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I am positive that this is a...

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You may well be right. Certainly there have been some political figures who've tried to make capital out of it. The point I was making, though, is that the redistribution of food or any other resource is as often prevented by politics as mechanics. And political obstacles could be resolved if there was truly the will to do so. The great tragedy is that there always seem to be vested interests who will put the starvation of thousands after their own, more materialistic, goals.

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Originally Posted by FunkyDexter

The great tragedy is that there always seem to be vested interests who will put the starvation of thousands after their own, more materialistic, goals.

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This "tradgedy" seems to also be reflected in this thread.

Regardless of whether it is 10,000 or 100,000 based on reports, it seems obvious that aid could be used in Mayanmar.

Brad!

I don't think there's anyone (credible) who's saying that it's 100,000 yet. There are at least 20,000 dead with at least that many again unaccounted for. However, aid workers are still having trouble getting in. There are planes fully loaded with supplies who don't have permission to drop them off. No support that comes from the US is yet approved.

The numbers of dead from starvation and disease are about to skyrocket and the junta is more concerned with trying to maintain control than it is with the lives of its citizens. They received two days warning about the cyclone from India and didn't inform any of their citizens or take any steps to deal with the crisis they knew was about to happen - that makes them directly responsible for pretty much every one of the confirmed deaths. They are now putting up roadblocks to get food, medicine, etc to the people affected by it and that makes them directly responsible for the inevitable tens of thousands of additional deaths that are about to occur.

These guys make Bush's response to Katrina look like the decisive action of a competent and intelligent leader. It's the most despicable action I've ever seen.

I have to ask....

In regard to Myanmar, I'd like to know the opinions of crptcblade and some of the others who believe we should turn our backs on poverty for the good of the world as a whole. Is this another case where we shouldn't bother with aid as the tragedy will simply help world population balance itself? Why help the Myanmar people and not the starving people in Africa or other places?

What's the difference?

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Originally Posted by brad jones

I have to ask....

In regard to Myanmar, I'd like to know the opinions of crptcblade and some of the others who believe we should turn our backs on poverty for the good of the world as a whole.

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When did I say we should turn our backs on them? I believe I mentioned something about turning them into food/slurry. :afrog:

In all seriousness, there shouldn't be a difference. Either you help in all cases or none. I simply lean toward the "none" side more often.

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Originally Posted by brad jones

This "tradgedy" seems to also be reflected in this thread.

Regardless of whether it is 10,000 or 100,000 based on reports, it seems obvious that aid could be used in Mayanmar.

Brad!

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Well true, (and contrary to what I posted earlier, I've been following the story often over the past few hours) and I'm glad they've finally given permission to UN planes to cross into their airspace; US still blocked.

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Originally Posted by FunkyDexter

They've been saying on the news this morning that we throw away something like 10 billion pounds worth of food a year in the UK. I don't know what the figure for the US but I'm willing to bet it dwarfs that .

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Nah, look at how fat we are getting. We don't throw it away, we eat it!

@Mendhak: No other society has known their own limitations as well as has ours. We certainly could keep advancing, but until sometime about a century and a half ago, there was still a frontier somewhere in the world where technology had not advanced. This left unmapped regions of the world, unfished seas, unexploited mineral deposits, and not a single existing resource of any size had been tapped out. Now there is not a single oceanic fishery that is not exploited fully or overexploited (except for krill, which have escaped because nobody has found an economical away to make them non-toxic). The great fisheries on the atlantic seaboard are all closed or fading. The cod are closed, the groundfish are closed, bluefin tuna are headed for extinction, sharks are in trouble, etc. As for other resources, all the easy oil deposits are fully exploited, Pennsylvania is pretty much dry, Texas is declining, and some people believe that Saudi Arabia has peaked, and may be declining. The oil that has driven so much of our technological improvements in the last century, is only still available to any extent because we are FAR more effective at extracting it from the ground than we used to be. Add to that the emergence of strains of bacteria that are immune to all but the very newest antibiotics, and the health improvements that have led to the population explosion in the last century may run out.

Will we find new medical technologies to keep disease at bay? Perhaps, and perhaps not. However, we HAVE to. If you look at your life, and consider all the pieces that went into any particular thing you do, you will probably realize that we need a MASSIVE workforce to maintain our standard of living. We need the miners and drillers to extract the materials, we need the manufacturers, and we need more manufacturers to build the materials needed by the miners and drillers, as well as manufacturers to build the materials needed by the manufacturers who bild the materials for the miners and drillers. And much the same series of statements could be made about farmers. If we suffered another black plague, what would give? If you do without the web of support for oil extraction, transport, conversion, etc., then you lose the ability to produce the food needed. We lack the means to work current lands with the infrastructure and tools used in 1900, so we wouldn't get the crops, nor would we be able to distribute them.

