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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 22:49   #51
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by Nodrog
We are not generally responsible for the poverty of places like Africa).
Are we not responsible for the consequences of colonialism?
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 22:49   #52
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by Nodrog
Well I'll be honest and say that I dont particularly care about the global population
This is fair enough but then obviously when I (and others) do then clearly we're going to disagree.
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(and your arguments are disingenuous anyway - the majority of people living in capitalist countries are well fed and can afford medicine, including AIDS drugs. We are not generally responsible for the poverty of places like Africa).
I'm afraid this is where again we have to disagree. You're dividing the world up between the capitalist countries and non-capitalist countries (presumably most of the third world including India or Latin America). But this ignores the effect of trade. I am not talking about personal moral responsibility (white man's burden!) but we have to analyse the world's economy in totality for anything to make sense (unless there is a capitalist country out there which has no interaction with the outside world)
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This is true, but again, theres no obvious reason why the people who had reached this level would be so eager to pull the ladder behind them
I think it depends how the world was doing more generally. Right now there are practical limitations resources. Sure, we can make developments to get round a lot of them but not everyone in the world can have 50bn barrels of oil each because, quite frankly, there's not enough to go round. But for pretty much all of human history we've been "resource limited" (in some sense or another). It's generally in one groups interest to maintain domination so they can control the lions share of resources. Now, this level of "resources" is not a fixed amount (but it is limited) but we cannot presume it would grow fast enough for everyone to have (say) a mansion in Kensington.

Of course, it's possible by this point (or very shortly afterwards) we would move into some post-resources society where we all have infinite clean energy and replicators and such. But then of course we're talking about something completely different.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 22:52   #53
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by s|k
Are we not responsible for the consequences of colonialism?
Well, I know that I'm not responsible for anything that happened before I was born. How about you? But anyway, its not like the West destroyed a group of thriving, wealthy civilizations.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 22:54   #54
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by milo
If the uber leets keep their tech to themselves id understand but otherwise the 'look competitiveness' already exists, bring tech into it isn't radically differently
OK. Let's imagine the following (I am not saying this is possible btw). Next year, someone develops a telepathic computer module which you can install in your brain and allows you to view other people's thought patterns (the person whose mind is read has no knowledge/control over what is happening). It is developed by McDonalds who say they will give one away with every Happy Meal. Therefore, price is not a barrier.

However, I do not want to read other people's minds. I do not want this "upgrade". However, I also do not want to be surrounded by other people who have this as I have no desire for other people to see my thoughts either. If large amounts of my neighbours had this upgrade I would probably want to move away, possibly to a place where such a technology was restricted (by mutual consent).
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 22:57   #55
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

I think Nodrog means we're not responsible in a contempory sense, we're not stealing their money in a literal sense. Dante would say we are because trade is the act of the devil etc, id essentially agree with nod that we aren't 'responsible' for people being poor, it however in our interest to help them become rich if only because it serves our interests, ideally we'd want wealthy and market freedom throughout the world so people can buy our services and we can buy their goods.

Saying we'll help and take an interest in the 'poor' nations better themselves so we can more effectively trade with them ensures that in the long term theres a continous feedback to help them, charity etc just encourages dependance.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:00   #56
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
I'm afraid this is where again we have to disagree. You're dividing the world up between the capitalist countries and non-capitalist countries (presumably most of the third world including India or Latin America). But this ignores the effect of trade. I am not talking about personal moral responsibility (white man's burden!) but we have to analyse the world's economy in totality for anything to make sense (unless there is a capitalist country out there which has no interaction with the outside world)
I just dont think that any of this is relevant to the current discussion. if you wanted to write a thesis on the political/economic history of third-world countries then its the sort of thing you might want to consider, but I'm not sure what any of it has to do with scientific progress or genetic engineering.

I know you havent explicitly said that we should suspend all technological progress until places like Africa can be bothered catching up, but this is essentially what the "rich get richer while the poor get poorer" line comes down to. Unless you want to claim that we should stop trying to make significant progress in biology/genetics until we have ended world poverty (which I doubt), I dont see why talk about the global population is important or relevant in this context.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:01   #57
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
OK. Let's imagine the following (I am not saying this is possible btw). Next year, someone develops a telepathic computer module which you can install in your brain and allows you to view other people's thought patterns (the person whose mind is read has no knowledge/control over what is happening). It is developed by McDonalds who say they will give one away with every Happy Meal. Therefore, price is not a barrier.

However, I do not want to read other people's minds. I do not want this "upgrade". However, I also do not want to be surrounded by other people who have this as I have no desire for other people to see my thoughts either. If large amounts of my neighbours had this upgrade I would probably want to move away, possibly to a place where such a technology was restricted (by mutual consent).

Then you'd find milo's acme patented 'block the bastard clown' mindreading blocking device, or someone would invent something that helped you achieve the goals you wanted.

