House questions in a new political order

All the different ways of solving the shelter problem. To be static or mobile? Roots, legs, or wheels?
nomadscientist
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Re: House questions in a new political order

Post by nomadscientist »

CS wrote:
Sun Aug 30, 2020 7:26 am
Under the assumptions of this thought experiment this is not true, or a good chance not true depending on who you are in ways that are immutable. This thinking is how a lot of people lost their lives in Germany and a lot of others did nothing about it to keep their heads down.

Someone made a poem about it in fact, “First they came for...”
You chose the example of Russia, where ordinary apolitical people are not losing their property or their lives at random (in fact Putin put a stop to a lot of that). I'm not going to argue about the nature or reality of the Trump dictatorship, as you set out in your ground rules, but I am going to insist you stick to your ground rules yourself.
In truly desperate times that might not be enough. Taking out Seoul would leave a lot of countryside untouched.

I saw a talk summer 2019 of a Hiroshima survivor and was shocked at how small the weapon range was. Yes, modern weapons as much bigger, but still, it is a bomb with limited scope outside of shockwaves. I would have bought the man’s book in a heartbeat but he haven’t written one. His family was taking care of him at the conference and it was cute to see. He also told off helping victims before they passed away. Getting to attend that talk is probably one of the more significance events of my life.
I don't grasp the implied scenario here. You think either SK or NK would intentionally start a nuclear war with the other?
Citizenship can be obtained in many places, including SK.
Being naturalised in SK or Japan is notionally possible and it is proved by a tiny number of examples. But the process is made deliberately difficult, and the numbers are tiny even relative to the numbers of permanent residents in those countries.
Didn’t think about in China that way in regards to Russia. It is another logical reason why Russia is pushing so hard for control of the USA right now, beyond ridding themselves of sanctions. Wielding the long arm and financial ump of the US military against their scary neighbor would probably make Putin a happy man.
It would have been obviously beneficial to Russia to control the USA at any point in modern history, just as it would've been obviously beneficial to Belgium to control France, Denmark to control Germany, etc.

Anyway, without going too much off on a tangent, the point with relevance to the OP is that Russian neighbours in the west are very likely to retain their independence.

CS
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Re: House questions in a new political order

Post by CS »

nomadscientist wrote:
Sun Aug 30, 2020 1:02 pm
You chose the example of Russia, where ordinary apolitical people are not losing their property or their lives at random (in fact Putin put a stop to a lot of that). I'm not going to argue about the nature or reality of the Trump dictatorship, as you set out in your ground rules, but I am going to insist you stick to your ground rules yourself.
The area under discussion is the whole world. I was addressing the status within the United States under Trump in my comment above - the same as what you were talking about. American citizens are NOT safe necessarily under the condition they simply mind their own beeswax. The repeated tendency to side with certain groups has made that clear, regardless of what Putin is doing in his backyard.

I am following the rules of this thread.

ETA - The assumptions have the US aligned with Russian but not necessarily taken over fully. If Putin was President here for another 12 years, well... that is a different discussion. But then again, don't try to be a gay citizen, which goes back to not everyone is safe.
I don't grasp the implied scenario here. You think either SK or NK would intentionally start a nuclear war with the other?
Yes.
Being naturalised in SK or Japan is notionally possible and it is proved by a tiny number of examples. But the process is made deliberately difficult, and the numbers are tiny even relative to the numbers of permanent residents in those countries.
Also true. Difficult is not impossible so it falls under discussion, along with the context of being difficult, etc...

classical_Liberal
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Re: House questions in a new political order

Post by classical_Liberal »

@CS
I'm not sure if your purpose here is to specifically play out the OP predicted circumstances, or to try to find a personal solution to many potential circumstances. Socio-Politically we have the problem of predicting specifics, even if we understand the environment is dangerous. This is the same problem climate scientists have in the "weather" vs "climate" debate. It's very difficult to predict the weather more than a few days out into the future, but you can predict the climate change.

If your purpose is really the latter, @jacobs point of it being "expensive" to have two or three different options really only applies if you are trying to "hunker down", and if you want to do so in different national political boundaries. Being you're from the US, I urge you to consider... The US actually has a many socio-political boundaries. Even more so if you begin to think in terms of not just the contiguous 48 states. Living in Texas is very different than California, very different than Appalachia, very different than Puerto Rico, or Alaska. Depending on your concerns, or where you see the current trends going (ie attempt at forecasting the weather), having some depth of social and skill options in these varying areas can go along way to providing security. IOW, in the current circumstances of COVID, choosing to stay in an area that takes COVID lockdowns seriously if that is your concern, or the opposite if you feel your personal freedoms are more important than an infectious disease.

