Composted Garden Waste: If you do not have a compost heap in your garden, this is often produced by local councils from domestic kitchen and garden waste.
Composted Stable Manure: This usually contains a proportion of composted straw and/or other bedding materials as well as the horse manure.
Seaweed: Available in powdered form or a (more expensive) liquid form. Good for supplying trace elements. Especially good for raspberries.
Mushroom Compost: Usually available as 'spent mushroom compost' left over from mushroom farming. A useful soil conditioner and mulch. Alkaline in nature so avoid using around acid-loving (ericaceous) plants.
END
Monday, 6 March 2017
Friday, 3 March 2017
The Good Life
The Good Life: the moral individual in an antimoral world by Cheryl Mendelson. Bloomsbury 2012.
An interesting work tracing the development of Western morality and how it is breaking down. Lots to think about.
Dictionary definitions. Morality: the judgement of goodness or badness of human action and behaviour. Amoral: (a) not admitting moral distinctions or judgements or (b) lacking moral judgement, unable to distinguish between right and wrong. Immoral: contrary to established morality, especially in sexual matters.
CM also uses: Premoral: older value systems, still present in some societies. Antimoral: (a) anomic - demands freedom from restraint on actions and behaviour; (b) authoritarian - rules must be obeyed literally. She argues that morality develops from premoral systems, most commonly in the West, where it shaped government structure, civil society and social custom. It does not guaratee wisdom or virtue - people can still be ignorant, misguided, weak or perverse - and moral ideas can be subverted (equality in China). She notes that moral striving can lead to false pride and self-righteousness.
Moral people tend to be sober, strong-minded, rational, tell the truth, keep promises, dutiful, compassionate and self-critical. In moral cultures, government power tends to be reliably subject to law; businesses and administrative and civil services tolerably efficient, fair and honest; civil order, peace and safety is maintained with maximum freedom and minimum oppression and tyranny; high levels of sexual and racial equality; broad egalitarian distribution of wealth. Abolish polygamy, servitude and privileges of caste and class. Needs constant reinforcement and renewal to avoid becoming a less moral society.
All are born with mental capacity to feel with and for others, to be fair, and exercise some restraint over greed, fear, anger, egoism and sexual appetites. [My note: but not autistics and psychopaths?] Each civilization shapes these into its own code of right and wrong.
Morality is learnt. At a very young age, behaviour is controlled by external authority (parents). Preschoolers begin to internalize abstract values (stealing, causing pain) and feel guilt. Primary age show strict moralism about morals they understand (cheating in games). Teenagers develop strongly held, deeply personal convictions about moral ideals. Adult moral sense grows more flexible and subtle, less black-and-white and increased ability to hold to one's own values despite lack of social support, or even powerful opposition.
In premoral societies right and wrong depend on a person's place in society; specific vices and virtues are attributed to specific classes, trades and social positions; inferiors obey superiors, who in turn take care of inferiors; shame and dishonour follow violations of duties and virtues. Dominated by narcissistic goals (wealth, power, fame, status) and governed by shame and avoidance of losing face. Feel that failure and inferiority are desesrved.
The West is seeing a decline in the dominance of the moral mind and an increase in narcissism. Compassion is seen as weakness, mercy as injustice, wealth, power and success are good. More people disregard truth and science and some are attracted to Scientology, UFO theories, astrology and the like. Displacement > people feel helpless, unimportant and mistreated > can become fanatic about issues (stem cells, abortion, animal rights) or politics (facism, anarachism, totalitarianism). Morality rejects vengeance, arousing anger in pre-moral minds who then favour retaliation. Revenge is partly shoring up wounded pride, status or standing. Less able to invest in other people and activities for the activity itself. Charismatic people often suffer from narcissitic character disorders, fear ageing and death, temd to feel empty, lonely and bored, unable to love due to feeling worthless or unimportant. Narcississtic parents tend to raise narcissistic children; either cruel or overbearing or treat child as way of feeding own inadequacies (pushy parents?).
