Japan's hopefully not so "great fall"

I really don’t know why I need to explain. I’m not on any high moral campaign . Now you may not like the fact that plastic (namely oil) is used in almost everything we buy today (either in it’s manufacture or casing ) not just for gadgets but also for every day stuff like our Tooth Brushes, Bubble Bath, Body Spray, Mirror’s ECT (they’re all using plastic in some shape and that’s just the bath room , never mind the Food products ) , but That is just the fact of the matter and there is nothing coming around the corner that will change our love affair with Plastic

Then we’ll move on you our Gadgets and Mobiles - not only do they all use Plastic, not only do most of our Mobiles, PC’s, Console need cheap Gold (mined from Africa) they’re in most cases manufacture in China - It is hard these days not to have some sort of Product that isn’t manufacture in China in ones house hold these days . Not much will change that at all (only China Wage demands) Most people in the West have grown use to cheap Food, Cheap clothing and cheap Electronic goods and that means a need for Asia to manufacture our goods at Rock bottom prices

That is the trouble you face.

I wish the people of China did have a open n Press and open and free elections: truly I do; and I wish everyone in the world had those basic rights

What make is your PC ?, Where was it made, where was your Mouse and Keyboard made , what about your Mobile, TV. I willing to be you’ll have quite a few products that were made in China.

How about you confront that ?, Please don’t have a go at me or Chizzles . We may be a few things … Hypocrites were are not

You are basically saying that in order for us to win we have to make losers out of others. When in reality, we can all be winners.

And you’re still not understanding either TA, my perspective is not at all concerned with this binary state of your own. Things can be the way that they are AND we may still seek to improve the way that they are incrementally. In fact it’s the way most change happens. Whereas with you it’s just everything or nothing it seems.

What I’m saying is for a start you’ll have to give up your PC. So every time you’ll post on these boards , everyone will not you your self are not ready to give up the West love of all things made in China, using Plastic, and gold minded in Africa

I don’t mean it as a dig, but that is the case . Look I think it’s cruel to see animals transported miles and miles for slaughter , but under EA rules all local abattoir’s have closed down. So even If I wanted to go on some high moral stance - it would make a difference, because the western love for cheap food as made sure they is no real alternative, other than giving up meat .

It’s being very general about it , but that is the point

I would say too much, but as a console fan I’ve very much away where my console have been produced and in most cases it’s in some sweatshop factory in Asia (most cases China) even my beloved SEGA liked to do that - its after all where my Pal Mega Drive was produced and a hell of a lot of my pads, and I’m so sure the plastic, gold used in all of my SEGA consoles is the cheapest SEGA could possible source -

If one looks at Greenpeace website NCL, MS, SONY have dreadful Environmental Ratings.

Slave labor in places like China is why we have no industry anymore, and why we have so much unemployment and are being forced to rely on a system that wants less of us in the world.

Stop using that as a justification.

The west has become one giant consumer society and that cannot last. There is no reason why people have to suffer in low standards of living in order to sell goods. But if you do truly believe that, then nothing is going to change your mind.

[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]Slave labor in places like China is why we have no industry anymore, and why we have so much unemployment and are being forced to rely on a system that wants less of us in the world.

[/quote]

Not really, that is more to do with the end of the decline Moto, clothing and Coal trade which in the UK employed huge amounts of people. Maybe you want to send millions back down the mines again, or pay the High prices for Electronic equipment that we used inthe 80’s (millions wouldn’t)

There’s millions and millions unemployment in China don’t you, it most Prob as worse rate of unemployment than the UK . But people in the west love their Cheap Electrical goods , even you Duke. Its just the way of the world, In time China will see the wage demands that workers in the UK ask for (and production will move to yet another cheap labour sweat shop)

[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]

The west has become one giant consumer society and that cannot last. There is no reason why people have to suffer in low standards of living in order to sell goods. But if you do truly believe that, then nothing is going to change your mind.[/quote]

The point you miss in all this, is that was once true of the West it’s self mate. Be lucky you didn’t live inthe UK in Victorian times (when the UK was a sweat shop factory) I don’t think the West was great place to live in during the 1930’s with one of the worst Recession in world History.

Do a bit of history Duke and soon find out. The west too was poor once and even know there’s still millions and millions that suffer

We’re still a consumer society and even the Conservatives (with their pure cold logic) are saying that they have no idea how we’ll bring real growth back. All they did was remove the wasteful spending. I hope the U.S. has some better ideas regarding lack of job creation. Truly I do because the U.S. is still the engine for the western world.

