Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
quote:Originally posted by Daniel Butler: Except that there are countries like the United States, Shik, which have more than enough money, resources, and food to feed people who are literally having to sift through the sand to find grains of edible food. It's not a simple utilitarian question of "overtaxing resources" and "basic ecology." It's a pretty short leap between "letting them die out" and helping them die out - why don't you just kill yourself if you're so concerned with the environment and what food you're eating from it? It'd be the most logical thing to do. Actually, the most logical thing to do would be to shoot up your job or school or plant a bomb or something and take others with you, the better to reduce the burden on poor Mother Nature.
I'll say it again: an increase in food production leads to an increase in population. It doesn't matter how or where the food is distributed, because it will still reach people & cause greater population, which overtaxes the land more. This is shown by the fact that global population keeps rising, even in desolated famine-stricken areas. People are made from food; therefore the food is reaching them.
You can perform this experiment yourselves at home. Get a cage with 10 mice in them. Keep putting in enough food for 10 mice day in & day out for a year, & the number will always be around 10. It might be 12, it might be 8, but 10 will be the average. Now you start doubling the food each day, throwing out what the mice don't eat each day. Now you've food for 20 mice & guess what? Soon you'll have between 16 & 24 mice. You can keep doing this to absurdist numbers--1000 mice, ten thousand, a million--& the results will always be the same: more food = more mice.
Let's say now you've done this & you've got 10,000 mice. "What do I need this many mice for?" you ask. So you start halving the amount of food each day, putting in enough for 5000. Soon a strange thing happens. Mice start dying off. They go quickly (because they're mice) & eventually the population stabilizes at about 5000, give or take 1000. And look! It happened without mouse food riots, without hoarding, without any trouble at all. Let's say you continue this experiment, decreasing the amount of food slowly until finally you're back down to your original 10. You've just seen ecology in action.
You talk about "the burden on Mother Nature." But that's a fallacy. we're PART of what we call "nature," but have refused to believe it for a long, long time & so we only end up hurting ourselves as well as other species by persisting in this belief & course of action.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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Erm - $3 Trillion spent on "war on terror" in Iraq so far.
I can't help but feel that if the poorest nations refuse to help themselves by adopting, for example, birth control methods that we should question why we help them. On the other hand, to a large degree our lifestyles do have effects those nations.
Given all the arguments for and against mutaualy counter each other, the conversation has gone long past asking if we should help end poverty. It is now a question of can we. On paper the answer is yes, but I appreciate that there is a difference between having the money to do something, and having the will to. Also this hypothetical pot of gold does include money that is allocated else where (see above), and I imagine is pie in the sky.
As far as I am concerned giving food to starving people is a good idea. People die, but that does not mean that inaction is justified when death is preventable. I'm not saying that America, or even Europe, should stop funding their armed forces and redirect cash to charity, that would be stupid.
What is needed is for someone to come up with a sustainable idea that hits i)poverty, ii) the culture of living off of charity which many countries have developed, and iii)population growth, which is a key factor in the probelm.
And Shik - the richest (ie "developed") countries, where there is more food, show a decline in birth rates and an increase in life expectancies - the opposite of what you suggest. I am not sure that your argument is fully applicable, although as I have said, birth control is a huge problem in fighting poverty, and for that matter diseases.
--gasps for breath--
-------------------- I have plenty of experience in biology. I bought a Tamagotchi in 1998... And... it's still alive.
Registered: Apr 2005
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
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Ahh, yes. The old "birth control" & "decline in population" arguments. Control birth rates! Zero population growth!
I will say it again: increased food production leads to increased population. It does not matter if the food is made in Milwaukee or London or Tokyo or Shanghai or Kiev or Mombasa or Jalalabad or Quito or Perth or Skopje or Tuktoyuktuk. The food is there, the population increases. The way to solve hunger is not to increase food production but to DECREASE food production.
People scream, "There are people starving in the Sudan, in Bangladesh, in Latin America! We need to send them more food, we need to help them survive!" But it doesn't help. It creates more people, which puts a greater drain on already nonexistent resources, which adds to the famine. "Teach them how to farm!" people say. That, too does nothing, except again create more people.
And those people ARE there. The mere fact that they are there is proof that there is in fact food. As I said before, people are food; there is no one alive on this planet in its entire history who is not made of food. We HAVE enough food. We have enough food to sustain 6.6 billion people; we must, or there wouldn't BE 6.6 billion people. And yet we continue to increase production citing starvation & famine & "humanitarian assistance," all the while dismissing with our other hand the "preposterous" notion that more food means more people.
Remember the experiment with the mice? I'd be willing to bet that if that was run on a global level, the results would be the same. I'd call it a sure bet, because you're betting with the house on this one; in this case, the principles of ecology. I bet that if someone said, "hey...this year, let's not make enough food for 7 billion, let's just make it for 6.6. billion" that nothing would happen. There would be no appreciable changes. There would be no food riots, no one would be worse off than before. I bet that we could keep doing this for 10 years & you know what would happen? The population would stay the same (with the usual alloted minor fluctuations, of course). I bet if we started making food for 5.5. billion, in a few years time, guess what? We'd have 5.5. billion. And if you upped production again, it would be 7 billion.
Birth control is not 100% effective. Population control--as seen in China & some places in India--is laughable. The only sure means to end hunger, end resource-based poverty, end global population growth is to stop making so much food. It's not difficult, & we see it every day. This is not Star Trek, not the Federation. We do not have a post-scarcity culture. There may never be a post-scarcity culture. But there is what we have now, & what we've lost in terms of knowledge. And the first step in combating the problem is to stop making so much damned food. Do that, let things plateau, & then we can address all the other ills & evils of society, because one does lead to the other,. I can guarantee you that.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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While Shik's theory is has merit on the basis of mathematics, a variable that is hard to define is that kernel of something called morality. This does need to be figured in to the calculation at some point. So do education levels and land use, both of which will have an effect on population and the rations per person.