Moral, extra-moral and pre-moral goods co-exist: beauty, strength, courage, honour, status, pleasure. Moral people once condemned sexual pleasure; they were misled and mistaken. Some are still ultra-abstemious disapprovers.
Anti-moralism arises from need to be superior. The anomic (norm-less) type demands freedom from restraint of any kind, covets status and admiration, lies, cheats and betrays and is politically indiscriminate (liberalism, anarchism, bohemianism, revolutionary movements and rightwing), favour social engineering. The authoritarian type insists on obedience, respect for authority and rules,defends tradition, rank and power, politically (without exception) right wing, conservative or right wing liberal), sect leaders, fundamentalists, rules obeyed mechanically and legalistically, literal interpretations. With inadequate self-control they veer between dominance and submission, rely on punishment, revenge and retribution, want cultural dominance in film and fiction endings, are violent, cruel and greedy for food, sex and money. Have no guilt about injustices, project their fears and self-hatred onto others. Oppose 'emasculating' laws (gun control, taxation). Avow family values but have affairs and divorces - marriage and fidelity threatens their masculinity. Polygyny undermines morality, leads to moral collapse (sexual abuse of children, abuses of power, greed, dishonesty, cruelty and diminshed rationality). Shame is a matter of life and death; guilt is comparatively weak method of self-control.
Contracting role of the family. Very young children need a strong, loving connection with parental figures to develop normally. Eventually internalize demands, ideals and values of both parents, then wider family and friends,then respected adults. In social systems where women are segregated with the children, and older boys move into men's quarters, morality is unlikely to develop. Today fathers frequently absent from home (long hours, travel) or totally (divorce, prison) > deprives child of learning from him and his values > harder for boys to learn to be a man. Frequent place moves break connections between families, friends and neighbours > children more likely to be adults with loose ties. On average, for children under three, more time in parental care means a better outcome for the child. Finland: since 1984, child care allowance tos mothers who choose to stay at home with children up until youngest child turns three, every child guaranteed a place in public day care with high standards of staff education and high rates to staff to children.
Currently the US far right is dominated by premoral thinking, even amoral (discussion of torture and abortion). The US has the highest rate of imprisonment in the entire world, both in absolute terms (2.3m in 2008) and by percentage (c.1% of all adults); prisons are brutal, harsh and merciless. The legal system does not work as it should. Relatives of victims demand revenge. Police beahviour has deteriorated - use of tasers.
'Cool' is now a nearly meaningless term of general approval - but is stifling and hard to destroy. Originating in a child's 'I don't care', it is a way of turning bad into good, failure into success by redefining disadvantage as a kind of superiority. Preserves distance from others, often traced back to to attitudes adoped by blacks to help them survive slavery, taken up by beatniks and hippies. Likely to forgive and justify what ordinary morality condemns; cruelty, oppression, self-seeking, greed, duplicity, cowardice, hypocrisy and betrayal. Their views on politics are amoral and self-interested. Cool has a natural synthesis with fanaticism.
END
An interesting work tracing the development of Western morality and how it is breaking down. Lots to think about.
Dictionary definitions. Morality: the judgement of goodness or badness of human action and behaviour. Amoral: (a) not admitting moral distinctions or judgements or (b) lacking moral judgement, unable to distinguish between right and wrong. Immoral: contrary to established morality, especially in sexual matters.
CM also uses: Premoral: older value systems, still present in some societies. Antimoral: (a) anomic - demands freedom from restraint on actions and behaviour; (b) authoritarian - rules must be obeyed literally. She argues that morality develops from premoral systems, most commonly in the West, where it shaped government structure, civil society and social custom. It does not guaratee wisdom or virtue - people can still be ignorant, misguided, weak or perverse - and moral ideas can be subverted (equality in China). She notes that moral striving can lead to false pride and self-righteousness.
Moral people tend to be sober, strong-minded, rational, tell the truth, keep promises, dutiful, compassionate and self-critical. In moral cultures, government power tends to be reliably subject to law; businesses and administrative and civil services tolerably efficient, fair and honest; civil order, peace and safety is maintained with maximum freedom and minimum oppression and tyranny; high levels of sexual and racial equality; broad egalitarian distribution of wealth. Abolish polygamy, servitude and privileges of caste and class. Needs constant reinforcement and renewal to avoid becoming a less moral society.
