Quote from: macsga on September 20, 2015, 10:53:57 AM

Quote from: Crestington on September 20, 2015, 09:57:28 AM

I think Armstrong is wrong in all of his formulas.

I dont know how to get you to understand that tomorrow impedes the today from ever happing with thought having to first remember the future past thing you were thinking about when talking about the thing to were supposed to say when you never said it. This has the disparency of never acting the way we said we were going to do we did, except weve already done it and now we are re-enacting in a way that should never have been.

Does that make sense?

Ah! The voice of reason! Congratulations sir, you're spot on! Either you understand the above quote or you blindly fall for Armstrong predictions. Let me clarify ONCE MORE that I don't berate the guy, nor I say that EVERYTHING he predicts is bogus. His model may be very well designed but IMHO falls into the initial conditions of deterministic chaos tampering error, which is broadly discussed here.

...

No it doesn't make sense to me, once you've entirely understood how I rebutted mascga upthread (with links off to prior discussion in his thread on chaos). I will not repeat myself again. One day I may have the free time to make it more formal.

A quick example of why you two think nonsense, is because I want you to tell everyone the probability the sun doesn't rise tomorrow.

Quote from: BldSwtTrs on September 20, 2015, 11:06:44 AM

Quote from: TPTB_need_war on September 20, 2015, 04:17:33 AM

Remember when Western Rome collapsed, then the centers of power moved East for 1000 years (the Dark Age in Western Europe where only the Black Death was able to solve the problem of massive unemployment). After that, the centers of power moved back West again for another 1000 years (because labor became more expensive after the Black Death so then Europe was forced to industrialize whereas Asia didn't need to because rice is labor intensive). Looks like we are ready to shift to another 1000 year trend.

White guys. This is your swan song. Sorry it is going away and there is nothing you can do to bring it back.

That's a very, verry narrow view of history.

The development of the law, the autonomy of universities, Colombus, Vasco de Gama and Magellan, the Scientific Revolution, the Military Revolution, the Reform, the liberal institutions... all of that's account for nothing in the rise of the West and its industrialization... it was actually just the plague

Great history lesson courtesy of Armstrong!

Actually that primarily derives from some blog posts by Nick Szabo (who invented bitgold before bitcoin) which I had read years before Armstrong echo'ed any similar theme.

And my knowledge about the impact of rice vs. wheat on unemployment was also an independent research discovery of mine.

Quote from: BldSwtTrs on September 20, 2015, 11:06:44 AM

If Asia followed a labor intensive growth path whereas Europe followed a more efficient growth path it's not because of fortuitous and external factors. Humans have the ability to make choices and thereby to act on their environment.

It is precisely for the reasons I said. Before the Black Death, labor was too abundant, thus wages were too low, thus Europeans lived in squalor. After the Black Death, industrialization first of agriculture (e.g. breeding of stronger horses) was induced by needing to lower labor costs. Economics drives everything in nature, because economics is just another thermodynamic phenomenon in the abstract.

Again you have shown how deeply European you are. Caucasians think man can control nature and that life is a line that is always improving. Asians think nature is in control and life is like a circle where you come back to where you started from (in some altered state of course because a thermodynamic system is irreversible thus not precisely repeatable in the microstates).

Quote from: BldSwtTrs on September 20, 2015, 11:06:44 AM

The Black Death was just a Malthusian check like had happenned every where in the world before that and have happened thereafter (Malthusian checks can take the form of disease, famine or wars). To answer the question of "why the West was the first to escape the Malthusian trap" by "because it underwent a Malthusian check" is deeply flawed.

The truth is the West didn't rise because of an external factor such as the plague (or the presence of coal in England or because of its geography or wathever such nonsense), but because of an internal factor: the creativiy of its people caused by its culture which fosters individualism.

Europe's population is much higher now than it was then before the Black Death, so there wasn't any Malthusian check. Rather the economic thermodynamics were stuck in a Coasian barrier. It required the Black Death to dislodge the barrier so that the innate capability of humans to compete could be unlocked.

Europeans are not any more creative and innovate than Asians innately. For example, China invented gun powder.

Rather it is that Asia had always been in the past less incentivized to invent certain things.

If you think Asians are innately inferior engineers and innovators to Europeans, then you are lacking knowledge in this area (don't feel bad, I lacked knowledge in many areas such as food which nearly destroyed my life). Let me give another example. Recently I was researching what would be the ultimate sports car I'd like to have if ever I regain my wealth. Reminiscing about the brief love affair I had with my convertible top Triumph TR7 in my early 20s (before I bought a Suzuki 550 GS ES and doing 185 kph on Highway 101, and also I because my father always had the better cars than I've had, e.g. Corvette, Miata, Alfa Romeo, Jaguar and I'd still like to have a better car than he ever had so I will have bragging rights) I realized that I'd want the lightest car with an open top with the highest power-to-weight ratio. A heavier car just isn't as much fun to drive because it doesn't handle as well regardless how much engine power it has. Watch this video and this one. Then compare to this video. Those are guy videos. All men should really enjoy those linked videos. Indulge yourselves. The Lotus Elise weighs even less than the new Alfa Romero 4C.

Any way, it turns out that absolutely highest power-to-weight ratio in the lightest street legal topless sports car would be a Lotus Elise converted to a Honda K20 or K24 4-cyclinder engine invented more than a decade ago, because the British engines have always sucked. With a Rotex supercharger (and engine upgrades such as Eibach springs and titanium rods to raise the redline limit up to 8500 - 9000), the little beast will throw out 425 HP (from a street legal 4-cylinder Japanese engine!) in a car that can be made to weigh less than 750 kgs (1650 lbs) if you pull out the air bags, air conditioning, ABS brakes, electric windows and get some $4800 forged wheels (to cut wheel weight down from 10 kg to 5 - 6 kg per wheel). The Rotex won't make that annoying supercharger whine inside the cabin and it forsakes some of the lower rpm torque to give you a perfectly rising torque for as high as you can make your redline, meaning it is even more powerful than a turbo. You will be talking a sub-3 second 0-60mph (1-100kph) car! Throw in a $20,000 sequential shifter and you'll be eating Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Porsches for breakfast on any road straight line or curvy, except not at top speed. And your car will be more fun and with steering that lets you feel the wheels. And your car will still get gas mileage in excess of 30 mpg when you are not driving it hard. Note it won't sound as nice as the big V-8s, but still an interesting sound.

P.S. check out this Lotus Elise with a Suzuki motorcycle engine! That video is apparently shot in rural UK. Also note the Nissan GTR consistently the faster car when put up against American muscle cars and any car in its price range (except the modified Elise which will kick the GTR's ass). Nissan has made a GTR Alpha 9 that beats the $million Bugatti Veyron. The Corvette Z/06 needs Hennessey's 1000 HP upgrade to compete. Btw the fastest car in the world is based on a British Lotus Elise with American (Texas no less!) engineering. Brits and Americans still have something going.

You see that Texas pride. You see the Welsh cultural values. Seems to me there is something still very pragmatic in the USA and UK that will break away from the morass of idealism at some point. Look at that Hennessey Venom GT video. The beast is not refined. Europeans prefer cars that are cultured and idealistic. Americans (and Brits apparently, e.g. Lotus and recent Jaguar F-type) prefer crude cars that do something that really matters, e.g. light+fast with audible and tactical steering wheel feedback. Note the American cars lagged primarily because the USA was historically more about going fast in a straight line. We didn't have all those mountain roads of Europe. So again it is environmental conditions (nature) that drives the areas where man competes.