So Will 2012 Be Just Another Year?

Humes fork said:
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And why is Western democracy bankrupt? If you think so, there are literally millions of people who would like to switch place with you.
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And why is it always tagged with "western" as if "western" is a pejorative? Any even superficial reading of "eastern" history shows that those systems (i.e. the people) are just as "materially" corrupt, venial and power hungry as any "western" system has ever been.

People are people no matter which arbitrarily decided line of longitude you use to separate them - the hint should be that a circle has no start or end point!
 
UndercoverElephant said:
The readers can decide for themselves who is trying to have a serious debate in this thread, and who isn't.
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We have given you many chances to enter into a serious debate. All we have had from you is 'I think' and insults. Do you have any evidence to present?
 
UndercoverElephant said:
Do you watch the news, Agatha?

Haven't you noticed a little DEBT PROBLEM or two?

The politicians of the world are currently claiming that if they go on printing money, the global economy is going to get growing again and we can pay off all those mountains of debt. They are wrong, twice over. Firstly the level of the debts in most places, including the UK and the US, is already so high that we have no hope of ever being able to pay them off, even if we could get growth going again. Secondly, the era of global growth is nearly over and the reason for this is that the era of cheap oil/energy is over.

It follows that there are only two possible ways that the current economic/monetary crisis can end.

The first is a hard default of the sort Greece needs to do, but is being prevented from doing because it is not in the interests of the banks or other indebted nations - you just say "I'm not paying", and take the consequences. Can you imagine the United States doing this? If they did, then it is the end of the era of the US dollar being the world's reserve currency, and all the other countries with fiat currencies and massive debts would also default. This would result in the total destruction of most people's savings and pensions, and we'd have to start again with a new sort of currency.

The second is continuing to print money whilst wages stay down, and allowing your currency to inflate. Greece can't do this either, because it doesn't have its own currency. But the UK and US can, and probably will. This will result in normal people becoming increasingly unable to afford the things they need to survive (even in the west), and for people's savings and pensions to inflate away to nothing at the same time the debts inflate away to nothing. The end result is the same: most people lose everything and we have to start again with some new currencies.
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Having new currencies does not sound like the Apocalypse. Things were much worse during the Great Depression.
 
dafydd said:
We have given you many chances to enter into a serious debate. All we have had from you is 'I think' and insults. Do you have any evidence to present?
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The readers can decide for themselves who is trying to have a serious debate in this thread, and who isn't.
 
Darat said:
And why is it always tagged with "western" as if "western" is a pejorative? Any even superficial reading of "eastern" history shows that those systems (i.e. the people) are just as "materially" corrupt, venial and power hungry as any "western" system has ever been.

People are people no matter which arbitrarily decided line of longitude you use to separate them - the hint should be that a circle has no start or end point!
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I am using the term "western" to denote neo-liberal capitalism, which happens to be the dominant ideology on our planet.
 
UndercoverElephant said:
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My views about spirituality then changed. For a while, just like a person who quits smoking or changes their views about other important things, I also thought it was very important to point out why and how my views had changed - to try to get people who still thought like I used to think to understand why I changed my mind.

Since then I have spent three years studying philosophy at university and several more thinking and talking about these subjects with all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds with all sorts of agendas.

...snip...
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Since you have decided that your past is relevant to this thread: I am wondering how many of them you shared that your revelation came about after a Microsoft word formatted document mysteriously appeared on your desktop which contained the knowledge that told you about life, the universe and everything (and it wasn't 42)?

I think it is fair and entirely relevant to the topics you have introduced into this thread to point out that your predictions (for all they were wrong) did not come about after studying actual world events but after reading the document that mysteriously appeared on your computer.

Some of us were here when you had your revelation i.e. the document that mysteriously appeared on your computer and remember it well. And it is entirely relevant to demonstrate what your (failed) predictions were based on that document rather than the untruths you are now claiming they are based on.
 
UndercoverElephant said:
I am using the term "western" to denote neo-liberal capitalism, which happens to be the dominant ideology on our planet.
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Poppycock - at best only a few billion could be said to live under such a system. And of course that description is so vague as to be next to useless - you might as well just use the phrase" stuff I don't like" - that would be more accurate and truthful.
 
UndercoverElephant said:
The readers can decide for themselves who is trying to have a serious debate in this thread, and who isn't.
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My kids used to adopt that tactic when they were about four but now they have grown up, and spamming is against the forum rules.
 
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The question does not make sense.

Firstly, you need to define 'just another year' and what would make 2012 not 'just another year'. (would being shot dead make it not just another year or are we only talking about species annihilation or international nuclear war?)

Secondly, you are assuming it is possible to predict complex futures (I have to assume this is what you mean by the vagaries of not 'just another year' from limited available data sets).

Thirdly, you are assuming that any correlation with any so-called prediction proves the validity of the prediction and its methodology and is not merely coincidental.

There's more but seriously...

Total nonsense.
 
UndercoverElephant said:
I am using the term "western" to denote neo-liberal capitalism, which happens to be the dominant ideology on our planet.
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"Neoliberalism" is such a hopelessly vague term as to be meaningless, in my view. It is typically used by far-leftists to describe things they don't like.
 
