hold such strong beliefs in this respect that they are willing to resort to murder to stop what is after all to them,not only murder but murder of the powerless and helpless.
Life is a real bitch in some respects,is it not?
could (not) care less.
H'a'h. You Yanks may yet properly learn the language of England.
Later Day Saints (Mormons). They do have large families and migrate to Utah.
You keep citing that as evidence of the strength of your theories, but if anything it's the opposite: if everyone in the world is completely ignoring your theories, that's not a good sign.
If your theories are valuable, they will have inspired follow-on work. Have they?
Pitt, I have previously pointed out the utter ridiculousness of your thesis that a theory being ignored is justification for dismissing it. I linked to the published evidence about some of the greatest of discoveries being ignored by so-called peers. I also pointed out that it has not been a case of "the world is completely ignoring" my theories anyway. I haven't come here for the purpose of trying to persuade you on this point. If you also don't have any fault of reasoning or evidence to show in my highly praised theories, I suggest you move on from your unflattering exhibition of presumption.
So bye.
"I am getting more and more depressed about the inability of scientists to step outside the narrowest of confines to lift their eyes to novel concepts"--Prof David Horrobin (self-made multimillionaire).
"Well worth publishing"--HJ Eysenck, most cited ever scientist (only the second theory to be accepted for publication by him)
"Robin P Clarke is one of those rare souls..." -- Bernard Rimland, "A titan of autism research" -- whereas quite who is "Pitt the Elder"? What's s/he achieved, other than making an arse of himself above?
No, you've simply claim that, as if claiming made it true.
By contrast, citation count and impact factor are widely-recognized figures of merit in research (see, for example, here, here, or here). If you want to make the claim that the research community has been wrong for the last 50 years in using citations as a figure of merit, please provide some evidence.
Or, at the very least, please stop pimping your article in irrelevant contexts. It's like spamming a blog link - tacky.
Very nice, but completely irrelevant.
I'm not saying your research is bad; I'm saying your implication - that "not refuted implies correct" - is nonsense. There's plenty of flawed research in tiny, irrelevant publications that nobody bothers to refute, because everyone simply ignores it.
Is your paper different? Maybe; I neither know nor care. But you keep pushing the idea that a piece of research should be regarded as good simply because nobody's refuted it yet, and that's absurd. It's the equivalent of saying "nobody's proven I'm not Elvis, so I must be". It's putting the burden of proof in entirely the wrong place.
It's not up to the world to disprove a theory; it's up to the author to prove it.
If you're trying to make the argument that you're a well-respected researcher, resorting to childish insults is perhaps not the optimal approach.
"No, you've simply claim that, as if claiming made it true"
That's simply not true. I provided a load of solid evidence.
Citation ranking is widely understood to be greatly flawed, I don't need to prove it to you if you really want to be a dead horse about it.
Thanks for finding my citations nice but their relevance arises as responses to your own.
The author has already proved it. As already pointed out sci history is full of great well-proven works which the establishment charlatans "prove" to be no good by uniformly ignoring them.
Your fallacious notion that others do not have a burden of disproof has already been debunked by some other commenters. I guess this subthread is past its bedtime now.
"Everyone in the world" (more accurately the controlling academic establishment) is also completely ignoring the ARI's proof of cure of autism by chelation, as they previously ignored six solid studies of the value of vitamin B6 for autism. And these neo-Lysenko charlatans don't just "completely ignore" my work, rather they go out of their way to avoid responding to questions, and avoid answering the sound critiques of the claptrap which they themselves publish as supposedly the work of "distinguished", "leading" "experts".
As for inspiring follow-on work, that requires that there is a reasonably decent academic world out there to be up to the job.
And yes my autism theory at least inspired my own follow-on work which I may eventually have the time/energy to publish. My update shows inter alia four confirmed predictions (body symmetry correl with IQ; binding to dna causing autism; shared causality of iq and autism; increased rationality/reduced gut intuition in autism; plus a new prediction of the update, that lack of ventilation contributes to autism, is doubly confirmed already.