Of course, it would take more time than I'd care to write to fully work through any one of those examples, but my point is this: Our continued existence as a technological society is based on our continued existence as a technological society. At no time in the past has society ever lived so high without a net. In the 1800's, a massive plague would have had relatively little impact, as farmers would just breed more horses and get out in the fields again, and things would build back up, as they did after the Black Death. We can't work the fields with horses anymore, we need more fields, more power, and more chemicals, to get the yields we currently see. A major stumble at this time, whether caused by a serious plague, comet, or massive social disruption from another source, could have consequences unlike those at any time in history.

We are not in a golden age because we are better than all those who came before us, and we are not in a golden age because those who come after have no hope of improving on us. However, we ARE in a golden age because the consequence of a slip is greater than it ever has been. We are on a high wire, and only constant progress in finding new ways of being more efficient allows us to keep our balance. We can't turn back easily, and we can't get off this wire without serious risk, but if we slip, the fall will be long and permanent. The readily accessible resources that allowed us to reach these heights have all been exploited. If this society falls, would another society have the means to regain these heights?

You're right about that - we know our limitations quite well. One of the main reasons for the progress we've made is due to our ability to store information outside our bodies, on other media, and then to be able to analyze that information. We therefore study what we know and can make some conclusions based upon those facts. But if you think a little more about it, we're not that good at it. We're only beginning to be able to process and analyze that information in complex ways thanks to our information systems developments. However, we don't know weather that well; or earthquakes; or even women. I feel that we will soon enough in the future be able to understand the first two and make even better conclusions based on those facts and in turn know our limitations even better. Our continued existence is because of what we are, but our advancements are for the very same reason.

Yes, oil is going to be a major factor. Right now, we're happy to sit on our posteriors and reap the rewards of it. A solution will be found though. It hasn't occurred to us because we're accustomed to a certain way of doing things. It's like a discussion on VBF a few months ago, I mentioned that alcohol ought to be banned, but the reaction was that it had always been that way; it'd be impossible to cope without it.

If we did know our limitations so well right now, we'd know exactly what to do about any impending problems; we don't know it so well though. Forced population control measures may seem harsh and inhumane now but they may not be once we know things better and that'd solve the population explosion problem. Silicon as a fuel? I don't know, I'm no chemist, but there'll be another solution found to the impending fuel crisis. Humans, much like sci-fi movie and TV characters, like to find solutions to things when it's almost too late.

And you're right, the consequences of a slip are great - food prices rising all over the world because of the tight interweaving of global economies. It's part of the parcel of being in a golden age like this. If you call this the golden age, I'll call the coming century the Platinum age. We can work our way towards Rhodium and Lutetium. But do you see what I mean now?

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except for krill, which have escaped because nobody has found an economical away to make them non-toxic

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Easy. Whales eat krill. We eat whales.

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Originally Posted by mendhak

One of the main reasons for the progress we've made is due to our ability to store information outside our bodies, on other media, and then to be able to analyze that information.

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That's true! I, for instance, can determine my last meal by sucking on my beard.

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We therefore study what we know and can make some conclusions based upon those facts. But if you think a little more about it, we're not that good at it.

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Oh, I could go on at LENGTH about that last statement. The older I get, the more I am convinced that we call ourselves sentient more because there is nobody to tell us otherwise rather than the fact being true.

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However, we don't know weather that well; or earthquakes; or even women.

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Chaotic systems, all.

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But do you see what I mean now?

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Yes, and I don't agree with it. The golden age is not this very day, it began in the middle of the last century, and it ends when we fall from the high wire. We have put ourselves in a position where technology HAS to keep functioning to keep us alive. If any significant pillar is removed, the whole house comes tumbling down, and it may never be possible to build it up again because we have destroyed the blocks used to build it the first time. The easy deposits of metals and feuls are gone, and will never come back. All the low hanging fruit has been picked. If society collapses, it may be that the mines will never run again because before they do we need the plastics, rubbers, and metals needed to create the tools that currently allow us to mine in places that were passed over for hundreds or thousands of years because they were inaccessible. However, that's a vicious circle. Do we need the metals from easier mines to extract the metals from more difficult mines? Well too bad, because the easier mines are now gone.

