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?

Actually, I would think that the AIDS epidemic in Africa would be solving a lot of the problems that Jaguar perceives there. Perhaps we should stop research on curing AIDS, or at least withhold our information from the African countries. Same for Ebola, etc.

Jeez. :(

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 (http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~benjamin/316kfall/316ktexts/swift.html) . 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.

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. There are no natural resources in these undeveloped countries left that will help them. 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.

Look at Zimbabwe - two years ago the breadbasket of Southern Africa, today a starving basketcase thanks to Mugabe's mismanagement 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.

"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 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.

I'm not going to provide my own opinion in this thread for the sake of passing out the following reminder ...

Granted that the original post is quite provocative, I want all of you to remember that however strongly you feel about the subject matter, no posts in this thread should amount to personal attacks, insults, etc.

After a quick scan of this thread, some of you have come very close to crossing the line. Now that I've said it, be mindful with your subsequent posts.

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 (http://www.fao.org/docrep/004/y3557e/y3557e01.htm#TopOfPage) 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.

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. '

And herein is the false dichotomy underlying the entire rationale.

Your survival is in no way shape or form impacted by giving aid to African nations. If you believe that because money is spent on Africa that money is not spent within a nation (say Canada or the US for example) then let me suggest you don't understand the manner in which politics decides budgets. You act as if there is a peculiar sort of zero sum game going on - there isn't.

This is the essay by Garret Hardin that I have been basing my argument on. It is called "Lifeboat Ethics" (http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_lifeboat_ethics_case_against_helping_poor.html ), and while it is a little out of date, I think that it still holds true today.

@Judas

The boundries are important in the world. Without them there would be chaos. It would be changing human nature not to have boundries, and like Chris said, "any scheme that depends on changing human nature is bound to fail." I know that the borders are just imaginary lines, but they keep people together in groups to help each other. That is what I think that the boundries main puposes are.

@Chris

IMHO, the UN is a bunch of officials from different countries who make decesions that sometimes work, or are done. Eventually, they are going to make a big mistake and end up like the League of Nations.

@Laches

I am not saying that helping under priviledged countries does effect my survival, I am saying that it could effect my survival. What if there is a shortage of some items. Or we hit another Great Depression. I don't know about you, but I don't want to wager my life on the fact that it will not happen.

Jaguar, the UN does a great many things badly, but it collects beautiful statistics. You can trust their numbers.

Now, as for Mr. Hardin's article:

First, we must recognize the limited capacity of any lifeboat. For example, a nation's land has a limited capacity to support a population and as the current energy crisis has shown us, in some ways we have already exceeded the carrying capacity of our land.Several people have already pointed out that we haven't found the limits of either the rich or poor lifeboats. Even with the AIDS crisis and rampant poverty, the third world population continues to grow. Clearly the lifeboats are still expanding, even if they aren't adding luxury berths.

India, for example, now has a population of 600 million, which increases by 15 million each year. This population already puts a huge load on a relatively impoverished environment...However humanitarian our intent, every Indian life saved through medical or nutritional assistance from abroad diminishes the quality of life for those who remain, and for subsequent generations.The assumption is that Indians do not benefit from new Indian neighbors. His argument in favor of "clean beaches, unspoiled forests, and solitude" against human life - with all its creativity, tragedy, and beauty - betrays an aesthetic prejudice which is biasing his ethical theory.

Considering the growing use of birth-control devices, the potential effect of education campaigns by such organizations as Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Zero Population Growth, and the influence of inflation and the housing shortage, the fertility rate of American women may decline so much that immigration could account for all the yearly increase in population. Should we not at least ask if that is what we want?These female immigrants become truly American women, so we needn't draw long-term distinctions between first- and tenth-generation American moms. The American census forms used to track Irish, Italians, and Jews separately - now they're all folded into "Caucasian". I'll bet that within a few decades, "Hispanic" and "Caucasian" will fuse into a single category. The American identity and its sub-categories are shifting and changing - we can afford to absorb another few dozen cultural groups.

And let's suppose that, theoretically, these immigrants immediately stopped having children once they swore the citizenship oath. Presumably the rest of the rich world is having the same birthing problem - today, America is breeding more per-capita than its European competitors, so if America hits zero, chances are Europe and Japan would've hit zero long before. So the US would have a cheap-labor boost to support its Social Security system, while Europe and Japan greyed haplessly and helplessly.

Without a true world government to control reproduction and the use of available resources, the sharing ethic of the spaceship is impossible.But we aren't living by the ethics of the spaceship anyway. The rich countries are eating, drinking, and making merry, and then throwing crumbs to the dogs. It's partly because we're so rich and wealthy that we can indulge a little secular compassion. For those issues that might help the poor nations but at a hurt to the rich - like ending farm subsidies - the luxury lifeboats laity aren't helping.

All aboard the American lifeboat!