If the only way to remain more competitive is by keeping others down, then nothing will really change.

[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]We’re still a consumer society and even the Conservatives (with their pure cold logic) are saying that they have no idea how we’ll bring real growth back. All they did was remove the wasteful spending. I hope the U.S. has some better ideas regarding lack of job creation. Truly I do because the U.S. is still the engine for the western world.

If the only way to remain more competitive is by keeping others down, then nothing will really change.[/quote]

Of course we’re a consumer society( that in it’s self it’s a Huge employer). We’re over the Coal, Textile era where they were huge employers and now moved on the service sector, that happens duke and it will happen to China, when its people get used to jobs and high wages and workers rights.

You keep going on about the so called rich west, we give millions out in Aid to Gaza , yet the average life expectancy for a Male in Gaza is much higher than that for a male in Glasgow. I think Cube (of all places) has a much better Dental system than that in the UK (where the NHS dental system is in a complete mess) We give millions out in Aid to India - A country that can fund it’s own Space Program and can fund development of it’s own Nuclear Bomb ; while at the UK we can’t afford a National Space Programs and our cutting our Armoured Forces budget to the bone.

India has a very low standard of living for most people, and lest you forget, there are quite a lot of people there (15 times more than here). Cuba isn’t exactly free either.

A society that doesn’t produce anything will not last. You can’t off set that by keeping other nations down either unless you really do want to become a full fledged empire again, because money has to come from somewhere. The west can’t live this lie forever.

There is no money for those things exactly because we can’t produce our way out.

[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]India has a very low standard of living for most people, and lest you forget, there are quite a lot of people there (15 times more than here). Cuba isn’t exactly free either.
.[/quote]

Like you either forget or look over how India puts money to fund a Space program and make the Bomb . Maybe those billions would be better spent on the people ? Also India troubles owe a lot to do with its birth rate and the number of families having multiple kids with out the means to feed one child, never mind 5, 6 ,7 ECT . Its a lesson we had to learn not so very long ago.

Cuba Health Care system is as free as ours at the point of delivery, and by god if they don’t have a much better dental system than what the NHS can offer and its amazing to think that Labour are to blame for the chaos that is the NHS dental system and not the Trories

India is a massive huge country. Of course if you squeeze blood from such a huge stone then someone, somewhere will gain from it. Their tech was bought. Cuba isn’t a free country either.

Are you trying to claim that these countries are better than us? We’re far more evolved politically, no offense to them.

The problems are ideological. And as long as these two class systems of control benefit the west, they’ll be propped up by someone who stands to gain. They have all those children exactly because they expect some to die.

I mean, if they did westernize on their own to the point where we are, where would that leave us? In a good position because then we’d be forced to compete more and all evolve together.

The have-nots will always be turned against the have-mores until chaos is the result. That’s why the Conservatives are losing momentum in the states: they are blatantly protecting the rich.

This world is currently a recipe for disaster. And everyone is screaming for socialism instead of letting competition correct itself thanks to this Neo-Imperialism.

Fundamentals still don’t lie: no production = nothing to sell = no money. More money would certainly help fix a lot of problems as long as everyone has a path towards making it.

I’ve finally grabbed some time to catch up on this topic. Since the topic has moved along significantly since I last posted, I’ll add my two cents on some of the points discussed.

GM Food - Team Andromeda, you mentioned what I thought of GM Food. GM offers some advantages, as well as potential disadvantages. Since there isn’t anything intrinsically wrong with altering a genetic code, my position is “proceed with caution”. Regular food isn’t completely safe either; many foods contribute to undesired long term health problems such as diabetes or heart disease. If scientists can produce healthier foods that taste the same, and can be produced safely, I can’t think of a good argument as to why we shouldn’t embrace these products. I see it as an evolution of the artificial selection processes that humans have used to produce new foods for thousands of years. But, again, I stress that caution must be taken. New products must go through a scrutinous peer review process (the same way new medicines do) and also be labelled for what they are so customers can make an informed choice.

What is concerning is the patenting of life. It is concerning that a genetic combination can be owned by a corporation, such as a certain type of grain. For competition within the food industry to thrive, this form of capitalism needs to be considerably limited.