So if the system falters to the point that we cannot feed the masses, we are in a situation where the fall could snowball. Each resource is highly and fundamentally dependent on other resources to an extent that has never happened before in human history. If something happened such that we lost any leg of the stool on which stands our entire farming industry, the world would starve. Since humans don't take well to starvation, the onset of such a famine would probably lead to destabilizations that could easily knock another leg off the stool, which would further cripple the food supply, etc.

In past times, famine resulted from insufficient harvest. People got really hungry, and people starved to death, but the population was kept in check largely by the ability of the land to sustain the population. Now the land alone doesn't sustain the population, because without a myriad of technologies the land can't provide for even a very tiny fraction of what is there now. In fact, unless an impact was fairly gradual, our current farms wouldn't produce a fraction of the food we need, they would produce 0% of the food we need. Take one leg out from under the stool, and production wouldn't decline, it would STOP! Within a single year of such an event, there would be NO edible material in any of the cities other than the people. Most cities have enough edible material on hand to survive a disruption of no more than a week. After that, society falls apart.

The age is golden because of the comforts we have. Future generations may have more comfort, but only if they keep improving. The alternative will be that future generations are stone age, because we built this society on the consumption of all the easy pickings. Once fallen, there will be no way to stand again.

The main problem is that we're running out of places to go. The desert in the ME around Iraq, Egypt, etc used to be known as the fertile crecent and was the cradle of humanity because it was bountiful enough to allow us to thrive there. Then we overfarmed and overused it and now that fertile land is mainly barren. Not much of an issue, though, since we simply expanded into new areas to gather resources there.

Space is becoming a factor, though. If we overfarm an area and use up all the resources, we're getting limited in the number of other places we can go to to gain addtional resources. This is especially true because with the expanding population base, someone else who wanted the good area is probably already there. Our choices would be to let our own people suffer due to the lack of resources or make the other people suffer so we can have theirs. As evolution selects against those who choose the first option, it's the ones who choose the latter option who thrive.

Jared Diamond asked the question in his book Collapse, "What were the people of Easter Island thinking when they chopped down the last tree?". Of course, we can't ask them because they're all dead because they destroyed their resources and could no longer support a society on their island. Even if they'd remembered how to build the ocean-travelling canoes their ancestors used to get their a dozens of generations previously, they no longer had anything to build them with.

As was said above, we're in the same situation. If our society collapses, where are we going to get the resources to start over? The things that are easy to find have already been used up. We're betting all our apples that technology will find a way to just keep us running forward, but if it doesn't, we've limited our options for recovery.

I heard one of the spiritual gurus saying that a time will soon come when everyone on this earth will have a lot of money, but there will be no food which they can buy.

Pradeep :)

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Originally Posted by Pradeep1210

I heard one of the spiritual gurus saying that a time will soon come when everyone on this earth will have a lot of money, but there will be no food which they can buy.

Pradeep :)

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Sounds like you need to find a new spiritual guru who understands basic economics. :)

I like that quote.

I also like what the red queen said:

"Sometimes you have to run as hard as you can to stay in one place."

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Originally Posted by mendhak

...food prices rising all over the world because of the tight interweaving of global economies.

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It's always economics.

30 or more years ago when I was a child we had only seasonal fruits and veggies available. Now our grocery stores are stocked with blueberries and peppers and strawberries all year round. They are growing this produce in other countries - above and below the equator - instead of foods for themselves because they all make more money feeding our greedy machine.

And I don't buy the argument that we are running out of space - that's alarmist. The US has more then enough space for us all for a long, long time. As for other counties - that's up to them to manage.

I think there is a lot of doom and gloom in this thread that I don't buy into. For sure, resources are finite but we have known this for a long long time. A lot of research is going into renewable energies (solar/wind/tidal) and population control is not new. China has been restricting family sizes (one child policy) since 1979. Space agencies are spending serious money on possible ways to colonise other planets.

Bad ecology is a symptom of out of control society. The state of the environment has never been so well documented or publicised. Al Gore, Suzuki and other tree-huggers are beating that drum constantly. School children aka the next generation are having "Reduce, Recycle, Reuse" drummed into them to such an extent it's pissing off the parents (don't ask me how I know that).

Clean-up Australia Day, Earth Day, Walk-to-work day, buy-a-bicycle-and-save-the-ozone day. Whatever. It's getting rather borish but it is very slowly making a difference.

