Babbling Bath, 後編
Jul. 13th, 2010 09:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tsukikageAlright, I've been Tweeting too much today. Back to the Update-the-LJ Method.
- This isn't particularly on-topic, at least as my topic currently stands, but I found this quote to be a good reminder of the truth: "Reducing the share of public support does not eliminate societal costs, it merely leaves individuals and their families responsible for a larger share, and some of those costs end up getting shifted back to the public sector through less direct and often more expensive means"
- The problem with making one cup of tea at a time, as I do with the teas I don't order by the pound (Dragonwell, mugicha in the summer), is that, well, it's gone so quickly. And then I have to make more. I guess that's the problem with drinking tea like it's water. And maybe a sign that I should drink more water instead... Ah, but I have some mugicha chilling in the fridge now - forgot about that. Laziness, ho! (Ooh, I imagine TeaSource shipped my order yesterday, so hopefully it'll be here by Thursday or Friday. Can't remember how long it's usually taken in the past...)
-Spilled my mugicha and used my socks to wipe it up. Now my feet are cold and I'm too lazy (see the theme here?) to go up the two flights to my room to get a new pair.
- Someone needs to make WWWJDIC buttons for Google Chrome...
- Why is Tsunematsu in Chrome's spellcheck dictionary? And gmail's not?
- "In his first edition of the Essay, Malthus argued that there were two "checks" on population, "preventive" and "positive." Preventive checks, those that prevent births, include abortion, infanticide and prostitution"
Whut? How in the world does prostitution prevent birth? Unless the woman only becomes a prostitute once she's already pregnant or something. Or maybe it's a "given" that prostitutes will abort or commit infanticide? I'm chou confused.
- Ugh, already starting to get tired. This is not good...
- "In fact, a growing body of literature suggests that in most cases there are thresholds of wealth at which the amount of a pollutant begins to decline. Department of Interior analyst Indur Goklany calls these thresholds the "environmental transition." What this means is that when people rise above mere subsistence, they begin demanding amenities such as clean air and water. The first environmental transition is clean drinking water. Goklany has found that the level of fecal coliform bacteria in rivers, which is a good measure of water pollution, peaks when average per capita incomes reach $1,400 per year. The next transition occurs when particulates like smoke and soot peak at $3,200. And again, levels of sulfur dioxide peak at about $3,700."
-"ll that said, if the right social institutions are lacking—democratic governance, secure private property, free markets—it is possible for a nation to fall into the Malthusian trap of rising poverty and increasing environmental degradation."
lolol I'm sorry, I try to keep an open mind, and usually I am relatively open to those sorts of political/economic beliefs. But at this moment, that struck me more as "We want the population to keep growing so the economy can grow, and that won't happen unless I get to disporportionally keep the benefits of that economic growth."
- Impulsively requested a $250 credit line increase on my $500 Zales card (which I haven't used since Christmas '09). *shrugs* I really wanted to request an increase on *something*, and that was the only one that I hadn't actually requested an increase on yet nor been denied an increase for. (Pathetically, I was denied an increase on my $250 J.Crew card a few months ago; I think my low income was cited. If only because of that, I'm not expecting this to be approved.)
I should probably go to J.Crew sometimes soon and find something small to buy. A pair of earrings or a clearance shirt or something. Strangely enough, I'm hoping Zales will charge me (a small amount) when I go in to have them fix my watch, if only so I can use that card as well.
- "But if we adopt institutions and regulations that slow the pace of innovation, we may find ourselves depleting our current energy supplies before they can be replaced by new ones."
I see what he's saying, but...
- This anti-population control article is so full of holes it's pathetic. In fact, it has nearly as many holes as my own writing.
Consider the calculation of per capita income whereby national income is divided by the size of the population. This means that an additional person will increase the denominator and reflect a decrease in the material well-being of a community. However, a batch of new puppies born to a breeder will increase the numerator and reflect an enhancement in economic conditions. Such an anomaly comes from ignoring the imputed present value of the future flow of benefits from a newly born human.
Despite their likely denials of such, there is an implicit racism in the demands of population-control advocates. Since many Western developed countries have shrinking populations, insistence on limiting population growth involves holding back the numbers of black, brown, and yellow peoples.
Although considerable evidence refutes the dismal view of population growth, it persists. Consider the fact that the areas of highest population density are the most prosperous and often the most hospitable. Amsterdam, Hong Kong, London, Singapore, and Tokyo are prime examples of this. And even though Bombay and Cairo are heavily polluted, they are both certainly more prosperous and productive than the surrounding countryside.