If the device can't be blocked id suggest legislation that only allowed fellow mindreading people to access each only others thoughts and substantiouly fine mcdonalds if they don't comply.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:02   #58
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by milo
I think Nodrog means we're not responsible in a contempory sense, we're not stealing their money in a literal sense. Dante would say we are because trade is the act of the devil etc,
No I wouldn't. For the purposes of this discussion it doesn't matter if "we" are responsible or not (and that's usually posturing eurocentric nonsense anyway as if only caucasians have agency). The issue is whether we live in a capitalist world system (I would say we do). In such a system, hundreds of millions of people do not have enough food. Whether this is my fault or your fault is irrelevant (at least here).

The discussion we are having is whether these hypotethcial benefits would extend to all of humanity. I have said that if we look at the track record of medicene it's pretty clear it wouldn't. Nodrog has said he doesn't care about most of the world's population (I'm not sure who he does care about) which obviously makes the debate a bit pointless.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:02   #59
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by Nodrog
I have no idea how you would even begin to go about quantifying something like that, and this is part of the problem with the singularity nonsense. Did the rate of technological breakthroughs increase faster in the second half of the 20th century than the first? What criteria would you even use to answer that question?

The first half of the 20th gave us quantum physics, relativity, modern logic, and the theory of computation. The second half gave us understanding of DNA, and the internet (the microchip was really just an implementation of earlier ideas rather than something new). So which half gave us more rapid progress towards the singularity? Isnt this a completely meaningless question? The same problems come up when you look more closely at other historical periods - did the second half of the 20th century really represent a greater growth of knowledge than the 50 years preceding (or following) Newton's Principia? Wasnt the Enlightenment the most rapid expansion of human knowledge ever?


edit; when he was discussing what he called "the jumping jesus phenomena" in relation to the growth of human progress, RAW used the amount of books that current knowledge could fill as his measuring stick. You could also use something like the number of academic papers being produced. But this sort of thing is fallacious, since it assumes that all books/papers have equal value, and ignores the possibility that 95% of the books/academic papers that get churned out every year are just refuse produced by the system which make no real contribution to human knowledge. I dont have anything to back this up, but I would guess that the signal:noise ratio is a lot worse now than it has ever been in the past.
Well no, I don't have any idea about how to quantify it either. But to a certain extent it's pointless to throw out questions about what we can call "knowledge" and "progress" in an argument like this. Also, you referred to "singularity nonsense" without actually explaining why you consider it to be nonsense, you said definition of progress was part of the problem, what's the rest?

Also, actually quantifying the human race's progress isn't important, it will progress whether we quantify it or not (barring an OCP ofc). You're asking questions that (while related) won't actually affect the outcome much. Whether the singularity is in 50 years or not, I think we can assume it will come. Unless it is actually impossible to create an intelligence greater than ours (for us, obviously it's possible), but this seems unlikely to me.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:03   #60
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
OK. Let's imagine the following (I am not saying this is possible btw). Next year, someone develops a telepathic computer module which you can install in your brain and allows you to view other people's thought patterns (the person whose mind is read has no knowledge/control over what is happening). It is developed by McDonalds who say they will give one away with every Happy Meal. Therefore, price is not a barrier.

However, I do not want to read other people's minds. I do not want this "upgrade". However, I also do not want to be surrounded by other people who have this as I have no desire for other people to see my thoughts either. If large amounts of my neighbours had this upgrade I would probably want to move away, possibly to a place where such a technology was restricted (by mutual consent).
I'm sure something like that would infringe rights to privacy. It'd be like having x-ray vision and spying on someone in their house.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:04   #61
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by milo
Then you'd find milo's acme patented 'block the bastard clown' mindreading blocking device, or someone would invent something that helped you achieve the goals you wanted.
I think perhaps I was unclear. I am trying to show (albeit in a specific example) that it's not an issue of simply envy. I have no desire to be "enhanced" particularly, but if everyone else does embark on radical changes (and I don't mean larger breasts here, I am talking to becoming almost another species) then it has ramifications for me (and others I suspect).
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:06   #62
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
However, I do not want to read other people's minds. I do not want this "upgrade". However, I also do not want to be surrounded by other people who have this as I have no desire for other people to see my thoughts either. If large amounts of my neighbours had this upgrade I would probably want to move away, possibly to a place where such a technology was restricted (by mutual consent).
When you ban mind-reading devices, only criminals and the government will have access to mind-reading devices!
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:07   #63
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
No I wouldn't. For the purposes of this discussion it doesn't matter if "we" are responsible or not (and that's usually posturing eurocentric nonsense anyway as if only caucasians have agency). The issue is whether we live in a capitalist world system (I would say we do). In such a system, hundreds of millions of people do not have enough food. Whether this is my fault or your fault is irrelevant (at least here).
There's a couple of problems with that. We don't really live in a capitalist world system, things like corporate welfare and equally social welfare have as much to do with capitalism as flying pigs have to do with electrical engineering. Plus you have the point that capitalism might be self-correcting but not absolutely correcting, in the sense that problems it creates itself are fixed by natural elements of the system but problems created prior to it, such as those of colonialism are not possible of being corrected by it.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:08   #64
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
I think perhaps I was unclear. I am trying to show (albeit in a specific example) that it's not an issue of simply envy. I have no desire to be "enhanced" particularly, but if everyone else does embark on radical (and I don't mean larger breasts here, I am talking to becoming almost another species) then it has ramifications for me (and others I suspect).

