8 ms·

I don't know if this makes me cruel, but whenever people talk about donating money to starving children in Africa, I always imagine the following: If I were to

by jxcole 14y ago

I don't know if this makes me cruel, but whenever people talk about donating money to starving children in Africa, I always imagine the following: If I were to donate some amount of money to starving children in an impoverished nation every year I could, theoretically, bring some of them out of starvation. However, these children would then grow into adults, and then these adults would have children of their own. The number of these new children would almost certainly be higher than the number I originally helped bring out of famine, so at that point there would be just as many if not more starving children than we had to begin with. So in my mind the question really goes the other way, how does donating money to buy food for starving children in Africa improve Africa's condition in the long term? What problems caused these nations to produce more children than food and what is being done to eliminate the source of these problems, rather than just the symptoms?

Gustomaximus 14y ago
I think this logic is fine if you then donate to a cause that seeks to solve the longer term problems. But otherwise despite being a short term solution, feeding a hungry child means a hell of a lot to that person. And if you found yourself in a similar situation I think you would be happy for someone to skip the logical arguement and just give you a meal.
aderyn 14y ago
Fertility rates in poor countries correlate heavily against the number of children dying young (http://www.bit.ly/QrJnFj http://www.bit.ly/QrJnFj), as well as against the number of malnourished children (http://www.bit.ly/QrJArU http://www.bit.ly/QrJArU). One intuitive explanation is that if you know that only a fraction of your children will survive to adulthood, you're likely to have more of them. Of course that's not the full explanation, and another reason is that the availability of birth control and sexual education in these countries tend to be poor. Nevertheless, I think your worried about a scenario that for the most isn't very likely. Typical aid is not just used to buy food, but also to fund education and infrastructure investments, all of which has worked to lower the fertility rates in the past. There are other reasons to hesitate in regards to the effectiveness of aid money, but IMHO this isn't one of them. :)
stfu 14y ago
You are spot on in the problems of "scalability". In my opinion I think the efforts for example of the Clinton Global Initiative are highly important, as they target less the "starvation" problem, but trying to break traditional gender roles. By giving girls an education it should help them to define themselves beyond the traditional housewife role and limit the reproductive "ambitions". The promotion of contraceptive is of cause another tool in order to reduce a further growth of the population in certain regions. But it is a very sensitive subject, that is rarely discussed openly (i.e. who are we to tell other nations to change their cultural traditions etc).
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
dmlorenzetti 14y ago
When Bill Gates' wife began pushing him to work on issues of third-world health, this was more or less his argument against it. She dug up the statistics to show that this idea, while intuitive, is not supported by fact. As health improves-- and in particular as child mortality goes down-- birth rates fall accordingly. As we all know, Gates got on board, and now funds a lot of health research and on-the-ground initiatives.
- vecinu 14y ago
  I'm weary of these statistics as one can manipulate data to suit one's purpose. Source please?
  - dmlorenzetti 14y ago
    I would have liked to provide the source, but it was a New Yorker article that I read in the print edition. Here's an "abstract" of the article, which hints at my synopsis: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/24/051024fa_fact_specter http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/24/051024fa_fact_sp...
  - sp332 14y ago
    I think you mean wary? Here you can see that as infant mortality increases, population growth is nearly steady or even increases slightly. http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=30;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=5.59290322580644;ti=2008$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=0AkBd6lyS3EmpdFY5Z0QzTzRRbzJ1VXdqdGVyNE0tcFE;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj0NpF2PTov2Cw;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=1.95;iid=phAwcNAVuyj0TAlJeCEzcGQ;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID0;by=grp$map_x;scale=lin;dataMin=-10.9551;dataMax=20$map_y;scale=log;dataMin=1.2;dataMax=420$map_s;sma=49;smi=1.95$cd;bd=0$inds= http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly... (Note the log scale on the vertical axis.) You can "scrub" backward and forward in time with the slider at the bottom.
  - dave_sullivan 14y ago
    http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_good_news_of_the_decade.html http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_good_news_of_the_d... That video does a very good job of explaining this. As child mortality decreases, family size goes down. I'm sure the data is manipulated to suit someone's purposes, but all seems reasonable to me...
kingkawn 14y ago
Which child will grow up to revolutionize their nation's politics?
- chris_wot 14y ago
  That question presupposes that the only people it is worthwhile to save from starvation is the one who grows up to make a large impact on their country. It's the sort of logic that I find very dangerous.
