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~Jirisys ()
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A small bomb is enough to be honest. Besides, Italy may blame their scientists for not warning them about it.
~Jirisys ()
Because I DARE to reference popular Sci-fi?Quote:
Originally Posted by CrossLOPER
The people making the decisions about how to use genetic technology will not be Scientists or Philosophers - they will be politicians. It is inevitable that genetic modification will be used to create an obedient warrior-caste because we have already imagined it several times, and therefore the idea will be put into practice, and because such a caste would be useful to someone with political ambitions.
There's also the solution of forcing the religious minority into obedience, as has been done in Denmark and elsewhere.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiaexz
That will happen eventually - so they might just as well do it and get this whole sorry joke over with.
I do think this is a joke - it will last just as long as we remain over-populated. Once governments need to encourage pro-creation we'll see "marriage" redefined again accordingly.
How do you envision this coming about?Quote:
Once governments need to encourage pro-creation we'll see "marriage" redefined again accordingly.
They'll create an inducement to procreation - so heterosexual couples who stay together will get preferential treatment.Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
Oh,wait...
It'll happen when our society enters a period of regress.
No, it could only come about after such a period. If economic, political, and ecological strife are reaching a critical point, no one in power would be encouraging procreation unless it happens to involve local warlords and slave-women.Quote:
It'll happen when our society enters a period of regress.
Population fall is a major, if not the major, cause of regress. Without workers the economy begins to decline, without fund technology becomes harder to maintain, the military becomes overstretched...Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
Regardless, our society will regress at some point and both during and after that point this petty argument about who loves who and whether society approves will seem absurd.
Edit: To clarify - regress continues until recovery. We may think that Rome ended in 476, but the people at the time were still trying to save it and they still thought of themselves as occupied Romans 150 years later.
Once major population decline is occuring, the political institutions are in shambles and governments are not subsidizing anything not related to the military or immediate-term investments in agriculture or high-technology - if national states are even functioning at all, at that point.Quote:
Population fall is a major, if not the major, cause of regress. Without workers the economy begins to decline, without fund technology becomes harder to maintain, the military becomes overstretched...
Once the situation stabilizes - that's when a new round of population growth becomes either desirable or manageable.
Now take a look at history - a good starting example would be the baby boom after WWII (when the British Empire was collapsing).
The Baby Boom? You mean the one that occurred as a major world crisis came to an end? As millions of men-at-arms returned to their homes following years in combat?
Was this an existential threat to Great Britain itself? I think we're operating on different senses of "regression". From my perspective, GB was in a recovery phase.Quote:
when the British Empire was collapsing
...and then went back to war across the world as the Commonwealth tore itself apart.Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
The wealth of Britain and its political influence have been in terminal decline since the start of WWII when the BEF was forced to abandon France.Quote:
Was this an existential threat to Great Britain itself? I think we're operating on different senses of "regression". From my perspective, GB was in a recovery phase.
This is my point, you think we're doing well here, but from a historical perspective we've fallen apart and essentially become a protectorate of the US - to the extent that our military has been entirely re-structured to support the US war machine and US political goals. The only upside is that being the US' bitch is much better than being China's bitch.
One war's as good as the next?Quote:
...and then went back to war across the world as the Commonwealth tore itself apart.
Quote:
The wealth of Britain and its political influence have been in terminal decline since the start of WWII when the BEF was forced to abandon France.
!Quote:
This is my point, you think we're doing well here
You're incorrigible!
It wasn't just war, but economic collapse. The Commonwealth fell apart and British economy has never recovered - heavy industry, ship building... toast.Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
You find my analysis unpalatable? Consider the relative economic output of the various areas of the UK now and 50 years ago - not just in terms of GDP but in terms of balance and overall levels of employment.Quote:
!
You're incorrigible!
Flawed in principle.Quote:
You find my analysis unpalatable?
Without getting into the details of your economic theories yet again:
What do you mean by "our society", then? Anyway, you believe that Britain will in the near future implement cash incentives to couples willing to produce offspring? Britain's population growth is still quite healthy...Quote:
It'll happen when our society enters a period of regress.
Edit: And don't say that they already do through tax breaks, childcare allowments, and the like - everyone does that.
Could you imagine that there are many facets to growth and decline?
Russia and Japan's fertility rate issues, for instance, are in large part due to economic growth increasing the cost of living and education changing the attitudes of women towards marriage and child-rearing.
Because you don't accept that you get richer by making other people poorer?Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
OK - but how is ruling 1/4 of the globe down to virtually just these islands, having a virtual monopoly on certain minerals and cash crops down to being a net importer from other powers not an economic collapse?
