it is interesting that many who do not believe any more or others with good thinking abilities choose to remain a witness.
i believe that the sunk costs are the reason... i will explain more below.
i also think this is why maybe even the governing body or other decision-makers at bethel are so reluctant to own up to real truth.
Ziddina - Invested is a good term as well. I think it feels like an investment at the time of making the effort, maybe it feels like a cost more after the fact. And as you said, "getting dragged and beaten into it" feels more like a cost. Your point about the intimidation and threats is a good one. Without the hammer of shunning and less painful threats the JWs probably do not have many witnesses hang around..... Look forward to reading your thread on it.
zarco
it is interesting that many who do not believe any more or others with good thinking abilities choose to remain a witness.
i believe that the sunk costs are the reason... i will explain more below.
i also think this is why maybe even the governing body or other decision-makers at bethel are so reluctant to own up to real truth.
It is interesting that many who do not believe any more or others with good thinking abilities choose to remain a witness. I believe that the sunk costs are the reason… I will explain more below. I also think this is why maybe even the governing body or other decision-makers at bethel are so reluctant to own up to real truth.
In economics, sunk costs are past costs that have already been incurred and cannot be recovered. For witnesses the sunk cost are a lifetime of self sacrifice, foregoing an education, not reaching out to make friends with “worldly people”, being isolated from communities and society in general.
In the business world, we are taught that only future costs matter when making a decision. If one were to include sunk costs, then the decision maker gets biased by what happened in the past and may make a poor decision with regard to a future investment. While all are taught to ignore sunk costs, few do so.
Some suggest that the reason that decision-makers consider sunk costs is that we are inherently loss-averse and thus normally act irrationally when making decisions. This aversion to loss is likely what causes many to stay a witness even when they know it is not the “truth”. The aversion is to losing friends and family, to owning up to years of being wrong and admitting that one may have taught false things to others.
It is understandable to me why so many stay. The trap of sunk costs is one that affects many business leaders and it certainly affects those deciding whether to stay a witness or to go, to fade or to leave immediately.
For those of you who have ignored sunk costs - left the witnesses- and are making decisions based on a look to the future , all the best to you. What a courageous sound decision!
For those of you who stick around because of the large amounts invested - time, money, friendships and sacrifice – I understand and all the best to you as well. My only advice is to examine whether the sunk cost is influencing your decision more than you wish it to.
Zarco
mabe the ws needs to talk to him, they haven't predicted a date is a while.. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/01/ba8v1av589.dtl&tsp=1.
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I love the SF Gate (Chronicle) they have a way of saying it like it is without seeming like attacking the crazy religious folks.
you'll hear experiences of how jehovah god protected his people in modern times, how only jehovah's witnesses didn't die in a calamity, how an angel evidently protected a person, etc.
they'll show how jehovah takes care of his people by all sorts of almost "miraculous" events----but if a witness did die or something deadly happened to a carload of jws, well, then, it's just "time and unforseen occurence" and we can't expect jehovah to perform miracles in our day, anyway!.
what gives?
Moshe - good point. If only the witness god would prove as generous. I hold out hope that he is, my hope is fading somewhat.
( wait, I wasn't a JW anymore when I did that!)
startfragment.
as we enter into a new decade, it might make sense to look back to view the progress than mankind has made in these last days.. about 200 years ago everyone on the planet lived on the modern day equivalent of about $400 a year.
the exceptions were tiny nobilities.
Interesting comments. Time and time again the bet against humans and our ability to solve problems whether they be economic, health, food or population growth issues is a bad bet. The human mind and the vast under-utilized resources of the earth will continue to facilitate continued improvements in all aspects of human life. There will always be costs and benefits associated with each change/improvement. Interestingly most forecasters focus on the costs rather than the benefits with the main premise being that more people have to share the pie, whereas a more realistic forecast is probably how big will the pie be.
Jafco - living conditions are improving worldwide. Two and three hundred years ago, western societies had child labor, lived hand to mouth and had high mortality rates - just as third world countries do today. But just a surely as the massive innovation and critical mass pulled today's wealthy societies out of poverty, it will do the same for third world countries in the future. Think back two or three hundred years ago to life in the US or Europe and compare it to life today and look forward two or three hundred years and see what is most surely to happen to third world countries.
Villabolo - I enjoyed your comments. It is easy to project the costs of population growth, it is more difficult to project the benefits. Every forecaster that I know of has always under-estimated the benefits. And when the population growth happens it is the benefits that are vastly superior to the costs.
zarco
i'm not sure if this has been posted yet, so i took the liberty of scanning a copy.
here is the figures for the 2007 service year report.
interesting that over 9,000 partook at the memorial last year when the numbers should be going down.
