If you are pro-life, then act like it. Abortion, believe it or not, isn't the only thing threatening life right now. You know what? You could sell your computer and then donate the money to charity to help the starving kids in Ethiopia. Surely you could save one life? No? You don't want to? Don't you care about life? Don't you care about little Sabaweezo?

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I wish I were 日本語.

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Originally posted by Hand Signal X If you are pro-life, then act like it. Abortion, believe it or not, isn't the only thing threatening life right now. You know what? You could sell your computer and then donate the money to charity to help the starving kids in Ethiopia. Surely you could save one life? No? You don't want to? Don't you care about life? Don't you care about little Sabaweezo?

You know the best solution to starving children in Africa is, in fact, starving children in Africa. The problem is having too many people for what the resources available. We've tried providing more resources... turns out that doesn't work very well... maybe we should try fewer people. Let the population thin itself out to a point that the land can again support it.

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Originally posted by RickyM you're just a shit version of Moral Hazard. At least he knows what he's talking about.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN lol, i love it when moral feels the need to lay the smack down

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Originally posted by Moral Hazard You know the best solution to starving children in Africa is, in fact, starving children in Africa. The problem is having too many people for what the resources available. We've tried providing more resources... turns out that doesn't work very well... maybe we should try fewer people. Let the population thin itself out to a point that the land can again support it.

perhaps you should have a word to the pope and his influence on contraception in the region?

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN perhaps you should have a word to the pope and his influence on contraception in the region?

I wish I could.

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Originally posted by RickyM you're just a shit version of Moral Hazard. At least he knows what he's talking about.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN lol, i love it when moral feels the need to lay the smack down

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN perhaps you should have a word to the pope and his influence on contraception in the region?

reminds me of a billboard is saw ont eh side of the health ministry in nassau bahamas... "Protect ya tings, use a rubba every time"



no shit, exact spelling. ill dig up the pic and post it later....


it is along the lines of my point tho, why push to make every conceived child come to term so we have more babies in teh world, when in fact we cannot, as a global society, feed and support the ones we already have?

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN I have 3 hobbies: gaming, DJing & correcting maladjusted fools on the internet.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN Yeah, I’d like to know what horrible, scarring incident in your childhood turned you into such an ignorant, intellectual-hating philistine?

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Originally posted by colonelcrisp why push to make every conceived child come to term so we have more babies in teh world, when in fact we cannot, as a global society, feed and support the ones we already have?

This is a falsehood... we have more then enough resources to feed and support every person on this planet; however, rather then doing that we who have control of the resources choose to horde them for our own advantage. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for letting children in Africa starve - hell, I even encourage it (I can't help but think back to Thus Spoke Zarathustra "let all that is falling also be pushed"), but if the will were there then they could be supported.

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Originally posted by RickyM you're just a shit version of Moral Hazard. At least he knows what he's talking about.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN lol, i love it when moral feels the need to lay the smack down

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Originally posted by Moral Hazard This is a falsehood... we have more then enough resources to feed and support every person on this planet; however, rather then doing that we who have control of the resources choose to horde them for our own advantage. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for letting children in Africa starve - hell, I even encourage it (I can't help but think back to Thus Spoke Zarathustra "let all that is falling also be pushed"), but if the will were there then they could be supported.

true, but the same could be said for domestic poverty. Look at all the people in north america living below the poverty line we could help them too, but we dont.


but really, we pay thousands of dollars for gym memberships, magical weight loss drugs etc..... and then you see these emanciated ethiopian kids on television taking photo ops with alan thicke, and you cant help by think.... lucky...... i would have to spend thousands to get that figure.....

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN I have 3 hobbies: gaming, DJing & correcting maladjusted fools on the internet.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN Yeah, I’d like to know what horrible, scarring incident in your childhood turned you into such an ignorant, intellectual-hating philistine?

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Originally posted by colonelcrisp true, but the same could be said for domestic poverty. Look at all the people in north america living below the poverty line we could help them too, but we dont. but really, we pay thousands of dollars for gym memberships, magical weight loss drugs etc..... and then you see these emanciated ethiopian kids on television taking photo ops with alan thicke, and you cant help by think.... lucky...... i would have to spend thousands to get that figure.....

You know, it's too bad those starving kids aren't quicker... if they were they wouldn't have to starve... they could eat all the flies that are always around them.

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Originally posted by RickyM you're just a shit version of Moral Hazard. At least he knows what he's talking about.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN lol, i love it when moral feels the need to lay the smack down

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Originally posted by Moral Hazard You know, it's too bad those starving kids aren't quicker... if they were they wouldn't have to starve... they could eat all the flies that are always around them.

