MetdethGNR

I did not say that guys!!!

It was just a very blunt, very concise summary of Garret Hardin's "Lifeboat Ethics" Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor by Garrett Hardin - The Garrett Hardin Society - Articles

It's a very long read but a very interesting one as well. Have any of you read it before?

Short summary which will enable discussion:


In summary:

Look at the poorest of the countries. Take India as an example. India is the second-most populous country in the world. One of the many reasons why it's so poor it's because it has long ago filled it's carrying capacity. Basic economics hit it: the necessary resources for survival are scarce. You can't increase food supply 'cause there's a limited amount of land. You can't increase land because you'd be invading other countries. You can only live with your available resources.

But, third world nations, in general, reproduce much faster than developed countries. In Hardin's essay, he makes reference to third world countries reproducing as much as 3 times more as a developed country.

Which means that in say, India, there will be more people, which will deplet sources even further, which would be worse off for the country in general.

Hardin proposes the obvious but morally abhorrent solution: Let the sick and poor die. "Helping" out the very sick and poor (say the starving in India) will only ensure their survival. In the end, they will be "another weak mouth" to feed and the country would be worse off. If the sick and poor die, only the strong will remain. There will be fewer and the strong can then work on making a stronger India.

That's his argument. I think it makes a lot of sense but of course it's not doable because it's "inhumane".

Comments?

asian sensation

i'm very pro-humanitarian, so i disagree..

save food by eating all of what's on your plate! (:

Liist

Didn't I already start a thread about overpopulation? We've discussed poverty, I believe.

It's simple supply and demand. There's not enough food to go around, and there aren't enough job spaces. China is getting better every year because they have more jobs available and food production has increased because of the extra money spent on technology.

Chipmoney

"save food by eating all of what's on your plate! (:"

overeating =/= saving food

Liist

^ I agree

Just put down the fork, it's not going to kill you. If you can last 3 weeks on a diet, you're going to stick with that diet.

Johnson181

I eat everything on my plate. It's called smaller servings.

India's running into a huge problem with water supply...
There was a major article in a science magazine about the water shortage and how they want to make canals to connect all of the rivers.
Somehow, I have a feeling that it's going to make everything worse, since the engineers didn't look into possible harm that may affect the water conditions and the natural ecosystem.

asian sensation

^ well, if you don't put too much on your plate than you can handle..it's not overeating, lol

DataBox

hate to break it to you, but India isn't a third world country...regardless, interesting stuff

Liist

Hmm, we've discussed the water supply as well.

I've read a Wired article saying that if we don't find a good solution now, we're going to get into a major war over the last few drops of water.

Poseur

I disagree with social Darwinism (the idea that letting the 'weak' die preserves only the 'strong' and allows for a more favorable pool), but that's only because my idea of humanity involves supporting fellow humans.

Take our domestic situation of poverty, for example. (Get ready for a rant.) Many people think that the homeless are generally lazy people who are making no effort to escape their destitute situations. They think that welfare should be abolished because people on welfare use their checks for alcohol and drugs, not for food to help them to survive or as a resource in finding a job.

Adherents of this beliefs like to exploit the idea of the 'American Dream': that anyone is capable of escaping poverty with hard work. They use the example of Andrew Carnegie or even of J.K. Rowling to support their beliefs -- "see, any poor person can work his or her way to the top. All it takes is hard work." However, they fail to take into account that these people are the exception rather than the rule. As a population, we fail to realize that our system inherently keeps the poor down. Poverty, as it is, is close to an inescapable vicious cycle. Picture a child born to an impoverished mother. This child may have to work under the table for hours a day, starting at age six, in order to make enough money to feed himself and his mother. Obviously, he can't get an education. His employers will take advantage of his situation and refuse to give him more money (they know that he'll work for anything) or to promote him, so he'll never be able to work his way up in the corporate world. As he grows up, in addition to not even having an elementary school education, this person will be too poor to even afford nice enough clothes or a cell phone to aid him in getting an above-minimum-wage job.

Such examples support the inescapable nature of poverty. I read this amazing real-life story (on an internet forum XP) of a man who got kicked out of his house by his crazy mother at age 11 and was forced to live on the streets -- he was eventually fortunate enough to be taken in by a family nine years later and build a comfortable lifestyle for himself, but he acknowledges that he was lucky and that had this not happened, he may have never escaped. His detailed story helped me understand just how vicious a cycle poverty is -- he described how he couldn't afford nice enough clothes for a job interview, how although he spent his spare time reading and educating himself to a high level he could not get any job but manual labor due to his situation, etc.

