I think (not 100% sure) I keep seeing the same homeless-looking woman at Newark Airport’s Terminal A. Three times now. I don’t want to stare, of course, or ask. But I would like to help her somehow. It’s hard to see homeless people and think we are succeeding as a society.
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There’s no guarantee children will take care of their parents, even if there are ten of them. Having ten to increase the odds simply ensures that there is less bounty to be laid by for later in life, and the kids grow up in conditions of less bounty, which often, sadly, tends to have a detrimental effect on their success, too.
Look at Ireland’s historical trials.
They have a tradition of stone fences. You’ll often see these areas of land, subdivided over and over into smaller parcels. Good Catholics, the Irish tended to have lots of kids. When those kids grew, the land was divided among heirs, and divided, and divided, until the inheritance wasn’t enough to provide for each derivative family. The five sons each have five sons, and the half acre each son ends up with won’t feed five sons.
That is what we are doing, only on a global scale. Add to that the garbage all this creates, the pollution, the deforested land required to grow food for all these people. We don’t all continue to live in one big homestead if we have a large family; each ends up having their own house, their own cars, increasing waste exponentially.
If we continue this, we will see the same result as Ireland back then, too, only this time, as I said, on a global scale.
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Also, as I’m sure folks here know, an issue in terms of protesting in the public square. As we saw with Black Lives Matter protests at the Mall of America–is it a public place or a private place? With all of the tax breaks, who really owns it?
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Agreed. And a good and important point. The modern world evolved around the concept of a public and spaces where people can get together to talk, socialize, and especially demonstrate is key to this (straight up Habermas, right there, the public sphere being key to modern democratic systems).
But even the less critical hanging out is being eroded. Teens and older people feel this most keenly, I think. Teens need a space to work out identity and figure out how to be part of a group. Older people need somewhere to not be lonely and isolated.
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Yes, yes, I consider myself a Malthusian, and I don’t plan on reproducing. I entirely agree that human overpopulation is the root cause of the vast majority of the world’s problems and difficulties.
However I’m pointing out that you can’t take care of your grandparents if you don’t exist.
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OK I see your point. Sad situation and a bad policy that keeps on hurting people. Thanks for pointing it out…
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Everyone knows that the sentence for hunting in the king’s woods is death. Freeloaders! IKEA made the Earth and they can kick you off it if they want!
ETA: Now I know what you’re thinking. IKEA did not make the Earth. But think about it, this planet started falling apart as soon as humans moved in. And it came with confusing non-verbal instructions and missing parts. Plus, how else can you explain Swedish fish?
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I keep thinking IKEA missed a good bet. Imagine if the headline could have said IKEA Donates to help the Elderly…or…IKEA Provides Welcoming Space for Seniors…how much goodwill that might have got them worldwide.
But, how to pull that off? They want to make money, and the seniors have little to spend…Could IKEA have provided some nice space separate from the cafeteria and written it off, but use it for good PR? Could IKEA have enlisted the seniors to help provide childcare for young parents who do come to shop and spend money?
As Mindysan33 says, spaces to congregate are sorely needed. And I think it’s pretty hard to stop a trend by throwing up opposition. It seems to me: When life hands you seniors, make…well, make something good of it, IKEA!
(Perhaps my response has too much of a naively USian viewpoint?)
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Even when the Earth’s population was a tenth what it is now, we had an elite hoarding the planet’s wealth and a struggling, starving underclass. So, No.
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Mall of America is a weird place. Their Rent-A-Cops will detain people for looking foreign. I’ve only been there once. It was pre 9/11, so I didn’t run into any trouble, but found the whole concept a little excessive.
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Some commentators are forgetting that China is a different country. This is just an echo of larger problems with social space in China. You can see similar gatherings at McDonalds, KFC, and starbucks in China. Sometimes there is no place to sit because of people sat there eating outside food watching Korean soap operas on their phones. These places have large, comfortable, climate-controled, and most importantly, clean dining rooms which are arranged in a very open way, like a hotel lobby. These kinds of spaces are not so common in China, so it’s no wonder people take advantage of them. Add to this an irreverent attitude for foreign companies trying to make money in China and this is the inevitable outcome.
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‘I refuse to prove that I exist,’ says God, ‘for proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing.’ ‘But, says Man, the Swedish fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.’ ‘Oh dear,’ says God, ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ and vanishes in a puff of logic.
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I don’t read BB because I agree with Cory’s articles but because of the comments on them. I suspect that Cory sometimes writes them that way deliberately. Very often I just read the headline and skip straight to the comments.
Of course the comments don’t always exhibit journalistic acumen and even handedness either, but there are a few worth reading and some that appear to offer first hand informarton.
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I think you have a very valuable point. At the social and commercial position.
A missed chance at Ikea.
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What else to expect from that fascist craphouse? IKEA has become the mentality of our times. Just buy and throw away next year. Today, in the steets of my town, I saw a multitude of excellent kitchen workplate made out of solid wood just laying on the dump. They looked like they’d been cut last year and discarded this year. People move in and want all furniture new because it’s cheap and they find a good used workplate disgusting because other people used it before them. That’s the mentality IKEA installed in our brains, generation after generation. Seriously. Fuck IKEA.
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To those of us who grew up in capitalist societies, “Buy something or get out,” or “No outside food and drinks,” seem like utterly unremarkable rules. Indeed they are a baseline expectation that rarely needs to be stated. But it appears that to those who spent the Cultural Revolution in the Red Guards, they are jarring, restrictive, and emblematic of the death of the Communist Ideal.
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A large number of people in the U.S. had that mentality long before IKEA ever showed up on our shores.
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Alternate ending:
God tilted his head knowingly and smiled: “Actually the Swedish fish is a red herring. Sorry, Lucifer slipped that one past quality control. I tried to capture it in an inedible oreo, but some bastards with a taste for ironic snack foods keep freeing them.”
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