Lion Cask

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Posts by Lion Cask

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  91

  Population 7 billion. Changes ahead.

  by Lion Cask in

  1. social
  2. current

  according to the world population clock, we're going to hit the magic 7 billion number this year.

  that's 7,000,000,000,000 living human beings on this planet.

  the world is about to change, again.

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  Lion Cask

  Economic prosperity in a globalized economy demands trade, and war disrupts trade. We can all either trade, ignore each other, or fight wars. Only the first option benefits all involved. Advanced, rational nations can't fight wars like the old ones any longer.

  Neat graphic. But no more war on a large scale requires cooperative rationalisation and sharing of limited resources and the question is how will that happen? The quick answer is, in the absence of revolutionary developments in alternative energy and raw material utilisation, it won't. Demand for resources will not abate, it will increase exponentially in all sectors. The burgeoning economies of India and China absolutely depend upon traditional resource exploitation and acquisition outside its borders. For the time being, China will continue to use its economic clout to get what it wants. This is a fact of commerce. When manufacturing heats up, China wades in and grabs hold of resources like metals, oil and fibre and it does so by outbidding everyone else in the world. For example, China can absolutely afford to drive the price of copper through the roof (as it has on a number of occasions) because all its other input costs are low. Those other input costs cannot stay low forever and when that happens the dynamic will have to change. Will it be a different economic dynamic? Perhaps not. Nations, in particular superpowers, are not known for their willingness to tighten their belts and reign in their consumption of resources when they can simply take what they want from other nations. Superpowers have always waged war over resources and it is still happening in the modern world, notwithstanding shallow justifications like "war on terror and elimination of WMD". China may not be keen to take on the West to get what it wants, but the world is a big place.
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  91

  Population 7 billion. Changes ahead.

  by Lion Cask in

  1. social
  2. current

  according to the world population clock, we're going to hit the magic 7 billion number this year.

  that's 7,000,000,000,000 living human beings on this planet.

  the world is about to change, again.

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  Lion Cask

  I was so certain Lion cask would not make such a simple error

  To err is human, and so is typing too fastttt.

  All it would take would be a few nukes detonated at around 100,000 feet or one giant solar flare to fry the electrical grids world-wide and there would be instantaneous mass starvation. There might be some empty seats at the Super Bowl.

  Well now, that's a little less optimistic.
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  91

  Population 7 billion. Changes ahead.

  by Lion Cask in

  1. social
  2. current

  according to the world population clock, we're going to hit the magic 7 billion number this year.

  that's 7,000,000,000,000 living human beings on this planet.

  the world is about to change, again.

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  2. 
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  Lion Cask

  However, if you step up to 40,000 feet and gaze down, whatever the problems that have arisen in history, the general arc of it is upward and forward.

  Yes, BTS, but is it sustainable? Under current conditions I would say not. There is also the question of who will be in charge. China and India are emerging as the two new world economic superpowers. But who will be the world's military superpower 50 years from now? A hundred years ago it was the British Empire. The British Empire gave way to the USA and the USSR. Now there is only the USA, and if you extrapolate the arc of advancement in asia out 50 years the USA will have given way to China.
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  91

  Population 7 billion. Changes ahead.

  by Lion Cask in

  1. social
  2. current

  according to the world population clock, we're going to hit the magic 7 billion number this year.

  that's 7,000,000,000,000 living human beings on this planet.

  the world is about to change, again.

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  2. 
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  Lion Cask

  7,000,000,000,000 I think that's three too many zero's.

  The above figure would be 7 trillion

  Quite right, I've used too many zeros. It should be 7,000,000,000. Seven milliard British scale. My bad for not proof reading my OP before hitting the submit button.

  I, too, like BTS's optimism because I believe it to be directionally correct. One needs only extrapolate scientific advances that have happened even over the past 20 years to expect there will be wonders we can't even imagine 50 years from now. There will also be challenges we can't imagine.

  The single largest unresolved issue is energy. There's hope for fusion, but it's by no means a slam dunk. Green energy alternatives like wind and solar and tidal are fine, but they are only capable of supplementing more traditional supplies, not replacing it, and even then at much higher cost.
• 
  91

  Population 7 billion. Changes ahead.

  by Lion Cask in

  1. social
  2. current

  according to the world population clock, we're going to hit the magic 7 billion number this year.

  that's 7,000,000,000,000 living human beings on this planet.

  the world is about to change, again.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Lion Cask

  Something's going to happen, moshe. Maybe that 1919 thing.

