"...It's *pregnancies carried to full-term and delivered* that have fallen in the first-world, a huge difference...."
Point taken! Some 'fertility' statistics don't define whether they use 'pregnancies' or 'live births' as their standard for 'fertility'.
While 'pregnancy' may be seen as the most basic indicator of 'fertility' (the woman became pregnant, therefore she must be 'fertile', right?), such use may not take into account possible outcomes or complications that affect the birth rate (which is never the same as the pregnancy rate in any case) like miscarriage, 'still-births', abortion.
Since a 'live birth' is the final proof of a 'successful fertility' having gone the full course, these are (as far as I'm aware) the most often used source for 'fertility' statistics.
"...Unless in your mind, employing birth control and/or terminating pregnancies via medical abortion, are metrics of a woman's fertility..."
The problem is that using 'birth control' (which prevents pregnancy), may in itself 'mask' infertility problems, and by preventing pregnancy in women who would other be 'fertile' enough to fall pregnant, mask any inability (complications, etc) to carry a child to full term that might not show up until well into the pregnancy.
Then (as you pointed out) there are 'social' effects that can muddy the waters further - if people don't even try, how would they know?
Re comment I made above about 'live birth' statistics being used for 'fertility' statistics - Governments need info on 'how many mouths' they have to feed, 'how many childcare places', 'schools', etc when planning for the future. The 'live births' statistics gives an easy number for 'bums on seats' statistics for childcare, etc.
Sorry, I've been up all night, I hope I've said that clearly.
-- Yours, DBM - snipped-for-privacy@uq.net.au From Somewhere in Australia, the Land of Tree-hugging Funnelwebs...
And even these numbers are useless if you don't consider other issues including those I mentioned previously. For example, if most first-world women intentionally put off pregnancies until their mid-30's or later, then naturally the fertility rate statistics will be reduced no matter whether you're counting pregnancies or births or both. After a woman passes her youthful "prime" childbearing years, her fertility *will* steadily drop off. You can't fool mother nature, even with modern "fertility treatments" (which are merely a band-aid on the symptom of a greater social problem).
The basic fact is that first-world women actually have a greater "fertility rate" than second- or third-world women. The problem is they are intentionally not taking advantage of the health and standard-of-living benefits of their advanced society. And therein lies the fundemental flaw in your statistics, because your numbers do not differentiate between women choosing not to have children versues women unable to have children.
A look at teen pregnancies in first-world countries illustrates that our women have no problem getting pregnant. And many of the teens and young women in the lower social classes do carry their pregnancies to full term and birth which means that there isn't an endemic problem with first-world child-bearing either. In fact, first-world mothers have a very low infant mortality rate, even for high-risk babies (e.g., babies born of crack-addicted mothers, alcoholic mothers, smoking mothers, poorly-nourished mothers, etc.). In second-world contries, most of those babies would die (either in utero or shortly after birth); in third-world countries, virtually all of them would die.
If you want a different metric, look at traditional Catholics and Mormons in first-world countries. They still have no problems attaining large families via natural child birth.
On the other hand, third-world women have always had a relatively high-rate of childbirth (excepting periods of extreme hardship like famine or drought). There are a number of logical reasons for this too. One is the lack of available birth control (and abortion-on-demand). Another is the higher miscarriage and infant mortality rates. Yet another is the higher mortality rates of people in general (so families and communities need to bear more babies in order to keep the population stable). A third is that economic production is primarily based on nuclear family units. For example, a farmer needs to have a large number of children to help work the land. And finally, there are the social reasons. Third-worlders are not indoctrinated with feminist propaganda. Third-worlders are more traditional in their cultural values. And third-worlders tend to be more adherant to religious principles.
We can now identify two significant problems:
When third-worlders immigrate enmasse into first-world countries, they tend to overwhelm their hosts. That's because first-world women socially depress their own "fertility" rates, while third-world immigrants do not. Combined with the higher standard of living and access to first-world health care, the immigrant population booms and quickly outpaces the reproduction of the first-world women.
With an influx of modern medicine and food supplies to third world countries via "aid programs", third-world populations explode beyond the capacity of their own production and resources. This leads to a need for even more first-world aid. In essence, the natural balance of self-regulating populations within a given enviroment is destroyed by the outside "assistance".
Only if you subscribe to the policies of socialism or communism (both of which oppose the basic tenets of freedom and independence). A Government has no need to know how many mouths to feed, how many children to institutionalize and indoctrinate, how many senior citizens to euthanize, etc, unless it is presiding over a country of slaves.
If you free yourself from the chains of government bondage and servitude, you will realize that all those things you mentioned (and more) are, in fact, the responsibility of individuals and families.
You could be T-boned by the catering truck that shows up 3 times a day at the nuke plant.
Gunner
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
You've obviously never been in the military, because you think like a civilian (who's watched too much Hollywood drivel).
Try to think about your absurd scenario for just one moment. A terrorist has obtained a very high-value man-portable nuclear bomb (which, by the way, are very large and quite noticeable: think large fully-stuffed backpacking pack, not a child's schoolbook backpack). With this device, he could easily destroy several square blocks of a metropolitan city, or perhaps take out the U.S. Capitol building (with Congress in session). But, no. Instead he tries to walk, with his large backpack unnoticed mind you, into a tightly-controlled, high-security area like a nuclear power plant. Yeah, that's a great plan! And even if he did manage to successfully penetrate security and detonate the device, the overall effect would not be much worse than if he had blown the thing up anywhere else.