A breeder's puppies are their goods. That's like saying a farmer growing more crops won't hurt his income, so humans growing more babies won't hurt their own. We don't sell our babies. And yes, other non-white nations having fewer children does keep the white:non-white ratio up, but you give us zero evidence that this is anything more than a random mathematical truth. As for the parts about the places with highest population desnsity being the most prosperous and hospitable... Okay, that one I have the least of problem with, but despite building upward, many Tokyo-ites still live in rabbit hutches and pay exorbitant rent.
Again, with all three points brought up here, beyond my own refutations, theses are just statements without real supporting evidence or analysis.
- Oh, I don't think I ever mentioned this, but I discovered today that when I bought my computer, my APR had gone down 3.25%. Not that the interest rate really matters on a financing card, but it still made me excited to see. Of course, that may have just been from fluctuations in the prime rate, but the old 24.24% is listed as variable, while the 20.99% on the computer isn't. Maybe it has something to do with the total or type of the purchase?
- I need to do more research to back up this claim, but I feel like many of the anti-Malthusian (at least in the human context) scholars are looking at our historical innovations with the assumption that before our most recent population bursts we were already at or near the human carrying capacity for our technology at that time, which seems to me to be a false assumption. Then again, they may not be assuming that at all, and this comment is moot. Plus, it's clear to me that technology and inovation can feasibly increase various regions' carrying capacities; let's take some form of skyscraper hydroponics as a possibility. However, I think it's foolish to assume that we can increase land/resource efficiency indefinitely - I believe that at some currently unkown point, we simply will have to accept that we can't squeez a gallon of grape juice out of a single grape. And maybe we're so far from that point that we don't need to worry about it yet, but at the same time, but at least maintaining current populations levels will prevent the "shrinking pains" currently being dealt with in Japanese society from becoming neccesary for human survival and the survival of our ecosystem.
- This isn't particularly on-topic, at least as my topic currently stands, but I found this quote to be a good reminder of the truth: "Reducing the share of public support does not eliminate societal costs, it merely leaves individuals and their families responsible for a larger share, and some of those costs end up getting shifted back to the public sector through less direct and often more expensive means"
- The problem with making one cup of tea at a time, as I do with the teas I don't order by the pound (Dragonwell, mugicha in the summer), is that, well, it's gone so quickly. And then I have to make more. I guess that's the problem with drinking tea like it's water. And maybe a sign that I should drink more water instead... Ah, but I have some mugicha chilling in the fridge now - forgot about that. Laziness, ho! (Ooh, I imagine TeaSource shipped my order yesterday, so hopefully it'll be here by Thursday or Friday. Can't remember how long it's usually taken in the past...)
-Spilled my mugicha and used my socks to wipe it up. Now my feet are cold and I'm too lazy (see the theme here?) to go up the two flights to my room to get a new pair.
- Someone needs to make WWWJDIC buttons for Google Chrome...
- Why is Tsunematsu in Chrome's spellcheck dictionary? And gmail's not?
- "In his first edition of the Essay, Malthus argued that there were two "checks" on population, "preventive" and "positive." Preventive checks, those that prevent births, include abortion, infanticide and prostitution"
Whut? How in the world does prostitution prevent birth? Unless the woman only becomes a prostitute once she's already pregnant or something. Or maybe it's a "given" that prostitutes will abort or commit infanticide? I'm chou confused.
- Ugh, already starting to get tired. This is not good...
- "In fact, a growing body of literature suggests that in most cases there are thresholds of wealth at which the amount of a pollutant begins to decline. Department of Interior analyst Indur Goklany calls these thresholds the "environmental transition." What this means is that when people rise above mere subsistence, they begin demanding amenities such as clean air and water. The first environmental transition is clean drinking water. Goklany has found that the level of fecal coliform bacteria in rivers, which is a good measure of water pollution, peaks when average per capita incomes reach $1,400 per year. The next transition occurs when particulates like smoke and soot peak at $3,200. And again, levels of sulfur dioxide peak at about $3,700."
-"ll that said, if the right social institutions are lacking—democratic governance, secure private property, free markets—it is possible for a nation to fall into the Malthusian trap of rising poverty and increasing environmental degradation."
lolol I'm sorry, I try to keep an open mind, and usually I am relatively open to those sorts of political/economic beliefs. But at this moment, that struck me more as "We want the population to keep growing so the economy can grow, and that won't happen unless I get to disporportionally keep the benefits of that economic growth."
