Pulitzer Laureate  Posts: 766 Joined: 23 Dec 2007     | |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 3869 Joined: 26 Feb 2008     | Opening Argument and Rebuttal: The problem with feeding the third world is that instead of teaching them how to fend for themselves, we end up feeding them on our own, and if we were to have an emergency, such as a bad year or even a famine, the WHOLE WORLD would be short of food. Point 1: The problem is that while we continue to feed these countries that cannot afford to support themselves, we are allowing the populations of these countries to grow beyond what they were already incapable of supporting and making things that much harder on their government and economy. Regardless of whether we feed them or not we have a large surge of third world immigrants who have no jobs and no experience with skills other than flipping burgers and stocking shelves. Point 2: I hate to sound cold and heartless, but in reality, by feeding these third world countries we are in fact doing more harm than good. Most of Africa is embroiled in a civil war, and the people who send food are just as bad as the people who send money in contributing to it. Let's discuss where your money goes. Imagine a third world dictator is desperately trying to establish his control over a small African nation. This situation is fairly common in Africa, so we will leave our unspecified nation nameless. The African warlord takes all of his "Foreign Aid," money given to him by better off nations and uses it to buy weapons to oppress his people. Again, a fairly common occurrence. The other option is to send food stuffs, which he will peddle on the black market to raise money to buy more weapons on the black market... As for stabilizing unstable countries that support extremist groups: Fundamentalist groups such as Al-Qaeda do not fight for the "Freedom" of their people from hunger and famine, because in reality, Afghanistan is well fed most of the time. Al-Qaeda was formed to combat oppression by the Red Army and the Soviet Union. For some unknown (to the public anyway) reason they turned on their former benefactors in the United States. We HELPED them fight off the Russians, and then they ATTACKED US anyway. The fact of the matter is, that by helping restore a country after we have been forced to march in and crush the "Bad Guys" we are in fact fueling the country to be able to build up another army and attack again. The best way to handle these people is to cause massive damage then make them foot the bill to clean up their own country. Not charge them for what we lost or expended, because that caused world war 2, but make them pay to rebuild their own infrastructure so they know what it cost last time, and will think really hard before considering doing it again. Point 3: It is a folly to support another nation while your own nation is itself not in order. Foreign aid is all well and good, when your own nation doesn't have homeless and jobless citizens. What if you were on the street picking through garbage looking for cans and bottles to recycle so that you could have a meal just once today, and then saw a newspaper article that extolled the virtues of a government grant that sent billions of dollars overseas to feed the poor, civil-war torn countries that don't do anything to pay us back, and in some cases create terrorist groups that attack our soldiers and civilians? I have been homeless, but was blessed enough to have a job at the time. Trust me, if there is anyone we should be sending Federal Aid to, it is the homeless people on the street who WANT a job, but because they have no phone number, address, and can't afford decent clothes, are incapable of getting an interview, much less a job. That is all for now... |
Paperboy  Posts: 37 Joined: 16 Apr 2008    | The problem with teaching someone how to fend for themselves is that they still need some help in the quest for self-sufficience. As for governments using foreign aid for non-altruistic purposes, it's always a risk, but do you send none and definitely have people starve, or send it and try and get it to the people? Consider the situation in Burma (nuts to Myanmar). The Red Cross, having finally been allowed in, is ensuring delivery by directly handling all the stages, including delivery to those who need it. As for Third world dictators using it for war, America already fund lots of armies directly. Israel isn't using the $3 billion/year for food. Why not chip in a few million to disaster areas on the off chance it goes to actually helping people, considering the amount sent out with the express purpose of killing people. The Taliban was not funded with the purpose of freeing Afghanistan and founding a stable government. They we're funded to kill Soviets, period. It's that "Enemy of my enemy is my friend" crap that always comes back to bite you in the ass. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1340 Joined: 29 Nov 2007   | If you two are the only ones allowed to talk, why don't you just go on Skype or something? |
