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China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

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Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#501

Post by fouc »

Unearned5161 wrote: post #410
zdragnar wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The predictions of Ehrlich in "the population bomb" and the club of rome were undone within a few years with the "green revolution" which saw massive increases in food production. Ehrlich in particular was suggesting mass starvation by the 1980's. Conceivably, it is possible that too many people will cause problems, but nothing like what they actually predicted has come to pass.

I encourage you to revisit what you know about the club of rome and what was actually published in the Limits to Growth paper. We have been disturbingly on track for a lot of the variables that were of interest back then in the “business as usual” model. People tend to dismiss anything and everything around resource constraint thinking by doing the quick Ehrlich quip, and never really dig deeper into where people lik…

What's fascinating is the the Rat Utopia[0] experiment in overpopulation from the late 60's that Dr. John Calhoun ran.

As a result, more than fifty years ago, on tape, Dr. John Calhoun made some eerily accurate[1] extrapolations of where human population is going to be now, and how our TFR (total fertility rate) would collapse (which they basically are, particularly since Millennial & Gen Z generations).

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOFveSUmh9U "John B. Calhoun Film 7.1, (NIMH, 1970-1972)"

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#502

Post by kingkawn »

simsla wrote: post #466
shubhamjain wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Although low birth rates have now become a problem, back then it seemed like a solution. They haven't, imo. I am from India, and I have been hearing for the last two decades how we have avoided same mistakes as China and the latter is headed for a demographic collapse. China is only marching forward, and focusing more on automation to hedge its bets. While overpopulation in India has choked almost every city in Ind…

European here. One of the problems is that many of our society's systems are predicated on a growing population. Social security and pensions, for example, are structured not unlike a pyramid scheme: for every old person we should have more than one working young person. People take more than they give. Fixing that will be painful, but possible. More worrying is how many countries' birth rates have fallen below the r…

Neither Japan nor Korea are in SE Asia

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#503

Post by Jackpillar »

andrewflnr wrote: post #251
yanhangyhy wrote: post #233

I don’t know how it is in other countries, but nearly thirty years ago when I was in elementary school, a Chinese propaganda slogan stuck with me: “If you want to get rich, build roads first; have fewer children, plant more trees.” Every part of that slogan has been put into action, continuously, for decades. Although low birth rates have now become a problem, back then it seemed like a solution. Xi Jinping may be a…

I would really respect the hell out of the nation of China if it wasn't for the authoritarianism and imperialism.

Imperialism? Please do divulge

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#504

Post by Jackpillar »

leodler wrote: post #282
scoopertrooper wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They go hand in hand. The authoritarianism of China allows it to undertake generational projects of immense scale with mass popular support through propaganda. It works well when the government is pursuing welfare maximising initiatives, but limits self-correction when the government goes off track. A small example of it going wrong, was when Mao convinced peasants to exterminate Sparrows and other ‘pests’ only to se…

Somehow we (the United States) accomplished generational projects that are currently out of the realm of possibility such as the interstate system without risking anything like a famine. I think a lot of people in America have been overly-empowered to stand in the way of the most modest progress through NIMBYism, litigation, local government, etc. To a lot of people it increasingly feels like a form of private author…

Yeah lets talk about them tax rates at the time of these accomplished generational projects (comment is in support of them)

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#505

Post by Aunche »

londons_explore wrote: post #266
devsda wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a Chinese propaganda slogan stuck with me: “If you want to get rich, build roads first; have fewer children, plant more trees.” Why call it propaganda though ? That doesn't sound like a biased, deceptive or misleading policy. It hasn't been thought through much which is universally common for some govt policies everywhere, but it results have been positive for the most part ?

Not all propaganda is deceptive. The best propaganda is 100% true and still achieves it's goal.

Even deceptive propaganda isn't necessarily bad. Objectively speaking, the best thing to do for yourself would have been to dodge the draft in WWII for example.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#506

Post by libertine »

hunglee2 wrote: post #394
somenameforme wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be coy, but what do you mean by that? The reason I ask is because I think many of us use these terms, but without ever thinking about exactly which behaviors we're critiquing, or how they relate to what we truly value. For instance both the Roman and Greek Empires deserve immense respect, yet they were both often imperial empires ruled by dictators. The same is no less true of many societies that played key ro…

this is the way - 'multi-polarity' is another word for 'diversity' which is another way to understand resiliency. We have seen in recent days what over dependence on single point of failure looks like (AWS outage), so from a species level perspective, it is better that we have many different forms of organisation and narrative. We just have to ensure that these narratives are not evangelical and intolerant!

