[ExI] and speaking of exponential singularities...

[spike]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Damien
Broderick
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2011 11:50 PM
To: 'ExI chat list'
Subject: [ExI] and speaking of exponential singularities...

Check out this scary curve:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SDA_Membership.svg>
_______________________________________________

The curve is not scary, but rather misleading.  We need not extrapolate the
exponential and conclude that the entire planet will convert to Seventh Day
Adventist by 2024.

The number of members is perfectly arbitrary.  The Africans discovered that
if they baptize enough humans, that American dollars soon follow.  So they
arranged for that to happen.  The scam came to light in the civil unrest in
Rwanda in 1994.  At that time there were more Seventh Day Adventists in
Rwanda and Burundi combined than in the US and Canada combined, however the
number of dollars flowing in was actually negative: donations from North
America were flowing to Africa in the form of schools, teachers, doctors and
other aid.

In the civil war (open to suggestion for an alternate name, such as
genocide) there were appalling numbers slain, yet never accounted for
completely on the church roles.  

Another discovery during that period is that if one added the number of
Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Baptists, Lutherans and Catholics (those
five alone) in Rwanda and Burundi, the number was greater than the estimated
population of those two countries.

The important number is the income.  The strength of any church or movement
is measured not in the number of proles on the membership list, but rather
in dollars.  These numbers are public domain, although they do not present
them in an easily seen trend.  So I went through and studied the numbers,
and found something interesting.  If one takes the membership in North
America only, and the income in North America only, the giving to the church
per pew sitter is a four digit number.  If one then takes all membership
outside the US and Canada and all church income outside those two nations,
the giving per pew sitter is a two digit number.  If one then extracts
Australia and repeats the experiment, the dollars per capita is a single
digit number.

The crisis for the SDA church is that membership growth is mostly outside
the US, Canada and Australia.

spike