Big History ?

[mongers]

Today Chinese authorities announced that China has become an 'urban society', just over half of the population now lives in towns and cities. The prediction is by 2030 75% will be urbanised.

My guess is that makes it the largest and one of the most rapid migrations in history.


So what over current development do you regard as being of huge significance or what do foresee as being potentially large forces at work in the world ?

[Ideologue]

The ongoing collapse of the West is pretty important.

[mongers]

The ongoing collapse of the West is pretty important.

What are the metrics for charting its decline, if it is ?


edit:
stupid question, you're going to say no. of 4/8 engine bombers aren't you ?

[Ideologue]

No, the age of bombers is over--though no weapon could ever exemplify the golden age of the West so much as the B-29.

It's all SLBMs now; we have enough.

But unfortunately none of the other key indicators of greatness--the employment rate, government spending, wealth equality, and aggregate happiness as determined by incidence of mental illness--come close to matching our military capability.

Indeed, our military capability is artificially limited by the inability of many to perform simple utility calculations, so it may not even be correct to count all those warheads, since we'll never use them.

[dps]

No, the age of bombers is over--though no weapon could ever exemplify the golden age of the West so much as the B-29.

It's all SLBMs now; we have enough.

But unfortunately none of the other key indicators of greatness--the employment rate, government spending, wealth equality, and aggregate happiness as determined by incidence of mental illness--come close to matching our military capability.

Indeed, our military capability is artificially limited by the inability of many to perform simple utility calculations, so it may not even be correct to count all those warheads, since we'll never use them.

You can't use mental health stats to measure happiness, or much of anything else, because in the old days, most mental health problems weren't ever diagnosed.

[Ideologue]

Eh, perhaps you're right.