Unplanned population growth

[Tubetec]

Theres really a lot in your last post I have trouble swallowing Dave , so Im going to try and address some of the points logically ,dispassionately and hopefully without causing personal insult.

If your looking to filter bias ,would it not be clever to take your news from a wider pool ?  the news sources you quoted all sing from the same hymn sheet as far as I can see.

Not only have the west interviened(when it suits us of course) ,we've actively 'backloaded' civil wars way ahead of time , its not unlike a long range bet that people in the know get to speculate on .

You accuse Russia of things the west itself has been up to its balls in for centuries  ,two prime examples of this are Saddam Housein ,who at one point was very much in the favour of the west, remember when Donald Rumsfeldt sold the Iraqi leader Chineese cluster bombs ,which still maim and kill to this day . Ghadafi was another example of this ,these guys fall out of favour later on ,and in the rush to right our own wrongs ,their people and their countries are turned to dust. What about the massachre's in Sudan ,meanwhile all visible satelite imagery is already block booked by the same power mongers who stir the pot .

Nice and simple to lay Africas problems squarely at their own doorstep ,but can you not see its our sense of entitlement to technology/resources thats driving this greed in the first place .

I dont really see how travel isnt a good thing ,sure because of the history of the flag you fly ,you could become a target in these places ,thats a fair point . The alternative of not travelling outside your own back yard means your more likely to take your own governments propaganda hook line and sinker without asking questions.

Re natures way of population control ,yeah fair point ,bats are full of nasty viruses and all sorts that are very dangerous to humans. There certainly seems to be efforts on behalf of the west to engineer nature in such a way  that it provides opperational cover for itself ,while putting the poorest least educated at even more risk ,you can choose to deny or pretend its not happening ,but for me there already more than enough evidence on the table of this.

You may consider yourself personally above tribalism ,but take for instance the soccer football ,is it not a pure manifestation of the 'need to belong' or 'wolf pack' mentality, its almost no different tribalism  as far as Im concerned.

You might think I'm sitting here seething with anger towards you ,Im not at all ,Im glad to see you back posting in Brewery ,despite some fundamental differences in opinion ,your views actually help me to refine my own points. 



Oh yes almost forgot ,  I meant to post this link for all of your perusal ,the intention isnt to enter into a debate on the origin of the documents ,but dig a little deeper into the message contained within ,its almost like a blueprint for the methodology the west uses to take land/resources .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion

Its certainly 'heavy dark matter' so small chunks at a time and once the penny drops ,you'll have probably extracted most of the good from it in any case. 

 

[DaveP]

If your looking to filter bias ,would it not be clever to take your news from a wider pool ?  the news sources you quoted all sing from the same hymn sheet as far as I can see.

That's a fair point, I did try Al Jazeera for a while, but got suspicious when everything seemed to have a Palestinian angle thrown in.
I don't trust American news or Russian come to that, so it kind of limits my choice to what I have, any suggestions?

What you are saying is that you can't even trust the BBC which is stacked with left wing liberals?

I am instinctively wary of conspiracy theories, I was astonished to find that later generations thought the Moon landings were staged.  The Russians tracked the Americans there and back and would have been the first to cry foul during the Cold War.

I will never take offence from a fellow Irish man

I agree that the West has done just as bad things in the recent past as Russia.  Most of it was justified by the west under the cold war banner, not to me though.  However, more recently we have taken a much more liberal stance compared to back then.  Being 12 years old in Oct 62 during the Cuban Missile crisis, when they were testing the air raid sirens certainly brought it into sharp focus!

When you say that it is our thirst for resources that is driving African problems, that implies that they are not fit to trade.
America can export wheat and soya without corruption, Australia can export beef and iron ore to China without corruption.
The reason that Africa has problems is corrupt government which diverts backhanders and commissions to the fortunate few.  When Africa manages to get democracy and government accountability right, then they should be able to trade ethically like any other nation, to think otherwise would be a racist slur that I'm sure you did not intend.

In the past, only Newspaper Barons could control the news, then later you needed a TV station too.  Nowadays anyone can post fake news so the waters are very muddy indeed.

DaveP

 

[boji]

Now with automation and robots, many are wondering how long the Human Resource scheme is going to last. Seven billion is going to be a lot of people out of work.

Universal basic income is a possible solution to this but it doesn't seem to interest anyone . Not sure why as the unemployment problem  is inevitable.

The countries that are getting the infrastructure assistance from China are making radical improvements.