Pulitzer Laureate Posts: 766 Joined: 23 Dec 2007 |
Read the fucking first post, dipshit. *Anger* The debate has not been opened yet. Rebuttal: Point one: So, in essence, there is no solution, you claim. I disagree. If a country is starving, you send food to it. I am not proposing the western world spends its time pouring food down the gullets of the poor and miserable, but when a crisis arrives it is best to aid rather than ignore. Point 2: Point 3: There will always be poor people, unless you propose switching to commusism instead. And I do not suggest that we stop aiding our own staring poor, merely that we aid ALL persons who are at risk of dying from a preventable disease while farmers extract more subsidies from goverment. My own point: expansion of point on economic benifits to the develpoed world- Given, that the developed farmer cannot compete with overseas competition, the excess goverment spending will stimulate the agricultural sector (as its food being bought) and revitalise the agricultural sector of the developed world, as well as elsewhere. |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 1340 Joined: 29 Nov 2007 |
The fact that I interrupted you proves my point. If you want to have a private conversation, why are you doing it in a public forum? |
Honorable Mention: Escapist Film Festival  Posts: 1749 Joined: 21 Feb 2008     |
He does have a point actually. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 2111 Joined: 4 Nov 2007   |
Well the point is also that it will be made public once both sides have had three posts each. Still, from now on the debates will probably be held by pm until the whole thing is finished, then dumped into the first post of a new thread that will be open from the start. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1069 Joined: 16 Jan 2008     | I don't see why people are so fussed about this. They want to have a debate, I for one want to watch, if you don't like it don't read it. /hypocrisy |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 1340 Joined: 29 Nov 2007 | I'm not trying to be a dick, I think it's an interesting topic and I agree with some of their points. I just got annoyed when they announced no one else could chip in until...I dunno the "special posters" got to talk. *edit* Nevermind. |
Press Junketeer  Posts: 469 Joined: 14 May 2008   |
I realize the debate hasn't been opened yet... but I think that he did that because he wanted it to be a real debate and he knew that he and Mobius could make it so. He didn't want a board full of jokes, but an honest debate, and he knew that he and Mobius could set the tone for everybody else. Even I had come into the thread intending to make a not-very-serious proposal but after reading the first two posts I realized that this was intended to be serious and I wasn't upset that he had wanted to limit who was speaking. He just wanted people to take it seriously, that's all. I apologize for posting before the debate was opened, but I had hoped I would be of some assistance in clearing things up. Please, do continue. |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 3869 Joined: 26 Feb 2008 | Rebuttal: Point 1: Indeed, there is a solution, one that doesn't belittle the nation in question, and force them to feel beholden to another nation. National pride is the reason that most extremist groups are allowed to fight the larger "Oppressor" Nations that supply food and financial aid to the "Oppressed" nation. By saying that we have all this surplus and feel bad for these other countries, we are in fact treating them like they are our subordinates, or even worse, like little lost children who are incapable of caring for themselves. The simple answer of helping these people without them feeling that we are trying to control them is simply to give them the ABILITY to feed themselves without giving them money. When a person is down but does not beg for food or money, it is their pride that prevents them from doing so. By forcing our aid on these people we are showing them that we have no respect for their national sovereignty, and feel that they won't be capable of surviving without us. But by simply giving them the technology that allows us to feed ourselves, and teaching them to feed themselves, we establish their national pride by showing them that they are our equals. It will be some time, about a decade or so, until they are capable of implementing all of our practices, and in that time many people will die, but it won't be long before the country reaches an equilibrium and is capable of supporting itself. Point 2: The problem with expecting such aid to allow you to exert influence is exactly the thinking that fuels the extremists groups such as Al-Qaeda. The thought that "We fed you, now you have to listen to us" is the reason the extremist groups are so popular over there. We as a country HAVE no influence over there, and that is because it is not our country. By expecting to exert such influence simply because we provide their meal ticket shows an amount of arrogance that