FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
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User ID: 1739
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
4mo ago
That makes a great deal of sense, and I would broadly agree. Thanks for clarifying.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
4mo ago
What a strange thing to believe. Do you believe parents have no duties to their children, and that children have no duties to their parents?
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
5mo ago
I dunno: it may include the morbidly obese, but also the senior citizen health nuts. Presumably the unhealthier you are the more likely you are to die early, which would imply that the older you get the fewer people are left your age who made bad lifestyle decisions Healthwise. I have no idea how that shakes out in practice though, maybe you don't see that effect happening until you get into the 80s or 90s.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
5mo ago
I was not as clever as you and simply took the probability of surviving each year from ages 78-81 and multiplied them. That gave me a combined probability of survival to age 82 of 77.58%.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
5mo ago
In the year they imported the most coal from Mongolia (2023) they imported an average of 150,000 tons of coal per day. That’s after building two new rail lines to Mongolia. If it takes them two new rail lines to go from importing 70,000 tons per day to 150,000 tons, how many rail lines do you think it will take to import an extra 3 million tons of iron ore and 14 million barrels of oil?
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
5mo ago
A single train line, if it has been fully upgraded with appropriate sidings and signals, can move 1,000,000 tons per day when working optimally. There are currently only two major rail lines from Russia to China. So you would need to build at least a third and have all three running optimally to get all the iron ore China needs overland.
But that’s just the iron! China also imports 14 million barrels of oil each day. The maximum cargo train capacity for oil is 90,000 barrels per day, so that’s another 155 trains per day. And we haven’t even discussed the amount of grain, copper, and other raw materials we need to import daily. We’re going to need to build at least two more train lines, probably three, and run them at optimal efficiency.
Except wait: we can’t run them at optimal efficiency because Russia and China use different track gauges! That means all the cargo needs to be unloaded and reloaded at the Chinese border.
Is it possible to build the rail infrastructure needed to get all of Chinas imports overland? Possible, yes, but very impractical. Especially when you consider that the Chinese will need to rely on the Russians to run their trains efficiently.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
5mo ago
It’s not about expense it’s about throughout. A modern cargo train can carry about 13,000 tons of material. China imports 3 million tons of iron ore per day.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
5mo ago
We have China surrounded on three sides with allies. Good luck getting your resources from Mongolia, Russia, and North Korea.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
10mo ago
I suppose I would agree with that!
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
14d ago
Speak my name, and after a week or so I'll probably appear!
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
14d ago
As someone who came from a Protestant backwater (evangelical non-denominational, essentially) I can attest to that! We didn't have Acquinas or Augustine or Calvin (and we didn't want them either!) but we had Lewis. We adored Lewis!
Why here's a potentially appropriate bit of Lewis now, on how non-Christians often view the idea of sin:
Apart from this linguistic difficulty, the greatest barrier I have met is the almost total absence from the minds of my audience of any sense of sin. This has struck me more forcibly when I spoke to the R.A.F. than when I spoke to students: whether (as I believe) the proletariat is more self-righteous than other classes, or whether educated people are cleverer at concealing their pride, this creates for us a new situation. The early Christian preachers could assume in their hearers, whether Jews, Metuentes, or Pagans, a sense of guilt. (That this was common among Pagans is shown by the fact that both Epicureanism and the mystery religions both claimed, though in different ways, to assuage it.) Thus the Christian message was in those days unmistakably the Evangelium, the Good News. It promised healing to those who knew they were sick. We have to convince our hearers of the unwelcome diagnosis before we can expect them to welcome the news of the remedy.
The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty, and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that man is on the bench and God in the dock.
It is generally useless to try to combat this attitude, as older preachers did, by dwelling on sins like drunkenness and un-chastity. The modern proletariat is not drunken. As for fornication, contraceptives have made a profound difference. As long as this sin might socially ruin a girl by making her the mother of a bastard, most men recognized the sin against charity which it involved, and their consciences were often troubled by it. Now that it need have no such consequences, it is not, I think, generally felt to be a sin at all. My own experience suggests that if we can awake the conscience of our hearers at all, we must do so in quite different directions. We must talk of Conceit, spite, jealousy, cowardice, meanness, etc. But I am very far from believing that I have found the solution of this problem.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
4mo ago
Yeah, Matthew Stover’s version is the best version of RotS for sure.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
4mo ago
I would object to describing the situation as “Christian gangsters going after Christian community leaders”. I don’t think anyone can rightfully complain “No True Scotsman” if I say that the vicious killers of the cartels, who murder pastors because they help addicts recover, are not Christian.
If you think their standards are too loose, fine, but is there any doubt that millions of Christian’s are currently being persecuted? If not in Mexico or Columbia than certainly in China, North Korea, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, and other countries that enforce laws against Christian religious practice.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
4mo ago
Kind of seems like they're trying to change the conditions. That 9 step plan they started off with in 2007 consisted of:
(i) research on the prevalence, risk, and protective factors for suicidal behaviors; (ii) increased public awareness; (iii) human resources for early intervention; (iv) community efforts for mental health; (v) better access to mental healthcare; (vi) supportive community environments; (vii) prevention of suicide reattempts; (viii) support for persons bereaved by suicide; and (ix) enhanced public–private partnerships.
