Over Time: the Crowd

Things have changed, in part of course, because we've crowded together in the cities and surrounding areas.  There were just a few of us in the early days, comparatively speaking, and we had plenty of room to spread out and live.

We've grown dramatically in number; what impact might that have?  Our population has tripled in the last century with the majority of the increase occurring in established urban areas.  More than half of the world is now urban.

World Health Organization: The urban population in 2014 accounted for 54% of the total global population, up from 34% in 1960, and 14% in 1900. 

Increased population and density have changed our culture.

We began as rugged, independent ruralists who could build anything, fix anything, and make do with what we had. Since the beginning of industry, we've become a culture of consumerist/ specialists.  Everything we do takes hundreds of skills spread across hundreds of people.  Or thousands.  From getting food on the table via stores and transport to building airplanes via dozens of suppliers and producers and engineering organizations, we're extraordinarily complex and interconnected.  Most of us couldn't last a month on our own in the wild, of course.  And we have so much stuff, but we keep buying more.

We were a nation of younger folks not too long ago.  We've changed.  Now there are so many older people in the middle of everything.  :)

There's a benefit, perhaps.  The 50 year+ folks are stunningly productive.  They can do in a day what the 30-somethings will struggle with for a week.

It's worth seeing the things that have changed with some clarity.  Old ideas may not fit, old solutions may not work, and the way forward will not be like the past.  Everyone is scrambling to keep up. Schools, governments, churches, and families are pressed hard to cope reasonably with the high-speed changes that sweep us all along like a flood.

We do get to choose our own goals, however.  Our purpose can be noble despite the most tumultuous of times.

Impossible Change

Everything changes, often at a slow pace that hides from us the significance; not unlike a frog in a kettle slowly brought to boil.  Our republic has changed for good and bad.  Here's a look at one radical change that needs redirection.  It's our government and its declining ability to represent us all.

Like the great issues past, like slavery and racism, like equal opportunity and gender equality, this one will generate similar upheaval as the debate is enjoined, but the difficulty of the task is irrelevant; it must change.

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." — Noam Chomsky, American Linguist and US Media and Foreign Policy critic.

Don't just look and leave.  Look and learn ... and pick a position ... and do something.  That way, at least you'll own your future, and you'll be able to explain your part to your kids.


This article was originally published here, April 2013.

Imagine a world

It's a surprise to realize there's little difference between a self-centered bully and a killer. The only thing that keeps a bully from killing every time they're inconvenienced or annoyed is that it would get them in trouble.  They'll do what they can get away with.


In the decision to do harm to another, the only constraints are morals and penalties.  As the moral element has already been weakened in the bully's mind, the remaining constraints are legal and cultural penalties.

Imagine a world with no rules.  From an early age, our children would tend to violence.  Absent some extraordinary moral stance, each would find occasion for doing deliberate harm to another.  Parents would find themselves struggling to raise good-hearted kids in a violent world, a world where the cultural barriers to destructive behavior are missing.

... a world where the barriers to destructive behavior are missing?

Actually, we're all familiar with that problem and the moral changes that follow.  We've been watching it happen for decades.

Insulating young children from destructive
influences is becoming progressively
less possible.

For instance ... 

Broad sexualization, particularly at earlier developmental stages 
Now common among preteens along with the commensurate disease and relational problems, our abandoning of sexual boundaries has blossomed into a multi-billion dollar porn industry, human trafficking and child exploitation, national redefinition of marriage and family, the broken relational context between parents and children, and the erosion of commitment between partners.

Vaccination for STDs now considered normal
and necessary for all children.

Before the 70's, the general stance of abstinence until marriage, etc., had been the understood standard of right-thinking, but much had changed following the war years.

Today, the process of sexualization unavoidably burdens our pre-teens and tweens.  Should an 8 year old get a body-waxing to remove visible hair on her legs?  Should a 12 year old need to worry about a bikini wax?

It's troubling enough to see young folks overplaying the sexual attraction card.  It's oddly bizarre to see preteens, with parental support, involved in the same game before they even know what it means.  Such activities are brain and life shapers.

Have you noticed that kids don't stand by the street waiting for the school bus without parental supervision?  Just fifty years ago, children and dogs ran free.

Western culture has morphed on many issues; change came slowly, it progressed inexorably.  Is our current cultural position on sexuality and behavior a good one?  Is it smarter or more beneficial than the one from which we've evolved?  There are some troublesome issues ...

Out-of-wedlock birth rates have soared. From around 4% in the 60's, it is now more than 40%.  Every year about one million more children are born into fatherless families.  Each is more likely to be trapped in poverty, more likely to suffer a variety of impediments to life.

The Father Factor

• 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (US DoH/Census); 5 times the average. 

• 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes; 32 times the average. 
• 85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes; 20 times the average. (CDC) 
• 80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes; 14 times the average. (Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26) 
• 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes; 9 times the average. (National Principals Association Report) 
• 75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes; 10 times the average. 
• Fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school. 
• Children with fathers who are involved in their lives are 40% less likely to repeat a grade in school. They are 70% less likely to drop out of school. They are more likely to get A’s in school. They are more likely to enjoy school and engage in extracurricular activities.

