Friends, this week's Newsmaker Show is exceptionally thoughtful, which is saying something, because me and Brian O'Neil always get you thinking, no? For instance, we talk about the burgeoning segmentation of culture, as people surf the net, and stream, and dive down rabbit holes, in dramatically different ways than their neighbors. Just a few decades ago, we were all watching just three tv channels, and look at us now! The democratization and decentralization of both information and culture are in many ways a wonderful development, but as I point out the platforms that deliver all this magnificent content are controlled by just a few companies, and by a handful of techie masters of the universe who have more power over our lives than someone like Joseph Pulitzer or William Randolph Hearst ever dreamed of. So, in a sense, we're freer than we were, and much less free, simultaneously. To put it succinctly, we live in interesting times!
Brian and I also discuss the political ramifications of Dem/progressive lawfare waged against Donald Trump, the viciousness and petty personalization of much modern "journalism", the privacy rights of the British royal family, the pros and cons of "ranked choice voting", RFK, Jr.'s bold choice of a running mate, the massive reduction in the size of the bond DJT has to post in the New York fraud case, and the outrageous mistreatment of Ronna McDaniel by the left-wing nutcases at NBC/MSNBC.
Whoa, Nelly! What a show! You people out there in radio-land are gonna love it.
https://wlea.net/wlea-newsmaker-march-27-2024-dr-nick-waddy/
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In other news, Disney and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have decided to bury the hatchet, in a move that strongly suggests that both sides are tired of the posturing and no longer see either a business or a political advantage in persevering with the feud. Disney remains, in my view, a woke behemoth that is threatening the future of American and Western culture, but it's highly doubtful that the state of Florida, by itself, can change the trajectory of our popular culture, much as it may wish to try. At the end of the day, only consumers can hit Disney where it truly hurts, and they already are. The next few years will reveal which Disney executives prefer: turning a profit, or virtue-signaling. The jury is out.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68675795
Finally, in yet another sign of the apocalypse, adult diapers now outsell diapers for babies in Japan. The reason, of course, is that there are no babies in Japan, or at least precious few of them. The preciptious decline in fertility there presages where we will find ourselves throughout the Western world all too soon. What's more, as the article points out, every countermeasure that the Japanese government has devised has failed to reverse the trend. One has to wonder how many Japanese will be left in 50 or 100 years, and whether Japanese society will still be viable. At least here in the USA, we can let in five "newcomers" for every baby we manage to squeeze out (as it were). In Japan, where immigration is taboo, there is literally no substitute for procreation. Either the Japanese will get busy making babies, or they will get busy dying as a nation and as a people. It's that simple.
Way to many people in Japan in the first place. Clearly, China is way overpopulated. The same goes for some Southeast Asian countries. India (South Asia) needs to depopulate, for sure.
ReplyDeleteRAY TO DR. WADDY
ReplyDeleteI just commented. That was me.
Hi Ray. I'm not sure I agree about overpopulation. Given the fruits of the green revolution, there's no reason to think that Japan, or China, or India, can't support the populations they've got. I guess it depends on how much elbow room you need, or you think others need. Personally, I'd like acres and acres between me and, say, the populace of Beijing, but the Chinese may see it differently. Anyway, there is an argument for why the world would be better off if its population were one billion instead of eight. Give it time, and it probably will be. What I didn't mention in my article -- and this may revolt OR intrigue you -- is that artificial wombs are in the offing, so that, in the future, we may be able to incubate as many humans as we please, and then, just maybe, let them mature under glass and then pop a fully-formed adult consciousness in them when they're good and ready. Ergo, old-fashioned human reproduction may no longer be needed...which isn't to say that it might not still be a good idea to stay in practice, just in case.
ReplyDeleteRAY TO DR. WADDY
DeleteLet's hope The Rapture takes place before what you predict might happen in terms of artificial wombs.
With regard to population, would you like you live in India, or
China at the lowest class level, especially India?
