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> In the long run millions of beggars wouldn't have been born in the first place if free food hadn't been available. You're right, of course, because their par

> In the long run millions of beggars wouldn't have been born in the first place if free food hadn't been available. You're right, of course, because their parents would have starved to death. A civilised society does not allow its citizens to die of starvation. In the long run of course it would be preferable to not have to give out free food, but until there's a viable alternative, that's what a civilised country does.

genwin 14y ago
Or, the parents wouldn't have had kids they couldn't feed. The parents wouldn't have starved because, without too many kids, they weren't overly dividing the available food. I think a civilized society should hold parents responsible for their own kids, outside of true emergencies.
- scarmig 14y ago
  Sounds great! Except all too many parents are incapable of being responsible for their own kids, either out of apathy or economic inability. So when you do that, a perfectly well-meaning but stretched family might decide to, say, live in a house with heavy lead contamination. Which, aside from the heavily detrimental effect on the kids, has very large externalities, as children who have been exposed to lead in high concentrations are much more likely to become criminals.
  - genwin 14y ago
    This assumes there are no consequences for such parents. Add strong enough consequences (e.g. loss of freedom) to deter others. A "well-meaning but stretched family" is more likely a set of parents who didn't responsibly plan their family. If that's the case the parents should be punished. (In the US, even the poorest parents can be punished for exposing their kids to lead.) If we make parenting a birthright (as many people support, esp. for the poorest for some reason), mass starvation is the inevitable result.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- anu_gupta 14y ago
  [edited] OK - I've gone through your comment history, and can see that you would rather people starved to death than give them food, so I'm not sure there's any point in wasting each other's time in continuing this.
  - Variance 14y ago
    It's an excellent question to bring up, though. You note that a civilized society gives people food if they absolutely need it. Do we then want to be a civilized society? The core assumption is that it is morally correct to distribute value from the taxpayer base into the hands of those whose lives depend on it. In essence, the many are forced to save the few. This force is measured in terms of the amount of money redistributed; if it costs €10 a month to provide basic food to those who need it, and there are 10 taxpayers for every 1 person who qualifies for welfare, the institution manifests as all people in the country being required to pay €1 per month to contribute 10% of saving a person. So the core question is, then, what is the moral justification for this force? In what way are people obligated to help their neighbors, such that society has moral grounds to force them to help their neighbors if they don't want to?
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
  - genwin 14y ago
    The real story is, I'd rather less people starve to death than more people starve to death. Mass starvation is the inevitable result of giving the masses free food. If you feed ducks you get more ducks, until eventually you can't feed them all.
- aasarava 14y ago
  > Or, the parents wouldn't have had kids they couldn't feed. While this would be nice in an ideal world, your analysis severely underestimates just how strong the desire to have sex is, and vastly overestimates the ability of someone without education, money, or healthcare to access reliable means of birth control.
  - crusso 14y ago
    Being enablers of dysfunctional behavior is an acceptable solution? In the long run, the enablers and the dysfunctional are equally guilty for destroying the overall society. At some point, you have to expect members of a society to meet some minimum behavioral requirements in order to be allowed the benefits of that membership.
    - genwin 14y ago