The contradictions between the statist nature of your commie and liberatrian beliefs is coming up. If i want to put on a mind reading device i will, you can ask for laws to limit their use but just because it has ramifications for you doesn't mean i should be stopped from using it.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:10   #65
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
I think perhaps I was unclear. I am trying to show (albeit in a specific example) that it's not an issue of simply envy. I have no desire to be "enhanced" particularly, but if everyone else does embark on radical changes (and I don't mean larger breasts here, I am talking to becoming almost another species) then it has ramifications for me (and others I suspect).
I'd find a better example if I was you.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:11   #66
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
No I wouldn't. For the purposes of this discussion it doesn't matter if "we" are responsible or not (and that's usually posturing eurocentric nonsense anyway as if only caucasians have agency). The issue is whether we live in a capitalist world system (I would say we do). In such a system, hundreds of millions of people do not have enough food. Whether this is my fault or your fault is irrelevant (at least here).

The discussion we are having is whether these hypotethcial benefits would extend to all of humanity. I have said that if we look at the track record of medicene it's pretty clear it wouldn't. Nodrog has said he doesn't care about most of the world's population (I'm not sure who he does care about) which obviously makes the debate a bit pointless.
I know that you enjoy getting on a moral high horse and pretending that you are the only person with feelings but I fail to see what this line is adding to the debate.

Whether people in other countries have enough food or not is pretty impossible to say. It's certainly not logical to blame someone starving on capitalism. No more than it is logical to say that capitalism causes child abuse or lightning.

Food is produced by farming which requires all sorts of resources. These resources are limitted much like everything else. If a specific area over-populates to the point where it's resources can not sustain it's people then that has nothing to do with capitalism.

Gordon made a good point when he said that people in capitalist countries generally do have enough to eat.

Your harping on trying to blame capitalism reeks like a drunk student at a provincial university ...
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:13   #67
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
Nodrog has said he doesn't care about most of the world's population (I'm not sure who he does care about) which obviously makes the debate a bit pointless.
That isnt what I meant; I dont care in this context (ie it isnt relevant to this current discussion). I suppose its true that I dont care about most of the people in these countries since their shitty governments are largely their own fault, but theres still likely to be a few thousand people there who deserve better things. And yeah, I do think thats something of a tragedy.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:13   #68
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by milo
The contradictions between the statist nature of your commie and liberatrian beliefs is coming up. If i want to put on a mind reading device i will, you can ask for laws to limit their use but just because it has ramifications for you doesn't mean i should be stopped from using it.
I would say this isn't a contradiction at all but goes back to the point I made about social spaces. To use a much more basic example, I want you to have the right to listen to music very loudly if you so desire. I also want Mrs Higgins to have the right to have peaceful enjoyment of her home without hearing loud music. Assuming there's no (easy) technological solution to this problem then is to have different social spaces. Which is what happens - night clubs are put in places preferably away from residential areas.

In my earlier post I did not say I would want laws banning the use of such a device. I said I would try to find somewhere where people, by mutual consent, did not use it. This may be impossible, but I doubt it would be.

My overall point is that my belief is that if we do get to the stage where our species "forks" in a number of directions that we will probably need varying social spaces to cope with this - perhaps even on a planetary basis.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:14   #69
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nodrog
Well, I know that I'm not responsible for anything that happened before I was born. How about you?
Hypothetically speaking, say a man robbed your family at gunpoint, took everything you had and burned your house down. The robber dies, but his son is going around spending the cash his father stole from you, meanwhile you're ruined and live in poverty. Is it the son's responsibility to return the money?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nodrog
But anyway, its not like the West destroyed a group of thriving, wealthy civilizations.
They had tons of natural resources (including labor and land) that obviously justified the expense of the whole thing to begin with.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:17   #70
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Then those forks wouldn't be much more than a representation of life as it is now, i doubt the Amish and the Africans have a particular desire to stay in each others pockets. Besides if genetic enhancements leads to greater planetary exploration id say bring it on!
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:17   #71
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by Yahwe
Whether people in other countries have enough food or not is pretty impossible to say. It's certainly not logical to blame someone starving on capitalism.
Once again, my posts must be very poorly written since I must re-emphasise : I am not talking about blame here. I am saying (and you and Nod will disagree) that I believe we currently live in a world economic system which can broadly be termed capitalism (I do not think it makes sense to talk about capitalist countries as such).

