spidermike007

It is beyond rational, that Thailand has not done this already. For the movement of cargo, if nothing else. The highways are clogged with trucks of all sizes, due to a lack of planning. And the trains here are quite an embarrassment. Even if you decide to travel by train here on the antique cars, you have to deal with consistent delays of 30 minutes to 3 hours. I gave up using them. Thailand desperately needs high speed rail, for people and cargo. The lack of planning is an abomination. The rail projects should be accelerated. Thailand is 40-60 years behind the curve, when it comes to public transportation, with the exception of Bangkok. The railway here is sickening. I recently tried public transportation, from Hua Hin to Samui. Took a 5 hour express train from HH to Surat. All good. Except the train was 3.5 hours late between a 2.5 hour delay in arriving, and an additional hour added, on the way. Unacceptable. Then I took a VIP bus back from Samui. Left the pier at 6:45pm. Arrived in HH at 4:00am. Even at 11pm, the traffic was a parking lot, due to the main north south artery for the nation, reduced to one lane, due to road construction. One hour spent going 5 kph. Unacceptable. It would be so much easier, and more efficient to use the rlhigh speed rail. Typically, the average person spends at least 3 additional hours with a domestic flight, when you factor in travel to the airport on the clogged highways, waiting, security, delays, etc. And time at the destination airport too. Any nation that wants to call itself developed, needs high speed rail. The US being the exception to that rule, as the vision, and will was never there to get it done. 45 minutes from BKK to Pattaya? Brilliant. Which airline runs that route? How about Bangkok to Hua Hin, or Chumporn? Right now, it is a nightmare journey by road, unless you leave Bangkok at 5am, which I usually do, to get past the insane road work in Samut Sakorn. How about getting into Bangkok, from the north, or the south, during the day? I have spent three hours just traveling from Saraburi to BKK. Eventually, the entire nation may have two deck highways, like the new one from BKK to Korat. Upper road is a toll road, and trucks must be forbidden to use them. Some progress please. Any progress, is better than moving backwards under the regressive and toxic army.

Yes it is it's pretty bleak, as a matter of fact and mankind has always had a drive for greener pastures. Whether or not a lower population represents a greener pasture is very subjective. I think it does and I think like you said it might not be an easy transition but I think it's an incredibly wonderful and positive direction to be marching towards. Ever expanding population was never going to be good for any of us.

Whether you choose to live in a rural setting or in a big city, overpopulation is still a problem for everybody and it affects all of us on countless levels, it diminishes the quality of life for all of us on countless levels, even if you are living in an ideal rural environment. My favorite line from the 1st season of True Detective. Dark, but profound. I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self aware. Nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself. We are creatures what should not exist, by natural law. We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, a secretion of sensory experience and feeling programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody is nobody. I think the honorable thing for our species to do is to deny our programming. Stop reproducing. Walk hand and hand into extinction. One last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal.

It is like living on a different planet. I think that's what some of us find so wonderful and fascinating about this place. I always tell friends that are visiting for the first time keep in mind you are not visiting a foreign country, you are traveling to a distant planet.

So let me get this straight you're saying Buddha is their parents, and Buddha raised these people? Where does effective parenting come into the formula? You can blame religion all you want but you have to apply it to every religion all over the world. There are retrograde Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Jews and people of all other faiths. Just because somebody calls themselves a member of a specific faith does that mean that they are spiritual on any level whatsoever, it's just a concept that they were born into, whether they embrace it or not, and practice the precepts, is on them.

Very true, but not only have they lost touch with reality, the social media obsessed crowd seems to have lost touch with ethics, morality, and basic decency. There's so much nonsense on tiktok that I think it just causes people to lose their sense of humanity.

I have a dear friend, who told me a great story. He said his mom was in Times Square during the celebrations after WWII ended. The soldiers were returning home, to a heroes welcome, which they deserved. She told her son that she was standing around, greeting the soldiers as they paraded by. She said she was kissed, hugged, and fondled by hundreds of soldiers. She said she probably had 800 guys put their tongues in her mouth that day. She told her son it was the best day of her life, and possibly the highlight of her life. Nearly all of the women in the crowd were kissing hundreds of complete strangers. Nobody thought it was the slightest bit inappropriate. How things have changed! Due to this whole movement, relationships, and friendships between men and women have been changed. I know very few guys in the US who are getting any action since this movement started. They are finding it hard to even date a gal, in a normal manner, as things have gone dangerously out of control. Here, I do not see that happening. The cultural differences allow the women here to be a greater version of themselves. They are not afraid to manifest the dignity within femininity. I think most Thai women have looked at Me Too, and have thoroughly rejected it, as they realize that their power comes from their femininity unlike women in the West, and they embrace their femininity and use it to great effect. I realize if you are a Western woman, it is not easy reading this stuff. And certainly this does not apply to everyone, either here or there. Some in the West are just exceptional, and capable to rising against the tide. But, it does apply to most, from my point of view.

You can't do anything with a bank account number. It is on every check. You are being overly paranoid. Being careful is good, being afraid of the dark is not.

Once they say do not disclose this to anyone, you know it is a scam. That is when you say go ahead and do your thing, but I am not cooperating with you imbeciles. See ya! Basic common sense stuff.

These kind of silly programs proclamations and declarations are intended only for the most naive amongst the population. Who else would buy something like this? All of a sudden a governor announces that they're going to go after influential figures? Is he referring to corrupt army generals? Is he referring to ministers in the current administration? How about murderous sons of billionaires? Who exactly is he referring to, when this goon says "influential figures"? And why would the police change course after 90 years of absolute complicity?