  - kingkawn 14y ago
    The question presupposes that you cannot possibly determine this in advance and therefore all are worth saving.
    - chris_wot 14y ago
      Let us say that you knew with absolute certainty that none of them would grow up to revolutionise their society. Would you still save them, or would you let them die?
      - kingkawn 14y ago
        It's a pointless question as it is absolutely impossible to predict. So we continue to attempt to save them all. They will make other contributions too, or their children.
        chris_wot 14y ago
        So you value people solely by their contributions to society. I do not.
        kingkawn 14y ago
        By their potential to be meaningful in the framework of our existence. Yes. I am not advocating for the use of probabilities, but instead possibilities.
pooriaazimi 14y ago
I'm on the same boat. Which is why I believe anyone who (in an ideal world) is seriously seeking to change the state of life in those poor countries should spend their money on creating jobs and "factories". By factory I don't mean silicon factories, but basic needs of those people, be it hospitals or modern agricultural facilities. But, sadly, in reality that can't happen. If you want to create jobs, you first need to have a powerful (and obviously not corrupt) central government. Without that, nothing significant can be done. So, what should be done? I don't know. Education, a benevolent government, jobs, no drugs, secular & democratic laws... You can't have any of them without having others already in place. But, any progress is better than nothing. And in the long term, maybe Afghanistan might be a good example. 30 years ago, a war between Soviets and US ruined the country and its (modestly functional) government. For the next 20 years they were "governed" by former US ally, the Taliban. Religious zealots who would kill girls if they wanted to go to school. Then US (thankfully) attacked the Taliban and for the last 5-6 years they've had some sort of a central government. It's (to some degree) corrupt, it's not efficient, it lacks technical knowledge, but still, it's a form of government and has some power and the desire to change the country. And they're making progress. 10 years ago Afghanistan was a forth-world country. A country from another century. But now, they've headed to the right direction. In 10 years (if the continue their progress), Afghanistan might very well become a country that people "might" consider living in (in the large cities at least - if they had the choice). It wouldn't become Norway, but it would be an average country instead of the hell it was 10 years ago. Edit: I found a nice (read: sickeningly sad) article about Taliban and U.S. from 2001: http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/23860 http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/23860 The rest of the site is garbage, but this article is not.
- wsc981 14y ago
  Projects like Kiva aim to develop industry in poor countries: http://www.kiva.org http://www.kiva.org
  - pooriaazimi 14y ago
    I'm sure it amuses you to know this site is blocked in Iran (by the government). Thanks, anyway!
vacri 14y ago
It doesn't make you cruel, but it does show you're taking a cheap cop-out. There are plenty of charities that work towards improving the local economies, which include some really interesting things like microloans. The 'starving children' is just an appeal to the heartstrings because sick children win more money than anything else.
MarkMc 14y ago
Good question! Firstly I would like to suggest that even if you can only tackle the symptom, not the cause, it would still be worthwhile - a patient with untreatable cancer should nonetheless get painkillers. You are correct that the number of people in the second generation would be higher than the number you bring out of famine. But if you do nothing the second generation would be even larger still since the fertility rate of the extremely poor is so high. Therefore simply alleviating the symptoms and not the causes of poverty (a) delays the suffering of hunger by a generation, and (b) reduces the total number people suffering in the second generation. Of course, it would be far better to eliminate the cancer. In many cases it's difficult to know how effective the long-term treatment is, but in some cases the outcome can be measured quite well. Here's a great talk by Esther Duflo about measuring the effectiveness of aid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zvrGiPkVcs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zvrGiPkVcs In the book she co-authored called "Poor Economics" she mentions a study of a deworming program for children in Kenya. The study concluded that an extra year of deworming costing $1.36 USD PPP lead to a lifetime income gain of $3,269 USD PPP for the child. To me that is a slam-dunk evidence that aid can be effective in the long term.
- genwin 14y ago
  > But if you do nothing the second generation would be even larger still since the fertility rate of the extremely poor is so high. Obviously the population must eventually plateau or decline, due to finite resources. I think it will be extremely difficult to alleviate the cause of poverty in many African countries. It seems that they have a high fertility rate mainly because their religion/culture demands it. It seems just as difficult to get the fertility rate down there as it would be in Utah (nigh impossible unless nature forces the issue).
  - hazov 14y ago
    Your entire view in this thread sounds very Ehrlichian to me. Just to explain, Paul R. Ehrlich was wrong when he predicted hundreds of millions of Indians would die because of famines and people still ask questions to him about this just to amuse themselves. I believe anyone holding similar beliefs will be wrong again, at least for the next half century.
