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What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

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Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keeping the peace means enforcing nonviolent interaction and providing due process for conflict resolution. Liberty isn't the same thing as prosperity/economic power. They are different words for a reason. You can be very poor and very free, or very comfortably enslaved. Liberty is fundamentally your relationship with those who can use legitimate force against you.

> enforcing nonviolent interaction By ultimately using force or the threat thereof to prevent people from using force in disallowed ways, right? > Liberty isn't the same thing as prosperity/economic power. I didn't say they were synonyms. I said prosperity was a prerequisite to liberty[1]. A poor person isn't free to inhabit a house, and if they try to do so the state will use force to prevent or remove them. [1]: ac…

A homeless person can be more free than a person confined in a mansion, can they not?

> By ultimately using force or the threat thereof to prevent people from using force in disallowed ways

Yes, since using force to compel action is basically the definition of slavery and decidedly un-free.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better Let me translate “you are slaves and you rent everything. We base your ability to purchase on a social credit score. But we let you rent houses in our artificially limited VR world.” I don’t make much of predictions like these. It’s ALWAYS a safe bet to assume people will lose liberty. To the point the FED was created in 1913, research w…

Gun control in the 1880s Old West: "The laws of Tombstone at the time required visitors, upon entering town to disarm, either at a hotel or a lawman's office. (Residents of many famed cattle towns, such as Dodge City, Abilene, and Deadwood, had similar restrictions.)" "Dodge City, Kansas, formed a municipal government in 1878. According to Stephen Aron, a professor of history at UCLA, the first law passed was one pro…

Probably unconstitutional, but never challenged in the Supreme Court, I believe.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A telco executive's astute predictions "Just what form the future telephone will take is, of course, pure speculation. Here is my prophecy: In its final development, the telephone will be carried about by the individual, perhaps as we carry a watch today. It probably will require no dial or equivalent and I think the users will be able to see each other, if they want, as they talk. Who knows but it may actually trans…

Of all our technology, I truly think the smartphone is one of the most impressive and futuristic things ever invented. It’s the kind of thing Star Trek thought was hundreds of years in the future and that most sci-fi failed to imagine. It is individually transformative in a way that space flight will probably never be. Our information tech is likely to continue racing forward and this current moment will look analog…

The future may be analog - if you look far enough.

We are analog.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The absolute end to that line of reasoning is that there shouldn’t be any state at all. Why does the state need to “keep the peace”? It does so through a monopoly on force. Why can’t private individuals simply work things out on their own however they see fit? The idea of liberty, to me, is the idea that citizens have power over collective decision making, ie the rule of law, consent of the governed. I realize I am i…

No, the absolute end is that the state should enforce negative rights, not positive ones. Liberty is the freedom from interference by or obligation to other people. > Why can’t private individuals simply work things out on their own however they see fit? They can, so long as they do peacefully. What the state provides is simply due process for the resolution of disputes, and the expectation that this process will be…

I define liberty differently than you do.

I don’t accept the popular, modern definition of negative rights vs positive rights as the bedrock or liberty. It leads to nonsensical conclusions.

There is no such thing under my definition as a “free dictatorship”. A system where rulers aren’t bound by legitimate laws is by definition un-free.

I don’t think my definition is super far off from yours though: liberty as non domination, one isn’t subject to the arbitrary will of another.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#356
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was excited about the kickstarter because while a recovering alcoholic can completely stop using alcohol, a food addict always has to eat a little. Something bland, and quick I didn't think about was a plus. But afyer the Kickstarter they replaced the fish oil with polyunsaturated vegetable oil in powder form and dropped the rice protein content for more carbs. My triglycerides shot through the roof after the first…

You could try keto chow. They started with the Soylent recipe and made it carb free (if you don't count fiber as carbs). https://www.ketochow.xyz/

I'm not against carbs, I just like macro ratios more like the earlier versions. Lots of carbs and polyunsaturated oils are in the literature as triglyceride boosters. If they offered a version with the fish oil back in and the old protein ratios I'd be interested, especially if the replaced the rice protein with the collagen or fish meal from the bait fish the oil came from. At least as sustainable as giant fields of rice and safflower and probably lower in heavy metals too. Rice sucks up the cadmium.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keeping the peace means enforcing nonviolent interaction and providing due process for conflict resolution. Liberty isn't the same thing as prosperity/economic power. They are different words for a reason. You can be very poor and very free, or very comfortably enslaved. Liberty is fundamentally your relationship with those who can use legitimate force against you.

