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Thread: Russia – Culture, Society, and Future - Page 2







Post#26 at 07-27-2013 08:56 AM by Justin '77 [at Meh. joined Sep 2001 #posts 12,182]
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Quote Originally Posted by '58 Flat View Post
What does everybody here think about the rapidly-spreading vodka boycott, due to Vladimir Putin's recent "anti-gay" proclamations?
That's the only way it can possibly be termed 'rapidly-spreading' is due to the fact that if another ten people join in, it's numbers will have doubled.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch

"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy

"[it]
is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky







Post#27 at 07-27-2013 02:19 PM by Tussilago [at Gothenburg, Sweden joined Jan 2010 #posts 1,500]
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Quote Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon View Post
Here a nice little document from 2004: World Population to 2300, from the UN Department of Economic nd Social Affairs. Slide on over to page 56 (PDF) or 42 (doucmnet paganatin) and look at Table 5 - 20 Largest Countries and Their Populations - Selected Years for a view of winners, losers and also-rans.
There is no way world population will remain at around 8 billion people in 2300. The lack of artificial fertilizer, water and fished out oceans will not allow it. A population collapse is likely due during this century. Famine, disease and wars of incomparable magnitude will probably be fought in order to get world population down to sustainable levels, probably on the theme of the desperate south going off to plunder a weakened north.
Last edited by Tussilago; 07-27-2013 at 02:22 PM.
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Post#28 at 07-27-2013 02:34 PM by Copperfield [at joined Feb 2010 #posts 2,244]
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Quote Originally Posted by Justin '77 View Post
That's the only way it can possibly be termed 'rapidly-spreading' is due to the fact that if another ten people join in, it's numbers will have doubled.
And here I was planning on purchasing vodka today! Now apparently I can't (without being shamed) purchase a product crafted by people totally un-connected to an individual making a statement about a topic completely unrelated to delicious vodka. Consider my whole weekend ruined!







Post#29 at 07-27-2013 02:44 PM by Tussilago [at Gothenburg, Sweden joined Jan 2010 #posts 1,500]
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Quote Originally Posted by James50 View Post
Demographics is destiny. The UN population forecasts which have shown a high degree of accuracy show human population likely rolling over in 2050 and headed down. It will go down exponentially just like it went up. Russia and Italy are leading the way. Probably whole areas of Russia will simply depopulate over the next 30 years. It is difficult to turn around. If you want more 21 year olds, you need to have decided 21 years ago.

The future belongs to those who show up for it.

James50
Hypothesis: The complexity of modern life is interfering with human mating behavior, making it ever more difficult to achieve reproduction successfully. Social (grind complexity), chemical (hormone pollution), cultural (advertising, expectations) as well as ideological factors (feminism/gender role confusion) are all exerting negative influences on human procreative potential.
All of the above took off seriously in the decades following the war, i.e the 60's. If I look around at people I grew up with and count the members of the old versus the new generation the results are disturbing. The number going in, all born late 60's/early 70's, ethnically European, have roughly managed a 50 percent reproduction rate, meaning that if my own private sample was elevated to the national level (which isn't viable), population would fall roughly by one half over the course of a single generation.
Last edited by Tussilago; 07-27-2013 at 02:46 PM.
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Post#30 at 07-27-2013 02:46 PM by Justin '77 [at Meh. joined Sep 2001 #posts 12,182]
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Quote Originally Posted by Copperfield View Post
And here I was planning on purchasing vodka today! Now apparently I can't (without being shamed) purchase a product crafted by people totally un-connected to an individual making a statement about a topic completely unrelated to delicious vodka. Consider my whole weekend ruined!
Strictly speaking, the vodka brands aren't totally unconnected to the guy the boycotters want to protest. Rest assured, Putin's a shareholder in both either overtly or otherwise. And in all likelihood, he benefits from no small number of kickbacks, too. Really, it's the same as the relationship between major corporations and politicians in the US... just that Russians are more up-front about it and the Russian people are far less deluded as a consequence.

