Second, somebody needs to give a good description or link of Malthus's theory.

Third we need to create a timeline in reference to population growth and impoverisment in history dating back as far as possible and working our way forward.

Finally, strap yourself in, let your brain take the lead, and post something worth while and well thought out, this may take a while...

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Originally posted by The Chump:
First of all, check here: http://www.geekculture.com/ultimatebb/Forum19/HTML/000167.html for the beginning of this discussion.

Second, somebody needs to give a good description or link of Malthus's theory.

Third we need to create a timeline in reference to population growth and impoverisment in history dating back as far as possible and working our way forward.

Finally, strap yourself in, let your brain take the lead, and post something worth while and well thought out, this may take a while...

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Malthus' theory, simply, says that human population will always grow to just beyond its ability to feed itself, unless acted upon by some outside force.

http://www.igc.org/desip/malthus/principles.html

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Third we need to create a timeline in reference to population growth and impoverisment in history dating back as far as possible and working our way forward.

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http://www.igc.org/desip/mapanim.html

Like lemmings.

However, The hope is that we've gathered enough data to prove that
population control is a necessary alternative,
and that education is the only way to convince the people, but only in tandum with
a social and healthcare system that will make it unnecessary to have 15 children
in order to have 5 survive in order to provide care for suceeding generations.

*My question* is:
"Poor by WHOSE Standards?"
This may sound strange, and I don't mean to deprive 3rd worlders of what we have
grown used to... (and indeed, dependant upon)

But before we told the people in Papua, New Guinea that they were poor because they
couldn't afford a color TV ...or SHOES, GUESS WOT???

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Originally posted by macjac:
*My question* is:
"Poor by WHOSE Standards?"

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I would say that the standard we are referring to here is a lack of resources that could be utilized to support a persons well-being, i.e., proper samitation, protective shelter and clothing, and enough food to balnce out with the amount of calories burned, et. al.

Lack of resources prevent an education system in other countries. These areas would like to have the resources and infrastucture of the west, but are limited by lack or money and technology. Often times, this goes back to their resources.

... That's so simple it's trivial.

1) As humans will generally tell you, humans are the most advanced species, and it's only natural that the number of humans increase, while the number of all other inferior species decrease.

2) As the ratio of "Inferior" species to Humans approaches "Zero", the Planet is Raised to a State of Perfection (because Humans are so Wonderful).

3) Then, when the world is perfect, Soylent Green will give Humanity perfection in food quality and production.

Visualize World Peace ....... black ... and ... crisp.

Perhaps the best thing that we could do for these "less developed nations" is to go over and use our "modern technologies" to get a few areas to grow and teach them to upkeep it with what they do have. If we can send a man to the moon, why can't we feed all our people?

As for famine being enevitable, I say "Hogwash." These theories were around before we had modern farming and assumes that we are destine to grow food at (at best) a liniar rate and we would procreate expoentially... The fact of the matter is that most of the current population groth in recenttimes isn't from more births, but from people living longer. Which means that in a few years the population will fall off (after the boomers are gone), unless this comming trend of women waiting to have kids until after their career turnsout to be bigger than expected. We have hard enough time predicting the weather for the next three days, let alone the weather for the comming years and certianally egotisitical if we can predict the mating habbits of generations to come.

Granted that the same birth trend don't exsist where the famine is, but the famine isn't happen where the "over consumption" (if you truly believe this is an evil) or production is. Which just exsagerates my points:
- There is enough food, even with our over consuption. It is our waste that is a problem.
- Over population isn't a proven fact, and to claim that evidence points to it proves only one thing, we don't have enough data to prove it.
- We are trying to predict the growth rate of cops and human procration for an undetermined amount of time, both of which are dependent on the developments of technologies we can't even begin to imagine.
- Even if we could predict when we'd run into the world wide famine, we'd still have to face the fact that we can't prdict the asteroid that will destroy the earth. (Negelecting the supernova of our sun,) There is a 100% chance that an asteroid, big enough to wipe out all life, will strike the earth. The chance of being hit by any single one of these large asteriods is astronomical, the fact we will eventually be hit by one is enevitable.

So, stop worrying about the food for the future, feed these people now.

In a former life (2 years ago) I got a degree in International Affairs. Being the semi-geek that I was even then, I tried to initiate discussions on the use of technology to create limitless food supplies (Solient Green is . . .!) However, oftentimes, the problem is not supply, but distrubution. Some countries, particularly ones located in East Africa (cough, Somalia!) have an exaggeration of the lunch money bully. The only way to feed the people is to have a military presence there to do so. Unfortunately, the "bullies" indoctrinate the people into thinking that we are trying to subvert them (and who knows, maybe we are in a way). So the people react violently instead.

Unfortunately, Somalia set a precedent for one of the worst tragedies in human history: Rwanda. Genocide was occuring there at a rate faster than the Nazis killed Jews. Over the course of 4-5 months, 800,000 of one tribe (I foget who was doing the killing, hutu or tutsi) people were butchered and left to float downstream into other countries.

More shocking is that not one western country responded. The Dutch were there for a while under the UN, but were told to pull out. Just a 2,000 Dutch soldiers were abled to protect thousands and thousands of refugees. When they left, the refugee camps became slaughterhouses.

And what did the U.S. do?

We cited Somalia. Eighteen Rangers died in Somalia they said. Eighteen. It was as if those eighteen lives were more important than 800,000 African lives, just because they were American.