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Ruinenlust wrote:*drops coffee on floor*

I propose that Forest is in fact a planet in its own right, not merely a continent in some larger scheme.

I second that. Something along the lines of the Forest Moon of Endor but without the fuzzy, annoying cuteness of Ewoks.
But who am I to judge? The closest Murmuria has to Humans is a Gnome-like race that lives inside hollow trees and giant mushrooms.

Alcantaria, Octopus islands, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, and 7 othersLord Dominator, Turbeaux, Roless, Eco-empire, Middle Barael, The young ur, and Forestal

*throws entire coffee pot against the wall*

*screams*

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521

From an environmental standpoint, this is literally the best news article that I've read in years, and years, and years...

Imagine that we collectively decide not to overwhelm the entire planet... dare we hope?

*makes more coffee to throw*

Ruinenlust wrote:

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521

From an environmental standpoint, this is literally the best news article that I've read in years, and years, and years...

Imagine that we collectively decide not to overwhelm the entire planet... dare we hope?

That is indeed fantastic to see. It is interesting that the article claims "uniformly negative consequences" for an inverted age pyramid, but fails to mention any beside the obviously temporary question of who will pay taxes to care for the larger elderly population. There are social challenges of course, but there are social challenges to literally everything, and looking at the world around us right now, I think they would be hard pressed to come up with social problems related to an elderly population that are objectively more severe than the social problems we experience from overpopulation.

I was actually thinking about this this morning before seeing this article. I have plenty of friends and family members with children, but most have only one child (and aren't planning for more), and the ones with two are those who have either inherited or earned a higher economic standing. I don't personally know anybody my generation with more than two kids, even though many of these friends come from families of three and four children, sometimes more.

As an American I am of course steeped in the lore of the "American Dream" and all the American Exceptionalism mumbo-jumbo that we're taught from a young age. Our current elders often speak of the "golden age" of their youth, when you just walked in to a business and asked for a job, paid for school with a part-time gig at the gas station, and were expected to have a spouse and kids by the age of 30. What they always fail to mention was that much of that was only possible if you were a white male, because school, jobs, and opportunities were denied to women and people of color. Our population has been way beyond what we can equitably sustain for a long time - they're just so used to ignoring or oppressing two thirds of our people that they don't understand why things don't still work that way. A fall in population can do nothing but help social equality here, and if the government has to redirect some funds away from expanding our globe-crushing armada of advanced weaponry to actually taking care of people, I think that's worth it.

A common refrain heard among the disaffected left right now is the phrase "eat the rich" (and similar variants) - a sort of blind French Revolution hatred towards individuals better off than themselves. Lately there is also a lot of talk about personally targeting individuals with twelve-figure wealth like Bezos. I'm all for significant taxation on billion-dollar wealth, and am quite aggravated by the loopholes that are available to the ultra-wealthy, but this rage is not pointed in the right direction. Every dollar in Bezos' portfolio wouldn't keep the US Department of Defense operating for three months. We have more aircraft carrier power than the rest of the world combined, but we continue to build more, each of which costs more than double the entire annual budget of the Environmental Protection Agency. We have both the world's largest and second largest air forces (the US Navy is a bigger air force than any sovereign nation's besides our own), but we continue to buy $100,000,000 aircraft by the hundreds, or even thousands, while squeezing the budget of cultural agencies like the National Endowment for the Arts (total budget, about one fighter) and calling it a savings. Our own generals ask our Congress not to send them any more tanks, and Congress spends a hundred million dollars to buy more "in order to protect jobs" in a small city in Ohio, while that same city pays its preschool teachers - those caring for and educating the youngest of the city's schoolchildren - a wage only 5 cents an hour above the federal poverty line if they have a child themselves.

Shrink the population, absolutely. In order to help do that safely and intelligently, let's also redirect funds to actually caring for the people we have. As the article points out, education and healthcare for women is not just corollary, but causal to this important reduction in fertility rate. Expanding this baseline equality and really targeting the implicit misogyny and bigotry that allowed us to get where we are is key to ensuring the population drop has the "soft landing" they call for. We need a future generation - children are vital to our species and our society - but for the sake of all of us, let us take care of those children and their families, and give them a world worth living in. One that values them as people, not as expendable cogs in an economic machine that exists solely to fuel itself.

