And me in 2001 in Britain in fact!
Although strangely enough I reverted to describing myself as JW in 2011.
slimboyfat
JoinedPosts by slimboyfat
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25
Aust Census Data shows decrease while Yearbook shows increase
by shepherdless inon threads about 8 or 9 months ago, i put up some detailed data from the 2011 and 2006 australian censuses.
data from the 2016 census is becoming available in stages, and i mentioned recently that i would do an update.
finally, as of about today, some data of interest is available, and i have started to look at this, but it is time consuming, and i am time-poor.. anyway, the first search i have conducted is just a simple breakdown of the number of people describing themselves as jw's.
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slimboyfat
"We must avoid..."
I don't recall language as demanding as that before. It's as if the WT has given up trying to convince its readers by force of argument and is simply issuing commands instead.
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Aust Census Data shows decrease while Yearbook shows increase
by shepherdless inon threads about 8 or 9 months ago, i put up some detailed data from the 2011 and 2006 australian censuses.
data from the 2016 census is becoming available in stages, and i mentioned recently that i would do an update.
finally, as of about today, some data of interest is available, and i have started to look at this, but it is time consuming, and i am time-poor.. anyway, the first search i have conducted is just a simple breakdown of the number of people describing themselves as jw's.
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slimboyfat
Canadian figures for comparison:
1991 - 168,000 (census)
2001 - 154,750 (census)
2011 - 137.775 (census)
I don't have the yearbook numbers handy but I think it shows a small increase in publishers over the same period.
Sources:
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/jehovahs-witnesses/
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Aust Census Data shows decrease while Yearbook shows increase
by shepherdless inon threads about 8 or 9 months ago, i put up some detailed data from the 2011 and 2006 australian censuses.
data from the 2016 census is becoming available in stages, and i mentioned recently that i would do an update.
finally, as of about today, some data of interest is available, and i have started to look at this, but it is time consuming, and i am time-poor.. anyway, the first search i have conducted is just a simple breakdown of the number of people describing themselves as jw's.
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slimboyfat
To complicate matters further: it's also possible that there are a few JWs who are counted as publishers because they submit reports but who, for one reason or another, don't describe themselves as JWs on the census. This might be because they don't want to identify themselves as JWs to the authorities for paranoid reasons, or more commonly because they don't believe in JWs any more and only adhere for social reasons. This may not be a very large group but is probably growing in number, so may to a small extent explain the falling census numbers relative to publisher numbers. JWs "voting with their census statement" as it were.
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25
Aust Census Data shows decrease while Yearbook shows increase
by shepherdless inon threads about 8 or 9 months ago, i put up some detailed data from the 2011 and 2006 australian censuses.
data from the 2016 census is becoming available in stages, and i mentioned recently that i would do an update.
finally, as of about today, some data of interest is available, and i have started to look at this, but it is time consuming, and i am time-poor.. anyway, the first search i have conducted is just a simple breakdown of the number of people describing themselves as jw's.
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slimboyfat
What would be really fascinating would be an age profile of JWs from the latest data if possible. I predict that the average age of JWs is climbing rapidly.
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Aust Census Data shows decrease while Yearbook shows increase
by shepherdless inon threads about 8 or 9 months ago, i put up some detailed data from the 2011 and 2006 australian censuses.
data from the 2016 census is becoming available in stages, and i mentioned recently that i would do an update.
finally, as of about today, some data of interest is available, and i have started to look at this, but it is time consuming, and i am time-poor.. anyway, the first search i have conducted is just a simple breakdown of the number of people describing themselves as jw's.
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slimboyfat
Thanks shepherdless. I'm not sure why you found the results surprising. I would have expected a decrease. The census results in Canada display a similar pattern. Two main things stand out when comparing census results with yearbook figures: 1) more people claim to be JWs in census returns than are counted as publishers in the yearbook (this is due to inactive JWs as well as children being counted in the census but not in the yearbook) and 2) the trend in census returns in Canada and elsewhere shows greater signs of decline than yearbook figures.