easily demonstrates why the world looks down on us as thinking we have all of the answers to the worlds problems. Point 3: There IS a way to reduce the worlds problem of over-population and inability to feed itself. Food is not going to help these people. Reducing the population to a manageable level is the only option. Reducing the population will happen naturally, when the country is forced to provide it's own food. Furthermore, the reason these people are unable to feed themselves is that they have reached a population level beyond what their land area is capable of supporting. The best way to handle this is to donate Birth Control, and let the population manage itself. Unfortunately, yes, a lot of people will starve NOW, but in the future, in the over all scheme of things, more people will be saved by allowing some of the population to starve now because in the future there will be less people to feed, and the country will be able to support itself, and eventually thrive of it's own accord, instead thriving only because another country has no choice but to support it. Solution: The problem of a country not being able to feed itself is two fold. (Forgive these numbers, they came from my Sociology book which was written about two years ago, so they may be the tiniest bit off, but are close enough for this argument) The first is that 3rd world populations are expanding exponentially. The average woman in a third world country will give birth to SEVEN children in her life, simply because she has no options for birth control. In the average 1st world country (America, Great Britain, Russia, etc) a mother will have two children. This explosion in the population means that a country that cannot support itself with a population of 20,000 adults, within 20 years will be trying to support a population of 90,000 people, 50,000 of which are incapable of working to support themselves. The only solution is to make available to these countries the methods of birth control that allow these first world countries to prevent the population exploding. The second reason the 3rd world countries are unable to feed themselves is that their agricultural system is unable to produce enough food with enough regularity to feed their massively bloated population. By simply allowing the population to regulate itself (Q.E.D. allowing the people to starve until the population reaches a manageable level that their own infrastructure is capable of supporting) the country in question will soon find itself on stable ground, and be able to support itself again. At this point, the worlds hunger problem will be solved. |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 3869 Joined: 26 Feb 2008 | Can't send an e-mail, so just letting you know I responded, Fondant.... |
Pulitzer Laureate Posts: 766 Joined: 23 Dec 2007 | Responding in 3.....2......1.... I'm seeing predictable counter arguments.... Point 1: This is my primary point, and it is central to the whole idea of the feeding of the poor. Basically, the problem is that your arguments appear to assume that diasasters such as famines create a sort of 'steady state' ground state of third world nations. This is incorrect. The process of building up the nation is happening all the time- it is a continuous process. Unfortunately, during this process the country's infrastructure often does become pushed to crisis point by the expansion of population. Thus, when a crisis occurs, the country, instead of merely taking an economic hit, freewheels off past the catastrophe curve and into the zone marked 'oh shit, your in trouble now'. This not only casues a humanitarian crisis, but also destroys much of the economic buildup of that country that occured pre-crisis. This creates an effect that third-world nations are incapable of building up past a certain point, becasue the nation is incapable of supporting its population in the event of a crisis, which will inevitably occur before the nation becomes capable of suppoting the population-thus, economic growth is rendered much fraught with difficulty. Point 2 (rebuttal): As he afromentioned cyclical nature of catastrophe occurs, this means that the country will never be able to sustain itself beyond a certain point. Thus the county will never be capable of producing for itself enough to maintain economic growth, because the population buildup will occur inevitably because, post-crisis there will be enough people for the country to support. however, the same buildup will occur, and the same catastrophes occur, because the country will never reach a steady state of being able to feed itself AND continue economic growth, because the nature of disaster is cyclical. Point 3: on technology and birth control- These require fundamental change-abouts in both society and infrastructure before they can take any real effect, and these changes require the economic growth of the county beofrehand. (I also have a very amusing story on birth control in Zulu villages.) |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 3869 Joined: 26 Feb 2008 | I really have nothing else to say. I have made all of my points and now make this thread available to anybody and everybody who wants to discuss... ENJOY! |