All are born with mental capacity to feel with and for others, to be fair, and exercise some restraint over greed, fear, anger, egoism and sexual appetites. [My note: but not autistics and psychopaths?] Each civilization shapes these into its own code of right and wrong.
Morality is learnt. At a very young age, behaviour is controlled by external authority (parents). Preschoolers begin to internalize abstract values (stealing, causing pain) and feel guilt. Primary age show strict moralism about morals they understand (cheating in games). Teenagers develop strongly held, deeply personal convictions about moral ideals. Adult moral sense grows more flexible and subtle, less black-and-white and increased ability to hold to one's own values despite lack of social support, or even powerful opposition.
In premoral societies right and wrong depend on a person's place in society; specific vices and virtues are attributed to specific classes, trades and social positions; inferiors obey superiors, who in turn take care of inferiors; shame and dishonour follow violations of duties and virtues. Dominated by narcissistic goals (wealth, power, fame, status) and governed by shame and avoidance of losing face. Feel that failure and inferiority are desesrved.
The West is seeing a decline in the dominance of the moral mind and an increase in narcissism. Compassion is seen as weakness, mercy as injustice, wealth, power and success are good. More people disregard truth and science and some are attracted to Scientology, UFO theories, astrology and the like. Displacement > people feel helpless, unimportant and mistreated > can become fanatic about issues (stem cells, abortion, animal rights) or politics (facism, anarachism, totalitarianism). Morality rejects vengeance, arousing anger in pre-moral minds who then favour retaliation. Revenge is partly shoring up wounded pride, status or standing. Less able to invest in other people and activities for the activity itself. Charismatic people often suffer from narcissitic character disorders, fear ageing and death, temd to feel empty, lonely and bored, unable to love due to feeling worthless or unimportant. Narcississtic parents tend to raise narcissistic children; either cruel or overbearing or treat child as way of feeding own inadequacies (pushy parents?).
Moral, extra-moral and pre-moral goods co-exist: beauty, strength, courage, honour, status, pleasure. Moral people once condemned sexual pleasure; they were misled and mistaken. Some are still ultra-abstemious disapprovers.
Anti-moralism arises from need to be superior. The anomic (norm-less) type demands freedom from restraint of any kind, covets status and admiration, lies, cheats and betrays and is politically indiscriminate (liberalism, anarchism, bohemianism, revolutionary movements and rightwing), favour social engineering. The authoritarian type insists on obedience, respect for authority and rules,defends tradition, rank and power, politically (without exception) right wing, conservative or right wing liberal), sect leaders, fundamentalists, rules obeyed mechanically and legalistically, literal interpretations. With inadequate self-control they veer between dominance and submission, rely on punishment, revenge and retribution, want cultural dominance in film and fiction endings, are violent, cruel and greedy for food, sex and money. Have no guilt about injustices, project their fears and self-hatred onto others. Oppose 'emasculating' laws (gun control, taxation). Avow family values but have affairs and divorces - marriage and fidelity threatens their masculinity. Polygyny undermines morality, leads to moral collapse (sexual abuse of children, abuses of power, greed, dishonesty, cruelty and diminshed rationality). Shame is a matter of life and death; guilt is comparatively weak method of self-control.
Contracting role of the family. Very young children need a strong, loving connection with parental figures to develop normally. Eventually internalize demands, ideals and values of both parents, then wider family and friends,then respected adults. In social systems where women are segregated with the children, and older boys move into men's quarters, morality is unlikely to develop. Today fathers frequently absent from home (long hours, travel) or totally (divorce, prison) > deprives child of learning from him and his values > harder for boys to learn to be a man. Frequent place moves break connections between families, friends and neighbours > children more likely to be adults with loose ties. On average, for children under three, more time in parental care means a better outcome for the child. Finland: since 1984, child care allowance tos mothers who choose to stay at home with children up until youngest child turns three, every child guaranteed a place in public day care with high standards of staff education and high rates to staff to children.
