Just going to add two tidbits here, because I’m a bit fan of Paine having spent many years in Lewes.
The first is more incredible, in the sense it’s actually hard to believe: he escaped execution during The Terror because of what amounted to clerical error (obligatory fuck Robespierre)
A chalk mark was supposed to be left by the jailer on the door of a cell to denote that the prisoner inside was due to be removed for execution. In Paine’s case, the mark had accidentally been made on the inside of his door rather than the outside because the door had been left open when the jailer was making his rounds that day, since Paine had been receiving official visitors. But for this quirk of fate, Paine would have been executed the following morning. He thus survived the few vital days needed to be spared by the fall of Robespierre on 9 Thermidor (July 27, 1794).
Second tidbit: in escaping execution, Paine finished The Rights of Man which, among other things, is one of the few texts explicitly about Deism.
I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.
I’m a Deist myself, thanks to him and the film Breaker Morant. Thanks again, Wikipedia! We’re doing everything to keep you going!
Ten English fire services tackled record number of grass, forest and crop fires in 2025
At least 12,454 grassland, woodland or crop fires were recorded by fire services in England in the three months from March to May 2025 … This is more than four times the 2,621 incidents logged by these services in the same period in 2024 and is the highest spring total for more than a decade.
Appeal to authority is neither a fallacy nor proof. It is rhetoric. It proves nothing, and disproves nothing.
For example, your authorities debunk “long term health of the earth and her inhabitants it’s (sic) a necessity.” My authorities, like William Catton or Meadows, et. al. would say otherwise. Invoking them doesn’t prove my perspective. It does prove there is much debate about the subject.
In such instances, defining metrics and showing your work, as the math teachers say, is the best way forward.
The article in question, for example, relies on hype like ‘670,000, a level never previously recorded since national statistics began in 1899.’ Level of what? Percentage of population? Actual number of people? Compared to how many? With the priviso, for example that ‘The expected figure, … excludes children born to foreign residents”. How many of those? I suspect not many, but it’s necessary to know.
What the article could have stated are actual metrics such as replacement rate, which in Japan is 1.20. South Korean is considerably lower, at 0.72-0.74. We could use words like ‘cliff’ I guess, but I prefer numbers, and I would encourage their use in articles such as this.
Not sure if ‘brought up and debunked by experts’ is the best argument out there. For example, ‘population inertia’ would cover only one lifespan, not centuries. That is to say, whatever the population is now, it could be 10 people to 100 billion people within 100 years. This is not discounting cultural and psychological factors, but if we’re talking human behaviour, that’s literally everything.
Secondly, the population decline is hardly a cliff. It is decreasing in some countries like Japan, but when added into the global picture, we’re not even at neutral. We’re still growing.
You are absolutely right that a larger aging population is something that must be addressed. However, if increased population pressure leads to a tipping point, like a shift in the AMOC or immigration pressure from hotter areas to cooler areas, our current treatment of old people doesn’t fill me with confidence. I think in a crisis, we would sacrifice them anyway. We would write some sympathetic think pieces about it though.
Seeing a special screening of Brazil in 1984, when no one was sure it was even going to get released.
I was driving home from the East Coast, saw the ad for the screening in LA (way pre-internet). Now, I could have continued home and seen my family or … who am I kidding? My family was terrible!
I said my car broke down and couldn’t find a mechanic because … it was Christmas! Maybe that’s not what you’re looking for, but definitely my favourite.
It’s a shame (and maybe shameful) they couldn’t use the frozen assets. I found this from an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, but didn’t want overpost the story.
“Some €210 billion of Russian assets are frozen in Europe, most of them in the Belgian financial clearing house Euroclear. Belgium had objected to the loan plan, calling it legally risky and warning that it could harm Euroclear’s business.”
Think it’s important to see what influence banks have on highly political decisions.
Link to Sydney Herald article, similiar reporting.
Oscars to stream on YouTube starting in 2029, leaving ABC