7952 14y ago
Doesn't the injustice of that bother you? You are given the power to weigh up life and death, without any chance of ever starving yourself. Such naval gazing is stereotypical of people with full stomachs. Is basic human empathy such a bad reason to try and help?
- genwin 14y ago
  > Is basic human empathy such a bad reason to try and help? If the help does more harm than good in the long run, then obviously yes. Whether a particular course of action does more harm than good is open to debate.
  - chris_wot 14y ago
    I wonder what you would say if you were that starving child? Would you feel it is best to just die from lack of food because of the long term benefits of doing so?
    - rimantas 14y ago
      You don't get. That's the problem: free food does not solve the starving child problem. It just creates more starving children.
      - chris_wot 14y ago
        That's a fallacy. "Free food" does not create more starving children. Whilst some famines are caused by over-population, it is far more likely that they are caused by other factors such as genocide campaigns, civil wars, refugee flows and episodes of extreme violence and state collapse. Of course, if your solution to the "starving children" problem is to let them die of starvation, then you indeed have a final solution. And what a solution! I am interested in where you are coming from. Personally, I would hate to look a starving child in the eye and deny them food to keep them alive. I would hate to look their parents in the eye and tell them that because they have four children that they aren't worthwhile keeping alive and they should drop dead from malnutrition. So I do get it. My question remains the same - what would you say to a starving child? Or their parents as the child lay dying?
1123581321 14y ago
It doesn't make you any more cruel than a gardener who destroys some of the buds on a plant so the few that remain are bigger. However, you may wish to consider whether you are the gardener of Africans and whether humans should be pruned.
rbanffy 14y ago
That's why free food alone doesn't work. You have to couple it with healthcare, education, infrastructure and economy reform (because the famine was most likely caused by a failing economy) and maybe political reform. It's more or less rebooting the place.
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  Famines in the modern age are rarely caused by anything other than war and bad local governance. If one approaches famine from the perspective that the issue is one of food shortage alone then they will be working on the wrong problem.
noonespecial 14y ago
The thing that always bothered me about these arguments is that they always seem to assume that a life (indeed even a life lifted out of poverty) is a net loss for everyone. It is possible for a life to produce far more for others than it consumes. The entire western outlook seems based on this idea. I would think that a life lifted from poverty, even temporarily through aid, has a much better chance of being one of these human++'s. Without quantifying (and denying) this possibility, calculating the value of aid seems impossible.
hristov 14y ago
That is what most people think at first but it is wrong. Poverty with its associated lack of education and career opportunities generally causes high birth rates. Countries that improve living standards usually get lower birth rates as a result. This usually results from better education for women more career opportunities for women, lower child mortality, better financial certainty, etc. This effect has been seen in almost every country to undergo a significant improvement in living standards and it is pretty much known to be true.
chris_wot 14y ago
To be blunt, I believe this is a cruel statement. What you are saying is that someone who is starving shouldn't be saved because they will grown into an adult who will have children. You then suggest that looking at the causes of population explosions should be investigated and resolved, and therefore until this is fixed then children should starve. A cruel sort of logic indeed.
- option_greek 14y ago
  IMHO, logic can only be correct or wrong. There is no such thing as cruel logic.
  - chris_wot 14y ago
    Well, there's a non sequitur if ever I've heard one! I said a cruel sort of logic. His logic is wrong. Misused logic is a sort of logic. Unfortunately, his misused logic leads to cruelty. Sort of like the logic that says you need to forcibly sterilize disabled people to reduce those who have genetic abnormalities from polluting the overall population.
rokhayakebe 14y ago
You think like a piece of code with its many what if-else-than scenarios. This is a philosophical question and you are not nearly smart enough to even begin to understand the consequences (postive, or negative) of your helping someone in need. Every human being, be it a saint, or a murderer, has the right to not be hungry, and to have a shelter. The sad part is that there is someone above you in the social chain who is thinking exactly the same way about you. Maybe you deserve no help to get to the next stage in your life, because you know, these are all stages. Maybe they should just let you where you are. But no, we are not where we are today because we are Darwinians and let the fittest of us survive. We are where we are because some us want to further Human Kind without prejudice, all of it, the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, the well-fed, and the hungry.
iamgopal 14y ago
I love you for saying this.