Currently the US far right is dominated by premoral thinking, even amoral (discussion of torture and abortion). The US has the highest rate of imprisonment in the entire world, both in absolute terms (2.3m in 2008) and by percentage (c.1% of all adults); prisons are brutal, harsh and merciless. The legal system does not work as it should. Relatives of victims demand revenge. Police beahviour has deteriorated - use of tasers.
'Cool' is now a nearly meaningless term of general approval - but is stifling and hard to destroy. Originating in a child's 'I don't care', it is a way of turning bad into good, failure into success by redefining disadvantage as a kind of superiority. Preserves distance from others, often traced back to to attitudes adoped by blacks to help them survive slavery, taken up by beatniks and hippies. Likely to forgive and justify what ordinary morality condemns; cruelty, oppression, self-seeking, greed, duplicity, cowardice, hypocrisy and betrayal. Their views on politics are amoral and self-interested. Cool has a natural synthesis with fanaticism.
END
Wednesday, 1 March 2017
DuckDuckGo, Passwords and More
Need a nice strong password? DuckDuckGo will create one for you.
Use the syntax <x>strong where x = the number of letters you want.
You can then check it against a password checker site www.passwordmeter.com/ to see how it rates.
More help from DuckDuckGo
Internet Q&A by Phil Bradley in CILIP Update, October 2016
Use the syntax <x>strong where x = the number of letters you want.
You can then check it against a password checker site www.passwordmeter.com/ to see how it rates.
More help from DuckDuckGo
- Can't connect to a site and not sure if the porblem is their end or yours? In DDG just type in 'is facebook down'.
- DDG will expand shortened URLs: if you want to know where http://bit.ly/2c7UK7Y will take you to, type in expand http://bit.ly/2c7UK7Y and DDG will tell you. It is a useful way of checking that the link you are about to click on takes you to the place you expect.
- DDG can create QR codes: type in 'qr' and then the URL you want a code for and DDG will create one.
Internet Q&A by Phil Bradley in CILIP Update, October 2016
Monday, 27 February 2017
Don't Overcook Brownies
Good brownies must not be overcooked.
The secret is to take them out of the oven just before you think they are done - the middle should be soft and squidgy, not set firm. Don't worry if there is a dip in the middle and a crack on the top - this is how it should be - and you will find the mixture firms up on cooling.
Source: Good Housekeeping feature on Mary Berry, October 2016
The secret is to take them out of the oven just before you think they are done - the middle should be soft and squidgy, not set firm. Don't worry if there is a dip in the middle and a crack on the top - this is how it should be - and you will find the mixture firms up on cooling.
Source: Good Housekeeping feature on Mary Berry, October 2016
Friday, 24 February 2017
The Rational Optimist
The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley
MR's view is that human technology and culture changes over time have so far avoided the predicted catasrophes of famine and resource scarcity (despite the doomsayers), and that this will continue. This is an interesting alternative viewpoint to the usual eco/green version.
Humanity is experiencing a burst of evolutionary change - but in ideas not genes.
Early humans needed a huge gut to digest digest raw vegetation and raw meat. Hand axes and blades meant an increasingly meat-rich diet, while fire and cooking made food even more digestable, resulting in an increase in brain size. Better and more varied tools appeared alongside evidence of swap, barter and trade. While other animals will exchange favours, only humans exchange and trade.
Specialisation of efforts and talents for mutual gain. Hunter-gatherer society sexual division of labour with women collecting dependable, staple carbohydrates and men getting protein - precious but not as reliably obtained. Specialisation leads to expertise; increased trading kept skills levels high enough for improvements to occur. (Very small, isolated populations tend to regress in skill range and ability.)
Exchange/barter/trade. All known human tribes trade. Experiments indicate that fairness seems to be innate in humans; dealing with strangers teaches you to be polite to them, with unfair traders being punished and people are surprisingly good at guessing who to trust. The win-lose view says exports make you rich an imports make you poor; MR says this is a fallacy. The market is a bottom-up world with no-one in charge. Wealth creation: the rich have got richer but the poor have done even better. He also sees commercialism as improving human sensibility (torture, slavery, racism, sexism, child molestation, battery farming, etc). The environmental Kuznets curve shows that when per capita income reaches about $4,000 (2011), people demand a clean-up of their local streams and air. Liberty and welfare go hand in hand with prosperity and trade.