Global Warming - I had the pleasure of going to see Dr James Hansen speak about global warming last week (he did a speaking tour of New Zealand). He is one of the leading scientists on this issue. His argument for political action is simple. We need a tax on carbon that goes up by 5% each year. The money would go directly back to citizens, evenly distributed to every man, woman, and perhaps child to avoid banks and other interest groups from tampering with the distribution of wealth. This gradual tax on the use of coal would encourage the market to shift to cleaner energy sources (wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, whatever the market prefers). Essentially, he believes that we must use the market to encourage change, while implementing a simple tax to spur it into action.

Notice how this kind of goal is straight forward, and doesn’t suggest that he has anything to gain other than a potential solution to the issue? In fact, he is against the cap and trade approach that some politicians are pushing for.

Poverty - We could all probably do more to help get people out of poverty or lower the level of inequality in the world. And Team Andromeda is right, that it’s almost impossible to live completely “pure” without directly or indirectly exploiting someone or something. We could go and live in a hut in the mountains and live off the land to avoid contributing to the majority of damage that the Western world is doing to the environment, etc (although that might be counter productive, since if we are isolated from society, we cannot do anything to improve that society).

But I think The Ancient also makes an important point that while most people might not go out of their way to change their lifestyle completely, we still can advocate change. Some of it is very easy to do (sign a petition, or vote for whoever is more likely to make positive change). Much of what needs to change must be done at a “system” level, so even if we continue to buy iPods and the like which have been produced using cheap labour, that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything about it. I’d also like to thank Chizzles for his insight, and I’ll add that I’m a bit sceptical that simply boycotting these products is the best way to encourage change. After all, these people need some sort of job to provide for their families, so supporting their economies may also have a positive influence (indirectly). It’s very difficult to be sure where the money goes though. A better way to help people in poverty might be to donate money directly to the poor (e.g. to an organisation such as Oxfam).

Animal Products - Currently the Western world produces much of its meat in factory farms, where the animals live miserable lives. I don’t believe traditional animal farming is feasible on a large scale, especially as the world’s population grows, and the amount of land for free range farms decreases. Progress in bringing plant based diets into the mainstream is slow (although vegetarianism and veganism are becoming more widely accepted), so artificial “in vitro” meat could the solution here to limit the amount of on going animal suffering and environmental degradation. I agree with you, Team Andromeda, that animal production is cruel and for that reason I’ve stopped consuming animal products altogether. But even if you can’t bring yourself to go all the way, there’s clearly a continuum between the worst kinds of factory farming and veganism. Every bit helps, as every time a product is not bought it reduces the total amount of suffering very close to directly, since without the demand for the product the animals aren’t born.

[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]India is a massive huge country. Of course if you squeeze blood from such a huge stone then someone, somewhere will gain from it. Their tech was bought. Cuba isn’t a free country either.

Are you trying to claim that these countries are better than us? We’re far more evolved politically, no offense to them.

The problems are ideological. And as long as these two class systems of control benefit the west, they’ll be propped up by someone who stands to gain. They have all those children exactly because they expect some to die.

[/quote]

And the USA isn’t a small country ? and the way you go on, its like GOD gifted the West with billions and said to hell with the rest, sorry it doesn’t work like that; We all started the same, just we’re in the west are much further in our economics cycle .

You look at the UK during the Victorian era ,we were as poor as India is now , only when a county get to grips with its birth rate will it start to get rich - Just like we did in the UK ; when we at last figured out , that have 12 kids per family wasn’t the way to go.

I’ll ask you what would you rather eat, Meat that was raised and bread on a far, in the fields , or meat that came from a test Tube or that was cloned .

On the GM debate I don’t trust that it’s safe, that said I don’t like the Industrial Factory framing we have now (I think its to blame for the massive Cancer rates) but there is no alternative, other that to give up meat completely

Oh I can , Its a simple think called Mad Cow or BSE. That what happens when Science and farmers think they know best, that it’s perfectly safe and try to play GOD .

Why is the only answer to Tax people ?

That seems to me , to be more about redistribution and social mobility , rather than a debate on Global Warming.

The trouble there is Apple products aren’t cheap at all to buy, but they’re still made with cheap Labour , So the Consumer is stuck in a trap , he or she can’t help people buy spending more on Goods, rather than buying some cheap Goodmans load of crap. Also at least the people that make these goods are at least getting some sort of wage and living - better than nothing (and I’m not saying that to make me feel any better)

On your Global Warming talk was this issue ever brought up . I think Farming accounts for 30% of the worlds CO2/Green House gases and nothing is done about it.
I think Factory/industrial farming is one of the worst things of the Modern age , but yet I still have my Turkey come Christmas - On this issue I have double standards and I’m a Hypocrite

[quote=“Team Andromeda”]And the USA isn’t a small country ? and the way you go on, its like GOD gifted the West with billions and said to hell with the rest, sorry it doesn’t work like that; We all started the same, just we’re in the west are much further in our economics cycle .

