Do You Have a Granddaughter Living in Thailand? How Do You Envision Her Life in 2043, 2073, and in 2103? Do You Imagine Her in Thailand or Abroad…By Then?

[GammaGlobulin]

Good Morning Folks,

(and I hope you are enjoying this fine Sunday morning)

 

This Sunday Morning’s Topic is a question I often think about.

What about you?

Do you spend a lot of time thinking about this question, too?

 

This must be one of the most profound questions of our time, it seems to me.

 

I think that we can reasonably expect that, actuarially speaking, many of our grandchildren today will live to see the turn of the century.

 

Do you have any thoughts concerning your granddaughter's life and wellbeing twenty, fifty, and eighty years from now? Do you think she will still be living in Thailand? Or, might she leave and emigrate to a different country? And what are some of the other related questions you often ask yourself during periods of reflection throughout your day?

 

Although I do not have a grandchild, I still, very often, and probably even on a daily basis, spend much time in contemplation considering what the lives of today’s children will be like as they reach these milestones along the way to the year 2103.

 

Why do I concern myself with thoughts such as these?

 

For me, it is because I see children and parents, almost every day, as they struggle to prepare for our future. Mostly, I work with Chinese kids and their parents, and I know at a fairly fundamental level just how difficult it is, and just how hard they struggle, to prepare for the years and decades ahead.

 

For the average Chinese child, aged 10, she must look forward to endless standardized exams, and the ever-increasing pressure of attaining success, at least enough success to live up to the dreams of two sets of grandparents, her parents, and sometimes even a Tiger Mom.

 

A Thai child, aged 10, will see the turn of the century, in all probability. What do I base this prediction on? Well, I went to the actuarial data available from the World Bank website: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.FE.IN?end=2021&locations=TH&start=2010&view=chart     And I played around with this really neat actuarial computer. 

 

Here is the resulting graph for Thai females born between the years 2010 and 2021 (and feel free to go to this site and use the computer yourself by plugging in different criteria if you wish).

 

 

You know…When you get to be as old as I am, 77 years does NOT seem a long time, and 77 years from now, our grandchildren will enter a new century. Please do not worry yourselves; I am nowhere near becoming 77…yet.

 

I mean, I don’t want to freak you guys out or nothing, but…the next century is just around the corner, from my perspective.

 

As for me, if I live to be the present-age-of-my-aunt, who is not dead yet, I will live to see the year 2055. Holy Nightmare, Batman!

 

So therefore, I first must figure out what my life in Thailand will be like in the year 2055, even before I can begin to imagine what a granddaughter’s life will be in the year 2103.

 

For sure, I KNOW that I will be in Asia, and, I HOPE that I will be either in Thailand or in Japan. Thailand and Japan are the only places in Asia I may be able to stomach, by the year 2055, in all likelihood.

 

When I think about the year 2055, thirty years hence, I also think about the year 1991, 30 years ago, and that was the year I last set foot on the soil of my Home Country, the year Bill Clinton assumed the office of president.  That year certainly does NOT seem so very long ago, at least to me.

 

Will I even have my wits about me when I turn 103? I can only assume I will, judging by the fact that Noam Chomsky is still smart as a tack at 94.

 

But still, when I consider that our grandchildren today, those now aged 10, will see the turn of the century, it’s almost as unimaginable to me as my grandfather’s daily life when he was a boy, in 1885. 

 

In his case, after returning from the war in 1918, my grandfather worked at the hospital pictured below, training to become an orthopedic surgeon. And that was only about 100 years ago. He once told me that the anesthesiologist would tape a piece of tissue paper to the patient’s upper lip in order to count respirations per minute. They don’t do that in today’s hospitals; I bet.

When I view photos such as this, I am reminded that the lives of our grandchildren will, someday, become just as foreign to us as were the past daily-lives of our grandfathers when they were the age our grandchildren are now. This is freaking me out, Man! And such a convoluted sentence, too!

 

When I think about the studious, diligent, and extremely hard working Chinese students I teach, and when I think about the significant pressure they experience, then I also think that there MUST be a better way to run our World.  There must be.

 

Or, maybe I am just about the only one in Thailand who often thinks along these lines, and dwells upon these thoughts?

 

Now you know why I saved this OP for a Sunday.

It’s just too heavy a question for a weekday.

 

Best regards,

And hoping to still be writing to you in 2055,

 

Yours Truly

 

Please Note:  If ONLY I had a crystal ball, then I would use it now, for all it’s worth.