Candlewhisper Archive wrote:On the vague subject of inclusiveness, I wonder if any Star Trek fans here would be interested in this excellent article:

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-sexist-legacy-in-star-trek-s-progressive-universe-1844147116?utm_campaign=io9&utm_content=&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_source=twitter

It was a real eye opener for me, discovering that the Jadzia Dax and Beverley Crusher characters were killed off because the actresses were clashing with misogyny.

What happened with Terry Farrell was especially bad because everyone used to spread around the narrative that she left Trek for Becker. I rember scorning her for that. I really wish that Berman had kept his grubby mitts off of DS9! At least McFadden was able to come back for seasons 3-7 of TNG. Oh, and Troi got much more interesting writing when she began wearing the standard uniform toward the end of TNG's run! Have you (and other Trek people) watched the following video?

https://youtu.be/Fo8cVby5ag4

It is nice to see that the cast seems to be on good terms with each other! However, I was a little disappointed that Roxann was not included in the political discussion seeing as she is a notorious Republican (I suspect that she may have been excluded for that reason).

Ruinenlust, the inevitable gerontocracy that aging populations will induce/continue leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. The USA's gerontocracy is not doing anyone normalish any good. It is too easy to ignore environmental issues if you will not be alive to face the consequences of regression/inaction! I would love to see an amendment to Article Two that would set a maximum age for the presidency!

Murmuria, Alcantaria, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, and 3 othersLord Dominator, Cat-herders united, and Eco-empire

Turbeaux wrote:Have you (and other Trek people) watched the following video?

https://youtu.be/Fo8cVby5ag4

I haven't, but I've added it to my Watch Later. It's been nearly 20 years since it went off air and Garrett barely looks older.

Turbeaux wrote:

the inevitable gerontocracy that aging populations will induce/continue leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. The USA's gerontocracy is not doing anyone normalish any good. It is too easy to ignore environmental issues if you will not be alive to face the consequences of regression/inaction! I would love to see an amendment to Article Two that would set a maximum age for the presidency!

(I apologize for two consecutive Amero-centric posts... it's the country I know the ins-and-outs of best, and I can literally see the Capitol out my window. Also, impending election, yadda yadda)

It an an interesting fact (no doubt a result of the same gerontocracy you cite) that in the US, age discrimination is prohibited against those who are older, but not against the young. Until a person is 40, you can freely discriminate on the basis of their youth, but once they hit 40 they are a protected class on the same level as race and you have to prove some public danger or obvious occupational requirement to include age as a consideration. Without that, age-based forced retirement is prohibited. An amendment to the Constitution would override the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 of course, but I can just imagine the weeping and gnashing of teeth. The average age of a US Senator right now is 61.8 if I'm remembering correctly (they were born in those "golden age" 50s I was complaining about above... funny how that works!).

I think the most effective way to get some positive changes done would be to establish term limits for congress (which also would require a Constitutional amendment). I feel like entrenched power is more of a predictor for bad results than age alone, and a president doesn't have nearly as much power over our laws as the congress does. Even generous term limits such as 6 terms (12 years) as a rep and 2 terms (12 years) as a senator could still yield a 24 year time in office, but would avoid the absurdity we see of people entering their 10th, 15th, even 20th terms in the same position.

Of course, neither age nor term limits are likely to happen. Putting a term limit or an age limit on the Senate and the House of Representatives faces one major challenge: in practical terms, only Congress can pass a law to limit Congress, and the people with the most power in Congress are those who have been there the longest. In effect, for Congressional limits to be imposed, the majority of congresspeople would have to vote to remove themselves from office.

There are a two theoretical ways a limit could be placed without Congressional action, but neither of them are likely:

- If two thirds of the states call for a constitutional convention, they could propose an amendment to the Constitution which, if then ratified by three quarters of the states, could limit time or age in office for congress-people or executives. This method of amendment has never been successfully used, but it does exist. I would anticipate certain difficulties, because states with extremely senior congress-people would feel they have something to lose, and politics being what they are, one side or the other would likely be resistant.

- Theoretically, the Judicial branch could find an excuse to interpret the Constitution in such a way that it results in term limits. I cannot conceive of how this would be done, since that kind of language just isn't there, but you know... theoretically the sun could go nova tomorrow and wipe us out as well, so I might as well mention it. The case U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton (1995) already established that states cannot place term limits on federal offices for their own electees, on the basis that states cannot be more restrictive on the position than the federal government itself is, so that case would have to be thrown out first before it could be claimed that term limits do in fact exist in the Constitution as presently written.

