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Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa.

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Re: Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa.

#141

Post by rokhayakebe »

jxcole wrote: post #9

I don't know if this makes me cruel, but whenever people talk about donating money to starving children in Africa, I always imagine the following: If I were to donate some amount of money to starving children in an impoverished nation every year I could, theoretically, bring some of them out of starvation. However, these children would then grow into adults, and then these adults would have children of their own. The…

You think like a piece of code with its many what if-else-than scenarios. This is a philosophical question and you are not nearly smart enough to even begin to understand the consequences (postive, or negative) of your helping someone in need. Every human being, be it a saint, or a murderer, has the right to not be hungry, and to have a shelter. The sad part is that there is someone above you in the social chain who is thinking exactly the same way about you. Maybe you deserve no help to get to the next stage in your life, because you know, these are all stages. Maybe they should just let you where you are. But no, we are not where we are today because we are Darwinians and let the fittest of us survive. We are where we are because some us want to further Human Kind without prejudice, all of it, the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, the well-fed, and the hungry.

Re: Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa.

#142

Post by option_greek »

chris_wot wrote: post #129
jxcole wrote: post #9

I don't know if this makes me cruel, but whenever people talk about donating money to starving children in Africa, I always imagine the following: If I were to donate some amount of money to starving children in an impoverished nation every year I could, theoretically, bring some of them out of starvation. However, these children would then grow into adults, and then these adults would have children of their own. The…

To be blunt, I believe this is a cruel statement. What you are saying is that someone who is starving shouldn't be saved because they will grown into an adult who will have children. You then suggest that looking at the causes of population explosions should be investigated and resolved, and therefore until this is fixed then children should starve. A cruel sort of logic indeed.

IMHO, logic can only be correct or wrong. There is no such thing as cruel logic.

Re: Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa.

#143

Post by hazov »

genwin wrote: post #120
hazov wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your entire view in this thread sounds very Ehrlichian to me. Just to explain, Paul R. Ehrlich was wrong when he predicted hundreds of millions of Indians would die because of famines and people still ask questions to him about this just to amuse themselves. I believe anyone holding similar beliefs will be wrong again, at least for the next half century.

Young people are already dying in large numbers in some African countries.

Fair, people also were dying in India in the 60s and 90% of the population lived on less food than they needed every day (according to Amartya Sen), Ehrlich said it would get worse with famines because of lack of resources and hundred of millions starving to death, he was wrong and Amartya Sen argued that malnutrition in India correlates more with corruption than with lack of resources.

To be fair a great number of Indian children still suffers from malnutrition but my argument is that the situation improved because the world is not static as Ehrlich predicted, Africa will also improve in the long run with the advent of modern agriculture techniques.

Re: Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa.

#144

Post by kingkawn »

chris_wot wrote: post #132
kingkawn wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which child will grow up to revolutionize their nation's politics?

That question presupposes that the only people it is worthwhile to save from starvation is the one who grows up to make a large impact on their country. It's the sort of logic that I find very dangerous.

The question presupposes that you cannot possibly determine this in advance and therefore all are worth saving.

Re: Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa.

#145

Post by astine »

WiseWeasel wrote: post #52
vacri wrote: post #50

A more curt, but more direct response would be: As a Christian Nun, you wouldn't even be in Zambia if it weren't for explorers increasing the bounds of our knowledge. Apart from the Copts in Egypt, there's not a lot of 'native' Christianity in Africa.

I doubt it would have the same impact; I don't think the Catholic church is anticipating the conversion of godless Martians.

You'd be surprised.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/the-pope/8009299/Po...

Re: Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa.

#146

Post by flyinRyan »

genwin wrote: post #119
d0mine wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TED Talk Hans Rosling: Let my dataset change your mindset: Religion has very little to do with the number of babies per woman. All the religions in the world are fully [able] to maintain their values and adapt to this new world. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/hans_rosling_at_state.html

Yes religions can adapt, but of course they don't want to and needn't, so Rosling's reasoning isn't convincing. Utah has the highest birth rate in the US. I doubt that has very little to do with Mormonism.