The public urges government assistance in tackling air pollution. If you goons were not bought and paid for by big agra, the burning would stop. It is your compromised nature and your unwillingness to put up a good fight, that is the major cause of the air apocalypse we are facing. People are dying and suffering in hospitals on your watch, and their blood is on your hands. You are cowards. You are incompetents. You deserve to be ousted with a vengeance. How Chiang Mai became the world’s most polluted city- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/12/how-chiang-mai-became-the-worlds-most-polluted-city At least one NGO is calling it what it is. Field burning, not forest fires is the main cause of bad air here.

He is the same. Sold out and ethically bankrupt. The recent events are worthy of a mass funeral. Thailand might have been the tiger of SE Asia a decade or so ago, having been the 22nd largest economy in the world, but those days are long gone. So, I would say it would be safe to refer to Thailand as an up and coming country, post Covid. I would not be surprised to see Thailand in 75th place in terms of GDP, 20 years from now. There is absolutely no doubt the nation is moving backwards, on at least a dozen levels. And unless a dynamic leader like Thanathorn or Pita comes along, as is allowed to lead, the great tiger will continue to devolve into a whiny little street cat. For now, its future has been stolen once again by the army thieves and goons. The army is no doubt the enemy of the people, and so is the new stooge PM. The recent election shows that the people are both sick of being led by highly ignorant dinosaurs, with no interest in progress, and are interested in smart, young folks, who are serious, accomplished, capable of change, and interested in insuring that Thailand has a good future. Pita was exactly what this nation needs, at this point in time. However, he was too progressive, and the goons had to stop him, in the name of regression. Go ahead and stick with regressive conservative policies, resist change and progress at all costs, and run your nation into the ground.

It is basic human nature to rescue someone in distress. So, what is up with these fools, who stood by while this woman drowned? From her mother: What hurt her most was hearing someone say, “Let her drown. She’s seeking attention. Let her drown first, then call the rescue team.” Who are these heartless creeps? Who raised these people?

A declining population is the least of Thailand's problems right now. How about little in the way of good education available for kids. The extreme sanitization of Thai society, the elimination of anything that resembles character, the willful destruction of the nightlife, and the tired, insincere, increasingly fake purity campaigns. The continued environmental destruction and worsening air quality, coupled with no intent of effort to fix anything. The worsening dependence on China. Will Thailand eventually be a communist colony? The insistence on the part of the rich and elite to keep the common man down, and to continue with anemic and non-visionary leadership, that continues to move the country backwards at an alarming page. I could go on.

You bring up some valid points, there is no doubt that change and demographic shifts can be painful, but I think overall it will be a very positive thing. I personally think the biggest problem this planet faces right now is over population, it diminishes the quality of life for everyone except the 1%.

Absolutely correct, he's completely off his rocker and he needs to make a change quickly, if he's living here in Thailand, he definitely needs to find another spot to live. PremiumLane does not deserve Thailand and virtually everything he says about the place is untrue. There are some incidents here and there, but statistically speaking the violence here against foreigners is extremely low. Someone needs to get a real life.

The really big searing question is why aren't those protesters, and millions more, protesting about a stolen government, a stolen election, and the absolute spurning of the will of the people?

This is fascinating that this was announced by the same guy who participated in a historic sabotage of Thai nightlife and the tourism industry. I guess somebody's gotten in his ear, perhaps they never anticipated that the loss would be so staggering. Frankly, it is impossible to know what these goons are thinking.

All bets are off when you land awkwardly from 10 ft in the air on a hard packed surface. It would be very easy to break your back or your neck or hit your head and die instantly. Elephant riding is not a safe thing to do, and there's really no reason why this should ever even be offered.

There should be a fairly simple way for people like this to simply be put to death, if not by the judicial system then in an extra judicial fashion. There are some acts that people commit in life, that amount to self-revocation of the right to consume oxygen.

I'm totally supportive of the death penalty, if there is absolute proof of the crime, and multiple eyewitnesses. In a situation like that there is absolutely no reason to keep a serial killer, mass shooter, or serial rapist alive. Why should the state pay for it? What needs to happen is for the judicial system to be reformed in such a way that the trials are carried out quickly, and the penalties are applied rapidly, once judgment is pronounced the perpetrator is dead within 30 days. Just get it donenand keep the process simple. The tragedy in the US is that the appeal system is completely ridiculous, and it can take 30 or 40 years to carry out a capital punishment, if it's carried out at all. I've seen numbers in California in excess of 50 million dollars to carry out one death penalty, it's absolutely insane and symptomatic of a completely broken judicial system.

There are many herbs that you can use to help regulate your cholesterol levels. Sesamin is a great supplement and it's easily available in Thailand on Lazada. Also cooking oil is absolutely critical, rice bran, olive or sunflower have relatively high flash points and help to keep your cholesterol levels low. If you're cooking with standard cooking oil like soybean, palm oil and canola your cholesterol levels are going to be higher and you're likely going to be less healthy.

You do make a good point, even if you fight back against locals, and win the fight, you've lost the fight. And if his buddies join in then you've lost the fight, so there's really no situation where you going to truly win a battle fighting the locals. Fortunately in all the years that I've been here I've run into very few violent Thai people, in contrast I have run into a lot of violent people in America.

Yeah, I understand what you're saying and you're right, but it's the total rate of birth that is creating the solution, not the problem. It is a wonderful thing for humanity, it's a wonderful thing for the planet, it's a wonderful thing on almost every level if the population starts declining. A higher population means a lower quality of life for everyone.

My own personal experience, the experience of many others, and a discussion with one of the consulate workers that I was able to get an honest opinion from way back when. I also had some contact with someone at the state department and he said the same thing, as well as an immigration attorney.