dust

For some, I know, the question doesn't need to be asked. Nature never needs protection; it does itself, and that's enough. But I think that, before dismissing the question, and before answering it, it is worth asking if the question itself has any validity: whether or not nature/the environment could even be thought of as needing protection, or in other words, whether or not there are any problems with the environment, and then whether or not humans might want to do anything about it. As you know by now, I believe there are severe problems. There are problems on an individual scale, on a local scale, on a national scale, on a global scale. They are problems by human standards, and not by the standards of the Universe, but we feel them nonetheless. Compared to the notion that the Sun will one day run out of juice and the Earth itself will be destroyed, the destruction we wreak is fairly insignificant, but still, it affects us, now and in the future. We can forget the word 'duty'. It is certainly the tendency of any living thing to protect itself. Even the most extreme let-nature-be-Taoists don't believe in literally doing nothing, ever, and letting themselves die from dehydration. So when should we believe that this tendency of all life for self-protection becomes false / unnatural / un-Daoist? If I don't believe literally in Zhuangzi's stories about men inhaling wind and drinking dew and mounting clouds, free from any harm, then I must recognize that being entirely blasé about things is a bit silly. I think Zhuangzi's Perfect Man of Old would probably strike another man down for poisoning the river or destroying the forest. One point of ch18, as I've always read it, is that one thing causes the next, and the upright ministers eventually compound all the preceding issues. By the end, there's little to be done. The Way is lost to all but a few. But if the problems are attacked early enough, they can be stopped. As shared by Moeller in his chapter 'Ethics' (Daoism Explained), beginning with Hanfeizi's commentary on DDJ ch63: '"... good physicians, when treating diseases, attack them when they are still in the capillary tubes. This means that they manage things when they are small. Hence, the saintly man begins to attend to things when it is early enough." Confucian ethics begin, so to speak, when the disease is already in the bones and marrow -- and it is the Confucians' and their morality's own fault that the illness could develop that far. The Daoists, on the contrary, try to 'manage things when they are small' and to 'Attend to things when it is early enough'.' Environmentalists are not the Confucians in this story. The Confucians are the technologists and the bad physicians, the type of people who are always looking to "improve" the world with creations, treating symptoms rather than causes, and thus taking the world further and further from health. Environmentalists are, in this story, the good physicians. The ones looking to treat the disease at the root, before it's too late. Not because it's righteous, but because it's what physicians do.

Daeluin, that's great. I wasn't aware of your personal situation, I don't think. Awesome. You and Yueya are, based on your posts in this thread describing your lifestyles and what else I know about you from past interaction, shining examples of good living -- and in my opinion of good Taoist living. Way beyond what I'm doing. And I know there are many others on this forum who are too. And I get it -- if you went around constantly telling people "Hey, look at my life, I'm doing this and that, you should be more like me," it would likely put off as many people as it attracted. Atheists, vegans, crossfitters, etc, are all known for making their opinions known and are derided for it by people who don't share their views, and society then perhaps starts to become slightly anti-atheist, anti-vegan, anti-crossfit, etc. (not that I'm defending crossfit!) And it's a losing battle either way. People who do recognize problems tend to look to technology for solutions, rather than looking to fix the roots of the problems. We should take more supplements, we should take more drugs, we should engineer more efficient animals for slaughter, we're going to colonize Mars by the end of the century, and then the galaxy... just so we don't have to change our lifestyles right now. Ego and comfort tends to override logic and compassion!

I'd like to believe that, but... it is, to me at least, evidently not the case at this point. Most people have little idea of the extent of the damage we're all doing. The only way a large enough number of people are ever going to learn a thing they don't want to learn is when those who see its importance stand up and talk about it. I'm convinced of certain things now that I had no idea about a year ago. I would still be in the dark if certain people hadn't made their voices heard.

