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How the world views the USA.

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Re: How the world views the USA.
Post by namelessfly   » Mon Feb 03, 2014 12:33 pm

namelessfly

I could not agree more about the dangers of mindless extrapolation.

I was attempting to explain this to people back in the 1970's when the Club of Rome was ranting about the population bomb. Even at the peak growth rate, birth rates by cohort and Total Fertility Rates were already declining. The global population reached the inflection point at about 3.5 Billion to 4 billion back in the middle 1970s.

While birth rates and Total Fertility Rates had been declining in the Muslim world for a generation, they imploded drastically since 2,000. The decline is so sudden and is occurring in so many Muslim countries (Afghanistan is the major exception) that one can not dismiss conspiracy theories about vaccines or GMO crops being covert contraceptives.

It is also possible that Muslim immigrants might assimilate to Western culture. A look at the yearbook for Cairo university shows Egyptian women dressing just like European women. The radicalism has been very sudden and might be short lived.

Finally, the solution along with immigration is to not devote your life to fornication rather than procreation.


Michael Everett wrote:I post the following purely for the reaction. I can neither confirm nor deny that I actually believe any of it.

There is a problem with attempting to extrapolate from past data. I think that this comic describes at least one of the potential pitfalls better than I could. How you extrapolate affects the end result more than what you extrapolate.

As for the whole "outbreeding" concept, gender differentials come into play. With the demand for male children that many cultures have, the ratio of male to female children (normally 105/100) becomes seriously skewed. Some cultures have a worse than 120/100 ratio. This sort of ratio seems to coincide with a rise in societal violence and the suppression of women's rights/liberties/protection (legal and physical). I do not know what/if the correlation is, or even if there is one. After all, it was once believed that thunder caused milk to go sour and they have no causative link whatsoever.

Another factor is that quite a few cultures practice inbreeding via cousin-marriage. It is a statistical anomaly that a certain culture (which I will not name) in the UK that is responsible for less than 3 percent of all births account for over 10 percent of all genetic birth defects. This is because in quite a few of the families, the parents of the newlyweds are cousins as well and the genetic distortion caused by such close relatives having children mounts up through the generations in the absence of new blood. Such an effect will cause more resources of the culture in question to be used in looking after their disabled portion, thus cutting down on the resources available for things like expansion.

Ironically, many of Europe's royal families practiced something similar in order to "preserve the purity of their blood". Since they knew the downsides of inbreeding in the horses they used, one can only speculate why they thought themselves above such trivial things as the laws of nature.

Sheesh.

Finally, if you are worried about other cultures outbreeding yours, just have more kids (preferably with an intelligent spouse as to raise the average IQ of the offspring)! It ain't rocket science!
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Re: How the world views the USA.
Post by PeterZ   » Mon Feb 03, 2014 12:54 pm

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namelessfly wrote:snip

Finally, the solution along with immigration is to not devote your life to fornication rather than procreation.


Why? If the mindset of people is that they do not want children, then encouraging them to have children the do not wish to take care of is begging for more problems. Now, if those folks might be encouraged to become more responsible contributors to society in general including procreation, things might be better.

I am thinking of our millennials, 'fly. Conversations with many of them suggest to me that they wish to avoid taking on responsibilities in their lives. One 20 something young man told me how he couldn't envision taking care of a sick family member. He acknowledged his selfishness and asserted he would not do it.

If this is the predominant source of parental wisdom for the majority of the next few generations, will the problems we face in the future better than those we worry over right now?
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Re: How the world views the USA.
Post by Tenshinai   » Tue Feb 04, 2014 9:45 am

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Michael Everett wrote:I post the following purely for the reaction. I can neither confirm nor deny that I actually believe any of it.

There is a problem with attempting to extrapolate from past data. I think that this comic describes at least one of the potential pitfalls better than I could. How you extrapolate affects the end result more than what you extrapolate.

Quite.

Michael Everett wrote:As for the whole "outbreeding" concept, gender differentials come into play. With the demand for male children that many cultures have, the ratio of male to female children (normally 105/100) becomes seriously skewed. Some cultures have a worse than 120/100 ratio. This sort of ratio seems to coincide with a rise in societal violence and the suppression of women's rights/liberties/protection (legal and physical). I do not know what/if the correlation is, or even if there is one. After all, it was once believed that thunder caused milk to go sour and they have no causative link whatsoever.

Well if you really look hard, there is a "sort of" link between thunder and sour milk, but it´s indirect.

Essentially, the area this thinking is from, thunder storms tend to happen mostly in late summer, a time during which you will find what some call the "rot month" or similar things, because food tend to spoil very rapidly during those weeks(it´s basically the warmest and most moist part of the year, after the summer have made sure there´s lots of spores and stuff in the air).

There´s also been suggested that the changes in air pressure that normally accompanies thunder storms MAY interact "badly" with some food, like milk. Science is actually being seriously done on this, so far inconclusive but showing a potential link of some kind.

Michael Everett wrote:Ironically, many of Europe's royal families practiced something similar in order to "preserve the purity of their blood". Since they knew the downsides of inbreeding in the horses they used, one can only speculate why they thought themselves above such trivial things as the laws of nature.

Generally, it was a matter of keeping control "within the family". But stupidity was certainly part of it sometimes/some places.
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Re: How the world views the USA.
Post by Tenshinai   » Tue Feb 04, 2014 9:51 am

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namelessfly wrote:The decline is so sudden and is occurring in so many Muslim countries (Afghanistan is the major exception) that one can not dismiss conspiracy theories about vaccines or GMO crops being covert contraceptives.