Have you been to Utah? There isn't much else to do there...

Re: Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa.

#147

Post by genwin »

hazov wrote: post #143
genwin wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young people are already dying in large numbers in some African countries.

Fair, people also were dying in India in the 60s and 90% of the population lived on less food than they needed every day (according to Amartya Sen), Ehrlich said it would get worse with famines because of lack of resources and hundred of millions starving to death, he was wrong and Amartya Sen argued that malnutrition in India correlates more with corruption than with lack of resources. To be fair a great number of I…

> ... Africa will also improve in the long run with the advent of modern agriculture techniques.

In the long run that can't be true, when the population continues increasing. There's a practical limit to agricultural yield, even if output can be tripled sometimes. You could generalize that statement as " will improve in the long run with the advent of ". The US debt can be substituted, for example. Always a better solution is to address the "unsustainable" aspect. One shouldn't be fooled into thinking the unsustainable thing became sustainable when the can got kicked down the road for a few decades.

Overpopulation leads to corruption. The situation becomes "every person for themself" to survive.

Re: Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa.

#148

Post by tripzilch »

RandallBrown wrote: post #43
joering2 wrote: post #33

Ok, so the story with microscope was a good one. I was initially shortsighted. But coming back to the recent Mars mission, anyone has any ideas, more or less accurate/detailed, of how this particular mission will/could benefit our civilization? This is a serious question.

Unlike other mars rovers, Curiousity isn't solar powered. It's nuclear powered. RTGs ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_gen... ) are not new, but I have no doubt that plenty of refinements went into the process to make this one better and more efficient. Now what if this is the next fuel source for cars? We could dramatically cut down on our use of fossil fuels. That's pretty world changing. T…

I was wondering about that nuclear power engine. Is it safe?

Because on the one hand they spend all this effort to make sure all the components that go into space are absolutely sterile, in order to not accidentally contaminate the environment on Mars [this really is high priority to NASA], and on the other hand you fly a nuclear reactor there, without anyone or anything to make sure it's contained in the event it might start leaking or something.

Re: Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa.

#149

Post by genwin »

chris_wot wrote: post #135
rimantas wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get. That's the problem: free food does not solve the starving child problem. It just creates more starving children.

That's a fallacy. "Free food" does not create more starving children. Whilst some famines are caused by over-population, it is far more likely that they are caused by other factors such as genocide campaigns, civil wars, refugee flows and episodes of extreme violence and state collapse. Of course, if your solution to the "starving children" problem is to let them die of starvation, then you indeed have a final soluti…

Free food almost certainly causes more starving children in any country whose main religion/culture demands "be fruitful and multiply".

> Whilst some famines are caused by over-population, it is far more likely that they are caused by other factors such as genocide campaigns, civil wars, refugee flows and episodes of extreme violence and state collapse.

It's also likely that all those other factors are greatly exacerbated by overpopulation, if not outright caused by it. Jared Diamond's book Collapse makes just that argument for the Rwandan Genocide event. Wikipedia: "Diamond theorized that population pressure was the main cause of the genocide. ... Rwanda's population density in 1990 was 760 people per square mile, one of the highest in the world. The population grew at over 3% a year. By 1985 all the land except the national parks had been cultivated."

> My question remains the same - what would you say to a starving child? Or their parents as the child lay dying?

If I was personally involved then I'd have a hard time not giving aid, even as I was confident I was making the problem worse in the long run. These age-old questions show the reason we insulate our leaders from problems on the ground, the better to allow them to make decisions that do the greatest good.

Re: Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa.

#150

Post by iamgopal »

jxcole wrote: post #9

I don't know if this makes me cruel, but whenever people talk about donating money to starving children in Africa, I always imagine the following: If I were to donate some amount of money to starving children in an impoverished nation every year I could, theoretically, bring some of them out of starvation. However, these children would then grow into adults, and then these adults would have children of their own. The…

I love you for saying this.
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