In this world we have people who do not have enough food. I do not see how this is impossible to say at all - the World Bank produces annual statistics on malnoutrition. I believe in 2003 it was something like 800 million. I am not saying this is the fault of capitalism. It is quite possible that if we had something we might term socialism we would have 6 billion people without enough food. That is not what concerns me here.

I am making a specific point in relation to Nod's point - I am not blaming anyone for anything.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:22   #72
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by s|k
Hypothetically speaking, say a man robbed your family at gunpoint, took everything you had and burned your house down. The robber dies, but his son is going around spending the cash his father stole from you, meanwhile you're ruined and live in poverty. Is it the son's responsibility to return the money?
I dont think that anyone has any entitlment to inherit things, so I dont think that I'd have lost anything in any real terms. Of course I'd probably be pissed off at this person and might try to get money from him, but I wouldnt bother rationalising this by saying he stole something that was somehow 'mine'.

edit: actually your question is confused and ambiguous. Whose money was stolen? Mine or my family's? The answer is going to be different depending on which. Neither situation is a good analogy for what happened under colonialism though, unless the house that got burned down was a cardboard box.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:22   #73
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by milo
Then those forks wouldn't be much more than a representation of life as it is now,
I think they would be a great deal more pronounced than at present. The Amish are a very specific example of a segregated society. I suspect we would see more developments like that, of people choosing to live a very specific way in line with their changed biological nature.
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Besides if genetic enhancements leads to greater planetary exploration id say bring it on!
I don't think anyone was saying genetic enhancement would be a bad thing.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:23   #74
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
Once again, my posts must be very poorly written since I must re-emphasise : I am not talking about blame here. I am saying (and you and Nod will disagree) that I believe we currently live in a world economic system which can broadly be termed capitalism (I do not think it makes sense to talk about capitalist countries as such).

In this world we have people who do not have enough food. I do not see how this is impossible to say at all - the World Bank produces annual statistics on malnoutrition. I believe in 2003 it was something like 800 million. I am not saying this is the fault of capitalism. It is quite possible that if we had something we might term socialism we would have 6 billion people without enough food. That is not what concerns me here.

I am making a specific point in relation to Nod's point - I am not blaming anyone for anything.
I more than understood your 'point'

I do not in-fact disagree that we live in an economic system which is broadly termed capitalism.

I still however think you are both being silly and adding nothing to the debate by saying the fact that we live in a capitalist system is the reason that some people do not have enough food.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:24   #75
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by Nodrog
But anyway, its not like the West destroyed a group of thriving, wealthy civilizations.

Although id agree you can't say anyone living now is responsible denying the european's empires were everything to do with wealth is absurd. The spanish didn't destroy the civilisations of south america because they were pisspoor but because they had enormous wealth and inferior defence forces. Similarly britain didn't expand its empire at a loss, we targeted rich and thriving civilisations over relatively poor ones.

We didn't think the 13 colonies of america would amount to much and prefered india as it had a lot more to offer.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:31   #76
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yahwe
I still however think you are both being silly and adding nothing to the debate by saying the fact that we live in a capitalist system is the reason that some people do not have enough food.
Where did I say that? I'll happily withdraw the remark as it's not relevant to this thread.

What I recall saying was :
Quote:
The issue is whether we live in a capitalist world system (I would say we do). In such a system, hundreds of millions of people do not have enough food. Whether this is my fault or your fault is irrelevant (at least here)
I do not think think I said the *reason* hundreds of millions of people do not have enough food is because of capitalism. I merely said that was a feature of our current world. Nod's claim was that because we have capitalism, there was good reason to believe that genetic enhancements would become available to all. My point was that if we look at medicene (or food or sanitation) these are not things that become available under capitalism universally so I cannot see how one can claim it would definitely occur with genetic enhancements.

This was never an issue of blame, and if people think it was then it must be my sloppy writing. Of course, I am more than happy to discuss in another thread (tomorrow, I am going to bed now) why I think capitalism is to blame for many of the world's problems, but that is decidedly not the argument I wanted to make here.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:36   #77
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by milo
Although id agree you can't say anyone living now is responsible denying the european's empires were everything to do with wealth is absurd. The spanish didn't destroy the civilisations of south america because they were pisspoor but because they had enormous wealth and inferior defence forces
I think you have to be very careful when you say things like this, because its easy to fall into the trap of thinking that 'wealth' and 'natural resources' have intrinsic value independent of the use to which they are put. The fact that a country has a lot of oil doesnt really mean anything if it has not invented any means of making use of that oil. Similarly the fact that a country has a lot of gold or diamonds doesnt really mean anything if these things arent considered valuable by the natives, or if they have no means of extracting and processing them. I think the only real factor to consider is whether in the absence of colonialism, these countries would be more advanced today than they currently are. And in the majority of cases, I think the answer is likely to be no. Of course, there may well be some exceptions (some of the Southern American civilisations as you mention).
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:44   #78
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by Nodrog
I think you have to be very careful when you say things like this, because its easy to fall into the trap of thinking that 'wealth' and 'natural resources' have intrinsic value independent of the use to which they are put. The fact that a country has a lot of oil doesnt really mean anything if it has not invented any means of making use of that oil. Similarly the fact that a country has a lot of gold or diamonds doesnt really mean anything if these things arent considered valuable by the natives, or if they have no means of extracting and processing them. I think the only real factor to consider is whether in the absence of colonialism, these countries would be more advanced today than they currently are. And in the majority of cases, I think the answer is likely to be no. Of course, there may well be some exceptions (some of the Southern American civilisations as you mention).