By contrast you don't even know what you are talking about re the basics of scientific history's abysmal record of ignoring, deriding, and persecuting great discoveries.
There are some ideas here that are much wackier than Daly's, and feed into the "growth is forever" mantra all too neatly.
Go ahead and solve the nuclear waste conundrum, and keep from polluting the Earth with radioactive energy that is way above background, and deal with the very real economic problems of the expense of the technology and of the de-commissioning of old plants, and then talk about growth forever based on alchemy. Even more fun than carbon capture and sequestration...
Using social and political concerns to dismiss Daly's work as well merely says, "It is difficult to make a change." and leaves the debate hanging. Much of current economic "thought" has been pushed at us since the early '80's, and yet we behave as if it is law. There simply are other ways for us to use our clever minds to be... clever. As to the hold that our belief systems have over us, and the hold that those in power have, well, this too shall have to change, one way or the other.
We live in what is practically speaking a finite system - well, not quite, but the contributions of the odd asteroid, while possibly very significant in the past, can hardly be counted upon to feed more and more. The major input that we can count on to spur growth is solar power, which is added to the Earth's system every day.
It is funny that "grow, grow, grow" is pushed at us every day, that we really hope and believe that it is possible, and yet the markets can reliably provide for between 3 and 5% per year, which, coincidentally enough, is the rate of natural growth in natural systems, and the rate of growth in sustainable yield agriculture.
And there is plenty of work to show that most resources, as they are used by humans, do follow a bell curve. Note as well that the majority of resources are not used up before we pass them over for something that is better. In the case of oil, tho' we still have plenty in the earth, we simply cannot afford to burn it all. There are huge technical problems to be overcome so that we can leave oil behind, and many who argue quite convincingly that we cannot, or cannot do so in time. But at this point, I become a bit of an eco-fascist and say: Be positive. Lead. Follow. Or get the hell out of the way.
Cheers.
I think the key statement is this:
The vast majority of patents these days appear to involve protective 'inventions', and more often than not are the sort of thing that a table of inventors, skilled in the art, would think up between the time the beer hits the table and the first pizza arrives. (I've suggested that patents only be issued to inventions that pass such a jury test, one of my engineer friends told me he'd watch that if it were on TV.)
The goal of Patent law is to maximize invention foe the sake of civilization, and that is a balancing act between giving the inventor a period of time to profit from their work, and releasing it so that others may extend it into new inventions. We may well improve patent law by adding a sliding scale of protection, shortening it to 1 year for the Mickey Mouse stuff, and lengthening it to 14 years after approval for inventions that require such evaluations by Governmental oversight.
Speaking of Micky Mouse, the other intellectual property rights are related to copyright, and those laws have been twisted well beyond the definition of maximizing production of new works. Here is another case where the rights of artificial persons (corporations) are actually stronger, (longer protections) than those for meat-based persons. Disney, in particular, lobbied for, and gained broad extensions to copyrights that have prevented an enormous body of no longer commercially available works from the early half of last century from coming into the public domain -- all so that they could protect "Steamboat Willy", and the mouse trademark. We would be much better served by the copyright holder having the ability to bid in the open market to extend their copyrights. The vast majority of orphaned works would drop into the public domain, and only those with commercial value would be extended, and even for the protected works the public would benefit from the proceeds of the auction.
Every patenting system has non-obviousness (to those skilled in the art) as one of its key criteria for granting (or defence in infringement proceedings). Meanwhile anyone can make an application for any old rubbish (except certain categories such as perpetual motion or business strategies). It's possible that some or all patent jurisdictions are corrupted in the same way that the uk's civil "justice" system is an evil corrupt scam: www.2020housing.co.uk.