AwSnap - good point. China is roughly 4.4 times as large (population) as the United States. The preaching work in the US has gone on for 100 years or so and it has not even got a good foothold in China yet. Using JW logic, the end is a long, long way off.
i've started this subject a few times and dumped out of it an equal number of times, hoping for better guidance.
at this point, i think it is better for everyone to face highly likely outcomes and get realistic.. first, let's say it plainly: this is a depression.
i define "depression" as a multiyear period of economic weakness, decline, and depressed economic opportunity.
the majority of retirees will be out of the main stream of spending and put into a conserving mode
thetrueone - people in conserving mode is probably the best thing that can happen. I know that flies in the face of common knowledge, but consider:
When people conserve they use less of things, those who produce such things are now freed up to do other things that add more value. If a retired person eats less there is more food and if no one wants the extra food the price of food goes down. Both good things.
z
startfragment.
as we enter into a new decade, it might make sense to look back to view the progress than mankind has made in these last days.. about 200 years ago everyone on the planet lived on the modern day equivalent of about $400 a year.
the exceptions were tiny nobilities.
Villabolo - the "Texas example" is an extreme to get people to think creatively. Imagine the remainder of the US to use for agriculture and other uses Increasing population is a good thing and it is self-regulating if it becomes a bad thing. Michael Kremer - the Harvard economist - has gathered data for all of recorded human history and pre-history to support the theory that population growth drives technological progress, technological progress drives economic growth and economic growth drives population growth - a virtuous cycle....
Thomas Malthus said when welcoming in nineteenth century predicted that uncontrolled population growth would lead to mass starvation and human misery. It didn't happen then and will not in this century.
Some really profound thinking on the costs and benefits of population growth (the benefits far outweigh the costs) are found in the writing and research of Sowell, Kremer and Landsburg. Give it a read.
Best,
Z
startfragment.
as we enter into a new decade, it might make sense to look back to view the progress than mankind has made in these last days.. about 200 years ago everyone on the planet lived on the modern day equivalent of about $400 a year.
the exceptions were tiny nobilities.
Moshe - a statistic and a thought for your consideration.
Population growth is the greatest thing that can happen. We need more geniuses, we need more people growing and producing things of value. Technology advances increase food production and such advances are highly correlated with increases in population. And families can choose its own population growth rate, which become self-regulating.
A statistic from Thomas Sowell: Take the state of Texas, divide it into lots of 5,000 square feet, put a house on each lot and put a family of four in each house. You have just housed the entire world population. Think about that, just the state of Texas.....
Best,
Zarco
i've started this subject a few times and dumped out of it an equal number of times, hoping for better guidance.
at this point, i think it is better for everyone to face highly likely outcomes and get realistic.. first, let's say it plainly: this is a depression.
i define "depression" as a multiyear period of economic weakness, decline, and depressed economic opportunity.
Metatron – I enjoy your posts very much. They are thought-provoking. Below I present a few thoughts that disagree with yours.
First, let's say it plainly: this is a depression.
The United States and much of the developed world has had a economic slow down. However, the economies are not contracting, rather they are growing. Since the industrial revolution, incomes in the west have increased on average 1.5 percent per year, in the last 50 years 2.3 percent. These growth rates are unprecedented in human history.
The Great Depression of the 1930s reduced income levels to what they had been about 20 years previously. For a few years, people had to live as their parents lived, not worse.
If we are in a depression, we might have to live like individuals did a decade ago, but no worse than that. It is not a catastrophe, rather a blimp in the most prosperous time in human history.
Second, nearly no one is willing to discuss the demographic problem facing the world. It's very simple: how can you have economic growth if you are losing net workers, net population, AND the fastest growing part of your population is retired people?
It is true that population growth in the west if stagnate and that the population is growing older. However, the world’s population is increasing. This increase will produce more ideas through a larger pool of geniuses, more innovation, larger markets and trading partners. In today’s global market and economy the populations of a few countries has little effect.
How can nations borrow huge amounts of money that is supposed to be paid back by grandchildren who aren't being born?
The per-capita debt of the US is lower than any other western economy and it is a fraction of the GNP. See a representative table below illustrating the per-capita debt of top 10 countries.
Greeks: $27,746
Belgians: $27,023
Austrians: $26,502
Irish: $24,247
Norwegians: $21,402
Italians: $21,089
French: $18,946
Germans: $15,574
Finns: $13,617
Americans: $11,094
Your point about new technology destroying jobs does not seem accurate. Think back to the greatest innovations of the 20 th century, the computer, the railroad, the internet, the airplane. In all instances new, robust markets developed around these innovations. History suggest that this will be the case again.
We are living a great time, the economy is better, our health is better, we live longer and the list goes on and on. We will look back a decade from now and marvel at how far we have progressed.
All the best,
zarco