But not on our generation. It's the next generation. The kids are living and breathing it. Or they will. They are the next scientists, researchers, manufacturers and policy makers and they will make the greatest impact we have yet to see.

And what about our population, ecology and fragile resources that are on the brink of disaster? We make do. We have time. As Mendhak suggests, necessity is the mother of invention and inventions will come from area's with the greatest needs and whilst that won't save us forever, it will buy us enough time for the current generation to die off and the kids behind us, with more wisdom than us, to do things differently with better, more sustainable techniques.

Society will prevail - our kids will see to that.

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Originally Posted by brad jones

I have to ask....

In regard to Myanmar, I'd like to know the opinions of crptcblade and some of the others who believe we should turn our backs on poverty for the good of the world as a whole. Is this another case where we shouldn't bother with aid as the tragedy will simply help world population balance itself? Why help the Myanmar people and not the starving people in Africa or other places?

What's the difference?

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I'll respond by saying we should respond to natural disasters and "sudden" calamity's such as this simply for humanitarian/ethical reasons.

As for entire generations slowly starving in the deserts of Africa? I shan't do much to help them as long as they have despot governments putting their own interests first. Yes - I care about those starving children, many orphaned, but until the larger problem is dealt with on a higher level (ie governments/dicators replaced by the UN or whatever) then I shall dedicate my meagre resources (ie money, blanket donations, tins of food) to other area's that have a greater potential of overcoming their predicament.

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Originally Posted by Foxer

For sure, resources are finite but we have known this for a long long time.

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And we've done something about it...but not much. We conserve a few things, but only to the extent that we have slowed the rate of consumption, nothing more.

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A lot of research is going into renewable energies (solar/wind/tidal)

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Good.

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and population control is not new.

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No, it's not new, but it hasn't done a thing, either. We know about it, it just is utterly ineffective.

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Space agencies are spending serious money on possible ways to colonise other planets.

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They might as well save their money, it's physically impossible for colonization to have any impact on the earth population size. To colonize at a rate that kept earth population stable would require a rate of transportation that is far beyond the most optimistic scenario.

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Bad ecology is a symptom of out of control society. The state of the environment has never been so well documented or publicised. Al Gore, Suzuki and other tree-huggers are beating that drum constantly. School children aka the next generation are having "Reduce, Recycle, Reuse" drummed into them to such an extent it's pissing off the parents (don't ask me how I know that).

Clean-up Australia Day, Earth Day, Walk-to-work day, buy-a-bicycle-and-save-the-ozone day. Whatever. It's getting rather borish but it is very slowly making a difference.

But not on our generation. It's the next generation. The kids are living and breathing it. Or they will. They are the next scientists, researchers, manufacturers and policy makers and they will make the greatest impact we have yet to see.

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This just means that a percentage of the next generation will be as frustrated as the current generation. For every forward thinking person, there will be a dozen who buy Hummers.

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And what about our population, ecology and fragile resources that are on the brink of disaster? We make do. We have time. As Mendhak suggests, necessity is the mother of invention and inventions will come from area's with the greatest needs and whilst that won't save us forever, it will buy us enough time for the current generation to die off and the kids behind us, with more wisdom than us, to do things differently with better, more sustainable techniques.

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Actually, we have no idea if we have time, nor is there any evidence that the next generation will do anything about the basic issues. People talk about the small things, and little progress is made on them. All the conservation in the world won't make a difference when a new billion people are added every decade.

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Society will prevail - our kids will see to that.

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I won't be around to see it. It's nice to be optimistic, but there isn't even a serious discussion about population control, except that in this country there is a strong push to prevent any means of achieving that.

Wow, thank God you stepped in Foxer!

If you hadn't, everyone else may have voluntarily killed themselves for the sake of the Planet!

I hear scrap all day long about starving children, the wasteful US and Western societies, the 'peak oil' crisis, the need to spend even MORE money on education (you'd think $160,000 would be enough for a great education wouldn't ya!?), the GLOBAL WARMING CRISIS because we CONSUME too much. I mean, who knew driving a GMC Suburban could raise the global temperature on MARS as well?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...s-warming.html
http://businessandmedia.org/specialr...ce_execsum.asp
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/...ming020507.htm
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-131


In my opinion, this is all total bs. Kasracer was alluding to this early on in the thread. People are starving in Africa because of two really good reasons:
1) Tribalism
2) Greed

It has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with us. We can only try to help, and I think we should recognize and be satisfied in the attempt if nothing else. We could go in with guns blazing, toppling corrupt governments, killing dictators, but as the situation in Iraq shows - we can easily win the war, but to actually transform a country and culture is very difficult.

