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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (84476)	12/12/2011 12:58:18 PM
From: Maurice Winn	3 Recommendations Respond to of 217556

China could become a better place: betterplace.com I have always said that it takes only a single generation for a country to catch up and overtake - they can go from no phones to Cyberphones in a single bound for example, and are doing so, without stringing millions of kilometres of copper around the place. Ignoring the distant past is okay because it has been and gone and there's nothing that can be done about it and those alive now had nothing to do with what happened then. Considering the past is okay as a warning of what has been tried before and been found wanting, but the future lies ahead, not behind. That's family lore, I think because my father's parents were orphans shipped to NZ and cared for by a solo mother who escaped from Prussian war [albeit provoked by perfidious France]. Life was tough back in the day. It was crowded too, although with far fewer people. The combine harvester and genetically improved crops did not exist. Families were commonly of 10 children. There was not enough room. Genocidal war was inevitable as males fought for territory against neighbouring tribes who were also in the Malthusian imperative of survival with surplus males used to expand the territory or at least die in the attempt, solving the spare male problem for a while. Judging the past through a telescope from the future is pointless. Similarly, judging other countries from the luxury of another place is not necessarily helpful. China had what TJ calls a 600 year accident. What it really had was a Little Ice Age to deal with along with the era of militaristic expansion which at least in the British case was backed by Enlightenment values which led to Virtuous Victorian Values. The Japanese were not so genteel in their visitations. Nor the USSR. China was, like everywhere, run by the bosses for the bosses, with enough left for the people to avoid revolution. But the USA didn't like the British way and conducted armed insurrection, so it's not so surprising that China too adopted a similar stance. Now, China has got a demographic chart with an increasing proportion of mature people. Japan's chart is already upside down with more older people than younger ones. China does have hordes of spare young males, which can be very problematic and traditionally they were put in uniform, given a sword and sent over the horizon to acquire more lands from the infidels, told to build a Great Wall. But China should enter a golden era with mature people being highly productive, sensible and stable. Not too many youngsters who leap around the cage causing trouble all too often. NZ and USA while more free [2 on my scale of freedom compared with China's 1 though that's debatable in many ways] are hardly exemplars of freedom. NZ's in socialist decline though enjoying the technological gains imported from around the world which conceals the decline somewhat [many, probably most, young people don't appreciate just how well they've got it]. Overall, I think I might prefer Beijing's bosses to Helengrad, though as you pointed out, at least we can, and did, get rid of her. China could become a Better Place really quickly [and has done]. They could go all-electric in a decade or two, with autoniomous driverless cars tootling around town delivering people hither and yon with no traffic jams, no pollution, quickly, in safety and at very low cost, while the passengers cerf in Cyberspace using the latest mind-drive Qualcomm powered Cyberphones. Siri already does a good job of taking instructions. With inductively coupled nerve transducers, Siri will be able to mind-read. To a great extent, Siri will give instructions rather than just take them. Siri, "Hey Mq, I posted a note to Hawk on SI for you - standard stuff. Do you want to check it?" Me, "No, go ahead and click submit". Where am I going for lunch?". Siri, "We have to tidy up your GLD short first. Hang on, I'll check the markets. Hmm, looks good. Okay, shall we buy gold?" Me, "Really? Must have been a bit of a tumble. Gizza look." Mqurice