Your definition of liberty here is getting really tangled. If liberty is “fundamentally your relationship with those who can use legitimate force against you” then how is having a set monetary policy incompatible with liberty as long as it comes from a “legitimate” source of power?

Because compliance with that monetary policy is enforced with.. force? You must pay taxes in USD, and if you don't you go to jail. The government also conveniently controls the USD supply, which allows the to debase it as they see fit, forcing you to obtain a set amount of USD per year to pay taxes. If the government accepted tax revenue in gold or bitcoin or anything else they don't totally control, you'd be absolutely right.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#358

Impressively thought-out article, but given the publication date I'm also surprised there's no mention of the impacts of the flu pandemic of 1918-1920. So much ink is currently being spilled about how so many things will change thanks to the COVID pandemic, whether architecture or remote work or medical breakthroughs. I guess once the flu pandemic subsided it was no longer at the forefront of thought?

The Spanish flu largely overlapped with the WW1, and since its 2nd wave had a high toll among people with strong immune system (ex. young male) the perception was to a large degree mixed with the perception of war and its casualties, at least in Europe.

The name 'spanish flu' itself also stems from the fact that most countries involved in the war didn't want to talk too much about the Flu, while Spain retained neutrality and didn't have incentives to keep it in the dark - this could also be a reason that people were putting the aftermath of the pandemic in the same bucket as the outcome of the Great War imo.

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/1918-flu-pandemic

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better Let me translate “you are slaves and you rent everything. We base your ability to purchase on a social credit score. But we let you rent houses in our artificially limited VR world.” I don’t make much of predictions like these. It’s ALWAYS a safe bet to assume people will lose liberty. To the point the FED was created in 1913, research w…

Many non renewable resources are past peak production, and declining fast. Austerity will be next. But it will be disguised as saving the environment. So that not only do you do not blame your politicians for being poorer. You will be blamed for over consuming and destroying the environment. Energy crisis, like running out of heating gas is already hitting Europe. And shortages of fertilizer will be here this spring.…

There are trouble brewing in EU over energy and food prices, but at the same time there are mitigating factors. The cut that middle men get for food has risen sharply the last few decades, especially for the kind of food that risen most in price. The more the customer pays in stores, the more incentive there is from the producers to cut the middle men. As an example, around 1/3 of the price for raw beef goes to the producer where I live, which is a result of low competition among the middle men, strict regulation, and a lack of innovation in the direct-to-customer space.

Energy prices was at a historical low just last year. This year the price has doubled compared to last year, but compared to 10 years ago its the same. People need to have a plan B, through hopefully it will involve investments to use modern standards and energy efficient heating.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#360

Fascinating. I guess about one third of his predictions were correct. Eye-opening moments for me: - "white countries" - "radial energy" - "the servant problem" - no smoke in the house, "perhaps not even tobacco" - "the child is likely to be taken over by the State" - His vision of a house filled with frequently replaced disposable surfaces - "king of Jugo-Slavia" [will still reign] - "the American race [will become h…

> "the child is likely to be taken over by the State" I'd be interested what daycare and school looked like in 1922, because arguably childcare is mostly state run at this point

In 1920,

* the high school graduation rate was around 16%. (Up from below 10% in 1910!)

* only 8 million women were in the labor force

* Child labor laws either actually or functionally did not exist (the major federal laws were not passed in the 30s.)

* The industrial revolution was in full swing, but huge swaths of the labor economy were still very agrarian.

For the working class, early childhood care was provided by mothers and beyond that daycare/schooling was provided by the factories and farm fields.

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