Food production. Early humans expanded the range of foods they ate and in some areas made bread from gathered wild grains. These skills lapsed in periods when poor weather conditions meant grain was not reliably available. Around 11,500 years ago climate changes allowed people to become more settled, and they started saving seed to plant, and storing surplus food. Farming settlements also seem to have been trading towns.Farming replaced gathering, herding replaced hunting, concept of land ownership. Fertilizer revolution first organic (e.g. guano) then artificial.Breeding more productive varieties. Weeds controlled by herbicides > more seeds sown direct without tilling first > reduces soil erosion and silt run-off. Organic farming is low yield. Genetic modification. Cotton plants now produce a toxin that kills bollworms (that live inside the plant) without harming other insect life. No single case of human illness due to GM food. GM pest resistant plants mean less use of pesticides.
Housing. Government policies often prevent it becoming cheaper (planning or zoning laws, using the tax system to encourage mortgage borrowing, and policies designed to stop property prices falling after an economic bubble). This makes life harder for those who do not yet have a house and massively rewards those who do; governments then have to enforce the building of more affordable housing or subsidise mortgage lending to the poor.
Inequality. While this is currently increasing in some countries, globally it has been falling. The spread of IQ scores has been shrinking because the low scores have been catchingup with the high ones, due to equalisation of nutrition, stimulation and diversity of childhood experience.
Health. Average life expectancy continues to improve, so the number of years in retirement increases and there is a shorter period in chronic illness before death. While cancer, heart disease and respiratory disease are age-related, they are occurring later.
Urban v Rural. Cities exist for trade, which became increasingly global. Early communities had limited laws and restrictions. Unification into an Empire > more regulation > less innovation. Protectionism causes poverty, free trade makes for mutual prosperity. People move to cities for opportunity.
Population. More food > more babies >specialised tasks. Food scarcity > shared preferentially with kin > rise and fall in specialisations. Boom times and famines. Britain > the relatively rich had more children than the relatively poor > by 1700 most of the poor were descended from the rich, with their habits and customs - literacy, numeracy, industriousness, financial prudence. Concern about over-population > some countries tried coerced sterilisation, China the one-child policy. Not only counter-productive, but likely not needed. Birth rates were falling voluntarily in the 1970s all across Asia without coercion and continue to fall today. Birth rates. Bangladesh (1955) 6.8 children per woman, down to 2.7 in 2011. India (1955) 5.9 children down to 2.6 in 2011. This is happening in all continents and cultures (inlcuding Mormons). Birth rate collapse seems to be bottom up emerging from cultural evolution; falling child mortality, wealth, female emancipation, urbanisation.
Innovation. Not mainly due to science, nor money (not always limiting), nor patents (can get in the way) or government (poor at innovation). Knowledge can be given away and kept at the same time. Innovators share. Knowledge does not necessarily equal material wealth (knowing how to put man in space has not not much to enrich us) but some knowledge does.
Environment. While in some places there deterioration, in many others there is improvement. Rivers, lakes, seas and the air are getting cleaner. [2016: The Global Carbon Project annual analysis shows that CO2 emissions were almost flat for the third year in a row, despite a rise in economic growth. Key factors seem to be declining demand since 2012 for coal in China due to a slowdown in the economy, and in the US due to wind, solar, and gas continuing to displace coal in electricity production. However India's emissions have been growing by around 6% per annum over the last decade and slowed marginally to 5% in 2016. This is expected to be continued as India looks to double domestic coal production by 2020. BBC News item 14 Nov. 2016.]