This thing we have - "Western Civilisation" has a shelf life just like everything else, we just don't know what that shelf life is. I don't really think we'll enter an actual systemic collapse within my own lifetime, or not before I'm old an infirm certainly, but I can certainly imagine another global war in the next two to four decades.Quote:
What do you mean by "our society", then? Anyway, you believe that Britain will in the near future implement cash incentives to couples willing to produce offspring? Britain's population growth is still quite healthy...
Britain's population growth is negative without immigration - it is not healthy.
Prior to this current government the tax system was, it has been argued, skewed against married couples and towards single parents.Quote:
Edit: And don't say that they already do through tax breaks, childcare allowments, and the like - everyone does that.
In terms of education, military strength, health, and economics we're not making positive growth over the long-term.Quote:
Could you imagine that there are many facets to growth and decline?
They're also symptomatic of an acknowledged cultural malaise that makes people not want to procreate.Quote:
Russia and Japan's fertility rate issues, for instance, are in large part due to economic growth increasing the cost of living and education changing the attitudes of women towards marriage and child-rearing.
I disagree, Britain isles are supporting a population far beyond its means, like a Rome except with 21st century grain ships coming from EU and the USA. A population reduction and emigration would be a good thing. Canada and Australia are two nice alternatives I would consider.Quote:
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
Is it really an ongoing collapse in perpetuity?Quote:
OK - but how is ruling 1/4 of the globe down to virtually just these islands, having a virtual monopoly on certain minerals and cash crops down to being a net importer from other powers not an economic collapse?
According to your ONS, the birth rate is rising - though admittedly that is partly a consequence of immigration, most of the risebeing attributable to immigrant mothers.Quote:
Britain's population growth is negative without immigration - it is not healthy.
Economically, you're richer - period. Technologically, clearly stronger. Health? So good in some aspects that problems in others have been engendered. Militarily, you're still relatively powerful - isn't relative power what you're always on about?Quote:
In terms of education, military strength, health, and economics we're not making positive growth over the long-term.
In Japan? I don't know...Quote:
They're also symptomatic of an acknowledged cultural malaise that makes people not want to procreate.
Technology and health: true, but diminished when even the utterly insignificant luxemburg can claim the same since the 1930's.Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
Economic and military: uh-uh, the days of being able to match the 2 other top navies combined and having europe worrying, about british goods being cheaper and more pleantiful than anything they can do, are long over. Relatively, we've gone from superpower to playing america's occasionally favoured pet and being continually undermined by the EU.
Being a British nationalist has double dose fluroxetine and access to a suicide hotline as a requirement.
Dude they're not even allowed uncensored porn over there, of course they're miserable.Quote:
In Japan? I don't know...
Currently in Japan, the government is pushing people to make babies, with incentive bonuses and the like. Considering the aging population and the sexlessness of the younger generation, this poses a very serious problem.
Well, that's what I heard from family a while ago. I haven't followed up on it. I revoked my citizenship, so I don't particularly care (although I probably should *sigh*).
Eh not really. The development would be to further the preferential treatment linked to the child itself. Married couples that get children are getting too few and restricting the benefits only to marriage would be counter productive.Quote:
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
The Empire may have helped the colonies to a degree, but the main purpose was to help the UK. We, as far as possible for as long as possible, kept all the good bits at home. Heavy industry and ship building fell apart when other countries started doing the higher value activities - and of course we were responding to the threat by increasing the labour costs which helped ensure a decline became a collapse.
The Commonwealth has declined, but not terminally. Would it be able to cause a new Pax Britannia? Of course not. Could it serve a function? Probably - a loose grouping of countries who would speak with one voice on some issues (of course not all). Probably 95% soft power, but that is just a reality.
The need for productive units is of course there, but increasingly manufacturing jobs are undertaken by robots. Where we might have had a few thousand employees in car plants we now have a handful.
The decline occurs when upkeep of what you've got overwhelms the system: focusing on benefits for all, extending the length (not quality) of life and placing worker safety over productivity.
When Brunel built his "groundbreaking" tunnel near Bristol a few hundred workers died. Worse odds than the trenches of WW1. Now one workerr chips a nail and everything stops. If others don't work to these rules you've got a problem. Overheads are going up just as doing productive things are going down.
We are not quite a protectorate of the USA merely as we can't rely on their helps unless it benefits them. Our forces are designed to fit in with theirs. It is also designed to fit in with all those of NATO and probably others. Just because it fits with America does not make it bad. I personally think we should redesign our Armed forces to be like their Marines in a relatively small force but unified and set up to be good on the sea and transiently hold coastal areas and give up on the pretensions of big land units.
