Kenya and Germany on Polygamy

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, nuclearfuels said:

True. 

Japan is hoping single women using baby robots will rekindle thier mothering instincts and prompt them to marry instead of remain single, living the dream/nightmare of working instead of raising kids as a homemaker

Asia badly needs feminism as applied to the marriage relationship (some of them have some of the other aspects of feminism). Many Japanese (and other Asian women) are making a rational choice if the choice is between a career or being a “wait on hand and foot” wife and mother with little paternal support.

I do not want to denigrate the old worldwide housewife/homemaker model of family too much. Arguing it was a form of bondage in the past is going too far. The reality is that keeping a house clean, cooking, and raising even one or two children was more then a full time job in the past. Modern conveniences have eroded the role considerably. It does not take hours to prepare a meal. Laundry can be done while doing something else. Almost no one makes their kids clothing. Not being around the kids all day does not work well either and the fall in real wages means a two income household is required in many cases. We need to reinvent the family paradigm and get a new economic paradigm that helps people raise families and allows for happiness in that life.

Oh, and we need to follow the counsel of President Young and kill the worldwide growing wealth gap that exacerbates the need for so much income before it explodes in chaos and violence.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

1 hour ago, nuclearfuels said:

Not sure what you're really asking here.

THe same process that leads to babies here, leads to babies there.

If more adults pursue that process in those places, the probability of more babies as a result is of a higher likelihood.

THanks Moderators for not (yet) banning me from this thread. I am trying.

Yes, but how does polygamy help at all? My understanding is that women in polygamy historically have produced less off-spring than women in monogamous relationships. Is it your premise that Japan is teeming with young women eager for children, but the Japanese men are shunning marriage and children?

[Robert F. Smith]

16 hours ago, Calm said:

From what I see in Asia media, single mothers are still stigmatized, but I am guessing giving the history there, second or more wives would be viewed as second class, so many women wouldn't see polygamous marriage as that useful.

Women and men apparently are just not interested in having children in Japan and in Europe.  Polygamy wouldn't change anything.

[The Nehor]

3 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Yes, but how does polygamy help at all? My understanding is that women in polygamy historically have produced less off-spring than women in monogamous relationships. Is it your premise that Japan is teeming with young women eager for children, but the Japanese men are shunning marriage and children?

Both genders are putting off marriage. The men are still expected to support a family but many are in no position to in their 20s or even their 30s. Add in that the torturous (by western standards) work schedule leaves little time to try to find a spouse and there is little surprise no one is marrying. The number of Japanese men seeking marriage has fallen precipitously. The same is true of women but to a lesser degree. Women are also socially conditioned to expect a high salary spouse along with other attributes. Japan is also seeing a fall off in traditional masculinity. Many boys are raised almost exclusively by their mothers and have no male role models. Add in the growing Japanese thirst for odd fetishes and weird porn addictions and their weird almost pedophilic obsession with youth (sometimes actually pedophilic) in their entertainment and their pornography and it is a perfect storm of messed up.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

I can understand the lack of desire to marry if the media portrayal of the domination of the wife by the husband is accurate.  They will likely need to shift the culture some if they really want to make a difference.

My wife has family there and we lived there for six months many years ago. This portrayal is not accurate at all for anyone we met under 40 and some of the older generation as well. Still trying to figure out how polygamy is related here. 

[The Nehor]

3 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Women and men apparently are just not interested in having children in Japan and in Europe.  Polygamy wouldn't change anything.

It is possible that polygamy could help increase birth rate a little more women still want marriage but they are now so westernized in their conceptions of romantic love that it would not be appealing. You might see some variant of the American sugar daddy/sugar baby phenomenon with kids thrown in but that would cause at least as many problems as it would solve.

