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Author Topic: How things are made by others  (Read 21987 times)

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Athrael

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Re: How things are made by others
« Reply #10 on: Tue, May 29, 2007, 20:54 »

Isn't "powerless, politically impotent and readily destroyed" what the Gay people are right now? More powerful, more politically potent, and less readily destroyed would be a considerable improvement. Omnipotent and indestructible I will leave to those who are more ambitious. I do, however, agree with you in principle... there are limits to the feasibility of depending on others. That said, there are also limits on the attainability of self-sufficiency. Few countries are entirely self-sufficient in all things (or even some things). Most consider this issue to be a matter of some interest in terms of state security, which it naturally is.

I'm not saying self sufficiency in all things, I know that that would require a lot more. But food, water, Energy should be produced at home.

Few countries are made up of people who are hated/feared by all people they can afford the luxury of depending on other states.  The GLBT nation will not have that luxury. We plan to set up a GLBT nation to have political power due to the hatred/bigotry/persecution and the inequalities visited upon GLBT globally. It should be set up in a manner and form where those pressures that create it can not mold it into yet another hetero-centric society ran by exterior powers.

It will never be omnipotent and indestructible as long as it is based on earth. Perhaps in future when mankind reaches for the stars the distances between stellar systems will afford that I leave that musing to the future. However it should strive to be as strong, as resilient as possible. It should quickly move toward sustainable living to where it does not depend upon the hetero-world for goods and products which amount to leverage against it.

* * * *

If it desires more power over other nations then it must develop leverage over other nations.

When we look at countries like North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, India, USA, USSR, etc - the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction serve two purposes.

1. As a defensive posture that will cause any nation intent on attacking first think of the greater consequences - nobody desires to trigger a nuclear war.

2. Holding a WMD gives you leverage over other nations politically - you can "threaten more" out of other nations.

I'm not saying that the GLBT nation should seek to be a nuclear power, I'm only pointing to examples which show that nations work best with some form of leverage to attain more power.  The principle applies in reverse, the less leverage a nation has the more it must depend on a sponsoring nation.
According to obituary notices, a mean and useless citizen never dies.

Feral

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Re: How things are made by others
« Reply #9 on: Tue, May 29, 2007, 05:06 »

Isn't "powerless, politically impotent and readily destroyed" what the Gay people are right now? More powerful, more politically potent, and less readily destroyed would be a considerable improvement. Omnipotent and indestructible I will leave to those who are more ambitious. I do, however, agree with you in principle... there are limits to the feasibility of depending on others. That said, there are also limits on the attainability of self-sufficiency. Few countries are entirely self-sufficient in all things (or even some things). Most consider this issue to be a matter of some interest in terms of state security, which it naturally is.
Stonewall was a riot.

Athrael

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Re: How things are made by others
« Reply #8 on: Tue, May 29, 2007, 01:21 »

My expectation towards the Gay country is that it will be not an agrarian society, yes. Sure, in an ideal case it is desireable to have an autarc supply for every ressource, but honestly in the today's world it's not possible anyway. I am comfortable with the prospective to buy food from other states - in exchange for other goods that the economy of the Gay country would produce. The same with cotton, leather, beef and computer chips -- I do not see the urgent necessity to produce everything from flour to TFT displays by ourselves. More important is to find some sort of income to make all those desired goods available - tourism, literature, medicines production, whatever. Mind you, setting up an "independent nation" doesn't mean to isolate oneselve from the global economy. Every nation would have significant difficulties to maintain its wealth in case of an economical blocade. The challenge is actually not to ensure that one posesses all the necessary stuf on one's territory, but to secure supply by means of diplomacy and establishing mutual dependencies. 

The other objections concerning the communal infrastructure are noticed. On any given territory (and this will be possibly the case), the city planners will have to calculate all these necessary facilities to support the population. Clean water is a majour problem almost everywhere, and if it must be imported, a kind of depository will be required to guarantee the supply in times of crisis. Water can be rationated, in really bad times, too. 