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I loved Disney when it was Disney. Some of his lesser known animated shorts from the '30s and 40's were beautiful. And of course his feature films were irreplaceable classics. We all got around the TV in, I think, ' 55 to watch the grand opening of Disneyland and almost literally every boy had a Davy Crockett hat.I didn't like the Mickey Mouse Club as much because my favorite character was Donald Duck, but de nada. We had genuine childhood growing up then and Disney was a cherished part of it. In retrospect my only regret is his presentation of Werner Von Braun to an young audience completely unaware of what he been involved with; his culpability is controversial but that is an adult subject inappropriate for kids and he shouldn't have been in that setting. But that aside, Disney's sad decline started with new management and it is unrecognizable ( though in a "woke" sense all too familiar) now. I laud Gov. DeSantis for his aggressive many faceted attack on wokeness and I am glad he took "Disney" to task for it. The antiamerican left has for far too long smugly preempted our taxes, or excuse from them, to support their vicious partisanship (eg. also the NEA and PBS). This injustice must be confronted and right now Gov. DeSantis is leading the way. I'd like to see a Pres. DJT empower him to lead a national onslaught on this arrogant and presumptuous practice. No matter what monetary amount it may add up to, the cultural elites' attitude that its just peachy and that those who object are unwashed primitives; that must be put to rout. If we are ever to bring runaway government spending to common sense that kind of thinking must be shown the door!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I'm a cheeky Anglophile so I'll presume to comment on the apparent lack of respect sometimes shown for the Royal Family. Of course no British monarch (except perhaps Elizabeth I) personally deserves the ceremonial veneration afforded them. But as the dutiful and lawful embodiment of the sovereignty of a great nation, empowered by redeeming tradition and productive of wonderfully resilient political stability, they most certainly do. The presumption that their very private lives are appropriately subject to invasion is VULGAR and those who practice it are ignorant boors! Colin Powell once remarked "we must regain a sense of shame"; he could well have been speaking of settings outside our country.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Sure, politics in America has always been a "blood sport" but the intense antipathy it manifests now is probably incomparable to any period of our history besides 1850 - 1880. It is, I think today though, directly attributable to the counterintuitive resolution on the part of a significant faction of our very populace to take action on the belief that the US is deserving of punishment and "fundamental transformation" on the detested Marxist model, advanced by "any means necessary"when in fact it does not deserve such execrable injustice. America is understandably determined to oppose this disastrous misapprehension and the totalitarian intent it has by now enthusiastically manifested. One side is plainly wrong and the other plainly right and there is little common ground. Lincoln said it well: : "A house divided against itself cannot stand . . .it must become one or the other".The ever intensifying viciousness routinely employed by those on the wrong side presents we on the right side with this clear choice: DEFEND your country or lose it. Expect no political quarter from the antiamerican left and offer it none!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: An underpopulated Japan would probably manifest very significant social change. Mountains completely dominate its topography and its population has always been crowded into the relatively level areas. As a result , Japan developed a mannerly culture in which most social situations and potential conflict had prescribed behaviour expected. Alleviation of overcrowding could have the gradual effect of relaxing some of these rules. Japanese expansion in the first half of the 20th century placed many Japanese outside the country. Some knowledgeable people have suggested that this generated in many of them a perception that they were excused of the social strictures which guided them in Japan and that that may have enabled some of the gratuitous cruelty they visited on people they captured or conquered. On the other hand, postwar Japan showed a remarkable willingness to accept and benefit from astounding change.What effect could a fundamental development like a marked reduction of crowding manifest in a culture the positive structure of which was a product of living in close quarters? An anthropological comparison of Japanese customs to those of Americans in their spacious land, might be productive in considering this.
ReplyDeleteRay, no -- I wouldn't care to live in India at the bottom of the heap, but that doesn't mean that "overpopulation" is the cause of extreme poverty. Singapore and Japan are among the most densely populated countries on Earth, and they're also among the most "developed" and wealthy.
ReplyDeleteJack, I think it's an open question whether the frontal assault that Governor DeSantis mounted on Disney did more harm than good, in terms of the long-term cultural trajectory of this country. It's probably too early to say. In the big picture, I doubt it will have much impact at all. The forces pulling the entertainment industry in a leftward direction are simply too strong.
I agree: it's not asking much that we would accord our highest political leaders, like royals and presidents, some personal respect and a modicum of privacy. Tearing them down ultimately will lead to us, the people, being dragged down with them.
"A house divided against itself cannot stand". Yikes! If that's true, then I don't like our chances, on the political right, of being the last ideology left standing.
Hmm. I've never heard of this theory before: that population density yields strict moralism and collectivism. Not sure I buy it. If that's true, then how do we explain...pretty much every city in the modern West, and its/their moral debasement?