This is just one of many change categories.  Most areas of life are changing, and some are troubling ...

• Commercialization of life purpose
• The divorce between business for profit and business for service
• The exaggeration of capitalism to the threshold of depriving others of the means to live
• The trivialization of character and reason, perhaps best exemplified by reality television
• Polarization of the public forum

Note that discussion on the subject today will include the observation that there's always been such change.  True, yet when seen in the larger context of civilizations in turmoil, such change is significant.

So as we observe what we've done, it's clear that just making rules is no solution.  We've made rules and managed to apply them and to justify doing so despite the destructive outcomes.  So how might we, as a culture and as a nation, be changed for the better?  What would it take?
  
Now, imagine a world where we've agreed to value character more than bling, caring more than having, and serving others more than winning.  What would it be like to live in a world without Kardashians in the limelight?

Beside still waters ... or not.

It would be nice, but courage and character are not formed in peaceful times beside still waters.

Liberal vs Conservative vs ...

The difference between liberals and conservatives, we're told, is that liberals think we should be equal at the finish line, and conservatives think we should be equal at the starting line. I'd been wondering what it was about that idea that bothered me.

New Zealand runner Nikki Hamblin stumbled and fell, accidentally tripping Abbey D’Agostino of the US.

Abbey got up first and helped Nikki back to her feet — but Abbey had injured her leg in the fall.

When it gave way and she fell back to the track seconds later, Nikki helped her up and stayed by her side to make sure she was OK.

Nikki only resumed the race
when she knew Abbey was able to walk on her own, and she waited at the finish line to greet her as she hobbled through the pain to complete the race.

Nikki Hamblin says, “I went down, and I was like, ‘What’s happening? Why am I on the ground?’

“Then suddenly there was this hand on my shoulder and she said: ‘Get up, get up, we have to finish this.’ I was like: ‘Yup, you’re right. This is the Olympics. We have to finish this.'”

She described Abbey D’Agostino as 'an amazing woman'.  The pair had never met before the collision.

Our greatest performance doesn't have to occur in the public arena or during the biggest sporting event of our lives. Sometimes we are at our best when we can put our own goals aside and help someone finish the course.

What if ... ?

... it was you and your family?  Looking for work.

The economic downturn that began in December 2007 was associated with a rapid rise in unemployment and with an especially pronounced increase in the number of long-term unemployed.  Of those who lost full-time jobs between 2007 and 2009, only about half were employed again by 2010.

If that was your family, what would you have done for the years?  Scrambling for work became the norm for the 8.8 million workers (BLS) that previously had been employed full time.  So you applied everywhere you could, but there weren't any jobs.  You lived on your spouse's salary perhaps and on whatever savings you might have had.  Unemployment, food stamps, ....

There just weren't any jobs to be had.  The economy stabilized by '10, but recovery wasn't easy for the long-term unemployed.  It was a life changer for all of them.  Opportunities disappeared, kids' college vanished, retirement receded into the distant neverland.  Roughly 7 million families lost their homes during the great recession, and 2.5 million businesses were shuttered.  American households lost roughly $16 trillion of net worth.

That was the Great Recession, brought to you by Wall Street and the finance industry.  

Poverty is done to you.  It's not something you choose.  Is that true?

Today, 23% of our children live in poverty.  That means they don't eat well, their health will suffer, they live in higher crime areas, their education will often be interrupted, their home life will be insecure, and most will be exposed to street violence, gangs, drugs, and the death of a friend or family member from that environment.  Dads who can't provide for their families tend to disappear or die.  Single moms will face difficult choices for survival.

They should just get a job, right?  But remember, ... there aren't any.  

Too, a full time job at the federal minimum wage means you can afford $375 for housing, but the median one-bedroom rental is $1000+.  You'd need three full-time jobs to afford it.  Part of the reason, the minimum wage is worth 25% less than it was fifty years ago.

So for those children living in poverty ... they didn't choose that dilemma for themselves, and their parents didn't either.  Poverty isn't something you choose, it's done to you, or at least that was Nelson Mandela's take on the subject.  Interestingly, sociologists and economists agree, poverty is done to you.

You might appreciate a look at poverty from a different perspective.  It's perhaps worth noting that conservatives commonly blame the behavior of the poor for their poverty citing drugs and alcohol, gangs and crime, and the 'sinful choices' folks make.  Liberals commonly blame the rich for exploitation of the workforce, of resources, and their influence on government policies.  So who's right and who's wrong?  Both, pretty much all the time.

Poverty is complex with interrelated and unrelated causes. Society's responsibility is just to do their part.  There's much that can be done to make a lasting difference.  Curious what works?  Take a look at what the UN University came up with.

You might appreciate Wealth vs. Ethics as well.