Then why even bother with creating an independent Gay nation?  Why even worry about a military either - if you are going to depend upon global imports for necessities like food and water any war is already over. Politically the state will be at the mercy of the threat of sanctions making it politically impotent and just a puppet to the international world that feeds it, waters it and supplies it.

California raised 1/4 of the food that the USA uses - that more than enough to feed the population of California - it is not an agrarian society, in fact we are pretty much cutting edge technology and very urban and suburban.

California learned the hard way on how dependence upon outside sources for a main necessity like Energy can really lead to problems. The Power Crises of 2000-2001 still impacts us, is still costing us - so much we went from 5th world economy to 8th world economy in less than 5 years. And that was just business, it wasn't an act of war. We are still at the mercy of exterior energy suppliers, we are still on the verge of rolling black-outs and still paying through the nose for electricity.

The GLBT nation will be the most loathed and hated - so much so that dependence upon exterior sources for anything poised a great risk to its survival. People can live without computer chips, TV's, Computers, and stuff like that - they can not live without food and water. Those two critical elements must be produced within the homeland - failure to do so and the GLBT nation will be powerless, political impotenant and readily destroyed.

According to obituary notices, a mean and useless citizen never dies.

Mogul

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Re: How things are made by others
« Reply #7 on: Mon, May 28, 2007, 19:14 »

The problem is not the ability to put a lot of people on a small plot of land - the problem is that you still need a lot of land in order to grow food, provide industry, provide power, provide sewage and provide trash removal, fresh water and all of that. [..] Unless you desire to have the GLBT nation at the mercy of supporting nations (for imports of basics like food and water) then you need to rethink buying land and claiming it as a Nation. 

My expectation towards the Gay country is that it will be not an agrarian society, yes. Sure, in an ideal case it is desireable to have an autarc supply for every ressource, but honestly in the today's world it's not possible anyway. I am comfortable with the prospective to buy food from other states - in exchange for other goods that the economy of the Gay country would produce. The same with cotton, leather, beef and computer chips -- I do not see the urgent necessity to produce everything from flour to TFT displays by ourselves. More important is to find some sort of income to make all those desired goods available - tourism, literature, medicines production, whatever. Mind you, setting up an "independent nation" doesn't mean to isolate oneselve from the global economy. Every nation would have significant difficulties to maintain its wealth in case of an economical blocade. The challenge is actually not to ensure that one posesses all the necessary stuf on one's territory, but to secure supply by means of diplomacy and establishing mutual dependencies. 

The other objections concerning the communal infrastructure are noticed. On any given territory (and this will be possibly the case), the city planners will have to calculate all these necessary facilities to support the population. Clean water is a majour problem almost everywhere, and if it must be imported, a kind of depository will be required to guarantee the supply in times of crisis. Water can be rationated, in really bad times, too. 
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right!" Salvor Hardin

Athrael

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Re: How things are made by others
« Reply #6 on: Sun, May 27, 2007, 23:20 »


This much to the foolish argument of the folks roistering around with the "there is no free place anymore" argument. If TUI is able to purchase 11 km2 inmidst of the highly populated Italy, Gay State would be able to purchase an equally large area somewhere in less densely populated place. Taking a density of 20.000 persons per km2, those 11 km2 can give home to 220.000 persons. Considering that in Brazil (and elsewhere) more extended areas could be purchased without evicting many inhabitants, and that population density in modern city districts easily can reach some 40.000 persons per km2, what doubts can someone have that a territorial Gay State can be realistically established somewhere? As one can see, the price for the area was rather acceptable.

A tourist trap is more acceptable to the public and political mind than a Gay Nation. We may be able to purchase the land, even setup an initial base - but once the public is aware of what is going on there will be a huge outcry.

And yes there is a lot of land out there for the taking, in snow country to where you can only raise crops part of the year. In desserts where water resources are limited, on islands where water and land is limited, in many areas.  The good arable land with basic resources is owned and claimed.

