Kevin's Watch

SO...governments are the problem.

25% of all food produced on Earth is wasted.

10+% of the worlds population routinely goes hungry.

Agree it's a lack of political will.

--A

Avatar wrote:SO...governments are the problem.

25% of all food produced on Earth is wasted.

10+% of the worlds population routinely goes hungry.

Agree it's a lack of political will.

--A

Govts are not the only problem. If you were to start feeding the worlds poor tomorrow, statistics show that we would see an incredible increase in the number of people in those areas. More people to feed, more babies being born, more children living to adulthood and also having babies. The amount it takes to feed those areas would continue to increase.

As ironic as it is, the more poor a society, the more likely that they will have larger families, making them even more poor. This in general makes it harder to continue to feed all the poor because they continue to reproduce at a high rate.

At some point we have to understand that as large as the world is, there is a limit to the number of people that can be sustained.

This might be contentious as well, but the question remains as to what responsibility do wealthier countries have to support the populations of countries that fail to administrate themselves in sufficiently efficient manner as to provide for their own people?

It's a simplification to be sure, but if a country is run by essentially kleprocrat dictatorships who rinse the public purse for their own benefit rather than administer their nations in responsible fashion to the benefit of all, then who are we to tell them nay. To provide support in such instances could be argued as to be propping up these regimes when in truth, the responsibility lies with the people of those countries to get their own houses in order. Certainly humanitarian aid in times of natural crisis is appropriate - but beyond this the argument gets more complicated.

Something about all this just sits wrong with me...if, as you all suggest, there isn't a shortage of food, it seems pretty lousy to be like "Oh well, if we feed everybody they will just breed more people" or "Oh well, when you overthrow your kleptocratic government I'm sure you will be able to feed yourselves."

The reason poor people have more children is because in the complete absence of any kind of social support, it increases your chances of survival when there are more people to contribute whatever scraps they can glean to the family pot.

And the reason that kleptocrat dictatorships prevail for so long is that when every day is a struggle for simple survival, you don't have the time or energy to worry about political change, let alone facing the additional hardships that attempting to bring such about will entail.

Both seem like pretty poor reasons to condemn nearly a billion people to food poverty.

--A

Not sure what you're saying, Av. I don't think the solution is to create new technologies to make use of new food sources, because I suspect the reasons various people are starving now will prevent them from benefiting from the new food source. I think the solution is to get rid of the things that are preventing them from getting the food that already exists.

I certainly subscribe to neither view Av, but I'm just saying that the problem is complex. My presentation is itself a simplification, more for discussion purposes than as an actual description of the truth - but it boils down to this.

Because you have the capability to help someone, do you have concurrently the responsibility to help them as well? The situation pertaining in countries with food shortages is very rarely a simple one of famine - the complex political and social issues of these countries are very often inextricably linked to their condition. Against this backdrop and in the face of very real shortages in the population of donor countries as well, where does a countries responsibilities lie.

Clearly the answer is on a case by case basis, but as a generality of principle and given that it is likely that in this world it would be nigh on impossible to satisfy the needs of all people without the establishment of a form of collectivism that for most people would be distasteful, surely the idiom that 'charity must begin at home' must be given at least some consideration?

Is it not the case that in this world some will suffer through no fault of their own, and equally some will thrive by sheer luck and fortune of birth? Sure - do what you can to help where you can, but never loose sight of the fundamental unfairness of our world. It is what it is. No?

I mean, I certainly agree about the fundamental "unfairness" of life...like laws, like morals, like rights, "fairness" is a human concept with which the world, indeed, the universe, has no truck.

But...that said, there is a world that we would like to have, and I don't think anybodies vision of what the world _should_ be like includes 100's of millions of people going hungry, especially when (if) enough food exists for them to be able to be fed.

I don't really see a particular solution either...but who else can be to blame but governments? Whether it's governments (or corporations I guess) who try to profit from aiding people, or governments who won't accept it for whatever reason, something is wrong if we're throwing away 1/4 of all food, yet there are hungry people.

--A

Amen to that Av. And it's not rocket science to see that these problems are going to get very much worse in the pretty near future rather than better.