But in any case, the threat of a loss of whatever miniscule number of sales in a minor export market isn't really the kind of thing that has Russian vodka makers exactly shaking in their portyanki.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch

"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy

"[it]
is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky







Post#31 at 07-27-2013 04:45 PM by Copperfield [at joined Feb 2010 #posts 2,244]
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Quote Originally Posted by Justin '77 View Post
Strictly speaking, the vodka brands aren't totally unconnected to the guy the boycotters want to protest. Rest assured, Putin's a shareholder in both either overtly or otherwise. And in all likelihood, he benefits from no small number of kickbacks, too. Really, it's the same as the relationship between major corporations and politicians in the US... just that Russians are more up-front about it and the Russian people are far less deluded as a consequence.

But in any case, the threat of a loss of whatever miniscule number of sales in a minor export market isn't really the kind of thing that has Russian vodka makers exactly shaking in their portyanki.
That's alright. To be honest my favorite brand is made by a micro-distillery right here in state, and I have no direct knowledge of their views on homosexuality. I suppose I could ask them just to make sure.







Post#32 at 07-27-2013 07:24 PM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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Quote Originally Posted by Tussilago View Post
There is no way world population will remain at around 8 billion people in 2300. The lack of artificial fertilizer, water and fished out oceans will not allow it. A population collapse is likely due during this century. Famine, disease and wars of incomparable magnitude will probably be fought in order to get world population down to sustainable levels, probably on the theme of the desperate south going off to plunder a weakened north.
These projections could be right, but only if people are idiots and vote for people like Tea Party Republicans or Libertarians. If they do, then yes, the peoples' stupidity will result in decimated resources and unnecessary wars. But there's no reason why we can't have prosperity and well-being in the future. We just have to have enough sense not to vote for idiots. Then there will be plenty of fish, because we will fish at sustainable levels and not kill the oceans with global warming. We will have less disease and famine, because the 1% won't own everything and will be required again to contribute to society. We will have fewer wars, because there will be greater awareness of how painful and destructive war is. But if people vote for idiots, and allow their countries to be taken over by greedy thugs, then the scenario you paint is very likely. The choice is up to us. Be stupid and evil complete idiots, and vote for Republicans or the equivalent, and you get a messed up world. Have governments with some sense on how to govern, and good sense will prevail and we can manage our affairs quite well.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive,

Eric A. Meece







Post#33 at 07-28-2013 07:37 AM by Tussilago [at Gothenburg, Sweden joined Jan 2010 #posts 1,500]
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Quote Originally Posted by Eric the Green View Post
These projections could be right, but only if people are idiots and vote for people like Tea Party Republicans or Libertarians. If they do, then yes, the peoples' stupidity will result in decimated resources and unnecessary wars. But there's no reason why we can't have prosperity and well-being in the future. We just have to have enough sense not to vote for idiots. Then there will be plenty of fish, because we will fish at sustainable levels and not kill the oceans with global warming. We will have less disease and famine, because the 1% won't own everything and will be required again to contribute to society. We will have fewer wars, because there will be greater awareness of how painful and destructive war is. But if people vote for idiots, and allow their countries to be taken over by greedy thugs, then the scenario you paint is very likely. The choice is up to us. Be stupid and evil complete idiots, and vote for Republicans or the equivalent, and you get a messed up world. Have governments with some sense on how to govern, and good sense will prevail and we can manage our affairs quite well.
Problem is that people are idiots. Save a few seconds of enlightened dictatorship before such succumbs to its own inner tensions and contradictions, stupid rules; always have, always will.

The guys who launched worldwide industrial free-trade agriculture and the Green Revolution instead of adjusting a traditional and sustainable agriculture to industrial society were idiots. Now we are globally dependent on artificial fertilizer which is a limited resource and the resulting population boom is overfishing the world's oceans, wasting topsoil and running out of aquifers. Nothing will stop that. Africans, Asians and Chinese get hungry too. There is nothing we can do about it, and there is no way we can direct the other civilizations to dance to our tune as once we could during colonial times and the Cold War.