Captain Planet was the shit! No, a Taoist won't generally do harm to nature on any large scale, and there's nothing in the Laozi or Zhuangzi about 'protecting' nature, and Zhuangzi even probably would laugh at me and tell me to take things as they come, Heaven, Earth, and I were produced together, and all things and I are one, etc. I haven't read most of the Daoist canon but I'd imagine there's nothing in there about 'protecting' nature. But 2000 years ago Taoists weren't worrying about anthropogenic climate change at least partly because the very concept would have been inconceivable. I don't believe anyone in the world at that time would have have the idea that eventually our technology would become so powerful and we would populate so much that we'd have the power to obliterate most life on the planet. Nobody at that time even knew what was on the other side of the planet... We must allow that nature is harsh and that every living thing dies, but we might also allow that, if the ideal is Free and Easy Wandering, Daoists and Christians alike have a duty to say "Please stop pouring shit into the ocean," or whatever... edit: just noticed that Daeluin and sillybear said pretty much the same thing. Ah well.

I don't know about the extinction timeline, but it's pretty apparent to me that anthropogenic climate change is a problem. And even if we can't see this from our daily lives and a little common sense, 97% of actively publishing climate scientists agree... according to NASA! The ones who put humans on the moon! They know a thing or 2 about a thing or 2! And while the idea of human extinction (and general extinction) saddens me, it's the stuff happening right now that bothers me the most. The ways in which we are currently harming ourselves and each other and billions/trillions of other animals, making life more painful and less healthy for ourselves, etc. So I preach a little over the internet, and also in person to anyone who is willing to have a conversation about it! Exactly. Yeah. I don't know how it works everywhere, but as I understand it, while recycling collection is free for homes, companies have to pay for commercial recycling (and many don't want to) -- which means a lot of shit is still going into the landfills which doesn't need to be. But also, we are all responsible for what corporations do. We can't lay sole blame on faceless entities -- really, we are them. Public corporations account for nearly 67% of VAT/PAYE-based enterprises in the UK, which means a lot of people work for them and/or rely on them and/or pay them for things. And businesses respond to consumer demand, which means if we all decided to support 'ethical' businesses, 'unethical' ones would start to fail or change. But most people don't. Even perfect little me. (sarcasm!). I just bought a can of Diet Coke! Many governments are doing their best to agree to reduce climate change, and some to actually reduce it... but they're also having to appease all the citizens who wouldn't vote for them if they were actually to say "Look, guys, shit is fucked up, and we all need to stop doing most of the shit we're doing or our grandchildren will grow up only knowing the colour grey." I voted Green last election not because I agree with everything the party would do, or because I think they'd run an effective government, but because being 'green' is the single most important thing any of us can be doing!

As much as we know about anything, I guess.. For all my experience tells me -- second hand experience, seeing photos/video online -- ISIS is just a group of weird blokes who like driving tanks, wearing black, and making death threats. I haven't seen the extent of power they're said to hold, how cruel they are, I haven't been to the region to see how far it goes... but I also don't think it's a big conspiracy (not that you're saying the environmental stuff is a conspiracy -- but some people are..) Occasionally, I've thought about it in terms of where I live. First-hand experience of waste, energy use, etc. - look at my home, and how much I throw away, and how much energy I use each day, etc; - and then look along my street, and how much is being wasted, and how much land is needed to produce animals and other food just for these few hundred people, and how many trees have been cut down just for the paper and palm oil and farmland etc, and from how many countries it's come from and how far it's travelled, and how much energy everyone is using, etc; - and then look at the whole city, and multiply the street by thousands; - and then look at the country, and multiply the city by thousands; - and then look at the world, and multiply the country by a lot more. And if every city in the world was like this one (a relatively green place), that'd be bad enough (just in terms of the human population)... but lots of cities are way worse than this one...

I once thought of myself as something of a 'philosophical' Taoist, but 'real' Taoists told me that's not a real thing... and so I wasn't sure what I was. If it turns out that 'philosophical Taoism' is a real thing after all, I'll be half of one. I don't know what the other half is.