Yes the population density of a city can be pretty high. Take San Francisco - in a 25 square mile area (5 miles by 5 miles) you have 739,426 people (living - more who work there every day).

The problem is not the ability to put a lot of people on a small plot of land - the problem is that you still need a lot of land in order to grow food, provide industry, provide power, provide sewage and provide trash removal, fresh water and all of that.

San Francisco imports water from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir which is a glacial valley in Yosemite National Park in California. The water is piped/canaled 150 plus miles (241 KM) to S.F.

Food is imported not only from the central valley of California (50 to 100 miles/80 to 160 km), but also globally. Each person requires 600 square meters (6458.346 square feet) of land to raise food, supply roads to the city, for electrical, sewage and landfill (That is the minimal, many people actually have more land for their use)

Using San Francisco as example: although it sits on 5 miles x 5 miles (25 square miles/65 square kilometers), it uses 171.3 square miles (443.66 square km) (13 miles by 13 miles roughly on top of the 5x5) to supply all of those people. That is assuming the bare minimum of land use per person. The reality is more like twice to three times the amount of land since we are talking about a people who want a lot more than what they need.

Increase the density of the urban setting and you need more supporting land.

Unless you desire to have the GLBT nation at the mercy of supporting nations (for imports of basics like food and water) then you need to rethink buying land and claiming it as a Nation. 

We can cut some of those numbers down if we rethink how crops are grown, if we place the amount of proteins in the diet off of cattle/meat and into other sources. The best I can get from land is 250 square feet (23.2 square meters) per person for food only (small animals, organic intensive year round crop production of agricultural (land based) produce substantially backed by other food resources (fish). I am basing these numbers on my ability to raise a year supply of vegetables on a small plot of garden (18' x 16') for two people along with my estimated land use for each person for chicken, grains (wheat, rice, etc) and some (like half of the usual diet) of beef. Even then we are talking of a spartan diet - one that most people would not like or even desire. Filling and good for you, but not heavy in meats and dairy.

My actual garden does not supply fruits (oranges,  peaches, berries) with the exception of one grape vine which produces a lot of grapes and in reality has less growing land since I use raised beds with a center path for tending the garden.  I use organic, intensive, successive planting - 3 season growing methods (living in warm sunny California we have a much longer growing period) I raise mostly seasonal vegetables. I can/preserve some of the crop, but usually we live on fresh straight out of the garden food.

This is the extreme method of living off of the minimal amount of land - it would not work on a large population - not unless you want everybody working a garden to raise most of their own foods.

And it does not include  supply roads from the farms, wells or fresh water supplies, sewage treatment, land fill/recycling facilities, energy production etc. Nor any of the luxuries like plastics, metals, etc.

According to obituary notices, a mean and useless citizen never dies.

Mogul

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Re: How things are made by others
« Reply #5 on: Sun, May 27, 2007, 19:41 »

Going back to what I said above, this provides us with an opportunity to slough off the old way of doing things and build, really build a society, government and business model that reflects a more enlighten society.

If you are going to look at the old models, then look at them as experiments that are basic failures and seek ways to improve upon, or better those ideas.

Sure, all the past and existing societies should serve as examples only - good or bad - on construction of society and living areas. Thinking of a Gay society, we should take the good ideas and abandon bad ones, like any sensible people would do. I would applaud any pragmatic approach where we are open to new perspectives but also aware of our possibilities. If a swimming nation is not (yet) possible due to high coast, and any "back-yard" land-locked project is politically unviable, so may be an insular solution with extended sea farms and a merchant navy is a good middle way?

