The solution for world destitution.

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Now, before I start, I would like to say that while my solution is cold, I believe that it is the only way.

With all of these thrird world countries full of starving people, there are groups set up to gather money from the so-called 'rich countries' and feed them. This is not solving the problem, this is increasing it.

If there is one starving child in Africa, and I send him enough money for food, healthcare, ect., then he will live. He will then grow up, meet a mate, have children. Now since the parents could not support themselves, they have no hope of supporting their children. So we send them more money. And these children are able to live, grow up, and have more children.

Surely you can see the pattern. The more we help these people, the longer we are delaying the enevitable. Eventually there won't be enough money to help these people. Then, instead of one child starving, there would be thousands or millions.

This is called the life boat theory. Each country has a capacity for so many people. If your boat has a max of 100 and there are 90 in the boat and 110 outside of the boat, what do you do? You could try and let them all in, but the boat would just sink. You could just let ten more in to fill to your capacity, but then if something went wrong, you would sink faster.

To pull an old chinese proverb, "If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime."

I say that instead of spending all this money on buying food for the needy, we should put the money in to helping the needy make their own food.

 

Let them eat cake.

 

Jeez, how long did it take you to think this one up? Your arguments are based on incorrect assumptions and a lack of data. Your so-called solution to world poverty (let nature take its course and allow African children to die of starvation) is not only callous but stupid and wicked as well.

Contrary to your beliefs, millions of people in the developing world do not starve to death except during times of famine. Principal causes of mortality include dysentery from drinking infected water and endemic diseases such as malaria.

We define starving as meaning that a person does not have sufficient food to perform light physical work. In 1970, 35% of people in the developing world were starving. This has fallen to 18% and is expected to fall further to 12% in 2010. Even though the population of the developing world has doubled in this time, the number of starving has fallen in numeric terms, from 920 million in 1971 to 792 million in 1997. This is expected to fall to 680 million in 2010. Source for these figures is the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. I don't see your 1000s of millions starving here.

Where are you from? Canada? Go back about 100 years and you'd find that Canadians had a similar life expectancy to modern day Ethiopians and a higher rate of population growth to boot. Where are the millions of starving Canadians? Economic growth during the 20th century has lifted every Canadian out of poverty so that everyone has enough to eat and clean water to drink. The same will happen (indeed IS happening) in the developing world too.

If you want to tackle the problems of the developing world NOW you need to tackle the poverty that lies at the roots of almost all its woes. The single most cost-effective form of aid that we can give is the provision of clean water and adequate sanitation. Although access to clean water and sanitation has improved greatly during the last thirty years, there is still plenty of room for improvement. The World Bank estimates that the total cost of providing clean water to those who need it is $165 billion; the cost of sanitation is a further $30 billion. To compare, implementing the useless Kyoto agreement will cost the US alone a minimum of $325 billion.

Further, we need somehow to break the cycle of indebtedness so that developing countries can invest in their own infrastructures. This needn't be an unconditional cancellation of all debts. It is possible to have debt-for-x swaps (e.g. debt for nature where we trade a portion of debt for protection of an area of rainforest) so that the debt problem can be solved constructively. We need to do more to ensure that developing countries can compete fairly in the world trade system. We need to identify the areas where aid will have the most beneficial effect and prioritize them (I've already given the example of water and sanitation; modernizing agriculture might be another; AIDS treatment in sub-Saharan Africa yet another).

What we don't f***ing do is let children die.

 

First of all, my infromation is accurate. Not wanting to overwhelm everbody with my first post, I used starving as an example so I didn't have to define all of the problems. The lifeboat scenario can be applied to any resource needed to survive that is lacking.

Your comparison of modern day Africa (or whatever) to Canada 100 years ago, however intended, is faulty. The level at which the people lived was alot lower then today, but there were natural resources to live off of. Those same natural resources were what allowed Canada to have its economic growth to where it is today. There are no natural resources in these undeveloped countries left that will help them.

As for the population, it was intended to grow. People were paid money to have kids to increase the population. This alone meant that the parents could support their own children, who in turn could support their children.

The water, I agree with you that this would help. But only in the short term. These people do not have the ability to sustain their population at its present rate of growth, help from us or no. Its like building a tower on weak foundation. You can keep reinforcing it with little paste jobs, but eventually it will give. And then a whole lot more of those children will die then if you let them alone.

Not to be cruel, but if the weak are allowed to live, then they will take the strong with them when they go.

 

Naturally, this attitude extends to medicine, a contrivance intended to help otherwise strong humans through periods of weakness. Jaguar, you've always refused medicine when sick, right?

 

Jaguar, your theory has already been suggested by Jonathan Swift in 1729 to deal with the starving in Ireland. I strongly suggest you check out the details here . It may be a difficult read, as it is presented here exactly as written, but the revelations contained are well worth the struggle.