'Tones', they're usually called. Yes, 4, and a neutral. So we can talk of 'intonation' for the tones and 'pronunciation' for the vowel/consonant sounds (initials + finals as shown in that table). Catch? You mean, this doesn't seem as hard as everyone says? Well... yeah, the intonation/pronunciation might not be that hard for you, at least in principle. Individually they might be easy enough, but there are certain rules for stringing them together in a sentence; remembering which words carry which tones (and many characters have multiple tones, multiple different meanings) and stringing them all together isn't quite the same as singing. And... I think a major reason Chinese is said to be difficult is not the difficulty of any single aspect of the language, but putting all aspects together into a fluent whole. For example, you might be great at the tones and pronunciation, but might find the vocab / characters / etc much harder. From the beginning I found characters easy to write and remember, and enjoyed it, but didn't have much fun with tones. I only really started getting the tones truly fluently after spending a whole year in China. So, regarding that website, yes, the table is pretty cool. I used a paper printout when I was learning, which didn't have clickable audio! (though I did have a pretty Chinese teacher, so...) It's a basic table of initials and finals, and if you can learn all of them, and learn the 4 tones, you should be able to put the 2 together and (theoretically) say anything in Mandarin. But obviously it's not always obvious to the learner if she's saying the words right, so it would be helpful to have either a teacher / study partner, or record yourself, listen back and compare.

Yeah, sorry. I don't know you well, but I know you better than that. I was just in a bad mood. Visiting this site tends to put me in one these days. I should really stop. Sure, we have lots of well-intentioned people along with all the apathetic / selfish ones. I think it's a certain slice of humanity which is taking those steps to protect our environment, try and stop/reverse the damage, and often people with power/influence are at the forefront, which is good. But all in all they / we are still a minority. The majority continues to be ignorant, whether willfully or not.

This Carlin-esque talk that "the planet will be fine" I find quite unhelpful. When people talk of "destroying the planet", if taken literally it's obviously not true. The planet itself is beyond even our destructive force. But it's just an imprecise figure of speech, and not one that should distract us from the reality: They mean that the beautiful world that we inhabit, the environment that gave us life, is gradually being destroyed. And this is absolutely true. I really love this planet. I love the whole thing, including the destruction. I don't hate humans any more than I hate bacteria or polar bears. And I love what humans can do; I love a large part of humanity. But I am thoroughly fed up with humans. We're really fucking things up, for ourselves and others.

I assume you're directing this at me. I did not say that bacteria are not destructive, I did not say that humans alone are destructive, I did not promote absence of action, and I did not say that nature is kind. If you were directing this at me, you've missed the mark on every point. Yes, bacteria are destructive. But right now, the variety and scale of destruction humans are wreaking is far, far greater. Most bacteria promote health and are necessary for us and other multicellular organisms to function. Humans are not necessary for any other life to function, in the same way that bears are not necessary. Most species are not necessary, but bacteria are fundamental to life on this planet. No, humans are certainly not the only destructive force. The Earth itself destroys and creates -- earthquakes, floods, etc. Other species destroy -- plague, disease, etc. But none, in modern times -- the last few thousand years -- have come as close as we are getting to producing mass-extinction and a shift in the environment, and no species in history has ever actually had the ability to perceive the destruction and do something about it. We have that ability, in theory, but still we continue to destroy (and whine about how we're not the only destroyers so it's OK). I did not say we should do nothing. This so-called "self-loathing" is simply a recognition of reality. Of course I believe we should make changes. I've made many in my own life in recent years. I wish others would, too. Most people I know are intent on making no changes and, in many cases, still consistently whining about the state of things. Nature is neither kind nor cruel. It's just what it is. But humans can be kind. If we chose, we could genuinely be the protectors/stewards that so many people falsely believe we already are. What's going to change if people refuse to accept the reality? If people like you whine about people like me complaining about the destruction that humans wreak, refusing to acknowledge it, pretending like it's MY fault that things are fucked up, when you're sticking your head in the sand and pretending that all we need to do is stop "self-loathing" and everything will be OK...?

The 'protection of nature' is an odd idea. As has been said, the natural world -- i.e. everything that exists -- doesn't need protection. It cannot be protected. It would have to protect itself from itself -- like water preventing itself from splashing itself. Then again, aspects of wild life on this planet could be better taken care of. We could, in theory, stop being destructive and start being protective. Or just inert. At the moment, we are the one species of plant or animal life most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, pollution of land air and water, mass de-populaion of various other species, and brutal treatment of various other species. Among other things. Even deadly species of bacteria, and other organisms like cancer, can't beat us on variety and scale of death and destruction. Some people see humans as the creators, caretakers, protectors, etc. But in reality we are just another destroyer.