@Sharlp
Actually, Mithrantir, Africa's resources are not being stolen by foreign corporations. They're mostly not even being used. Yes i know that Africa has not been fully exploited or better yet, only a fraction is being exploited. I did not said that this happens. My point was that the resources of Africa (those that are exploited) ,are not being exploited by local companies and interests, not benefiting therefore the native population.
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. I don't think that any of us or anyone for that matter can judge who should and who should not be on the boat. You are there by circumstance and that does not mean that you or any of us deserves that de facto.
This whole lifeboat theory is a covered racism theory that would not existed if Mr. Hardin was a member of these poor countries. Would he then sacrifice himself for the benefit of others? I think not.
Anyway our human society has a pretty effective way to diminish this overpopulation problem. War, nothing works more efficiently and it causes less guilts than cool blood murders, and helps science take giant leaps forward.

@Grey Magistrate

First, I'll agree that the UN keeps good stats, if nothing else. I liked your interpretation of Mr. Hardin's essay. t gave me some new things to think about, from other perspectives.

@Mithrantir

This whole lifeboat theory is a covered racism theory that would not existed if Mr. Hardin was a member of these poor countries. Would he then sacrifice himself for the benefit of others? I think not. I believe that that comment was a little harsh and unfare to Mr. Hardin. Granted, he comes from one of the 'richer' countries, but he still has a good grasp on the situation. As for him being racist, I think that that is going to far. I do not recall him once mentioning race, sex, age, religion or anything else but nationality. And even then, he was only speaking of them in a broad sense.

And I believe that if he thought that sacrificing himself would help the world for the better, then he would. He wouldn't do it foolishly, and give his space in the lifeboat to one other person. But I think that most people, or I would hope so, would give their lives for the greater good.

Ther is a point when surviving wouldn't be everything. I know I said that I want to survive, but if my death would help countless numbers of people, then I think that I would.

Of course this is easy to say, sitting here in my comforatable home with a full stomache, knowing that sacrificing myself wouln't make a lick of difference. But I hope that if it came down to it, I would. Would you?

I believe that that comment was a little harsh and unfare to Mr. Hardin. Granted, he comes from one of the 'richer' countries, but he still has a good grasp on the situation. As for him being racist, I think that that is going to far. I do not recall him once mentioning race, sex, age, religion or anything else but nationality. And even then, he was only speaking of them in a broad sense.
Racial discrimination fits better according to you? I don't think he would do it though and furthermore i want to say that he would not even think that theory if he has gone in these poor countries and saw that the real problem is not overpopulation but wrong exploitation of the natural resources availiable to them. True, people are increasing rapidly and they die with slower rates than they did, but come on who is to judge if the country has reached its limits? The situation must be so bad that people would sleep on each other and feed from each others flesh.
Not to mention that Mr. Hardin ( who have died or suicided with his wife this Semptember according to this link (http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/28452) have forgotten the fact that another solution is the redistribution of wealth in order to blunt the hardships of many people.
And something else
And I believe that if he thought that sacrificing himself would help the world for the better, then he would. He wouldn't do it foolishly, and give his space in the lifeboat to one other person. But I think that most people, or I would hope so, would give their lives for the greater good Can you define this please? If anyone sacrificed in this theory this would be for the benefit of another and many others. That's why he calls for major decrease of population. As for the greater good issue this holds a lot of discussion as to what is presented as such.
Ther is a point when surviving wouldn't be everything. I know I said that I want to survive, but if my death would help countless numbers of people, then I think that I would.
Of course this is easy to say, sitting here in my comforatable home with a full stomache, knowing that sacrificing myself wouln't make a lick of difference. But I hope that if it came down to it, I would. Would you? As you said my friend when you are out of the dance it is easy to speak heroicly and give big promises. When you are in things do tend to change. If you were born in a poor country i think that your first and upmost goal would be survival as you said in a previous post. Even at the cost of others life. I won't say a thing to answer to you other than i do not know.
But when it comes to donate to help starving or dying children i donate, because i know that i may have been in their place and i would expect from my fellow human being, who lives comfortably, will say "i will give this dollar and won't buy a hot-dog for a change. I will eat my home cooked meal". Doesn't this appeal to you as a solution?

You brought up Garrett Hardin who is also linked with Malthus by many. Regarding Hardin, I came across something about Hardin that I think is similar to how I think of Malthus:

The philosopher Garrett Hardin and his wife Jane died last month by mutual
suicide. His passing received too little attention; perhaps this week's memorial service at the Unitarian Society in Santa Barbara, Calif., will change that. Hardin was a brilliant, wise and gentle man who was often
desperately wrong, and the ways in which a person can be wise and gentle and yet wrong can tell us much....

Hardin is known for his essay "The Tragedy of the Commons," which created a
sensation when published in Science magazine in 1968, and became among the
most widely read essays ever penned. In "The Tragedy of the Commons,"
Hardin supposed that unrestricted access to a commons would cause herdsmen
to graze so many animals that eventually the commons, which might have
supported a few, would collapse and all starve. Market theorists protested
that creating property rights would prevent the commons from being
overburdened, as rights-holders would acquire an incentive to safeguard
resources. Hardin thought "mutual coercion mutually agreed upon" was the
solution to the tragedy of the commons. Government should fence the commons
and turn away herdsmen. Government, Hardin thought, should prohibit a great
deal of human action, in the interest of preserving resources for future
generations.