At the end of the day, if we want change, we have to vote it in. Younger people have lower voter turnout time after time. Gerrymandering reduces the power of votes for swaths of disenfranchised people. Massive numbers are needed. We need to harness the power of the anger and dismay felt across the country and get people to actually vote. People need to not believe the lies spread by the entrenched right that "it isn't worth it" or "all the candidates are the same." The language designed to make people feel like their votes don't matter is propaganda from those who stand to benefit from your lack of engagement. I saw with my own eyes the shock and joy in the eyes of a 19 year old first time voter (youngest sister of a friend) when Obama was elected the first time, and remember her words clearly - "I didn't think it was possible for the good guy to win!" She had known nothing but GW Bush since she was in elementary school, and had no memories of the 1996 Clinton election that occurred when she was 7. Even though it had literally only been a single president in office in the interim, she couldn't remember anything else. We can't allow the fact that the last few years feel like an eternity convince us that that's the way it's always been, or that it's the way it should be. Voting is worth it. Get out there, get your friends out there, get your family out there. The numbers exist to bring about change, but we need the will to go along with it. The motto of my NationStates nation, Voluntatem Habemus, literally means "We have the will." I hope it is true in real life as well.

Murmuria wrote:I second that. Something along the lines of the Forest Moon of Endor but without the fuzzy, annoying cuteness of Ewoks.
But who am I to judge? The closest Murmuria has to Humans is a Gnome-like race that lives inside hollow trees and giant mushrooms.

Given Forest's current population is somewhere around 2.3 trillion we may need something a little larger than a moon.

Murmuria, Ownzone, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, and 5 othersLord Dominator, Turbeaux, Cat-herders united, Eco-empire, and Middle Barael

Mozworld wrote:Given Forest's current population is somewhere around 2.3 trillion we may need something a little larger than a moon.

We are an efficient Trantor.

Atsvea, Lord Dominator, Turbeaux, and Cat-herders united

Ruinenlust wrote:*throws entire coffee pot against the wall*

*screams*

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521

From an environmental standpoint, this is literally the best news article that I've read in years, and years, and years...

Imagine that we collectively decide not to overwhelm the entire planet... dare we hope?

*makes more coffee to throw*

I've read this and found it very interesting. Finally, there will be no more need to build more large apartment complexes and we may even demolish a great part of the unused buildings to return them to mother nature.

Atsvea, Ruinenlust, Lord Dominator, Turbeaux, and 1 otherCat-herders united

Mozworld wrote:Given Forest's current population is somewhere around 2.3 trillion we may need something a little larger than a moon.

Hell, at an average nation population of 5 billion and 458 nations we need at least 100 earth-sized planets.

Ruinenlust wrote:From an environmental standpoint, this is literally the best news article that I've read in years, and years, and years...

Imagine that we collectively decide not to overwhelm the entire planet... dare we hope?

Population decline is very much a mixed bag. Sure, fewer people in high carbon use countries means less carbon emissions ceteris paribus. However, over those next 80 years it is likely that the population of the planet as a whole will increase barring some unexpected catastrophe, and the places where the population will increase most are also those where millions of people will see their standard of living increase. If those people emit carbon like the wealthy countries do now, it's all over and we can pack it in. So I've never been too optimistic that we can achieve environmental goals through a decline in population, and would rather see the carbon intensity of wealthy countries decreased significantly through investment in renewables, changes in the urban form, carbon taxation, and the like.

Beside the environmental points, aging populations bring other challenges which I'd prefer to avoid.

Murmuria, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, Lord Dominator, and 5 othersTurbeaux, Cat-herders united, Eco-empire, Middle Barael, and The young ur

Effazio wrote:

Population decline is very much a mixed bag. Sure, fewer people in high carbon use countries means less carbon emissions ceteris paribus. However, over those next 80 years it is likely that the population of the planet as a whole will increase barring some unexpected catastrophe, and the places where the population will increase most are also those where millions of people will see their standard of living increase. If those people emit carbon like the wealthy countries do now, it's all over and we can pack it in. So I've never been too optimistic that we can achieve environmental goals through a decline in population, and would rather see the carbon intensity of wealthy countries decreased significantly through investment in renewables, changes in the urban form, carbon taxation, and the like.