It can be argued that Europe is on the right track. Japan has gone too far the other way. Continued exponential population growth is unsustainable in Europe. Accepting that does mean they need a new model for elder care. The United States still has plenty of room to grow, problem being that no one wants to go to that room. People want to live near LA or San Francisco or Seattle or New York. Not many want to go live in North Dakota. Then again, if climate change starts hitting in a big way the people in North Dakota will be the ones laughing.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

5 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Both genders are putting off marriage. The men are still expected to support a family but many are in no position to in their 20s or even their 30s. Add in that the torturous (by western standards) work schedule leaves little time to try to find a spouse and there is little surprise no one is marrying. The number of Japanese men seeking marriage has fallen precipitously. The same is true of women but to a lesser degree. Women are also socially conditioned to expect a high salary spouse along with other attributes. Japan is also seeing a fall off in traditional masculinity. Many boys are raised almost exclusively by their mothers and have no male role models. Add in the growing Japanese thirst for odd fetishes and weird porn addictions and their weird almost pedophilic obsession with youth (sometimes actually pedophilic) in their entertainment and their pornography and it is a perfect storm of messed up.

So you agree that the OP suggestion that polygamy would help the birth rate in Japan and Europe is ludicrous?

[Bernard Gui]

2 hours ago, bluebell said:

You might not, but I think that many people in this day and age would find the notion of having dozens of wives and concubines who pretty much had to do whatever the husband decided and who were basically the same as property to be distasteful.  

Aren’t those separate issues...plurality and property/abuse? Lots of men and women have multiple partners and children sans legal marriage. 

Edited July 2, 2019 by Bernard Gui

[The Nehor]

26 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

So you agree that the OP suggestion that polygamy would help the birth rate in Japan and Europe is ludicrous?

Without massive social and cultural changes to adapt to it.....maybe. Polyandry may be the only option for China though. It will be interesting to see what happens there over the next few years. China is two cultures that have never integrated and facing a social crisis. Civil conflict and even war are not out of the question.

[Robert F. Smith]

37 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

It is possible that polygamy could help increase birth rate a little more women still want marriage but they are now so westernized in their conceptions of romantic love that it would not be appealing. You might see some variant of the American sugar daddy/sugar baby phenomenon with kids thrown in but that would cause at least as many problems as it would solve.

It can be argued that Europe is on the right track. Japan has gone too far the other way. Continued exponential population growth is unsustainable in Europe. Accepting that does mean they need a new model for elder care. The United States still has plenty of room to grow, problem being that no one wants to go to that room. People want to live near LA or San Francisco or Seattle or New York. Not many want to go live in North Dakota. Then again, if climate change starts hitting in a big way the people in North Dakota will be the ones laughing.

In all of the places you just noted, the birthrate is below replacement.  In Europe, the influx of foreign peoples with high birthrate will help quite a bit.  Japan is only grudgingly allowing in some foreigners, and perhaps the Japanese people will go the way of the Ainu.  The USA depends on immigration to provide enough workers to keep us old folks getting our Social Security.

[The Nehor]

16 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

In all of the places you just noted, the birthrate is below replacement.  In Europe, the influx of foreign peoples with high birthrate will help quite a bit.  Japan is only grudgingly allowing in some foreigners, and perhaps the Japanese people will go the way of the Ainu.  The USA depends on immigration to provide enough workers to keep us old folks getting our Social Security.

Yeah, but Europe is only barely below replacement.

Japan needs to overcome its deep racism.

Social Security is becoming a Ponzi scheme and it is just a question of what generation will be the one to pay up. Originally it was designed to lower unemployment and was more of a lottery. It got the elderly out of the work force to help with high unemployment. General mandatory public schooling was instituted around the same time and for the same reason. Too many workers so wages were too low. Get the elderly and the kids out of the work force and we can get a living wage.

Now that we have expanded the human lifespan we need to rethink the whole thing. Social Security is not enough to live on and many either cannot or have not saved anything. This should fix a lot of our employment problems. A large population of subsistence consumers  who need a lot of healthcare and basic commodities but do not work will do that. The value of labor should rise though I suspect the politicians of the Right will shift gears and open the floodgates to immigration before that goes far.

