"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

@skado I guess I stand corrected on the wording, thanks.

@TomMcGiverin
Not intended as a correction, just more of the quote for context. The original was of course in German, and is alternately translated as masses or people.

@skado I see, that makes sense. I like the original quote even better than the one I posted. It makes me think of MLK's quote about riots being the language of the unheard and oppressed....

@TomMcGiverin
Yes!

Yes, agreed. Also, professed values are often not consistant with behavior. How many preachers have been publicly caught in sex scandals?
Yesterday I was watching various you tube videos comparing various states and cities for relative pros and cons as retirement destinations. On a lengthy review of Bible Belt buckle Arkansas, it was shocking how pervasive crime and violence are in this deeply religious state.
Similarly, Utah is a standout in her rates of pornography consumption. Completely subjective example of a value, but it seems compulsory religious environment certainly does not eliminate behaviors the religion publicly condemns.

@MikeInBatonRouge Talk is cheap, huh

Looks to me there may not be a fun path out of this mess. I expect there will, sooner or later, be a massive population reduction at minimum.

A good summary of the world's problems, and it looks hopeless.
But sooner or later, hopefully sooner, some or all these factors will dovetail into one another and cause a MAJOR upheaval, which MAY pull us back from the brink before it's too late.
That's our only hope.

Conservatives need to promote individual liberty and responsibility instead of promoting collectivism.

FYP

.

I love all three.

@skado Agreed, and most of them do. More of the secular leftists need to do the same.

@PBuck0145
That might be a steep uphill battle. Isn't that sort of like saying secular leftists need to not be leftists?

@skado Negative.
More secular leftists need to reject the regressive, collectivist agenda and embrace true liberalism.

@PBuck0145
Liberalism is one of those words that gets used for everything. What is “true” liberalism? Is that like a true scotsman?

@skado

@PBuck0145
That’s what I had guessed you were talking about - economic conservatism. That has nothing to do with what liberals or leftists value. It’s just a Petersonian dodge.

If you’re expecting anyone on the left to hop on that train, you have a very long wait ahead of you. If it pleases rightists to have laid claim to the word liberal, they are welcome to it. But what’s in a name? The “true” left is about egalitarianism, and the “true” right is about hierarchy, and no amount of name-swapping will ever change that. Go ahead and support the oligarchs and call yourself a liberal if that works for you, but don’t waste your efforts trying to fool progressive minded people with that ruse. It will never come close to working.

There is nothing "progressive" about collectivism. Despite your strawman assertions, I will continue to promote individual liberty, responsibility, and socially responsible capitalism while opposing corporatism and crony capitalism. BTW "conservatism" is not a pejorative.

Many corporatists and crony capitalists masquerade as "conservatives", while many collectivists, tyrants and power trippers masquerade as "progressives" and "liberals".

And when hard times or catastrophic events hit developed countries, religiosity comes back, even if it had previously faded. I wonder what kind of world we will live in as climate change takes center stage. I expect it to have a distinct fascist flavor.

@skado it won’t be good, of that we can be sure…more nationalistic and fascist I’d agree.

@Marionville
The rest of this century looks like a period I won’t regret having to miss. I can imagine people who have children and grandchildren are worried sick.

@skado Yes…I do sometimes wonder what kind of world my two grandsons are going to be facing later this century.

@skado - Desparate people are much more likely to take desparate actions. When people aren't able to meet basic needs, they become desparate. In combination, they may very well seek justification for their actions and declaring one's self and loved ones as more deserving than other desparate people is one way to accomplish it. Religion has often been used to support the notion of being special or chosen. It contains much about dividing the chosen from the u deserving - the righteous from the unclean. Historically, civilizations will often become more religious when times become difficult (never mind that the Judeo-Christian scriptures are loaded with stories of how God punishes his chosen with hardships to bring them in line with their God). Sadly, I think your observations are on target.

Countries like Germany and Italy have had negative population growth for a couple of decades. The U.s. is nearing the break even point. But, the developed countries are worried about the age gap and unskilled workers and bringing in millions from developing countries. This only increases the total carbon footprints and trying to assimilate so many from so many different countries is very expensive. In Seattle the district had to take funds away from the special ed program to finance foreign language IA's, translation courses and interpreters just to name a few.

I think many in the poor underdeveloped world do you the luxury of planning for the future. They are mostly fighting for the present. The developed world is as usual preaching. I don't think we have to be sad about any of this though. I think life might be a bit more challenging but there will be moments of happiness and joy. It's just a new "normal" is on the horizon.

@Matias It's not a recent development. When I lived there starting in the 70's Turks were doing all the work Germans wouldn't do (sound familiar)? Even back then the Moslem's were terrorizing Christian Turks.
My comment was about migration. In 1989 when the wall started to fall lots of soviet bloc people flooded into W. Germany. The citizens found themselves in a bind. The soccar fields were converted into tent cities and the rules for owning a house changed. The ruler, Helmut Kohl lost his position due to the backlash. The accusation was that the leaders cared more for improving their negative image through repatriating lots of outsiders than improving the living conditions for its citizens. There was and is truth in that. In the US we care more for cheap labor than stability.