Stranger things

[Taomeow]

14 minutes ago, blue eyed snake said:

Those dams were removed or demolished to give the water more space at places were that water has space to spread out without hurting human buildings. Same process is going on here in the Netherlands.

 

Without deliberate interventions/ water management the damage would have been worse

 

They told a different story in Spain though.  Supposedly the goal was to restore the fish migration routes.

 

A noble enterprise of putting the toothpaste back into the tube after it has been squeezed out.  

 

There's always a sensible, humane, kind and compassionate narrative accompanying every destructive intervention and every austerity.  I almost wish someone hired me to write such stories -- I can pump out as many as they need, as could anyone who's been trying her hand at sci-fi.  

Edited November 25 by Taomeow

[Gerard]

In this case, we can apply the following principle put down by Rousseau:

 

"There are always four sides to a story: your side, their side, the truth and what really happened."

 

[Nungali]

Dams need to be in the 'right' place . Ask your beavers .

 

Here, that whole idea took a turn some time back . A farmer , like all the others in the  area had  some season watercourses  that in the dry season  didnt flow much , in the dry season , a flooded in the wet season  and that caused bank erosion  down stream floods.  In the dry and partially in the wet  the whole  small valley systems and the farms where dry  and  not too productive .

 

Of course , this being farmland , the whole area is 'unnatural '  ( especially considering the type of agriculture being practiced .) .

 

He stopped clearing out the streams and stopped animals entering . Then he started , not just repairing the riparian zones ( a common practice now ) but  dumping stuff in the streams on his property ; logs , old wood , organic detritus ... he totally 'clogged ' the waterways up .  Locals thought he was nuts and going overboard with it .  It slowed the water down and allowed it to seep out  underground through the whole valley . Some places pooled and made little wetlands . Birds and wild life came and diverse vegetation , more bees , etc .  After a few years his whole farm was green and lush even in the dry , healthy lush green pastures , while the other properties looked yellowed and brown and dry .

 

Yes, he lost a bit of 'usable ' land , but what he retained improved immensely and so did the health and condition of his environment and herd .

 

Many huge river systems get regulated naturally this way ; the Amazon , its a huge sponge in some places upstream  and the same dynamic in the headwaters  that feed the Nile do the same thing , supplying a constant flow during the dry season .

 

 

^ the greener parts

 

 

I am assuming large dams are, in part, for their water supply , especially those in areas of dense populations . Knock them out and what replaces the water source  "bank ' ?  Also . many dams exist and have incorporated designs to allow up and down stream fish migrations .    Why knock out a huge water supply  to allow the fish to go up and down , when, supposedly , both can be done ?

[Taomeow]

Scorched earth policies?  

[Nungali]

What to do when the head moderator starts doing 'stranger things'  ?   Not here , but on my history forum , which also covers many subjects .  I have noticed a developing 'unbalance' and now  he interjects into  topics, even with a sensitive nature   (like land dispossession of the indigenous ) and in the middle of sensible discussion ,  with silly one line comments, and irrelevant 'jokes' . OR he goes on some weird misunderstood rampage against peoples .   One person , who I know is NOT a racist  or anything like that  recently got a perma ban  for being racist .  Head MOD  even got modded by another mod recently , who I guess had had enough .of him. of course he laughed it off with a sarcastic comment .

 

I am tempted to start an 'historical ' thread there on the development of   despotism ... how if one person gets too much power , even if at first they seem good and fair , they will gradually, without any checks or balances ,   eventually become a despot .

 

In both cases , it seems , the rotation of  different people through the same  position helps to defend against this .

[Taomeow]

4 minutes ago, Nungali said:

What to do when the head moderator starts doing 'stranger things'  ?   Not here , but on my history forum , which also covers many subjects .  I have noticed a developing 'unbalance' and now  he interjects into  topics, even with a sensitive nature   (like land dispossession of the indigenous ) and in the middle of sensible discussion ,  with silly one line comments, and irrelevant 'jokes' . OR he goes on some weird misunderstood rampage against peoples .   One person , who I know is NOT a racist  or anything like that  recently got a perma ban  for being racist .  Head MOD  even got modded by another mod recently , who I guess had had enough .of him. of course he laughed it off with a sarcastic comment .