Where the population growth comes from is not an issue. How those persons view themselves is. If they grow up viewing themselves as English / British all well and good. We have a problem if the majority hold increased fealty to ancestral homelands. From the persons I have interacted with, Eastern Europeans often become "English" in a generation with a few residual customs. This is far less often the case from elsewhere.
~:smoking:
Marriage is about creating stable family units - not just making babies. That's the purpose of the institution at a sociological level.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ironside
yes but Ironsides post was referring to you saying
He is right - if they want to promote "baby making" they aren't going to promote marriage - they will offer incentives to new parents via the children since it would cover Married, Unmarried, Single and Adoptive parents - if you need a population boom, restricting the incentive to one segment of society is counter productiveQuote:
They'll create an inducement to procreation - so heterosexual couples who stay together will get preferential treatment.
not a problem we are likely to see for a while - we are already overpopulated as is...
Britain probably could feed itself - currently we import about 40% of the food consumed and export about 10% of that total. So we're producing a net 70% of current consumption. But, of course, food consumed doesn't equate to food needed, as a quick look at the fatties on the high street demonstrates. In extremis it could be done.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiaexz
Yes - but we used to import from what were either client states or Imperial territories - now we import from what are, at best, semi-friendly states.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiaexz
Catholic Hospital: ohhh you're gonna sue us? well fetuses aren´t people then.
the moral steadfastness of this bunch is amazing.
Sorry hope I am misunderstnding you. For a minute there it seemed as if you were implying that homosexual was not only evil, but criminal, by likening homosexuals to mass murderers, sex offenders, and thieves.Quote:
Originally Posted by ICantSpellDawg
Are you saying that being born with a certain sexual preference puts a person in that category?
I guess the pope reads this forum.
Pope announces resignation.
when asked what he plans to do next Ratzinger simply said:
'I´m going to Disneyland'
Indeed, I hear that the guilt of the church is a heavy burden for an old man to bear.Quote:
"After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths due to an advanced age are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry,"
Homosexuality is very similar to alcoholism and other self destructive sins. It is your right to be an alcoholic and many people are predisposed to it. It is self destructive and a negative force in society. Not a crime, I don't believe in many crimes, but it is an affront to God as I understand it. I think that not having children is a sin. I don't particularly want them myself and it isn't a crime, but it is most certainly socially and morally wrong by my religious standards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Goofball
In a way, yes. I view anything pushes people further from God as a sin. I view sin on a static landscape. In a way, all sins are the same. We have different punishments for different crimes based on their severity, but thew wrongness of sins is on a flat line. You can be forgiven as easily for lying as you can for murder, but the temporal or criminal penance is markedly different.
I do not think that personal failures should result in criminal prosecution unless they cause serious harm to someone else.
Old age accompanied with poor health isn't fun, I hope he's alright.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronin
Sin is sin. Some transgression begs not the cloth, but the knife. :brood:Quote:
I do not think that personal failures should result in criminal prosecution unless they cause serious harm to someone else.
...Homosexuality is not self-destructive, the only destruction comes from the intolerance from others and those convinced by religion that what they are is evil.
Wow... you clearly haven't got the foggiest clue what you are on about.Quote:
Originally Posted by ICantSpellDawg
1) Homosexuality is nothing like alcoholism.
2) Homosexuality is not self-destructive.
3) It isn't a negative force in society.
You want to know what a negative force in society? Bigotry. What bigoted people do is go around telling people they are scum. They victimize, punish and discriminate people for things which don't even affect them. They cannot stand the thought of people being happy for who they are, whether is it the colour of their skin, their sex, their sexual preference. They are people who snoop around in other peoples bedrooms, getting an authoritarian hard-on over imposing their ill-conceived beliefs on others to try to make themselves feel better, a self-congratulatory slap-on-the-back.
Homosexuality is not self-destructive in anyway, such as being Black/White/Inbetween is not self-destructive, or being a Woman is not self-destructive. People who think so should actually have a hard think and come up with a credible reason why homosexuality is bad outside of a book from the bronze age.
You are advocating for the Catholic church to give up the bible. I am not a bigot inparticular. Sure, I harbor some level of cultural bigotry but I've never met a human being who didn't. I don't like to make people feel like scum, but I do recognize self harmful social effects of things like alcoholism, use of pornography, prostitution, drug use, uncharitable thoughts, glorification of violence, etc. Sins of the heart and mind which do not directly hurt anyone but the abuser. Do I condemn people who engage in these activities, no but I condemn the actions. Am I above them? No - I myself have been known to do some of these things.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiaexz
As I type this, my wife and I are in South Beach at a gay hotel called "Lords". I try not to dismiss anyone or make them feel alienated, but that doesn't mean I condone their actions.