Copy Clerk  Posts: 64 Joined: 23 Apr 2008 | Well I want to hear the funny story. As to the debate, would feeding the poor really change the cyclical nature of the crisis cycle? |
Pulitzer Laureate  Posts: 851 Joined: 22 Aug 2006   | I've always been on Mobius' side of this debate (not necessarily attributing the views to Mobius, if this was a true debate, just saying that I fall on the side of that argument). But, I find the idea of the crisis cycle and needing to get developing nations over the "hump" where they can survive their own crises fascinating. I stopped to think of how the US ever got over the hump, and you can probably attribute it to foreign investment. By the time the 13 colonies got pissed off and broke away, they were generally over the hump, it would seem. Who said colonialism never came to anything good? Had we just left the continent to the indigenous peoples, (barring any other country from sweeping in and taking the French/British approach) where would it be right now? I'm having very sick thoughts about how to "help" starving countries at THIS moment, so I'll move on... On the whole, it seems difficult to judge foreign aid to any and all countries. I think you'd have to look at them on a case by case basis and say "Is this issue a temporary one, or a long term sustainability issue?" So often, when it is famine, it wasn't brought on by a cataclysmic event (like a hurricane or a monsoon or an earthquake), it was brought on by a dry spell, which happens with relative frequency, and their subsistence level of farming suddenly resulted in not enough food for anyone. If you feed them now, will they resume farming at a subsistence level, or will they begin producing enough to export? Is there an economic opportunity to be exploited by the people living there? If not, why are they there? Just because their parents were? I understand why you end up someplace just because your parents lived there, but that does not mean you should stay, or should be encouraged to stay. Places that have outlived their economic utility should be abandone, not strung-along; my hometown is a case study in this, or will be in 5 years. Half of West Virginia is a case study in this, in our own backyard. |
Copy Clerk  Posts: 100 Joined: 21 Jan 2008  | This is a pretty old dichotomy which I've discussed with my Philosophy/ethics group a few times. The best we could come up with is saying that Ethically, humanity should be working together to progress, which means taking care of each other, the flip side of that is that in taking care of each other, humanity should be responsible enough not to overpopulate regions which have hit their natural environmental cap, "and therefore shouldn't sustain the excess to allow it to reproduce more and worsen the problem" As far as morally, my view of morality comes from too many years of pure disgust at a species who's only real accomplishment is the almost total ignorance and self-justification of breaking natural law, so I can be a bit macabre. "Murder isn't actually :wrong: per say, its just incredibly antisocial" type of outlooks spiraling into a hateful and diseased tone etc "and this is how i spend my days thinking"... |
Pulitzer Laureate Posts: 766 Joined: 23 Dec 2007 | And geoffrey, the answer to what would have happened without colonisation: China would be a massive superpower, but only in regional terms. And Kraj- stop stealing from Yahtzee. He is not clever, and mimicry of his style is neither entertaining nor intellignet. To be frank, it makes you sound like a mentally-backwards halfling with a penchant for cattle. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1367 Joined: 12 Sep 2007   | My only objection is that I think the country being fed should be shamed. "Hey dumbass, you had thirteen babies and bred cattle as a show of wealth and they ate all the grass and now your cattle are all starving and your thirteen babies are all starving and you're sitting around hoping your crappy handful of UN flour doesn't get hijacked by bandits. You need to change your lifestyle." My point being that it's great to give someone charity, but if his own behavior caused the problem you need to hammer that point home with a huge hammer or the problem is likely to continue whilst growing exponentially due to uncontrolled breeding. I would prefer to offer them Western technology and culture, then let them make the choice. The problem now is that third-world nations get just enough Western medicine and medical knowledge to increase birth survival while holding on to their native way of life, which is not able to sustain the increased population. Once they master Western culture and can support a stable government, the culture will naturally in time blend into something unique to that particular culture and geographic/climatic conditions but also capable of supporting an increasing population. Obviously this wouldn't