 

I am tempted to start an 'historical ' thread there on the development of   despotism ... how if one person gets too much power , even if at first they seem good and fair , they will gradually, without any checks or balances ,   eventually become a despot .

 

In both cases , it seems , the rotation of  different people through the same  position helps to defend against this .

 

A lousy head mod or any kind of lousy boss does screw things up more often than not -- but if the paradigm whereby they are selected/appointed/hired/voted in etc. doesn't change, rotation often makes only marginal difference.  What despotically rules us in most situations is a set of rules itself, and whoever is in charge of administering them can bend them only so far -- even with the best of intentions, which people who've sniffed the slightest whiff of power seldom maintain even if they had them before.  

[Taomeow]

I am anprim and I believe criticism of this particular paradigm always boils down to ad hominem -- people are criticized either for not already living that lifestyle, or else on the assumption they could never live up to their beliefs.  I find both arguments weak (like any and all ad hominem) -- and a strong one against this stance is something I'm yet to encounter.  

 

Pre-civilized societies -- synonymous with matriarchal -- were not unruly by any stretch of imagination, it's just that the rulers were natural.  When my kids were babies, I was their ruler.  Matriarch.  Supreme deity in charge of their every need.  Fading away from this position is also natural -- you don't rule over anyone whose needs you can no longer meet -- except to the extent they owe you a debt of gratitude for having met those needs in the past at personal sacrifice, back when they were weak and dependent on you and you were strong and not dependent on them.  Any other arrangement is unnatural. 

 

And the greatest number of people whose needs anyone can meet without skimping on love and devotion is seven, which is a fact of human psychology.  So any and all fathers/mothers/Big Brothers of the Nation, of the People, of the expandable/collapsible cage containing thousands, millions, billions of creatures is an usurper and a despot, no matter how nice they may seem in comparison to other despots in that position.       

[Cobie]

1 hour ago, Taomeow said:

I am anprim …

Me too. 
 

 

[Taomeow]

Fake news is as old as journalism.  

 

[Nungali]

' Some newspapers ran earlier reports but these were not so accurate. “World’s biggest ocean liner hits an iceberg,” ran the headline in France’s Le Petit Parisen on April 16th. “Happily it was possible to save all 2,358 people on board.”

 

Why ? 

 

" These historical newspapers naturally allow us to see how the event was reported. More than that, they also give us insight about the varied newspaper styles and editorial decisions of the time."

 

http://www.europeana-newspapers.eu/how-historic-newspapers-covered-the-titanic-disaster/

 

 

I can see people of the future reading our news and  ... WTF ?     " They are eating our dogs .... they are eating our cats  ..... "     

[Sanity Check]

On 11/26/2024 at 10:59 AM, Taomeow said:

I am anprim

 

 

Googles anprim...  Anarcho primitivism.

 

I suspect many taoists view industrialization and modern society as sup optimal.

 

Which is why many dislike wheat for it allowing massive over expansion of human population(?).

 

 

 

[Taomeow]

6 hours ago, Sanity Check said:

 

 

Googles anprim...  Anarcho primitivism.

 

I suspect many taoists view industrialization and modern society as sup optimal.

 

Which is why many dislike wheat for it allowing massive over expansion of human population(?).

 

 

I guess different people have different reasons for arriving at this anti-ideology, and understand what it is about differently too.

Also some don't believe in "massive over-expansion of human population" -- only about 10% of the dry land of our planet is presently inhabited, although things that create the illusion of overpopulation (besides malthusian, darwinian and eugenicist ideologies favored by the rulers and imprinted onto the ruled) are numerous and fully artificial.  Deforestation and the resulting desertification of habitats (a hallmark of civilization), massive land grabs with individual or investor ownership of most of the livable space, forced displacement and herding into cities (which are of course overpopulated but you can overpopulate any cage if you make its surroundings hostile to survival...  besides, animals born in a cage are generally unable to survive in the wild, be they lab mice or humans).   Wheat is a major player of course, as is any other sedentary grain agriculture (China was for the longest time, and remains, the most populated place on Earth on rice, sorghum and millet). 

