Hey, Brazil (or Mexico, China, India, whatever) take a look at the Italian Beaches ! They have a very organized grid of umbrellas, Bar spots called Lidos, all very comfortable, lots of room, rent the Umbrellas and Bed Chairs and so forth, and at night Discos and whatever. I saw these at Rimini but there are many other similar type beaches there, actually by a street view tour it seems that only Italy devised this Private Public organization of relaxation, of the industry of “leisure” and industry geared towards not doing anything, the exact opposite of all the BS “Hard Work Myth” of the USA or Germany or JAPAN and such.
Actually Non Work becomes a real industry with hotels and a great boost to GDP. Never mind that for now the GDP of Italy is down and the crisis and all, but anyways. The point is that long beaches in Brazil or Mexico or any place else, with the right temperature could be organized like this and they could create a huge boost of their GDP, they could create more wealth for all, etc. Most beaches of the world and Brazil are unorganized, tiny or random plots (don’t get me started in the USA, they don’t have a clue!), bring your own umbrella public spots (but public is OK, just divide the plots equally between public and private with organized umbrellas and anyways the umbrellas don’t cost much to rent daily and they are very comfortable, nice, and so forth). Of course, there is a strong ritual - cultural element to the way the beaches in Italy are, the “Environment Style” (as any spot on earth has its own quirky, particular environment style ) so it may be hard to imitate, but anyways.
Just an idea, for those countries that need to boost their GDP to become wealthy like the “rich west” (or what is left of it), create new towns with Lidos and beaches, create areas of leisure, make it become an industry and so forth.
All the think tanks keep on chanting the BS of Innovation, Resarch, Startups and so forth hoping to boost GDP, but they don’t look at the simplest and best ideas that have been working for decades, this organziation of beaches and such made the GDP of Italy grow hugely during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s so it can be done in Brazil or Mexico or China or California if they decide to.
Of course all the green thugs, tree huggers, environmentalists, and all the churches and all the huge party poopers that just want Mankind to suffer forever will find all kinds of things against it as usual, but just ignore their BS.
Every time I go to Miami, I go to a place called Nikki Beach. It’s private, and really nice, and they got all these white linen drapes hanging between the palm trees for a little shade. What I do, is I pay 300 bucks, and for that I get 2 liters of the liquor of my choice, and a king sized bed on a private beach with it’s own little canopy so I can lounge around from morning till night just napping and drinking on the beach. It’s a really great place. Much better than the public beaches, 65 bucks for a pitcher of mojito though. If you’re ever down there you should definitely check it out.
I’ll say this, I’ve been to 9 islands all over the place, and I’ve been to the “best beaches” at all of them, and if you know where to look, there’s just no contest, the beaches in south Florida are supreme.
The point is that GDP grows by consumption not by production: the fact that all the politics - economists are concentrated on helping industries and corporations and the work - production part of the economic equation reveals not only an old fashion 18th century hard work - production mentality that hasn’t been really operating anymore for decades, but also the naive idea that more production and work and competition will make economies grow: nothing further from the truth, actually it is the exact opposite, more leisure time and free time and consumption will make economies grow infinitely faster and more than any new technology or innovation or research or competition and so forth: that is why we need beaches wll organized, the paradox is that the more Non Work, the more Leisure will help protect and increase that very little real work that is still necessary for a service economy.
And a Technological Economy needs more work like a hole in the head, it needs leisure, well organized and comfortable beaches, and so forth.
Of course the USA style of increasing comsumption and propping up the service economy is to increase “Health Care”, make everyone think they are sick, make them all sick, give them procedures and drugs to help protect them from “possible future sicknesses” (that probably would never occur and anyways is so vague and intractable, go figure) instead of creating nice beaches and concentrating on leisure and pleasure and enjoyment and so forth. They should take a good look at those beaches in Italy and finally get civilized, in this sector Italy is light years ahead of anyone, no doubt.
