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Starvation is usually caused by over-population. Human populations used to be controlled by high infant mortality, low fertility in hard times, etc. Now nothing controls it except birth control, which not everyone can get and not everyone wants.
When there are too many deer in the woods, because of not enough predators, some of them starve.
Nature takes care of keeping things in balance, but we humans interfere with our short-term solutions, leading to long-term dilemmas.
I'll admit you might be right, but I don't think so. When I think of the differences between humans and animals, I think: Well, as a human I might very well have to deal with trivial stresses on a daily basis most animals are blissfully unaware of. As an animal, on the other hand, I deal with dying unpleasantly and likely going through a great deal of dangerous and highly unpleasant circumstances before then. What you seem to be advocating, to me, is the worst of both worlds: no more human cooperation that leads to our security, but our humans minds would make us fully aware of all the horrors about to befall us. Your proposed solution, to me, sounds like worse than extinction, so I don't consider that an option. The closest I'd get to agreeing with that would be mandating limits on childbirths. That would solve just about every problem you're concerned about, without all the barbarity and societal breakdown. I look at it like the worse case scenario possible, worse than extinction, is human beings losing the cooperation that gives us our security. Another factor is that as infant mortality goes down, the amount of children the society has tends to go down too.
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Originally Posted by Good4Nothin
Having more children than you can afford has to be a major cause of poverty. Also being a single mother. Instead of trying to find ways to give them more food, we should try to find ways of preventing unwanted pregnancies.
From what I have read, educated women don't have as many children. So maybe if the whole world is Westernized and educated there will be less poverty. I personally would not want the whole world Westernized, but it might be the only solution to starvation.
Maybe. I definitely agree about the fewer pregnancies. Contraception is one of the greatest inventions the world has ever seen, in my opinion. It's one of the few inventions with almost zero negative consequences, and some wonderful positive consequences. If the world were westernized, that could cause some serious problems of course. It would wreak havoc on global warming. Some people advocate everybody becoming less industrialized...not starving but just using as little as possible, because its the more industrialized nation that cause more pollution and environmental problems.
I tend to look at it like, nations getting less food is going to cause problems too. I know very few people actually starve to death. What usually happens instead, is they just get more ticked off, and if they have children their children are likely to be shorter, less intelligent, and more sickly, which causes further problems.
It's a difficult question. The nice thing about the first world nations is they're capable of researching technologies that could be useful for the more impoverished ones. I suppose, best case, hyper-idealistic scenario, the wealthy nations end up researching lots of environmentally friendly technologies like fusion power, really quickly, and we invent lots of cheap de-salinization techniques before the world runs out of ground water, and this allows the poorer nations to industrialize without harming the environment, and this slows down their population growth, and then we all sing Kum-by-ya together, and there are mermaids, and fairies, and Richard Simmons rides a pony down a rainbow, and there's no way that's going to happen, but I'm hoping we can arrive closely enough to that fate that we don't all collapse into chaos and start eating each other sometime in the next few centuries.
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Originally Posted by Good4Nothin
And people are starving because they don't have an ecological niche. We are completely out of balance with nature, thanks to our cleverness. Giving everyone food would not get rid of starvation. Food can't be distributed fairly and efficiently unless it happens according to normal economic principles. Engineered economic systems have all failed, and always will fail.
I agree...at least so far. That may not be the case forever though. We could be getting some pretty impressive computers in the future that might make powerful central governments that have failed so often in the past actually plausible. Even right now though, we can make food a lot cheaper through GMO's. It'll put farmers out of business and Monsanto's certainly not a saintly company, and there will be downsides, but if we want to provide the world with rapidly adaptable, cheap foods, GMO's are the way to go. We don't need to have worldwide technocracies carefully monitoring food distribution if GMOs get widespread enough. That's my ideal future: most foods being GMO's. I know that'll horrify a lot of people, and not all of them are unreasonable, but I figure that'll be better than mass starvation and the chaos that stems from it. My big concern is ground water. Usually nations that depend on de-salinization get by because they're wealthy, and the world is rapidly running out of ground water. I figure, unless there's massive opposition to GMO's, food won't be a problem, at least not in terms of massive chaos level, for the forseable future. A lack of ground water will inevitably wreak havoc though.
Earlier you mentioned that we should just be letting mother nature take its course. I don't think we should...but I think, at least to some extent, that's just how things are going to be. When resources get scarce people will inevitably panic. I just don't think that should be our goal though. My goal for the species is that we don't collapse into chaos enough that we'd be better off extinct.
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Originally Posted by Harry Diogenes
The gods are immoral.
The gods do not care.
The gods can not do anything.
The gods do not know we exist.
There are no gods.