At the same time we are in the long run losing our civilization's competitive edge as high-tech is getting increasingly diffused and the lack of fossil fuels will act as a huge bulldozer leveling the playing field. The point is not so much what our decrepit civilization will do to them as what relatively hungry, younger civilizations will do to us, and since people are universally idiots, not just in the western world, the temptation to deflect own concerns of what is deep down a matter of too many people on too small a planet, towards some hapless fat cats in the north, cannot unfortunately be ruled out.

We should have done stuff in the 70's when we had what could be thought of as a window of opportunity. We should not have voted the Jimmy Carters of the world out of office. Now fate is catching up.
Last edited by Tussilago; 07-28-2013 at 08:09 AM.
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Post#34 at 08-16-2013 01:45 PM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,443]
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Real time observations

Okay, Justin may laugh at some of this. I was here in 2006, but if was for my mother-in-law's funeral and only 5 days most of which with limited contact other than with grieving family focused on the event. I was here alot in the 1990s with the last real time spent here in early 2001. I'm really comparing today to that time over a decade ago.

Also, this is Saint Petersburg and surrounds as well as Karelia which can be very different than the rest of Russia. St Pete is to Moscow like Old San Fransico is to Los Angeles, sort of. Karelia obviously has a lot of Finnish influences and far north; never had the criminal element like much of Russia has suffered in the past.

With that said, wow, what changes!

In comparison to the late 90s, the place is much more calm socially and much more vibrant economically. Just crossing the street is a whole new experience for me here. Back in the 90s, the Ruskies looked at me as if I was insane with my relatively bold street crossings (I was actual scared shiRtless most of the time); now they look at me as if I have some weird affliction with how cautious I am now crossing. It's really an amazing change and is just an indicator of how calm the traffic navigation is here now - it would put even Californian pedistrians at ease! Streets are really clean and the once potholes every 10 meters are mostly a thing of the past.

Everyone is dressing more and more Western. Unfortunately, that means less of the revealing women's clothing and doll-ups which was pretty much everywhere in the 90s; on the other hand, not every male between 12 and 65 is trying to look like a New Russian toughter thug. Speaking of New Russians, in visiting a few cemetaries, we saw an unusually high number of 20/30 somethings that died in the late 90s. My wife is a few years older than these and when she asked friends her age, they confirmed that many sightly younger brothers and friends did not survive the 90s mostly as a result of murders. I really didn't spot anyone today who I would consider a New Russian or a wannabe. A lot less drunks; no more than most cities and these here at least don't appear to be homeless.

Kids are everywhere with lots of babies - Putin's tax policy to encourage population expansion may be doing its job. People are polite on the streets, but still don't smile much at each other unless they meet someone very familiar.

Economically, it seems like the place is booming. Cranes are everywhere on the outer edge of the city, on both sides of the relatively new ring road (beltway) which is more or less a freeway. New large super markets that would compete well with Wal-Mart or a Target where the later includes groceries with a wide range of farm-fresh fruits and veggies. This has put a crimp in the number of kioshs that use to be on nearly every corner selling nearly everything and the flea markets seem to mostly to have dissappeared. Really good cafes have now sprouted up nearly everywhere.

More to report on but have to go.

I will say I sort of miss the old Russia of the the 1990s. It was darker and it would not be hyperbole to say pretty dangerous. I think that would be romaticizing a pretty brutal period, however. I'm happy for the Russians of Saint Petersburg, but still...

p.s. Justin - went to the Great Palace in Puskin. Last time here, the amber room renovation was just underway and not much to see. Now, most complete and pretty damn awesome. No pictures from that room allowed, but I'll post some other rooms and the grounds soon. Man, that Catherine was something else...
Last edited by playwrite; 08-16-2013 at 01:55 PM.
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Post#35 at 08-16-2013 01:59 PM by Justin '77 [at Meh. joined Sep 2001 #posts 12,182]
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It's only funny to see someone treating it as novelty, pw. What you described is how it was when we lived there, too (though I did start going for business back in '03, and it was a little rough around the edges in places then).