That's a good thing! Bigotry is very bad and it is very overlooked when people do a list of things bad for society, when it is the number one thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by ICantSpellDawg
Some amount of bigotry is as natural as breathing air. We need to not allow it to cloud our opinions of the individual. With that said, it is not wrong to fight unhealthy ideas with healthy ideas. Again, i believe in gutting our legal code and our government's hold over us and allowing people to exercise their free will to the maximum extent - let the natural consequences dissuade us from bad actions. This does not stop me from determining which actions and thoughts i view as unhealthy for the individual, it would just stop society from binding free will in law.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiaexz
Oh, this is just too perfect (sorry, couldn't figure out how to enlarge the pic. Click on it to view. It's worth it):
Attachment 8601
Not for you to decide what a healthy idea is and what's not. Gay people are just gay. It's mostly about tax-benefits heterosexual couples get but gay couples don't. If they both work for a living where's the honosty in that, nobody (well almost nobody) is asking for any more recognision. Those that do are wrong imho, but such activism is rareQuote:
Originally Posted by ICantSpellDawg
We've made such a mockery out of what marriage was supposed to be about, it really doesn't matter who gets married at this point.
I say let the gays get married and make it a federal law so we can do it once and be done with. I am growing so tired of this "o woe is me" crap coming from a section of LGBT movement. On the scale of social justice gay marriage represents an absolute 0 and is nothing more than a product of the new notion of marrying for love. The family unit is the bedrock of any stable society and it's breaking under the strain of all the little Kings clamoring that their needs aren't being met.
Putting such a premium on being "happy" is harmful.
I'm not advocating forcing gays into heterosexual relationships, all I am saying is that I get turned off by the way the message is presented. I want gays to live together and grow old together but marriage as a whole is a broken institution and to act as if it would be some great hammer blow for justice is an insult to justice.
Equality is not for everyone. :clown:Quote:
Originally Posted by Strike For The South
The notion of marrying for love has been a viable idea for about 400 years, even if it didn't start to become common until much later.
The family unit is the bedrock of a stable society?
What kind of conservative hillbilly nonsense is that?
You claim "the family" is breaking up. Thus, we should be experiencing an unstable society, or at least a less stable society. I agree. World wars, race riots, hippies, colonization and rampant racism are all sure signs of a stable society. Things were much better back in the days when people stayed married.
You can do better than parroting radio catchphrases, SFTS.
"Gay marriage is breaking up the family unit!"
*cheats on wife with another woman, marriage breaks up*
Without necessarily tying this to the gay marriage issue, the above statement is by and large true. It is the sole environment that has historically allowed children to be raised well with some degree of emotional and financial stability. And of course there are the economic and personal benefits of people living together as couples that IMO would be extremely difficult to replicate with any other sort of communal living arrangement.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
Overcompensation of the part of the occasional Republican candidate aside, there is a serious class issue here, in that the regions most perceptive to the religious and socially conservative Right tend to be those experiencing the highest levels of social breakdown in terms of the family unit, and they also tend to be the poorest. In America, your "White Trash", or the UK, the benefit-dependent underclass.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiaexz
So....Quote:
Originally Posted by Rhyfhylwyr
You want to go back to the time when we had world wars, exterminations and laws based on race? Or should we perhaps scrap the notion of "the family unit" and get down to the things that actually matter in a society, which is employment and class?
We behaved like barbarians when "the family unit" was stable. We are not as barbaric now that "the family unit" has disintegrated. These are facts.
Funny how the future was predicted to remove the need for employment and class...
Yes, funny, the need for class will always be there. Men will want class because women will want men of a higher class and humans value themselves relative to others in many cases. It's an eternal struggle that will never end until our governments can control our thoughts. Once that happens there will still be class since the government will be above us in class but at least we won't think about it because the government can control that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Greyblades
Yeah, but are those related?Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
Um... all those things happened because we were at a completely different point in human history.Quote:
Originally Posted by HoreTore
Look... it is well known that there is a strong link between broken families, and kids that get into trouble with things ranging from drugs, poor academic performance, child abuse, gang violence, lack of social mobility etc. Furthermore, there is every reason to believe that this relationship is one of causation and not just correlation, as the family situation itself actually explains why kids can become involved or trapped in these things in the first place.This is common knowledge and indeed common sense, although I will look up the links if you insist. Certainly, tacking these issues are a big part of modern-day social policies, this is not some ideological left-right dispute. Indeed, it is the left that naturally shows the most interest in tacking these problems in poorer communities.