On the other hand such protective junk patents can serve a bit like the junk securities, to impress the impressionable that the intellectual holdings are worth more than they really are; plus the corp "inventors" need to look like they're doing something for their salaries.
And of course corporations have added their own distortions, not least unworthy legal threats akin to those in the libel field. The problem is corporatisation, not patents.
Requiring an inventor to actually have a working device which can be evaluated by an expert committee the way scientific papers are peer reviewed before publication would reduce the number of patents granted by 99%. This is especially true in the energy/power generation fields. A lot of vaporware exists in many recent patents granted.
True, but cuts both ways. Patent libraries are full of trash concepts that clearly were never tested because it is impossible to actually make them (e.g. an inaccessible adjusting screw). But meanwhile it can be dauntingly expensive and difficult to produce a working prototype without funding already in place, and thereby a great idea is lost. Remember that Watt struggled for many years to find anyone who could actually make his improved steam engine, and one wealthy supporter bankrupted himself in the attempt. PS can you fund my patent for homeopathetic, oops, homeopathic home fusion? No more heating/cooling bills ever!
Robin, I agree one hundred percent! That is about as stupid an idea as VHEMT, The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. I get so damn mad when people talk about changing the whole of human behavior as if such a thing were actually possible. Yeah right, just get everyone to voluntarily do this or that and everything will be just peachy. Such ignorance of human nature is hard to imagine.
There are really only two ways of limiting human population growth and voluntary compliance is not one of them. Garrett Hardin pointed out one way in "The Ostrich Factor":
Hardin is of course referring to involuntary population control. When that fails, and it usually does, there is the default method, die-off. The problem with the default method is that humans will eat every wild thing in the air, in the sea or on land before they eventually starve.
Ron P.
Human population growth seems to stop by itself as people move into cities, get richer and when women get jobs. Nativity has dropped like a stone all over the world, haven't you noticed? Demographers' main scenario is a population peak at around 9 billion.
"Compliance" is not necessary. Broader per capita economic growth is.
??? What in the hell does that mean? Did you mean fertility? No, I haven't noticed that nativity has dropped at all, whatever that is.
Broader per capita economic growth? Would that not require a lot more fossil fuel? A lot more oil? Hey, that is what this debate is all about. Peak oil, have you never heard of that phrase? That is the entire point Jeppen, there can be no economic growth without a growth in fossil fuels. One of them, the one used for almost all transportation, all plastics, most agricultural products has peaked!
And it is really silly to say that human population growth seems to stop by itself. Yes it does when people start to starve. And that is exactly what is happening in many parts of the world. As far as demographers go, they have not counted on peak oil. They have not counted on people by the millions starving to death. No, the population will never reach 9 billion. And it will not be because people voluntary stop having babies. It will be because of massive die-off due to drastic overshoot of our population.
Ron P.
Yes, I meant fertility. No, economic growth does not require growth in fossils. Human population growth is stopping by itself - you may call it silly - I call it "facts on the ground". Please see the gapminder graphs I have pointed to. And yes, the population will peak at about 9 billion.
Whereas I call it the fallacy of the lumped-together trend (though there's a fancier term I forget).
For the key detail you're glossing over see my next comment.
I have shown with gapminder graphs that muslim countries too have dropped in fertility, and that big muslim countries such as Turkey, Indonesia and Iran are at fertility 2. Even Saudi Arabia has dropped from 7 in 1980 to 3.3 in 2006. The muslim countries are not exceptions from the rule.
Lumping together can include lumping together of Muslims, who in my experience are a very mixed collection, many being peaceful friendly people not having a clue what the Qur'an says, others in denial of it, others just pretending from fear of the threats, and still others who have read most of it and implement its directives to total war terrorism (native Arabic speakers such as Zawahiri, bin Laden, et al).
Probably an equally important slowing factor is that most "Muslim countries" are already having severe overpopulation stresses. Not least the biggest, Pakistan, and KSA and Iran. Dubai in crisis too. Since 12th Sept 1683, Allah seems to have lost the magic touch that brought all those Jihad victories recorded in the Sacred Texts.