I agree. Though I think we'd do better to process the book chapter by chapter in devoted threads, as was the original intention. I'd imagine more interest/participation that way..?

I didn't say population decrease would be bad. I made no judgement either way. It's like talking to a fucking straw man. I said "stop blaming immigrants for problems that are not their fault", not "you blame immigration for everything" I conceded right away that 240 is the right number, I conceded that immigration is relatively large compared to the past, and I gave reasons why apparent shortages can't be blamed on immigration, why immigration is not the unmanaged mess you claim, why immigration is often necessary, but you have consistently ignored everything that doesn't add up with "IMMIGRANTS BAD". So... I give up. Turns out that the majority of people in this country are extreme fuckwits. I give up on the whole goddamn fucking thing.

Jetsun, Immigration has been the main source of population growth in the country for a while, and without it our population would likely be decreasing. I don't think I denied that. However, a lot of this apparent lack of housing is down to: -- Decrease in new builds, as I've already pointed out (which as I've also mentioned is not down to immigration) -- Increase in single-person living. This has more than doubled since the '60s. Single-person households were at 29% in 2009, and it is I think generally agreed that this is down to high divorce rates from the '70s onwards and young adults becoming increasingly slow to get married and have kids As I mentioned, I don't think I've said that immigration isn't high, only that it isn't single-handedly responsible for your inability to buy a house. What is unmanaged immigration? You mean illegal immigration? Of course, this should be stopped as much as we're able to. But estimates for illegals here range from 400,000 to 800,000 -- not the major component of the immigrant population. The rest are workers, students, asylum seekers, and family members. International migrants can only apply for a work visa if they are highly skilled, rich, or have 'shortage skills' -- i.e. they can or are willing to do things the British are not. High numbers of migrants are students, who often bugger off home after a while -- but only after spending a lot of money here. I hope I don't need to defend the responsibility we have to accept at least some people seeking asylum. And as Cameron said (https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-on-immigration), "We also recognised that we needed to reduce the demand for migrant labour by making our own people able and willing to do the jobs this country needs. ... reducing the demand for skilled workers, and cracking down on those who exploit low-skilled workers. That starts with training our own people." If people born here aren't willing to do certain jobs, someone else needs to be found. Go into your local NHS hospital and see how many workers were born here vs abroad. Consultants, nurses, caregivers, caretakers, etc. The situation is not as simple as "stop the foreigners coming here so I can buy a house." And, once more, the decrease in new housing is not the fault of these migrants -- supply is not meeting demand at least partly because we're not building enough, not simply because we have too many people. So, I repeat, stop blaming immigrants for problems that are not their fault.

Me too

What I posted suggests that the target number of houses has been roughly the same since WWII, and confirms that we have been building fewer houses per year for decades -- while immigration has been slowly increasing. Slowly. Obviously there was much more need for rebuilding in the years immediately following the war, but there's always a high demand. Immigration has very little to do with it. The fact that we have been consistently building fewer new homes each year for decades.... well, I wonder how you connect that to immigration? Your situation is similar to mine, and I commiserate. I don't plan on ever being able to buy a house. But seriously: stop blaming immigration, or stop blaming immigrants, for your problems when they have little or nothing to do with it.

A friend posted that he saw a Confederate flag in a window other day. Someone's a little confused.

I don't doubt the number (doesn't seem like a lot for a population of 80mill) but I doubt that this is as bad as you think it sounds. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/525629/House_Building_Release_Mar_Qtr_2016.pdf Yes, roughly 240 per day so far this year, but: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/475832/Net_Supply_of_Housing_England_2014-15.pdf "The 170,690 net additions figure for 2014-15 comprised 155,080 new build homes, 4,950 additional homes resulting from conversions, 20,650 additional homes resulting from change of use, 630 other gains and a loss of 10,610 homes through demolitions." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30776306 "A decade ago, the Barker Review of Housing Supply noted that about 250,000 homes needed to be built every year to prevent spiralling house prices and a shortage of affordable homes. ... In 2012-13, the UK hit a post-war low of 135,500 homes."