Of course I watch the news. I even remember watching the news 40 years ago, when similar doom-mongers were prophesying the same sort of doom. Three-Day week and Winter of Discontent, remember? If I were older, I'd probably remember similar doom-mongers prophesying similar doom on the radio or in the newspapers way back over hundreds of years. 'Twas ever thus, only the specifics change and those not by much.

All I am seeing in your posts (other than insulting everyone who has the temerity to disagree with you) is the same overblown hype. The sky is falling, a whole generation of people have had their future stolen, we're doomed. People have been saying these things for as long as history has been recorded, and yet we're still here. Once it was wood, now it's oil. We are over-reliant on oil but once we were over-reliant on coal and before then on trees; the pressing need for alternatives drove the technological change, which forced social changes. I see no reason that the need to find alternative sources of fuels won't drive further technological change.

Having said all that, what is missing from this thread and what people are asing you to provide, UE, is evidence that this doom you are prophesying is imminent, and what form it will take. Hyper-inflation leading to new currencies - several countries have gone through that process in recent history and haven't collapsed in the sense you apparently mean.
 
Darat said:
Since you have decided that your past is relevant to this thread: I am wondering how many of them you shared that your revelation came about after a Microsoft word formatted document mysteriously appeared on your desktop which contained the knowledge that told you about life, the universe and everything (and it wasn't 42)?

I think it is fair and entirely relevant to the topics you have introduced into this thread to point out that your predictions (for all they were wrong) did not come about after studying actual world events but after reading the document that mysteriously appeared on your computer.

Some of us were here when you had your revelation i.e. the document that mysteriously appeared on your computer and remember it well. And it is entirely relevant to demonstrate what your (failed) predictions were based on that document rather than the untruths you are now claiming they are based on.
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Here we go again.

Darat, please try to hard to understand. Read the words SLOWLY.

I am not interested in discussing the paranormal, mysticsm or the general status of prophecies issued by any person. This thread is called "So Will 2012 Be Just Another Year?" It is not called "Let's all talk about UE and what he believes about mysticism, or what he said ten years ago."

Edited by Cleon: 

Personal attack removed.


There is no point in discussing my, your or anybody elses metaphysical beliefs in this thread. We can't resolve those arguments, and they are not what the thread is supposed to be about anyway. Whatever happens this year, you will continue to believe as you currently do about mysticism and religion. I don't care. Why are you so obsessed with it?
 
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A thread in R&P, discussing 2012 "predictions", started by someone other than UE; and yet UE unilaterally decrees the scope and nature of the discussion?

I must have missed the announcement where you became a mod, UE. If you are not interested in one aspect of the discussion, it's entirely your prerogative not to respond to certain posts. You don't, however, get to limit what other people might say, nor do you get a free pass on insulting others.
 
Agatha said:
Of course I watch the news. I even remember watching the news 40 years ago, when similar doom-mongers were prophesying the same sort of doom.
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No, they weren't. 40 years ago people were worried about an imminent nuclear exchange with the Russians. The environmental movement was in its infancy, climate change was unheard of, the global population was less than half its current level and people were worried about what their distant descendants might have to cope with in terms of clearing up the ecological mess. This time they are telling you that the entire global economic/monetary system is about to collapse and that if we don't change our behaviour very quickly we might just make this planet uninhabitable for humans within the expected lifetimes of people alive today.

Three-Day week and Winter of Discontent, remember?
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Very clearly. I was born in 1968.

All I am seeing in your posts (other than insulting everyone who has the temerity to disagree with you) is the same overblown hype.
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The look harder, because you are seeing what you want to see instead of what is actually there.

The sky is falling, a whole generation of people have had their future stolen, we're doomed. People have been saying these things for as long as history has been recorded, and yet we're still here.
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People have NOT been saying what I'm saying for the whole of recorded history. What you are saying is simply not true. This is not some airy-fairy theory that I pulled out my backside. Don't take my word for it. Have you actually watched the film I keep linking to?


Once it was wood, now it's oil. We are over-reliant on oil but once we were over-reliant on coal and before then on trees; the pressing need for alternatives drove the technological change, which forced social changes. I see no reason that the need to find alternative sources of fuels won't drive further technological change.
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Then you have not done your research.

Having said all that, what is missing from this thread and what people are asing you to provide, UE, is evidence that this doom you are prophesying is imminent, and what form it will take.
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I can only point you in the right direction. I cannot make you watch the things I am linking to.

If you can't spare 80 minutes then try this one. It's only 35, and also very good:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOMWzjrRiBg

Please don't ask me for any more evidence until you've actually watched it.

Hyper-inflation leading to new currencies - several countries have gone through that process in recent history and haven't collapsed in the sense you apparently mean.
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That's because they were isolated countries. This time it's the $US that is going down, and as part of the same process all of the other fiat currencies, including those that are currently stable, will go the same way. At the moment, people fleeing from the currencies in the most trouble are being led towards swiss francs or other "safe" currencies. The result is those currencies going up in value, which totally destroys the export capacity of the countries involved, forcing them to inflate their currencies to stop people wanting them. And THAT is game over. It means the whole system goes down when the $US goes down.
 
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