On the food issue, you can't begin to tell me we couldn't feed a human population of 40 billion in the coming 100 years. The Agriscience industry has increased the harvest of many crops from an acre of land. US corn yields, for instance, went from 30 bushels/acre in the 40's to 70 bushels/acre in the 1970's, to 150 bushels/ acre now. That's a five fold increase in less than 70 years. Monsanto brazenly predicts 300 bushes/acre by 2030. It's Moore's law with agriculture.

And if you think we don't have enough space, you haven't been to Canada (lol).

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Originally Posted by Foxer

As for entire generations slowly starving in the deserts of Africa? I shan't do much to help them as long as they have despot governments putting their own interests first. Yes - I care about those starving children, many orphaned, but until the larger problem is dealt with on a higher level (ie governments/dicators replaced by the UN or whatever) then I shall dedicate my meagre resources (ie money, blanket donations, tins of food) to other area's that have a greater potential of overcoming their predicament.

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Valid points. Thanks for sharing them.

Brad!

I don't buy the world running out of space/resources argument. There are still places on this planet with abundant resources and space to support increasing populations.

Look at Canada, it's empty here, and I imagine Russia is much the same. The real problem to me would appear to be that people are in the wrong places. And those places have an infrastructure/government/culture which is seriously broken. I think the root problem is government corruption.

Now, let me explain my position. I have travelled extensively through a number of poor countries, and they have serious issues which simply sending them food and land will not solve. Look at India and Pakistan, the jobs are assigned to people based on their caste, not on their ability. People of a lower caste are treated like scum by those of the upper caste. Corruption is rampant at every level (especially in government), because everyone is on the take, no-one sees anything wrong with it.

If you were to transport abundant shipments of food to Pakistan, it would never reach the starving poor. It would be syphoned off and sold by the corrupt officials. The same goes for school supplies or equipment for drilling wells. I think it's the same with many of the countries of the world.

Changing the government isn't going to help either, because the corruption is so ingrained in the culture of these countries that it is not a quick overnight fix. Look at the anti-corruption attempts made by the Nigerian government. They have been ineffectual, mainly because everyone there is so used to bribes being a part of business. If you don't pay the bribe, your equipment goes missing off the back fo the truck (or if you don't pay enough of a bribe, or if you pay the wrong person, or if they just think that they won't see you again...etc.). So, no-body does business with Nigeria, nobody gives them any charity or supplies, we just leave them alone and the poor continue to starve.

I should point out that I am merely highlight what I see as the problem that allows starvation to continue unchecked (i.e. corruption in the se countries). I do not have an answer for it.....

The article is a bit over dramatic but it's applicable not necessarily to the OP but to other comments made here.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news...654067790.html

That is part of the Mormon faith, too. They are supposed to keep X number of weeks of food on hand at all times. I'm not sure what X is, though, and it may be up to the whim of the individual.

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Originally Posted by brad jones

We were discussing this week-end :

Six billion people in the world

One billion won't likely eat a meal today as they live in serious poverty.

Another 1.5 billion also live in poverty at a level where they will be lucky if they do have one meal today.

That is nearly half the world not getting enough food to sustain themselves.

Something's broken in our world.

I was told that I live in the 26th county in the United States. Even in my area there are thousands that live below the poverty level. While statistically lower than the world's 2.5/6, it is still high for the area.

Something's broken in our world.

...Shake the System...

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Something not directly related to the above:

A few years back, I had the impression of a truly democratic, developed, free society when I thought of the US. Today the view has become much more realistic, as I have observed the events of the past. So I am not surprised today when I see the once-idolized nation having problems or crises that would not have come in my dreams. It's only because today I am not as ignorant as I was a few years back, or today I have access to sources of knowledge that I didn't have a few years back.

Similarly when you express shock at the poor and starving population of the world, is it more for the revelation? I guess the world has never been fully fed anytime in its history, and the population of the poor hasn't suddenly taken a massive jump.

This is not to undermine the intent of your post. Just a side-thought.

.