I'm assuming you've been to the Ikea/Mega shopping center out on the ring road by Murmanskoye shosse? That was one of our favorites, largely for the Auchan (a french supermarket chain that was the first of the big stores to move into Russia). We couldn't get orange cheddar cheese at any other store outside Finland, and enchiladas just aren't right with anything else.

Tell your wife I said "Хватит муж-лентяй поиграть на инете! Лето в петере! Выидй! Гуляй!"

---
...the amber room. If you were there, you went past our apartment, the boys' school, and our good friends' place. It's super neat and all, but after a while living next door, you kind of get palace-burnout. The grounds of Catherine's Palace are a great place to walk a dog, though. Pavlovsk palace grounds are much better, but on the other side of Pushkin, and Gatchina Palace grounds are even better still.

Are you going to make it to V. Novgorod this trip? It's a bit of a drive, but the road is good quality, and it's damn sure worth seeing.

Oh, and you simply must go to Kavkaz-Bar (on Italyanskaya ulitsa right near fontanka) to eat sometime while you're there. Rumor has it they're opening up import of Georgian wines again (kindzmarauli ftw!), but even if they haven't made it there yet, Abkhazia makes some damn fine vintages too.
Last edited by Justin '77; 08-16-2013 at 02:13 PM.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch

"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy

"[it]
is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky







Post#36 at 08-16-2013 02:13 PM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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Quote Originally Posted by Tussilago View Post
Problem is that people are idiots. Save a few seconds of enlightened dictatorship before such succumbs to its own inner tensions and contradictions, stupid rules; always have, always will.
I agree with your posts about what might happen because people are idiots. You could well be right, and I don't disagree. We have more than just the trajectory of past conduct and results, though. So, I remain in part an optimist. There is a new movement afoot toward more sustainable ways, focused on quality not quantity. The old Green Revolution was a product of industrial age thinking. The new Green Revolution is bringing a post-industrial culture of sensitivity and cooperation with land and people. It will take time, but think how short a time it took for the industrial revolution and its political components to sweep over the globe. The new revolution could start to come faster soon, and people in poor countries will at some point want quality as well as quality, and become hungry for real life instead of just material advancement. The cosmic rhythms suggest this could happen. The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice, and humans have the ability to learn and grow. I know, positive predictions are risky, from the point of view of accuracy. But a good prophet needs to bring some hope and possibilities, as well as warnings of doom. There's a place for both.

And younger people today need to remember the prophecies and projections that visionaries spoke of just a relatively few years ago, but are mostly forgotten amid the flood of Gen X cynicism and Millennial tech-worldliness. See the visionaries of the consciousness revolution thread. Newer young generations will eventually bring them into being.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive,

Eric A. Meece







Post#37 at 09-17-2013 04:12 PM by TimWalker [at joined May 2007 #posts 6,368]
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Time magazine, Sept. 16, 2013. Article about Putin. Relevant to the topic of Political Generations. Anti-Americanism being the common view on international affairs, including young people...who feel that Russia was humiliated by USA during the '90s.
Last edited by TimWalker; 09-17-2013 at 04:19 PM.







Post#38 at 09-17-2013 04:17 PM by TimWalker [at joined May 2007 #posts 6,368]
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Also, in the above article, was mentioned groups "...like the Night Wolves. Although their tattoos and leather seem ill-suited for diplomacy, their aim is to unite Eastern Europe around the banners of the Orthodox Church and Slavic pride. They have chapters in Serbia, Macedonia, Romania, Belarus, Herzegovina, Ukraine and other parts of the Slavic world, making them natural allies, or 'brothers,' as Putin puts it when addressing their rallies...."







Post#39 at 09-17-2013 04:42 PM by TimWalker [at joined May 2007 #posts 6,368]
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Just occurred to me that Eric Meece will object. How can people from a different cultural tradition...not conform to the notion that we have a one-world civilization?