Also, this is a class issue, since as I already said, these problems disproportionately affect working-class communities. The relationship between poverty and social problems is not all one way, one propagates the other. You have to address both.
A) What exactly is a broken family?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rhyfhylwyr
B) I'm not exactly sure which correlation you claim to be "common knowledge". Divorce causing child abuse? Divorce leading to gang violence? And in which context do you claim this to be true? Only for the lower classes? And what are you comparing? Children with divorced parents with children who never experienced divorce? Wouldn't it be more sensible to take only families who experienced a servere conflict between the parents and compare children of these families whose parents divorced (Group 1) or stayed together despite the problems (Group 2)?
I do indeed insist. Though maybe my disagreement may be solved when I understand better what you mean with "broken family".Quote:
This is common knowledge and indeed common sense, although I will look up the links if you insist.
BTW there were enough cultures where children were not raised by both parents but e.g. by the mother and her brothers and sisters. How can you be sure that the two biological parent model is superior?
One where the relationship between the parents falls apart, or where they fail to fulfil their basic parental duties (whether it is due to alcoholism, drugs, being in prison, or whatever).Quote:
Originally Posted by Kival
The correlation is between negligent/poor parenting and/or an unhappy household on the one hand, and children becoming involved in bad things on the other. As to your last question there, I am not suggesting that hapless marriages should not end in divorce, or that staying together would be good for their children. I am simply saying that an unhealthy relationship between the parents will often have some sort of effect on the children.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kival
Well hopefully I explained what I meant there above. tbh, I never had a specific study in mind. If you just google things like "relationship between parenting/divorce and delinquency/anti-social behaviour, there's and endless supply of studies that, at a glance, all seem to indicate at least some degree of correlation. They also tend to discuss the issue of causation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kival
Of course these ways can work, but I see them more as variations on the nuclear family take (in the sense that the bonds are still essentially biological), rather than something else entirely. Grandparents, aunts and uncles etc can of course have varying roles of involvement in bringing up children, and they can also provide a safety net should something happen to the parents. I've never heard someone seriously argue that foster care was the best way to raise a kid.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kival
1. We still behave like "barbarians".Quote:
Originally Posted by Horetore
2. The family unit was never stable.
But hypothetically, if the family unit were made stable in the contemporary period we would see social dividends. Then again, perhaps it would rather be a product of those dividends. Still worth a shot.
But the point here is that you're wrong, so suck it! :)
The principle of it is quite simple: Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Fuhrer.Quote:
Originally Posted by Husar
To elaborate: the People become the State, and the State become the People. The State become reducible to a single entity. The People become reducible to a single entity.
Basically, the species becomes a single Meta-Human, named the Autokrator. The Human Hive-Mind would be a stepping-stone to this goal.
The latter is much more harmful than the former.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiaexz
One only needs to look at the numbers.
I have always been puzzled by the assertion that Gay Marriage breaks up the family unit... It isn't like many currently married couples are suddenly going to collapse so a partner can enter a gay union
DIVORCE broke up the family unit and more specifically the change in the social acceptance for Women to Divorce
Back in the day a Woman was expected to stick with the marriage through thick and thin and would be socially ostracized if she tired to get out - now that just isn't the case anymore in most the Western World and that is why we see an increased number of "Broken" families - because it isn't a social faux pa to cut and run if it isn't working out
As to why its effecting a certain class more than the others - the "Working" class in particular have always been vulnerable to Drink, Drugs, Violence and (probably most importantly since it generally leads to the others) Poverty - all of which are significant causes of divorces
Eh? It's all women's fault? How do you work that one out?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir Moody
Ehhh, unfortunately that works the other way too, for each gay guy not competing there's a woman who is uninterested.
you read all of that and came out that I was suggesting it was the Woman's fault?Quote:
Originally Posted by Idaho
I was attempting to explain why we have seen an increase in "failed" marriages not attempting to attribute blame
Divorce used to be the province of Men - there was no social stigma for Men to divorce and so marriages would generally only end when the Man decided it would - since the stigma Women suffered under has now gone they have no compunction to stay in a bad marriage and so we have seen more divorces
Personally I think the whole "Family unit" idea is completely outdated and it cant have been good to be stuck in a family where both parents hated each other but stayed married to save face...