Today people think of "The Tragedy of the Commons" as an argument against selfishness. Actually, Hardin was arguing for government-imposed population control: only by reducing the number of people, Hardin thought, could we
prevent excessive demand on the commons.

Reducing the human population became the cause of Hardin's life. On becoming an intellectual celebrity, he spent much of the 1970s making
speeches in favor of abortion -- not just in favor of the right of a woman to control her own body but in favor of abortion itself, as a good in
itself, because abortion prevents life. "Freedom to breed is intolerable,"he declared. The newborn's cry was not, to him, a celebration of life; it was just more breeding. "The only way we can preserve and nurture other and more precious freedoms is by relinquishing the freedom to breed," Hardin thought. And though he had a long, happy marriage with his wife Linda, Hardin disliked the fact that women were reproductive vessels. "Population does not grow globally; it grows very locally, at each spot occupied by a
fertile woman," Hardin declared.

Hardin said the U.S. should withdraw from the United Nations because U.N. policy held that family size was a private decision. He also wanted a total ban against immigration -- "we must bring immigration virtually to an end and do so soon." When the world learned of forced sterilization in China, Hardin cheered: "There is no talk in China of a woman's 'right' to reproduce or of married couples' 'right to privacy,'" he wrote in 1989. Hardin wanted forced-sterility programs extended to all developing nations.

Globally, the human population has almost doubled since "The Tragedy of the Commons" was written, yet U.N. figures show that malnutrition has declined in that period, while developing-world per-capita income, literacy, education levels, longevity and political freedom all have improved.
Meanwhile no resource, not even petroleum, is near exhaustion. Countless problems remain across the globe, but things simply have not gotten as bad as Hardin assumed they would.

That Hardin was wrong on his most basic contention, that humanity would overwhelm the Earth, should not obscure his other achievements. He spoke wisely of the need to temper materialism: "The maximum is not the optimum"
was Hardin's best aphorism. He insisted that future generations make a legitimate claim on us today; Hardin endlessly reminded of the future's
power to judge us, and of how we will, in the next life, wish to be thought well of by the living. And Hardin's ability to be wise, caring and accomplished, yet to say foolish things, reminds us all of our humanity...
http://www.mail-archive.com/fork@xent.com/msg13433.html

Regarding similar things I debated once before elsewhere, I agree with others that many of the basic principals of Malthus and Hardin and jaguar aren't correct

An excellent article imo from The National Interest No. 59:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/2897/increasingreturns.html

We make ourselves better off, then, not by increasing the amount of resources on planet earth--that is, of course, fixed--but by rearranging resources we already have available so that they provide us with more of what we want. This process of improvement has been going on ever since the first members of our species walked the earth. We have moved from heavy earthenware pots to ultrathin plastics and lightweight aluminum cans. To cook our food we have shifted from wood-intensive campfires to clean, efficient natural gas. By using constantly improving recipes, humanity has avoided the Malthusian trap while at the same time making the world safer and more comfortable for an ever larger portion of the world’s population....

What modern Malthusians who fret about the depletion of resources miss is that it is not oil that people want; they want to cool and heat their homes. It is not copper telephone lines that people want; they want to communicate quickly and easily with friends, family and businesses. They do not want paper; they want a convenient and cheap way to store written information.
In short, what is important is not the physical resource but the function to be performed; and for that, ideas are the crucial input. Robert Kates notes that technological discoveries have "transformed the meaning of resources and increased the carrying capacity of the Earth"; economist Gale Johnson concludes that history has clearly confirmed that "no exhaustible resource is essential or irreplaceable"; and economist Dwight Lee asserts that "the relevant resource base is defined by knowledge, rather than by physical deposits of existing resources."...


And others:

http://www.cast-science.org/cast-science.lh/tenb_nr.txt

http://www.reason.com/rb/rb072303.shtml

Edit - I just paid attention to the racism allegations. They're silly allegations. Do a search on Hardin, who is well known, before flinging such accusations. They're also ad hominem you big poopy head.

[ December 06, 2003, 06:36: Message edited by: Laches ]

Firstly, I don't know how this was changed, but I was trying to say that Hardin was not a racist, nor were any of his comments racist. Sorry if this confused anyone out there. I can see how this can mislead people.

To resond to Laches;

Regarding similar things I debated once before elsewhere, I agree with others that many of the basic principals of Malthus and Hardin and jaguar aren't correct Just to clarify, I don't agree with everything that Hardin says. Just some.

I would like to thank you all for posting on this board. It was my intention when I posted to gather other opinions and try to re-establish my own. You have all given me much to think about (especially you Chris). Perhaps I was wrong to think that stopping aid was the solution, or perhaps I was right. All I know now is that I need to think on this a little more, maybe read some more backround material.

Any good suggestions?