Post#40 at 09-17-2013 05:28 PM by Justin '77 [at Meh. joined Sep 2001 #posts 12,182]
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Quote Originally Posted by TimWalker View Post
Also, in the above article, was mentioned groups "...like the Night Wolves. Although their tattoos and leather seem ill-suited for diplomacy, their aim is to unite Eastern Europe around the banners of the Orthodox Church and Slavic pride. They have chapters in Serbia, Macedonia, Romania, Belarus, Herzegovina, Ukraine and other parts of the Slavic world, making them natural allies, or 'brothers,' as Putin puts it when addressing their rallies...."
Like the KKK -- you can spot the government plants in those organizations easily. They're everyone except for the one guy in the corner who doesn't pay his dues.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch

"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy

"[it]
is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky







Post#41 at 12-18-2013 04:34 PM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,443]
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Two thumbs up!

http://crooksandliars.com/2013/12/ru...covering-pussy

Russia Approves Amnesty Covering Pussy Riot, Greenpeace

Russian lawmakers on Wednesday approved a Kremlin-backed amnesty bill that is set to free the two jailed members of the punk band Pussy Riot while also ending the prosecution of 30 Greenpeace crew members.

Russia's Duma lower house of parliament voted 446 in favour to none against for the amnesty, which commemorates 20 years since Russia ratified its current constitution.

The bill, branded as a mere token gesture by rights activists, went into effect later Wednesday and should also see several anti-Vladimir Putin protesters, jailed after a May 2012 rally, walk out of prison.

The amnesty affects a range of categories like mothers with dependents, minors and the elderly. However it also specifically mentions the charge of hooliganism as well as the charge of participating in mass riots.

The jailed members of Pussy Riot punk band, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, who are serving two-year sentences on charges of hooliganism for staging an anti-Putin "punk prayer" protest in a cathedral, could be released as early as Thursday, Tolokonnikova's husband said.

US-Swedish national Dimitri Litvinov, one of the
Olga Maltseva/AFP/File
US-Swedish national Dimitri Litvinov, one of the "Arctic 30" Greenpeace International activists, holds a banner as he leaves a SIZO detention centre in Saint Petersburg, on November 22, 2013, after being released on bail

The officials in Krasnoyarsk and Nizhny Novgorod, where the two women are currently held, have promised to free them "right away and without bureaucratic delay, probably tomorrow," Pyotr Verzilov wrote on his Twitter blog
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#42 at 12-18-2013 05:16 PM by Justin '77 [at Meh. joined Sep 2001 #posts 12,182]
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That's the Russian justice system and society going back a thousand years. Heavy sentences, then lots of pardons and amnesties. If you read your Solzhenitsyn, he wrote about what a huge betrayal and break from civilized norms they considered it when Stalin's one-and-only amnesty (post-WWII) was a miniscule and largely meaningless affair.

Things there are unfolding exactly as anyone who knew the place at all would have anticipated.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch

"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy

"[it]
is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky







Post#43 at 12-26-2013 09:30 AM by '58 Flat [at Hardhat From Central Jersey joined Jul 2001 #posts 3,300]
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Quote Originally Posted by TimWalker View Post
Time magazine, Sept. 16, 2013. Article about Putin. Relevant to the topic of Political Generations. Anti-Americanism being the common view on international affairs, including young people...who feel that Russia was humiliated by USA during the '90s.


Well if you were consigned to being a net food importer for all eternity - because more than half of the Soviet Union's productive farmland was outside Russia proper - maybe you'd feel "humiliated" too, or worse?

And so much for the Cold War not being a "total" war - 15 countries where there was one before, plus the situation alluded to above. Russia will never recover from being the principal country that was on the losing side in that "trivial" conflict.
But maybe if the putative Robin Hoods stopped trying to take from law-abiding citizens and give to criminals, take from men and give to women, take from believers and give to anti-believers, take from citizens and give to "undocumented" immigrants, and take from heterosexuals and give to homosexuals, they might have a lot more success in taking from the rich and giving to everyone else.

Don't blame me - I'm a Baby Buster!







Post#44 at 02-28-2014 02:14 AM by Bad Dog [at joined Dec 2012 #posts 2,156]
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So, Hosting The Olympics Is The New Fail?

Brazil next.







