Is overpopulation real or legend?

What’s your point by saying this?

And not to be too PC, but nowadays we say gaikokujin instead of gaijin.

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FWIW, this is a very distorted version of the Protestant work ethic. Not that it doesn’t exist in this form now, but there are a number of places where it means something very different from its origins.

The Puritans thought that poverty was a curse on poor people and those around them, and that it should be eradicated. The idea was that charity encouraged laziness and perpetuated poverty, while education and hard work were ways to bring people out of it. This is not the same thing as saying that poor people have failed or are themselves to blame, although begging was looked down upon. Where it comes to real jobs, the focus was more on the idea that all work could be recognised as a calling/vocation, not just religious work.

Weber highlighted values like hard work, discipline and frugality. Success was seen as a sign of God’s favour and a byproduct of a good life; Calvinists couldn’t influence their predestined status, but thought that outward signs could show that they were elect. Since work for profit was more acceptable (ascetism wasn’t such a virtue as in other groups), donating gains to the church and to charity were less encouraged and frugality was expected, investment generally led to longer term gains. A greater focus on individualism and personal responsibility also helped support commercialism. As for people who have to work without having enough, I don’t see condemnation at all – rather a regret of the negative effects of capitalism:

The Puritan wanted to work in calling; we are forced to do so. For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order. This order is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production which today determine the lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with economic acquisition, with irresistible force. Perhaps it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt. In Baxter’s view the care for external goods should only lie on the shoulders of the ‘saint like a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment.’ But fate decreed that the cloak should become an iron cage.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism was an attempt to show some of the religious principles behind capitalism in contrast to Marx’s views on the economic foundations of human institutions. The idea was not to boast of how wonderful capitalism was, but to point out some religious underpinnings for an institution that he saw as largely divorced from religion by his time. It isn’t difficult to see how the concept came to mean what it often does now, but it didn’t mean working all of the time, glorifying wealth and the wealthy or even seeking wealth or a better life for yourself – the idea was that Calvinist ideology provided the right conditions for a capitalist society to emerge where other groups had not. You may or may not agree with the argument, but I find it interesting to see how traditional American values often echo Puritan ideals – both in good and bad ways. Frank Chodorov writes about the importance of the PWE in American politics:

There was a time, in these United States, when a candidate for public office could qualify with the electorate only by fixing his birthplace in or near the “log cabin.” He may have acquired a competence, or even a fortune, since then, but it was in the tradition that he must have been born of poor parents and made his way up the ladder by sheer ability, self-reliance, and perseverance in the face of hardship. In short, he had to be “self made.” The so-called Protestant Ethic then prevalent held that man was a sturdy and responsible individual, responsible to himself, his society, and his God. Anybody who could not measure up to that standard could not qualify for public office or even popular respect. One who was born “with a silver spoon in his mouth” might be envied, but he could not aspire to public acclaim; he had to live out his life in the seclusion of his own class.

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Please realize I’m speaking in generalities but my point is that Japanese culture is less than accepting of foreigners (gaijin literally means “outside person” - gaikokujin is a more polite way of saying it without the negative connotation). A declining population is one consequence of this insular attitude.

I’m certain there would be a huge influx of people wanting to migrate to Japan if the government and populace were more accepting of outsiders.

Also, Japan is certainly not unique in this attitude but they are facing a very acute population crisis soon - partially as a result.

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I was trying to think of who I studied that talked about the protestant work ethic: Max Weber. You’re correct from a historical perspective. I was referencing a more warped modern frame of mind that I am familiar with.

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Hmm.

Does science get more wrong the longer it stands without being proved wrong? Do you have equivalent studies that demonstrate some manner of ‘Bullshit’?

The further assertion that people are no longer being deliberately impoverished is false on its face.

It might be best if you thought a bit about it.

There are many, many cities people like to live in even if they are not the penthouse crowd. A predetermined narrative of “red in tooth and claw” does not make social science. And by red, I mean that it usually comes down to how you feel, without evidence, about brown.

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None of that makes sense without context. I can tell that you are latching on to the “end-stage” features of the experiments. I wonder why that might be?

Since you ignore the context, I’ll just assume you have nothing to add.

You know you’re in trouble when you wish people could at least be as liberal as the Puritans :wink:

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When was the last time you saw a new can made of tin? Or foil made of tin?

cans are afaik mostly tin-coated iron/steel sheets*, using sheer tin is the exception - tin steins come to mind

most tin is probably use in solders and I agree with @kwhitefoot - I am not aware of a current tin shortage. the USGS lists a minimum 4.8^6 tonnes of economically minable tin. with the current production only 16 years of stock, but not all reserves can be quantified and more recycling will be interesting when the prices for mined tin climb

* hereabouts. aluminium cans are only used for beverages and not food stuff

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And that’s why humans invented governace?

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Tin can is shorthand for a steel can with a tin coating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_can

I suspect that that stein is probably pewter. Originally a tin-lead alloy but modern pewter is an alloy of tin and antimony or copper according to Google. Here in Norway objects made of such material are called tinn but that translates into English pewter not the elemental metal tin.

pewter? never heard this word

in German this alloy is called Hartzinn (“hard tin”) and I am fine with calling it only tin as it consist of 90+% of the stuff

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Huh. Well I guess since it is mostly tin, that is an appropriate word.

But what is up with German Silver not actually containing silver? And then people actually selling “bullion bars” of it?

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one German name for pyrite is Katzengold (cat’s gold) and it contains neither cats nor gold. scandalous!

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Maybe its from a legend of a cat that hoarded gold, but it was all pyrite and they let him keep it.

I have some cool mine dollars from a coal mine.

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Now you have!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pewter

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