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Showing posts from October, 2015

The Future of Our World if we Stay on This Track

"If, for the sake of illustration, the fertility of countries is kept constant at 1995-2000 levels, the world population soars to 244 billion by 2150 and 134 trillion in 2300 , a definitely impossible outcome. All of this increase occurs in the less developed regions, whose population rises from 4.9 billion today to 134 trillion in 2300. In sharp contrast, the population of the more developed regions declines from 1.2 billion in 2000 to 0.6 billion in 2300 were its fertility to remain constant at current levels. Among the less developed regions, Africa, with its very high current fertility levels, grows most rapidly, passing from  0.8 billion in 2000 to 115 trillion in 2300 in the illustrative constant-fertility scenario." http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/longrange2/Long_range_report.pdf http://www.worldmapper.org/posters/worldmapper_map12_ver5.pdf If this unlikely scenario somehow came to pass (just use your imagination), it would mean that Europeans wou

Cultural Libertarians VS Cultural Authoritarians

This is a fascinating article that closely matches what I've been talking about and how I've been feeling recently.  It is written by a conservative, but he thinks that in addition to a "left"-"right" continuum, there is also a perpendicular axis ranging from "cultural authoritarian" to "cultural libertarian".  And members of both the left and right can fall anywhere along this other axis.  Those who are capable of living with each other (if not agreeing with each other) are the "cultural libertarians" of both sides.  These are the people who care about freedom of speech more than they care about shutting down people with differing ideas.  Such people include Bill Maher, Sam Harris, Maajid Nawaz, and more...and that's just the left.  Yet these people are sometimes called "neocons" by other members of the left who are "cultural authoritarians".  Maajid Nawaz has been called a "porch monkey" for h