The Russian word for cereal grain, zlak, has the same ancient root as the word for evil, zlo.  

[Taomeow]

19 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

I can see people of the future reading our news and  ... WTF ?     " They are eating our dogs .... they are eating our cats  ..... "     

 

What future?  You may be behind the times on the globalist antics...

 

 

 

 

[Nungali]

 

Indeed .... in a human home .    I have seen them have a pretty good life outside , as a hunting companion  ... they seem to love it !

 

I've said it a few times; I have feral pets , wild ones that come and go as they please .  Now I got two possums over the bed . Last evening a huge carpet snake head appeared at the window outside outside . She positioned herself  near the possums sleeping .... OH oh !   Do I defend my friends ( possums ) or  let my other fiend 'take her course'

 

I observed for about half an hour checking every 5 mins  and realized something else had snakes attention . The I remembered that yesterday I heard a distinctly unpossumy sound in the roof, more a like a quick scratching of a rat striking the scratching foot against  what it was sitting on .....  go snakey !   All safe ... a possum is a bit too big for a snake that size , although it was  a large one  ( they can get a lot larger  and baby possums can be threatened .

 

No dogs though .... they come down from the forest  to the  ridges near  the river bank opposite to my place and set up a wild and eerie  group howling , as if they are calling the domestic dogs "  Why are you over there , you have gone soft , come and join us; the anprim dogs !    ....   come  ....  join us . ... "Ooww-oooOOOOO   WOOOO WOOOOOooooo . "

 

 

[  New hunting companion needed ?  I heard my teacher do this ;

 

He would hear or get a report  of a call of dingo pups . The he would go there and listen carefully  to their  specific calls and watch to locate the 'den'  . Then he would go off somewhere nearby and play his didgeridoo  in a remarkable imitation of the call , drawing the mother away from the den  to find the lost pup . Then he would bolt back before the mother returned and nab a pup ... steal it . Take it home, integrate it with any other dogs  and it would start  its hunting training . 

[Nungali]

4 hours ago, Taomeow said:

 

What future?  You may be behind the times on the globalist antics...

 

 

 

 

 

 

But wait ... if we get rid of pet cats ... there will be 4 empty isles in the supermarket !

[Taomeow]

2 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

 

But wait ... if we get rid of pet cats ... there will be 4 empty isles in the supermarket !

 

Nah, they will just add a heap of sugar to dry cat food and call it cereal (the main ingredients are the same anyway), rebrand it as fortified breakfast of champions or healthy treats...  or maybe market some of it unchanged to kids who identify as furries or therians, it's a growing trend.  Which they can make grow bigger anytime if they decide it's commercially desirable.  Not their first rodeo.  

[Sanity Check]

10 hours ago, Taomeow said:

 

I guess different people have different reasons for arriving at this anti-ideology, and understand what it is about differently too.

Also some don't believe in "massive over-expansion of human population" -- only about 10% of the dry land of our planet is presently inhabited, although things that create the illusion of overpopulation (besides malthusian, darwinian and eugenicist ideologies favored by the rulers and imprinted onto the ruled) are numerous and fully artificial.  Deforestation and the resulting desertification of habitats (a hallmark of civilization), massive land grabs with individual or investor ownership of most of the livable space, forced displacement and herding into cities (which are of course overpopulated but you can overpopulate any cage if you make its surroundings hostile to survival...  besides, animals born in a cage are generally unable to survive in the wild, be they lab mice or humans).   Wheat is a major player of course, as is any other sedentary grain agriculture (China was for the longest time, and remains, the most populated place on Earth on rice, sorghum and millet). 

The Russian word for cereal grain, zlak, has the same ancient root as the word for evil, zlo.  

 

 

Human population in 1950 - 2.5 billion

 

Human population around 2024 - 8 billion

 

Triple 3x growth in 74 years is not sustainable.

 

Sometimes in seeing old James Bond films from the 1960s. It can be felt how much healthier and more balanced the earth and people were in that era.

 

Now we have a million psychological disorders and addicts overdosing on sidewalks everyday.