Immigration is also just a tourniquet. Long term you cannot continue population growth ad infinitum to support a growing economically non contributing aging population. There are a few wild cards that might reverse the trend. The good one is technology. If we can continue to automate labor we can support more for less and outpace the need for labor. It does mean we will need to rethink our current model of capitalism. If we can produce what we need with minimal labor the value of labor falls and we end in a dystopia with a wealthy upper class holding on to power as they control the means of production but are crippled by the have nots who cannot buy anything because their labor is not needed. That way lies conflict. Another option is to economically adapt and focus our culture so that we continue to work but we redefine work from creating necessities to improving the human condition. A more Star Trek future,

The darker path is some kind of catastrophe. The most likely is the worst case scenarios of climate change. Others involve conventional famines, pandemics (natural or biowarfare), or other events that leave us dealing with massive resource shortages. Then we go to Hobbes for how to proceed: “When all the world is overcharged with inhabitants, then the last remedy of all is war, which provideth for every man, by victory or death.”

[longview]

26 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Social Security is becoming a Ponzi scheme and it is just a question of what generation will be the one to pay up. Originally it was designed to lower unemployment and was more of a lottery. It got the elderly out of the work force to help with high unemployment.

Actually it was a taxing scheme.  In 1935 when the Social Security Act was passed, retirement age was set at age 65 but life expectancy was lower.  In 1940 life expectancy was 62 for white men and 52 for black men.

It would not have needed to be a Ponzi scheme.  If the SS Trust Fund had been allowed to accrue interest with conservative instruments (Treasury or whatever) and safeguarded from filching by the Congress and operated on an actuarially sound basis, it would have functioned as designed without concern for varying sizes of succeeding generations (it would always remain in the black).  Not even the "Baby Boom" generation would have caused it to break into a sweat.  In fact, the payout for retirees would have been TRIPLE.

[The Nehor]

39 minutes ago, longview said:

Actually it was a taxing scheme.  In 1935 when the Social Security Act was passed, retirement age was set at age 65 but life expectancy was lower.  In 1940 life expectancy was 62 for white men and 52 for black men.

It would not have needed to be a Ponzi scheme.  If the SS Trust Fund had been allowed to accrue interest with conservative instruments (Treasury or whatever) and safeguarded from filching by the Congress and operated on an actuarially sound basis, it would have functioned as designed without concern for varying sizes of succeeding generations (it would always remain in the black).  Not even the "Baby Boom" generation would have caused it to break into a sweat.  In fact, the payout for retirees would have been TRIPLE.

It would have lasted longer but not forever. There are also the negative economic consequences of having that large of a fund collecting interest for decades (almost a century now). It would have lowered the demand and thus the interest on Treasury bonds. There are economic reasons why a nation having reasonable debt is a good idea. Only a very few very small nations have no debt and they can invest in the government bonds of other nations without a big economic impact. Most of them are not fully independent and some do not even have their own currency. I would agree that US debt is excessive but the Democrats say almost nothing about it and increase spending and the Republicans are only deficit hawks when they are out of power and when they are in power they lower taxes and increase spending. The threat is often overstated though. US Treasury bonds are in very high demand and the interest rate on them is very low. Some rail about how how our debt is owned by enemy nations but so what? Their only threat is not to buy them again when their current bonds mature. Big deal. We can sell them elsewhere. When there is no where else to sell them we will be in trouble but that means the debt is so high that it is macroeconomically stifling the whole world (a long way off) or that the US is in an economic crisis and there is little trust in the government in which case it will just be one of a whole host of catastrophic problems.

The primary political and economic goal of Social Security though was to lower the labor pool. Yeah, most people were expected not to live to collect. That is why I called it a lottery. On the bright side current health trends may reverse life expectancy. Now if we could just arrest health care costs. I say start with the pharmaceuticals industry. They keep whining about how they need to charge more to keep innovation going while conveniently ignoring that almost all new drugs are developed primarily through government grant money. In other words the taxpayers pay for all the tedious and expensive research into disease and treatment. Then a private company grabs it, tweak it a little, and patents it and charges absurd markups. A nice scam if you can get in on it.

