Saltiness

My first post, please be kind….

I was having a discussion with my friends the other day while watching some thing on TV about starving, diseased people in other parts of the world. They had guest stars spouting about how the U.S. has all this money and food and medicine and whatnot and these third world countries have nothing. Children die every day and all kinds of other horrible things. I agree that it’s a terrible thing for these people to have to endure such poor conditions.

The problem I see is that what if we (the more privileged people of the world) shared the wealth and improved the quality of life for all these people, there would be a huge problem with world population. There already are much too many people in the world in my opinion, so if all these people who would die tomorrow suddenly don’t, populations would go through the roof. Soon, third world famine and disease would turn into entire world famine and disease. This planet is just not capable of supporting so many humans.

If the world were to change and the quality of life for everyone were to go up, there would have to be strict breeding rules put into place. I think some countries with large population problems already have such programs to keep child birth rates down. I see this as being a huge problem as far as enforcement. Childbirth limitations would be very difficult to put in place in countries where religion or customs normally grant or encourage large families.

I’m sure there are many other negative effects that would come of world equality. It just seems like people who push for measures to help the less fortunate don’t look into the future to see that these changes could have huge implications for everyone.

Philosoft

I think this might get more play somewhere else. Miscellaneous Discussions, for now....

orac

Free condom with every free meal - problem solved.

When sharing the wealth, things such as education and birth control are important, as well as food.

Oh, and a billion starving people who're suddenly able to do more than just scrape a below-subsistance existance will lead to increased food production. Eliminating poverty and starvation requires getting people to a state where they can feed themselves - not just giving them free meals.

Saltiness

So, in reality, bringing these less fortunate peoples to the levels of the richer nations of the world would require a complete change of lifestyle for them. It would involve forcing foreign customs onto them. Looking at previous attempts to do this, Native Americans for example, it doesn't seem to work out very successfully.

What I'm getting at is that the way things are now is sort of the 'natural' way for things to be. It creates a balance in population, wealth and other things. It's very unfortunate for the majority who get stuck at the bottom end of the system, but it seems to work for the most part. If we were to change, it would be through completely artificial means. Deep cultural traditions would be thrown out the window in favor of tried and true, 'manufactured' ways of living and of supporting a society.

Helping could end up being less of a selfless undertaking for the privilaged world and more of a brutal revolution for the third world.

What would need to happen is each case of people be taken individually and a compatible hybridization of perhaps 'western lifestyle' and their own personal customs be developed.

I mean for this thread to be a constructive pool of theories on how global wealth equalization would pan out.

fando

I've often heard that the world food supply is sufficient to feed everyone. Industrialized nations tend to generate surplus food that is either stockpiled or used in aid programs. As it turns out, the main problem in feeding every hungry person on Earth is logistics. All kinds of things get in the way of distribution, like maleficient governments, political red tape, organized crime and inacessibility. Even when the food gets to its destination, the hungry often need to be taught many things lest the aid be moot. For instance, how to sanitize water, cook their food, ration meals, and so on.

echidna

Saltiness, I'll respect your request, but at the same time I'll also say that your post would usually rile me no end. Just responding briefly, with some notable exceptions, life expectancy has been increasing globally by around 3 years per decade & sometimes faster, despite also an increase in world population, thanks largely to improvements in health care. A sign of things getting worse ? I don't think so. There is no evidence that food production is incapable of feeding an increased population. Beyond massive inefficiencies in third world agriculture techniques, as fando touches on, most developed countries actively pay to reduce their agricultural outputs so as to maintain high prices for their protected farming sectors.

In terms of population growth, very simplistically, development & education are the answer, indeed many developed nations even suffer from population decline. In short I see absolutely no reason on earth to prevent or slow the development of third world nations, in fact humanitarian considerations absolutely demand it.

DMB

Saltiness: it is difficult to respond to such a wide-ranging OP which raises so many complex questions.

