30-May-16 World View -- Decoration Day: Commemorating America's heroes and the Battle of Verdun / Pacifism & futility

Discussion of Web Log and Analysis topics from the Generational Dynamics web site.
John
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30-May-16 World View -- Decoration Day: Commemorating America's heroes and the Battle of Verdun / Pacifism & futility

Post by John »

30-May-16 World View -- Decoration Day: Commemorating America's heroes and the Battle of Verdun

Pacifism and the futility of war

** 30-May-16 World View -- Decoration Day: Commemorating America's heroes and the Battle of Verdun
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e160530



Contents:
Decoration Day
Germany and France commemorate the centenary of the Battle of Verdun
The Germany - France reconciliation - 1984
Red poppies in Flanders Field
Pacifism and the futility of war


Keys:
Generational Dynamics, Civil War, Decoration Day, Memorial Day,
Ulysses Grant, John Logan, Grand Army of the Republic,
World War I, Battle of Verdun, Germany, Angela Merkel,
France, François Hollande, Verdun, Douaumont Ossuary,
Helmut Kohl, François Mitterrand, red poppies,
Flanders Fields, John McCrae

Jack Edwards
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Re: 30-May-16 World View -- Decoration Day: Commemorating America's heroes and the Battle of Verdun / Pacifism & futilit

Post by Jack Edwards »

John,
Thanks for writing about Memorial and putting the reasons for war in perspective. This weekend I had the opportunity to be with extended family, which rarely happens. I had asked my father for more information on my grandfather who made a career of being in the army and served in World War II. We think he joined up in 1924 so was fairly seasoned by the time WWII came along. In particular the discussion of 800k people dying resonated. My grandfather had duties relating to supplying hospitals. One of his special tasks was to go evaluate all the hospitals in England and see if they were prepared to handle 1 million casualties for D Day. His report indicated they were not and he helped prepare them. I usually don't think much about D-Day, it was great to get your perspective. Amazing to think in this day and age when we get upset that some gorilla died, that ~70 years ago, 1 million injured and who knows how many dead, was just a statistic they were preparing for.

Regards.
Jack

Archer

Re: 30-May-16 World View -- Decoration Day: Commemorating America's heroes and the Battle of Verdun / Pacifism & futilit

Post by Archer »

John,
I really appreciate your writing. It has helped me gain a new understanding of history and current events. I do however need to correct an error in your recent post. You stated that, from a creationist view, this system in which people have to die in order for others to live is God's fault.
That's actually not correct.
The bible clearly states that before man brought sin into the world that food existed in anbundance and was easily obtained. After man brought sin into the world, the ground was cursed and food became far harder to obtain. Ergo we can easily surmise that world went from being resource rich to having a scarcity of resources. Moreover, man himself became sinful. Ergo he now resorts violence to solve his problems. Finally, the bible also states several times throughout the scriptures that wars will continue to happen and must happen, alluding to the fallen state of the world.
Thus we see it's not God's fault for creating such a world. He created a perfect world. Humans messed it up by bringing sin, and thus death, into the world.
That is the view of creationists.

John
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Re: 30-May-16 World View -- Decoration Day: Commemorating America's heroes and the Battle of Verdun / Pacifism & futilit

Post by John »

Archer wrote: > John, I really appreciate your writing. It has helped me gain a
> new understanding of history and current events. I do however need
> to correct an error in your recent post. You stated that, from a
> creationist view, this system in which people have to die in order
> for others to live is God's fault. That's actually not correct.
> The bible clearly states that before man brought sin into the
> world that food existed in abundance and was easily
> obtained. After man brought sin into the world, the ground was
> cursed and food became far harder to obtain. Ergo we can easily
> surmise that world went from being resource rich to having a
> scarcity of resources. Moreover, man himself became sinful. Ergo
> he now resorts violence to solve his problems. Finally, the bible
> also states several times throughout the scriptures that wars will
> continue to happen and must happen, alluding to the fallen state
> of the world. Thus we see it's not God's fault for creating such
> a world. He created a perfect world. Humans messed it up by
> bringing sin, and thus death, into the world. That is the view of
> creationists.
So you believe that the Battle of Verdun occurred, killing 800,000
people and accomplishing nothing, because Adam ate an apple 6,000
years ago? Really???

John
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Re: 30-May-16 World View -- Decoration Day: Commemorating America's heroes and the Battle of Verdun / Pacifism & futilit

Post by John »

Jack Edwards wrote: > John, Thanks for writing about Memorial and putting the reasons
> for war in perspective. This weekend I had the opportunity to be
> with extended family, which rarely happens. I had asked my father
> for more information on my grandfather who made a career of being
> in the army and served in World War II. We think he joined up in
> 1924 so was fairly seasoned by the time WWII came along. In
> particular the discussion of 800k people dying resonated. My
> grandfather had duties relating to supplying hospitals. One of
> his special tasks was to go evaluate all the hospitals in England
> and see if they were prepared to handle 1 million casualties for D
> Day. His report indicated they were not and he helped prepare
> them. I usually don't think much about D-Day, it was great to get
> your perspective. Amazing to think in this day and age when we
> get upset that some gorilla died, that ~70 years ago, 1 million
> injured and who knows how many dead, was just a statistic they
> were preparing for. Regards. Jack

