jlc

Good and fascinating observations, XenokRoy.

Jan

I agree. This is an opportunity for women to be gracious to their male co-workers.

Jan

I have lots of agreement with you. I keep a nice blazer with me to put on when the AC gets a bit cool. I often turn the AC on a bit early so that when other people come in they will find the temp comfy.

When I worked graveyard in a hospital lab, I would wear long sleeves, a labcoat, and a sweater on my shoulders to keep warm enough. But the reagents, analyzers and bench tests were at a fine temp for them!

Jan

This is one of the reasons I like the Gulch.

I just did a bit of research and the Census Bureau says that 80% of the US pop of 320M is urban - but they include some really little towns (2,000 pop) as urban, so I do not think that figure is a good fit for catastrophe analysis. I looked up the megaregions of the US (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megareg...) and added them up and got 233M living in mega cities (which comes to 72%).

I think - and I am making this up - that,in the advent of a infrastructure collapse that lasts longer than 3 weeks, people in rural areas will do OK but people in urban areas will experience about a 10% survival rate. That means that, just taking the megacities into account, the US population would drop to 110M. If you also assume that some - let me make up the figure "20%" - of the rural population will also not survive, then we are down to about 92.6 million people in the US.

There are an estimated 100 million bicycles in the US. I assume that there are also a lot of spare parts - tires and gear cables. (And I doubt that everyone will be riding a bicycle - people in really rural areas may go straight to horse transportation.) So I think that bicycles will be a viable first step - and there will be enough for each household member to have their own.

After that, bicycles will be scavenged to repair other bicycles and self-replicating transportation (horses) will become popular again.

Jan, trying to be one of the 10%

No, I would buy a modern bicycle with the gold.

The reason I think that primitivism will stop at about 1900/1940 is that information and capabilities are too well distributed to go below that point. I know a lot of people with forges who can do excellent blacksmithing, for instance, and refined metal is all around us.

The reason I could buy a modern bicycle is darker: in any major collapse, it will be the large cities that suffer the greatest loss of life. There will be many modern bicycles waiting to be 'mined' and re-sold.

Jan

Excellent observations, which correlate with what I have read about witness stories at crime or accident scenes. (Witnesses will make stories about the isolated aspects they personally viewed, elaborating them to include cause and conclusion. This seems to be done instinctively and not with any deliberate intent towards malice or benefit.)

Jan

When did you get out johnpe?

Jan

I suspect that in the US, 'primitivism' would be circa 1900 technology, with medicine at about 1940.

I think for any collapse, gold would be at least a 'pass through' phase - which would give you one last chance to buy survival stuff. No one knows, when a collapse starts 'at what point will it end'. If the collapse is local, then gold will still be worthwhile at the end of the collapse. If the collapse is universal, then gold will be a pass through phase and then we will go to barter for a while.

Jan

I don't think it was a glitch. I think this is an example of abuse generating regulations.

Jan

I am discovering that I, an agnostic, am getting along better with a number of the Christians in the Gulch than I am with many of my fellow agnostics/atheists. I suspect that it may have something to do with the fact that I am generally optimistic.

I certainly have no suspicion that this pop up was aimed at XenokRoy.

Jan

I think that the pop-up warning is a response to its stated patterns of behavior that have crossed many topics over the course of many months: Ad hominum attacks and proselytizing.

When I am amongst people who consider themselves as Objectivists, I do not characterize myself in such a fashion because I have mine own set of values, and they only partially agree with what people state to be Objectivism (which definition in turn depends on who is making the statement). When I am with the general (liberal) population I will sometimes say that I am an Objectivist or a Randist, because it is a handy shorthand for them to 'see where I am coming from'.

I find much value in the comments of people who are marginal Objectivists, as I am. I too look forward to the 'binocular vision' provided by rational dissent.

Jan

This is heartening, jbrenner. I too use the Gulch to test my premises - one of the major advantages of being here.