Seems like doing more to treat depression, improving access to mental healthcare, and creating supportive community environments are all ways of changing the conditions. What would you want them to do?
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
5mo ago
Sadism by definition has a sexual component. People use is a bit broadly these days, but that's what the word means.
And of course justice has a component where people want to see the guilty harmed in proportion to their crimes. Calling that sadism makes the word meaningless. It is good and right to be pleased when justice is done, and displeased when justice is not done.
I would disagree that the Great Terror during the French revolution was justice steeped in sadism because it was not justice at all. People were killed who committed no crime and deserved no punishment. Justice is people getting what they deserve, and nobody deserves to have their head lopped off because they disagree with you politically.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
5mo ago
They do not have enough arable land to feed their population.
Despite its place as the third largest nation in the world, China falls behind other major food producing countries in terms of the availability of arable land (figure 1). Rapid urbanization, pollution, and uses of land for other purposes have all contributed to a rapid decline of agricultural land in China. The total pollution rate in China’s farmland soil is estimated at 10 percent, and about 2.5 percent of that land cannot be cultivated due to excessive contamination with heavy metals. As a result, it is estimated that the country has a domestic planting area shortage of 90 million hectares. This cropland shortage is expected to worsen and will further undermine China’s goals for food self-sufficiency.
And if you can survive by drastically reducing your industrial output then you can’t use that industrial output to win a war with the US.
If we are in a shooting war with China we will be bringing significantly more pressure on our friends and allies not to trade with China than we did for Ukraine. If China and the US are at war than this is WWIII and every country on Earth is going to be asking themselves the question: whose side do I want to be on? The US or the Chinese? I can't imagine India choosing China. China, the bellicose country that keeps trying to push the border with India. China, the country that killed 20 Indian soldiers as recently as 2020. China, the country that has been arming and allying with Pakistan against India. China, the country that keeps building dams in Tibet across the headwaters of major Indian rivers. China, the country Indians have a 67% unfavorable view of (in contrast, 70% of Indians view the US favorably).
If China is going to war with the US then India will be the first to stick a knife in their side.
EDIT: Also, of course they resisted Russian sanctions: they like Russia! They've been great friends with Russia since the 40s, back when it was the USSR. They like the Russians more than they like us, Russia sells them a lot of weapons, they and the Russians go way back. We should not expect India to treat China anything like they treated Russia recently.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
5mo ago
India likes us and hates China and in a conventional war scenario we will be putting pressure on them to cut off any trade into China. Ukraine doesn’t have anywhere close to the power to do that. You can’t compare what happens to trade when a minor power with no allies is in a war to what would happen to trade when the world hegemon goes to war.
Seems unlikely, he said it happened a few months ago.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
1mo ago
What would you call it? It seems to be a statement made to make a point of some sort, based on Walsh's reply I would assume it is coming from the political left.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
3mo ago
People tend to lack self control. If you had self control you wouldn't be fat.
Its well known that certain medications lead to weight gain: do you believe they do so because they reduce the self control of those who take them? Does hyperthyroidism cause significant increases in self-control, and does hypothyroidism erode self-control? Do GLPs work because they increase the individual's self-control?
If not, then factors other than self-control are at play.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
5mo ago
In 19th and early 20th century Britain you were a homosexual if you liked to be penetrated by men, but if you were the one doing the penetrating you were not considered homosexual. This is similar to the culture of the Roman empire, which saw nothing wrong with man penetrating another man but considered being penetrated to be shameful. All that to say, the conception of the "gay man" as being someone who wants to have any kind of sexual activity with other men is historically quite recent.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
5mo ago
What do you mean when you say “sadistic”? The textbook definition would be something like “sexual gratification gained from inflicting pain to others”. Do you mean that the desire for justice, which seems to be a human universal (even monkeys seem to desire justice) is often a source of sexual gratification? I doubt that’s what you meant, since that clearly isn’t the case. I suspect that by “sadistic” you meant “evil”, and that you believe desiring justice is usually an evil desire. I would disagree strongly with that. Or perhaps you only meant that people often are pleased when justice is served; yet, why shouldn’t they be?
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
8mo ago
According to the World Bank, Russia is now a high-income country. Real GDP per capita growth was at 3.6%!
The World Bank also says that the year before, 2022, saw real GDP per capita decline of -2.2 %. And that for 2023 total GDP and GDP per capita were both lower than in 2022.
https://data.worldbank.org/country/russian-federation?view=chart
If an Australian politician could deliver that kind of growth, they'd be heralded as a living god and probably get Putin-level approval ratings
According to the World Bank Australia saw real GDP per capita growth in 2023 at 3%, and in 2022 it was at 4.3%.
They're trying to make Japan better by making it easier to access mental healthcare and find ways to fight societal isolation. That you would want them to make Japan better is obvious, what specifically should they be doing to make it better that they're refusing to do? Give everyone a check each month? Let the zombie corporations die? Mail everyone a waifu pillow?
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