Thanks for sharing that story. It's stories like this from the past
that make it possible to understand the future. And you're right
about gorilla.

pgang

Re: 30-May-16 World View -- Decoration Day: Commemorating America's heroes and the Battle of Verdun / Pacifism & futilit

Post by pgang »

I think there is some merit in the generational dynamics process. Generations certainly do harbour grudges and forget the horrors that those grudges perpetrate. But when one reads simplistic comments such as this, "From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the answer is simple: The world's population grows faster than the world's food supply...", it is clear that there are many underlying fictions involved. The world now produces food more cheaply and efficiently than ever and there is no actual shortage, although the distribution system remains flawed due to corruption in governance. It was ideology which caused the wars of last century - the kind of ideologies that have grown out of enlightenment naturalism. I have never, ever heard of those wars being attributed to shortages in supply.

The author also exhibits a limited understanding of the theory of evolution and its proposed material processes. Natural selection and evolution are two very different concepts. The first simply reduces the relative population size of 'less fit' hybrids over generational time, should the selective traits be strong and common enough. Evolution takes this observable natural trait and turns it into a story about the rise of complexity within living systems. This story has no merit in observation and in fact contradicts many of the observed traits of the natural world and cellular biology.

He also has a lack of understanding of Christian doctrine. It is a basic tenet of Christianity that God created a perfect world, not one in which war was to play a part. Mankind was to have stewardship over the creation. When the head of a corporation goes bad, the whole corporation goes down the gurgler with them. The author may have heard of Jesus, who was sent into the creation to rebuild the corporation into the kind of structure that the first man was supposed to have nourished. There were no apples involved, or there may have been but we don't know. The first man succumbed to the temptation to recreate the world in an image of his own making which, as we know, inevitably ended badly. Not surprisingly, those who will become part of the new corporation will be those who reject mankind's claim to self rule.

And on a more philosophical note, we know that the Christian worldview is true because it is able to logically and consistently explain all of the phenomena of life and the universe. No other worldview even comes close to achieving this.

John
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Re: 30-May-16 World View -- Decoration Day: Commemorating America's heroes and the Battle of Verdun / Pacifism & futilit

Post by John »

pgang wrote: > There were no apples involved, or there may have been but we don't
> know. The first man succumbed to the temptation to recreate the
> world in an image of his own making which, as we know, inevitably
> ended badly.
Whether it was an apple or pear or something else is irrelevant. The
plain language of Genesis says, "But you must not eat from the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will
certainly die. ... When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was
good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining
wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband,
who was with her, and he ate it." Genesis says nothing about
"recreating the world in an image of his own making." That stuff
was added later by other people.

According to Genesis, God created the world, God created Adam and Eve,
God created the serpent, and God created the forbidden tree. It's
perfectly clear from the story that God fully intended for Adam and
Eve to eat the apple, so that he could blame them, much as a
prosecuter might trick someone into stealing money in order to convict
him of a crime. God wanted to create a world in which the population
grows faster than the food supply, and wanted to blame Adam and Eve
for it.
pgang wrote: > When the head of a corporation goes bad, the whole corporation
> goes down the gurgler with them.
Even if you're right, and the whole thing is Adam and Eve's fault,
everything you've written is fatuous and irrelevant to the point. The
point is that wars of extermination occur because the population grows
faster than the food supply. You can blame it on evolution, you can
blame it on the Christian god, you can blame it on the Muslim god, you
can blame it on the Hindu gods, you can blame it on Adam and Eve, but
none of that matters. You can't blame people today, because we live
in a world in which wars of extermination must occur.

BPascal

Re: 30-May-16 World View -- Decoration Day: Commemorating America's heroes and the Battle of Verdun / Pacifism & futilit

Post by BPascal »

John,

Overpopulation is a myth. Please visit the website pop.org to learn the truth, here are some excerpts from the site:

"(O)verpopulation is defined as a problem created by the numbers of people, not their behaviors. If every person demanded his or her own continent or island, the world would seem “overpopulated” very quickly.

Let’s keep these things in mind as we consider the argument that the earth, as a closed environment, is overpopulated. Is Spaceship Earth (as they like to call it), running out of resources? Let’s evaluate:

1) “Food: there isn’t enough!” Since the time of Thomas Malthus, who lived in the early 1800s, doomsayers have gloomily predicted that mankind would outbreed its food supply, resulting in catastrophic famines. Yet the world currently produces enough food to feed 10 billion people, and there are only 7 billion of us. That is, with 7 billion human minds at work, we produce enough food for 10 billion human bodies.[1] Imagine how much food we can produce with 10 billion minds!

“But there are still hungry people in the world!” Yes, hunger remains a problem in some parts of the world, but it is not caused by the number of people. Commenting on the recent Somali famine, Oxfam, an international humanitarian organization, stated, “Famines are not natural phenomena, they are catastrophic political failures.”