In fact technology is at the end of the line, progress is over, we won’t be discovering or creating new fangled things anymore like Electricity or Computers of Jet Planes and so forth. New Smart Phones containing old hat functions like phones and cameras and the internet just won’t cut it anymore. At most we can replicate millions of models, produce a huge number of items of the same type, increase distribution and production of the old things we already have (fill the third world with cars and computers and skyscrapers and so forth), but we can’t really invent any really new things anymore, we are at the end of the line now. We can make trillions of old things (what we should do anyways, we need huge increase of consumption and production of all kinds of things and remember that consumption is way more difficult to achieve than production, producing is easy, consuming is hard because people are still too used to the Resource Scarcity Mentality (not like the USA, the only real consmuer society), and all the economists and politicians think that GDP grows by helping corporations and production and competition and companies when in all truth, GDP grows mostly when you hike up consumption hugely, consumption should be the name of the game and more money in people’s hands, not companies and production and so forth, consumption is infinitely more important than production and much harder to produce since it depends on people’s culture and mind and hesitation to buy and waste like crazy, what we really need!) trillions of skyscrapers and rockets to planets and TVs and computers and so forth, mostly trillions of examples and permutations of mostly old ideas and concepts, but nothing really radically new like the Jet Plane was, or the Rocket to the Moon was, or the Automobile was and so forth.
In fact, you can really feel the desperation of our civilization that can’t really go forward anymore (let alone all the political - social - economic problems that will forever be intractable and without any solutions because the Man Brain is simply a fighting against each other machine having will power machine and so forth), boredom, not knowing what new exciting thing to invent and so forth, what new possible market can be created, the constant chant for Innovation and Startups and Research and so forth hoping to gain something and so forth.
But the only real way forward now is to proudly and boldly and bluntly modify the Man Brain, the Observing Contraption on the top of our body, the Skull contents, stick in chips and new designs, make the new brains do all kinds of incredible new things, technology on steroids, technology achieved, modify the Mind and Brain in infinitely new ways, create trillions of new universes, all other past inventions and novelties will seem so tiny and worth so little compared to this.
But it is as if our Civilization is simply hesitating, waiting to make the jump, waiting and hestitating and afraid to finally plunge into the real future: the FUTURE OF WILDLY NEW BRAINS, MODIFIED BRAINS AND NEW SENSE ORGANS AND EMOTION STATES AND CONTRAPTIONS AND LOGIC AND FREE PHYSICS AND SO FORTH, THE FUTURE WHERE ALL OF THE PAST DISAPPEARS IN A JIFFY SINCE ALL THE RULES OF THE GAME CHANGE 100 %, THE PLUNGE INTO NEW UNIVERSES AND EXPERIENCE SETS AND INTERACTION SETS AND INFORMATION RELATIONSHIPS, ETC.
So keep on waiting and hestitating civilization, keep on playing puny games with old products and inventions, keep on devising new smart phones with other cameras and old hat things instead of doing what must be done: stick jet engines in the skull and mind, stick wild symbols and circuits in brains, change the brains in infinitely new varieties and types, do it man, you can do it, first gear - its all right, second gear - hang on tight, third gear you’re out of sight.
Then again, even this theory and ideology may be a desperate attempt to keep on producing an imaginary progress when progress is mostly terminated in that modifying brains and minds will simply lead up pain and death since biological contraptions are so complex and intractable that it cannot be done: remember the three body problem can’t be solved even with supercomputers executing a trillion operations a second…
So relax, find a nice beach and don’t do anything anymore, just create nice leisure places like Rimini, Italy or similar, nice towns with discos, bars, girls (or boys if you are a girl (although I suspect we are all very old hags on these blogs but anyways) or whatever), you get the idea, hose the Work mentality, the production mentality and so forth, the “always having to do or discover or improve” crap and BS, we have done it all, it has all been achieved, now relax and free your mind, don’t think about anything anymore, give up, end of story, end of the line.
Or you can cram a V8 engine and jet engine in your skull and explore new experiences…(I prefer to relax and throw all this progress BS away)…
or Computers of Jet Planes Should have been OR Jet Planes, although computers made up of Jet Planes could be a new wicked idea, grammar mistakes create new entities…