apply to famines created by such natural phenomena as typhoons or earthquakes, just to the normal cyclical famines due to recurring droughts, civil war, and especially horrendous government. Personally I like the debate format, even if it petered out a bit early. But then I also find Yahtzee to be quite clever. |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 3869 Joined: 26 Feb 2008 | The reason I didn't offer a third rebuttal was because, in reality, all I would have been doing was re-iterating my second rebuttal. And ironically, everyone else is on the same page pretty much. If we feed a nation that cannot support itself, we just end up making the next generation's lives even worse as they are even MORE dependent on foreign resources, which they cannot afford to purchase, and makes the chances more likely that an Extremist group (Watch as I compare Africa to the Third Reich....) will offer "All the right Answers" and then use force of arms to enact this "Right Answer" making life worse again for the rest of the world. If we don't allow these people to realize that their own bad decisions have placed them in this situation, they will blame US for not feeding them if something happens to us and we start struggling to feed ourselves. (I will grant that this is a logical Fallacy, The Slippery Slope Fallacy, as pointed out by my English Teacher, but if you look at history, it is a PROVEN and RECURRING Logical Fallacy. ) |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 1367 Joined: 12 Sep 2007 |
Word. (Damn I'm so hood!) My ex-father-in-law said something profound to me once, that the old saw about teaching a man to fish is all wrong. If that man's family is hungry and he's worth anything at all, he's going to be fishing anyway. You can teach him to fish better, you can provide him better tools or the knowledge to make them, but if his family is hungry and he's just waiting for his fish to be brought to him, then nothing you do is ever going to change that. Of course, there has to be water... |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 2111 Joined: 4 Nov 2007 | It's interesting that the doctrine of foreign aid that P.T. Bauer thoroughly debunked decades ago is still the standard thought in every major western government. |
Paperboy Posts: 39 Joined: 10 Feb 2008 | Providing food to a country USED to provide some means of controlling what went on in the country. However, with the rise of the UN and international law, food aid is guaranteed to any country facing a humanitarian crisis, which means they can tell us to go f*ck ourselves whenever we tell them to do something, and keep receiving the food anyhow. The key to diplomacy, as Teddy Roosevelt once said, is to speak softly and carry a big stick. We have continued speaking softly, but tossed aside the big stick for fear of looking like a bully. The result is that nobody listens to us any more, and it will take not only picking up the big stick, but bashing a number of other countries' skulls with it, before they will listen to us again. (EDIT: Yes, that means more countries than Iraq and Afghanistan. Lots more.) |
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Ah, good heevening. Ze topic for discussion is posted above, don't expect me to repeat it you lazy bums. Only I or Darth Mobius may post, until at least three posts by both parties (Fondant and Darth Mobius)apiece are posted, at which point either debater may open the debate to the floor (i.e the rest of you can post) Kindly abide by these rules, and enjoy the ride.
I will begin: The world in general should feed the third world in cases of emergancy- whereby famine or warfare looms. My primary argument for this shall be pragmatic- it is in the interests of the world to feed the starving poor:
If the starving poor are not fed, then they invariably leave the third world and emigrate to the first world, thus causing a breakdown of the society of the first world due to the sudden flood of ill-smelling, starving and disease-rideen immigrants to our shores, which we invariably have to control and support with goverment (i.e taxpayers) money in the form of,at the very least, border control/patrol and detention centres, as well as the costs of rehabilitating them. However, if the poor are fed at times of emergancy, there will be a much lessened flow of starving, illiterate immigrants to the shores of the civilised world.
Also, the prospect of increrased economic prosperity due to an indirect increase in trade is another benifit. Simply put, if the third world remains stable then it will function far more reliably as its macroeconomic purpose- a resource base for cheap labour and raw materials. Thus the increase in stability caused by food aid will indirectly benifit the benefactor nations as they will see a drop in both prices and also a lesseing of violence on their borders due to the decreased plight of the people- which will lead to a loss of support for extremist factions that may also destabilise the fisrt world (Al-Queda, etc)
Pray respond, Darth Mobius.