Playing with trains/ HS2 & 3

[greenilex]

Has anyone made the point that people travel by train BECAUSE they will pass through beautiful landscape? Even at 200mph or whatever, I'd rather be whizzing through green hills than buzzing about above the clouds. We can't all hunt over the Chilterns (heaven forfend) nor do we all have the opportunity to lean on gateposts sucking straws...but now I think of it, the latter sounds a good project for the weekend.

[Serial_Apologist]

Has anyone made the point that people travel by train BECAUSE they will pass through beautiful landscape? Even at 200mph or whatever, I'd rather be whizzing through green hills than buzzing about above the clouds. We can't all hunt over the Chilterns (heaven forfend) nor do we all have the opportunity to lean on gateposts sucking straws...but now I think of it, the latter sounds a good project for the weekend.

Can't say I would really wish to see landscape whizzing past at 200 + mph, any moere than fly over it at twice or 3 x that speed. What is all this going faster and faster for, for god's sake, other than to human-service competition as to who can run the world's resources out fastest.

And going evermore faster puts us further and further away from our natural biorhythmic capacity to adapt, making us more and more anxious, stressed, isolated-feeling and therefore selfish. Why do practising Buddhist monks living in austere Himalayan surrounds wish to preserve their culture? Not, I would claim, because of xenophobic attitudes or anti-communism, (The Dalai Lama has repeatedly said that Buddhism is not incompatible with Buddhism), but because Marxism, as passed on distorted from its original message, is as hostile to sustainable developent as capitalism in its rush for "growth".

For far too long sustainable living and anti-materialism have been poo-poohed by the western commentariat, claiming nobody would accept Green principles and policies; now the gaff has been completely blown on the benefits of capitalism by capitalism itself I would advocate reclaiming the lifestyles based on religious practices that place possessions and disposable consumables last, and put contemplation and being at ease in an unpolluted, unwasted present at the principled forefront.

If capitalism can adapt - which I seriously doubt - I will willingly ditch my socialist ideas.

There, you first heard it on here.

[ahinton]

No, but bankruptcy ensures they cannot say "sorry" and then carry on doing more of the same.

If only it did! You're talking here or personal bankruptcy; all that this can do is place certain restrictions on what the bankrupt can do specifically and solely in the countries wherein it has jurisdiction and usually for only a year, so they can then carry on doing what they like afte that whether or not they can even be bothered to say "sorry" and, in the meantime, they can do more or less what they like outside that area of jurisdiction. Either way, it won't help the poor long-suffering taxpayer with footing the bill incurred by the miscreant's actions and inactions.

I'm beginning to like the idea of reviving the debtors' prison.

I'm not! The UK prison service is already bursting at the seams, so how anyone could accommodate all debtors - i.e. almost the entire population - I have no more idea than I do as to where the money would be found to cover the country in prisons and run them, or indeed to fund the tens of millions of court cases that would have to precede all instances of such imprisonment; there would be the additional problem that some of those required to staff them all would also need to be inside, as they're debtors - and you can't be in two places at once even if you're Fred the Shred!

[vinteuil]

The Dalai Lama has repeatedly said that Buddhism is not incompatible with Buddhism.

/ ... /


There, you first heard it on here.

Deep, man, - too deep for me ...

[Serial_Apologist]

Deep, man, - too deep for me ...

Too deep, and I may not be able to dig it out.

[ahinton]

Can't say I would really wish to see landscape whizzing past at 200 + mph, any moere than fly over it at twice or 3 x that speed. What is all this going faster and faster for, for god's sake, other than to human-service competition as to who can run the world's resources out fastest.

Well, having done both on a number of occasions, I can assure you that it's not a problem at all!

And going evermore faster puts us further and further away from our natural biorhythmic capacity to adapt, making us more and more anxious, stressed, isolated-feeling and therefore selfish.

If and to whatever extent that might be true, it's been happening ever since the invention of the wheel, has it not? You can't run as fast as you can go on a bicycle - and so it goes on from there. We are in any case actually going slower nowadays, to the extent that Concorde is no longer with us. Natural capacities to adapt mean that we adapt to whatever circumstances that we throw at new them, as has always been the case.

Why do practising Buddhist monks living in austere Himalayan surrounds wish to preserve their culture?

Because that is their choice, just as it's ours to preserve ours, surely?

Not, I would claim, because of xenophobic attitudes or anti-communism

No, I'm sure that this is true.

The Dalai Lama has repeatedly said that Buddhism is not incompatible with Buddhism

Eh?...

but because Marxism, as passed on distorted from its original message, is as hostile to sustainable developent as capitalism in its rush for "growth".