by jxcole 14y ago

Gustomaximus 14y ago

I think this logic is fine if you then donate to a cause that seeks to solve the longer term problems. But otherwise despite being a short term solution, feeding a hungry child means a hell of a lot to that person. And if you found yourself in a similar situation I think you would be happy for someone to skip the logical arguement and just give you a meal.

aderyn 14y ago

Fertility rates in poor countries correlate heavily against the number of children dying young (http://www.bit.ly/QrJnFj http://www.bit.ly/QrJnFj), as well as against the number of malnourished children (http://www.bit.ly/QrJArU http://www.bit.ly/QrJArU). One intuitive explanation is that if you know that only a fraction of your children will survive to adulthood, you're likely to have more of them. Of course that's not the full explanation, and another reason is that the availability of birth control and sexual education in these countries tend to be poor. Nevertheless, I think your worried about a scenario that for the most isn't very likely. Typical aid is not just used to buy food, but also to fund education and infrastructure investments, all of which has worked to lower the fertility rates in the past. There are other reasons to hesitate in regards to the effectiveness of aid money, but IMHO this isn't one of them. :)

stfu 14y ago

You are spot on in the problems of "scalability". In my opinion I think the efforts for example of the Clinton Global Initiative are highly important, as they target less the "starvation" problem, but trying to break traditional gender roles. By giving girls an education it should help them to define themselves beyond the traditional housewife role and limit the reproductive "ambitions". The promotion of contraceptive is of cause another tool in order to reduce a further growth of the population in certain regions. But it is a very sensitive subject, that is rarely discussed openly (i.e. who are we to tell other nations to change their cultural traditions etc).

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

dmlorenzetti 14y ago

When Bill Gates' wife began pushing him to work on issues of third-world health, this was more or less his argument against it. She dug up the statistics to show that this idea, while intuitive, is not supported by fact. As health improves-- and in particular as child mortality goes down-- birth rates fall accordingly. As we all know, Gates got on board, and now funds a lot of health research and on-the-ground initiatives.

vecinu 14y ago
I'm weary of these statistics as one can manipulate data to suit one's purpose. Source please?
- dmlorenzetti 14y ago
  I would have liked to provide the source, but it was a New Yorker article that I read in the print edition. Here's an "abstract" of the article, which hints at my synopsis: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/24/051024fa_fact_specter http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/24/051024fa_fact_sp...
- sp332 14y ago
  I think you mean wary? Here you can see that as infant mortality increases, population growth is nearly steady or even increases slightly. http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=30;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=5.59290322580644;ti=2008$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=0AkBd6lyS3EmpdFY5Z0QzTzRRbzJ1VXdqdGVyNE0tcFE;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj0NpF2PTov2Cw;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=1.95;iid=phAwcNAVuyj0TAlJeCEzcGQ;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID0;by=grp$map_x;scale=lin;dataMin=-10.9551;dataMax=20$map_y;scale=log;dataMin=1.2;dataMax=420$map_s;sma=49;smi=1.95$cd;bd=0$inds= http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly... (Note the log scale on the vertical axis.) You can "scrub" backward and forward in time with the slider at the bottom.
- dave_sullivan 14y ago
  http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_good_news_of_the_decade.html http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_good_news_of_the_d... That video does a very good job of explaining this. As child mortality decreases, family size goes down. I'm sure the data is manipulated to suit someone's purposes, but all seems reasonable to me...

kingkawn 14y ago

Which child will grow up to revolutionize their nation's politics?

chris_wot 14y ago
That question presupposes that the only people it is worthwhile to save from starvation is the one who grows up to make a large impact on their country. It's the sort of logic that I find very dangerous.
- kingkawn 14y ago
  The question presupposes that you cannot possibly determine this in advance and therefore all are worth saving.
  - chris_wot 14y ago
    Let us say that you knew with absolute certainty that none of them would grow up to revolutionise their society. Would you still save them, or would you let them die?
    - kingkawn 14y ago
      It's a pointless question as it is absolutely impossible to predict. So we continue to attempt to save them all. They will make other contributions too, or their children.
      - chris_wot 14y ago
        So you value people solely by their contributions to society. I do not.
        kingkawn 14y ago
        By their potential to be meaningful in the framework of our existence. Yes. I am not advocating for the use of probabilities, but instead possibilities.