First of all, are you aware that birth rates have been coming down in most developing countries over the past 20 years, and, in some cases, the past 30 years? This has not happened by chance. A huge effort has been mounted by the UN, other international agencies and the governments of many developing countries themselves.

Surveys have consistently shown that the majority of women in developing countries want fewer children and better spaced births. If they go on having births too close together or more children than they really want, it is because they lack the choice, either because they have little control over their own lives or because they do not have access to efficient methods of contraception.

There is also the problem of infant mortality. If young children often die, parents will in general have more children than ideally they would like, in order to cover possible losses.

It is well known what the solutions are to unwelcome population growth. They are:[list=1][*]Higher status for women, both legally and socially.[*]Access to good primary health care, including reproductive health care.[*]Access to education, particularly for females.[*]Opportunities for individuals and families to raise themselves out of absolute poverty.[*]Decent living conditions, including sufficient food and clean water.[/list=1]
There are other measures that improve societies in general and thus tend to improve people's lives.

I would point out that poor countries face all sorts of difficulties in trying to improve the lot of their citizens. The USA does not have a good record on providing social development aid to poor countries and since President Bush came to power has cut off aid to the UN Population Fund and the International Planned Parenthood Foundation, the two international bodies that have done the most to help develop family planning in poor countries.

In most societies, increasing affluence does not lead to population growth: witness developments in Europe since WW2. In order for people to have decent lives in poor countries, it is not necessary for them to adopt the US way of life, which is immensely wasteful of resources and productive of considerable pollution.

Saltiness

Thank you, DMB.

"The USA does not have a good record on providing social development aid to poor countries.." - This is what I was mostly trying to get at. I'm in no way trying to say that measures not be taken to improve the way of life for everyone, it's just that whenever I hear people talking about helping third world countries, they never take into account how overwhelmingly difficult it would be. They assume the only thing holding us back is our own greed for money and resources.

I'm young, and pretty sheltered, so I haven't heard much about these international organizations that help with these problems, Aside from the 'sponsor this child' tv commercials. It's very unfortunate that funding has been cut to these organizations, just another example of Bush's selfish idiocy.

Shake

OK, just to tack on my own 2¢:

Some years ago I would have agreed with the op completely. Then I realized what some of the other posters here have already said. The industrialized nations produce way more food than they can use ... or need, anyway. If you've ever worked in a US restaurant, you'd have an idea of how much food gets completely and totally wasted. Heck, the restaurants in my county could probably feed a small African nation with their waste! Further, if you've been watching the news you know that Americans eat too much anyways! If I only ate the 4-6oz portion of my (14 oz!) steak that portion control says I should, then there's a whole lot of beef that could go to hungry people.

Yes, education is a big part of it. Yes, their cultures would change dramatically. Studies have shown that more educated people have fewer children (in general). This is just general education ... if you think about removing religious barriers (and others such as availability) to contraception, then both birth rates and disease drop significantly.

Finally, before you send any money to any of these organizations who are claiming to help "save the children," make sure you do your research on them! Find out what kind of overhead there is involved (e.g. how much of your dollar actually goes towards food, medicine, etc.), what the affiliation of the group is (religious or otherwise), and how they distribute supplies. Just some ideas.

DMB

If you want information about population questions, a good starting point is the UN Population Fund. This is funded by many governments (including the US until Bush came along) and works with governments of developing countries to help them formulate population policies and improve reproductive health programmes. Since the US Administration withdrew its $34 million funding of UNFPA, a "34 million friends campaign" has been started, encouraging 34 million Americans to give $1 each to make up the shortfall.

The US foundation the Population Reference Bureau is an excellent source of all sorts of statistics. Their website has links to many organisations connected with population and family planning.

The International Planned Parenthood Federation is a federation of family planning organisations worldwide. It is partly funded by donor countries and helps member organisations in the poorer countries implement good-quality family planning programmes. It is possible for members of the public to make direct donations to IPPF.

In the USA, Population Action International is an important campaigning organisation that also helps with funding overseas.

I have links with a number of European population organisations, but I think the ones I have listed above should give you plenty of leads.