Our current system does not afford an opportunity to everyone to rise in the world. The American Dream -- work hard and you can rise, despite your circumstances -- is a farce. I'm not discrediting the merit of the amazing people who do manage to escape poverty, either domestic or international (e.g. Liist's story of his father escaping poverty in China by educating himself or the story of my boyfriend's parents, who worked their way from middle-class in India to upper-middle-class in America): these people are admirable in every way. I just don't believe that poverty is necessarily an obstacle that can be overcome through hard work.

The problem is, I don't have any ideas. I don't have a magical solution that would grant opportunity to everyone in the world. I just know that as things are right now, not everyone does have an opportunity. Would the solution be to pour more money into welfare? Probably not. Would it be for the government to further support organizations that aid the poor in getting jobs? That would be my number one choice. But I don't know. I don't know how to make the fallacy of the American Dream into a truth.

Why do I even consider the American Dream an ideal? I'm not so pretentious as to consider my personal morals (in this case, the idea that people should help one another) morals that should be forced upon the world. Adherents of social Darwinism would disagree with me, saying that it's a dog-eat-dog world: every man for himself. But I believe that 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' -- American virtues -- obligate us to support, as individuals in a nation, everyone else in the nation.

And this is just domestic. How do we deal with poverty on a larger scale, the topic addressed in this thread? See, I'm against America meddling in other countries' businesses. So I have this internal conflict going on -- should we pour money into other nations' economies? Should we institute anti-poverty measures in other countries? Or should we pursue an isolationist policy and mind our own business? I don't know. I don't know if my idea of humanity -- supporting one another -- applies in every situation, because what if other countries don't want our help? And if we do allow ourselves to support other countries financially, what if we don't stop there? What if we try to interfere in other countries' governments like we did in Iraq? That, I'm sure, was not our business.

I think that the best thing for us to do is give opportunity to people in other nations. We should keep our doors open to refugees, because closing our doors in the name of our own self-interest is selfish and goes against our American ideals. And then we're faced with the issue of domestic poverty... but I've already expressed the opinion that we should try to make poverty escapable in the U.S. In my opinion, this is the best course of action. Do what we can to give everyone in the world a chance.

Sorry this was, like, a novel. Feel free to disagree or whatever. This is just my opinion. :]

Johnson181

I have the same internal conflict... but my isolationism overrules any humanity. Our economy is in a slump, and we're in too much debt right now.

A good chunk of them are mentally ill - those are the ones I think need the most help.

My only problem with welfare is that it doesn't help the underlying problem. There is clearly something wrong with the system if there are families that have 3+ generations on welfare. <- Why I think we need to focus on fixing up our problems here first.

KeepRolling

Social Darwinism will only only trigger imminent wars when resources become scarce. War will cause more usage of resources causing them to diminish even more. So the best way is to help the poor and even if that may cause you to eat one less serving of pie (or whatever), live with it.

Poseur

Yeah, welfare alone is not effective... nor would be ending welfare completely, though, or dramatically decreasing it. That's why I think that our energy needs to be focused on social workers -- on increasing the resources for people who help the poor use their resources to work their way up in the world.

TomHirschfeld

Gapminder - Home

if any of you are truly interested in this subject, you should watch the "gapcasts" on this website. It is a study of demographics of third world countries and the effect of intl aid they have recieved and how their society is progressing.

^^^I agree with a large amount of the stuff you are saying, about how we need to end poverty cruelty and such, but govt benefits are not the way. First of all, the people who truly deserve them are working too dang hard to take 4 hours off to do go the social workers office to file all the paperwork to get the govt bonuses, for the most part it is just the lazy people who get the govt cash (digression alert, Did you know that 70% of Americans on welfare also pay for cable television). I believe the govt should be obligated to not let its citizens die of a lack of food or shelter, and that is it as far as social responsibility. Govt help (in the form of direct entitlement programs) has never really help a social group move up or down the social ladder, rather it does the opposite, its stagnates them and makes them wallow in their own pitty. I, like alot of america, hates being exploited like a huge cash cow to help "aid" poor people buy cable.

I also think that the level of filth and squaller that the poor people supported by the govt live in should be nearly intolerable to make it unattractive to the meerly lazy, but then more aid in the form of job training/recruiting and drug/alcohol rehab could be spent w/o fear of the bums rakin in the cash.

Invoyable

god Poseur, seriously go write a novel.

Too long, didn't read any of the posts here.

Read the title, and I say: Never kill the poor. NEVER.