pooriaazimi 14y ago

I'm on the same boat. Which is why I believe anyone who (in an ideal world) is seriously seeking to change the state of life in those poor countries should spend their money on creating jobs and "factories". By factory I don't mean silicon factories, but basic needs of those people, be it hospitals or modern agricultural facilities. But, sadly, in reality that can't happen. If you want to create jobs, you first need to have a powerful (and obviously not corrupt) central government. Without that, nothing significant can be done. So, what should be done? I don't know. Education, a benevolent government, jobs, no drugs, secular & democratic laws... You can't have any of them without having others already in place. But, any progress is better than nothing. And in the long term, maybe Afghanistan might be a good example. 30 years ago, a war between Soviets and US ruined the country and its (modestly functional) government. For the next 20 years they were "governed" by former US ally, the Taliban. Religious zealots who would kill girls if they wanted to go to school. Then US (thankfully) attacked the Taliban and for the last 5-6 years they've had some sort of a central government. It's (to some degree) corrupt, it's not efficient, it lacks technical knowledge, but still, it's a form of government and has some power and the desire to change the country. And they're making progress. 10 years ago Afghanistan was a forth-world country. A country from another century. But now, they've headed to the right direction. In 10 years (if the continue their progress), Afghanistan might very well become a country that people "might" consider living in (in the large cities at least - if they had the choice). It wouldn't become Norway, but it would be an average country instead of the hell it was 10 years ago. Edit: I found a nice (read: sickeningly sad) article about Taliban and U.S. from 2001: http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/23860 http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/23860 The rest of the site is garbage, but this article is not.

wsc981 14y ago
Projects like Kiva aim to develop industry in poor countries: http://www.kiva.org http://www.kiva.org
- pooriaazimi 14y ago
  I'm sure it amuses you to know this site is blocked in Iran (by the government). Thanks, anyway!

vacri 14y ago

It doesn't make you cruel, but it does show you're taking a cheap cop-out. There are plenty of charities that work towards improving the local economies, which include some really interesting things like microloans. The 'starving children' is just an appeal to the heartstrings because sick children win more money than anything else.

MarkMc 14y ago

Good question! Firstly I would like to suggest that even if you can only tackle the symptom, not the cause, it would still be worthwhile - a patient with untreatable cancer should nonetheless get painkillers. You are correct that the number of people in the second generation would be higher than the number you bring out of famine. But if you do nothing the second generation would be even larger still since the fertility rate of the extremely poor is so high. Therefore simply alleviating the symptoms and not the causes of poverty (a) delays the suffering of hunger by a generation, and (b) reduces the total number people suffering in the second generation. Of course, it would be far better to eliminate the cancer. In many cases it's difficult to know how effective the long-term treatment is, but in some cases the outcome can be measured quite well. Here's a great talk by Esther Duflo about measuring the effectiveness of aid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zvrGiPkVcs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zvrGiPkVcs In the book she co-authored called "Poor Economics" she mentions a study of a deworming program for children in Kenya. The study concluded that an extra year of deworming costing $1.36 USD PPP lead to a lifetime income gain of $3,269 USD PPP for the child. To me that is a slam-dunk evidence that aid can be effective in the long term.

genwin 14y ago
> But if you do nothing the second generation would be even larger still since the fertility rate of the extremely poor is so high. Obviously the population must eventually plateau or decline, due to finite resources. I think it will be extremely difficult to alleviate the cause of poverty in many African countries. It seems that they have a high fertility rate mainly because their religion/culture demands it. It seems just as difficult to get the fertility rate down there as it would be in Utah (nigh impossible unless nature forces the issue).
- hazov 14y ago
  Your entire view in this thread sounds very Ehrlichian to me. Just to explain, Paul R. Ehrlich was wrong when he predicted hundreds of millions of Indians would die because of famines and people still ask questions to him about this just to amuse themselves. I believe anyone holding similar beliefs will be wrong again, at least for the next half century.