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Originally Posted by SurfDemon

Now, let me explain my position. I have travelled extensively through a number of poor countries, and they have serious issues which simply sending them food and land will not solve. Look at India and Pakistan, the jobs are assigned to people based on their caste, not on their ability. People of a lower caste are treated like scum by those of the upper caste. Corruption is rampant at every level (especially in government), because everyone is on the take, no-one sees anything wrong with it.

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When did you travel to India/Pakistan, in your last birth? I don't know about Pakistan, but India has changed a lot since independence about its caste and religion system. We have already had a woman prime minister as well as a woman president, a number of muslim presidents, a president from a backward caste. Compare that with any other democracy and let me know which other democracy has shown such diversity in the position of the head of the state. And these are just the heads of state. People from various castes, tribes and religions have been holding various offices throughout the country.

Corruption? Which country is free from corruption? Just the other day I read on BBC News that the US administration spent close to US$ 8 billion in Iraq without as much as a written receipt or any documents of goods/services received against the money.

Enough ranting. Coming back to the point if it's going to help or not, or if you are willing to help or not. For whatever reason we cite for helping or not helping, I simply ask: Do you really wish to make a difference? The answer can be Yes or can be No. When we just give excuses like there is a corrupt government in Nigeria or other reasons why we wouldn't like to help, it simply means that our commitment is not strong enough. Mind you, I am including myself in the lot too. Where there is a will, there is a way. To just give two examples from India itself, you have Mother Theresa and you have Baba Amte (he created a whole new colony for lepers and worked with them to make them self-sufficient). These individuals didn't get the best of circumstances. But they braved everything. And you can find similar examples in each place.

.

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Originally Posted by honeybee

Similarly when you express shock at the poor and starving population of the world, is it more for the revelation?

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I don't know that shock is what I expressed. Rather, I thought it a topic worth discussing in chit chat.

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Originally Posted by brad jones

I don't know that shock is what I expressed. Rather, I thought it a topic worth discussing in chit chat.

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Ok then my reading of it was probably not correct.

You shook the system in your first post. Did anything fall down from it? Did you find out what's broken?

.

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Originally Posted by honeybee

You shook the system in your first post. Did anything fall down from it? Did you find out what's broken?
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Shaking the System is a book and a theme that has come up in circles I hang with.

As to answering your question - yes, I found out some information on where things are broken in the world. Take a look at some of the responses in this thread and you'll either think it is obvious where some things are broken, or you won't :)

Brad!

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Originally Posted by Tom Sawyer

Sounds like you need to find a new spiritual guru who understands basic economics. :)

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And what makes you so sure the remarks are incorrect?

Corn prices are rising in the US, and as a result the food items using corn as an ingredient are bound to rise. The fuel prices have risen and this will push up every other commodity in the market that is transported or produced by burning fuel. You cannot have a scientific formula to calculate these impacts, you can often not see a direct relationship between two entities immediately, but over a period of time you may be able to make the connection.

When bio-fuels were invented, everyone joined the bandwagon with their numerous advantages over fossil fuels. Did anyone make the connection between a switch to bio-fuel and a shortage of corn? Bio-fuel may have been good for the auto industry, but has it been good to the food industry?

The reasons for any event are not as simple as numbering them 1 and 2.

.

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Originally Posted by brad jones

Shaking the System is a book and a theme that has come up in circles I hang with.

As to answering your question - yes, I found out some information on where things are broken in the world. Take a look at some of the responses in this thread and you'll either think it is obvious where some things are broken, or you won't :)

Brad!

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I believe as a mass we are not good at analysing or finding out the cause and effect relationship. This is my personal opinion. Individually, everyone will make guesses about the cause and the effect, depending upon their knowledge, backgrounds, socio-economic environments, current moodswings and so on, and the chances of these findings of being correct are probably as good as me guessing what my CEO's driver ate yesterday night.

What we might be able to do is collect a set of probable reasons which collectively influence a particular outcome. However, as I said in my earlier post, it's often hasty to conclude just one or two reasons exist for a particular situation.

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No argument here - I would agree that there are a multitude of variables leading to current conditions. I also, however, believe that one person can have an impact ("butterfly effect").

Brad!

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Originally Posted by nemaroller

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On the food issue, you can't begin to tell me we couldn't feed a human population of 40 billion in the coming 100 years. The Agriscience industry has increased the harvest of many crops from an acre of land. US corn yields, for instance, went from 30 bushels/acre in the 40's to 70 bushels/acre in the 1970's, to 150 bushels/ acre now. That's a five fold increase in less than 70 years. Monsanto brazenly predicts 300 bushes/acre by 2030. It's Moore's law with agriculture.