In exchange for what? There is no free lunch. Plenty of interest rate payments come due off of infrastructure 'assistance'.  Call it a silk road initiative if you wish, but I doubt  China has rewritten the rules to the natural resource cash grab game.

If that money was used to create a secure sustainable society for those living in it.

Certainly the US could do with more carrot and less stick, but shall we ignore the fact that the US is largest donor of foreign aid, second only to the EU?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_development_aid_country_donors
Also it is naive to think foreign military operations are always lawless unilateral affairs. Private companies and local leaders buy our protection and sometimes they like to exercise their side of contract. Besides, we are not the only country offering military backing in exchange for access to resources, therefore most Interventions are carefully assessed for surrogate country blowback. This includes getting non-official tacit approval from foreign governments for the interventions. You think they don't also hold their hand out and get something in exchange before giving the green light?

By living on myths about the world

You paint China to be some exemplar of human rights and magnanimity. This also courts myth.

aggression is what is driving  the migration.
Famine, civil war, tribal unrest, lack of medical care, hyperinflation, religion, brain drain, superstition, inaccess to clean water, despotic leaders; these drive migration as well, and are not always the fault of US foreign policy.

 

[tands]

https://twitter.com/OurHiddenHistry/status/1018009750611558400

 

[tands]

You paint China to be some exemplar of human rights and magnanimity. This also courts myth.

He never did that, did you just make it up? This is what dude said.

The countries that are getting the infrastructure assistance from China are making radical improvements. For example with the new ports, airports, cargo transit systems, high speed rail, dams, schools and power systems,  poverty has been cut dramatically, not with money aid but assistance in essential infrastructure, without crippling IMF loans that destroy almost every developing country's economy that allows them.

And then you say -

Also it is naive to think foreign military operations are always lawless unilateral affairs. Private companies and local leaders buy our protection and sometimes they like to exercise their side of contract. Besides, we are not the only country offering military backing in exchange for access to resources, therefore most Interventions are carefully assessed for surrogate country blowback. This includes getting non-official tacit approval from foreign governments for the interventions. You think they don't also hold their hand out and get something in exchange before giving the green light?

Well there it is. The US military is responsible for providing killers/diers for capital. No problem with that though, boji? It'd be 'naive', instead of 'properly sociopathic'.

-

 

[boji]

did you make it up?
...Or no.

No.

No problem with that though, boji?

What is, is not the same thing as what should be so.

 

[tands]

Sounds like you were all for it, man. Until you got called on it.

You were just trying to justify it and come up with some counterpoint to dude, imply he's naive and anyone who disagreed with the US's policies were too. Not you though. You should sit and listen to dude, he of the 90 countries.

You could probably learn a thing or two what's his face Jordan Peterson doesn't know.

 

[tands]

Awful scene on the orange line. A woman’s leg got stuck in the gap between the train and the platform. It was twisted and bloody. Skin came off. She’s in agony and weeping. Just as upsetting she begged no one call an ambulance. “It’s $3000,” she wailed. “I can’t afford that.”

https://twitter.com/GlobeMCramer/status/1012814279857360896

 

[boji]

SPbStan, I should have said hello first, and welcomed you to the pub last night. My apologies, as it was 3am and I was a bit out of it.

At any rate, I appreciate your cautionary words and personal story, I also appreciate your concerns about the dirty tactics of hegemony. I was simply struck by how one sided your argument was about the US.
Someone said the other day that rang true to me, "A logical discussion can not function when tactical arguments are disguised as logical arguments that must be processed accordingly."
The "I'm right- it's self evident why- there's nothing left to discuss" type of tone.  It is not very helpful at creating the change in perception one would desire in one's audience.
A better argumentative method is to learn to 'steel man' one's claims (we could all be better at this), which means to anticipate the criticisms of your opponent by laying them out as part of your argument in advance, and then refute them before getting to the primary position.  I suppose this was what I was standing-in for yesterday morning.

