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Post by ZeroSaidSadly on Jan 8, 2005 0:29:35 GMT -5
everyone knows, we have a huge population, its growing exponentially and as we can see from the hunger problems, we dont have the resources to support an unlimited population, but heres where it becomes a moral issue, should we stop feeding the hungry, because it is gauranteeing future generations of starving people with the same problems, or does humyn rights outweigh and we're morally obligated to save all the lives we can, even if it only perpetuates the problem? im not sure how i feel on it yet.
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Post by Sad Peter Pan on Jan 8, 2005 1:34:16 GMT -5
Are you sayng people should deny food for the starving in an attempt to permanently get rid of starving people? I think the answer is obvious: give the hungry food. Yes, we are morally obligated to provide food to the hungry if we can, even if that 'perpetuates the problem'. You can stop the problem by giving food to the people who need it. By denying them food the problem would only worsen, even if after they died there were no more starving people on earth (yeh right) there would still be a stain on the conscience that would never go away for allowing them to starve while you sat at home with a nice swollen tummy.
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David
Storyteller
Posts: 993
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Post by David on Jan 8, 2005 1:46:56 GMT -5
the problem with starvation isnt that there is not enough food, its more to do with politics and trade and money
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Post by Um Jammer Lammy on Jan 8, 2005 4:43:15 GMT -5
The thing I can't understand is why the mum's and dad's of the starving kids in Africa or Asia have kids why have a child if you are in no position to raise it or feed it. You can't tell me they aren't educated enough, them just living there year after year is the biggest education anyone could get. The adults of the starving kids we see on TV in the please sponsor a child ad's need to take a look at themselves. I couldn't live with myself if I brung a child into this world with that sort of poverty and with no sign of improvement. If someone says that they don't have condoms thats tough shit I think. The consequences of sex in their situation is to great and they shouldn't do it, its irresponsible and its unfair to the child.
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Post by Josh on Jan 8, 2005 10:27:32 GMT -5
I can tell you one reason that the parents in Africa keep bringing more children into the world. It's the same reason the AIDS epidemic is so horrible over there. It's the Catholic church's refusal to condone th use of condoms. That coupled with other issues is helping to perpetuate the problem.
As for America's population problems, I have absolutely no sympathy. Your trillions of dollars spent on war could feed the population several times over. In fact, you could solve most of the world's hunger issues with that sort of money.
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Post by ZeroSaidSadly on Jan 9, 2005 0:10:56 GMT -5
Well i know you have to realize you cant eat money, so really no matter how much of it you have, if you dont have the food to buy, the agricultural resources, to obtain all the food you need, then, well, you dont have all the food you need. alot of people think that throwing money at a problem solves it but really thats hardly ever the case. even if you DID have the money and the resources to buy all the food you needed to solve the hunger problem, we dont have all the resources in the world, and its absurd to think we can keep shipping more and more food from the rest of the world to the places where the population is out of balance with the resources it needs. the planet just cannot sustain an unlimited species. it happens with any species, if you increase the food, you increase the population. you give food to an exploded population, its going to explode even more, so what makes us think that if a population of 1 million cannot sustain itself in its environment, why would a population of 1.5 billion sustain itself any better? in a holistic sense, the solution to hunger is most definitley not food, however contrary that sounds. the solution is also not us shipping surplus food in from all over the world forever, thats a bandaid over the real problem, of too many people and too little resources. so thats where i cant decide how i feel, if we're morally obligated to aid them, even tho it just adds to the problem, basically because they're human, were human, they need help, or if we get down to the root of the problem and let nature act as it would with any other species except for the human race (which is somehow above nature).