Pessimism. Reasons for pessimism change (famine, population, climate change); each era focuse on something. The problem is partly nostalgia - the lost golden age. Scares are exagerated. People are personally optimistic ('I will live longer than others') but socially pessimistic. Humans are risk averse; this might be a genetic tendency - only 20% of people have a long version serotonin transporter gene, possibly making them more optimistic. Older populations are more pessimistic. Vested interest - charities focus on the bad to raise money, newspapers to get readers. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring predictions have not materialized. Childhood cancer has not increased, but fewer children die of other causes. Excepting lung cancer, incidence and death rates from cancers reduced by 16% between 1950 and 1997, and even further subsequently. Acid rain - the nitric acid acted as a fertilizer, with increased growth rates; sulphuric acid - some small pockets of damage.
Poverty. Aid cannot reliably start or accelerate economic growth. Most aid is delivered by government to government; can be a source of corruption and discourage entrepreneurship, vanity projects, conditional on importing specific goods from aid giver. Giving away free has its risks: mosquito bed nets often became wedding veils or fishing nets; selling them to mothers at antenatal clinics for 50 cents, subsidised by selling to richer urban people for $5, more were used properly. The poor have taken up mobile phones - calling markets beforehand for trading prices, to pay and pay for things in an informal banking system.
Botswana. Land-locked, drought-prone, high poulation growth, eight different tribes and languages. Independent in 1966 after British colonial rule which was minimal. Has secure, enforceable property rights that are fairly widely distributed and respected. Cattle were privately owned but land was owned collectively. It has had no coups, civil wars, dictators, hyperinflation or debt default.
END
MR's view is that human technology and culture changes over time have so far avoided the predicted catasrophes of famine and resource scarcity (despite the doomsayers), and that this will continue. This is an interesting alternative viewpoint to the usual eco/green version.
Humanity is experiencing a burst of evolutionary change - but in ideas not genes.
Early humans needed a huge gut to digest digest raw vegetation and raw meat. Hand axes and blades meant an increasingly meat-rich diet, while fire and cooking made food even more digestable, resulting in an increase in brain size. Better and more varied tools appeared alongside evidence of swap, barter and trade. While other animals will exchange favours, only humans exchange and trade.
Specialisation of efforts and talents for mutual gain. Hunter-gatherer society sexual division of labour with women collecting dependable, staple carbohydrates and men getting protein - precious but not as reliably obtained. Specialisation leads to expertise; increased trading kept skills levels high enough for improvements to occur. (Very small, isolated populations tend to regress in skill range and ability.)
Exchange/barter/trade. All known human tribes trade. Experiments indicate that fairness seems to be innate in humans; dealing with strangers teaches you to be polite to them, with unfair traders being punished and people are surprisingly good at guessing who to trust. The win-lose view says exports make you rich an imports make you poor; MR says this is a fallacy. The market is a bottom-up world with no-one in charge. Wealth creation: the rich have got richer but the poor have done even better. He also sees commercialism as improving human sensibility (torture, slavery, racism, sexism, child molestation, battery farming, etc). The environmental Kuznets curve shows that when per capita income reaches about $4,000 (2011), people demand a clean-up of their local streams and air. Liberty and welfare go hand in hand with prosperity and trade.
Food production. Early humans expanded the range of foods they ate and in some areas made bread from gathered wild grains. These skills lapsed in periods when poor weather conditions meant grain was not reliably available. Around 11,500 years ago climate changes allowed people to become more settled, and they started saving seed to plant, and storing surplus food. Farming settlements also seem to have been trading towns.Farming replaced gathering, herding replaced hunting, concept of land ownership. Fertilizer revolution first organic (e.g. guano) then artificial.Breeding more productive varieties. Weeds controlled by herbicides > more seeds sown direct without tilling first > reduces soil erosion and silt run-off. Organic farming is low yield. Genetic modification. Cotton plants now produce a toxin that kills bollworms (that live inside the plant) without harming other insect life. No single case of human illness due to GM food. GM pest resistant plants mean less use of pesticides.
Housing. Government policies often prevent it becoming cheaper (planning or zoning laws, using the tax system to encourage mortgage borrowing, and policies designed to stop property prices falling after an economic bubble). This makes life harder for those who do not yet have a house and massively rewards those who do; governments then have to enforce the building of more affordable housing or subsidise mortgage lending to the poor.