For all of these possible options, the answer appears to be that we need to solve our problems ourselves.
That's a genuinely sensible way of looking at things. I will say though, that only works if you perceive God as omnipotent and omniscient. I can't think of any gods in any holy texts that seem that way to me. I know lots of people believe in omnipotent and omniscient gods, but I don't know where they're getting that from. I definitely don't see Yahweh that way. Yahweh seems to have gotten surprised a few times, and has plenty of extremely inefficient ways of doing things that I'd think an all-powerful god would be better at working around.
What I don't believe in, most of all, is the perfect-parent kind of god, that is the source of all answers, all knowledge, the fixer of all wrongs, the punisher of all wicked, the savior of all the benevolent...but I think that's what people want the most from their gods, and that's why that outlook is so widespread. I could seriously consider the existence of a flawed, polytheistic god. It's the perfect ones I rank under the impossible label.
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Originally Posted by bryan85
I don't know too much about it. I do know that continuing to have babies when you and your children are already starving isn't real smart.
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Originally Posted by RonkonkomaNative
The answer is both political and religious. There are religions who deny women the choice not to have intercourse to prevent pregnancy. These same ideologies do not believe women should have access to birth control.
Rather than really help, religions seek to control women, children and LGBTQ. They promote division.
"I do know that continuing to have babies when you and your children are already starving isn't real smart."
Bryan's comment is aimed at women who get pregnant when they cannot afford to feed the others. Only women can have babies. It seems a bit unkind.
Yeah...I think those problems are partly based in religion and hyper-traditional cultures that happen to have unhealthy traditions (not all traditions are unhealthy, of course.) Also, some governments are quite screwed up of course. It seems that the higher of standards of living a country gets, the fewer children they have. This seems to be for a few reasons. 1. better education 2. better access to contraception 3. ability to save for retirement so that your retirement plan doesn't need to be your kids. 4. college attendance becomes more of the norm, so having more children becomes much more expensive 5. greater automation means there's just less for uneducated children to do, so parents have them less to help around the house and more as a luxury product 6. religion/culture that encourages large families/lack of contraception.
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Originally Posted by GldnRule
What you really put forth is basically an offshoot of "The Problem of Evil/Suffering", Miss Hepburn.
I have seen it many times on this board. Others will pose "The Problem" and put up pictures of emaciated & starving, or injured children. This does stimulate emotions...but really adds nothing to the "Does A God Exist...and, if so, why not fix this problem?" argument that isn't there without the specific descriptions.
Well, I actually know why people get upset about it...and I've posted it many times: WE ARE MAD AT OURSELVES!!
WE are the "selfish and cruel" that just watch the suffering we COULD do something about, but don't.
How many pairs of shoes do we own, but still buy more? What about something as worthless and frivolously expensive as jewelry...who has some of that? Vacations...for nothing more than our "enjoyment". Two, three, or more, flatscreens. How much money do we spend on sports in this country, both playing and observing? All while people starve...and there is a shortage of research dollars to find the cures for diseases.
I have donated most of the money I've made in my life...but have admited the portion I have retained is an obscene abundance, relative to any reasonable requirement. I bought a whole mountain, and built a huge glass front chalet on it, made from the finest of everything...so I wouldn't be "bothered"...while 3 five cent bowls of rice per day, per person, would save the lives of millions. How many bowls could be purchased with the difference between my estate and a small apartment?
People buy multi-million dollar paintings...just to look at. Ferraris, yachts, a 4th mansion, Rolex watches, and children have 7 or 8 hundred dollar smartphones. We spend hundreds of millions to explore outer space...for not much more than to satisfy our curiosity...instead of buying basic necessities and medical care for the poor. And how much time, effort, and money does mankind spend on militaries and waging war?
And as for other "bad things" in the world: It isn't the fault of Deities that a child is a rape victim...it is HUMANS conducting as rapists.
WE are the "selfish and uncaring "Powerful Entities" that COULD do something, but DON'T. It isn't due to DEITIES doing nothing even though they could..there is only US acting that way.
There is plenty to go around...it is because many hoard much more than they need, while others lack the minimum to survive.
THAT is why some people starve and have no clean water.
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Originally Posted by GldnRule
As a Pantheist, I view "ALL" (The Universe...in totality) as God.
One may view certain acts as "evil"...like the cat working over the mouse before killing it...but "evil" requires a deliberate malevolent attitude. The cat has no ill-will toward the mouse...it is just working off instincts.
The bacteria that causes a plague that sickens and kills many is not doing what it does with any sort of thought behind it.
The tornado or hurricane does not plan and then carry out its destruction.
The only true "evil" or "cruel selfishness" possible is that which is carried out by entities that intend and choose to act that way.