I don't recall the colonial empires carrying out geological surveys before sending the troops in they went to the people that were rich and defeated them with better armies. Theres nothing wrong with that, it happened. Trying to get round the wealth issue by saying 'well they were inferior weren't they? if we assume that their society wouldn't have developed or evolved at all then quite clearly it was all worth it' is pointless.

In an alternate universe where napoleon/thespanish/the germans invaded and utterly transformed britain they'd also say 'they wouldn't amount to much'.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:52   #79
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by milo
I don't recall the colonial empires carrying out geological surveys before sending the troops in they went to the people that were rich and defeated them with better armies.
But the point is that saying 'they were rich' doesnt necessarily mean anything. A land that happens to have a lot of gold/oil lying around isnt 'rich' if the people there live in mudhuts and dont use use the gold/oil. Natural resources mean nothing outwith the context of a civilisation which has the knowledge and ability to put them to use (which is one of the reasons why the current talk about 'stealing the oil in the middle east' is often misguided).


Quote:
Trying to get round the wealth issue by saying 'well they were inferior weren't they? if we assume that their society wouldn't have developed or evolved at all then quite clearly it was all worth it' is pointless.

In an alternate universe where napoleon/thespanish/the germans invaded and utterly transformed britain they'd also say 'they wouldn't amount to much'.
Not really, because there are several obvious cases where you can say that a thriving civilisation was destroyed, such as Baghdad when the Mongols sacked it, or the Incas before the Spanish conquest. But this just isnt the case with the majority of colonial countries, as far as I know.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:59   #80
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
I do not think think I said the *reason* hundreds of millions of people do not have enough food is because of capitalism. I merely said that was a feature of our current world. Nod's claim was that because we have capitalism, there was good reason to believe that genetic enhancements would become available to all. My point was that if we look at medicene (or food or sanitation) these are not things that become available under capitalism universally so I cannot see how one can claim it would definitely occur with genetic enhancements.
But when I say "capitalism generally means that people have access to new technology rather than it being limited to a select few", mentioning non-capitalist countries where noone has access to anything isnt a counter argument.

Last edited by Nodrog; 19 Jun 2006 at 00:04.
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Unread 18 Jun 2006, 23:59   #81
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nodrog
But the point is that saying 'they were rich' doesnt necessarily mean anything. A land that happens to have a lot of gold/oil lying around isnt 'rich' if the people there live in mudhuts and dont use use the gold/oil. Natural resources mean nothing outwith the context of a civilisation which has the knowledge and ability to put them to use (which is one of the reasons why the current talk about 'stealing the oil in the middle east' is often misguided).
Noone knew how to put wealth to use throughout the population, the majority of britons lived in pisspoor conditions and i don't see why someone living in the slums would necesarrily feel better than an obscure african/asian.

We saw that as a whole those civilisations had wealth, they had things that we wanted, we had better armies. We took what we wanted. It was what it was.

Quote:
Not really, because there are several obvious cases where you can say that a thriving civilisation was destroyed, such as Baghdad after the Mongols sacked it, or the Incas under the Spanish. But this just isnt the case with the majority of colonial countries, as far as I know.
They lived the way they lived, im not sure what you mean by 'thriving'. We went where there were people that lived similarly to the way that we did, we went to places where people lived radically different lives. In all cases we went because we wanted something they had. It was what it was.
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Unread 19 Jun 2006, 00:02   #82
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

A little off topic but these are some of kurzweil's predictions.

Some prominent dates from this analysis include the following:

* We achieve one Human Brain capability (2 * 10^16 cps) for $1,000 around the year 2023.
* We achieve one Human Brain capability (2 * 10^16 cps) for one cent around the year 2037.
* We achieve one Human Race capability (2 * 10^26 cps) for $1,000 around the year 2049.
* We achieve one Human Race capability (2 * 10^26 cps) for one cent around the year 2059.

still seems speculative to me but he does make fairly nice arguments at times.

from: http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/a...ml?printable=1
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Unread 19 Jun 2006, 00:04   #83
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by milo
We saw that as a whole those civilisations had wealth, they had things that we wanted, we had better armies. We took what we wanted. It was what it was.