 

There's an easy solution, Jaguar - just allow unlimited immigration to the West! The North American lifeboat gets bigger every day. The US does a fine job absorbing huge numbers of immigrants, and Canada has plenty of room. Hey, if all of Namibia wants to move to Montana, I say, more power to 'em!

I'm not being sarcastic - I really AM in favor of unlimited immigration (excepting criminals). Better yet - let's make Spanish the US' second official language and adopt all of South America.

Anyway, the third world's problem is politics, not resources. Look at Zimbabwe - two years ago the breadbasket of Southern Africa, today a starving basketcase thanks to Mugabe's mismanagement. In some places there are real problems of artificial dependency, like you describe, Jaguar; and, we should aim more of our aid to helping people grow their own food. (Ending US farming subsidies would be a huge help.) But often it's those places with the most generous natural resources and largest available space - like, say, the Congo - that face the most starvation, thanks to predatory leadership. The worst famines in modern history occurred in resource-rich, wide-open territories - the USSR and Maoist China.

 

the money isn't to feed them Jaguar. It's a problem about the money and trade barriers. EU has enormous amounts of food that just go down the drain due to some whatever farming insurance for the farmers in EU.
If we just give it to the third world for free, we'll underbid every farmer down there and they'll end up out of business. We are teaching them how to fish, it's just a slow process.
There's an abundance of food available, but if we should give it to them, well that defies the train them to fish philosophy.

 

Ok. Some criticism. Before I start, let me clarify that I was using some of the poorer African countries as examples. This could be anywheres.

To answer Judas first, it really depends on what kind of aid is required. If it is aid because of a natural disaster, or something of the sort, then yes, it should be sent. It makes complete sense, for example, if the UK sends aid to a hurricane ravaged South Africa. I would expect Australia to send aid if New Zealand was hit by a hurricane. But if it is medicine for diseases, then it should not be sent. There is always the possibility that we may have a greater need for it.

Second, to dmc. My solution does not include research for diseases (such as AIDS). Diseases happen everywhere, regardless of country and social status. Sending information would not drain our resources. And to stop researching completely, well, that would kill everyone in the lifeboat eventually, wouldn't it?

To Hacken Slash, two points. First, I am not suggesting we eat the people from the over-populated areas. I am merely saying that nature must run its coarse, survival of the fittest. And secondly, Jonathan Swift was speaking satirically, where as I am convinced that this is, if not the most moral, the best solution.

For Grey Magistrate, the US would never go for that. Neither would any country that happens to have 'plenty of room' in my opinion. Space isn't the issue, so immigration isn't the issue. Shifting people around will just move the problem, not fix it. Say you did send a couple million people into the US. There is the possibility that everything would work out. But there is also the possibility that is won't, and every American would suffer. Even if it did work, the success would be precarious. One drought and its Ireland 1845-49 all over again.

And lastly for Lokken, all that you are missing is what is happening during this slow 'teaching them to fish' period. There is food that is shipped to third world countries, to help them until they are up on their feet. The problem is, with the exception of a few, most people would rather get the food for free rather then work for it. This is the reason that the teaching phase is so slow. Unless they are cut off, there will be not incentive to feed themselves.

 

Your theory about Africa has one minor flaw. Africa as a continent is one of the richest in natural resources. The real problem there my friend is not the lack of resources in order to economically grow these countries, but the fact that these resources are being exploited by foreign (and more specifically western) companies. As a consequence the natives do not have the opportunity to evolve in a job as they wanted only as simple workers. And another small side effect is that these people because they can't evolve, they are being easily manipulated by the same companies and their administration (and wannabe administrations) into bloody wars.
Another issue is that there is no education because noone thinks it will do any good.
So if you want to bring a life and money saving scenario just consider the the immidiate departure of all foreign companies. The (un)conditional erase of third worlds debt. And a serious investment in education and public health services.
But that would make Africa indepented somethink that world leaders don't even dare to think.

 

@Jaguar
I say to you again that you are wrong because your assumptions are wrong and your data is lacking.

From your posts, I'm inferring the following assumptions:

• Third world poverty is not only an intractable problem, it is getting worse.
• Developing countries are overpopulated and we are going against nature if we try to save lives.

The first assumption is plain wrong. The 20th century saw huge gains for all people in the world in all indicators of prosperity: life expectancy, infant mortality, per capita GDP, calories per person, literacy, education. This trend will continue in the twenty first century. Fully 90% of the world's population are better off now than they have EVER been. The exceptions are countries like the former republics of the Soviet Union which suffered economically following the fall of communism, but you're not talking about them. And while economic growth has been slower in sub-Saharan Africa than elsewhere in the world, there has been growth nevertheless and very great improvements in the standard of living for all Africans. Some countries have seen a short-term reduction in life expectancy due to the AIDS epidemic (because AIDS kills young people), but this is hardly an intractable problem (as shown by the example of Uganda) and this is the sort of area where foreign aid can be applied very usefully. So third world poverty is not only NOT getting worse, it is getting better.