I liked your idea, anyway, so here's something. Data taken from http://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/table-religious-composition-by-country-in-numbers/ and http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2015/rankings/ (with countries not included on the gender gap report removed also from the religion table) These show gender gap ranking along the x-axis and religion as % of population along the y. Figures are taken from different places and different years, so on the whole the percentages are not very accurate -- you'll see that some go over 100%! -- but they should be accurate enough to see a pattern if there is one. There seems to me to be at least some correlation between gender equality and majority religion. Not really cut-and-dry, but it's there. Christianity is much more evenly spread, but Islam takes most of the bottom spots. Cultural development over the centuries would be nearly impossible to put onto a graph, but we could look at economic status (and implied technological advancement). Some of the countries in the top 30 ranking for gender equality are Rwanda, Philippines, Namibia, Burundi, and Mozambique -- none of which are famous for being wealthy or technologically advanced, but in all of which there is apparently better gender equality than in the USA, Canada, Luxembourg, Australia, Israel, Singapore.... So I'm not convinced that there is an obvious link between wealth / development and gender equality either...

Hi Miffymog. First paragraph: you could fairly easily find data about sexual equality and religion among nations. Why post unsourced opinion where there is data available? Second paragraph: you could surely find info regarding average earnings for immigrants, or even Muslims specifically. You instead imply that such factors have an effect on behaviour without backing it up. I'd imagine that it's easy to back up, so why not do it? Third paragraph: the thing to do would be to find data about crime vs salary, if available. It's not that hard. I didn't expect any participation, to be honest, because it takes actual time and energy to look at real data and think about it critically, and most people -- not just on this forum, but everywhere -- are basically incapable of doing that. But for all the time and energy needed, it's not actually difficult.

For this post, 3 graphs. Figures taken from ONS and gov.uk. For now, I’m not really attempting to make a case for anything in particular, only laying out some numbers that I think are quite interesting and hoping to discover something. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/339036/prison-population-2014.xls -- table A1.4 http://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreport/november2015/7c5fa944.xls http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/articles/religioninenglandandwales2011/2012-12-11#toc We can see that prison populations for the crimes of 'violence against the person' and 'sexual offences' have risen fairly dramatically in the last decade or so, while most others have fallen or remained pretty even. Most remarkably, the 'sexual offence' prison population has more than doubled since 2002. In this figure is included 'rape', 'gross indecency with children', and 'other sexual offences', though I have removed figures for 'buggery and indecency between males' (I’m not sure why there are still people in prison for this..?). A few reasons for the rise in these prison populations must surely, among other things, be an increased willingness to report sexual offences, better investigation and detection techniques, and an increase in the overall UK population. However, as other criminal populations are either falling or remaining fairly even when rape and other violent crime is increasing, must we not acknowledge that the rate of rape, murder, and other such violent crimes is indeed increasing both actually and relatively? The next graph shows immigration for the same years. There is an increase, but it's obviously nothing close to being double. (The dotted line is a logarithmic trendline.) Census figures show that the foreign-born population of the UK as a percentage of the population was 8.3 in 2001 and 11.9 in 2011 (http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_346219.pdf) -- a greater increase than in previous decades, but still not monumental. The foreign-born populations of the USA, Canada, Australia, etc, are much higher. The prison population as a percentage of the population rose from 0.09% in 2002 to 0.1% in 2013 (57,272 prisoners to 70,781 prisoners). This increase in prison population is not small, but taken as a percentage of the population it becomes less noteworthy. The last graph shows how the religious demographic changed from 2001 to 2011. We see an increase in Islam and other religions, but these are thoroughly outsized by the decrease in Christianity and the corresponding increase in non-religious folk. Other research (https://humanism.org.uk/campaigns/religion-and-belief-some-surveys-and-statistics/) from 2011 says that less than half of those calling themselves Christian believed in the Christ of the NT, the son of God etc. Only 9% of people reported having been to a place of worship in the last week. In 2015, Brits claiming they had no religion was 42%. The most significant changes in the above figures are, then, a massive increase in rape and other violent crime and an equally massive increase in a lack of faith and worship. I'm not saying that this simpleton’s attempt at graph-making and number-analysis is of any real consequence, but if we were to suggest that any of these numbers were related, or if we really wanted to find connections between religion and violence (whether or not the two are truly closely related), we'd have to admit that a decrease in Christianity, more than anything else, would correspond with our apparent increased tendency to hurt each other. We certainly could not make it all about Islam. We also have figures (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/324097/number-males-rape-muslim.doc) showing that ~5% of the UK population is Muslim whereas ~12% of the prison sexual offender population is Muslim. We must note that this only accounts for those for whom the sexual offence was the primary charge – so it’s not counting murderers who are also rapists, for example. Either way, the proportion of Muslims in the prison sex offender population appears to be more than double that of Muslims in the UK population. I’d like to find figures for the other religious affiliations and compare, but this fact seems somewhat concerning. Put simply: it does appear to say that Muslims are more likely to commit sex offences than the average person. Regardless of proportion, though, these few hundred Muslims in prison for sexual offences do not account for the (more than) doubling of sex offenders in prison overall since 2002. I'd also like to look at info for porn, as it seems likely to me that the huge increase (that we're all well aware of..!) in internet porn in the last two decades could be far more relevant than changes in religion…