And if you think we don't have enough space, you haven't been to Canada (lol).

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And what about the fertility of the soil? As [Tom Sawyer] observed above, we are exhausing the fertility of the soil by pumping it with chemical fertilizers, modern harvesting techniques and what not. You may not realize the gravity of the situation when you own a thousand acres of land, but when you own about 2 acres and grow crops on it to see your family through the year, you realize the importance to ensure those two acres will remain fertile year after year.

Also the habitable land on the planet is limited, no matter what you do. The wise choice today is to ensure your habitat survived with you and not the other way round.

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Originally Posted by nemaroller

Wow, thank God you stepped in Foxer!
In my opinion, this is all total bs. Kasracer was alluding to this early on in the thread. People are starving in Africa because of two really good reasons:
1) Tribalism
2) Greed

It has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with us. We can only try to help, and I think we should recognize and be satisfied in the attempt if nothing else. We could go in with guns blazing, toppling corrupt governments, killing dictators, but as the situation in Iraq shows - we can easily win the war, but to actually transform a country and culture is very difficult.

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Whose greed? And who encouraged it?

Today the Pepsi and Cola factories are busy pumping out the ground water to feed their bottling plants, selling tasteless chemicals to people at exhorbitant prices. Ground water levels have gone down and people are unable to get drinking water. Is it not a gift from the developed countries to the world?

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Originally Posted by brad jones

No argument here - I would agree that there are a multitude of variables leading to current conditions. I also, however, believe that one person can have an impact ("butterfly effect").

Brad!

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You are right.

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Originally Posted by honeybee

When did you travel to India/Pakistan, in your last birth? I don't know about Pakistan, but India has changed a lot since independence about its caste and religion system.

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I was just in Pakistan in January. The caste system is very noticable to me, maybe you've become immune.

As for India, last year I was working with two computer science graduates from India (same course). One was very good, came from a lower caste and had obviously worked hard for his degree - the other could hardly turn on the computer, but had apparently been awarded his degree because he was from a very wealthy caste (I gotta believe this given his stunning inability to operate the computer).

This information came from the owner of the company who was also of higher caste. He pretty much said that he was just giving him a job, and to assign the work between them and let the lower caste guy do it all.....

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Originally Posted by honeybee

Corruption? Which country is free from corruption? Just the other day I read on BBC News that the US administration spent close to US$ 8 billion in Iraq without as much as a written receipt or any documents of goods/services received against the money.

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True, corruption exists in all governments, but in Pakistan it's been taken to a whole new level. I've never considered bribing an immigration official in Canada/US/UK etc. , it's very common in Pakistan, we feel like right idiots standing in line with our $300 work visas while people walk past, up the guards and blatently hand over $100 to walk through immigration with no questions asked.

If I want to bring equipment into Canada/US/UK I go through the proper channels, pay my taxes and we're good. In Pakistan we have to pay bribes to the customs officials to let us take our equipment into the country... equipment that we will use to keep the lights on I might add, and keep people employed..... what happens if we don't pay the bribes? Well our equipment gets confiscated..... and if we want someone to sort it out, then we have to bribe them with even more money.....

So lets look at all this. The tax money that should go to the government never gets collected, but nobody cares because "everyone is on the take" or "it's the way business is done" or some other justification.

Of course, the officials taking the bribes never declare them as income, so they don't get taxed on them..... the country is never going to be wealthy at this rate. If the country doesn't have any spare cash, then there can be no social wellfare or support mechanisms, and once again people fall through the cracks (or in Pakistans case, gaping holes)

I can't comment about Pakistan as I have never been there nor heard any authentic tales, but I can imagine what you must have gone through.

Re the software techies, I don't believe it's a generalization that people of higher caste are given a job just for the name's sake and people of lower castes do all the work. It may be the attitude of the particular owner in question. My own boss is from a lower caste than myself, but I never think of his caste, only his abilities.

Back in my schooldays, I have shared a bench with kids of lower castes and also of lower economic status, we have had teachers from lower castes teaching us (remember this is approx 20 years ago). And neither teachers nor students ever cared about the race or caste of each others.

I personally consider it abnormal that I should be finger-printed and generally treated like a criminal-until-proven-innocent strategy adopted by the US immigration department. This is not to counter your argument on bribing the officials, but just an example of a reality that I wouldn't even imagine in my dreams.