The person driving a car that runs over a person that jumped into the road without warning is not "evil" like a person that intentionally runs somebody down...even though the result is the same.
Here is my proposed solution:
I see a difference between a human behaving maliciously and a cat tormenting a mouse for sport when it isn't hungry. The difference is that humans have what Daniel Dennett calls free will. We're able to roll our ideas around in our minds, weighing the pros and cons. The cat isn't really doing that. It's just tormenting the mouse because it wants to torment the mouse.
However, there are nonetheless reasons humans behave maliciously, and we get get people to not behave maliciously if we pay enough attention to those reasons, and figure out what they are...so that should be our species' focus, I think.
My gut tells me trying to change human nature is a fool's errand. I could be wrong. Maybe the "We just need to help everybody" types of mentalities might accomplish great things. I don't really know if they will or not. My gut tells me, though, that people already know just about everything those movements are going to tell them.
Therefore, I propose a different sort of social movement that doesn't give a rat's behind how nice anybody is. It simply encourages people to think more like brutally logical machines...because ideally, the goal of humanity would be to maximize pleasure for the maximum number of people, and minimize suffering for the maximum number of people, and that's the sort of equation computers would be great at doing, of only they had adequate ways of measuring pleasure and suffering.
We humans aren't as logical as computers can be, but we're spectacular at measuring pleasure and suffering on our own. We can estimate it effortlessly. I can think to myself, "Which is worse, having my arm chopped off, or having a finger chopped off?" The answer is pretty obvious. So humans are the optimal computers to determine how to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering. We just need to get the logical thinking down more.
The most logical possible mentality, so far as I can see, is the mentality: "I dislike suffering and I like pleasure. I don't see much of a difference between my suffering and my pleasure and yours. Therefore, I should strive to help both of us feel more pleasure and less suffering."
That won't help even remotely when considering things the individual should do that actually require effort, because if it requires effort, we're going to be biased by all those emotions insisting, "That sounds extremely unpleasant," or "I don't have the time," or "I love my kids more than the world, and I'm focusing on them first."
However, that ultra-logical mentality would help everyone when knowing what laws to support, and what movements to support, and what things to support that really don't take much effort on the part of the individual. Part of that ultra-logical mentality probably means getting rid of much of organized religion, by the way.
What types of laws and social movements would that motivate people to support?
*Well, access to contraception's a big one. Contraception solves more problems, more easily than every other invention I can think of, and it does it cheaply.
*Another one, that might anger some people, but I think it's an important one, is acceptance of abortion. Contraception doesn't always work. Sometimes there are complications in childbirth and serious birth defects as well. The bottom line is that it's a useful tool, and the fact that so many people perceive it as selfish, whereas in reality it can at times benefit the would-be child far more than society or the parent, is something I see as a pretty large problem. The logical person would realize abortion can genuinely be more for the benefit of the would-be child than the parent.
*The end of much of nationalism. To the logical person, the needs of the people in my nation shouldn't matter much, if any, more than the needs of people in nations whose cultures I approve of at least as much as my nation's culture. To the logical, self-centered person I certainly matter more than other people, and people I know certainly matter more than other people, but there is no reason for anyone, selfish or otherwise, to really care more about their nation than other nations. Anything I do to assist my nation is only helping me an insignificant amount, given that I'm only one of millions of other citizens, so unless I live in some small island community, I might as well just do what's best for the human species, or feeling life, or humans whose cultures I approve of, or some combination of those three, rather than purely support my nation.
*Less opposition to GMO's and humanity-assisting technologies
*More research done before making decisions about what sources to trust
*The average person strips away more distractions, like fear of gay marriage, concern about trivial matters like nice cars, and focuses on two things: benefits to Me and those close to me, and the species. With fewer distractions like nationalism, the individual has more energy to focus on benefiting the species.
A problem is that mentality sounds scary. If it's scary...it's not going to spread as easily. I see a similar problem with the word atheist. I think agnostic spreads faster because it kind of smells of "I'm whimsically imaginative!" which feels fun. The word atheist just feels kind of dull and/or...I want to say excessively sharp. I think I remember you saying something about atheism not being sexy enough at some point. I think I agree with that...although I just call myself an atheist because it's the clearest title I can think of.
Cats do not torment for sport. They are honing their skills. Domestic cats do not have the same drive to eat a mouse as a wild cat. A wild cat has no time for that. They simply kill and eat. Domestic cats often have the drive to hunt but don't really know what to do with their kill. It's instinct, there is no malicious intent.
My cat specifically has the drive to chase and kill a bug that a wild cat would eat. My cat doesn't recognize that as food, but does have the instinct to chase and kill it.