Forgive me my scepticism on social engineering, but I grew up in conditions of the "real socialism" and thus have not very good memories of societies motivated by high goals, but neglecting human nature...  Industries and economic activities can be influenced by the government to some degree, but it seems to me that this influence is better kept low. Wherever the governments attempted to dictate to the economy what it needs to produce, the result was poor and mostly provided shortages in supply even with basic goods, not to speak of more complex products. Any future Gay government should not try to influence the economy out of ideological reasons, but instead precisely look at the effects to be expected from some regulation. Then you have right, we should be open-minded to choose the ways promising the best results for the society as a whole.

Now something entirely different: I stumbled upon this report recently:

Entire Tuscan village falls to invasion of German tourists
Quote
Tuscany is about to lose one of its picturesque villages to tourist development, inevitably, but not in the usual sense. Tenuta de Castelfalfi, a hamlet in the heart of Chiantishire, will be wiped off the map, to be replaced by Toscana Resort Castelfalfi, owned outright by Germans.

TUI, Europe’s largest tour operator, has bought the entire village, 11 sq km (eight square miles) in all, boasting a medieval castle, a three-star hotel, an 18-hole golf course, and cottages and farm houses in various states of dilapidation. The Germans intend to build another hotel for their choosier customers, an adventure resort and yet another golf course.

TUI is paying €250 million (£170 million) for this highly desirable piece of real estate northwest of Siena. It says that it will offer 3,200 customers a genuine rural experience.

Locals were relieved to discover that not everything was for sale. The village church will remain Italian, and will be renovated by the Germans. (AP)
Emphases mine.

This much to the foolish argument of the folks roistering around with the "there is no free place anymore" argument. If TUI is able to purchase 11 km2 inmidst of the highly populated Italy, Gay State would be able to purchase an equally large area somewhere in less densely populated place. Taking a density of 20.000 persons per km2, those 11 km2 can give home to 220.000 persons. Considering that in Brazil (and elsewhere) more extended areas could be purchased without evicting many inhabitants, and that population density in modern city districts easily can reach some 40.000 persons per km2, what doubts can someone have that a territorial Gay State can be realistically established somewhere? As one can see, the price for the area was rather acceptable.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right!" Salvor Hardin

Athrael

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Re: How things are made by others
« Reply #4 on: Tue, May 01, 2007, 01:06 »

It is still the "old design" dusted off and wrapped in new ribbon and presented as "new". There are in the Southwest 'ghost towns', they surrounded the gold mine and as long as the mine produced they lived, as soon as the mine was tapped the city/town faded to abandonment as people moved on.  Although secondary sources of employment, saloons, brothels, doctors, churches, schools, etc were in place, once the main business shut down the rest closed as well.

Detroit based in auto manufacture did rather well, as soon as the auto-industry started closing factory doors the "rich" and middle class moved away in search of jobs while the poor and marginal remained. Detroit is considered a terrible failure when it comes to city planning.  Other towns dependent upon the corporation and the fickleness of the owners of the corporations stand as ruined testimony as to the economical realities of what happens when the interests of stock-holders take precedence over the workers. ruined financially, becoming ghettos of poverty where a widening deepening circle of welfare and crime spiral out of control. Poverty breeds crime, social injustice, bigotry and more.

Further It still depends on mega-corporations, mega-government and still creates classes within the framework - in other words somebody is still a ditch digger while somebody grows wealthy of that ditch. The rich get richer while the poor remain poor. The inequality of this situation needs to balanced, mostly by making the rich a little poorer so there is money for the poor. The elite still rule, the politics still remain. Yes it looks pretty on the outside, but the reality is that this a continuation of the old way of doing things.

If you are seriously considering a "Gay Nation" a Gay Society then we must examine carefully the straight way of doing things and immediately discard a great majority of those notions. We are given an opportunity to not only change the way a society views it members, we are also being given a chance to change and improve the way that that society conducts business, governs itself and to some degree establishes itself in the ecology. As far as I can tell this "new city" as laid out is much the same thing, it produces a great amount of waste, carries on the traditions of societal intolerance, is dependent upon the greed of a few rich men and takes from the land and the natural order more than it puts into that ecology.