Inequality. While this is currently increasing in some countries, globally it has been falling. The spread of IQ scores has been shrinking because the low scores have been catchingup with the high ones, due to equalisation of nutrition, stimulation and diversity of childhood experience.
Health. Average life expectancy continues to improve, so the number of years in retirement increases and there is a shorter period in chronic illness before death. While cancer, heart disease and respiratory disease are age-related, they are occurring later.
Urban v Rural. Cities exist for trade, which became increasingly global. Early communities had limited laws and restrictions. Unification into an Empire > more regulation > less innovation. Protectionism causes poverty, free trade makes for mutual prosperity. People move to cities for opportunity.
Population. More food > more babies >specialised tasks. Food scarcity > shared preferentially with kin > rise and fall in specialisations. Boom times and famines. Britain > the relatively rich had more children than the relatively poor > by 1700 most of the poor were descended from the rich, with their habits and customs - literacy, numeracy, industriousness, financial prudence. Concern about over-population > some countries tried coerced sterilisation, China the one-child policy. Not only counter-productive, but likely not needed. Birth rates were falling voluntarily in the 1970s all across Asia without coercion and continue to fall today. Birth rates. Bangladesh (1955) 6.8 children per woman, down to 2.7 in 2011. India (1955) 5.9 children down to 2.6 in 2011. This is happening in all continents and cultures (inlcuding Mormons). Birth rate collapse seems to be bottom up emerging from cultural evolution; falling child mortality, wealth, female emancipation, urbanisation.
Innovation. Not mainly due to science, nor money (not always limiting), nor patents (can get in the way) or government (poor at innovation). Knowledge can be given away and kept at the same time. Innovators share. Knowledge does not necessarily equal material wealth (knowing how to put man in space has not not much to enrich us) but some knowledge does.
Environment. While in some places there deterioration, in many others there is improvement. Rivers, lakes, seas and the air are getting cleaner. [2016: The Global Carbon Project annual analysis shows that CO2 emissions were almost flat for the third year in a row, despite a rise in economic growth. Key factors seem to be declining demand since 2012 for coal in China due to a slowdown in the economy, and in the US due to wind, solar, and gas continuing to displace coal in electricity production. However India's emissions have been growing by around 6% per annum over the last decade and slowed marginally to 5% in 2016. This is expected to be continued as India looks to double domestic coal production by 2020. BBC News item 14 Nov. 2016.]
Pessimism. Reasons for pessimism change (famine, population, climate change); each era focuse on something. The problem is partly nostalgia - the lost golden age. Scares are exagerated. People are personally optimistic ('I will live longer than others') but socially pessimistic. Humans are risk averse; this might be a genetic tendency - only 20% of people have a long version serotonin transporter gene, possibly making them more optimistic. Older populations are more pessimistic. Vested interest - charities focus on the bad to raise money, newspapers to get readers. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring predictions have not materialized. Childhood cancer has not increased, but fewer children die of other causes. Excepting lung cancer, incidence and death rates from cancers reduced by 16% between 1950 and 1997, and even further subsequently. Acid rain - the nitric acid acted as a fertilizer, with increased growth rates; sulphuric acid - some small pockets of damage.
Poverty. Aid cannot reliably start or accelerate economic growth. Most aid is delivered by government to government; can be a source of corruption and discourage entrepreneurship, vanity projects, conditional on importing specific goods from aid giver. Giving away free has its risks: mosquito bed nets often became wedding veils or fishing nets; selling them to mothers at antenatal clinics for 50 cents, subsidised by selling to richer urban people for $5, more were used properly. The poor have taken up mobile phones - calling markets beforehand for trading prices, to pay and pay for things in an informal banking system.
Botswana. Land-locked, drought-prone, high poulation growth, eight different tribes and languages. Independent in 1966 after British colonial rule which was minimal. Has secure, enforceable property rights that are fairly widely distributed and respected. Cattle were privately owned but land was owned collectively. It has had no coups, civil wars, dictators, hyperinflation or debt default.
END
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