The Song Fight Bulletin Board

I'm curious to know what people think about the largest problems we face and also the best ways to face them. If I forget any that you think are more significant than what I've listed I'd be interested to hear those as well.

Everything is totally, surely ai'ree.

Maybe less the emissions issue, I think all of the choices listed would boil down to selfishness. (especially the choice that includes selfishness)

In my opinion, the "answer" (<-- used loosely here) is leadership within yourself. Take charge, influence people around you, and train them to replicate. It's sort of MLM-ish sounding, but I believe this to be the most effective method of changing people.

i would've voted for lack of sleep.

A big Venn diagram would show lots of overlaps between all the issues mentioned.

On a simplistic level though - poverty is the big one. Address it - and most of the others go away or are alleviated. Also, while it is difficult to change human nature, poverty can actually be eliminated

Who's going to eliminate poverty? If people didn't need to change to eliminate it, would it really be a problem right now?

greed and the unequal distribution of wealth is part of us and will always be with us

extreme polarisation of wealth though, can be addressed and minimised

How do you eliminate poverty (by any definition of the word) without a fundamental change to the way that humans think about wealth?

I don't mean this in a weird mean way, but:

If you solve poverty and health issues, the population is going to be on the rise even faster. The earth already has too many people, what would happen then?

Daj Werkenhorse 1 wrote:I don't mean this in a weird mean way, but:

If you solve poverty and health issues, the population is going to be on the rise even faster. The earth already has too many people, what would happen then?

overpopulation is a symptom of poverty

erikb wrote:How do you eliminate poverty (by any definition of the word) without a fundamental change to the way that humans think about wealth?

it doesnt require a fundamental change - just tweaking. Humans are social animals - wealth distribution is in our nature - it just sometimes gets out of kilter

throughout history humans have worked at the balance which allows existance as a social animal. Tribalism, feudalisim, socialism, whatever - its all about distributing wealth so that the group as a whole may survive.

At the moment - extreme poverty = environmental degredation = loss of resources = war = the 'group' (everybody) is in trouble

Semantics aside, how do we go about eliminating poverty? What steps need to be taken to eliminate it from the world as it exists today?

Daj Werkenhorse 1 wrote:I don't mean this in a weird mean way, but:

If you solve poverty and health issues, the population is going to be on the rise even faster. The earth already has too many people, what would happen then?

Yeah, that's not a remotely accurate statement. Not only does poverty spur birth rates, relative wealth and stability tends to produce declining birth rates, even such that they go into negative growth with time. People used to think it was just urban wealth that didn't reproduce, but I remember seeing statistics to contradict that statement. Individuals removed from a situation of economic strife are less likely to reproduce. Education probably plays in heavily to that correlation.


There are lots of ways to eliminate poverty, and I'm rather sure all my plans are foolproof and would be fully effective while producing no ill unintended effects. Of course, I don't care enough to tell you about them. Think I'll go find some porn.

erikb wrote:Semantics aside, how do we go about eliminating poverty? What steps need to be taken to eliminate it from the world as it exists today?

The most important this is to remove the destructive 'feedback loop' that comes from foreign aid. It is this effect on a global scale that is unique to modern times.

ie. A give aid money to B. B spends money. A wants money back with interest. A becomes richer. B becomes poorer. (for an example closer to home - substitute A=your bank, B=you, aid=credit card).

or

A gives money to B to grow coffee. B grows and sells coffee. B gets richer. B grows more coffee. B doesn't grow wheat. B buys food. A decides to start drinking tea. B can't sell coffee. B can't eat coffee. B starves.

or

A gives B money to realise a valuable natural resource (gold, copper, grazing land, phosphate, oil...whatever). A gives money. A provides expertise. A builds infrastructure. A provides jobs for B. B gets richer - but not as rich as A. Resource runs out. B is buggered (take a trip to Nauru if you want to see how this one works).

BTW - I didn't say it would be easy to eliminate poverty - just that there is no real reason why it can't be done.

Look at the growth in east and south-east Asia over the past 20 years. The number of people living in extreme poverty in that area has dropped dramatically - (ever since the USA stopped trying to bomb parts of it 'back to the stoneage'?)

Honestly, guys, let's go take five. We have no fucking idea, so no more pretending! I see this all devolving into some sort of gooey pudding very quickly.

Everything is fine, anyway. No sir, not a single problem on the planet.

sparks wrote:...Education probably plays in heavily to that correlation...
.

Particularly education of women. Which is why (to quote another thread), any Pope who spent the last 25 years reinforcing the male-dominated gender bias in one of the world's major religions of the poor is a 'senile old prick'.

I'm sure that was on his daily agenda.

"Remember: Reinforce gender bias, oppress dirty females. Piss off Ray."

I'm sorry, but you have no sense of context if you apply everything wrong with religion to a dead pope. But it's up to you--if you want to apply that statement to every willing Catholic, and to yell at Orthodox Jews on the street for failing to accept gay lifestyle, and to break up church bake sales because the little old ladies voted pro-life, well, whatever. Blame everyone for their flawed, earnest, well-intended convictions. Really, you'll go far.

Sarcasm aside, think about it. Is it that different?

sparks wrote:Honestly, guys, let's go take five. We have no fucking idea, so no more pretending! .

Hey, I got a Masters Degree in this sort of stuff, and have written a thesis on developing world resource management! I rarely get a chance to use it though nowdays. (Not that I'm saying I have any fucking idea - just that I'm really good at pretending!!)

Boo, come back when you have a Nobel Prize.

Goddamn posseurs.

No, really, though, apply this kind of thought to policy? Sure! Try to answer "How to Solve Poverty: 500 words or less"? That just invites stupid answers, if not from you (who are educated on the topic) then from others who are self-educated, like myself. Frankly, I don't want to tell anyone how I think I'd solve poverty. What kind of putz would that make me?

Caravan Ray wrote: ie. A give aid money to B. B spends money. A wants money back with interest. A becomes richer. B becomes poorer. (for an example closer to home - substitute A=your bank, B=you, aid=credit card).

Your point is fine, but I think the credit card is a poor example. Credit card debt is generally self-inflicted by persons too selfish to wait until they have the money. It is pretty rare that the people building up credit card debt are in dire straights. And often if they are, it's because they just finished paying off their old, irresponsible purchases, have no savings, and now have an emergency and an open credit card.

sparks wrote:I'm sure that was on his daily agenda.

"Remember: Reinforce gender bias, oppress dirty females. Piss off Ray."

I'm sorry, but you have no sense of context if you apply everything wrong with religion to a dead pope. But it's up to you--if you want to apply that statement to every willing Catholic, and to yell at Orthodox Jews on the street for failing to accept gay lifestyle, and to break up church bake sales because the little old ladies voted pro-life, well, whatever. Blame everyone for their flawed, earnest, well-intended convictions. Really, you'll go far.

...just don't get me started on Buddhists..

Too.. selfish to wait until they have money?

So you're saying we should wait to go to college until we actually have $60,000 in the bank, rather than take out a loan on faith in that investment? Or that we should walk to work when we an unexpected auto expense arises so we can make enough money to fix the car? Because we'd be "selfish" (where did you pull that word from, by the way?) if we didn't? I'm baffled, man.

I just predicted this kind of thing, did I not? Pshaw.