The dependence upon foreign investors is a bad idea.  It may work, in part, for the straight aligned world, it will not work for the non-straight aligned society. However there are plenty of examples of how such a system can fail.

Investors should be mostly gay, all nationals and also workers for that corporation or series of corporations that sustain the local economy. Anything else puts you at the mercy of the fickle foreigners who will be swayed by the majority who will, as has been shown time and time again, stomp on anything remotely "gay" and seek to destroy it as soon as possible. Corporate Investors are promoters of self interest, if the majority threaten that self interest they will cave to the "popular" opinion of others.

Since you can not change the self interest of the investors, then you must make certain that the self interest of the investors will be aligned with the city/town/nation/providence in which that corporation is placed.

The Gay Community can be a powerful force, if motivated. I suspect that our GNP (Gay National Product) Is most likely in the billions even those we make up less than one percent of the population (By more modern, biased estimates not by the Kinsey Report of 10%) We already are told that Gays in the western "free" world have a larger pool of fundage not put to use in the family rearing process simply because most of us live in areas where adopting children if not directly prohibited by law is such a process we give up the notion of a family and proceed to accumulate our wealth and invest it in bed and breakfast's or spend it on gay cruises or some such.

A good corporation sells its product to the people and to its investors. Even if it is selling something that actually is useless, it makes it appear that its product is worthwhile not only as an investment but as a much needed product that the consumer must have. If you need money then you need to sell your corporation to gay investors.

In recent times we find a sudden growth of gay oriented commercialism. Trust me on this corporations realize that we gays are an untapped well spring of wealth. Although those self-same corporations have done NOTHING to promote our needs prior, they are jumping through hoops to get us to buy what ever it is they are selling.  This trend is very important and should not be dismissed out of hand. Corporations are self interested and always go after the market that will reward them with the most money. They rarely, if ever target insignificant or poor groups.

As for territory, I gave you an alternative to land. Again I point out that people are not interested in having a gay city in their back yards, their counties, their states. They will scream "Not in My Back Yard!". Further the future is sort of grim, with a predicted rise in sea levels of 12 to 17 inches in the next 50 years of feet by the end of this century. That means land will become more valued as less of it remains above water.

Going back to what I said above, this provides us with an opportunity to slough off the old way of doing things and build, really build a society, government and business model that reflects a more enlighten society.

If you are going to look at the old models, then look at them as experiments that are basic failures and seek ways to improve upon, or better those ideas.

cheers


According to obituary notices, a mean and useless citizen never dies.

Mogul

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Re: How things are made by others
« Reply #3 on: Wed, Nov 08, 2006, 20:10 »

Well, Hong-Kong and Macau might be the most striking examples, perhapts. These two cities developed breathtakingly quickly from smaller towns (for Chinese scale) to megapolices within vew decades, all thanks to immigration. They didn't start, however, right from the scratch.

What I actually wanted to demonstrate by quoting this article, is both the possibility of a new city project, and the territorial scope of such an enterprise - some 100 km2 seem to be appropriate. It is clear, however, that every city developes in pace with the number and demands of its citizens. This does not necessarily mean, that the citizens must limit themselves in comforts while living in a smaller town - all the new-founded Jewish cities (like Herzliya) are good examples for this approach. The latter developed from some 7.000 in 1948 to currently 84.000. At the end, building cities is a problem which is reduced to 1) planning city quarters, 2) calculating communal infrastructure and 3) building houses, streets and canalization. The velocity of actual realization of all the high-flying plans depends mostly on the number of acters involved: many autonomous projects will accomplish their goals probably much more quickly than a bureaucratical monstrum of a state-controlled agency.