Sad Peter Pan: "You can stop the problem by giving food to the people who need it. By denying them food the problem would only worsen, even if after they died there were no more starving people on earth"
i really sincerely think that you cant stop the problem by giving food to the people. because, really, what is the problem? deep down, its because they do not have the resources to sustain their population. it would be ridiculous to think we could ship in food from the rest of the world forever, that solves nothing. and if that is what the problem really is, and not just hunger, then not supporting the population would actually solve the problem, as it would decrease the population to a healthy, self sustainable number. but thats not neccesarily what i suggest, i still havent weighed out obligation vs. nature.
and um jammer lammy, i dont understand how you wouldnt be able to grasp the concept of pregnancy. people have sex (because thats what people will always do) and whoops they get pregnant, they have a child, they cant support it. its not always like, hey, im starving and i just thought up a great idea, i would love to have a kid that i cant support! i do think we need to support contraceptives alot more than we do. and abstinence is lauphable. people will alwayssss have sex and i dont blame them. abstinence would never work, and it would be cruel if it did. its nature. you're supposed to have sex. if you're poor, mother nature doesnt just look over the situation and decide that you are accepted from the drive to reproduce.
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Post by Um Jammer Lammy on Jan 9, 2005 5:07:13 GMT -5
I grasp the concept of pregnacy fine. If it meant sparing the child of a life that he/she didn't ask for and wouldn't want then why not go abstinence style. If your Mother and Father gave you the life that the wee ones in poverty stricken countries have how would you feel?
Lets say you (ZeroSaidSadly) and I (Um Jammer Lammy) lived in Uganda. We both have minimum wage jobs and lived in a hut/little house with diseases and starvation clear to see in community. Would you take an action that could lead you to having a child? I wouldn't. Its beyond me how folk can be so selfish and risk giving a child a life like that its unfair and cruel.
But I am not foolish enough to think that humans could lose their selfishness for long enough for abstinence to work. Its just something that the folk of the "developing world" could do to help their plight its one less mouth to feed one less person for their government to support and one less child on TV covered in flys pleading for sponsorship.
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Post by Jonny on Jan 9, 2005 5:39:54 GMT -5
OR
religion is for retards! say yes to condoms!
the end.
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Post by Josh on Jan 9, 2005 10:19:54 GMT -5
Technically you can eat money. It just has very little nutritional value. And I don't believe that there's any shortage of food in North America. In fact, enough gets thrown out by people who have a good income and food service industries to feed both of our countries' starving people. If you took 300 million dollars, a tiny fraction of what your current president has spent on war, you could take 1 million dollars to set aside to buy food for every single person in your country. Of course, not everyone needs to have money given to them to buy food. Lots of people have plenty. So if your government focused solely on giving money just to those people who can't afford groceries, then your country's eating problems would be solved at a comparatively small cost. The food is there. That's not the problem. It's that people can't get the food.
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Post by Monkey Bone on Jan 10, 2005 1:00:59 GMT -5
OR religion is for retards! say yes to condoms! the end. or at least when the its time to blow do what every miner does and get out the hole
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Post by Um Jammer Lammy on Jan 10, 2005 2:26:34 GMT -5
Good one.
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Post by Knight0440 on Jan 10, 2005 2:59:18 GMT -5
So where are you getting all this nonsense? Where are the facts?
Agree.
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Post by Rocket Baby Dolls on Jan 10, 2005 7:41:58 GMT -5
They reckon at end of the century the population will start to fall anyway
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Post by ZeroSaidSadly on Jan 12, 2005 12:58:40 GMT -5
thats what im talking about tho, if you, this person/government/ whatever you are, you take the money you have and buy food for everyone thats hungry on a different continent, what happens tommorow? they're not any more capable of supplying themselves with food, so guess what you, better look forward to buying them meals for the rest of their lives, and not only that, but you'll also be buying their children food, and their childrens children and so on. i would hardly call that a solution. thats a bandaid over a problem thats growing and growing, and it realistically has alot to do with that bandaid. so thats where i am. what would be humane, what would be smart, what would be "right"
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Post by ZeroSaidSadly on Jan 19, 2005 19:38:43 GMT -5
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