Post#45 at 02-28-2014 11:27 AM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,014]
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Quote Originally Posted by Bad Dog View Post
So, Hosting The Olympics Is The New Fail?

Brazil next.
The opening ceremony was extremely successful. It might have encouraged many people to pay more attention to Russian culture and learn the language. Of course Russian politics have been about as dreadful as their writers and composer have been wonderful.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."


― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters







Post#46 at 02-28-2014 11:56 AM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,014]
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Quote Originally Posted by Tussilago View Post
Hypothesis: The complexity of modern life is interfering with human mating behavior, making it ever more difficult to achieve reproduction successfully. Social (grind complexity), chemical (hormone pollution), cultural (advertising, expectations) as well as ideological factors (feminism/gender role confusion) are all exerting negative influences on human procreative potential.
All of the above took off seriously in the decades following the war, i.e the 60's. If I look around at people I grew up with and count the members of the old versus the new generation the results are disturbing. The number going in, all born late 60's/early 70's, ethnically European, have roughly managed a 50 percent reproduction rate, meaning that if my own private sample was elevated to the national level (which isn't viable), population would fall roughly by one half over the course of a single generation.
Japan and Russia have achieved ZPG or declining populations for very different reasons. America would have a declining population except for immigration.
We have left the era of peasant cottages.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."


― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters







Post#47 at 02-28-2014 06:19 PM by JordanGoodspeed [at joined Mar 2013 #posts 3,587]
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02-28-2014, 06:19 PM #47
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Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
Japan and Russia have achieved ZPG or declining populations for very different reasons. America would have a declining population except for immigration.
We have left the era of peasant cottages.
Russia's population is actually growing. They had a very steep drop off during the '90s, but birthrates and immigration brought them back to (very slow growth) a few years ago. They actually have one of the highest birthrates in Europe now. Admitedly, that is not saying much.

I always found the argument that in the future (that is to say, now) breeding will no longer be necessary for societies to be rather odd.

Although, coming from people like PBrower, there's probably more than a little self-justification in assumptions like that. Just another way to feel better than the inhabitants of the "peasant's village" he's stuck in.
Last edited by JordanGoodspeed; 02-28-2014 at 06:24 PM.







Post#48 at 03-04-2014 02:10 AM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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03-04-2014, 02:10 AM #48
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Amazing retread of the Crimean War developing. Another amazing parallel with the 1850s! I'm not sure I predicted this with any specificity. If not, I'm amazed I missed it. This is just the sort of thing I should get. I mean, Jupiter returning to its exact Oct.1989 position, stationary, during another Eastern Europe revolution; and then warrior Mars stationary too! And Neptune (the generational zeitgeist planet) in the same position as during the last Crimean War! I'm sure I at least predicted an upsurge in the revolution and danger of war for this time. This is a dangerous situation. I'm not as focused now in the present; looking more at the future these days.
Last edited by Eric the Green; 03-04-2014 at 02:13 AM.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive,

Eric A. Meece







Post#49 at 03-04-2014 08:09 AM by JordanGoodspeed [at joined Mar 2013 #posts 3,587]
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03-04-2014, 08:09 AM #49
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Quote Originally Posted by Eric the Green View Post
Amazing retread of the Crimean War developing. Another amazing parallel with the 1850s! I'm not sure I predicted this with any specificity. If not, I'm amazed I missed it. This is just the sort of thing I should get. I mean, Jupiter returning to its exact Oct.1989 position, stationary, during another Eastern Europe revolution; and then warrior Mars stationary too! And Neptune (the generational zeitgeist planet) in the same position as during the last Crimean War! I'm sure I at least predicted an upsurge in the revolution and danger of war for this time. This is a dangerous situation. I'm not as focused now in the present; looking more at the future these days.
Wow, amazing retroactive predictions!! Golly Gee!!







Post#50 at 03-04-2014 08:32 PM by Bad Dog [at joined Dec 2012 #posts 2,156]
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03-04-2014, 08:32 PM #50
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Rags, you know lots more about effective meds than I do. Anything to calm Jordan down? I'm waiting on the brownies, myself.
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