IVS VRBIS

You're considered a full-fledged member of a people of Canada when you participate in its community. No matter what your ancestry might be.

The loss of liberty, insufferable.

People, when trying to discuss with me, please take some time to read those words. And reread them. And again. Up to 7, or maybe 77 times.

"History shows that hunter-gatherers can learn to do any of the jobs our society offers. I’ve flown in a helicopter piloted by a New Guinean who was born into a traditional society all but innocent of metal. And history is replete with examples of acaemically gifted Native Americans and Aborigines– like John Bungaree, who topped the class in mathematics, geography and writing in early-nineteenth-century Sydney. There are even a few examples of hunter-gatherers giving farming a try. But regardless of their accomplishments, almost all of these went back to their own culture. The truth is that hunter-gatherers find the loss of liberty we routinely endure to be insufferable."
Tim Flannery, Anthropologist

I am not from a hunter-gatherer society but, damn, how much do I understand them! So please shut up with the whole "endure this society" thing. Then, we can discuss.

(Quoted from Mark Rosenfelder's blog : http://zompist.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/why-you-want-to-be-a-hunter-gatherer/

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Humanity's Unity : Cooperation and Autonomy

At one point, Humanity will have to learn to share this lovely planet. Oceans, the Poles, Pollution etc., these are just starters, small steps into understanding that, if we are all to live together on this planet, we will have to share it. Fairly.

But, I will tell you something else I believe. You read in my earlier one that I had problems with States. Actually, we, humans, as animals, we live in "bands". For thousands of years, they were nomadic; but at one point, some of those bands built permanent settlements that we call cities. But these bands are the basic structure of humanity. Within them, we have finer distinctions (clans, families, friends, work groups, trades etc.), but in terms of social organization, I believe the basic unit is the Band, which includes all Cities. And one must make sure that these cities stay as autonomous as possible; they are the source of wealth in this world, and autonomous cities are a lot stronger.

Cooperation between cities will always be something good; something to be expected as well. Earth itself, as everyone's home planet, will have to be shared. And we should be able to share people, information and ideas as well. Exchange is important, as one community will have an idea, and this idea can spread to the whole world if it turns out to be the right thing to do. You will need all those forums. But, as far as I am concerned, they should stay forums.

Every city should have its Space Agency in the future (and everything else as well), being able to make its own stuff. Sure, because we have a single planet, we can cooperate, but I do not believe humanity is fully ready yet to cooperate completely : we have nutheads everywhere, and if we turn this whole planet into one single country, if all goes to hell, where can we flee? We can have forums about education, health and everything imaginable. By the Universe, even an International Forum on Live-Action RPGs, if I may joke a little. We will have to share the planet and its ressources (and perhaps, through cooperation, make more ressources available), but we should be able to try many things independently, to test how we can live.

The importance of cultural diversity

There is a lot more to be found in cultural diversity (and independance) than what most believe. I am no relativist; I do not believe all paths lead to something that works. But I am no absolutist, many paths may be good, and a lot, who failed or are in the process of failing, teach us stuff.

Having a way for some people to explore other cultures is great, and another to actually cross cultures and take part in the one that works is even better, that's the only purpose I can see in an intercultural language. But having many cultures have one great advantage : many experiences, many tests, going on at the same time.

Look at biology : millions of species, trillions of individual living things, all trying something out. Some die with offsprings, some die without. Think about it : trillions of individual experiences going on at the same time. If a few fail, you still have tons of others going on.

I believe the same is true about culture. Earlier this morning, I was speaking with a friend of mine about expressways. Where I live, in Japan, all expressways are toll roads, without exception. Where I come from, Quebec, all expressways are toll-free, without exception. Two different paths that have been tried and, the fun thing. Yet, Japan isn't poor; far from it. And expressways have always been tolled. What it tells me is that tolled expressways are certainly not something that will kill the economy, far from it. (There is more reflexion about that than simply this; it would take days just to explain the basics of the idea.)

But what that means is that I believe that, if I had to choose between making people pay for hospitals services and making people pay for expressway services, I will have people pay the second one first, because I can see it causes no problem at all in Japan.

And yet, if we were all one great single culture, I would never have seen that. I could have never experienced my awesome year six years ago. I would have only seen the same thing as where I come from, because there is nothing else to compare with. And, as I said, between toll expressways and free expressways, while the free one seem a lot more convenient, the toll one is probably the best option.

So that's why, according to me, cultural diversity and, especially, autonomy ARE important.

On Public Transit

Someone decided to poke me. So the poked guy comes in. Joraumirc knows me as the guy who is an ardent supporter of public transit.

Public transit done right is very difficult. The first issue is whether we put public transit before the people use it or we wait for people to use it and then we add more public transit. Well, it's actually fairly simple and easy : to make a public transit system work, you need to have it available before it is used; this will always lead to an investment that will cause some sort of temporary deficit; but when done a step at a time, and slowly, it is highly profitable. (Tokyo did it...)

