RoR: Forum

[smirk]

I like how this 'author' gets straight to the point (he doesn't take 9 paragraphs and 2 quotes to get there ;-)). The straightforward conclusion is stated in plain terms:

Adoption of Western values is associated with at least a 100-fold reduction in mortality rates from natural disasters.

Sounds like a plan to 'me,'

Ed

Post 1

Friday, March 17, 2006 - 5:41am

A statist might argue that the lives saved resulted from the legal enforcement of sound building codes, subsidies and other meddlings of state into economics. He might further argue that a fully laissez-faire society would have death tolls comparable to the non-Westernized countries you named. How would you rebut that?

Post 2

Friday, March 17, 2006 - 8:14am

Two more possible counter arguments

1.) Alaska's population density in 1964

2.) None of the non western nations' socio-economic systems coalesced in a vacuum.

Western influence (and sometimes coercion) has been a factor.

Post 3

Friday, March 17, 2006 - 8:16am

Adding to what Luke said, revisionists like to commend increased government involvement in the past 100 years as the main reason for reduced death tolls. This is despite the fact that the reason why fewer die in earthquakes in the West is due to better buildings.

Why people confuse correlation with causation, I don't know!

(Edited by Tyson Russell on 3/17, 8:16am)

Post 4

Friday, March 17, 2006 - 10:59am

Luke,

===========
A statist might argue that the lives saved resulted from the legal enforcement of sound building codes, subsidies and other meddlings of state into economics. He might further argue that a fully laissez-faire society would have death tolls comparable to the non-Westernized countries you named. How would you rebut that?
===========

I'd rebut that with the standard any-economic-thing-government-does-free-markets-can-do-better. And then I'd cite a laundry list of literally dozens of clear examples.

Ed

Post 5

Friday, March 17, 2006 - 11:08am

Keith,

==============

Two more possible counter arguments

1.) Alaska's population density in 1964

2.) None of the non western nations' socio-economic systems coalesced in a vacuum.

Western influence (and sometimes coercion) has been a factor.

==============

1) True, but the Los Angeles and San Francisco data overwhelms this line of reasoning (as it leaves those 69,882 extra deaths unexplained)

2) Right. Everyone has a personal history (their previous relation to reality). And 'some' Western (coercive) influences have been sub-optimal -- considering these peoples background world views. But the ultimate point -- that proper philosophy is the solution to the problems of mankind on Earth -- still stands.

Post 6

Friday, March 17, 2006 - 11:15am

Tyson,

==============
Why people confuse correlation with causation, I don't know!
==============

Well, we both know the answer, so let's just throw the bloody carcass on the table and get some reactions, okay? ...

It is folks' pet theories.

Like creationists looking in every scientific nook and cranny with their 'selective-omission' blinders on (re-filtering data through a Biblical cognitive schematism), folks are merely seeking to reduce the cognitive dissonance of their 'old' views with the 'new' data.

It just feels better to have been right all along. And these folks don't have the intellectual integrity to keep context. That's all.

Good inquiry though, Tyson.

Ed

Post 7

Friday, March 17, 2006 - 12:42pm

Ed wrote:

It is folks' pet theories. ... folks are merely seeking to reduce the cognitive dissonance of their 'old' views with the 'new' data.

Does this happen with Objectivists as well? Please cite examples.

Post 8

Friday, March 17, 2006 - 4:00pm

Ed,
Curiously, the country with the most frequent earthquake/tsunami occurrence is missing from your list: Japan, a non-Western country.

I'd say that the value is not in the Western Philosophy, but in paper house! ;-^

Post 9

Friday, March 17, 2006 - 7:35pm

Good one, Hong.

But economically, Japan's pretty Western -- wouldn't you say? I guess I was trying -- with this commentary -- to hint at the Economic/Political Freedom that is afforded by Western values.

Do they really live in paper houses?

Ed

Post 10

Friday, March 17, 2006 - 11:04pm

Speaking of tsunamis, did you ever hear the one about the better-part-of-a-million people who didn't "have to" die?

Oh, it's a real killer, I tell ya'. You gotta' hear this one. Anyway, if I can remember it correctly -- it went a little something like this ...

In this ONE issue, you'll get all of the greatest hits ... from the 70s, 80s, 90s, AND today! This one runs the gamut folks, from the East-side to the West-side! There's just no other collection quite like it available. Order now! You'll get hits like ...

