Thursday 14 January 2016

Some stuff worth reading...on open borders, Bowie, vegans and High Street robots (plus other goodies too!)

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The Islamophobic Case for Open Borders
"In America, 77% of those raised Muslim, are still Muslim, according to Pew. That’s a fairly high retention rate, but Islam in the West still loses about one-fourth of each Muslim-born generation. At that rate of member loss, less than half of the descendants of Muslims would still be Muslim after three generations. Germany’s assimilation of Turkish migrants seems to illustrate how this process plays out. Less than 2% of the German population self-identifies as Muslim. Almost twice as many people in Germany are of Turkish descent, and there are also substantial numbers of Arabs. Since Turkey’s population is almost exclusively Muslim, it seems that Islam must have lost roughly half of the natural increase of its emigrants in Germany to apostasy."

Bowie was an entrepreneur before he was an artist or performer
"I wanted to be thought of as someone who was very much a trendy person, rather than a trend. I didn’t want to be a trend, I wanted to be the instigator of new ideas. I wanted to turn people on to new ideas and new perspectives. And so I had to govern everything around that. So I pulled myself in, and decided to use the easiest medium to start off with -- which was rock and roll -- and to add bits and pieces to it over the years, so that by the end of it, I was my own medium."

Why councils are shutting down 'stop smoking' services
'Councils remain committed to helping smokers quit, however they face significant cuts to public health budgets this year, and spending large volumes of money on a service people are not using will fast undermine the cost-effectiveness of providing it.'

The powerful state damages society - always
"Therefore every assumption of State power, whether by gift or seizure, leaves society with so much less power; there is never, nor can be, any strengthening of State power without a corresponding and roughly equivalent depletion of social power."

People promoting meat don't like vegans much

"A provocative advertisement encouraging Australians to eat lamb has been criticised for discriminating against vegans and portraying excessive violence.

The advertisement, which has gone viral on social media and been viewed more than 250,000 times on YouTube, depicts a military campaign to bring Australians home from overseas so that they can eat lamb on Australia Day.

In a controversial scene that has reportedly sparked more than 60 complaints to the advertising watchdog, a team of special agents break into an Australian man’s apartment in New York and ignite a blowtorch after he reveals he has become a vegan."

You can watch the ad here.

Donald Trump and Bernie Saunders are mining the same seam of dissatisfaction
"While the white working class is shrinking in the US, it remains the largest voting block in the country. That may be why leaders of both parties are concerned that white working-class voters, especially in the Midwest and South, are supporting populist candidates like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. They don’t understand that many of these voters blame Wall Street, corporate leaders, and politicians – the East Coast establishment –for destroying their jobs and communities over the past few decades."

Robots will save the High Street
"Through all these varying examples, we see an automation of retail that develops itself in full speed. Whether it are new types of vending machines that help increase consumptive convenience, offering fresh and healthy products 24/7, or technology that changes our traditional ideas of ordering and preparing food in restaurant — it’s clear that retail landscapes and practices of consumption are strongly influenced by a sense of automation."

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1 comment:

asquith said...

That first article was grand. Perhaps the first Muslims to see the benefits of secularism and irreligion would be the Shia, Ahmadis, etc. They may not, by nature, be any more liberal than the majority but they'll be liberal soon enough when they realise a liberal society protects them from "community" aggression.

Perhaps we will see a rise of cultural "Islam" shorn of any actual religious part, the way some people are culturally Jewish, the same as being "Catholic" is part of being Irish, Filipino, Italian or (like me) Polish.

I think the Catholics are in certain ways more woman-friendly than Prods, of course there are the obvious objections to that, but the exaltation of the Virgin Mary has led to a higher status for women than in Islamic or Protestant societies, with the Reformation having very firmly put women back in what was considered to be their place.

And of course without so much of this in Islam, it's difficult too think of any obvious way this might change but I think the "minorities" will see it first, though it's maddening that the likes of Moody Hassan are showing no sign of doing so.