This isn't meant to judge a socio-political viewpoint in any way. Simply that different people have different concerns and priorities. If you had several varied places (geographic, not specific a residence maintained) in the US that felt like home due to available income sources/self reliance knowledge and social network. If you choose those locations through a lense of socio-political boundaries and climate issues of various concerns, then even if you hadn't predicted the weather (ie COVID) correctly, you would still have options to shelter yourself from the weather in various ways that are congruent with your values and skill sets.

This way you can "not lose" by knowing the climate trends, without having to predict the weather a year out. This is basically my strategy.

CS
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Re: House questions in a new political order

Post by CS »

@cl
Good points all.

I think another part of this thread is trying to suss out some personal unknown-unknowns. As American who has lived in a few states, worked in a few others, and only visited elsewhere as an adult, there is a definite lack of exposure. Conversely, this board is full of smart people with a huge array of experiences from all over the world. Learning stuff posted here has been a highlight for sure.

(Yes, reading is good for educating oneself... and I do, but I’m somewhat of a slow reader and took the selfish shortcut of just asking you all.)

JollyScot
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Re: House questions in a new political order

Post by JollyScot »

I think there will be very few places better than US for trying to find a bolt hole, just for the sheer size of the country and the fact your different states can still do different things. You may find some specific examples of countries who are doing it better, they will be small though and you will be giving up a large numbers of choices for a set of smaller and potentially better choices. It would be the equivalent of have free reign on any country in Europe with no requirement to have someone let you in.

Then with how US taxes work, even if you leave they will still come each year and ask you to pay them money anyway.

I moved back to the UK from Switzerland thinking the UK is broadly pragmatic and over the longer term would do well enough for what I wanted. Since then I have watched a particularly fast unravelling. Unlike US there is less of a choice as to what to do next, immigrating between countries is in general more of a nightmare than you would expect. Especially if you are targeting a permanent move.

Initially I thought, well Scotland seems to be more sensible so maybe if I choose here we will be better than UK overall. Then Scotland comes out and says it would quite like to criminalise speech. Where anythings offensive could land you in jail for up to 7 years, and where intent doesn't even need to be proven. For me this is enough that I now need to relook at everything the scottish parliament has been up to and to whether Independence is really wise after all.

Financially I have done well, in terms of stability I have taken a few steps back.

tonyedgecombe
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Re: House questions in a new political order

Post by tonyedgecombe »

JollyScot wrote:
Mon Aug 31, 2020 10:49 am
Then Scotland comes out and says it would quite like to criminalise speech.
FTFY: Then Scotland comes out and says it would quite like to criminalise *hate* speech.

It does look like the bill has upset everybody, I wonder if it will get through unscathed. Of course the people who are complaining the loudest have the most responsibility for it. It's them who have been pushing at the boundary of what is acceptable for so long.

JollyScot
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Re: House questions in a new political order

Post by JollyScot »

Well actually no you didn't fix it and therein lies the problem with it.

You are working on the assumption that their is "hate" speech and and that it obviously different to other kinds of speech.

There is inciting violence and that has been regulated and criminalised. But then there is saying something that someone somewhere finds offensive.

After all who decides what is hate, do you, do I, do the minority, do the majority, do the police, do the judges, do the current main political party. There are so many layers of grey and so many interactions that defining what is or is not hate become an impossible task. Has watching the world rip itself apart with "cancel culture" not shown you the potential outcome.

For a law the devil is in the details, so yes when I say Scotland is policing speech, I mean speech. Not this "quotationed" hypothetical that will help it pass into law.

If however you don't agree then fair enough. I am sure you have never said anything to anyone that could cause offence. Just remember "the road to hell is paved with good intentions"

NewBlood
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Re: House questions in a new political order

Post by NewBlood »

A couple more useful data points to consider for your thought experiment:

1. food self-sufficiency: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1 ... rl452631s3
i.e. what percentage of a country's population depends on external resources and whether a country has the "ability to produce the crop products they currently consume, considering current water and land productivities as well as available (i.e. unused) water and productive land".

2. food sustainability: https://foodsustainability.eiu.com/country-ranking/
Which, if I understand that index correctly, I interpret as commitment to improve the current system to make it more robust in a changing climate. (nutrition also goes into it).

And then what is the surrounding context?

e.g. The US is doing good on #1, not so good on #2. France is doing good on #1, great on #2, but is surrounded by countries that can not meet their needs by themselves, which could become precarious.

tonyedgecombe
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Re: House questions in a new political order

Post by tonyedgecombe »

JollyScot wrote:
Mon Aug 31, 2020 1:11 pm
You are working on the assumption that their is "hate" speech and and that it obviously different to other kinds of speech.
It's quite clear that hate speech does exist. There are people that have the intention to stir up hatred against other groups. Ignoring it or pretending it doesn't exist presents as many or more risks than dealing with it.