Just like Christianity, then.
The key phrase there is "when women get jobs". This does not apply to a huge slice of the inhabitants of Islam-controlled lands and the migrants who leak thereout to the lands of slower-breeding natives and are certainly having large families round here right now. And very much not in the women-getting-jobs business (though quite a lot are, but again quite a lot not). They don't need jobs as they get family benefits instead.
I don't agree. The key phrase is "moving into cities" actually. Iran is at 2.01 fertility, down from 7 in the sixties, for example. Press play and follow the green dots. Also, your talk about benefits is borderline racist. In Obama's speech to the muslim world lately, he pointed out that the muslim community in USA has higher average income than the total average.
Well, Jeppen there's quite a lot of not agreeing by/with you going on here.
I should add that here in the uk the Muslim clique (so-called "community") has conspicuously lower qualifications and income than all other immigrant groups. And even the fact that Indian immigrants have higher income (="make a tremendous contribution to our economy" in p-c speak) is largely because they are more obsessed with getting super-rich earning money rather than involving in the non-economic social fabric. Immigrants are conspicuous by their very low presence in the voluntary/ campaigning social institutions. They do make a bee-line for the positions of power instead. Look at your own Washington too.
I can understand why you defended that other guy from charges of racism and xenophobia.
But you are unable to actually communicate your understanding because there isn't any real understanding?
Labellings with the R-word seldom do come with any attempt at particularisation let alone substantiation, usually because there isn't any racism, just inverted racism of the perceiver.
I simply won't waste time discussing this with you.
Which is in confirmation of what I said, namely that those who lob the R-word never get round to even attempting an honest particularisation let alone substantiation of their allegations. You should withdraw your slanders.
I stand by what I said.
You believe what Obama says? He did in the same speech repeat the whopping Jihad Denial lie that genuine Islam is peaceful and decent (when in reality it is the personality cult of an abundantly documented terrorist, see (from numerous examples) Qur'an 59:2-7 documenting "Allah" enthusing about Saint Mohammed's starting of the terrorist ethnic cleansing of peaceful Jews from Arabia; even chopping down desert fruit trees is a good thing if in the service of driving out those who resist Saint Mohammed's authority; and the resulting "spoils of war" (...strange religion of peace this...) belong to the Muslims even though they "urged not any horse or riding-camel for the sake thereof" [flawless last testament 59:6]. The main reason people leave Islam is when they actually read (rather than mindlessly chant) the Qur'an and see how gratingly foolish it is. And in the words of one ex-Muslim "the sickest book I have ever read".
Just one of many examples of Qur'anic wisdom is the verse preceding those endorsing Saint M's ethnic cleansing operation, 59:1: "All that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth glorifieth Allah, and he is the Mighty, the Wise" .... including me, do I glorify Him? No, so Allah's Last Testament must be false and Allah himself a fallacy. It's even contradicted by its own verses immediately following about those "who disbelieved" [59:2] and "were opposed to Allah" [59:4].
At long last on TOD. A person who has actually studied the Quran.
Amazing. I spoke of this way way back and received some hate mail in response.
Hate mail from those who knew zipshit about the Quran.
Yet the sexual multilation of women still is not discussed by N.O.W. or even spoken of. The women are treated like scum but no one says a word. And on and on. There is far far more than some would rather dismiss. So convenient. And then there is the owning of slaves.
Airdale
airdale,
I'm off topic but I'm going to put up 25 gallons of wild blackberries-enough for a big fat pie every week till next year.
Now if you really want to see somebody hem and haw and change the subject,find yourself a feminist who is also a democrat(most likely)and wants us to get out of the middle east.Your target is one who is hardcore in both respects.