What I think is happening is Australia, Canada and elsewhere is quite simple. In recent years the WT has squeezed extra publisher numbers by encouraging reporting time and relaxing the minimum to 15 minutes for old JWs. At the same time the pool of inactive JWs who still identify as JWs on census forms has reduced because former JWs now have less goodwill toward the organisation than they did in previous decades. This is because of 1) information and ex-JW community on the Internet 2) media stories about JW abuse 3) the Australian Royal commission 4) former members more commonly pursuing education and intellectual life outside organisation.
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Reading technology as a driver of religious change among JWs
by slimboyfat ini wonder if jws are currently undergoing a more significant transformation than generally appreciated.
and i wonder if the drivers for that change are a combination of legal, economic, and technological factors.
legal challenges changed jws stance of whether they are a "religion" with "ministers", in the 1950s, and stopped them charging for the literature in the 1990s.
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slimboyfat
Incidentally I "like" the comments of other posters on this and the other thread. For some reason my "like" button isn't working. I hear it's the same for some other posters.
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Reading technology as a driver of religious change among JWs
by slimboyfat ini wonder if jws are currently undergoing a more significant transformation than generally appreciated.
and i wonder if the drivers for that change are a combination of legal, economic, and technological factors.
legal challenges changed jws stance of whether they are a "religion" with "ministers", in the 1950s, and stopped them charging for the literature in the 1990s.
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slimboyfat
shepherdless I agree a lot with what you say but I explain where I possibly differ on this thread:
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5134538567057408/books-dying-out-this-reason-wt-turning-tablets
Specifically:
Watchtower had an advantage over other fundamentalist Christians in that it had a highly successful business model based on its publishing business.
Totally agree.
Technology has destroyed that business, and now Watchtower now depends solely on donations from its own adherents.
No, technology didn't destroy their business. Their decision to drop charges for the literature in 1990 destroyed their business. It was an unforced error. There is no particular reason why they couldn't still be making good profits from book and magazine publishing to this day. They'd have to pay taxes perhaps, but they'd still be making a profit.
Technology didn't destroy their business, their own stubbornness and refusal to pay taxes destroyed their publishing empire.
Rather, technology has allowed the WT to move out of publishing and into tablets and downloads in an attempt to save their financial situation, as a result of their publishing business already having failed.
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Books are not dying out and this is not the reason for the WT turning to tablets
by slimboyfat inthere's a popular misconception that books in general are in terminal decline, that this is the reason the wt organisation has turned to tablets instead of print, and this in turn has created a financial crisis for the organisation which traditionally relied upon publishing books for income.
this is wrong on a number of levels.
firstly physical books are not in terminal decline, they are as popular as ever with consumers.
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slimboyfat
Good question. (When did they stop charging for the literature?)
I think they stopped charging in the US and other western countries pretty hot on the heels of the Swaggart case, probably in 1990 or 1991. A special letter was read to congregation about the change.
However JWs in many developing countries continued to charge for the literature for a number of years! I think it was the late 1990s before the motto "you've received free, give free" was rolled out to those in poor countries who most needed it!
I'd like to see corroboration of these points but I'm pretty sure this is accurate.
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Books are not dying out and this is not the reason for the WT turning to tablets
by slimboyfat inthere's a popular misconception that books in general are in terminal decline, that this is the reason the wt organisation has turned to tablets instead of print, and this in turn has created a financial crisis for the organisation which traditionally relied upon publishing books for income.
this is wrong on a number of levels.
firstly physical books are not in terminal decline, they are as popular as ever with consumers.
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slimboyfat
There's a popular misconception that books in general are in terminal decline, that this is the reason the WT organisation has turned to tablets instead of print, and this in turn has created a financial crisis for the organisation which traditionally relied upon publishing books for income.
This is wrong on a number of levels. Firstly physical books are not in terminal decline, they are as popular as ever with consumers. Secondly the reason the WT in particular is replacing physical books with downloads is because they can't make a profit from books any more. The reason the WT can no longer make a profit from publishing books and magazines is because they were forced by law in the US in 1990 to stop charging a cover price for their literature or else be liable to pay tax.
The WT's loss of income from book publishing therefore pre-dates the advent of ebooks and tablets by a number of years. The WT was already making a loss from the books it was publishing by the mid-1990s hence the attempts to cut costs by producing cheap paperbacks, cutting back on calendars, magazines, large volumes and so on. From a position of making a very healthy profit from book publishing for most of its 100 plus year history, the WT started to make losses from the 1990s onwards.