- Impulsively requested a $250 credit line increase on my $500 Zales card (which I haven't used since Christmas '09). *shrugs* I really wanted to request an increase on *something*, and that was the only one that I hadn't actually requested an increase on yet nor been denied an increase for. (Pathetically, I was denied an increase on my $250 J.Crew card a few months ago; I think my low income was cited. If only because of that, I'm not expecting this to be approved.)
I should probably go to J.Crew sometimes soon and find something small to buy. A pair of earrings or a clearance shirt or something. Strangely enough, I'm hoping Zales will charge me (a small amount) when I go in to have them fix my watch, if only so I can use that card as well.
- "But if we adopt institutions and regulations that slow the pace of innovation, we may find ourselves depleting our current energy supplies before they can be replaced by new ones."
I see what he's saying, but...
- This anti-population control article is so full of holes it's pathetic. In fact, it has nearly as many holes as my own writing.
Consider the calculation of per capita income whereby national income is divided by the size of the population. This means that an additional person will increase the denominator and reflect a decrease in the material well-being of a community. However, a batch of new puppies born to a breeder will increase the numerator and reflect an enhancement in economic conditions. Such an anomaly comes from ignoring the imputed present value of the future flow of benefits from a newly born human.
Despite their likely denials of such, there is an implicit racism in the demands of population-control advocates. Since many Western developed countries have shrinking populations, insistence on limiting population growth involves holding back the numbers of black, brown, and yellow peoples.
Although considerable evidence refutes the dismal view of population growth, it persists. Consider the fact that the areas of highest population density are the most prosperous and often the most hospitable. Amsterdam, Hong Kong, London, Singapore, and Tokyo are prime examples of this. And even though Bombay and Cairo are heavily polluted, they are both certainly more prosperous and productive than the surrounding countryside.
A breeder's puppies are their goods. That's like saying a farmer growing more crops won't hurt his income, so humans growing more babies won't hurt their own. We don't sell our babies. And yes, other non-white nations having fewer children does keep the white:non-white ratio up, but you give us zero evidence that this is anything more than a random mathematical truth. As for the parts about the places with highest population desnsity being the most prosperous and hospitable... Okay, that one I have the least of problem with, but despite building upward, many Tokyo-ites still live in rabbit hutches and pay exorbitant rent.
Again, with all three points brought up here, beyond my own refutations, theses are just statements without real supporting evidence or analysis.
- Oh, I don't think I ever mentioned this, but I discovered today that when I bought my computer, my APR had gone down 3.25%. Not that the interest rate really matters on a financing card, but it still made me excited to see. Of course, that may have just been from fluctuations in the prime rate, but the old 24.24% is listed as variable, while the 20.99% on the computer isn't. Maybe it has something to do with the total or type of the purchase?
- I need to do more research to back up this claim, but I feel like many of the anti-Malthusian (at least in the human context) scholars are looking at our historical innovations with the assumption that before our most recent population bursts we were already at or near the human carrying capacity for our technology at that time, which seems to me to be a false assumption. Then again, they may not be assuming that at all, and this comment is moot. Plus, it's clear to me that technology and inovation can feasibly increase various regions' carrying capacities; let's take some form of skyscraper hydroponics as a possibility. However, I think it's foolish to assume that we can increase land/resource efficiency indefinitely - I believe that at some currently unkown point, we simply will have to accept that we can't squeez a gallon of grape juice out of a single grape. And maybe we're so far from that point that we don't need to worry about it yet, but at the same time, but at least maintaining current populations levels will prevent the "shrinking pains" currently being dealt with in Japanese society from becoming neccesary for human survival and the survival of our ecosystem.
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no subject
Date: 2010-07-14 06:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-14 06:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-15 07:08 am (UTC)On the note of the article again...
I think their strongest criticism is the racism angle. Because all too often, when I read the population control argument by angry people on the Internet, it's clearly foreigners of some kind who are the problem. It's never directed against, say, fundamentalists with eight kids here. It's usually pointed at Africa.
That said, honestly, I think if we're not beyond carrying capacity now, we will be quite soon. We are in for a major and messy population "correction", and it's going to suck, hard. And I think the only way we're getting out of that, like, the most effective method we've found of getting a country's population to stop growing is economic development. It's fundamentally in everybody's best interest at this point to make the Third World's hellholes livable.