The way I see it it is not an either/or discussion. Unless we can achieve worldwide population decline AND a reduction in carbon emissions per capita soon the planet as we know it will cease to exit and the quality of life on it will be severely affected. And when it does the poorest will most likely be hit the hardest. I have no doubt that as a species we will survive and keep some sort of "civilization" going but I fear that it won't be an "improvement" on how some of us do (and many of us could) live today. So leaving population decline out of the discussion because it is "unpopular", difficult to realize and deals with everyone's basic right to procreate is a luxury that in my opinion will come at a price.

Verdant Haven wrote:I think the most effective way to get some positive changes done would be to establish term limits for congress (which also would require a Constitutional amendment). I feel like entrenched power is more of a predictor for bad results than age alone, and a president doesn't have nearly as much power over our laws as the congress does. Even generous term limits such as 6 terms (12 years) as a rep and 2 terms (12 years) as a senator could still yield a 24 year time in office, but would avoid the absurdity we see of people entering their 10th, 15th, even 20th terms in the same position.

I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to a mandatory retirement age for Congress. But term limits are more of a mixed bag than they seem. They lead to a brain-drained, weakened, less experienced body whose members are spending more time trying to learn the ins and outs of procedure and less time developing specific policy focuses and developing productive relationships. That means an even less effective legislature than we have now. It turns out, empirically, that legislatures with term limits actually are more influenced by special interests and lobbyists, precisely because their members are inexperienced and haven't learned as much how to deal with those creatures or build up a formidable voice of their own, while the lobbyists can stick around for as long as they want and know the game like the back of their hand. Term limits also increase the "revolving door" between government and lobbyists, because there's always a flow of young ex-legislators looking for somewhere to go. So... they're really not great. They rely on the myth that new-to-Washington, non-"career politicians" are the ones who are weakest and most susceptible to corruption. But that's really not what the political science shows.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.3162/036298006X201742

"We found that term limits have virtually no effect on the types of people elected to office—whether measured by a range of demographic characteristics or by ideological predisposition—but they do have measurable impact on certain behaviors and priorities reported by legislators in the survey, and on the balance of power among various institutional actors in the arena of state politics. We characterize the biggest impact on behavior and priorities as a “Burkean shift,” whereby term‐limited legislators become less beholden to the constituents in their geographical districts and more attentive to other concerns. The reform also increases the power of the executive branch (governors and the bureaucracy) over legislative outcomes..."

Emphasis mine -- so it's not clear that term limits would change Congress's demographics either.

its not the fuzzys that are annoying.
its the dominance of human-like species who can be portraid by human actors with makeup alone,
instead of requiring radical prostesis if not actual genetic modification.

i just don't buy a universe in which earth humans are not outnumbered by at least ten to one, by life forms we haven't even imagined.
and with yet to be imagined combinations of scales feathers and fur.

and that was for me, the weakness of both trek and wars.
i understand where that came from of course,
there was j.w.campbells all human universe (but he was ok with psyonics),
that was the era of trek's first itteration.
and of course the human ego as audience.

cameroi of course, are born looking like green furred cat-weasils, who have big brains and walk on two legs.

there is nothing special about the human form anywhere else in the universe then on their own planet of earth.

Atsvea, Ruinenlust, Lord Dominator, Turbeaux, and 2 othersEco-empire, and The young ur

Effazio wrote:Hell, at an average nation population of 5 billion and 458 nations we need at least 100 earth-sized planets.
-snip-

We’ll just have to conquer a galaxy then.

Eco-empire

The united nikland wrote:What if your opinion on:
Eco Capitalism
Eco Fascism
Eco Socialism

There can be no thing as Eco-fascism. Eco-fascism is just an excuse for the fascists to get rid of the weak and disenfranchised. The ecologist movement needs equality, freedom of thought and expression and inclusiveness to succeed, and Fascism offers none of those things.

Cameroi wrote:i just don't buy a universe in which earth humans are not outnumbered by at least ten to one, by life forms we haven't even imagined.
and with yet to be imagined combinations of scales feathers and fur.

One thing we can be sure of. Whatever life forms there are in the Universe, they can speak English.

Octopus islands, Mount Seymour, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, and 5 othersLord Dominator, Turbeaux, Outer Bele Levy Epies, Eco-empire, and The young ur

The united nikland wrote:What if your opinion on:
Eco Capitalism
Eco Fascism
Eco Socialism

Eco Fascism is The Black Hawks telling us that they are really the good guys.