Sometimes I try to take the difficult-to-defend position that the US is inherently, universally good for the world--  only because I want and believe in a good and better US. This does not mean I stick my head in the sand regarding our wrongdoings. But the only way to become something better is to first decide it is in fact possible, and that we are redeemable as a people.
"Evil" can not be reformed, it can only be sent over a cliff to die.
Another concern I have is the assumption- made more and more lately- that takes for granted that the greatest source of 'evil' can be defined and restricted to where those little lines that crisscross the map of the globe show. It assumes, in the case of the US, that were it not for what the US and its vast network of willing partners do in the world, the world would magically be peaceful and utopian. It only takes a moment to realize that if power is a universal desire of people, and people are comprised of nations, then no self-respecting country would see an empty peak on a mountaintop and not rush up to claim it with all their weapons at the ready.  The exception being perhaps a place like Switzerland or Tibet.  But human nature does not so much as blink at the stretching or contracting of established moral norms. Not historically. History shows us just how easily it is to go from peaceful best intentions to bombing noncombatants with chemical weapons.  Had the US not sold itself to the rest of the world and defended its interests in the way in which it has,  it can not be then assumed that the world would naturally have settled into peaceful systems of goodwill and trade. One can't also assume that the general rise in the quality of living, reduction of infant mortality, and general rise income all across the globe would not have been what it is either. Even poor nations are, generally speaking, globally faring better than rich nations did a hundred years ago.

 

[DaveP]

@Bogi
I agree.

It is always better to show that you appreciate other peoples views of a situation, rather than just  ascertaining  that you are always right.  History when first written never has all the facts,  the truth gets refined as more facts come out decades later.

The idea that America is the Universal Satan is propaganda.  America is composed of immigrants from every country on earth, so to condemn them all condemns oneself.  Individuals in government is another matter.  The American constitution is a well conceived document produced from the most enlightened thought 231 years ago, it has freedom as its core value.  This was of course compromised by the need for slave labour at the time, so not an entirely perfect set of ideals, but some improvement came later.

Every government is elected to put the interests of its own citizens first, generally this takes the path  of "enlightened self-interest" when working with other countries.  Sometimes, from fear and paranoia it has involved direct interference in another country with generally bad results, this happened far too many times during the cold war.

It seems to me, that politics attracts several personality types, the dedicated public servants,  the self serving types and the most determined.  Soft kind people almost never enter government office, they are trampled underfoot long before that.  Having stated the obvious, there are still a great many who want to change the world for the better, but do not expect perfection in anyone, we all have our flaws (even me dammit ).

There are countries in the world that despise freedom for religious or ideological reasons.  The reason for that is that they need to control their populations, so freedom is anathema to them, and hence, so is America and Western democracy in general.  So no western music, no dancing, strict control and subjugation of women.  Suppression of demonstrations, indoctrination in schools, etc etc.

My advice to SPbStan, is to settle down somewhere  he can tolerate the best, he ain't gonna find perfection in this world, even though he still has around 105 countries still to visit. :

DaveP

 

[Tubetec]

They way I'd put it is the moment you step out of a country, out from under the flag, or even to an extent move locations within the same country you learn something about your own culture you may have missed before. A bias or preconception, like has been refered to before in various post here,  becomes visible and maybe your in a position to work on the issue for the first time in your life .

We moved around a fair bit due to my dads job ,I wasnt much of a fan of having to change school and re-establish myself within a new peer group every few years ,I guess it teaches you something though,luckily I was fairly outgoing .
I spent two years of school on the continent in an international style establishment, generally for children of people who's parents worked as civil servants.I made friends with people from virtually everywhere on the planet in that space of time ,and it allowed me to break through many preconceptions and biases implanted on me by my own culture.

I remember returning home to Ireland after my couple of years away and thinking how much the place had changed ,but in matter of fact the place hadnt changed so much not nearly as much as my perceptions had .

 

[Tubetec]

There was one or two other points I wanted to share with Dave on my news habbits ,
I really only regard the national broadcast media's reporting as the spin ,you really need to think between the lines ,its never to be taken at face value in other words. The kind of specialist investagative tv report shows like panaorama,world in action we have a couple of similar type program producers here in Ireland ,I generally find these documentaries cut like a knife against fake/spun news items.

 

[DaveP]

There was one or two other points I wanted to share with Dave on my news habits ,

Well noted, some good investigative journalism there.

I used to watch Robert Peston on TV when I lived in the UK.  Now he is political correspondent for ITV.

He has been forecasting Premier May's downfall every other week since last autumn, that now makes him a low credibility source IMHO.  Most of the news I read now is speculation about what might happen.

Here are a few examples from today's Peston.

Have Mogg and ERG achieved decisive step towards no-deal Brexit?

Why has Theresa May capitulated to Brexiters?

Is Chequers plan dead already?

I suppose I'm old fashioned but I expect him to be giving me answers, not asking me questions!

DaveP