Never attribute to "evil intent" what you can explain with stupidity or greed. Unless you have actual proof.

Simple fact, the amount of chemicals used in modern industry that the human body may mistake for hormones is counted in the hundreds.

Literally.

And finding a way to make things without them, costs a lot of money. So consumers, all over the world are the ones taking the impact.

This is one reason why i don´t drink "low calorie", "light" or "no sugar" sodas at all, ever.
Because the sweeteners commonly used are disgustingly nasty, some of them even behave like hormones in the body.
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Re: How the world views the USA.
Post by namelessfly   » Tue Feb 04, 2014 3:58 pm

namelessfly

I could not agree more. The apparent irresponsibility of the new generation scares the crap out of me. About the only encouraging trend is that the most irresponsible amongst us are at least limiting the NUMBER of bastard babies that they give birth to even though the percentage of out of wedlock births continues to rise. I confess that many of these nit wits inspire an urge to castrate them to ensure that they dnt pass on their apparently defective genetics. Many of them are fortunate that I don't have three hands with which to hold the tweezers, magnifying glass and microscalpal that would be needed to do the job. However; many of them are the product of their upbringing so it is possible that they can grow up, grow a brain and may be even grow a pair of fully developed testicles.

May be some extreme event such as a nuclear 9-11 would be educational?

Alternatively; we need something comparable to Hammerfall to create the conditions to cull the population.

PeterZ wrote:
namelessfly wrote:snip

Finally, the solution along with immigration is to not devote your life to fornication rather than procreation.


Why? If the mindset of people is that they do not want children, then encouraging them to have children the do not wish to take care of is begging for more problems. Now, if those folks might be encouraged to become more responsible contributors to society in general including procreation, things might be better.

I am thinking of our millennials, 'fly. Conversations with many of them suggest to me that they wish to avoid taking on responsibilities in their lives. One 20 something young man told me how he couldn't envision taking care of a sick family member. He acknowledged his selfishness and asserted he would not do it.

If this is the predominant source of parental wisdom for the majority of the next few generations, will the problems we face in the future better than those we worry over right now?
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Re: How the world views the USA.
Post by namelessfly   » Tue Feb 04, 2014 4:01 pm

namelessfly

One other thought.

The new generation of Millenials remind me of the Swedes that I met while touring the Middle East and Europe back in 1984. While the Swedish girls were not as hot as the stereotype, I took the liberty of doing what I could to increase Sweden's Total Fertility Rate.

PeterZ wrote:
namelessfly wrote:snip

Finally, the solution along with immigration is to not devote your life to fornication rather than procreation.


Why? If the mindset of people is that they do not want children, then encouraging them to have children the do not wish to take care of is begging for more problems. Now, if those folks might be encouraged to become more responsible contributors to society in general including procreation, things might be better.

I am thinking of our millennials, 'fly. Conversations with many of them suggest to me that they wish to avoid taking on responsibilities in their lives. One 20 something young man told me how he couldn't envision taking care of a sick family member. He acknowledged his selfishness and asserted he would not do it.

If this is the predominant source of parental wisdom for the majority of the next few generations, will the problems we face in the future better than those we worry over right now?
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Re: How the world views the USA.
Post by biochem   » Tue Feb 04, 2014 4:44 pm

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I could not agree more. The apparent irresponsibility of the new generation scares the crap out of me. About the only encouraging trend is that the most irresponsible amongst us are at least limiting the NUMBER of bastard babies that they give birth to even though the percentage of out of wedlock births continues to rise. I confess that many of these nit wits inspire an urge to castrate them to ensure that they dnt pass on their apparently defective genetics. Many of them are fortunate that I don't have three hands with which to hold the tweezers, magnifying glass and microscalpal that would be needed to do the job. However; many of them are the product of their upbringing so it is possible that they can grow up, grow a brain and may be even grow a pair of fully developed testicles.

May be some extreme event such as a nuclear 9-11 would be educational?

Alternatively; we need something comparable to Hammerfall to create the conditions to cull the population.

PeterZ wrote:
namelessfly wrote:
snip

Finally, the solution along with immigration is to not devote your life to fornication rather than procreation.


Why? If the mindset of people is that they do not want children, then encouraging them to have children the do not wish to take care of is begging for more problems. Now, if those folks might be encouraged to become more responsible contributors to society in general including procreation, things might be better.

I am thinking of our millennials, 'fly. Conversations with many of them suggest to me that they wish to avoid taking on responsibilities in their lives. One 20 something young man told me how he couldn't envision taking care of a sick family member. He acknowledged his selfishness and asserted he would not do it.

If this is the predominant source of parental wisdom for the majority of the next few generations, will the problems we face in the future better than those we worry over right now?


And your parents generation thought the same about your generation. And their parents thought the same about your parent's generation. And their parents thought the same about your grandparents generation. And yet the world is still here.

Here'a quote from Agatha Christie "The young people think the old people are fools -- but the old people know the young peopLe are fools. " referring to the generation which would go on to fight WWII.
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Re: How the world views the USA.
Post by Daryl   » Tue Feb 04, 2014 8:51 pm

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Posts: 3595
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“Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.”
― Cicero

Every mature generation considers that the youth of their time are worse than previously, lacking in manners and general morals. The present situation has a couple of new twists though, in that better communications ensure that the brainless bottom 2% get their stupidity showcased more widely, and in all developed countries the young ones have much more resources to get into trouble with than previously.
Most Gen Y people I know are admirable, and I hope they continue to work productively to provide me a comfortable retirement.
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