Yet, the Shinkansen is NOT a good example of public transit. While it is a good replacement for planes in highly populated megalopolises (like the whole Tokyo-Nagoya-Osaka-Hiroshima-Fukuoka line), it's pretty much useless as public transit (though it might turn out useful in the future for growing Tokyo, but for other reasons).

Public Transit Done Right also involves another detail. And, in the world, I believe we only have Tokyo as a good example. Downtown Montreal is not the result of highways or congestion; it is the result of how Public Transit is planned in the city. There is the saying that all Roads lead to Rome. Well, in Montreal, all buses lead to the subway, and all subways (except the lonely blue line) leads to Berri-UQAM. There is no other center in the city, with public transit. So the further you are from Berri-UQAM, the further you are from Montreal's urbanistic center.

Concentration like this is not a bad thing; only in great concentrations can you have specialized shops like Yodobashi Camera. But, at one point, this leads to people concentrating ever further, if you cannot create other centers. Tokyo is probably the only example in the world where you actually have more than one downtown. And the reason why is because All Paths lead to All Centers. There is almost no difference between going to Tokyo or Shinjuku. Except between the two stations, all other lines eventually lead to both places, even if they are seperated by 5km of more-or-less downtown. And using those two centers, and creating further secondary centers, they created the Yamanote, which leads to having a huge line that works like a whole downtown.

But while Tokyo is an example, I cannot say it is perfect : they stoped at the Yamanote, and they are now going through the same issues as downtown Montreal, except on 10 times the scale. They would have to further develop this grid that leads everywhere you wish, and let it grow even further. (But Tokyo, however, is not an example of economic efficiency; despite have three times the population of London or New York, Tokyo is behind both of them economically; they are doing something wrong, and I have come to witness the things they are doing wrong.)

So, Joraumirc, it is not as simple as "let's create a secondary center in X place", you need paths (notice the plural, it cannot only be coming from downtown) that lead there. Secondary centers will mostly attract less-specialized services, leaving downtown to more specialized services. So if you want a new downtown like Shinjuku, you need to create a new center where all paths (including the current ones) lead there. In Montreal (agglomeration, or city-region), the easiest is Lionel-Groulx. Have the yellow line lead all the way to Lionel-Groulx, and you have your second center.

I could say more, but I am currently at work, so I will leave it to this :)

Raujbum : Gick det daligt? (Something's wrong?)

Daneydzaus : Inget gick daligt. (No.)

Raujbum : Du verkar mer deppig nu for tiden. (You made me worry for a moment just now.)

Daneydzaus : Sorry. To make your worry for a moment just now.

Raujbum : Ar det nagot som tynger dig? (Someone who troubles you?)

Daneydzaus : Det ar nagon inte. Det ar nagonting. Den ar Toyamaskultur. (Not someone, something; Toyama Culture)

It stopped to evolve and is becoming a reallife-size museum, where there is no more culture, only folklore.

Raujbum : Isn't folklore part of culture?

Daneydzaus : Traditions are part of it, if people do it for the traditions themselves and not for tourists.

But when it becomes a show for the tourists, it isn't part of the culture anymore, it is merely a museum exposition.

Raujbum : They're making their culture bend over and spread its buttcheeks for cash?

Daneydzaus : They're using what's left of their folklore to try to bring tourists, thinking it while boast their economy like in Tokyo. They will obviously fail, because they failed to understand the principle behind Tokyo's wealth, but then it turns their folklore into a caricature of themselves, and being from Toyama will be a dancer of the Etchuu Owara Kaze no Bon dance.

Raujbum : I don't know what that last part meant, but I'll assume it's not good.

Daneydzaus : What would be a caricature of a Swede?

Raujbum : A really sexy blonde chick?

Daneydzaus : No, I mean a flokloric caricature.

Raujbum : Would a norse god or a viking count?

Daneydzaus : It could. Imagine a whole region like that.

Where the only thing is that old folkloric caricature and nothing else.

Raujbum : Like a medieval fair?

Daneydzaus : Bingo

Raujbum : Is all of Toyama doing this?

Daneydzaus : Pretty much. Except for the second part : turning into an industrial suburb of Tokyo.

Raujbum : How big is Toyama?

Daneydzaus : 1 milion people, over a region that you can cross by bike in about 4 hours.

På Sverige och Kanada (For Sweden and Canada), it is a huge place. For Japan, you have Tokyo, 40 million people in a single city-region.

Raujbum : That's big by my standards. In Gothenburg I reckon there's about half a million.

Almost a million if you also count the sorrounding areas.

Daneydzaus : I know, it is by mine. By Japanese standards, it's a country side town.

Raujbum : Jelly.

Daneydzaus : And by my urban study standards, Toyama is slowly becoming a suburb of Tokyo.

And not even the focus of the suburb; its focus is in neighbouring Kanazawa city.

Reachable by train in more or less one hour.

Raujbum : Isn't Toyama on the western side of Honshu?