Surely both are increasingly passed on distorted from their original messages? Sustainable development (of which I'm all in favour) and capitalism and increased speed are not incompatible.

For far too long sustainable living and anti-materialism have been poo-poohed by the western commentariat, claiming nobody would accept Green principles and policies

Indeed - and not only by the Western commentariat, either - and how wrong they all were (and some still are today) to do so!

now the gaff has been completely blown on the benefits of capitalism by capitalism itself I would advocate reclaiming the lifestyles based on religious practices that place possessions and disposable consumables last, and put contemplation and being at ease in an unpolluted, unwasted present at the principled forefront.

That hasn't been blown at all; what's happened is that it's woken some people to the grave consequnces of widespread corrupt and careless misapplication of capitalism. However, you seem to be trying to persuade us that Green principles and sustainable living are somehow incompatible both with capitalism and with present-day high-speed living and all that accompanies it; this is simply untrue. For example, if only sustainable energy had been developed far sooner than it is being done in our age, we would by now be able to travel faster for less, cause vastly less environmental pollution (because fossil fuel use would by now either have been consigned to history or be well on the way to being so) and be able to manufacture and distribute many more goods at less cost. OK, that fact in itself provides no excuse for disproportionate consumerism, nor need it give a green light to rampant greed and lack of the contemplation of which you write. Indeed, in some ways, one could arguably see certain Green principles as being more capitalist than much capitalism is today (although many Green-principled people would not like to accept that!).

[teamsaint]

Anyone know why moral hazzard doesn't apply to the banks.

The folks at the top want it applied everywhere else.

Is it one rule for us, one rule for them?

[ahinton]

Anyone know why moral hazzard doesn't apply to the banks.

The folks at the top want it applied everywhere else.

Is it one rule for us, one rule for them?

Very much so - rather as it is reckoned to be so for the organisation that is supposed to regulate those banks and which it now admits that it has not done as well as it might. That said, however, once a bank has lost gazillions of pounds, nothing is going to get it back, whatever action might be taken thereafter.

[Serial_Apologist]

Eh?...


Surely both are increasingly passed on distorted from their original messages? Sustainable development (of which I'm all in favour) and capitalism and increased speed are not incompatible.

I have the Dalai Lama on tape stating, in answer to a question to the effect that he "must hate" communism, that communism was compatible with Buddhism. He might have said he said this to the Chinese government! I think it was in an interview with Terry Wogan. At the time I was not surprised, even feeling vindicate in my view that the far left in general had very mistaken views in regarding western adherents of eastern spiritual traditions as middle class liberal dilletantes to a man and woman. The message I took from the DL was that communism thus envisaged, by placing human activity in its natural environment in Marx's original conceptions, and by fitting human development to a type of society in which all could feel they belonged on more equal terms than those offered by capitalism, was less likely to be wed to escapist impulses such as those illusorily satisfied by consumerism. One only has to look at opinion questionaires to see that most people in the west today, of whatever religious inclination or none, are of the view that one of our main problems is that we have become too materialistic.

what's happened is that it's woken some people to the grave consequnces of widespread corrupt and careless misapplication of capitalism.

Well, see, I hold to the view, historically by now pretty much incontrovertibly evidence-based, that corruption and careless misapplication are endemic to capitalism

However, you seem to be trying to persuade us that Green principles and sustainable living are somehow incompatible both with capitalism and with present-day high-speed living and all that accompanies it; this is simply untrue. For example, if only sustainable energy had been developed far sooner than it is being done in our age, we would by now be able to travel faster for less, cause vastly less environmental pollution (because fossil fuel use would by now either have been consigned to history or be well on the way to being so) and be able to manufacture and distribute many more goods at less cost.

The very fact that sustainable energy means have not been developed in the old West is testament to my very argument. It is no coincidence, or "misapplication of capitalism", that subsidisation of practicable alternatives to oil has failed to take off - in capitalist terms, the returns on initial outlays are just too small and too threatening to the lobbied power of the oil industry. Capitalism needed to evolve at the speed it did because that speed feeds off itself; then come the overspill and ordinary people have to pay, however the symptoms manifest - overproduction, debt etc, internationally fuelled by unsustainable energy sources to the point where oil producers held the monopoly over the kind of production capitalism had developed. Oil companies and Opec now hold, not just governments, but whole sectors of industry in their thrall to the point where western leaders have for long and are still having to swallow inconvenient truths, (though I doubt the sincerity behind their crocodile tears) and foster alliances in the oil-producing world counterproductive to their stated views on human and democratic rights, and counterintuitive in terms of fostering enemies to come and terrorism.