 

Note2:  And perhaps now is the perfect moment to listen, once again, to this old tune…

 

Edited July 29, 2023 by GammaGlobulin

[FritsSikkink]

I blocked this person, is there any way that I don't have to see these subjects on a daily basis?

[bignok]

Khao Soi

[EVENKEEL]

Actually this seems like the first thread this guy has started that a winner. I have a young one here and grandkids here. Let me ponder the universe and get back.

[KhunLA]

Don't have grandkids, but age gap between daughter & myself, and she could easily have been a grandkid, or great grand kid, if self & offspring had kids at 20 yrs old.

 

What about you?

Do you spend a lot of time thinking about this question, too?

... No

 

Do you have any thoughts concerning your granddaughter's life and wellbeing twenty, fifty, and eighty years from now?

... No, she's pretty savvy, out of Uni, and on her way to early retirement.  Chip of the ol' block.

 

Do you think she will still be living in Thailand? 

... Probably, as quite settled in now @ Krung Thep with some RE holdings, working & self employed.  Till retirement, though by that time, the rest of the world will be a real sh!thole.

 

She'll live in an era of many good & not so good changes.

Good ... should have some amazing medical breakthroughs.  Hopefully allowed, as we all know, it's more profitable to treat illnesses than cure them.

 

... Tech advancement should be amazing, though simply adding to the dumbing down and control of the masses.

 

Bad ... more censorship, more monitoring, more loss of freedoms, and when total digital currency arrives, then  every faucet of their lives will be controlled by Big Brother.

 

UP THE REVOLUTION

Edited July 30, 2023 by KhunLA

[KannikaP]

NO to all your questions.

[KannikaP]

8 hours ago, FritsSikkink said:

I blocked this person, is there any way that I don't have to see these subjects on a daily basis?

And a few more need blocking/ignoring as well.

Some posters will possibly include ME in that category. 555

[worgeordie]

Don't be too hard on him ,I think he is very lonely (only the Herons and Butterflies to talk to)

maybe if he did not post subjects that fly above most of our heads ,and post subjects we can

more easily comprehend and relate to , like women,alcohol ,drugs ,and cars he might have a

better response and even make a few friends ...???? 

 

regards worgeordie 

[BritManToo]

10 hours ago, GammaGlobulin said:

Although I do not have a grandchild, I still, very often, and probably even on a daily basis, spend much time in contemplation considering what the lives of today’s children will be like as they reach these milestones along the way to the year 2103.

Stop thinking about other people's children.

Next you'll want to be touching them.

[GammaGlobulin]

7 hours ago, EVENKEEL said:

Actually this seems like the first thread this guy has started that a winner. I have a young one here and grandkids here. Let me ponder the universe and get back.

I am an introverted guy who prefers solitary contemplation over shouting my thoughts from the rooftops.

You really cannot expect me to share my innermost musings with strangers, except maybe on a blue moon.

 

Also, it has been my impression that very few here wish to have their holidays in Thailand ruined by reading anything serious.

 

My interests are on the serious side.

But, I think I have never failed or disappointed anyone on this forum with my poor attempts to write in a less serious way on TV. Please correct me if I am mistaken.

 

 

[GammaGlobulin]

2 hours ago, BritManToo said:

Stop thinking about other people's children.

Next you'll want to be touching them.

Your pitiful attempt to derail this Topic does not do you justice.

Instead of casting groundless aspersions, why not look yourself in the mirror,

And try to take the plank out of your own eye.

 

 

Edited July 30, 2023 by GammaGlobulin

[GammaGlobulin]

12 hours ago, KhunLA said:

UP THE REVOLUTION

Is that a phrase which is part of the lyrics of the Beatles tune, "Come Together"?

Because, I don't think I have yet fully understood this tune.

Probably, Timothy Leary did not understand it much, either.

And, no doubt Ronald Reagan never listened to it, much.

 

And, yes.

Continued and ongoing loss of freedoms will not change.

 

Anyway, your daughter WILL see the year 2103.
I am convinced of it.

 

 

[GammaGlobulin]

7 hours ago, worgeordie said:

and cars

One of the most appreciated reasons for living in Thailand, at least for me, is that I no longer need to drive myself.

I am still wanted for speeding tickets I received, before leaving the US, in 1978.