Daneydzaus : Technically; but the Shinkansen that's being built is not going to Osaka, and there is reason why it isn't; the most important link is towards Tokyo, not Osaka. And it isn't for Hokuriku, is for Japan. Indeed, I described Osaka as... Tokyo's branch for Western Japan.

Raujbum : Is Japan just becoming one big city?

Daneydzaus : Like any country where there is no regional autonomy.

Raujbum : And then, Japan would become just one huge city-state.

Daneydzaus : Indeed, a city-region will die if it is ruled over by another city-region. Because people will tend to gather where the decisions are taken.

In due time, it will.

Think of Sweden; everything is probably slowly turning around Stockholm.

My urban studies heart tells me so.

Raujbum : And when the surface no longer suffices to support all the people, they'll start digging into the mountains. Creating huge cities beneath the rock. But they'll dig too greedily and too deep. And then they won't be able to get out. People eventually forget about the cities in the mountains; passed off only as folklore, and after several millennia, they finally emerge from within the mountains once again. Isolated for so long, they've become a new species of human, hungry for world domination! *cue Red Alert sound track*

Daneydzaus : Haha.

But do you understand what I mean? Many of our cities that we think are cities are turning into either suburbs of the big ones (for industrial plants or other stuff that does not involve moving people around) or turning into mere villages, however big they may be.

For the economy, it's the best thing : huge cities means specialization and scale economy. For cultures, those that aren't big enough to follow the specializations and scale economies will slowly fade, trying to save their folklore, thinking that it is culture, but ultimately failing to understand that they are dying because they were not big enough to follow the big ones.

Evolution at work for the win. (Or loss, in some cases like Toyama)

It is not a fatality, far from it (nothing is fatality), but if you cannot adapt, you disappear.

Raujbum : One thing I've always wondered about is how they managed to get such huge populations in Asia compared to rest of the world. China has a higher population than all of Europe, and so does India. And look at Japan which is not that big in area, but manages to cram over a hundred million people on that space. Take Sweden for comparison, which is bigger, but hardly has ten million inhabitants.

Daneydzaus : First, food production. Rice is one of the highest yielding crop in the world. China, Japan and Indonesia are very wet countries as well, offering that possibility. Warm countries as a whole have a longer green season, enabling more people to live there. And then you have the fact that its urban civilisations go back about 5000 years ago, when we Europeans were just starting to build our first isolated farming towns.

Combine everything with the huge boom related to hygiene, and then you have the huge populations of Asia. And in many parts of Africa and Asia, the hygiene boom is done, but the cultural process leading to low birth rates in industrialized countries isn't done yet, leading to higher population growth.

Raujbum : I wonder if Europe would've had a higher population today if we had the potato from the very start.

Daneydzaus : No. Europe has generally a short green period and its warm zone is basically an agricultural wasteland (not enough water).

Raujbum : Shit...

Daneydzaus : In many parts of Asia, the whole Moonsoon thing helps to bring water inland in those regions that would otherwise be dry. Nothing like that happens in Europe.

What Europe had, and not Asia, is a relatively cool weather where insects don't thrive as much as in the south, and a very complex landshape with seas dividing regions and mountains as well making sure that in a relative small space, there can be many ･･･もっと見る

Exchange is more important than anything, and Europe got better at it quickly.

Well, since Exchange is the most important part but exchange can only occur between equals, Europe with its convention that there is no central State but States that coexist together was bound to be more quick at exchange than other countries around the world, where it usually worked as "I am the cental State, and you are my vassals".

And now you understand why being an independent State is important.

It's not for culture, it's not for nationalistic pride. It's for the purpose of being treated as an equal with other groups.

Cars vs. Public Transit : The Ecological Lie vs. The Unknown Truth

For example, public transit compared to cars....

If we think only in terms of moving people around, public transit is actually less ecologically viable. It is a simple matter of energy : since you use only cars when people want to move, you use just was is needed; but when you use buses and trains, sometimes you'll use too much energy to transport maybe one or two lost dudes, or even run a bus without anyone in.

So I stopped to think about public transit in terms of ecology. It is more ecologic, but not for the reasons most people think it is.

But the two biggest advantages to public transit are elsewhere :
- Socially, anyone old enough to walk around on his own is old enough to go on public transit. That is, you can easily turn public transit into a right of the people, and make everyone move with it, including those who cannot drive. Basically, it makes everyone able to go everywhere without anyone's help.
- Urbanistically, public transit takes less place and carries more people around for the same surface area. That is, you have more space for more people, both as living space and as moving space. This also means that you can have more people altogether. But this isn't the end : public transit, if well done, is less prone to congestion than any private transit system, because you have better planning, a lot better drivers (they train a lot) and because, over all, you need less space anyways.

In the end, even ecologically you are winning, but because you need less space (so more space for nature, other cities, and other fun stuff) and because you also need less natural ressources (except energy, but the Sun is wasting tons of it anyway, so let us just take a little more from our little Life Giver).