I'm not as pro-remain as Karl and Chang and others are pro-leave. Honestly, though I've been 'fighting' on the remain side, it's partly because nobody else was -- in the last 2-3 pages I read before I started posting in here, I didn't see much but anti-EU propaganda. I asked for a "stunningly cogent argument" and got, pretty much, more angry rhetoric. Polemic arguments breed polemic arguments. I have done what I can to counter the silly things Karl and Chang have been saying, but the more it goes on the more evident it becomes that they don't know how to discuss a subject using cited historical fact, honest data, expert opinion, or anything but rhetoric and anger. Or that they're unwilling to. Either way. This is not to say that the leave side doesn't have its merits. To be honest, I'm almost 50/50. I see the flaws in the EU, the craziness of the decision-making system, the lobbies, the potential for great corruption, the loss of power to Brussels. I somewhat understand the fear of this so-called 'European Superstate' -- it's a possibility, and it's not necessarily a good thing. Obviously, I also see it from the point of view from which I've been arguing. And the benefits of having an EU, and of Britain being part of it, seem to outweigh the negatives. Mostly, I'm curious to see what happens next.

Philosophy is psychology; psychology is spirituality. And sometimes, spirituality is religion. A 'good' philosophy or religion offers helpful guidelines for how to live, how to be, how and where to focus one's energy, etc. It might help one to see the world in a new light, heal one's mental issues, learn to live in society, more easily manage day-to-day living, learn to accept death, and so on. We each choose our own, though. There is no single Islam, no single Buddhism. Your Daoism might be more like a religion where mine might be more like a philosophy; his Buddhism might be more like philosophy where hers might be more like psychology; Judy's Christianity might be more spiritual than Bill's Islam; Rico's "spirituality" might be less helpful than Xiaoyu's faith. When I see people arguing over it all, I can't help but think that none of them have found a helpful method. Me included, sometimes..

I read everything from June 16th onwards -- everything on or after the day of the murder. The first notable comment is Karl's, at the top of page 43, where he says, "I notice that MPs like Angela Eagle who tweeted 'there was a shout of Britain first' have been hurriedly deleted after several eye witnesses said that no words were shouted. Remain are a desperate, depraved, opportunist vampires crying crocodile tears over the tragic death of a young woman. ... Anyone voting remain must weigh up the evidence of what now appears to be a fascist dictatorship of the worst kind and vote leave immediately." and then "Cameron and co are repositioning themselves in light of their shameless use of fear propaganda to terrify the public. It backfired and has made Cameron and Co look like idiots and tyrants" and things of the sort. Karl got excited, said some silly shit, like we all do. I maintain that the best idea would have been for everyone to not talk about it at all. I disagree.