[extropy-chat] Gandhi and EP was Bushido

[BillK]

On 4/25/07, Keith Henson wrote:
> The trick to keeping humans out large scale violence is to keep their
> "bleak future" detectors off.  The modern equivalent of game and berries is
> income per capita.  Steady or rising income per capita keeps a population
> out of "war mode" unless they are attacked.
>
> Population growth faster than economic growth, the "per capita" term, is a
> formula for a population going into war or if they can't into related
> social disruptions like terrorism.  That's where the IRA came from.  And
> because a generation ago Irish women cut the number of children they had to
> about replacement, economic growth got ahead of population growth.  That's
> why the IRA eventually went out of business.
>

This is a misleading interpretation.

The Northern Ireland women had the same birth rate reduction as the
rest of the UK. And a similar birth rate reduction occurred in the
modern states in Europe as well. The birth rate reduction had nothing
to do with the IRA terrorism.

Re-arranging the politics and administration so that the Catholics
didn't feel as much victimisation as before, caused reduced popular
support for the IRA. This, and more Catholic political representation,
 forced the IRA to stop the bombing and reduce their shooting to
'normal' gangsterism levels.

BillK