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The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

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Re: The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

#81

Post by twoodfin »

growupkids wrote: post #75
tim333 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other CO2 free options apart from nuclear. If you believe solar installation is increasing exponentially a la Kurzweil then we'll soon have enough solar http://bigthink.com/think-tank/ray-kurzweil-solar-will-power... You can argue solar / wind is already cheaper and the differential is only going to grow http://cleantechnica.com/2014/04/26/wind-solar-can-generate-... Fair enough at the moment wind/solar don…

Doesnt use of natural gas have an adverse impact on climate change?

Not if it's replacing coal.

Re: The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

#82

Post by noobermin »

JanezStupar wrote: post #70
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing economically inevitable about spending public subsidy on the rich instead of the poor.

How did you get public subsidy into discussion anyway? I have posted a simple question. What if large asset control inequality is inevitable? Is bringing down the wealthy, so that a new class of wealthy takes over and possibly destroying large means of the assets in process benefit society? Thus far that is the biggest outcome generated by previous attempts at decreasing inequality.

First off, I have seen no evidence that that is the "biggest outcome." Also, how do you know such things are inevitable? I see no evidence that is true either.

Re: The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

#83

Post by Zigurd »

A better title would have been "Progress isn't uniform, and measuring it is hard." Each war brings progress in trauma medicine, which contributes to making war (and driving) less deadly. That's good, right? Right?

Higher education requirements and increasing relative status as policing becomes a relatively more desirable job for people with lower (and capped) aptitude means policing gets better by many metrics. Nonetheless, militarization is a bad thing, solution rates are shockingly low, the Drug War is a distraction, and cop culture is rotten: http://www.salon.com/2014/12/23/deader_than_a_roadkill_dog_d...

Some things are clear, however: Terrorism is a negligible threat. Nuclear weapons are still the #1 threat to civilization. But there is a lack of intentionality in both these areas.

Re: The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

#84

Post by bostonpete »

rskar wrote: post #69
Hermel wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, wealth inequality correlates strongly with median age over time. In a regression, raising median age can explain 89% of the raise in wealth inequality of the top 10% (my own calculation, using Picketty data, not online yet). The hypothesis behind this is that inequality tends to grow with age. Among 20 year olds, there is much less inequality than among 60 year olds. In fact, the richest even grow in wealt…

Are you suggesting that the bottom 90% of households are predominately headed by under-40 year-olds? According to payscale.com, among those with college degrees or higher, pay for men stops growing about age 48; for women, about 39. (See http://www.payscale.com/gender-lifetime-earnings-gap ) In your defence, there is this: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/20... ; in which Joseph Mason, Moyse/…

You seem to know your stuff so I'm reluctant to challenge you on any of this but what is "medium income"? You use the term multiple times above so it doesn't seem like a typo...

Re: The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

#85

Post by YesThatTom2 »

THIS IS TERRIBLE.

How can news agencies make any money if they can't scare people into hysterics that keep them glued to the TV screen?

How can gun companies and home security firms sell product if people aren't afraid of everything around them?

THIS KIND OF RESEARCH HARMS THE ECONOMY AND MUST BE STOPPED.

Sincerely, Tom being cynical

Re: The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

#86

Post by rskar »

bostonpete wrote: post #84
rskar wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that the bottom 90% of households are predominately headed by under-40 year-olds? According to payscale.com, among those with college degrees or higher, pay for men stops growing about age 48; for women, about 39. (See http://www.payscale.com/gender-lifetime-earnings-gap ) In your defence, there is this: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/20... ; in which Joseph Mason, Moyse/…

You seem to know your stuff so I'm reluctant to challenge you on any of this but what is "medium income"? You use the term multiple times above so it doesn't seem like a typo...

It could be a typo or other mistake. To be clear, "medium income" was the phrase used by Philip Longman in the cited PDF. I also wonder if he actually meant "median income." I googled on "define medium income", and it seems P.L. isn't alone in using that term, but it's not clear to me if it's taken the same as median, or if it's a unique term all its own.

In the book, "Children in America: National Indicator of Well-being", edited by Ryan H. Nobbins, in Appendix A (page 121), "medium income" is given a definition (see https://books.google.com/books?id=ALccZ2yFq9UC&pg=PA121&lpg=...), although I don't know if P.L. means it this way: Medium Income is between 200 and 399 percent of the poverty threshold (e.g. from $37620 thru $75239 for a family of 4 in 2003).

Re: The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

#87

Post by Retra »

austerity wrote: post #63
diafygi wrote: post #13

Great! We're better overall than we were! No reason to rest on our laurels, though. How can we be better than we are now? Here's some areas that aren't doing too well: 1. Climate Change - We're in store for a lot of trouble over the next few decades[1]. How will we manage? 2. Wealth Inequality - The gap is widening[2]. How do we reverse the trend? 3. Gerrymandering/voter suppression - The ones in power are the ones w…

Why should I care about the relative wealth of the rich instead of absolute wealth of the poor?

Because human happiness and value are not measured in absolute terms.

Re: The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

#88

Post by zmanian »

diafygi wrote: post #13

Great! We're better overall than we were! No reason to rest on our laurels, though. How can we be better than we are now? Here's some areas that aren't doing too well: 1. Climate Change - We're in store for a lot of trouble over the next few decades[1]. How will we manage? 2. Wealth Inequality - The gap is widening[2]. How do we reverse the trend? 3. Gerrymandering/voter suppression - The ones in power are the ones w…

The biggest overall concerns is that these gains seem to be the benefits of systems that are unraveling.

1. The effective constraint of the short term self interests of nation states via various international norms against armed conflict, internal repression and crimes against humanity.

2. The fossil fuel economy.

The plausible replacements for these systems seem much less stable at the current moment.

Re: The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

#89

Post by AnimalMuppet »

fixedd wrote: post #39
parasubvert wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steven Pinker has done a fairly deep study of the long run decline in violence: it is real, it is over centuries, and it is dramatic. But it is not guaranteed to last. I highly recommend his book as it provides a lot of data on the topic (and is quite a good read too). "The decline in violence, he argues, is enormous in magnitude, visible on both long and short time scales, and found in many domains, including milita…

> Pinker uses the phrase as a metaphor for four human motivations that, he writes, can "orient us away from violence and towards cooperation and altruism,"[2] namely: empathy, self-control, the "moral sense," and reason. All of which are contrary to religious fundamentalism... which worries me as a US citizen.

Self-control is contrary to religious fundamentalism? The "moral sense" is contrary to religious fundamentalism?

I mean, sure, there have been some pretty horrible things done in the name of religion, often by fundamentalists. There have been some even more horrible things done in the name of atheistic philosophies, too. But religious fundamentalism should give one an idea that certain things really are morally wrong, and that you're therefore not supposed to do them. That sounds like "self-control" and "moral sense" to me...

Re: The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

#90

Post by felixgallo »

JanezStupar wrote: post #71
austerity wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should I care about the relative wealth of the rich instead of absolute wealth of the poor?

This is the key question for me too. Nowadays a blue collar worker (at least here in EU) has better living conditions than the wealthiest and more powerful mere hundred years ago. Nowadays nobody has to die because of bad teeth and everybody has access to cheap and effective education and through that to other means of production.

The poor generally have none of:

* dental insurance * effective inexpensive dental care * effective education * access to effective education * a pathway to 'other means of production' * better living conditions than the wealthiest of a mere 100 years ago (the second industrial revolution and the gilded age, where the rich were incredibly rich, and the poor were utterly wretched)

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