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Originally Posted by Curisu
You see the problem is that everyone is trying to take care of everyone else's country. I think if we took care of one country at a time as in getting the homeless fed and homed and we did it just one country at a time then we would be working more efficiently. I mean think about it; If we take care of one country at a time, then we could move faster because that would be one less we would have to take care of once they finished their task their of feeding, homing, and teaching how to get and make food. I know it seems cruel to say this but in all reality its true. I mean step out into a local city and look at all the homeless you see...its sad really...we can't take care of one country but we are going around trying to take care of other countries? Sorry to me that doesn't make the slightest bit of sense...
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No. Can't do it. Countries are interdependent and can affect one another. For example, look at what rising oil prices in the Middle East do to the States, half a world away. Fixing one country means ignoring others, which means their poverty affects the country you're trying to save. Catch-22 if there ever was one.
Also, there's the consideration of what "fixed" is. A free-standing economy? Well, there are plenty of countries that have those that we might not consider "fixed". Stable political structure? Iran has one, lots of people don't think they're "fixed".
Culture and values are too different for us to "fix" the world. In certain cultures, it's considered good to expose malformed children and the elderly, and bad to give women freedom of choice in marriage. Without understanding a culture, you can't repair it, and understanding a culture is like pinching mercuy.
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Originally Posted by guorbatschow
there is no good reason to help feed all those 6bil+ people except morals, right?
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Quite a good reason not to. If a majority of those 8,000,000,000 people die, that's more for your extended family. Less people means more resources for all.
But, there's a good reason to feed them as well. Fat people rarely cause trouble. It sounds like a joke, but look at crime rates in wealthy countries as opposed to poor. How many American suicide bombers are there?
When you have a good life, leaving it seems a little less glamorous, and sticking around becomes priority #1.
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Originally Posted by Noir
We're simply overpopulating the earth and even though there might be enough food to feed everyone, some people wont give that up. Why? Because men (man and woman in general) are greedy, Greed is what Humans are. Most of us aren't but majority are.
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It's not overpopulation, as stated before, it's misappropriation of resources. Anyway.
I'd argue that greed is an integral part of living, perhaps the greatest of human virtues. Without it, there is no reason to get better at living than other species. Look at the basest of creatures, they strive to accumulate resources just as humans do. The only thing that seperates us is the fact that we can accumulate much more than they can. Cats would kill all the birds in the world if birds didn't fly. Birds would eat all the seeds in the world if seeds weren't sometimes poisonous. Seeds would take over all the land, if some weren't inhabitable. Etc., etc., etc.
Everything is greedy, that's why it lives. If there's no impetus to get more stuff, there's no reason to stray outside equilibrium. Know what happens to creatures that find a niche and stay there? Ask the polar bear. You end up with a changing world, and you kicked out of it.
Greedy creatures, like the raccoon and squirrel? They do awesome with change. Garbage cans and waste are manna from heaven for them. Why? They want. They want a lot more than they fear. I remember being able to step on my porch and see raccoons not five feet away, eating scraps of my cat's food. They'd look up, sort of shrug, and go back to eating. Non-greedy creatures would bolt, and lose out on that extra resource. Raccoon babies would eat better, and out-perform those creatures. Greed = survival.
I think what we need is more greed. Not necessarily for material goods, but for quality of life. When we demand a better quality of life, without the accompanying lust for materials, we find new ways to do things. If we'd had that type of greed, we'd have continued the space program, and had a glut of mineral wealth from neighboring satellites. We'd probably have lots of extra space, oxygen, water, all sorts of good stuff.
But, we had to have the material goods here on Earth. It was all about stealing the moon from the Communists, short-term greed, rather than long-term. And that's where the human race is failing. Rather than asking how I can live 300 years and have what I need for it, I ask how I can live like a rich man NOW. I eat fast food and buy giant TVs with toxic bits, and tell myself I'll deal with my problems later. With a little biochemical switch, maybe I could realize that all times are 'now', and when 'now' comes up, I'll wish I was long-term greedy 'then'.
(And before we get peace-loving hippy BS about American Indians, there's pretty good evidence that American Indians killed off a dozen or so species while travelling from the Bering Strait down to California. Most of their "use all of the animal" philosophy was romantic dreamings of Europeans. The rest was necessity.)
Human greed. -
04-23-2008, 11:38 AM
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