  Edit. No, I'm not talking about the bogus annointed org schtick, I mean the Spanish Influenza pandemic.
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  91

  Population 7 billion. Changes ahead.

  by Lion Cask in

  1. social
  2. current

  according to the world population clock, we're going to hit the magic 7 billion number this year.

  that's 7,000,000,000,000 living human beings on this planet.

  the world is about to change, again.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Lion Cask

  According to the world population clock, we're going to hit the magic 7 billion number this year. That's 7,000,000,000,000 living human beings on this planet. The world is about to change, again. Putting that number into context, the estimated population of the entire world at the time of Christ was 200,000,000 people.

  We didn't hit our first billion until around 1804.

  Two billion wasn't reached until 1927, 123 years later.

  Three billion happened in 1960, only 33 years later (and that was after WW2 wiped out great chunks of the population)

  Four billion was hit in 1975, the world's population had doubled in 48 years. The older members of this board will remember the year well.

  Five billion. 1986. The world added one billion people in a mere 11 years.

  Six billion everyone remembers. It was in 1999.

  In 2011 we will hit the next milestone and then we'll be at 8 billion by 2024, as long as the UN's projections for improved birth control measures in third world and developing countries come to pass, otherwise it will be reached a year earlier.

  Those of us in the western world (in particular the North Americans) consume great gobs of resources. There is little doubt if the world's population suddenly consumed like we do, it would result in the collapse of the planet. That hasn't happened yet, but there's another profound dynamic at play besides rapid population growth and that is consumerism. People in the two most populous countries of the world are just starting to consume the way we do. They're not even close yet, but that is their ambition. The American Dream has become the Chinese Dream and the Indian Dream and that's why their economies are red hot while ours cool on the back burner. We are pushing the envelope, and they aspire to be like us. The world's consumption of resources has shifted into high gear and there are clear indications it is about to go into overdrive.

  Here's an economic indicator. Wonder why big screen TVs have come down so drastically in price this year? It's because they're everywhere. Companies are making more and more of them to meet demand, and the more units produced the greater the dilution of fixed costs until the total production cost of the unit comes down to its variable input cost. Big screen TVs are made with components supplied by contractors, which produce their component parts under the same fixed cost/variable cost model as the people assembling the TV - in other words, cost to produce is cut to the bone.

  But all those TVs take resources to make and, more importantly, they also consume energy resources. Every additional big screen TV that finds its way into every household in the western nations and in the developing world chews up electricity. That means more hydro, more oil, more natural gas and more nukes. And that's just TVs. We are consuming resources, many of which are not renewable, at a greater and greater rate.

  So. How do you think the world's going to change in the next, say, 50 years?

  http://www.metafilter.com/94959/We-Are-Running-Out-Of-Helium-and-Its-Worse-Than-You-Think

  http://www.worldometers.info/population/

  http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con-energy-oil-consumption
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  65

  I find it very hard to believe in a god

  by Newborn in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  but i find it equally hard to believe in the evolution theory .

  so for now, i chose not to believe in anything but myself and love.

  that was all.

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  Lion Cask

  Hitler was NOT a catholic by the way, he was at best a Pagan.

  I wonder, PSacramento, how many times you have made this assertion and how many times it has been challenged. Hitler was a baptised Catholic, was a Catholic altarboy and had aspirations for the priesthood, so he was at one time definitely a catholic and your statement on its face is incorrect. He was not, however, a practising Catholic by any stretch of the imagination and all but renounced his faith in the Church but his writings indicate that he did not entirely abandon his belief in God:

  "Everybody who has the right kind of feeling for his country is solemnly bound, each within his own denomination, to see to it that he is not constantly talking about the Will of God merely from the lips but that in actual fact he fulfils the Will of God and does not allow God's handiwork to be debased. For it was by the Will of God that men were made of a certain bodily shape, were given their natures and their faculties. Whoever destroys His work wages war against God's Creation and God's Will." (Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf p. 458, James Murphy translation.)