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, The Nehor said:

.................................. There are a few wild cards that might reverse the trend. The good one is technology. If we can continue to automate labor we can support more for less and outpace the need for labor. It does mean we will need to rethink our current model of capitalism. If we can produce what we need with minimal labor the value of labor falls and we end in a dystopia with a wealthy upper class holding on to power as they control the means of production but are crippled by the have nots who cannot buy anything because their labor is not needed. That way lies conflict. Another option is to economically adapt and focus our culture so that we continue to work but we redefine work from creating necessities to improving the human condition. A more Star Trek future,

The darker path is some kind of catastrophe. The most likely is the worst case scenarios of climate change. Others involve conventional famines, pandemics (natural or biowarfare), or other events that leave us dealing with massive resource shortages. Then we go to Hobbes for how to proceed: “When all the world is overcharged with inhabitants, then the last remedy of all is war, which provideth for every man, by victory or death.”

The bad one is artificial intelligence (AI), which will likely decide to get rid of the carbon-based life-forms infesting this planet.  Meantime, I won't live long enough to see the end of Social Security (2035), nor the insufferably high heat and massive ocean rise of global warming, nor the next overwhelming solar flare which fries all our digital systems.  Let's see if the kids can adapt quickly enough.

On the other hand, a good supervolcano eruption would stop global warming in its tracks.  Or the strike of a large asteroid.  Keep your fingers crossed, good buddy.  

[Glenn101]

10 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I have no problem with the multiple wives of Abraham and Jacob.  However, Isaac was monogamous, and Moses probably so (Cush being Midian, and his Cushite wife being Zipporah).

That does not seem logical, i.e. that the Cushite woman spoken in Numbers 12:1 was Zipporah. I do not recall Midian being equated with Cush. Midian=Arabian peninsula, Cush=Africa. In any event, why would Miriam and Aaron be criticizing Moses about a marriage that had happened maybe forty years earlier? It is possible though that Zipporah had died before Moses married this second time, although her death is not recorded in the Bible. So that is an open question. Fifty-fifty chance of being right or wrong.

Glenn

[longview]

44 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

That does not seem logical, i.e. that the Cushite woman spoken in Numbers 12:1 was Zipporah. I do not recall Midian being equated with Cush. Midian=Arabian peninsula, Cush=Africa. In any event, why would Miriam and Aaron be criticizing Moses about a marriage that had happened maybe forty years earlier? It is possible though that Zipporah had died before Moses married this second time, although her death is not recorded in the Bible. So that is an open question. Fifty-fifty chance of being right or wrong.

Glenn

From the internet:

"However, prior to Moses leaving Egypt, the Jewish historian Josephus points out that he had been a great general who led Pharaoh's army to victory over the kingdom of Ethiopia, which had conquered most of Egypt. While attacking the Ethiopian capital city, Tharbis, the daughter of the king of Ethiopia, became enamoured of Moses, seeing his valiant exploits, and bargained to deliver the city into his hands if he would but marry her. Moses agreed, and she fulfilled her promise -- and Moses married her, and fulfilled the obligation of a husband to her, causing her to become pregnant (Josephus, Antiquities, II, x)" 

I always thought Zipporah was a daughter of Jethro, Priest of Midian?

[The Nehor]

4 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The bad one is artificial intelligence (AI), which will likely decide to get rid of the carbon-based life-forms infesting this planet.  Meantime, I won't live long enough to see the end of Social Security (2035), nor the insufferably high heat and massive ocean rise of global warming, nor the next overwhelming solar flare which fries all our digital systems.  Let's see if the kids can adapt quickly enough.

On the other hand, a good supervolcano eruption would stop global warming in its tracks.  Or the strike of a large asteroid.  Keep your fingers crossed, good buddy.  

So would Pakistan and India going hot. 

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, Glenn101 said:

That does not seem logical, i.e. that the Cushite woman spoken in Numbers 12:1 was Zipporah. I do not recall Midian being equated with Cush. Midian=Arabian peninsula, Cush=Africa. In any event, why would Miriam and Aaron be criticizing Moses about a marriage that had happened maybe forty years earlier? It is possible though that Zipporah had died before Moses married this second time, although her death is not recorded in the Bible. So that is an open question. Fifty-fifty chance of being right or wrong.

Glenn

 

18 minutes ago, longview said:

......................

I always thought Zipporah was a daughter of Jethro, Priest of Midian?