You look at the UK during the Victorian era ,we were as poor as India is now , only when a county get to grips with its birth rate will it start to get rich - Just like we did in the UK ; when we at last figured out , that have 12 kids per family wasn’t the way to go. [/quote]

No it is not, but that is the SYMPTOM of the disease, which is poverty. If they had a better way of life they wouldn’t need to have so many children. By all means introduce birth control, but even then people will disregard it out of fear that they won’t have enough surviving children.

If it wasn’t for immigration, the western world would have shrunk much more in recent years as well, not grown.

We benefit from slave labor. As long as we continue to reap benefits and the slavemasters also reap the benefits, nothing is going to change for them. They will grow as we decline because they actually have production and a market to whom to sell it. We don’t. We have no production and a tiny market by comparison.

They are kept in the dark not just by their own choice, but because it is more convenient for the rulers as well.

This is not the way forward.

I know what a lot of people want all across the political spectrum and the control freaks who don’t see in terms of individuals or individual potential are the worst of them. What will give that movement way more momentum is our inability to produce our way out of this and being made to need the system because of it.

Just what we had to go through in the Victorian age and it a lesson that India and Africa needs to learn, and in the Victorian age we didn’t have any rich governments giving the UK Aid.

And in some sort of sick way so did the descendants of slave, who’s families now enjoy and live the Western life style . Like I said we can all be victims - Let blame the Nazi’s the Romans , and the Vikings for all the issues and problems in the UK,

I wouldn’t say too much but Slave labour goes on In Africa right now;: be that the sex industry, or kids forced in to fighting for their endless civil wars You can’t blame the west for that any more Duke

No I can’t. I can, however, blame the powers that be for selling them weapons that help them kill each other better.

Unfortunately, those places are crippled by stagnant ideologies that we benefit from.

Just because no one cared, doesn’t mean no one should.

[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]No I can’t. I can, however, blame the powers that be for selling them weapons that help them kill each other better.

[/quote]

What Next Duke, blaming the Chinese for inventing Gun powered in the 1st place ?. I bet most of the Arms used in Africa civil wars don’t come from the West , not that just because someone makes a product means you’re right to buy it .

I guess you must hate and Blame S. America for the Drug problem that blights America, lets all blame Afghanistan for the Heroine trade in the UK ?

We can all play the victim and blame game . In the Victorian age people in the UK were working insane hours for little money, the UK was full of Poverty and we were the Textile slave for the world , over time even with poor wages (at least its a wage) people start to get that little bit better off and so it went on .

I feel sorry for the people in India ECT, but in time they’ll come good just like we did

Those changes are being slowed down. The only way you could argue that the west or outsiders share no blame at all is if they weren’t there at all.

You make it sound as if those people could not be educated to our level right now when of course they could. The Persians were AHEAD of us in education until Islam came along for crying out loud.

Defending a system that favours the makers of money is one thing. Defending a system that robs everyone of a chance so that a few can have more is quite another.

It’s like watching people still living homeless because there is no affordable housing because people kept the artificial value of housing alive after the crash so that they could have more. Oh and less jobs because they were all exported to China because people want cheaper goods.

People are damning themselves.

India is a democracy and as a decent education system (many cry foul for India taking many UK service sector call centre Jobs) Like the UK there were parts that were very rich and very Poor in the Victorian age and a pretty poor education system , but the more people that work the more that get the wage and the less kids each family have - the more their living standards will eventually go up

In the end a lot of Troubles in India or Africa can only be sorted out by their people and their own Governments

There are many many reasons why people are Homeless , lack of housing is only one of them. And like I said if the UK Goverment spent more on its own people and worried more about what happens in the UK (rather than try and police the world) Maybe we’ll be a better place to live , and the Sooner we pull out of the EU the better too

I know full well what its like to lose your Job and see the Factory move to China - Its exactly what happened to me and the rest of my 300 plus fellow workers (When our furniture Factory moved production to China - No bull ). In the end though we all buy and love our cheap Sofa’s .

Many of my mates lost their Jobs at SONY and Panasonic - But they all have the cheap LCD’s and Gadgets. What goes around, comes around . It will happen to China it’s self (when it’s people demand higher and higher wages)