They lived the way they lived, im not sure what you mean by 'thriving'. We went where there were people that lived similarly to the way that we did, we went to places where people lived radically different lives. In all cases we went because we wanted something they had. It was what it was.
The difference is that youre talking about motives and intentions, while I'm talking about consequences.
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Unread 19 Jun 2006, 00:12   #84
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nodrog
The difference is that youre talking about motives and intentions, while I'm talking about consequences.

Extrapolating consequences beyond the time when we arrived is meaningless, you discount revolutionaries/new ways of thinking/radicalism in those societies/civilisations. It takes a deterministic and linear approach to the human race that doesn't exist. You can't say what those people might have done in an alternate universe, it could be anything from go to the moon to kill themselves with equal validity.

Someone from those colonial nations could say with equal irrationality that they'd have invented phasers and a cure to aids.

If you want to say you didn't think much of the way those people lived their lives at the time we invaded fine, but it can only apply to that time and nothing else.
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Unread 19 Jun 2006, 00:27   #85
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by milo
Extrapolating consequences beyond the time when we arrived is meaningless, you discount revolutionaries/new ways of thinking/radicalism in those societies/civilisations. It takes a deterministic and linear approach to the human race that doesn't exist. You can't say what those people might have done in an alternate universe, it could be anything from go to the moon to kill themselves with equal validity.

Someone from those colonial nations could say with equal irrationality that they'd have invented phasers and a cure to aids.

If you want to say you didn't think much of the way those people lived their lives at the time we invaded fine, but it can only apply to that time and nothing else.
You can make reasonable extrapolations based on available evidence. While these will never be perfect they are good approximations. The fact that these extrapolations are difficult to make is no reason for denying they cannot be made. The importance of certain inventions at certain times can be seen from history in other parts of the world.
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Unread 19 Jun 2006, 00:33   #86
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by JonnyBGood
You can make reasonable extrapolations based on available evidence. While these will never be perfect they are good approximations. The fact that these extrapolations are difficult to make is no reason for denying they cannot be made. The importance of certain inventions at certain times can be seen from history in other parts of the world.

Only if you take a deterministic and linear approach that ignores discontinuity in history, it becomes horribly subjective. If the irish hadn't have gained independance it would have been better for ireland.
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Unread 19 Jun 2006, 02:55   #87
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by Deepflow
Nope

Misuse of the the word ironic is a pet hate of mine, I'll actually reply to some real points now.
Let me introduce you to new facets of the word. Blair being a Conservative in disguise, it would be ironic if a Conservative leader turned out to be a communist in disguise.

The irony is faint and not very funny, but it is there.
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Unread 19 Jun 2006, 07:39   #88
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
I do not think think I said the *reason* hundreds of millions of people do not have enough food is because of capitalism. I merely said that was a feature of our current world.
If you aren't claiming a causal connection then I can not understand why you bother saying it.

"We live in a generally capitalist system and trees have green leaves". This statement is also factually true but completely irrelevant.
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Unread 19 Jun 2006, 09:07   #89
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yahwe
If you aren't claiming a causal connection then I can not understand why you bother saying it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
Nod's claim was that because we have capitalism, there was good reason to believe that genetic enhancements would become available to all. My point was that if we look at medicene (or food or sanitation) these are not things that become available under capitalism universally so I cannot see how one can claim it would definitely occur with genetic enhancements.
I am not sure how else I can put this. It seems relatively straight-forward from this end, but obviously not to others.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nodrog
But when I say "capitalism generally means that people have access to new technology rather than it being limited to a select few", mentioning non-capitalist countries where noone has access to anything isnt a counter argument.
At least here I can see why there is disagreement (although I think I have already covered this point).

1. I do not feel it's particularly logical to talk in terms of states when discussing capitalism as a system since this is a global system with interconnected dependencies between individuals, companies and states. We can't analyse the success or failing of one particular state in isolation and since the vast majority of transactions are between individuals or firms I'm not sure if it makes sense to talk in terms of states in any case.

2. Even if we are dividing the world up between "capitalist" and "non-capitalist" states (looking at their legal or political framework) I'm baffled what you're using as the criteria. Is Norway more capitalist than Brazil? Is Cuba more capitalist than Haiti? In both cases, malnutrition is much higher in the latter cases and (not uncoincidentally I would suggest) social provisions are also much higher too.
Quote:
I suppose its true that I dont care about most of the people in these countries since their shitty governments are largely their own fault, but theres still likely to be a few thousand people there who deserve better things.
A few thousand?!

At random, some states and the proportion of the population under 14
Haiti : 42%
Nepal : 38%
Somalia : 44%
Peru : 30%
(from CIA World Factbook)

Are these individuals responsible for their "shitty governments"?
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Unread 19 Jun 2006, 10:33   #90
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by milo
Only if you take a deterministic and linear approach that ignores discontinuity in history, it becomes horribly subjective. If the irish hadn't have gained independance it would have been better for ireland.
Short-term economically? Almost certainly.