==============
Those crazy 1970s
==============
East-side
-1970, East Pakistan cyclone: 300,000-500,000 dead
-1974, Hurricane Fifi, Honduras: 5000 dead

West-side
-1972, Hurricane Agnes, US East Coast: 118 dead
-1979, Hurricane Frederick, Alabama: 5 dead

==============
The selfish 1980s
==============
-1985, Bangladesh cyclone: 10,000 dead

==============
Those rip-roarin' 1990s
==============
East-side
-1991, Bangladesh cyclone: 70,000 dead
-1998, India's west coast cyclone: 10,000-14,000 missing
-1998, Papua New Guinea tsunami: 6000 dead
-1998, Hurricane Mitch, Honduras: 11,000 dead

West-side
-1992, Hurricane Andrew,US East Coast: 65 dead
-1999, Oklahoma tornadoes, winds up to 318 mph!: 44 dead

==============
And the best of Today
==============
East-side
-2004, Day after Christmas tsunami, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand: 190,000 dead (and another 40,000 missing)

West-side
-2005, Hurricane Katrina, US Gulf Coast: 1400 dead

Act now. Time is running out.

Ed

Post 11

Saturday, March 18, 2006 - 9:07am

Hi Ed,
I understand the gist of your article. To me earthquake is no mere statistics. In your list, you also missed the July 28, 1976 Tangshan (China) earthquake reported at a Richter scale of 7.6, though the actual strength could be much higher. Just out of my head, I believe more than 200,000 people died and the whole city of Tangshan was reduced to rubbles. My family live in a city less than 100km from the center of the quake, and the building we lived in cracked right under our feet and through the wall. We then lived in a tent made of bed sheets for two months and for two weeks we scavenged bricks from nearby collapsed buildings and built a little hut just in time for the first cold front of the winter. Our whole family lived in that one room hut for four years before finally moved back to the patched up old building.

Given all your statistics, my own experience and taken into account the population densities and other factors, I would say that the still much smaller fatality rate in the Western countries are the direct results of the more advanced economy, science, technology, and yes, a more rational social environment than that of Soviet Union or Communist China.

I very much object the use of the package deal "Western Values". What is it? Isn't Christianity, Socialism, Nazism, post-modernism, etc. also part of Western cultures? Isn't Communism also originated from Western philosophies? Aren't the two most devastating World Wars in the whole human history fought mostly among the (developed!) Western Countries? Let's always specify what is good in the Western cultures, such as democracy, capitalism, individualism, advancement in science and technology, etc., and at the same time recognize those irrational aspects of the Western cultures that are still vastly dominant in today's Western society.

(Edited by Hong Zhang on 3/18, 9:13am)

Post 12

Saturday, March 18, 2006 - 12:11pm

Ed: This is the best argument I have ever heard for adopting Christianity, however I think I'll pass.

Sam

Post 13

Saturday, March 18, 2006 - 2:47pm

Ed,
You said:

========================
East-side
......
-1974, Hurricane Fifi, Honduras: 5000 dead
......
-1998, Hurricane Mitch, Honduras: 11,000 dead
....
========================

In what sense, is Houduras (and Peru in your original article) more "eastern" than, say, US East Coast?

(Edited by Hong Zhang on 3/18, 2:56pm)

Post 14

Saturday, March 18, 2006 - 5:29pm

Good criticisms, Hong (all around).

It's actually reason, and the subsequent individualism (and the subsequent capitalism) -- that explain the differences in wealth that are behind the orders of magnitude differences in death rates from the same (or less) category natural disasters.

I should have used Randian rhetoric-style by saying: "By Western-values, I mean Reason, Individualism, ...." [though I failed to be explicit -- this is what I meant]

And thanks for alerting me to my *very* large oversight. This one was actually the worst one ...

=============
1976 (8.2) in China -- 240,000 dead
=============

Sam,

=============
Ed: This is the best argument I have ever heard for adopting Christianity, however I think I'll pass.

Sam
=============

See above.

Ed

Post 15

Saturday, March 18, 2006 - 5:32pm

Hong,

=============
In what sense, is Houduras (and Peru in your original article) more "eastern" than, say, US East Coast?
=============

I'm going to assume this one *answered* by post 14. Would you agree?

Ed

Post 16

Saturday, March 18, 2006 - 6:24pm

Agreed.

BTW, many of your dry statistic numbers are very real for me. Indeed, a lot can be say about them.

Post 17

Sunday, March 19, 2006 - 9:06pm

Hong,

I realize that these "numbers" were your very life (back in China). I'm not trying to take anything away from that. But it is for the very reason that these numbers aren't dry (stale?) "statistics" -- but lost and irreplaceable human lives -- that I took the time and energy to consolidate them into a single, persuasive point (about idea importance).

I am not a statistician having 'fun with numbers' here, I am acting as a humanitarian -- I am attempting to speed up the mental evolution of humankind, by showing its real-life importance, by showing how it can be the difference of life or death.

Ed

Post 18

Monday, March 20, 2006 - 6:52am

Ed - It is Core vs. Gap - the best place to be in a natural disaster is the Core. These are the functioning states of the world, and the worst place is the Gap - or substitute civilization, capitalism, western values, etc... but the bottom line is that definition fits. Nations that have the infrastructure and rules for robust response to disasters dramatically limit death tolls. In Nations that can barely function even when there is no disaster, expect catastrophe when there is a disaster.

Post 19

Monday, March 20, 2006 - 10:41am