Throw her the question:
While we are over there astealing thier oil and so forth,just what does she think the value of seeing American women driving cars and airplanes,running hospitals,commanding MALE TROOPS,and in general living like free human beings rather than slaves,etc is worth in the fight for equality for half the human race?the female half?
I have seen a whole roomful of people get pretty quiet waiting for an answer.
I do love to kick over a beehive once in a while.
Most people would rather die than think.
I know you think this insightful, but it's nonsensical. Literally. Perhaps you should re-state it. Are you trying to say our men and women are in Iraq to keep us from being slaves? That's utter as false a statement as you'll ever utter, if so. Neither the attack on Iraq nor the attack on Afghanistan was about protecting Americans. Both were about vengeance and oil, nothing more, nothing less. What has that to do with being a Democrat or a feminist?
Perhaps the silence was people being embarrassed for you.
Cheers
Well after she thought about it for awhile she admitted it had never occured to her to look at the problem from that angle and that she intended to give it a lot of thought.
Now as to the comments about the relative status of women posted below,I admit that I am lacking in expertise in middle eastern culture,but I have no recollection of ever reading anywhere that women in any of thier current day societies are fully in possession of thier rights as opposed to the men.
I believe that it is an uncontested fact that in Certain countries Saudia Arabia for example and under certain regimes the taliban for example women are basically just about on the same level as slaves have been in some of the less brutal slave holding societys of the past.
You may have heard of Thomas Jefferson's Martha Hemmings and the fact that her children are virtually certain to be either his or if not the children of his close male relatives.
I have talked to a number of troops both male and female who have been over there,and all agree that the example of women in charge has been a powerful morale builder and potential paradigm changer for the women there.
Now as I said,I enjoy kicking over beehives and the big girls can give as good as they get and usually have as much fun in this kind of freewheeling discussion as I do.I have certainly come out on the shortend of such exchanges and I just laugh and say my head is spinning you got me square on the jaw.Please don't hit me again until I quit seeing two of you.
The Old Dog above, I strongly disagreed with him on something a looong time ago and he can't seem to get over it, so thanks for even-headed reply: You don't seem to have taken offense where none was offered. I did find your post a bit.... mm... shall we say... old fashioned, to be polite, but as I said, it was actually more confusing to me than offensive. Still is, really. (Does it matter, really? Nope.)
I should have had a question mark on that last sentence in my previous to you to further indicate my confusion.
Cheers (<-- Airdale: can you be any more petty?)
Oldfarmermac, you are being disingenuous.
Women in Iraq had considerable freedom under Saddam Hussein; they could drive cars, wear western outfits, go to college, hold jobs, choose their own husbands, etc. Now the country has been essentially handed over to Shia (southern Iraq) and Sunni (Anbar province) fanatics. Thanks to the Iraq war, women and religious minorities in Iraq have lost all their freedoms.
Ditto for Afghanistan. In the seventies, Afghanistan was ruled by socialists who were allied with the USSR. These were men who wore suits, spoke English and they were trying to modernize their country. At that time in the cities, women had freedom. They could drive cars, mix with men, go to college, hold jobs, drink alcohol, etc. While the cities were controlled by the government, the rural areas were ruled by fundamentalists. The fundamentalists believed that the modern world was a threat to Islam and were waging a war on the government. The US supported the fundamentalist barbarians who wanted to recreate the medieval world and subjugate women. Unfortunately for Afghan women, the fundamentalists (armed with US weapons, Saudi money and Pakistani bases and hideouts) won.
The most oppressive country in the world today is Saudi Arabia. There are no US bases in S.A. Even when the US had bases, US servicewomen were subject to Saudi laws (wear a burqa, cannot go out on your own, cannot drive a vehicle, etc.) when they left the base.
The US armed and supported Islamic fundamentalists and used them against the Soviet Union. If it wasn't for US meddling there would be no Taliban, no Jihadi infrastructure in Pakistan, no mullahs ruling Iran and no Al Qaeda as we know it today. So pehaps you should keep your troops home instead of sending them abroad to set an example for gender equality.