      > Being enablers of dysfunctional behavior is an acceptable solution? It seems for most people the answer is a firm yes. They can't think beyond the short run positive (e.g. free food keeps child alive) to see the overwhelming long run negative (e.g. millions die when free food can't be sustained). When you point out the long run negative you usually get a blank stare or a downvote.
    - aasarava 14y ago
      I think you might be overlooking the fact that aid does have a long term goal. It's not simply about feeding someone in the short term -- it's to help the impoverished fulfill their most basic needs so that they can go to school, get educated, get a job, and earn a living. If you haven't eaten in three days, you're not going to be in school, you're going to be on the street begging.
      - genwin 14y ago
        As part of a super holistic solution, aid could work, especially when a big chunk is birth control and gov't corruption / dictators are addressed. But today's solutions lead to even greater problems. Search for: Former World Bank economist, Dambisa Moyo argues that the current approach isn't working. In her book, "Dead Aid", she says it has proved to be an "unmitigated political, economic and humanitarian disaster".
- intended 14y ago
  Again, that's theory. We had a population explosion while we were racked by famines and deaths through starvation. What you are mixing up is first world and third world economics. In the third world, children are seen as units of labor, and not as units where time, training and money has to be sunk. There are other reasons for the pop boom, but im hitting only the relevant one.
  - genwin 14y ago
    When the first world gives the third world free food, it enables them to see their children as units of labor, which leads to even greater numbers of deaths to famine when (inevitably) not enough free food can be given.
    - intended 14y ago
      Nope, incorrect. You are muddling up causation correlation and misinformation here. Firstly in 3 world economies,skilled labor is a minor section of total available work. Most of the work is manual labor, or artisan ship. There is simple rational actor logic that makes the correct conclusion that more children means more security. Add in strong family bonds, a focus on ensuring a male child to carry on your legacy and you have the basis for a pop boom. All developing economies see children as units of labor. The argument that giving aid is somehow an enabling action is, well,,somewhat funny. Here is the logic : high infant mortality, low comtraception availability, no family planning, lack of access to loans, children as force multipliers, the need for a male son, male children's obligation to take care of their parents in their old age make the calculus pretty simple. It's been a while since I read the research on it, but it's there on the web. Search for population dynamics and developing/third world economies I guess.
      - genwin 14y ago
        What I've read says that almost everywhere in the poor areas of the third world, basic birth control is easily available and free, and even the poorest most uneducated know how it works. They just won't use it, for the religious/cultural reasons you noted. If you give them food for free without conditions it just enables them to do what they're already doing, making the problems worse. I'm drinking coffee right now. If someone gives me a dollar without conditions it does enable me to drink coffee, and anything else I choose to do.
- Kluny 14y ago
  You forget that in a poor country, children are not a luxury, but a retirement policy. There certainly isn't going to be any social security for a poor Indian woman, so what does she do? Have four or five children, and hope that one of them survives and does well enough to provide for her when she's older. A food shortage means more babies, not fewer.
  - genwin 14y ago
    If that poor Indian woman sits in prison as a consequence for having kids just to make herself a living, she may not end up with as many children and others may be deterred from following her example. A food shortage needn't mean more babies then. That may seem harsh but the alternative is worse: when you extend your example to its inevitable conclusion there will be millions of Indians dying young, when the amount of free food can no longer grow along with the exponentially growing population.

