What happens to towns when the main employer goes under?

Davesnave

Mary_Hartnell wrote: »

I agree BUT can you see the world's population (circa 6.7 billion) agreeing with you? Most of them want a car, TV, ghetto blaster, fridge, washing machine, holiday,
meat to eat etc etc.........Who are we to tell them they cannot have these things.
It is all very depressing.
Pembrokeshire is rather out on a limb and teenage kids will suffer from the "its 165 mile round trip" to somewhere teenagers think ticks all the boxes for their life style,
that Pastures mentioned above.

No, the world's population is dependent upon economies which see ever-increasing growth as fundamental to their survival. However, on a finite planet, growth as we currently understand it, cannot be sustained indefinitely.

I wouldn't tell anyone they can't have the things I've enjoyed, but I don't think the time is far off when we will have to re-define luxuries and come to appreciate those we still have. I had hoped the current global recession might lead the start of this fairly fundamental shift, or some new thinking, but on this forum & elsewhere, people seem to have quite a narrow mind set about the future.

My own belief is that if it isn't planned-for, nature will have the last word, with something like avian flu resolving the problem of an overcrowded planet for us.

As for growing-up in an out-of-the way place, I did that and enjoyed every minute. Perhaps my town was fortunate, but I'll bet we had a much more varied set of experiences than most of our city cousins. I'll admit that I later spent a couple of years in London too, just for the experience, but that was about 6 months too long!

dopester

Davesnave wrote: »

I wouldn't tell anyone they can't have the things I've enjoyed, but I don't think the time is far off when we will have to re-define luxuries and come to appreciate those we still have.

If you are making a case for how people will have to re-evaluate their priorities, and what is of real value to them, then I agree. Some people will have to get by with less consumerism but not go in to a sulk or riot about it.

Your outlook of the future is a bit bleak. I understand it, and it may well be that events turn that way during another transition.

However I still hope we have another paradigm leap to make, as dramatic as the agricultural revolution was for humankind. Advancements in technology will bring it about. We're total barbarians at the moment, trapped in megapolitical conditions of our time. Forced to operate in a paradigm that works with what we've got - but that doesn't mean the paradigm itself isn't deeply flawed.

One day, huge starships (field-technology) with earth-replica interiors, capable of housing and transporting multi-billions of us, out to the stars. Earth-like constructed orbitals, the same. Each individual free to choose their own pursuit of what brings them most happiness, in life in a non-scarcity society.

dopester

Davesnave wrote: »

My own belief is that if it isn't planned-for, nature will have the last word, with something like avian flu resolving the problem of an overcrowded planet for us.

Nature already has a design for us.

Sometimes it plays out that we have to take a few steps back for a while, and sometimes conditions and circumstances might conspire to try and lock us in to a dark place under conditions which are harsh.... but the main force is to keep us changing and adapting and trying new approaches - to advance.

With a bit of luck, we'll make it through the challenges ahead to a much better place.

Long wave crises in the economy recurring every fifty to sixty years are often associated with human life span. It is commonly argued that individuals who experienced the previous crisis must die out before their descendants can repeat their mistakes.

There is logic in this, but it is possible that the causality is reversed. Humans may be limited to an adult life span of fifty to sixty years because crises recur with that rough frequency.

Such a limit on life span may optimise the flexibility of response by insuring that the same generation is seldom in command during two successive discontinuations.

The fact that death requires that all human understanding to be relearned anew is an advantage as well as a disadvantage.

A more encompassing perspective on institutional rigidity was spelled out by Mancur Olson. He argued in The Rise and Decline of Nations that resistance to change caused by the predominance of special interest groups in stable societies is a major contributing factor to economic malfunction. Presumably the level of institutional rigidity would be even greater if those who held power could continue at their posts for centuries.

The more interesting question, however, is why we do not have a live 969 years, like Methuselah. After all, in biological terms, there is substantial investment in the life of each human. Why does the species prosper by cutting that life short?

The explanation must point to some survival advantage to compensate for the loss of acquired immunities, skills, and survival traits among individuals who reach maturity.

Here, too, the answer must be found in the prosperity of the environment to undergo nonlinear change. This increase the likelihood of some crisis that can be resolved only through heroic or risky behaviour - such as taking a dangerous hunting trip or confronting an enemy in combat. In this respect, a very long life expectancy could be a detriment to any group for whom it was a common characteristic because it would encourage timidity.

An individual with 900 years to live has 900 years to lose. An individual with 900 months may not be a daredevil, but he is more likely to be. By and large, life is cheapened as life expectancy falls. If individuals lived for the better part of a 1000 years, a single life would be so dear that risky or heroic behaviours, such as fighting for the group - or even crossing the street or giving childbirth - would diminish.

Longer life slows the turnover of generations, thus diminishing the adjustment of the gene pool to new conditions.

It was like living half your life in a tiny, stuffy, warm grey box, and being moderately happy in there because you knew no better. . .and then discovering a little hole in the corner of the box, a tiny opening which you could get a finger into, and tease and pull at, so that eventually you created a tear, which led to a greater tear, which led to the box falling apart around you. . .

. . . so that you stepped out of the tiny box's confines into startlingly cool, clear fresh air and found yourself on top of a mountain, surrounded by deep valleys, sighing forests, soaring peaks, glittering lakes, sparkling snowfields and a stunning, breathtakingly blue sky.

And that, of course, wasn't even the start of the real story, that was more like the first breath that is drawn in before the first syllable of the first word of the first paragraph of the first chapter of the first book of the first volume of the story.

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

Did you watch the Gadget Show yesterday Pastures? They showed it on there. My DH wants one too now. That's after years of telling me how much caravans suck.

Yes, I was randomly flicking through the channels and saw it. So stopped, intrigued. It's been preying on my mind as ideal ... if only I actually could justify using it. It'd fit everything I own if/when I move - and could be used for camping at weekends ... except, let's face it, I don't go camping and would never get rouind to using it

Davesnave

PasturesNew wrote: »

Yes, I was randomly flicking through the channels and saw it. So stopped, intrigued. It's been preying on my mind as ideal ... if only I actually could justify using it. It'd fit everything I own if/when I move - and could be used for camping at weekends ... except, let's face it, I don't go camping and would never get rouind to using it

Yes, you don't strike me as a camping type really.;)

I'm not one either, nor are many people, but they don't always know it. I once bought a Volvo estate from a guy who'd purchased it new to pull a caravan, but after one or two holidays, he just left it in the front garden. By the time he knew he didn't want it, the national moss collection was growing over it, but it was an incredible bargain.

Unfortunately, although it was huge & indestructible, we didn't have the Volvo long, as it was totally pants in every other respect. ( I only wanted it because Carol Klein used one to transport her trailer loads of stock to shows.) We sold it to an enthusiast, who must have been a really advanced kind of masochist. Makes me wonder now about Carol Klein!