What you are saying about the lost revenues and resulting circle of poverty is correct. However it's also the choice of the people involved. As I mentioned earlier and also Brad did, even a single person can make a difference, provided he/she/it wants to. There may be honest officials within even the Pakistani government who are trying to work for their government or people, and not themselves.

Justifications (rather lame excuses) exist even on the state level, not just on individual level.

(PS: I wonder why India has progressed and Pakistan hasn't. Among the multitude of factors, I think we must also count the individual will. The leadership of India has had quite a few visionaries who did some thinking ahead and ensured the country generally stayed on the progress path. On the other hand Pakistan has been in turmoil almost ever since independence.)

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If you have access to the New York Times, here is an interesting article that continues this discussion and brings the topic to the United States....


Study Shows Colorado Has Largest Rise in Child Poverty
By DAN FROSCH
The study said that the most recent census data show that
180,000 children -- 15.7 percent of the state total -- were
living in poverty in Colorado in 2006, a 73 percent
increase since 2000.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/us...html?th&emc=th

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Originally Posted by brad jones

If you have access to the New York Times, here is an interesting article that continues this discussion and brings the topic to the United States....


Study Shows Colorado Has Largest Rise in Child Poverty
By DAN FROSCH
The study said that the most recent census data show that
180,000 children -- 15.7 percent of the state total -- were
living in poverty in Colorado in 2006, a 73 percent
increase since 2000.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/us...html?th&emc=th

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What is the criteria for being classes as "living in poverty". Is it an income level? Savings? and if so what is it? or is it Income-debts?

The reason I ask is that it's very difficult to judge relative wealth/poverty even within one state. I might be earning $10,000 a year, but have my house paid off, no debt and a well stocked garden. As an extension, I might run a farm, with plenty of food, millions of dollars of equipment, but for tax purposes my income is minimal. On the other end of the scale, I might earn $100,000 a year, but be struggling to pay off my $700,000 mortgage, my two vehicles and feed my coke habit..... so my children end up going without...

I'm not arguing that there aren't a lot of poor people in Colorado, I'm just curious as to how they are measuring it.

Of course, as we look overseas the difference becomes even more complex. Looking around at Canada, nobody starves to death, and (with the noteable exception of the homeless), people who we would generally consider poor (by western standards) have way more than many wealthy people in other countries (a house, ten year old car in the driveway, a wide selection of food on the table, furniture from Walmart, healthcare, education, security).

So, I'm not sure that poverty is the true definition of the worlds problems. It is a lack of the basics - access to healthy food, shelter, healthcare and personal security (non-violent society) would be the things I would look at.

That criteria is all over the place - and in political and economic times like we have now I'm leary attach myself to the definitions and descriptions being put forth...

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_line

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Originally Posted by honeybee

PS: I wonder why India has progressed and Pakistan hasn't. Among the multitude of factors, I think we must also count the individual will. The leadership of India has had quite a few visionaries who did some thinking ahead and ensured the country generally stayed on the progress path. On the other hand Pakistan has been in turmoil almost ever since independence.)

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I have often asked myself this question. It's a fairly unique situation, two neighbouring nations coming from the same situation, both starting out within a day of each other, and one going up and the other going down. The Pakistani's are quite open in their belief that each leader they have had since independence has been progressively more corrupt than the last. What started out as a dream has declined into a nightmare.

India has re-invested in it's infrastructure and it's education system. None of that is/has happened in Pakistan, with many of the nicer buildings and roads actually being legacies of the colonial days, and little improvement done since then. Of course, there are exceptions, but it is very noticable.

I think though India and Pakistan are neighbouring nations and were born just a day apart, the similarity would probably end there. The geographical, topographical and demographical diversity found in India may not exist in Pakistan.

Going back to brad's post, we may not be able to define a generalized rule of thumb to determine who falls below the poverty line and who doesn't. But we could always use the individual yardsticks used by each state/community. I don't think the parameters for defining the poverty line have anywhere changed drastically, no matter which country you talk about.

An observation or more an opinion from what I have been reading of the economic crisis in the US: Do you think the past few years (or decades maybe) the governments have been gradually pushing people to spend more instead of saving? It would be an impact of all the fiscal policies together, but I believe there has been a noticeable shift over the years from encouraging people to save to encouraging them to spend. One common reason cited for this is if people spend, only then the economy progresses. I believe this ultimately will make the people lose. Because when the economy prospers, it most likely divides its benefits unequally.

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