 

And its not up for consideration that we may have taken a wrong turn somewhere in our development?

 

I know there are some who say many deserve to die for destroying the earth and nature. 

 

I'm not one of them.

 

I like japan's declining birth rate as a solution.

[Cobie]

“A scheduled psychic evening had to be cancelled due to "unforeseen circumstances" - as ticketholders fumed the clairvoyant should have "seen that coming". 
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/scheduled-psychic-event-forced-cancelled-34250025

 

 

 

[Taomeow]

14 hours ago, Sanity Check said:

 

 

Human population in 1950 - 2.5 billion

 

Human population around 2024 - 8 billion

 

Triple 3x growth in 74 years is not sustainable.

 

Civilization is not sustainable, has never been, will never be.  'Growth" -- meaning incessant expansion of everything everywhere all at once -- is its only way to exist.  Exhaust resources here, move there, rinse, repeat 'cause you need to compete.  (Every "sustainability" scam is a scam in this setting, nothing more, no solution to anything, you just move on to straining some other populations and exhausting some other resources.) 

And population growth of yesterday which you cited is a fluctuation similar to the over-expansion of horse population dragging carriages in the 19th century.  There were 4.3 million horses in the US in 1840 and 27.5 million in 1910.  7 times the number in 70 years.  The main concern of environmentalists of the era was that our cities will drown in manure.  They calculated knee high manure in the streets of New York in this and that number of years, thigh high in another number of years, stuff like that.  Where are those horses now?..  

A similar fluctuation in the human population has already proved to be short-lived.  Currently most countries' reproductive rates (including in all "first world" countries) are far below population replacement rates, this is the biggest die-off in the making, bigger than in a nuclear war only slower.  The record holder for the lowest birth rates today is South Korea and they calculated that if this rate stays what it is (doesn't even have to go lower), South Koreans will go extinct in three generations.  Just like those New York horses...   

Edited December 6 by Taomeow

[Apech]

15 hours ago, Sanity Check said:

 

 

Human population in 1950 - 2.5 billion

 

Human population around 2024 - 8 billion

 

Triple 3x growth in 74 years is not sustainable.

 

Sometimes in seeing old James Bond films from the 1960s. It can be felt how much healthier and more balanced the earth and people were in that era.

 

Now we have a million psychological disorders and addicts overdosing on sidewalks everyday.

 

And its not up for consideration that we may have taken a wrong turn somewhere in our development?

 

I know there are some who say many deserve to die for destroying the earth and nature. 

 

I'm not one of them.

 

I like japan's declining birth rate as a solution.

What you see today is a direct consequence of the post war liberal consensus.  Because this includes a fake interpretation of personal freedom.  True freedom means to follow Dao, fake freedom is following personal wants and gratification.

 

 

[Taomeow]

1 hour ago, Apech said:

What you see today is a direct consequence of the post war liberal consensus.  Because this includes a fake interpretation of personal freedom.  True freedom means to follow Dao, fake freedom is following personal wants and gratification.

 

 

 

That's very true.  Although if dao is followed consistently, generation after generation, those things tend to coincide -- personal wants and gratifications become aligned with universal ones instead of clashing with them.  Normal people seek what's good for them and their tribe and avoid what's harmful quite naturally.  When huge masses of people are busy seeking what under normal lifestyles they would avoid while avoiding what normal dao-following ways would lead them to seek, we have a global lunatic asylum on our hands.  

 

Also I think a big contributor to the recent population expansion was deeply biological, namely the evolutionary response to WWI and especially WWII -- a phenomenon well studied in animal and insect populations but ignored in humans.  It's a curious (and very sensible, come to think of it) fact of biology that many species respond to their peers being killed in large numbers by dramatically heightened reproductive patterns.  This is always temporary, and once the killings stop reproductive rates return to sustainable.  That's IF the killings stop.  For some species they never stop (whether direct or indirect killings, e.g. via habitat deterioration and deprivation).  Those become "endangered," not finding enough mates to reproduce and/or enough resources for their young to thrive, and most of the time eventually go extinct.  I don't think the mass killings of humans ever stopped (though the scale was and is more scattered, less concentrated, than in a world war, and often less direct).  So our first phase of biological response was to reproduce more vigorously, and now looks like we're in the second phase for the endangered species, where reproductive rates plummet.  Extinction is the third and final phase.    