genwin 14y ago

Or, the parents wouldn't have had kids they couldn't feed. The parents wouldn't have starved because, without too many kids, they weren't overly dividing the available food. I think a civilized society should hold parents responsible for their own kids, outside of true emergencies.

scarmig 14y ago
Sounds great! Except all too many parents are incapable of being responsible for their own kids, either out of apathy or economic inability. So when you do that, a perfectly well-meaning but stretched family might decide to, say, live in a house with heavy lead contamination. Which, aside from the heavily detrimental effect on the kids, has very large externalities, as children who have been exposed to lead in high concentrations are much more likely to become criminals.
- genwin 14y ago
  This assumes there are no consequences for such parents. Add strong enough consequences (e.g. loss of freedom) to deter others. A "well-meaning but stretched family" is more likely a set of parents who didn't responsibly plan their family. If that's the case the parents should be punished. (In the US, even the poorest parents can be punished for exposing their kids to lead.) If we make parenting a birthright (as many people support, esp. for the poorest for some reason), mass starvation is the inevitable result.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
anu_gupta 14y ago
[edited] OK - I've gone through your comment history, and can see that you would rather people starved to death than give them food, so I'm not sure there's any point in wasting each other's time in continuing this.
- Variance 14y ago
  It's an excellent question to bring up, though. You note that a civilized society gives people food if they absolutely need it. Do we then want to be a civilized society? The core assumption is that it is morally correct to distribute value from the taxpayer base into the hands of those whose lives depend on it. In essence, the many are forced to save the few. This force is measured in terms of the amount of money redistributed; if it costs €10 a month to provide basic food to those who need it, and there are 10 taxpayers for every 1 person who qualifies for welfare, the institution manifests as all people in the country being required to pay €1 per month to contribute 10% of saving a person. So the core question is, then, what is the moral justification for this force? In what way are people obligated to help their neighbors, such that society has moral grounds to force them to help their neighbors if they don't want to?
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- genwin 14y ago
  The real story is, I'd rather less people starve to death than more people starve to death. Mass starvation is the inevitable result of giving the masses free food. If you feed ducks you get more ducks, until eventually you can't feed them all.
aasarava 14y ago
> Or, the parents wouldn't have had kids they couldn't feed. While this would be nice in an ideal world, your analysis severely underestimates just how strong the desire to have sex is, and vastly overestimates the ability of someone without education, money, or healthcare to access reliable means of birth control.
- crusso 14y ago
  Being enablers of dysfunctional behavior is an acceptable solution? In the long run, the enablers and the dysfunctional are equally guilty for destroying the overall society. At some point, you have to expect members of a society to meet some minimum behavioral requirements in order to be allowed the benefits of that membership.
  - genwin 14y ago
    > Being enablers of dysfunctional behavior is an acceptable solution? It seems for most people the answer is a firm yes. They can't think beyond the short run positive (e.g. free food keeps child alive) to see the overwhelming long run negative (e.g. millions die when free food can't be sustained). When you point out the long run negative you usually get a blank stare or a downvote.
  - aasarava 14y ago
    I think you might be overlooking the fact that aid does have a long term goal. It's not simply about feeding someone in the short term -- it's to help the impoverished fulfill their most basic needs so that they can go to school, get educated, get a job, and earn a living. If you haven't eaten in three days, you're not going to be in school, you're going to be on the street begging.
    - genwin 14y ago
      As part of a super holistic solution, aid could work, especially when a big chunk is birth control and gov't corruption / dictators are addressed. But today's solutions lead to even greater problems. Search for: Former World Bank economist, Dambisa Moyo argues that the current approach isn't working. In her book, "Dead Aid", she says it has proved to be an "unmitigated political, economic and humanitarian disaster".
intended 14y ago
Again, that's theory. We had a population explosion while we were racked by famines and deaths through starvation. What you are mixing up is first world and third world economics. In the third world, children are seen as units of labor, and not as units where time, training and money has to be sunk. There are other reasons for the pop boom, but im hitting only the relevant one.
- genwin 14y ago
  When the first world gives the third world free food, it enables them to see their children as units of labor, which leads to even greater numbers of deaths to famine when (inevitably) not enough free food can be given.
  - intended 14y ago
    Nope, incorrect. You are muddling up causation correlation and misinformation here. Firstly in 3 world economies,skilled labor is a minor section of total available work. Most of the work is manual labor, or artisan ship. There is simple rational actor logic that makes the correct conclusion that more children means more security. Add in strong family bonds, a focus on ensuring a male child to carry on your legacy and you have the basis for a pop boom. All developing economies see children as units of labor. The argument that giving aid is somehow an enabling action is, well,,somewhat funny. Here is the logic : high infant mortality, low comtraception availability, no family planning, lack of access to loans, children as force multipliers, the need for a male son, male children's obligation to take care of their parents in their old age make the calculus pretty simple. It's been a while since I read the research on it, but it's there on the web. Search for population dynamics and developing/third world economies I guess.
    - genwin 14y ago
      What I've read says that almost everywhere in the poor areas of the third world, basic birth control is easily available and free, and even the poorest most uneducated know how it works. They just won't use it, for the religious/cultural reasons you noted. If you give them food for free without conditions it just enables them to do what they're already doing, making the problems worse. I'm drinking coffee right now. If someone gives me a dollar without conditions it does enable me to drink coffee, and anything else I choose to do.
Kluny 14y ago
You forget that in a poor country, children are not a luxury, but a retirement policy. There certainly isn't going to be any social security for a poor Indian woman, so what does she do? Have four or five children, and hope that one of them survives and does well enough to provide for her when she's older. A food shortage means more babies, not fewer.
- genwin 14y ago
  If that poor Indian woman sits in prison as a consequence for having kids just to make herself a living, she may not end up with as many children and others may be deterred from following her example. A food shortage needn't mean more babies then. That may seem harsh but the alternative is worse: when you extend your example to its inevitable conclusion there will be millions of Indians dying young, when the amount of free food can no longer grow along with the exponentially growing population.