wetcw@pyuxa.UUCP (T C Wheeler) (01/26/84)
I just love to read the liberal solutions to starvation around the world. They all seem to have a common theme, EDUCATION. Pha and baloney! What is really being said is that UNLESS YOU DO IT OUR WAY, YOUR GOING TO STARVE. What a way to get their attention. Why are the liberals always going out of their way to try to make people over in the image that they have determined is the right image? The solutions to over-population and starvation are not education, as has been proven over the past 400 years. The solution is to spread people out, give them tools to work with, then go looking for more space as the population grows. The premise that education is going to stabalize the population of this planet is horse puckey. You might make a temporary dent, but, in the long run, it doesn't amount to a hill of beans. More space to spread into is the only long term solution short of mass starvation or some other holocaust. The sooner the do-gooders realize that the handout is not the solution to every problem, the better off humanity will be. All the handout does is create a climate that stifles initiative. Provide the land and the tools then get the hell out of their lives. All of the preachments about birth control, health, and morality to the poor waiting in line for a bowl of rice fall on deaf ears. They will listen to your babblings all day long, but it won't sink in. I think of the lectures on these subjects as commercials just like on television. Starvation, unfortunatly, is a fact of life on this planet and the equal distribution of food will only excerbate the situation. The twin problems of starvation and population growth cannot be solved by taking away from the haves to give to the have nots. The sociologists descended on India 20 years ago to solve the twin problems there. They tried everything from vasectomies to new seed varieties. They are still working on the problem. The Chinese government in Bejing has created laws concerning the number of children people can have. The abortion rate has gone up one hundred fold, while the production of rice has lagged. The world's population is growing geometricaly while the food production is only growing arithmetricaly. This is basic. As I see it, the only solution is to find more room to expand. Where is that room? Outer space. We have to start now to develop the means for expanding into outer space because if we don't, no one will have the resources needed to do it in the not too distant future. ALL resources will have to eventually be used to produce food for the world population. Then it will be too late. This whole diatibe is to try and get people to wake up to the fact that we have to try now to expand our horizons into new territory. Sure we can try to alleviate hunger and starvation, but we can't do it at the expense of the entire population of the world. The short term solutions of trying to shove our philosophies down someone elses throut before we will help them are going to kill everyone. To wail and moan about the expenses of space exploration is to accept an eventual wipeout of mankind. There have to be tradeoffs, as hard as they may be to accept. Enough of this. Nobody is listening anyway. "When the going gets tough, the tough go drinking." T. C. Wheeler
renner@uiucdcs.UUCP (01/28/84)
#R:pyuxa:-52100:uiucdcs:29200063:000:1013
uiucdcs!renner Jan 27 10:02:00 1984
While my solution to hunger is indeed education for the underdeveloped
countries, I am no liberal in the modern sense of the word. If you must have
a label, try "libertarian" or "rational anarchist." Also, rabbit!jj and
I seem to be in agreement on this point, and NOBODY has ever accused him of
being a liberal.
The notion of using space exploration/colonization to relieve population
pressure on Earth simply won't work. Just look at the numbers involved for
a minute. Assume 1% growth of a 4 billion population (an underestimate) --
you have to launch 100,000 per *day* just to keep even.
Why do I believe that education is the answer? The only factor limiting
population growth (other than starvation) is wealth, which comes from
technology, which comes from education. Take a look at the wealthy countries
in the world and check their birth rates. The US has a negative growth rate;
increases in our population now come from immigration, not new births.
Scott Renner
{ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!rennercdanderson@watarts.UUCP (01/30/84)
The solution to the "world's" food problem is not to explore
outer space as this will only aid those in space. While India does have
a space program, most of the 3'rd World does not and the technology to
do so is largely controlled by patents held by, you guessed it, US.
If the 1'st World was able to utilize space resources, it would
only expand our already bulging storehouses, depending on the resources
extracted of course. Certainly, we would not feel any better about
distributing these than the ones on Earth, would we?! This also brings up
the question of how space exploration/exploitation would help the food
supply. Do we 1) ship off the surplus people to self-sufficient colonies
(sounds like a very expensive proposition considering population growth
rates); 2) bring back the produced foodstuffs, fertilizer (is there much
N,K,or P in space bodies?), again an extremely expensive source, and,
WOULD IT BE DISTRIBUTED TO THE 3'rd WORLD or free up any of the land
now controlled by us.
The problem in the 3'rd World is a problem that we, by using
a great part of the world's agricultural land for our needs, have
caused. It's time that we realized it and *not for sensitive eyes*
GOT THE FUCK OUT OF THERE. Of course, we may have to pay more for
our bananas or coffee if they still decide to grow them (hopefully,
in cooperatives) or even, perish the thought, do without them.
Just by having the processing plants for coffee in the control
of M.N.C.'s is costing the 3'rd World billions of dollars in lost
revenue, according to a report I read not long ago (sorry, I forgot
the source but it wasn't a Marxist publication, maybe a 1'st world
newspaper).
Yes, it will also be necessary for the land to be redistributed.
Though this is certainly controversial for many people, such a policy
should reduce the amount of "aid" we now spend on the poor.
The above can also be applied on a national scale. Even if
the Reagan administration can not see it. Believe it or not, there are
starving people in the U.S. The origins of this situation are, in great
part, the same as in other parts of the world, i.e. satellite to centre
distribution of "luxury" goods vs. subsistence agriculture.
Have fun,
C.D. Anderson
watarts!cdanderson