Even if I turned him out, he'd seek humans to feed him. That is how I got him. He came to my stray cat cafe. He would search high and low for 'cat food' before resorting to hunting for an actual meal.
No, I wonder if Weather would suffice....it could include weather patterns and climate change, right?
But, you can press About The Forum or scroll down after clicking top left 'City-Data Forum".
As this was placed in the R and S section that is the point of view that was expected...rather than geo-political or ecological answers....if that was your point in asking.
Why do you think people are starving and have no clean water in places?
Well, why don't we get to the bottom of this issue?
It's pretty simple: a lack of development largely due to the fact that so-called "christian nations" impeded development.
Africa was a net-exporter of food, until the christian nations Britain and the US plowed under the crop fields and started growing chocolate, sugar and coffee.
Americans and Brits benefit, but Africans don't, but then who gives a damn, right? You got yours.
Americans rant about Somalia, but it was up-and-coming until President Schemarke wouldn't sign off on an oil deal with Conoco, Phillips, Texaco and Standard Oil (of New Jersey).
So, the US murdered Schemarke and installed Mohammed Barre who fleeced the US, then got run out and Mohammed Adid took over and then we got a cool movie (Black Hawk Down) and now it's a crap-hole.
That's pretty much par for the course in Africa.
Oddly, it is the non-christian nation of China that is investing money in African States to build infrastructure like roads, railroads, running water, electricity, natural gas, sewage and such.
But, as soon as the US saw that, it established AFRICOM to destabilize the government of those countries so they don't develop.
I think Jesus said something about that:
The Sermon on the Oil Rig
Conoco-Phillips 5:1 Blessed is he who murders his neighbor and steals his natural resources, for he shall have a telephone system, and an interstate highway system bought and paid for by the poor peoples of the world. 5:2 Blessed is he who steals oil from the world, for he shall drive SUVs across the width and breadth of the land, and things made from petrochemicals, like pharmaceuticals, health and beauty aids, cosmetics, liquid laundry detergent, cell-phones and laptop computers with built in video camera. 5:3 Blessed is he who uses terrorism to over-throw democratically elected governments and install right-wing puppet dictators and then sell Billions of dollars of military hardware to a country that doesn't need it.
Un-even food distribution. Earth produces enough food but wicked men interfere with food distribution.
Some sent food has been left to rot on docks, or even sold on the black market to buy weapons !
No wonder that the words of 2nd Timothy 3:1-5,13 prove true today.
It's pretty simple: a lack of development largely due to the fact that so-called "christian nations" impeded development.
Africa was a net-exporter of food, until the christian nations Britain and the US plowed under the crop fields and started growing chocolate, sugar and coffee.
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I know that after WWII, food exports from the US became part of the economic & political tools for the US in foreign policy. That was mostly wheat, & then soy. Is there a cite for the US plowing under African crop fields?
I know that after WWII, food exports from the US became part of the economic & political tools for the US in foreign policy. That was mostly wheat, & then soy. Is there a cite for the US plowing under African crop fields?
Take your pick: UN sources, World Economic sources, and any number of others.
Eithopia is in the top five coffee producers. West Africa produces 70% of world's cocoa.
Coffee, cocoa, and sugar cane have little value in African States, but they are coveted in Europe and the US/Canada.
The EU has extremely high protective tariffs on processed foods, so that forces African farmers to export raw products, rather than adding value to them to increase profits.
It wouldn't be so bad if African could process the coffee, cocoa and sugar cane for export, but they can't because of high tariffs in the EU, and US tariffs, while less than EU tariffs, still don't allow Africans to exported processed products.
Africans then have to export coffee beans, cocoa beans and sugar cane to the EU and US, and it is the EU and US who actually process those products, and that results in lower profits, which could be used to develop infrastructure in African States.
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Originally Posted by Good4Nothin
Starvation is usually caused by over-population.
No, it isn't. For more than 1,000 years, countries have been able to produce more than what they need, and the surplus was always exported to trade for goods they don't have.
Bad crop management led to low harvests in Europe, until the three field crop-rotation was adopted.
After that, various plagues diminished the population, so that they couldn't produce enough, a situation that also happened in the Roman Empire with Asiatic and other plagues. In fact, in Britain it was against the law for any person under 60 years of age to be unemployed, because of the population shortage.
Famines, often climate related in the last several centuries, did kill Millions in China and Ukraine. Stalin could have fed Ukrainians, but only at the expense of other Russians. So, it was either cut everyone's food rations in half to feed Ukrainians, or, since Stalin thought Ukrainians sucked, let Ukrainians die and everyone else can keep their food.
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Reaping the whirlwind?
