I almost couldn't believe this story. China's "growth" is staggering but I don't know what the lesson is here. What happened to the legendary wisdom of balance in the Chinese culture? Deeper though: If so much wealth has flowed into China from elsewhere isn't that creating a drain on the worlds economy? It seems like they have imported the Western style of capitalism uncritically...and that there must be too much cash floating around-an artificial "wealth" surplus. Is that a symptom of the US allowing the Federal Reserve to print so much cash? Ah-my poor uneducated brian hurts. Brian
I said 'my uneducated brian hurts'...haha. Usually people mispell my name as "Brain"
What a waste of the Earth's natural resources... and the government could be better spending the money to benefit the working poor... but that wouldn't raise the GDP (the god-damn profit)! Pardonnez mon français.
The new paradigm we must create to survive this madness must include the tremendous value we have as individuals -- our labor, knowledge, talent, and ideas. Government and social systems were originally created to facilitate humanity. When they do the opposite, we should waste no time in throwing them out!
I do not think this type of lunacy is limited to China. Whether the issue is housing or any other human right, it's become a common theme around the world... governments and corporations mis-managing money and resources to the detriment of the populace and the environment. And like the elephant held captive only by a tiny rope he could easily break, when we realize that we are not as powerless as we thought to do something about all the injustice we've tolerated for so long, we will change the world for the highest good of all.
I invite you to join me in envisioning a better world.
Noa
This is just a great example of the lengths to which our current unsustainable paradigm will go to keep things expanding - even when there is no reason to other than to support the collapsing paradigm. The Chinese people are used to a sustainable system - not an unsustainable one - and I don't think they are eager to rush into something that seems wrong to them. This is sad - but another example of the system in collapse - and that is a good thing actually.
We'll be seeing lots more examples of this system in collapse soon enough. In the meantime - let's keep thinking of ways to create a NEW system NOW as the old one disappears - so we aren't completely left without one!
What great points. The people who have ideas just lying around and ready to go for any foreseeable event or situation will have their way probably. So if we want a better world-we better dream it and then express it clearly when the opportunity strikes. Seems like that's the beauty of the Gathering Spot to me.
I see this as the result of central economic planning, I wish those that are advocating the venus project would realize they are advocating more of the same. If true capitalism (as opposed to the existing monopoly corporatism or centralised communism in this case) were allowed here, it seems fairly obvious that affordable housing would be built.
Wendy
Seems to me that we need to be thinking completely outside of the usual boxes. Let's look at the american indians for example. They had a sustainable system. Maybe we could use technology to create a system like they had - only updated. Example: there were no travel restriction for an indian. They walked as far as they wanted to without roads or infrastructure. If they wanted to speed things up then they used a horse. We could update that concept by eliminating the need for ANY kind of transportation infrastructure - all roads, trains etc GONE. We could do that with personal transportation devices - like a car is today - but that don't touch the ground except to park.
We probably have the technology to create a free energy vehicle such as this right now. And just that ONE change would change the whole paradigm (which is why they have been so careful not to update the transportation technology in 100 years). Imagine being able to go ANYWHERE on the planet for FREE - with no supporting infrastructure required. That is truly a dramatic change.
We could look at the housing that the indians used as well. Portable. Think about that. What kind of system could we create if there were NO permanent houses ANYWHERE. Again - using technology - we could create a comfortable portable house, easily transported in our free energy vehicles, which could be set up and removed at will. Feel like some sun this year? MOVE.
And of course the indians didn't need money - and neither will we. This is one thing that really has to GO in the new paradigm. With mobility, and personal autonomy, we can just trade for what we need or use some other system of using a barter based "currency" etc.
I believe that the unleashing of free energy will naturally create a whole new system. And we all know that it was "discovered" over 100 years ago by Tesla and others. WE ALREADY HAVE IT. So things are really set to go quickly, once that gets out. I think there will still be a population reduction of some kind as that transition happens - pretty unavoidable as I see it.
It's unfortunate - but the truth is that we as a people have had every indication and have been in full understanding that population was going to be a problem (it's been the elephant in the room for some years now) and no one has taken it seriously. All we had to do was each of us take personal responsibility for the reduction (easily done), and we FAILED to take that responsibility. Governments wouldn't touch it (and still won't except China) and since we are living in an unsustainable paradigm of constant expansion, there must be a correction at some point. Further expansion just isn't going to happen any more. The only question will be how many will we lose and when.
Having said that - the new paradigm just described would necessitate a smaller population at any rate. While we could probably switch over to something like that here in the US (the whole state of Oregon has less than 4 million as an example), it would not be possible in China, India or Africa most likely. I don't think we have enough resources to create 6 billion free energy vehicles! But who knows - maybe with free energy technology - we could create floating cities that could be moved about the planet at will, that don't create any negative environmental effects. The possibilities are many!
An oxymoron if you will. the term "capitalism" will not exist, along with a host of other presently common terms, in a new sustainable economic paradigm and model. I find it strange that anyone is seriously championing this despotic model, as if it could be revised to become the economic model of a golden age. In a golden age, no one would be operating on the incentive of "making money". Even if we finally wrestled the current debt based monetary system from the "PTB" and printed our own it would still lead toward imbalance in this current metaparadigm.
During past times when the more feminine part of our human nature was "being" there was no conscious thought of ownership and property rights, and this included no concept of marriage relating to ownership of another. They did what they loved in their heart of hearts to do and lived in community and traded. Monetary devices tend to get in the way of the natural right brain balance with left...
People looked to Mother Earth and not a "sky god", they had an intimate understanding of their connection to Gaia and lived like they understood. The remnant tribes of this understanding are still here and they still look to Mother Earth. We have not killed all of them and they live in balance with Gaia, but are being sorely threatened by the machinery of "capitalism".
Maybe, hopefully they will be of great assistance in the near future for transition of understanding that will lead to a better way, future and past meet to become anew...
Seems like most governments build bridges to nowhere because of distortions in the funding process, but this is an incredibly extreme example. The real shame is that China has adopted Western-style capitalist social stratification. That is, those with the wealth get all the benefits of society, and those who don't just get left behind to live in squalor or near-squalor. One would think that a formerly communist society would be more sensitive to finding that balance between a heavily controlling communism and a cold-hearted pure capitalism. Surely there must be a middle way that avoids the tremendous extremes in wealth and poverty and respects the needs and contributions of everyone in society. But what would that look like? I guess it's up to us to invent it. :-)
Chuck