7952 14y ago

Doesn't the injustice of that bother you? You are given the power to weigh up life and death, without any chance of ever starving yourself. Such naval gazing is stereotypical of people with full stomachs. Is basic human empathy such a bad reason to try and help?

genwin 14y ago
> Is basic human empathy such a bad reason to try and help? If the help does more harm than good in the long run, then obviously yes. Whether a particular course of action does more harm than good is open to debate.
- chris_wot 14y ago
  I wonder what you would say if you were that starving child? Would you feel it is best to just die from lack of food because of the long term benefits of doing so?
  - rimantas 14y ago
    You don't get. That's the problem: free food does not solve the starving child problem. It just creates more starving children.
    - chris_wot 14y ago
      That's a fallacy. "Free food" does not create more starving children. Whilst some famines are caused by over-population, it is far more likely that they are caused by other factors such as genocide campaigns, civil wars, refugee flows and episodes of extreme violence and state collapse. Of course, if your solution to the "starving children" problem is to let them die of starvation, then you indeed have a final solution. And what a solution! I am interested in where you are coming from. Personally, I would hate to look a starving child in the eye and deny them food to keep them alive. I would hate to look their parents in the eye and tell them that because they have four children that they aren't worthwhile keeping alive and they should drop dead from malnutrition. So I do get it. My question remains the same - what would you say to a starving child? Or their parents as the child lay dying?

1123581321 14y ago

It doesn't make you any more cruel than a gardener who destroys some of the buds on a plant so the few that remain are bigger. However, you may wish to consider whether you are the gardener of Africans and whether humans should be pruned.

rbanffy 14y ago

That's why free food alone doesn't work. You have to couple it with healthcare, education, infrastructure and economy reform (because the famine was most likely caused by a failing economy) and maybe political reform. It's more or less rebooting the place.

InclinedPlane 14y ago
Famines in the modern age are rarely caused by anything other than war and bad local governance. If one approaches famine from the perspective that the issue is one of food shortage alone then they will be working on the wrong problem.

noonespecial 14y ago

The thing that always bothered me about these arguments is that they always seem to assume that a life (indeed even a life lifted out of poverty) is a net loss for everyone. It is possible for a life to produce far more for others than it consumes. The entire western outlook seems based on this idea. I would think that a life lifted from poverty, even temporarily through aid, has a much better chance of being one of these human++'s. Without quantifying (and denying) this possibility, calculating the value of aid seems impossible.

hristov 14y ago

That is what most people think at first but it is wrong. Poverty with its associated lack of education and career opportunities generally causes high birth rates. Countries that improve living standards usually get lower birth rates as a result. This usually results from better education for women more career opportunities for women, lower child mortality, better financial certainty, etc. This effect has been seen in almost every country to undergo a significant improvement in living standards and it is pretty much known to be true.

chris_wot 14y ago

To be blunt, I believe this is a cruel statement. What you are saying is that someone who is starving shouldn't be saved because they will grown into an adult who will have children. You then suggest that looking at the causes of population explosions should be investigated and resolved, and therefore until this is fixed then children should starve. A cruel sort of logic indeed.

option_greek 14y ago
IMHO, logic can only be correct or wrong. There is no such thing as cruel logic.
- chris_wot 14y ago
  Well, there's a non sequitur if ever I've heard one! I said a cruel sort of logic. His logic is wrong. Misused logic is a sort of logic. Unfortunately, his misused logic leads to cruelty. Sort of like the logic that says you need to forcibly sterilize disabled people to reduce those who have genetic abnormalities from polluting the overall population.

rokhayakebe 14y ago

You think like a piece of code with its many what if-else-than scenarios. This is a philosophical question and you are not nearly smart enough to even begin to understand the consequences (postive, or negative) of your helping someone in need. Every human being, be it a saint, or a murderer, has the right to not be hungry, and to have a shelter. The sad part is that there is someone above you in the social chain who is thinking exactly the same way about you. Maybe you deserve no help to get to the next stage in your life, because you know, these are all stages. Maybe they should just let you where you are. But no, we are not where we are today because we are Darwinians and let the fittest of us survive. We are where we are because some us want to further Human Kind without prejudice, all of it, the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, the well-fed, and the hungry.

iamgopal 14y ago

I love you for saying this.