While they're changing doctrine, how about female priests? That could potentially increase their numbers by 50%.
Sometimes change is forced on the powers that be. Galileo springs to mind. They didn't like the idea of a Helio-Centric universe, but once science got it figured out, they had little choice but to change.
Adapt or die also comes to mind.
If this keeps up, you'll simply speed up the death of all brick and mortar stores and further kill your dwindling retail markets.
Following this to the logical conclusion, if the Brick and Mortar stores are doomed, there will be NO stores left to tax. Taxation will HAVE to come from the online stores. More likely, there will be some ratio of online business to traditional store-front business. Lets say it settles out at 80%. Are the tax collectors ever going to be satisfied with a 20% cut of the sales pie? I don't think so.
Like radio, movies, television, news, music and other content based 'media' before it, the Internet's domination by government and corporate entities is almost a forgone conclusion. It is amazing how long it has remained 'free' for such a 'long' time. I say almost a forgone conclusion only because there are so many advocates that want it to remain free. Another factor that has kept the Internet free is the fact that it isn't under the domain of a single country (or affiliated group of countries).
Governments will play the public hysteria card and legislate the Internet to death. Soon ISP's will require governmental licenses. Routers will have to be certificated to join the net.
Corporations will either buy the Internet or use lobbying to force governments to make providers comply.
Oh, sure, another Internet will spring up that bypasses the Officially Sanctioned Internet. An Independent Internet. But as time goes on, more and more nefarious users will flood the second insecure Internet to the point that most of the content will be illegal and/or immoral enough for the world to come together to put an end to it. At that point only those truly wanting to avoid scrutiny will use the 'free' Internet and the Official Internet will be a sanitized Governmental brainwashing and advertising opiate pipe to the masses (just like news, tv and movies)
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While they're changing doctrine, how about female priests? That could potentially increase their numbers by 50%. Sometimes change is forced on the powers that be. Galileo springs to mind. They didn't like the idea of a Helio-Centric universe, but once science got it figured out, they had little choice but to change. Adapt or die also comes to mind.
If this keeps up, you'll simply speed up the death of all brick and mortar stores and further kill your dwindling retail markets.
Following this to the logical conclusion, if the Brick and Mortar stores are doomed, there will be NO stores left to tax. Taxation will HAVE to come from the online stores. More likely, there will be some ratio of online business to traditional store-front business. Lets say it settles out at 80%. Are the tax collectors ever going to be satisfied with a 20% cut of the sales pie? I don't think so.
Like radio, movies, television, news, music and other content based 'media' before it, the Internet's domination by government and corporate entities is almost a forgone conclusion. It is amazing how long it has remained 'free' for such a 'long' time. I say almost a forgone conclusion only because there are so many advocates that want it to remain free. Another factor that has kept the Internet free is the fact that it isn't under the domain of a single country (or affiliated group of countries).
Governments will play the public hysteria card and legislate the Internet to death. Soon ISP's will require governmental licenses. Routers will have to be certificated to join the net.
Corporations will either buy the Internet or use lobbying to force governments to make providers comply.
Oh, sure, another Internet will spring up that bypasses the Officially Sanctioned Internet. An Independent Internet. But as time goes on, more and more nefarious users will flood the second insecure Internet to the point that most of the content will be illegal and/or immoral enough for the world to come together to put an end to it. At that point only those truly wanting to avoid scrutiny will use the 'free' Internet and the Official Internet will be a sanitized Governmental brainwashing and advertising opiate pipe to the masses (just like news, tv and movies)