OK, that fact in itself provides no excuse for disproportionate consumerism, nor need it give a green light to rampant greed and lack of the contemplation of which you write. Indeed, in some ways, one could arguably see certain Green principles as being more capitalist than much capitalism is today (although many Green-principled people would not like to accept that!).

Disproportionality is in direct proportion to the state of capitalism at any given stage; "we" are urged (as in the case of the Japanese population in the 1990s) to consume; we are then told we have been too greedy; .... and the only spiritually-orientated spokespersons (apologists) for western values, church leaders, preach that we are innately greedy... due, in the final analysis, to Original Sin. (A concept which btw doesn't exist an Buddhism or Taoism - spiritual ways which are remakably, to our thinking, accepting of "human nature"). The typical tabloid ridiculisation of the contemplative life is no caricature of the way those who run things really think - and was probably part and parcel of why the forces of law and order came down so hard on the hippies back in the 1960s; (harmless otherwise politically I can't think of any other reason; why (rhetorically asking) has the drugs trade been allowed to flourish?); for what "use" is a person who spends half of his or her day sitting cross-legged in the lotus position contemplating The Void? Of course, the answer is, quite a lot, actually, except producing en masse a peaceful state of consciousness is non-compatible with the need for the kind of socity which needs greed, manufactured dissatisfaction and aggression to feed into a system built on production values perpetually geared to ephemera.

[ahinton]

I have the Dalai Lama on tape stating, in answer to a question to the effect that he "must hate" communism, that communism was compatible with Buddhism. He might have said he said this to the Chinese government! I think it was in an interview with Terry Wogan. At the time I was not surprised, even feeling vindicate in my view that the far left in general had very mistaken views in regarding western adherents of eastern spiritual traditions as middle class liberal dilletantes to a man and woman. The message I took from the DL was that communism thus envisaged, by placing human activity in its natural environment in Marx's original conceptions, and by fitting human development to a type of society in which all could feel they belonged on more equal terms than those offered by capitalism, was less likely to be wed to escapist impulses such as those illusorily satisfied by consumerism. One only has to look at opinion questionaires to see that most people in the west today, of whatever religious inclination or none, are of the view that one of our main problems is that we have become too materialistic.

But look at what you wrote instead when you first invoked the Dalai Lama! Of course too many people (not everyone, however!) in the West have become overly materialistic, but that's not the fault of capitalism per se but their own; just because all manner of things might be available to many and affordable by some, one doesn't necessarily have to have them; it's abit like people doing certain things just because they can rather than for any better reason.

Well, see, I hold to the view, historically by now pretty much incontrovertibly evidence-based, that corruption and careless misapplication are endemic to capitalism.

You may, but that doesn't make it true; if it were, capitalism would likely have collapsed many decades ago - it's hardly a new phenomenon, after all.

The very fact that sustainable energy means have not been developed in the old West is testament to my very argument. It is no coincidence, or "misapplication of capitalism", that subsidisation of practicable alternatives to oil has failed to take off - in capitalist terms, the returns on initial outlays are just too small and too threatening to the lobbied power of the oil industry.

This is only partly true, the real culprit being shortsightedness, without which far fewer nations would have ended up s hidebound to the oil producing ones as they are today - and those oil producing nations, had they possessed the vision to assume the lead in development of sustainable energy, could by now have done very nicely for themselves, thank you and other nations also have ended up far better off as a consequence.

would Capitalism needed to evolve at the speed it did because that speed feeds off itself; then come the overspill and ordinary people have to pay, however the symptoms manifest - overproduction, debt etc, internationally fuelled by unsustainable energy sources to the point where oil producers held the monopoly over the kind of production capitalism had developed. Oil companies and Opec now hold, not just governments, but whole sectors of industry in their thrall to the point where western leaders have for long and are still having to swallow inconvenient truths, (though I doubt the sincerity behind their crocodile tears) and foster alliances in the oil-producing world counterproductive to their stated views on human and democratic rights, and counterintuitive in terms of fostering enemies to come and terrorism.