As for overpopulation, it's a non-issue. People in the developing world are not breeding like rabbits, they are simply not dying like flies. Population growth is a consequence of longer life expectancy and reduced infant mortality (both of which are GOOD things). Increasing prosperity will lead to a stabilization of population as it has in the developed countries. Africa is a sparsely inhabited continent rich in natural resources. It will be well able to handle the projected population growth. Almost all countries in the developing world are able to grow more food per person than ever before; again this is a trend that will continue. After all, we no longer plough our fields with teams of oxen and our yields are many times what they were in previous centuries. Clearly there is an upper limit to the productivity of the land, but we ain't anywhere near it yet.

Your comments about "teaching" people to grow food are disingenuous. People already know how to grow food. What they need are investments in infrastructure so that they can develop better irrigation and modern agricultural equipment and technologies. These are all areas where foreign aid can reap great benefits. People in the developing world could probably do with an end to agricultural subsidies in the developed world as well so that they can compete fairly in the world market. Emergency food aid is just that: given to relieve acute emergencies. Outside refugee camps, I don't think that there is anywhere where people are dependent on food handouts.

If I've read you wrong and you ARE aware that poverty in developing countries is getting better and that overpopulation is not an issue, then you're advocating the deaths of millions of people on the grounds that they're poor and African, which is a position that I'm not sure you'll want to defend.

@Grey Magistrate
Unlimited immigration is not even A solution to third world poverty, let alone THE solution. Host nations would suffer from overburdened welfare systems, housing shortages, job scarcity and depressed wages. Not good. Furthermore, racists would be justified in saying that the country was being swamped. Also, the migrants would include a disproportionate number of the brightest and best from the developing countries which would have a negative impact on their economic growth as well. So if anything, unlimited immigration would make third world poverty worse, not better.

 

Actually, Mithrantir, Africa's resources are not being stolen by foreign corporations. They're mostly not even being used.

 

Some countries like Nigeria have quite a large exploitation of natural resources by foreign corporations that is however something that is changing. Shell have made some less than popular things down in Nigeria and there is a large will to toss them and their compatriots out. As for most of the resources it is not even known what is there but of those that are they have led to a lot of strife. Diamond comes to mind which is one of the main reasons for the conflict in Liberia.

 

Hm, Mugabe is in power since the British went. So the breadbasket it was before was too a product of his mismanagement ? Or did his mismanagement start only as his grip on the power started to fade, and he went too desperate moves to keep it. He postponed the question of the land on St. never day, that's where the mismanagement starts. Colonial heritage leaves messy questions, which are burdening a lot of the countries of the continent. The solution of the problem should have been a slow, successive participation of the blacks in ownership of land, without driving the farmers into a diaspora. Back in the eighties that should have been done. Mugabes biggest weakness, is his orientation on the old british way of handling things, imo.

I think that's about the moto since a long time. And it's working in a lot of countries, which have seen some interesting economic development. So it's not something astonishingly new. The other problem with that is, before you try to teach another one how to catch fish, you should learn to catch a fish yourself. So it's a learning process on both sides. As for one, the geographical starting point of africa is quite different from Europe, so European development aidworkers and missionaries have had first to learn about africa and it's particular problems through try and failure.

The most prominent failure was the assuan-dam. The idea was to generate power to facilate the building of manufacturing plants in Egypt. But after building, one found out that it had disastrous consequences for the Egyptian food-production, which was not to a small degree tied to the fertilization through the nile. Egypt had even to import food (cornchamber of the Mediterranean !) for a short while. So the dam-project caused dozens of new problems, which had to be solved too, but I think the cost-profit seems to look even now.

An other intersting thing was, that geologists discovered huge ground water deposits in a rather dry area in Namibia which also had some stock farming. So had drilling machines brought to artificially create water holes. The idea was to make more water aviable which would allow the farmes to have bigger cattle-herds. This worked a short time, but the bigger herds tramped the ground dead around the water-holes, which made vegetation for a huge diameter around the water-holes impossible which then lead to the starving of the cattle-herds. So, in the end, the stock farmers were worse off.

So, it's a learn-process for both sides, as it is not the same fish catching habitat. Not to fortet, that the Africans themselves know about fish too.

 

Jaguar, although I intended to draw analogy when I wrote about medicine, I spoke of it in its literal sense, not as a symbol for all types of aid. Medicine is, by definition, something that treats or prevents disease. You are effectively arguing for the abolishment of all medicine, reasoning that any human not strong enough to deal with the disease should die so our race is not weakened. In your response to dmc, however, you seem to think medicine is ok. Would you please clarify your stance on the application of medicine?