I don't buy the slippery slope argument, Scotland isn't a despotic state and in the unlikely event that it slipped into being one then all bets are off anyway.

Having said all that I haven't read the bill so I'm somewhat open minded about it.

tonyedgecombe
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Re: House questions in a new political order

Post by tonyedgecombe »

NewBlood wrote:
Mon Aug 31, 2020 2:17 pm
I seem to remember the UK being near the top of the food security table. However I also remember the UK being near the top of the table for pandemic readiness and we all know how that turned out. We do import a lot of food from Ireland, I'm guessing given enough hungry mouthes an invasion would be on the cards.

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Re: House questions in a new political order

Post by jacob »

It would be wise to look into the underlying assumptions behind such "food security" indexes. If it's a measure of e.g. how many people can currently afford a decent meal or regularly go hungry because they can't afford it, it might not be the measure you're looking for within the context of the OP rules.

For food shortages that go beyond the issue of economic poverty in parts of the population, look for how food self-sufficient a country is. Countries will often shut down exports during material shortages and if a country relies on imports, it's SOL. Of course, this then has to be projected forward by 20--40 years. This is non-trivial.

It's possible to alter the caloric flows by killing off livestock. (Livestock comprises about 2x more biomass than humans and consequently eat about that much more.) IOW a country that exports meat and dairy but imports e.g. fruit and vegetables might be alright insofar they change their "mix" a bit even if it means simplifying the human diet to turnips and soybeans. There's a limit to this though.

The UK is almost surely not self-sufficient in food. It's an island with one of the highest population densities in Europe.
It currently imports 30% of its food from the EU.

NewBlood
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Re: House questions in a new political order

Post by NewBlood »

@tonyedgecombe, as Jacob explained, food security and food self-sufficiency (at the country scale) are very different.

According to the paper I linked, about 30-50% of the UK population currently depends on external sources for the food it consumes because of lack of land, but according to their model, it *could* reach self-sufficiency with better crop management.

On the other hand, the US doesn't currently have any land or water limitation (overall) to be self-sufficient. I expect the food security in the US to be somewhat lower than in the UK though.

@Jacob, yup, that's something they mention, they don't take into account any potential diet changes or waste reduction, so their model should be pretty conservative.

nomadscientist
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Re: House questions in a new political order

Post by nomadscientist »

You have to reconstruct the index yourself to understand it, and tailor it to the exact question you are asking. E.g.

1. countries least likely to starve given rough continuation of current world conditions

2. countries most able to feed themselves right now given a certain rapid change in those conditions

3. countries that would be most able to freed themselves in the new equilibrium following such a change

4. countries that would suffer the least damage in the transition

5. countries most likely to manage the transition optimally


5. is always the hardest because it involves predicting human reactions and brings in all our political and economic stances that stand somewhere outside the realm of science. E.g. German occupied Europe ran out of food in WWII probably because the Germans imposed price controls on food; the UK, on the other hand, didn't.

sky
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Re: House questions in a new political order

Post by sky »

If you could afford to buy 10 acres of good farmland, does food security at the national level really matter?

CS
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Re: House questions in a new political order

Post by CS »

sky wrote:
Mon Aug 31, 2020 7:30 pm
If you could afford to buy 10 acres of good farmland, does food security at the national level really matter?
Probably. You want your friends and family doing well - ideally mutual sharing or some such, not to mention general good will and not wanting to see others starving. On the scale to more negative, a crop in the field is a vulnerable thing. How easy is it to protect your food for the year from others who might--even just from desperation--simply take it? Of course that all depends on accessibility to your land and all that but I think overall it would be a lot better if your country's citizens were not in desperate straits.

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Alphaville
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Re: House questions in a new political order

Post by Alphaville »

sky wrote:
Mon Aug 31, 2020 7:30 pm
If you could afford to buy 10 acres of good farmland, does food security at the national level really matter?
if the zombie hordes are coming for your crops (and braaaaaaaaains) then yes the national level matters

private property is meaningless without a community that respects/protects it
CS wrote:
Sun Aug 30, 2020 2:23 pm
American citizens are NOT safe necessarily under the condition they simply mind their own beeswax. The repeated tendency to side with certain groups has made that clear, regardless of what Putin is doing in his backyard.
truth
tonyedgecombe wrote:
Mon Aug 31, 2020 4:27 pm
I seem to remember the UK being near the top of the food security table. However I also remember the UK being near the top of the table for pandemic readiness and we all know how that turned out. We do import a lot of food from Ireland, I'm guessing given enough hungry mouthes an invasion would be on the cards.
please not again :mrgreen:

but seriously, with ireland in the eu, things would not be the same as before, if what i read elsewhere re:russia vs. europe is true