You seem to have some fairly bizzare idea over odds of various things occurring. I advise having a chat with a bookies to find out how they do it!
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Unread 19 Jun 2006, 10:51   #91
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by JonnyBGood
You can make reasonable extrapolations based on available evidence. While these will never be perfect they are good approximations.
I'm going to have to agree with Milo here, the way history moves in this area makes any approximation you make pretty dodgy. If someone had looked at Europe in 1400 it would have been difficult to predict the growth that occurred in the period after 1492 regardless what evidence you looked at. Sure, we can try to rewrite history so that the Europeans were always destined to dominate the latter part of the 2nd millennia but that's a bit suspicious and it's possible if the Atlantic was a bit wider we'd have remained a relatively unimportant peninsula and been massively overtaken by the Chinese or Arabs or whomever*.

Not that I really get this bit of the argument anyway - Nod's assertion that these societies weren't thriving / wealthy despite being generally inaccurate is also irrelevant (to me). I mean, let's imagine there's some use of Mercury that we're totally unaware of (to fuel warp drive or some shit). Under the same criteria we're using here, it'd be OK for aliens to come and slaughter half our population to steal our mercury because, hey, we're not using it properly and it's not like resources have any value inherently anyway, right...

(Obviously in this case his example is pretty strange since most civilisations "use" gold in the same sort of way - up until relatively recently - and that's precisely why we wanted it. Oil is a different case but it's not like Imperialist expansion before 1850 was dominated by a quest for oil)

* = Jim Blaut's 'Colonisers Model of the World' makes exactly this argument.
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Unread 19 Jun 2006, 11:08   #92
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
I'm going to have to agree with Milo here, the way history moves in this area makes any approximation you make pretty dodgy. If someone had looked at Europe in 1400 it would have been difficult to predict the growth that occurred in the period after 1492 regardless what evidence you looked at. Sure, we can try to rewrite history so that the Europeans were always destined to dominate the latter part of the 2nd millennia but that's a bit suspicious and it's possible if the Atlantic was a bit wider we'd have remained a relatively unimportant peninsula and been massively overtaken by the Chinese or Arabs or whomever*.
I would seriously advise you study history more before you make that sort of claim. Taking the example of chinese society quickly, because I'm in work and don't have much time, you're talking of an essentially conservative society due to the nature of agricultural development and food demands (look it all goes back to economics lawl!) highly unlikely to exploit new situations as successively as a consistently warring high-strain society as Europe circa 15th century. This case was proven in point by the fact that the Chinese did land ships on the Eastern coasts of Africa and California but the dominant outlook in the mid-high ranking Chinese authorities was internal. Christ how anyone posting in a thread about predictions for the future can claim predictions from a point in the past are basically useless is beyond me. I'm not entirely sure what we're claiming beyond "you can't make predictions about the future". Is someone claiming africa would have remained technologically unsophisticated eternally?

Quote:
Not that I really get this bit of the argument anyway - Nod's assertion that these societies weren't thriving / wealthy despite being generally inaccurate is also irrelevant (to me). I mean, let's imagine there's some use of Mercury that we're totally unaware of (to fuel warp drive or some shit). Under the same criteria we're using here, it'd be OK for aliens to come and slaughter half our population to steal our mercury because, hey, we're not using it properly and it's not like resources have any value inherently anyway, right...
Capitalism involves respect for private property.
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Unread 19 Jun 2006, 11:34   #93
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by JonnyBGood
I would seriously advise you study history more before you make that sort of claim
I've studied a fair amount of history duder, there's some disagreement in the field here - although of course I am happy to read anything you suggest. In general though I'm not sure you can assume when someone disagrees with you it's because they've not seen the relevant episode of Clarissa Explains It All.
Quote:
This case was proven in point by the fact that the Chinese did land ships on the Eastern coasts of Africa and California but the dominant outlook in the mid-high ranking Chinese authorities was internal.
I'm not really sure that constitutes proof, or even evidence. We're talking about parallel histories here, and who knows what changes could have come about if things were different. Yes, the Chinese suppressed their own expansion and perhaps if Zheng He's exploration had been given a freer reign things would have gone differently. Some historians put the curtailing of his voyages down to internal political crisis, some to the fact their role had been served (tribute had been made, etc) and others to just general rampant conservativism. But these things are hardly set in stone in the Chinese DNA.

But that's kind of the point : these things are often historical chance and it's difficult to analyse questions of this nature without access to time machines. Other historians (e.g. Pomeranz) have attributed a good deal of Europe's success (compared to China) down to the positioning of coal seams - convenient for Europe (especially England) inconvenient for Chinese.

So when historians can't even agree on why things happened I think it's pretty difficult to imagine if things were different.
Quote:
Christ how anyone posting in a thread about predictions for the future can claim predictions from a point in the past are basically useless is beyond me.
I'll quote myself in the first post I made on this thread : "Prediction is a bit of a mugs game, there are simply too many factors at play."