/COR

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN I have 3 hobbies: gaming, DJing & correcting maladjusted fools on the internet.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN Yeah, I’d like to know what horrible, scarring incident in your childhood turned you into such an ignorant, intellectual-hating philistine?

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Originally posted by Moral Hazard You know the best solution to starving children in Africa is, in fact, starving children in Africa. The problem is having too many people for what the resources available. We've tried providing more resources... turns out that doesn't work very well... maybe we should try fewer people. Let the population thin itself out to a point that the land can again support it.

That's completely illogical - Africa has a much lower population than Europe or Asia. In fact, population density in Africa is lower than both those places as well - and much of Africa's population lives in outliers such as Egypt (80 million) and Nigeria (120 million) where starvation isn't much of an issue. The majority of African populations that are suffering from malnutrition do so because of displacement, not a lack of resources. According to IDMC there are 12 million displaced persons in Africa still today - is it any real surprise that people fleeing Darfur are starving as a result of leaving their traditional agrarian communities behind?

In addition, where stability can be maintained there has been a drastic increase in sustainability. I'd refer you to the work of Norman Borlaug on that one:

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/9...aug/borlaug.htm

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov That's completely illogical - Africa has a much lower population than Europe or Asia. In fact, population density in Africa is lower than both those places as well - and much of Africa's population lives in outliers such as Egypt (80 million) and Nigeria (120 million) where starvation isn't much of an issue. The majority of African populations that are suffering from malnutrition do so because of displacement, not a lack of resources.

Wait, wait, wait... there can only ever be one reason for mass malnutrition and that is lack of resources. Displacement may very well compound the lack of reasorces; however, if a person were displaced to a location that could sustain them then they would not be starving. As I said earlier... if the will to support these persons were there then the resources could be provided to them but the cold hard truth is that there is insufficient will to assist these people thus they are left to live off of whatever can be obtained locally, which is insufficient for the number of people concentrated in the area. If there were sufficient local resources then none of these people would starve to death. Since it seems the world is unwilling to send additional resources then the only solution to the imbalance of people:resources is to reduce the number of people.... the most effective way to do this is to simply let nature take it's course. Once the population is reduced to the point that the locally available resources can support it then all that survive and future generations will be better off.

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Originally posted by RickyM you're just a shit version of Moral Hazard. At least he knows what he's talking about.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN lol, i love it when moral feels the need to lay the smack down

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Originally posted by Moral Hazard Wait, wait, wait... there can only ever be one reason for mass malnutrition and that is lack of resources. Displacement may very well compound the lack of reasorces; however, if a person were displaced to a location that could sustain them then they would not be starving. As I said earlier... if the will to support these persons were there then the resources could be provided to them but the cold hard truth is that there is insufficient will to assist these people thus they are left to live off of whatever can be obtained locally, which is insufficient for the number of people concentrated in the area. If there were sufficient local resources then none of these people would starve to death. Since it seems the world is unwilling to send additional resources then the only solution to the imbalance of people:resources is to reduce the number of people.... the most effective way to do this is to simply let nature take it's course. Once the population is reduced to the point that the locally available resources can support it then all that survive and future generations will be better off.

You're missing the point. Displacement isn't a simple matter of re-locating. It's about the movement of people through violence or the threat of violence into an area that can't support them. The solution here isn't "let everyone who is displaced die off" - that's lunacy. The solution is to address the root causes of malnutrition in the first place. Like you've said, that is not a lack of resources, because thanks to people like Norman Borlaug those resources do exist. It is about limiting the factors that do cause malnutrition in the first place - violence, discrimination, and destroyed infrastructure for the most part.

African states can easily obtain the capability to feed all of their citizens with our help. Whether they have the necessary desire to do so (limiting factors that increase malnutrition) is up to some debate, but that's not the issue you've raised.

The fact is, even where malnutrition is the worst the resources do exist, so a Malthusian equilibrium has not been disturbed.

For more reading on the subject, I'd suggest that Borlaug piece (even though it is outdated and the World Bank has begun to adopt the policies it is criticized for ignoring), and some of the work on the infamous Ethiopian famine of 1983, which is where most of the images of starving African children come from. The Derg regime used starvation as a weapon - it had the capability of addressing malnutrition in the population, but it chose to quell opposition movements by making citizens more concerned with basic survival. In the process, millions were killed.

This paper from the University of Oslo does a pretty good job of covering the basics on that issue:
http://folk.uio.no/alexanv/Famine%2...%20Ethiopia.pdf

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