The question of industries/business remains always one of the central points of every society. It belongs, however, to the competencies of the local governments and the citizens themselves to find some suitable income sources - and the experience shows that they manage this task usually rather well. Societies, which have no possibility to posess heavy industries, have to search fortune in other ways - tourism, finances, trade, shipping etc. I doubt that an entire city can live from writing and programming, but if a couple of banks, pharmaceutical companies and a few private hospitals etc. come to this, one can have some basis for a living. We shall not forget, that people themselves create consume and thus jobs - with or without heavy industry.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right!" Salvor Hardin

Feral

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Re: How things are made by others
« Reply #2 on: Tue, Nov 07, 2006, 06:14 »

A fascinating project. It would be interesting to see other examples that were not so dependent on heavy industry and, of course, the oil-wealth of Saudi Arabia. Most of us are so used to  old and well-established cities that it is easy to forget that it is quite possible to create them.
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Mogul

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How things are made by others
« Reply #1 on: Mon, Nov 06, 2006, 12:42 »

The following article illustrates, how a new city can be built from the scratch in the middle of nowhere:

JEC to Usher In a New Era in Jizan Development

EDDAH, 6 November 2006 — Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah laid the foundation for Jizan Economic City (JEC) on Saturday night after announcing plans to establish a city designed to attract more than SR100 billion in investment.

Malaysian company MMC and Saudi Binladin Group are leading partners in the Kingdom’s fourth economic city project which is set to usher in a new era in Jizan’s development. The city will have a port, an industrial zone, a logistic service center, an energy/desalination plant and a residential zone. Many international companies have already shown their interest in investing in the city.

According to informed sources at Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), the main facilitator of the project, three giant factories will be established at a cost of SR15 billion by Chinese firms.

King Abdullah, who is on his first visit to Jizan since ascending the throne in August 2005, announced plans to establish the city while attending a popular reception held in his honor by the people of the region.

The king said JEC would attract more than SR100 billion in investment and create some 500,000 new jobs. He also said that SR375 million worth of free shares in the SR15 billion JEC company would be allocated to the region’s limited income people. He also disclosed plans to establish an oil refinery in Jizan. The Ministry of Petroleum and Minerals has been instructed to conduct a feasibility study on the refinery project.

The new economic city will be located about 50 km north of Jizan city and will spread over an area of 100 million square meters. About 12 km of this land is situated close to Jizan coast while eight kilometers are inland.

“JEC will focus on heavy industries that require intense use of energy, which is readily available in the Kingdom,” SAGIA said in a statement. Jizan is located in a strategic position close to international maritime routes in the Red Sea as well as the Indian Ocean. “This will facilitate marketing of JEC products in Asia, Africa and Europe,” the statement said.

The city will also have secondary industries related to agriculture and fisheries and a full-fledged research center to support them. A regional center for the distribution of iron ore will also be established. The developers will bear all the cost for building the city’s required infrastructure.

MMC is one of the largest companies in Malaysia specializing in engineering, construction, mining, transportation, logistic services, energy and power generation. It owns and manages the main ports in Malaysia. Saudi Binladin Group has built several industrial and residential cities around the world. It employs more than 55,000 people.

SAGIA chief Amr Dabbagh said the king’s announcement concerning JEC and his support for the project were in line with the government’s strategy to achieve balanced development in all regions. He said JEC would focus on industries that needed more manpower. There will be advanced centers to train the people of the region.

King Abdullah, who is on the last leg of his tour of the south, yesterday received prominent Islamic scholars and senior civilian and military officers in Jizan. He later distributed deeds and keys for 372 low-cost houses built in Daheema village to deserving people.

The King Abdullah Charitable Housing Foundation carried out the project at a cost of SR100 million which includes mosques, schools, health, social and cultural centers and public utility facilities.

Later in the day, King Abdullah launched a number of welfare projects in Jizan including the first phase of Jizan University campus. An exhibition of the models of projects to be implemented in JEC is being held at King Faisal Sports City. The king has instructed officials to continue the exhibition for two weeks in order for the people of Jizan to become familiar with the projects and plans for the city.


Certainly, the enterprize is not of the easiest kind, but it is not that difficult too.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right!" Salvor Hardin
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