In this case, Nod's question was : would these societies have been wealthier / better without European intervention. I am (and Milo too, I think) saying that you cannot easily answer such a question by looking at how these societies were (in some cases) five hundred years ago. Do you honestly think we can answer such a question with certainty (or even confidence)?
Quote:
Capitalism involves respect for private property.
Nod seems to imply these societies didn't have property rights because they didn't use these resources in the manner we presently feel is most efficient. Unless you meant something else here.
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Unread 19 Jun 2006, 11:35   #94
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Some "what if" predictions are more accurate than others and capitalism involves respect for private property. Which of those two do you disagree with?
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Unread 19 Jun 2006, 11:42   #95
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by JonnyBGood
Some "what if" predictions are more accurate than others
I suspect everyone agrees with this.
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Unread 19 Jun 2006, 11:46   #96
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
I've studied a fair amount of history duder, there's some disagreement in the field here - although of course I am happy to read anything you suggest. In general though I'm not sure you can assume when someone disagrees with you it's because they've not seen the relevant episode of Clarissa Explains It All.
You seem to be disagreeing with history per se though. As in disagreeing with causation.

Quote:
I'm not really sure that constitutes proof, or even evidence. We're talking about parallel histories here, and who knows what changes could have come about if things were different. Yes, the Chinese suppressed their own expansion and perhaps if Zheng He's exploration had been given a freer reign things would have gone differently. Some historians put the curtailing of his voyages down to internal political crisis, some to the fact their role had been served (tribute had been made, etc) and others to just general rampant conservativism. But these things are hardly set in stone in the Chinese DNA.
I wasn't proposing that China would never have developed computers or aeroplanes until the end of the universe.

Quote:
But that's kind of the point : these things are often historical chance and it's difficult to analyse questions of this nature without access to time machines. Other historians (e.g. Pomeranz) have attributed a good deal of Europe's success (compared to China) down to the positioning of coal seams - convenient for Europe (especially England) inconvenient for Chinese.
Obviously there are many factors in play, you can hardly expect me to give a satisfactory summary of the largest developments in human history in a single internet forums post.

Quote:
So when historians can't even agree on why things happened I think it's pretty difficult to imagine if things were different.
I'll quote myself in the first post I made on this thread : "Prediction is a bit of a mugs game, there are simply too many factors at play."
We're talking degrees of separation here. Nobody's out there proposing it's because bugs bunny is grey instead of brown. Which is really what I was respond to
Quote:
Originally Posted by milo
Someone from those colonial nations could say with equal irrationality that they'd have invented phasers and a cure to aids.
here.

Quote:
In this case, Nod's question was : would these societies have been wealthier / better without European intervention. I am (and Milo too, I think) saying that you cannot easily answer such a question by looking at how these societies were (in some cases) five hundred years ago. Do you honestly think we can answer such a question with certainty (or even confidence)?
I'm not sure what you mean by better, nor wealthier really.

Quote:
Nod seems to imply these societies didn't have property rights because they didn't use these resources in the manner we presently feel is most efficient. Unless you meant something else here.
I'd sincerely hope that is not what he meant. Couple with restrictions on intellectual property and you could end up with some fairly absurd conclusions.
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Unread 19 Jun 2006, 11:47   #97
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante Hicks
I suspect everyone agrees with this.
As I quoted in my above post (again) milo does not seem to be in agreement.
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Unread 19 Jun 2006, 11:55   #98
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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Originally Posted by Toccata & Fugue
If we are down to the level of posting uncontroversial truism, I predict in 50 years time that some people will have more control over the world's resources than others, the Sun will continue to shine in the sky, all the whales will be extinct and this will come to bite us in the arse when aliens come to earth and try to communicate with us in whalespeak.
Sorry for not including more outrageous claims in my posts







If you want I'll let you in on my bugs bunny conspiracy theory!
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Unread 19 Jun 2006, 12:00   #99
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

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If you want I'll let you in on my bugs bunny conspiracy theory!
Too late dude, we already know about the carrot-eating .
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Unread 19 Jun 2006, 12:02   #100
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Re: The world in 50 years; Predictions?

Quote:
Originally Posted by JonnyBGood
I'm not sure what you mean by better, nor wealthier really.
Ok. Well to be fair Nod's wording was :
Quote:
I think the only real factor to consider is whether in the absence of colonialism, these countries would be more advanced today than they currently are. And in the majority of cases, I think the answer is likely to be no.
Define "more advanced" however you want really.

Quote:
I'd sincerely hope that is not what he meant.
I am probably being unfair, but I find it difficult to take this post any other way as it reads like a rather poor justification for imperialism.
Quote:
As I quoted in my above post (again) milo does not seem to be in agreement.
Well obviously some predictions are more likely than others. That's simply a truism. I think his point is that over this much historical distance you cannot simply accept trends as meaningul - too many things could have occurred to speak with any certainty, especially when trying to justify various atrocities.
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