Correct.  However, not everything termed Cush need have been Nubian, e.g., Kush could refer to the Kuššu “Cassites, Cosseans,” of the west Iranian hills (central Asian Khotan; cf. Genesis 2:13, 10:6-8),[1] and the Midianite League included Kūš(an), and Moses’ Cushite wife was probably Zipporah, the Aaronides doing the complaining about it (cf. Numbers 12, Jeremiah 36:14, Zephaniah 1:1, II Samuel 18:21-32, Psalm 7:title).[2]

[1] G. Von Rad, Genesis, 79-80.

[2] F. M. Cross, CMHE, 204; cf. Graves & Patai, Hebrew Myths (1966), 127-128.

[Glenn101]

10 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

 

Correct.  However, not everything termed Cush need have been Nubian, e.g., Kush could refer to the Kuššu “Cassites, Cosseans,” of the west Iranian hills (central Asian Khotan; cf. Genesis 2:13, 10:6-8),[1] and the Midianite League included Kūš(an), and Moses’ Cushite wife was probably Zipporah, the Aaronides doing the complaining about it (cf. Numbers 12, Jeremiah 36:14, Zephaniah 1:1, II Samuel 18:21-32, Psalm 7:title).[2]

[1] G. Von Rad, Genesis, 79-80.

[2] F. M. Cross, CMHE, 204; cf. Graves & Patai, Hebrew Myths (1966), 127-128.

Back to my point on the complaining. Why was Aaron and Miriam complaining about Moses marrying Zipporah maybe forty years after the fact? It would seem more logical to me that this marriage was something new. A Cushite being of the lineage of Ham might have been something Aaron and Miriam would see as an error on the part of Moses and give them pause to criticize him.

Glenn

[Robert F. Smith]

19 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

Back to my point on the complaining. Why was Aaron and Miriam complaining about Moses marrying Zipporah maybe forty years after the fact? It would seem more logical to me that this marriage was something new. A Cushite being of the lineage of Ham might have been something Aaron and Miriam would see as an error on the part of Moses and give them pause to criticize him................

The Pharaoh of Egypt was supposed to be of the lineage of Ham as well, but was not Nubian or Cushite.  Indeed, this is referred to as "the blood of the Canaanites," and "all the Egyptians" are descended from that Hamitic-Canaanite lineage, and that has been verified by DNA testing -- https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15694#f4 ;   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeogenetics_of_the_Near_East ....“ancient Egyptians shared more ancestry with Near Easterners than present-day Egyptians, who received additional sub-Saharan admixture in more recent times.”

Quote

Abraham 1:21-27 "Now this king of Egypt was a descendant from the loins of Ham, and was a partaker of the blood of the Canaanites by birth.  From this descent sprang all the Egyptians, and thus the blood of the Canaanites was preserved in the land. . . .  and thus, from Ham, sprang that race which preserved the curse in the land....... Pharaoh, the eldest son of Egyptus, the daughter of Ham, and it was after the manner of the government of Ham, which was patriarchal.  Pharaoh, being a righteous man, established his kingdom and judged his people wisely and justly all his days, ............ Noah, his father, who blessed him with the blessings of the earth, and with the blessings of wisdom, but cursed him as pertaining to the Priesthood.  ..... being of that lineage by which he could not have the right of Priesthood, notwithstanding the Pharaohs would fain claim it from Noah, through Ham, ........"

Was this what Aaron & Miriam were complaining about?  God didn't seem to give them the time of day on their complaint.  Moreover, Ephraim & Manasseh are both descended from that same Hamitic lineage through their Egyptian mother Asenath, daughter of Potiphera, priest of Heliopolis (On, Gen 41:50-52), the temple of the Sun-god Re.  In fact, Joseph was the Prime Minister of Pharaoh, who gave Asenath to him as a prestige gift.

So, what does that do for all us Ephraimites in Utah?  Or for Father Lehi and his Manassite sons?  Its complicated.  😎

[The Nehor]

31 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

So, what does that do for all us Ephraimites in Utah?  Or for Father Lehi and his Manassite sons?  Its complicated.  😎

Means we should have been hit with the Priesthood Ban if the traditional explanation for it was true.