The organisation had significant financial reserves which enabled it to withstand lower income for a considerable period following 1990. Plus of course they expected Armageddon by the end of the 1914 generation, don't forget. Instead the financial crash of 2008 arrived and the reduced income of the organisation started to bite hard. Other losses from investments during the crash compounded the problem. Not to mention abuse lawsuits, aging bethelites and health and care costs and whatever else. So they decided to sell some of their considerable property assets to increase cash flow. This helped, but only for a few years, and it dawned of the WT leaders that eventually they would need to address the situation, as Lett described it, where "we have more money going out than we have coming in brothers!" This is when mass bethel layoffs began and branches started to close. The situation had rapidly worsened and taken the GB unawares. The response was somewhat chaotic as branches were closed abruptly and other cutbacks in haphazard fashion.
It is also the period (roughly 2014, or so?) when the WT did an abrupt 180 degree turn, from somewhat discouraging use of tablets in the meetings, to strongly encouraging their use by all the brothers. Virtually overnight the situation changed from tablets being the preserve of a few brothers who were derided as "show off" technophiles, and materialistic, to the situation where every pensioner publisher and pious pioneer in the KH was encouraged to purchase a tablet in order to avail themselves of the spiritual provisions.
Therefore the WT's move into tablets and away from printed material was not a result of broader societal trends. It was rather necessitated by their lack of profit from book publishing (since the 1990s) being compounded by their cash flow problems following the 2008 financial crash. Publishing printed material of any quality or quantity is simply a luxury the WT can no longer afford. The arrival of tablets and ebook technology has to some extent saved the WT from a sticky financial situation. However their financial problems appear to run deep and this measure, combined with branch closures and bethel layoffs, may only afford a reprieve rather than a reversal of fortunes.
Maybe some people are sceptical of my claim that books in general remain as popular as ever and that tablets and ebooks are not replacing books among non-JWs. Indeed the idea that books are in terminal decline remains a popular misconception even among the general public. Why do people think this? Some reasons include:
1. The replacement of physical books by tablets and ebooks has been confidently predicted for around a decade now.
2. Bookshops have closed down everywhere and there are hardly any left so this must show that books are dying out.
3. Newspapers are drastically declining in popularity and it's assumed books are the same.
4. New technology has rendered DVDs and CDs largely obsolete and it's assumed the same applies to books.
This is wrong because:
1. While it's long been predicted that ebooks will replace physical books, recent figures show ebook sales are down and physical books are up. In terms of value, physical book sales have never been higher. Ebooks now look more like a fad and/or a niche interest than a wholesale disruption of the book market.
2. It's true that many bookshops have closed down. The reason for this is that people are buying their books online not at local bookshops. And they are buying tons of books online.
3. The reason newspapers are in decline is because the Internet provides instantaneous news these days. This is a challenge for newspapers in particular, not for printed media in general. Most (or all) books and magazines contain information with a much longer shelf life than a daily newspaper. So they are simply not as vulnerable to decline in the face of the Internet as newspapers are. It's the immediacy of news that makes newspapers vulnerable to online alternatives rather than the printed page being out of date.
4. It's true that DVDs and CDs and various other media technology have become pretty obsolete. But there are advantages to the physical book that still make it an attractive option compared with alternatives, and in ways that simply don't apply to other forms of media. Plus it's worth remembering that books have been around 2000 years whereas DVDs and what else have only been around a few decades at most.
Book sales around the globe are booming.
The WT is getting out of publishing because they can't charge for their literature any more, and because they are in financial difficulty, not because books and magazines in general are becoming obsolete.
None of the above is to claim, incidentally, that books won't eventually become obsolete or be replaced by alternatives. That may happen! Who can predict the future? The point is that it hasn't happened yet, not by a long stretch. And it's wrong to use the "decline of books" as a false premise to explain the WT's current rapid exit from book and magazine publishing. The real reason for this move is that book and magazine publishing isn't making the WT a profit any longer, and in straightened financial circumstances printing books and magazines of quality and quantity has become a luxury the WT simply cannot afford.