You're absolutely correct here from "Oil producing countries" onwaards, as I suggested above, but this situation is the consequence of wholly inappropriate, socially damaging and woefully short-termist misuse of capitalism for which there can be no excuse. Like all other fossil fuels, oil is a finite resource; every time a new oil source is discovered and worked, it gradually becomes weaker, less productive and more expensive to extract from - in other words, it's unsustainble. There needs to be capital investment in oil on a vast scale while we're still so pathetically dependent upon it, but there needs to be investment in sustainable energy too - and the latter would be a constructive and socially acceptable use of capitalism; this is where the capitalists involved in that area of the market have mostly gotten it so horrendously wrong - and they've been getting it wrong, inexcusably, for decades. Did you know, for example, that despite America having one of the world's worst reputations (at least until recently) for overuse of gas-guzzling motor vehicles, Heifetz had his Renault converted to run on electricity as long as 45 years ago? - yet, even today, the electric motor vehicle is still in its relative infancy and the solar boosted second generation one barely exists outside the R&D department anywhere.

Disproportionality is in direct proportion to the state of capitalism at any given stage; "we" are urged (as in the case of the Japanese population in the 1990s) to consume; we are then told we have been too greedy; .... and the only spiritually-orientated spokespersons (apologists) for western values, church leaders, preach that we are innately greedy... due, in the final analysis, to Original Sin. (A concept which btw doesn't exist an Buddhism or Taoism - spiritual ways which are remakably, to our thinking, accepting of "human nature").

Yes, we are indeed "urged" to consume - and we must do so up to a point - but to do so disprooportionately is not something to which any of us is forced under duress. Whatever happened to the kind of free will that capitalism is supposed to value so highly? You are correct about Buddhism and Taoism in this context, of course - yet if we are indeed accepting of human nature we are also free not to allow it to be unduly influenced by others who want us to buy more and more of this and that when we don't actually need or want it. "Original sin"? What so "original" about it?!

The typical tabloid ridiculisation of the contemplative life is no caricature of the way those who run things really think - and was probably part and parcel of why the forces of law and order came down so hard on the hippies back in the 1960s; (harmless otherwise politically I can't think of any other reason; why (rhetorically asking) has the drugs trade been allowed to flourish?); for what "use" is a person who spends half of his or her day sitting cross-legged in the lotus position contemplating The Void? Of course, the answer is, quite a lot, actually, except producing en masse a peaceful state of consciousness is non-compatible with the need for the kind of socity which needs greed, manufactured dissatisfaction and aggression to feed into a system built on production values perpetually geared to ephemera.

But we can't all spend as much as half of our days in such contemplation in today's world; some time, yes, but not half of one's day! How are the hospitals, schools, police forces and heaven only knows what else going to run if we all did that? How would I get time to compose? (don't answer that!). Forget the tabloids' treatment of this kind of thing which is, of course, as nonsensical and misleading as you say it is, but let's have a sense of proportion here; the kind of world in which contemplation features so highly is one in which many forms of human development are far less likely to occur and what does occur will do so vastly more slowly. If we'd all been doing as you seem to be advocating here, most Western music would not have been composed, for a variety of reasons - and much of it would not in any case be as it is!

Anyway - we've gotten rather a long way from Birmingham, have we not?!...

[Anna]

I have never been to Birmingham, somehow, as they are putting a high speed link to it makes it, somehow, somewhere better to go rather than Shrewsbury or Ludlow for a day out.

[greenilex]

There is an amazing new organ there, to which I once contributed a few pennies. Maybe I'll get the chance to hear it more often once the HS2 is built.

[Serial_Apologist]

I have never been to Birmingham, somehow, as they are putting a high speed link to it makes it, somehow, somewhere better to go rather than Shrewsbury or Ludlow for a day out.

Yopu possibly haven't missed much, Anna - though perhaps everyone should go at least once to Britain's second-largest city, just to check it out.. or even jus to see what the planners did to it in the 60s!

I have to admit to never having visited Manchester - or, for that matter, never having gone further north than Carlysle or Newcastle... But I've been all over Wales!

[scottycelt]

Yopu possibly haven't missed much, Anna - though perhaps everyone should go at least once to Britain's second-largest city, just to check it out.. or even jus to see what the planners did to it in the 60s!

I have to admit to never having visited Manchester - or, for that matter, never having gone further north than Carlysle or Newcastle... But I've been all over Wales!

Good Heavens ...

Both Manchester and Birmingham are now truly magnificent cities and bear little resemblance to the cities of old, though that is now surely true of most of the UK's former industrial cities ?. Much of that is due to extra monies received from the EU for city-centre renovation.. Bet none of you have ever read about that in the Daily Mail.

Carlysle? Never heard of him though I believe Carlyle managed to get further north than Carlisle ..

[Serial_Apologist]

Carlysle? Never heard of him though I believe Carlyle managed to get further north than Carlisle ..