  This was written, of course, before Hitler's rise to power and it is entirely feasible, despite the following 1941 entry in the diary of General Gerhard Engle quoting Hitler, that he merely represented any belief that suited his purpose:

  "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so."

  There are definitely strong indications of a paganistic bent to Hitler's psyche, for example the adoption of the swastika and other pagan odinist runes and the reintroduction of ancient German pagan holidays. There is considerable evidence the Nazis drew upon ancient German mythology and the occult to further their cause but whether or not they actually believed all this fluff is doubtful. However, and here's the kicker, there is no evidence that Hitler was an atheist in the strictest sense of the word.

  I have a tendency to agree with you that the Fuhrer was not a Catholic per se, but everything else points to him being a theist, even if a pagan theist, and the debate whether or not he belonged to any organised religion including the Roman Catholic Church is, to an atheist, therefore moot.
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  13

  Change and Challenges Facing the Watchtower

  by eric356 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  some of you may have seen my previous thread of almost the same title.

  i've thought a bit more and formatted my thoughts into a longer essay.

  change and challenges facing the watchtower.

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  Lion Cask

  You've made a fine effort of encapsulating a large subject. A few observations to consider:

  WTS recruitment efforts tend not to target electronic-media-savvy individuals. In fact, the type of personna attracted to the WTS is one that yearns for the simpler life and that is more inclined to toe the line on doctrine. For these people, an attractively printed, colourful tract is comfortable and even comforting. There is a reason the WTS has just spent tens of millions on a brand new, hugely productive, German engineered printing facility at its Georgetown, Ontario bethel, and that is to meet expanding demand. This when pressrooms all over North America are shutting down by the score.

  I believe the internet revolution will play into the hand of the WTS rather than detract from it, if only from the standpoint that the Society has always, always sought to differentiate itself from the mainstream Christian sects. The stake, rather than the cross. No trinity. The blood doctrine. Door to door work. No Christmas, birthdays etc. The list of unique beliefs and practices is considerable. If the WTS remains one of the few religious organisations using the printed word, it will only differentiate itself further. All those tracts and books are not going to go away any time soon.

  There is a dynamic at work from within the WTS that is becoming apparent. Dissention. The blood doctrine is being challenged, sometimes discreetly and sometimes more overtly. I cite the AJWRB, the Associated Jehovah's Witnesses for Reform on Blood, which counts in its membership former as well as active Jehovah's Witnesses, the latter operating anonymously. Others have just quietly chosen to ignore the doctrine altogether while staying quiet about it. The Society itself knows it's in a bind on blood doctrine and is struggling to find a way to extricate itself, as evidenced by its most recent internal memo, already discussed elsewhere in this forum. More importantly, the WTS has through its disfellowshipping and shunning practices entrapped individuals who would otherwise leave its ranks if not for the loss of friends, family, jobs and inheritance. The number may be larger than you might think and the result is an element within the Society that is Jehovah's Witness in name only. These people, when they go door to door, are not going to be enthusiastic salesmen and they will not be inclined to bring up their children with the same degree of zeal as did their parents and grandparents before them. While the WTS becomes more strident in its demands for obedience and more heavy handed in its application of disfellowshipping policy (witness the new elder's manual).

  Interesting times ahead.
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  52

  What was your first vehicle? (pics!)

  by sabastious in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  mine was a 1986 ford courier i got after working a summer and obtaining $600.00.

  it was a beater and i named him earl.

  like this one just white and more zombified:.

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  Lion Cask

  AND, the VDub had a backseat.
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  52

  What was your first vehicle? (pics!)

  by sabastious in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  mine was a 1986 ford courier i got after working a summer and obtaining $600.00.

  it was a beater and i named him earl.

  like this one just white and more zombified:.

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  Lion Cask

  Thank you, james_woods. It is an absolute pig on fuel and takes 9 quarts per oil change, is atrociously difficult to work on (one needs to remove the entire front end and engine in order to change the clutch which, like all other spare parts and maintenance, requires great gobs of money), tends to overheat in stop and go traffic and raises expectations which, at age 58, I am certainly no longer able to accomodate (even if I wasn't married). I think I keep it for sentimental reasons.

  And Curtains, the VW Beetle has been voted one of the top 10 most influential cars ever produced. You should repost your pic.