(the eu currently has no army though)
NewBlood wrote:
Mon Aug 31, 2020 2:17 pm
i tried to look at one of those links and the cookies wanted to give my browser a cavity search
nomadscientist wrote:
Sun Aug 30, 2020 1:02 pm
It would have been obviously beneficial to Russia to control the USA at any point in modern history, just as it would've been obviously beneficial to Belgium to control France, Denmark to control Germany, etc.
serbia once briefly made an oopsie and controlled the world ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

but there are many cases of the weak and/or small influencing the strong. e.g. israel sure punches above their weight. and saudi arabia? the vatican?

but social media today allows control of information in an unprecedented manner. we won’t be able to sort this one for some time.
IlliniDave wrote:
Sun Aug 30, 2020 3:23 am
however ...

[...]

If Canada and England were to maintain close ties to the US, Australia might attempt to as well.
yeah, europe has no army, just a bunch of national armies in various states of unpreparedness. all they do is small peacekeeping operations. with the uk gone, who is left who can fight a war—france? (assuming nato is gone.)

with georgia & crimea europe just watched

then again turkey has a decent army, but who knows which way they might swing under erdogan

australia might want to but not be able to, per the premise.

really this thought experiment is both entertaining and superdepressing, ha ha ha.

CS
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Re: House questions in a new political order

Post by CS »

Alphaville wrote:
Mon Aug 31, 2020 9:25 pm
really this thought experiment is both entertaining and superdepressing, ha ha ha.
Yes.

Ditto for the social one. I've just been reading along on that one. There is something to be said for walking out the door and knowing there is someone close by for informal interactions. With the exception of college dorms, our society is not set up for that. (I should probably put this comment there but I'm a lazy person today.)

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Alphaville
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Re: House questions in a new political order

Post by Alphaville »

CS wrote:
Sun Sep 06, 2020 4:57 pm
Yes.

Ditto for the social one. I've just been reading along on that one. There is something to be said for walking out the door and knowing there is someone close by for informal interactions. With the exception of college dorms, our society is not set up for that. (I should probably put this comment there but I'm a lazy person today.)
hah, lazy is good.

the informal,interactions is why i like cities, but cities are not usually organized philosophically, although you might have “ethnic” neighborhoods, or perhaps occupational ones (eg. “the garment district.”)

nevertherless, with cities being generally more diverse, you can always find something/someone somewhere. and i mean cities, not sprawl.

anyway, back to this topic—if calamity arrives i would feel safer in a city than in some remote paramilitary compound...

classical_Liberal
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Re: House questions in a new political order

Post by classical_Liberal »

Alphaville wrote:
Mon Sep 07, 2020 8:25 am
but cities are not usually organized philosophically, although you might have “ethnic” neighborhoods, or perhaps occupational ones
They tend to arrange themselves socio-economically. Even smaller towns @alphaville would not consider cities have the working class/first gen immigrant neighborhoods. Those are my "go to" places. They tend to be more skill/social economy based, much friendlier and open to interactions. Add to that generally cheaper housing. On the three ladder system these are the L3-2/G4 neighborhoods.
Alphaville wrote:
Mon Sep 07, 2020 8:25 am
if calamity arrives i would feel safer in a city than in some remote paramilitary compound...
Paramilitary compound is an extreme. Big cities have too much population density, and in the US too many opposing groups (us/them mentality). They seem like a powder keg to me vs lower population density, smaller cities. But I think we've had this discussion before :P

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Alphaville
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Re: House questions in a new political order

Post by Alphaville »

classical_Liberal wrote:
Mon Sep 07, 2020 2:33 pm
They tend to arrange themselves socio-economically. Even smaller towns @alphaville would not consider cities have the working class/first gen immigrant neighborhoods. Those are my "go to" places. They tend to be more skill/social economy based, much friendlier and open to interactions. Add to that generally cheaper housing. On the three ladder system these are the L3-2/G4 neighborhoods.
depends where, you get some mix. real cities are not burbs which are more segregated by car. anything that is designed around the car will segregate people more. pedestrians coexist with others.
classical_Liberal wrote:
Mon Sep 07, 2020 2:33 pm
Paramilitary compound is an extreme. Big cities have too much population density, and in the US too many opposing groups (us/them mentality). They seem like a powder keg to me vs lower population density, smaller cities. But I think we've had this discussion before :P
cities are fine. people are used to getting along with strangers. it's way safer there than among "deliverance" types :lol:

small towns also don't get much attention and/or armed forces protection. if they burn, they burn.

new york city with all its population density is below 1 covid infection rate now. i'd go today if work/earnings allowed. lovely place full of friendly people. sure, the shock of closing retail will hurt the economy, but more room for me when the rich leave for connecticut. the 70s new york arts scene was something else.

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