Suyog,
Well said sir.
As I replied above ,I am no expert on middle eastern culture,but I am aware of the elements of truth of your comments.
But the facts are that we have sent our troops over the steal the oil,or at least make sure that we get first dibs when it is sold.The fact that they show the flag for sexual equality is merely a lucky example of the siver lining that accompanies most storm clouds.
My broader piont is and was(and was so understood by the party goers) is that there are many sides to every major issue and that it helps to look over the elephant from a distance rather than depending on the 3 blind mens' description of an elephant.
But the facts are that we have sent our troops over the steal the oil,or at least make sure that we get first dibs when it is sold.The fact that they show the flag for sexual equality is merely a lucky example of the siver lining that accompanies most storm clouds.
I agree with you when you put it that way :-)
Ditto.
No. I think you just make sure that Middle Eastern oil is sold to someone. It doesn't really matter who, b/c it satisfies much of the world demand, which makes the world economy function and makes you able to buy oil from Canada, Mexico and Venezuela at acceptable prices.
Only unless and until resource wars start.
That may be. But I think it's somewhat amazing that the arabs have been allowed to keep the oil so far.
Jeppen,
As I see it,they still have it BECAUSE our army is on the ground over there.
The small number of local people who control the oil and the oil money did not get to the top of the heap entirely by accident.You have to be both pretty smart and lucky to get to the top of any heap.They had to cut an unofficial deal with somebody,because SOMEBODY'S ARMY is an unavoidable reality.
My estimate is that tptb in the that part of the world have pass ports and visas and overseas residences ready for use on a moment's notice,as well as ample funds already deposited in overseas banks.We suck up to them.They suck up to us.Niether we nor they have any choice in this matter in the short term.
Anybody who spends a few hours researching the subject will quickly realize that most of the Middle East is a powder keg that could go anytime if the cards fall wrong.
I expect the thing that worries the well off locals the most is a possible shortage of air transport if every body tries to leave the same day.Jets are so expensive that even the Saudis don't have very many.
There are some verifiable facts in these comments,but mostly these comments are just my personal opinions.
If a growth rate from about 2.0% per year forty years ago to 1.1% today is dropping "like a stone," you're right on target.
You don't understand demographics. If we have a population pyramid with a wide base, and then fertility suddenly drops to 2, what will happen? Growth will continue, rapidly at first, slower later, as the pyramid transforms into a column as wide as the pyramid's base.
Yes, growth has dropped from 2.0% to 1.1% in spite of great improvements in life expectancy and a pyramid with a wide base. This is enormous progress, and it does mean that the fertility has dropped like a stone and a steady state or decreasing population is a matter of BAU and time.
Agreed (on that narrow point), for a change!
I understand your point. I just question whether this progress is good enough. Assuming no black swans, the world will reach at least 8 billion. I suppose you think that's good enough; I am not so sure.
Yeah, I think it is good enough. I plan to live long enough to see it.
Yes, all we must do is raise everyone's standard of living to the level of that of the average American or European. But to do that everyone on earth would have to consume as much oil as we do. That would require about 300 million barrels of oil per day....at least.
Got any more good arguments Jeppen?
Ron P
No, we don't have to get to the level of the average American or European. Looking at the gapminder graph, it seems a level of $7000/capita would suffice, and that is about what we have, although it's a bit unevenly spread.
Darwinian,I do believe you have the better argument versus jeppen in the natural fertility decline scenario because I agree with you that it is too little too late.
Otoh if you want quick facts about any country,you can't do better than the CIA website.
Jeppen is right about the birth rates,they have declined enormously.The populations in the countries mentioned will continue to grow rapidly ,however, for a long time because the age distribution is skewed heavily to the young.
Another case of for me knowing things that ain't so.I had no idea the birth rates had declined so much in that part of the world.