Octopus islands, Jutsa, Atsvea, Ruinenlust, and 4 othersTurbeaux, Canaltia, Outer Bele Levy Epies, and The young ur

Mozworld wrote:Given Forest's current population is somewhere around 2.3 trillion we may need something a little larger than a moon.

My entire population lives in an ultra-dense arcology and many live non-physical existences because they part with their bodies in order to live in our server farms. If others followed our lead, Forest would not require additional habitable area. Also, I am pretty sure that some other nations are able to have a significant proportion of their populations live at sea.

Regarding Earth's predicted human population shrinkage, it is entirely possible that new technologies will allow for significant lifespan extension and that will flatten the curve a bit.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EDIT: I have elected to extend last month's environmental action item for another month due to the fact that nobody sent me any examples of their own work despite some initial enthusiasm. It can be found here (scroll to the bottom to see mine):

I encourage everybody to analyze the environmental impact of the complete life cycle (end-to-end) of any product that you use.

Life cycle analysis is the tool by which a product’s impact on the environment through its lifetime is evaluated. In the context of recycling, it helps to determine if waste reduction, recycle, resource recovery or disposal is the best practicable environmental option. It has been extensively applied in solid waste management (McDougall et al., 2001). The analysis quantifies the energy and raw materials used and solid, liquid and gaseous waste produced at each stage of the process...It can be [e]specially useful in comparing the environmental impact of a product made by recycling and the same made from virgin materials.

(More here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/life-cycle-analysis)

I suggest beginning with a visual diagram to guide your research. If you wish to include ethical and/or health analysis in this exercise, that would be wonderful! If you do not wish to write anything, please consider running through this mentally!

I will be writing up my analysis before July. If you write anything, please consider TGing it to me (Turbeaux) because I am hoping to assemble a compilation of these.

Thank you and please stay safe!

EDIT:
Here is my analysis: page=dispatch/id=1397917

Read dispatch

Good evening, Forest! I'm just here to say that I've been having a tough time deciding whether or not I should participate in the flag design contest. If any of y'all believe I should partake in this event, please let me know.

Dawcreek wrote:Good evening, Forest! I'm just here to say that I've been having a tough time deciding whether or not I should participate in the flag design contest. If any of y'all believe I should partake in this event, please let me know.

You absolutely should!
-------------------------
EDIT: North prarie wants to hear accounts from Foresters about extraordinary things Mount Seymour did as Forest Keeper and as a member of our cabinet. They are writing up a Commendation for Aumeltopia (MS's WAD nation). I praised his dedicated maintenance of the forum and our Discord server but his FK term was a bit before I moved to Forest, so I told them that I would post this here. They can be reached via TG or on Discord at Prarie#2402.

Effazio wrote:Hell, at an average nation population of 5 billion and 458 nations we need at least 100 earth-sized planets.

j...just don't think about it ;)

Forestal

Effazio wrote:Hell, at an average nation population of 5 billion and 458 nations we need at least 100 earth-sized planets.
<snip>

Do as at least one other major RP region does and take the nation population and multiply it by 0.1 with a maximum population cap of 1.5 billion regardless of nation age. It helps keeps things from getting out of hand.

The united nikland wrote:What if your opinion on:
Eco Capitalism
Eco Fascism
Eco Socialism

the intersection of environment and infrastructure is not, strictly speaking, an economic issue.
however; since any attempt to value logic over symbolic value is viewed by pseudo-"conservative" crapitalism as "socialist",
fine, "call me anything, just don't call me late for dinner".

i don't view economic flavors as having a direct relationship to personal individual freedoms either.

granted i don't believe in procustian magic wands, there is no one size that fits all, but in the context of environment, what we're talking about is preseving the diversity of the default our own existence, along with that of every other living creature, we all depend on.

i view governments as earning their keep, by not only protecting the lives and well being of sapient people, but well, ok, even that, depends on a healthy environment, so that really has to come first. and while that can, up to a point, be done so in the fraimwork of other ideological flavours, again really, the environment is the foundation everything else has to stand on, the incentives built into fascio-crapitalsm are just too much too often in the direction against doing so.

Aback Whlsk wrote:Eco Fascism is The Black Hawks telling us that they are really the good guys.

TBH is anti-fascist.

Outer Bele Levy Epies wrote:TBH is anti-fascist.

They don't have the anti-fascist tag on their region so I'm guessing just an excuse when they attack someone with the tag.

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