[longview]

31 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Was this what Aaron & Miriam were complaining about?  God didn't seem to give them the time of day on their complaint.  Moreover, Ephraim & Manasseh are both descended from that same Hamitic lineage through their Egyptian mother Asenath, daughter of Potiphera, priest of Heliopolis (On, Gen 41:50-52), the temple of the Sun-god Re.  In fact, Joseph was the Prime Minister of Pharaoh, who gave Asenath to him as a prestige gift.

So, what does that do for all us Ephraimites in Utah?  Or for Father Lehi and his Manassite sons?  Its complicated.  😎

It can get really complicated.  Is it not true that different genealogical lines have swept into power in Egypt back and forth over the entire history?  At the time of Joseph, son of Jacob, the rulers were black people (the good guys) who possibly were from some powerful kingdoms in Africa.  The Pharaoh (and his administration) who knew not Joseph at the time of Moses (the bad guys) probably were descended from Shemite shepherds from the east (abhorred by the earlier Pharaohs).

Joseph definitely had the Birthright (rights to the Priesthood).  No question that Ephraim then got the Birthright.  What does that tell us?

[Glenn101]

3 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The Pharaoh of Egypt was supposed to be of the lineage of Ham as well, but was not Nubian or Cushite.  Indeed, this is referred to as "the blood of the Canaanites," and "all the Egyptians" are descended from that Hamitic-Canaanite lineage, and that has been verified by DNA testing -- https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15694#f4 ;   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeogenetics_of_the_Near_East ....“ancient Egyptians shared more ancestry with Near Easterners than present-day Egyptians, who received additional sub-Saharan admixture in more recent times.”

Was this what Aaron & Miriam were complaining about?  God didn't seem to give them the time of day on their complaint.  Moreover, Ephraim & Manasseh are both descended from that same Hamitic lineage through their Egyptian mother Asenath, daughter of Potiphera, priest of Heliopolis (On, Gen 41:50-52), the temple of the Sun-god Re.  In fact, Joseph was the Prime Minister of Pharaoh, who gave Asenath to him as a prestige gift.

So, what does that do for all us Ephraimites in Utah?  Or for Father Lehi and his Manassite sons?  Its complicated.  😎

Robert, Your comments are informative, but shoot past my question which was the late date of the complaints against Moses for having married a Cushite woman. This would seem to be complaints against a recent event rather than something which had occurred maybe forty years ago.

Glenn

[Robert F. Smith]

26 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

Robert, Your comments are informative, but shoot past my question which was the late date of the complaints against Moses for having married a Cushite woman. This would seem to be complaints against a recent event rather than something which had occurred maybe forty years ago.........

Depends on how late you place the final redaction of the text.  If you place it as late as the post-Exilic period when the Jews were ardently opposed to any an all micegenation, then of course they might have put such words in the mouth of Aaron and Miriam, but that is just speculation.  However, with King David being part Moabite, that seems silly.

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, longview said:

It can get really complicated.  Is it not true that different genealogical lines have swept into power in Egypt back and forth over the entire history?  At the time of Joseph, son of Jacob, the rulers were black people (the good guys) who possibly were from some powerful kingdoms in Africa. 

King Piankhi/Paanchi/Piye the Nubian did not come into power in Egypt until long after the time of Joseph, Moses, David, et al., and the genetics do not support the notion of sub-Saharan DNA entering Egypt in any significant numbers until after the Graeco-Roman period.  Thus, despite this or that house of nobles taking control in Egypt, this did not mean that the genetic lines included Black Africans.  Ancient Egypt is over before that happens.  The Book of Abraham represents an idealized version of history, the final form of which comes during the Graeco-Roman period.

3 hours ago, longview said:

The Pharaoh (and his administration) who knew not Joseph at the time of Moses (the bad guys) probably were descended from Shemite shepherds from the east (abhorred by the earlier Pharaohs).

The so-called "Shepherd Kings" or Hyksos clearly irked the native Egyptians by dominating them for awhile, but we do not know who the Pharaoh was who knew not Joseph.  We do not know his ethnicity.

3 hours ago, longview said:

Joseph definitely had the Birthright (rights to the Priesthood).  No question that Ephraim then got the Birthright.  What does that tell us?

You tell me.  😎