“Well, we got lucky with the Green Revolution, and food production shot up, but we can’t count on something like that to occur again!” Why not? There is no reason to think that we are running out of human ingenuity. If anything, a larger population means more opportunities for the kind of scientific collaboration and increased specialization that results in such scientific leaps forward.

“Ok, but humans now eat higher up the food chain that we used to. We can’t keep that up and still have enough for everyone!” Sure, people in the developed nations eat more meat, which require much more energy input per calorie eaten than if we ate grains and plant proteins. But that doesn’t mean that we will run out of food. We are eating higher energy foods because they are relatively cheaper than they used to be—and prices don’t fall when goods are scarce. The falling price of high energy foods indicates that they are becoming more plentiful, not less so. According to the World Education Service, “world agriculture produces 17% more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago...This is enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day.”

2) “We are running out of water!” The earth is awash in water. Oceans cover 70 percent of the planet’s surface to an average depth of 6,000 feet. That’s why the earth looks blue from space. You cannot use up or destroy water; you can only change its state (from liquid to solid or gas) or contaminate it so that it is undrinkable.

“That’s a great theory, but if I’m thirsty, theory doesn’t mean much to me. There is not enough fresh water for everyone!” There is! Since 1900, freshwater withdrawals (i.e. production of usable water) have increased much faster than the human population has increased. Freshwater withdrawals have increased seven-fold since 1900 while the world population has increased only four-fold.[2] This suggests our ability to access usable water increases faster than population growth.

“Tell that to the people living in the Sahel!” You’re correct, lack of water is a serious humanitarian issue. But it is not an overpopulation issue. Water, although plentiful, can be difficult to move to those who need it, hence local water scarcity. As Karen Bakker (2003) states: "Water is one of the heaviest substances mobilized by human beings in their daily search for subsistence....Water is expensive to transport relative to value per unit volume, requiring large-scale capital investments in infrastructure networks which act as an effective barrier.” In other words, we need more dams, canals, and pipelines, not more abortion, contraception and sterilizations.

3) “But we’re growing exponentially!” Um,...No. We’re not. We are growing, but definitely not at an exponential rate. In fact, our rates of growth are declining. Between 1950 and 2000, the world population grew at a rate of 1.76%. Between 2000 and 2050, it is expected to grow by 0.77 percent.[3] So yes, because 0.77 is greater than zero, it is a positive growth rate, and the world population will continue to grow.

Most of this growth will come from developing countries—their life expectancies are expected to shoot up in the next 50 years, contributing to their population growth. Africa’s growth is not something to worry about.

Europe’s decline, however, is something to worry about. A UN report titled “World Population to 2300” paints a picture of Europe’s future if European fertility rates don’t rise above current levels: “The European Union, which has recently expanded to encompass 452-455 million people (according to 2000-2005 figures) would fall by 2300 to only 59 million. About half the countries of Europe would lose 95 per cent or more of their population, and such countries as the Russian Federation and Italy would have only 1 per cent of their population left.” In other words, the French, German, Italians and British will virtually cease to exist. Arrivederci, Roma!

Other fun thoughts:

- Human knowledge can be passed on through the written and spoken word in ways that evolutionary or biological advantages can’t be.

- Demographers estimate that at least 20 billion people lived on earth between the years 8000 B.C. and 0 A.D. (That’s right, the idea that half of all people who have ever lived are alive currently is a myth!)[4]

- Plankton make up 3 times more biomass than all 7 billion humans combined.[5]

- Every man, woman, and child on earth could each have 5 acres of land. [6]

- Every man, woman, and child on earth could each have a half acre of arable land.[7]

- If we wanted to squeeze close, everyone in the world could stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the island of Zanzibar.[8]

- About 48% of all people live in a country with below-replacement fertility.[9]

- The global total fertility rate is 2.53 children per woman.[10]"

- By 2050, Nigeria is projected to have a larger population than the United States.[11]
- See more at: https://www.pop.org/content/debunking-m ... UYWDm.dpuf

Please read more on the topic John

B Pascal

John
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Re: 30-May-16 World View -- Decoration Day: Commemorating America's heroes and the Battle of Verdun / Pacifism & futilit

Post by John »

> 1) “Food: there isn’t enough!” Since the time of Thomas Malthus,
> who lived in the early 1800s, doomsayers have gloomily predicted
> that mankind would outbreed its food supply, resulting in
> catastrophic famines. Yet the world currently produces enough food
> to feed 10 billion people, and there are only 7 billion of
> us. That is, with 7 billion human minds at work, we produce enough
> food for 10 billion human bodies.[1] Imagine how much food we can
> produce with 10 billion minds!
The person who wrote this is an idiot.

I've written about Malthus many times. He made some errors in his
formulations, but the basis of his work, that the population grows
faster than the food supply was correct.

The most ridiculous thing is to say that Malthus has been proven
wrong. Since the time of Malthus, there have been multiple
massive wars in Europe, China, Africa, India, and everywhere
else in the world. Each time one of these massive wars
occurs, Malthus is proven right.

The above quote says that enough food is produced for 10 billion
people. Well, if it hadn't been for these wars, then we'd probably
have something like 50 billion people today -- except that could never
happen because there would be a massive war killing 40 billion of
those people off, so that there would be enough food for the rest.

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