Being located in an area where resources do not exist or cannot be procured with the equipment at hand is not a weakness that can be bred out of a species. All races, in all locations on the planet, have been through times of hardship, famine, and disease.

Hardship exists on an individual level, too. Do you think we should do away with social security systems? I mean, they only feed people who refuse to work, right? It's the same thing: too many people with too few resources (the resource being work). We shouldn't feed them, because they won't work if we do, correct?

I think you need to do away with the artificial barriers of race and location. We're all humans. Why should we help a starving American any more than we should feed a starving African? You said Australia should send aid to New Zealand. Why New Zealand over any other nation? Yes, Australia is close to New Zealand, so aid is easily transported, but in an age where you can air-drop half an army into a country inside a week, problems with proximity seem minor.

On a final note, how, exactly, is helping the needy going to topple the world? If and when a nation “comes crashing down”, how will it disrupt the stronger nations?

 

@Chris

Yes, the people are not dying like flies. But they need to. The only reason that they are hanging on is because of aid. Cut off the aid, remove what they live on.

I am not saying this to be intentionally cruel, but while the population continues to grow faster the government can cope, prosperity will never be achieved, and therefore, neither will the population stabilize. As for economic growth, it is relative to the country. I mean, having two dollars (or pounds) today instead of the of the one that I had yesterday would make me richer, but not enough to make a difference.

You say that people know how to grow food. That is correct. The problem is that by the time those few grow the food, the size of the population has already taken its poll on it.

So, lets review. The economy is growing, but not enough to ever make a difference before the country falls in on itself. And there are too many people. Sure, all of the countries in the world have growing populations, and third world countries are not growing more then that. But they do not have the resources to support them. If the population fell, this could give the economy a chance to catch up. So yes, I am advocating the deaths of millions of people, but not because they are poor (and I have already said that I use Africa as an example). I am saying that the population needs to fall in order for the living to prosper.

@Judas

I think that you misread my previous post. While I did state that giving medicines was the wrong way to go, to dmc I stated that information is not a resource. It will never run out, or become less effective just by giving it to other people. So to recap, giving medicines is a no, giving research, answers and other information that will help them, good.

For the hardships part, I will try to make this clear. People within a prosperous country should be able to eat and live. When a nation draws its boundaries and calls you its citizen, it should damn well take care of you. If you live in a non-prosperous country, then you just need to hope that you will be one of the survivors, or that if you die, your sacrifice helps others.

And for your last part, I didn't mean to say that we should only help our closer and more prosperous countries. I am saying that we should help all countries with aid after major disasters and help no countries with aid for starvation or other such problems.

So if there is an earthquake in lower Mongolia or a typhoon in Zimbabwe, aid should be sent. But if there is a starving child in the USA, or a starving child in the middle of Africa, they are the responsibility of their country. If their country cannot support them, then I am sorry to say that they will die.

And yes, I feel bad for them. But not bad enough that I would give them my place in the boat so that I would drown in their place. To do so would go against my survival instinct. And I want to survive.

 

So... what happens if I remove all national borders, and declare everyone a citizen of one country called "Earth"? Now that we're all in the same country, can we help each other? I'm just trying to point out that bodies of water and imaginary lines are hardly important factors when deciding to help or not help one another.

I think you're still missing my point with regards to medicine. I'm not talking about providing it to other countries, I'm talking about providing it to ANYONE. I'm taking your argument that the weak should not be helped and applying it WITHIN countries. It's the same line of reasoning. We've probably all needed medicine at some point in our lives; most of us are immunized against a whole host of nasty stuff. You, personally, have almost certainly benefitted directly from medicine. I was trying to point out that although you preach a "survival of the fittest" attitude, you do not actually live by one.

You didn't actually address my "last part", only the second last part. I will repeat my final question, which remains unanswered:

How, exactly, is helping the needy going to topple the world? If and when a nation “comes crashing down”, how will it disrupt the stronger nations?

You also missed my question regarding social security.

I'm probably going to sound like a real hippy saying this, but check out John Lennon's song Imagine. I know, everyone under the sun has heard it... but really listed to the lyrics, and do as they say. Actually imagine it. Just as they say, a world without possessions IS hard to imagine. It means NEVER saying "that's mine".

[ December 04, 2003, 14:48: Message edited by: Judas ]

 

@Jaguar
You are making more unjustified assumptions (and even given your assumptions the conclusions that you draw are somewhat fishy).

So, please read for yourself some projections for world growth in the first part of the 21st century (remember to follow the links - there are several pages). The source is the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN. It doesn't come much more authoritative.

@Judas
I've just noticed your reference to 'Imagine'. "Imagine no possessions" sang John Lennon, sitting at his grand piano in his mansion. Hmm. Anyway, any scheme that depends on changing human nature is bound to fail.