The final point I am going to make is the welfare systems that do promote food for nothing but breeding. Right here in the US of A we support mothers that pop kids out as fast as possible, giving them more and more money. In some locals this ends at the age of 18 to 21 when the state sterilizes them. The so called welfare to work system is as laughable as the Chinese population control methods.
A sure fire method to effectively reduce the population is to have half of all women capable of child bearing killed. The resulting chaos would result in a large number of males killing each other off for the right to mate with one of the remaining females. Every time the populations reaches 7 billion this process is repeated, keeping the world population in check, for the most part. Utilizing this method would require that all troops stationed overseas be brought back in order to implement the process, which will be seen negatively by the population, which will lead to another pre-reduction of the population by slaughtering all the people in riot areas.
We can then expand this general lottery to life in to Canada, Mexico, and the Central and South Americas. Through conscription we can increase the forces needed to enforce this on the rest of the world.
After the purging 50% of all females will be sterilized at birth, if not before, maintaining the status quo.
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
Registered: Sep 2000
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Okay, Shik, I understand what your saying. But by your reasoning, we shouldn't be even having this conversion. We should be scampering naked in a field somewhere. Technology also helps keep populations big, not only because it allows to produce more food, but it allows us to cheat death. Medicine has allowed people to live longer, and for some people who suffer from physical and mental problems, to lead as much as a normal life as they can. But like you say, it doesn't help the ecological balance. So let's stop posting on Flare, in fact let's stop using computers or any sort of technology. Furthermore if any of us suffer from any condition, whether it be blindness or just having asthma, let's stop doing anything that keeps our condition from ending our lives much sooner. Because if we are part of the nature, which I don't doubt we are, this means we apparently don't have any inherent worth as sentient creatures.
Registered: Feb 2005
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
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Technology is not the antithesis of living in accordance with the laws of life. They CAN coexist. Now we get to the next part, which is that totalitarian agriculture is a founding tenet of the cultural belief that man has mastery over all & can do as he pleases. This is not so, yet few refuse to believe that. The mastery concept even prevails profoundly in Star Trek: weather control systems, terraforming, replicators.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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(This dusty old copy of Malthus and this totally awesome neotribalist blog I got hip to at that smoke shop are totally in sync!)
Registered: Mar 1999
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
You're leaving things out, Simon. Shame on you.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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Well, yeah, I'm leaving out the entire culture of weary hardworking and hardpressed individuals generating enough economic breathing room for trendy bo-hos to fuck off to Burning Man for a week and pretend they know something about the real world.
Registered: Mar 1999
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You are also leaving out the waery hardworking and hardpressed individuals not generating enough economic breathing room to do much of anything but keep falling behind, albeit, not from a lack of trying.
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
Registered: Sep 2000
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
What I love about Burning Man is that it puts all the hippies into one place to easily kill off.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
Member # 1689
posted
Shik, you've totally misunderstood me. I know there is no "burden on Mother Nature." What you don't understand is that Uganda or Ethiopia are not cages with X amount of mice in them. We have the whole *planet* to work in. We have more food than we need; they have less than they need. Our excess should go to them. But we'd rather sit on our already-fat asses and *eat more* than we need and just not think about the people who are dying.
You've glossed over what Ginger said (I think it was Ginger) - that in the developed nations we have a *declining* birth rate and yet more food. Which is my point - we have too much food, much more than we need. We wouldn't have "more than we need" by your logic - we'd always, always have exactly enough. Nobody would be fat and nobody would be starving - but if that were the case we wouldn't be arguing about this.
Registered: Jul 2005
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So what you're saying is that we have enough food to feed 7 billion people, but some of us whorde it, and don't let those who need it have what we can spare. SO it's not a matter of an a food surplus, but the need to learn to share.
-------------------- "Kosh, I'd like to introduce you to our Resident schmuck and his side kick Kick Me."-Ritten
"Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity". -George Carlin
Registered: Jul 2007
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
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quote:Originally posted by Daniel Butler: Shik, you've totally misunderstood me. I know there is no "burden on Mother Nature." What you don't understand is that Uganda or Ethiopia are not cages with X amount of mice in them. We have the whole *planet* to work in. We have more food than we need; they have less than they need. Our excess should go to them. But we'd rather sit on our already-fat asses and *eat more* than we need and just not think about the people who are dying.
You've glossed over what Ginger said (I think it was Ginger) - that in the developed nations we have a *declining* birth rate and yet more food. Which is my point - we have too much food, much more than we need. We wouldn't have "more than we need" by your logic - we'd always, always have exactly enough. Nobody would be fat and nobody would be starving - but if that were the case we wouldn't be arguing about this.
For the fifth(?) time: an increase in food supply leads to greater still increase in population. it does not matter that the food is in the US or France or Hong Kong or Sweden or Canada or South Africa. The global population balances out. The "cage" is the planet. yes, we make more food than we need; that's why population continues to increase. When you have food for 7 billion, surprise, you get 7 billion people. You talk about "excess" food. That's the key there, the thing behind totalitarian agriculture: "Why have only the food that's available when we can have all our favorite foods all the time?" We hoard & we throw out food all the time...but we still make more. And that more goes to...what? That's right, more people.
As for "declining birth rates"...for every declining rate in Japan or Germany or Denmark, there's a birth explosion in Indian or Bangladesh or Nigeria. Again, the distribution does not matter in the end run because it smoothes itself out. Obviously these impoverished peoples are getting food. They must, or they simply would not exist. Again, I challenge you to show me a person not made of food, & please to tell me what they are made of. I would very much like to know.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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