Too bad terrorists in real life are not as stupid as Hollywood--or you--make them out to be.
So what? That meteor was not man, or dinosaur, made.
formatting link
Little Boy, 13 kilotons. Fat man, 20 kilotons. The Tanguska Event, 10 megatons The Bravo test, 15 megatons One pound of antimatter 16 megatons Mount St. Helen May 18, 1980. 24 megatons Tsar Bomba, 50 megatons The third 1883 eruption of Krakatoa 150 megatons World War III, 10,000 megatons "Dinosaur Killer" 100,000,000 megatons or 10^8 megatons
"World War III, computed as the simultaneous explosion of all known nuclear devices (about 15,000 today)"
Asshole, I did mention that it was unlikey to happen. But what about this: The dude at the control panel sets his beer down on top of the wrong button ? Accidently of course.
In rec.crafts.metalworking Charles Spitzer wrote: (snip)
(snorp)
Naw, at least not until we get to the point we can custom design the effects of a virus/bacteria. At which point, a counteragent could be designed. The problem is we currently have to work with snippets of genetic code with known effects. The problem with the spread of really nasty diseases is that they usually work very fast, resulting in carriers that don't move around very long after infection. Not to say there wouldn't be a large loss of life. Under idea (for spread) situations, civilization might collapse entirely, but humans as a species would survive. An ebola is still not 100% fatal.
Assuming that there would be no way to deal with this you still don't kill the world. You don't even wipe out humans. You just wind up with hemophillia in all of humanitys genetic code.
Not only not able to kill the world, not even very likely to do major damage.
First off anti-matter is hard to make, it does not spontaniously generate. Secondly, while you would get total conversion to energy when it reacts with regular matter, it would take enough about an anti-matter mass the size of a continet to destory the earth. Maybe a anit-matter asteriod will float through our system and do that, but we certainly won't be involved with it.
Backback nuke (btw which weighs about 60-80 pounds) damage equals X. Backpack nuke in nuclear reactor damage equals X + 5% (mainly from more radioactive than normal fallout).
You still aren't getting it. Just becase humans are human, doesn't mean impossible things will happen. The reactor design I mentioned earlier due to the frickin laws of science can't melt down. There isn't enough radioactive material in it to do so. You have to add control rods to even get it to work, and at it's maximum possible output it doesn't generate enough heat to be able to melt down. Unless you think the energy to do so will suddenly pop into existance from another reality. If you pick up a rock, all the vibrations of the atoms it it aren't going to suddenly line up into one direction at one instant in time and launch it through your head just because you are a human!!!
Oh, well, in THAT case, I guess you can make up any bullshit you want and post it as a reason for not building nuclear power plants. So why didn't you include this scenario in your "thesis"...
"Little green men from mars see that we're building nuclear plants and get pissed off. So they come swooping down in flying saucers and destroy Earth. You see, rather unlikely, but 'shit happens'."
Watching "The Simpsons" a bit too much, eh? Allow me to offer you some advice that will greatly assist you in life: don't base your arguments and decisions on ideas you've gotten from watching TV cartoons.
I may be an asshole for correcting your faulty "logic" (if you can call it that), but at least I'm not a moron.
Hate to tell you this, bozos, but neither myself, nor any other educated and sane adults, read your posts nor care what you post or think.
AND (this is your big revelation for the decade) your prattling doesn't remove my post from the Usenet servers nor the Usenet Archives at groups.google.com.
The only people worth talking to that read these groups do it from the Archives and ignore everything you post.
Just like they step over piles of dog shit on the sidewalk when they are walking.
And then we talk by email and leave you all to live in your own shit.
It's pretty hard to sneak into the core of something that's running at about 2000 psi and 2000 degrees. Maybe you meant "building" or "containment" or "parking lot".
I've been up close to 5 nuclear reactors in my life. Not in the core, mind you, but I've stood over the pressure vessel at WPPS 2 and been as close to N reactor as any un-suited up civilian could be. While they were running. N reactor has been decommisioned, but WPP 2 is still up and running.
I've also worked on security systems that guard SNM and I've had an AEC "Q" clearance so I kinda know what I'm talking about.
I'm not going to speak of the security that I've seen at nuclear plants except to say that it's very intense. And they've certainly considered the scenario of a terrorist with a backpack bomb.
Actually, not, except in terms of total heat produced. The energy in a hurricane is so dispersed in both time and space that there is little comparison with the consequences of a nuclear explosion.
The 5000 megaton-per-day figure seems to have acquired a pass-along status; it's interesting that hurricane experts at the University of California say that the total accumulated energy acquired by a typical Atlantic hurricane is 1/5 of that amount, and that its energy is released over the entire path of the hurricane, over the course of days.
Regardless, the key point is to be careful about getting worked up over these comparisons. If you dispersed the energy of a bomb over tens of thousands of square miles, and stretched the time domain from milliseconds to days, you'd have something useful to think about. If not, not.
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