When the cops showed up to my home to collect, my brother told them I had left for someplace in Asia, and probably would never return.

That cop was steamin', so it was told to me.

I still have a chuckle, anytime I think about those speeding tickets.

 

So, no car worries for me is a very good thing.

Parking tickets and speeding tickets are a thing of the past.

I hate cars, these days.

And with very good reason.

 

 

 

 

[kickstart]

It is a subject the wife and myself often ask ,the answer ,we think what will people eat ,the average age of a Thai farmer is 55 ,they was a thread running last week about the shortage of milk in the shops ,due to dairy farmers giving up ,cannot make it pay big debt burden ,and more than one farmer has said they children are not interested  in farming they see the parents work 24/7 and still have not a not to show at the end of the day /week/month/year.

So, the grandchildren where will the buy they food will it all be from vertical farms in cities, which some economists forecast more and more people will be livening in deserting the countryside because they are no work.

And what work will they do, will AI have taken over, will they lives be ruled even more by the mobile phone.

Those working they tax rate could be 10 points higher than what is paid now, due to the ageing population, they pensions have got to be paid fpr somehow, or will our grandchildren not get a pension as some economists have said, just live on savings and insurance policies maturing.

Me looking at the crystal ball, as me and the wife have said we do not envy them.

[GammaGlobulin]

8 hours ago, worgeordie said:

drugs

Through my understanding of the Hedonic Treadmill gained while attending university in the 1970s, I realized that drugs were not for me.

 

 

Interestingly, as well, Aldous Huxley spoke of the total impossibility of ever discovering or developing a "benign" psychotropic drug, such as his fictional drug, SOMA. 

 

With this clear knowledge, we can emphatically state that only a fool would take drugs (illicit or licit drugs) in order to feel good, or for relaxation, or for excitement.  Drug taking is just another example, IMHO, of stupid behavior of humans, mostly due to both ignorance and pain, as well as temporary sensation seeking.

 

Hopefully, by the year 2103, most children will live in a world without drugs of this mind-altering nature.

 

Regards,

Gamma

 

Read More about the Hedonic Treadmill, but just an over view, here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill

 

 

 

 

[Lucky Bones]

13 hours ago, EVENKEEL said:

Actually this seems like the first thread this guy has started that a winner. I have a young one here and grandkids here. Let me ponder the universe and get back.

Answer is 42.

Stop pondering?????????

[GammaGlobulin]

9 hours ago, worgeordie said:

Don't be too hard on him ,I think he is very lonely

Since first joining TV, back in July of 2021, I have been impressed by the fact that you are one of the most polite and respectful members of this forum. My guess is that you are not so young, and that you still retain many of the more genteel characteristics of a now bygone era, a time when it was the norm to be civil.

 

And so, I would like to reply to your worry that I might be lonely.

 

In fact, I do not consider myself lonely, and I find that just a five-minute dose of human company is just about all that I need, or can even tolerate, for that matter.

 

When you commented about this idea of loneliness, especially in the present context of this OP, I immediately recalled a book we were assigned in 12th grade by some Old Geezer of a Great Teacher. The name of this book is "The Lonely Crowd":

 

The above image was taken from:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lonely_Crowd

 

I think this book is particularly appropriate for this OP because it insightfully describes middle-class America, and maybe even the UK to some extent, in the 1950s. We KNOW what America was like in the ‘50s because we can more clearly see the 1950s through hindsight. However, we cannot see the present so clearly as the past. And we can predict the future with even much less accuracy.

 

I believe that The Lonely Crowd can help us to have some insight into where we have been, where we are now, and where we might end up, in terms of social change.

 

I will not discuss this book myself because I would prefer to let others do it better than I ever could.

 

So here is some of what has been said about The Lonely Crowd relating to what it can tell us about social change and society and where we are heading (and I will try to obtain a PDF copy of this book and attach it to this or other comments I might make in this OP, in case you or others might like to hear what Reisman has to say):

 

I am actually almost absolutely sure that others reading this OP will enjoy reading The Lonely Crowd because only through a better understanding of our past can we better imagine our not-too-distant future, one which is hurtling towards us faster than some of us would like to admit.

 

Again, I would just like to say that you deserve respect for being respectful and polite, a now-rare commodity in today's mixed-up, shook-up, muddled-up world, indeed.

 

 

 

 

Riesman_Lonely-Crowd.pdf

Edited July 30, 2023 by GammaGlobulin
Adding attachment