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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Feb 13, 2019 - 11:40pm PT
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However nobody eliminated a pattern of multi-cultural societies (Roman, Russian, British, Austro-Hungarian etc.) being less stable than mono-ethnical (Egypt, China, Japan).
In what sense are you calling China, for instance, stable?
It has spent 5 thousand years fighting never ending civil wars.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 14, 2019 - 12:21am PT
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you must be progressive.
They are so enthusiastic to talk about bright coming future, but talking about history (that may question their grand schemes) is a taboo for them.
I'm a pragmatic progressive, but when it comes to bright futures not so much. But that's not based on human history or behavior so much as raw population numbers and the rate of habitat destruction and species extinction. Most people have a very anthropomorphic view of the world and our future; I on the other have some background in microbiology and look at the world from a somewhat different perspective. And from an emerging disease perspective, the future is not going to be bright.
But with regard to history, I think yours is entirely revisionist.
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perswig
climber
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Feb 14, 2019 - 03:54am PT
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Read David Kilcullen's Out of the Mountains (Oxford U. Press, 2013) for another view of population dynamics and trends of instability and conflict. He tends to place more weight on progressive concentration (urban, coastal) and insufficient infrastructure, planning, political will/mandate to manage the shift.
Dale
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ecdh
climber
the east
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Feb 14, 2019 - 10:27am PT
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perswig; i know kilcullens stuff quite well as i work with it and OOTM is interesting stuff.
personally i think its a bit skewed, as are most studies of population movements, but on the whole, yeah - littoral conurbations and their weaknesses.
what i think is missing is the vast stage between land locked villages and coastal mega cities and thats land locked megacities. we tend to ignore that the bulk of humanity is stacked in india, china and a divided up africa, and that whilst billions are moving to the coast, there are also billions moving to inland capitals, often displacing those who then head coast-ward as those places collapse.
the knock on effects are primers for the littoral problems, including no less a generational fracture.
re OOTM specifically; the chapter on mumbai i found an incredible piece of writing.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Feb 14, 2019 - 10:53am PT
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Don’t see any probs in littoral Cape Town! (As long as you use yer sunscreen)
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Yury
Mountain climber
T.O.
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Feb 14, 2019 - 06:58pm PT
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August West:
In what sense are you calling China, for instance, stable?
Unlike Roman, Russian, British, Austro-Hungarian etc. empires, China's borders in the last thousand+ years were about the same.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Feb 14, 2019 - 08:57pm PT
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If you want to say that the dividing line between the people that spoke one of the 8 main forms of Chinese and those that didn't didn't radically change over the last thousand years. Alright. But China was only occasionally a unified country during that time. Sure, there may have been a single emperor. And Garces is the president of the United Nations.
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perswig
climber
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Feb 15, 2019 - 03:48am PT
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ecdh, I defer to your working familiarity but in fairness, I think Kilcullen was looking at a 30-40 yr timescale, so you'd both be right about current issues still centered on inland megacity effects.
Plus, he was somewhat coming at the concept from a force-projection, intervention perspective, which for countries at substantial remove requires marine asset employment.
I think he sees littoral migration as the inevitable result, mostly because the primary affected demographic will have no-where else to go.
Re: the Mumbai attacks, amazing how nimble the terrorist TOC was versus the bureaucracy required to mobilize the appropriate reaction force.
I had read The Accidental Guerilla a while ago, but OOTM just recently; fascinating way to look at things holistically, maybe what you do?
Kilcullen has a preface in the Blood and Concrete anthology, have not read this yet.
https://smallwarsjournal.com/
Dale
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ionlyski
Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
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Feb 15, 2019 - 08:38am PT
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Include people with Multiple accounts on here like Aeriq/MisterE.
Wait a minute Jeff Constine. You were the original multi poster no? Didn't you go back and forth between Jeff, Pyro and one other I forget just now? I thought it was clever but ironic isn't it? Serious question not trying to be a dick.
Arne
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Feb 15, 2019 - 08:49am PT
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And a big Bravo! to China for closing Everest base camp to tourists who don’t have a climbing permit. Why? Cause they’re slobs and sh!t everywhere, just like the Sierras. At least in China they don’t have to hold 5 years of hearings and spend $10 million in reports to get ‘er done.
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ionlyski
Trad climber
Polebridge, Montana
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Feb 15, 2019 - 12:35pm PT
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Medusa-that was it. Seriously Pyro was someone different? The supertopo mysteries. I give up.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 15, 2019 - 06:58pm PT
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And a big Bravo! to China for closing Everest base camp to tourists who don’t have a climbing permit. Why? Cause they’re slobs and sh!t everywhere, just like the Sierras. At least in China they don’t have to hold 5 years of hearings and spend $10 million in reports to get ‘er done.
Another revealing conservative post: They say they hate gov't, they say they need guns to protect us from demonic authoritarian regimes........and yet, when push comes to shove, they profess ADMIRATION for authoritarian gov't, when it does what they want, irrespective of the people backed up with guns.....
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Outside the Asylum
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Feb 15, 2019 - 09:06pm PT
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China, mono-ethnic? You must be kidding.
The Han have spent the last 2,500 years or more expanding (and contracting) from their heartlands, and slowly absorbing other peoples. Ancient China included large groups other than the Han, and modern China still does. Especially in the south, west, and north. Plus the imperial possessions, or would-be possessions - Tibet, East Turkestan, Taiwan, and others. Different ethnicity, language, culture, etc.
Sure, they like to claim that they're monolingual, mono-ethnic, the oldest civilization, encompass all east and southeast Asia, and on and on. Being insulated from the rest of the world for long periods can lead to such delusions. The "Belt and Road" program is just another manifestation.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Feb 16, 2019 - 10:00am PT
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Yeah, the Uighurs love the mono-ethnicity!
Nigeria (with only 182 million*) just surpassed India (with 1.35 billion) in the number of its people living in extreme poverty and with its population expected to double within 20 years it can only further its #1 ranking.
*in an area twice that of California with 4.5x the pop
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