[Sanity Check]

19 hours ago, Taomeow said:

 

Civilization is not sustainable, has never been, will never be.  'Growth" -- meaning incessant expansion of everything everywhere all at once -- is its only way to exist.  Exhaust resources here, move there, rinse, repeat 'cause you need to compete.  (Every "sustainability" scam is a scam in this setting, nothing more, no solution to anything, you just move on to straining some other populations and exhausting some other resources.) 

And population growth of yesterday which you cited is a fluctuation similar to the over-expansion of horse population dragging carriages in the 19th century.  There were 4.3 million horses in the US in 1840 and 27.5 million in 1910.  7 times the number in 70 years.  The main concern of environmentalists of the era was that our cities will drown in manure.  They calculated knee high manure in the streets of New York in this and that number of years, thigh high in another number of years, stuff like that.  Where are those horses now?..  

A similar fluctuation in the human population has already proved to be short-lived.  Currently most countries' reproductive rates (including in all "first world" countries) are far below population replacement rates, this is the biggest die-off in the making, bigger than in a nuclear war only slower.  The record holder for the lowest birth rates today is South Korea and they calculated that if this rate stays what it is (doesn't even have to go lower), South Koreans will go extinct in three generations.  Just like those New York horses...   

 

 

I guess the focus of the discussion is:

 

Are we as people capable of making exclusively perfect choices that are both optimal and constructive.

 

Or are we capable of making bad choices that are extremely self destructive in nature.

 

People are known to have cut down more than 50% of the world's natural forests since emerging as dominant species. What percentage of forests can we cut down before we run into serious problems? 

 

If you say that only 10% of dry land is occupied by people. Then you must believe that 100% of dry land can reasonably be occupied. With 100% occupation naturally translating to 100% of forests in the world being cut down. Does this sound like a good idea when its put into perspective?

 

3x human population expansion is a result of bad decision making and self destructive policy.

 

50% of forests gone is bad decision making / self destructive.

Edited December 7 by Sanity Check

[Apech]

1 hour ago, Sanity Check said:

 

 

I guess the focus of the discussion is:

 

Are we as people capable of making exclusively perfect choices that are both optimal and constructive.

 

Or are we capable of making bad choices that are extremely self destructive in nature.

 

People are known to have cut down more than 50% of the world's natural forests since emerging as dominant species. What percentage of forests can we cut down before we run into serious problems? 

 

If you say that only 10% of dry land is occupied by people. Then you must believe that 100% of dry land can reasonably be occupied. With 100% occupation naturally translating to 100% of forests in the world being cut down. Does this sound like a good idea when its put into perspective?

 

3x human population expansion is a result of bad decision making and self destructive policy.

 

50% of forests gone is bad decision making / self destructive.

Europe has something like 48% more forestation since the end of WWII - but it is not natural being more pine and eucalyptus used as a resource.

 

I believe most predictions suggest the world population will peak at 9 billion and then decline quite rapidly.  Our problems might become those of a species in decline - who knows?  
 

 

[old3bob]

 

And oxygen from trees is not the main source of it for if i remember correctly, it is the plankton (or blue-green algae) in the oceans...and the oceans and seas have been used as a dumping ground by mankind for thousands of years and now with modern pollution are in very bad shape!!!  karma is not fooled.

Edited December 7 by old3bob

[Nungali]

Police listen to crazy woman who says her friend (also a little disturbed at the moment ) was killed by her husband  ( a mate of mine ) .  They contact the son and ask him disturbing questions .  He rings his father  and says the police are about to come to his property and swarm over it and pull it apart .   He tells the son to ring  them back  and tell them , their informant is crazy, why did they believe her and why not check to see if she is alright first  instead of sending a team to his place ? She has probably run off to their holiday house at ....    which was exactly where they found her .

 

WTF ... you have a fight with your wife, she storms off and next thing you know a   SWAT  / murder investigation team arrives ?