Specifically addressing your initial post: I find that you are not clearly delineating the difference between 'a tool' and 'the use to which the tool is put'. Like a knife, the military can be used properly or misused abysmally. I have a lot of respect for the military per se, but the threshold for disobeying commands is specific for ethics - it does not extend to policy.

Jan

Me too.

Jan

Ha! Good one.

Jan

Several people on this thread have already pointed out that the salient variable is: What kind of collapse?

Unless an asteroid hits the Earth, catastrophe will take the form of slo-mo dominoes affecting some regions more than others. Very primitive areas will have life-as-usual; modern ranches and farms will have to watch their petrol supplies carefully; Los Angeles and NY will be SOL. Most of the US is 'somewhere in between'.

Immediately after a collapse, you will still be able to use credit cards and checks for a few days...because 'that is how we do it'. (Buy a bicycle.) Then, cash will be accepted for a little while longer - and that may be as far as the catastrophe takes us. If the situation deteriorates further, then we will get to a place where gold will be valuable. (At that point, buy chickens and 50 gallon drums and a horse.) If things get even worse, then gold will loose value and the only things that will get you something valuable in trade are antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals, street drugs, livestock, and food/water.

So, in some sorts of collapses we will be in a 'gold is valuable' phase for at least a while.

Jan

And we can certainly discuss various opinions on how to make 'legal' come more into agreement with 'right'.

I do not have a problem with abortions under the current legal definition and I find that the outrage I am reading is aimed at the callousness of selling fetal tissue to the highest bidder...which is just silly. The embryo is already dead - go ahead and make the best use possible of the tissue in it.

Jan

And that is what I think too - if someone thinks that abortion is murder at any time then they should not be forced to have an abortion. For people who think that early term abortions are OK but late term abortions are not, then there needs to be - and is - a legal definition of abortion. (They can always decide NOT to have an abortion; the law is to prevent someone from having an abortion really late term.)

Jan

There is a definition of what constitutes a legal abortion. If what PP did meets that definition, then it is not murder.

If you would like to discuss what that definition is vs what it should be, then this is something that I sometimes think about - but is a different question than the emotionally-charged one of PP selling the organs of aborted embryos for scientific or medical purposes.

Jan

jlc is still stiff from jousting last week...

Jan

I agree with prof611 both in that inflamed rhetoric does not make a good argument and in that most of what PP is actually good. If individuals at PP are murdering infants who meet the definition of human, then they can and should be tried for infanticide. But that is not what people are anguished about - they are upset about the sale of parts of already dead embryos.

Planned Parenthood should not receive any gov funds, though. The gov should be no more in the business of making abortions than they should be in the business of running your healthcare.

Jan

Thank you. None are particularly near me, but I will call the nearest (down in Woodland Hills) and see if they search. (This time, I am going to find out before I drive to the theater.)

Jan

But at least I did not have a plane to catch!

Do you know any theater chains in SoCal that explicitly do NOT search?

Jan

If we get to that point, we might as well all dress up in togas and yell, "Hail Ceasar!"

Jan

Good point and worth further discussion. I think that the 'gang' mentality is what may lead a large portion of humanity to be predisposed towards communism. And (though I had not thought of it this way before) a religious order is a type of gang.

Thank you for the insight, Thoritsu.

Jan

There are over a billion Catholics in the world, and many more (non-Catholic) people who are influenced by the opinions of the Catholic Church. I would much rather begin conversations with these people from the basis of, "OK. We all agree with evolution. Now: Do you think this gene for red hair was inherited from Neanderthals or was it a spontaneous mutation in the contemporary H. sapiens population?"

I do not have a religious view of the universe, but if the Catholic Church is willing to come up to the plate to endorse the physics and evolution, then they are welcome allies. From my brief perusal of the site that starts this thread, the PAS is inviting new ideas and discussions on things like dark matter, string theory, and evolution - which is not a authoritarian or teleological approach.

(You get a point for teleological, though. One of my favorite words/concepts...though I can never remember how to spell it.)

Jan