That's not what multipolarity means, at least by those leading such propaganda.

By their standards multipolarity means control ove different circles of influence without interference.

That's what Russia wants for example, they want to secure the regime by controlling nearby countries (ideally turning them into Belarus, or by threat of destruction, like Georgia and Moldova, or by annexation, like Ukraine).

China wants to control territories surrounding them as well.

So don't be fooled by multipolarity, it's just a repacked imperialism and colonialism by right, not by earned influence.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#507

Post by dzonga »

yanhangyhy wrote: post #233

I don’t know how it is in other countries, but nearly thirty years ago when I was in elementary school, a Chinese propaganda slogan stuck with me: “If you want to get rich, build roads first; have fewer children, plant more trees.” Every part of that slogan has been put into action, continuously, for decades. Although low birth rates have now become a problem, back then it seemed like a solution. Xi Jinping may be a…

why would you say xi jinping is dull ? I thought his works on xi jinping thought are enlightened, someone who is pragmatic. btw i'm not chinese so I read these things in english.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#508

Post by birksherty »

xandrius wrote: post #476
profsummergig wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India doesn't do it in an organized way though. You'll read about some 70 year old woman/man in an obscure village who's reforested thousands of acres on their own, or resuscitated a lake (e.g. the lake guy in Bengaluru). But there's little effort to harness their knowledge in a systematic way, add knowledge from others into the knowledge bank, do peer review, and then systematically dispense the knowledge in the for…

Do you personally know that or just from feelings? Because I know of several organisations doing this and are organising projects state-wide (they focused in Bihar and surroundings).

Meh! Practical result matters not papers. Everything done in paper. What I've seen in India is trees are planted with publicity, photos, but are not take care of and dies, another program starts and plants thousands of trees, dies within a year, circle goes round. Otherhand seeing many hills destroyed for construction needs.

The number of planted tree grows but benefit not seen, except for the group doing it. People are too into feelings, by seeing the headlines they need to feel good that's why so much publicity is needed, so many banners everywhere, ads in news-paper spending billions by gov.

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#509

Post by dev_l1x_be »

andrewflnr wrote: post #343
jmyeet wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you not been paying attention to what's going on this country? We're building concentration camps. We have the Gestapo rounding up brown people. We have people being deported to supermax prisons in countries they have no connection to for protesting America's material support for genocide on college campuses. We have a media that is increasingly owned by lackeys of this administration (just look into CBS and Bar…

What makes you think I disagree with any of that? These are dark times. Honestly, the West is so profoundly stupid right now that a part of me wishes China could be a beacon of respectability. It's just a shame about their being ahead of the curve on the malicious government.

hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times

Re: China has added forest the size of Texas since 1990

#510

Post by tw1984 »

yanhangyhy wrote: post #455
matheusmoreira wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm envious of China's ability to define long term goals and execute them somewhat competently... In democracies politicians only care about reelection, and most people's voting patterns do not take long term strategy into account. Quite the opposite: short term profits and benefits are favored above all else.

China’s rare earth strategy was formulated roughly 40 years ago — this in itself is an advantage of a one-party system. Almost all nations that experienced rapid economic takeoff were built on one-party rule, strongman leadership, or authoritarian governance — such as South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and Singapore... Taiwan had Chiang Ching-kuo, South Korea had Park Chung-hee, and Singapore had Lee Kuan Yew. At least in…

> China’s rare earth strategy was formulated roughly 40 years ago

what a joke! Just 8 years ago, there were hundreds of rare earth companies all fight against each other by pushing prices to the very bottom destroying any possible profitability of the business.

as of today, Americans would end up in jail for working for some random Chinese companies in so called sensitive sectors, but American companies can freely hire Chinese rare earth engineers.

is that the strategy you mean? lol

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