When Bill Gates' wife began pushing him to work on issues of third-world health, this was more or less his argument against it. She dug up the statistics to show that this idea, while intuitive, is not supported by fact. As health improves-- and in particular as child mortality goes down-- birth rates fall accordingly. As we all know, Gates got on board, and now funds a lot of health research and on-the-ground initia…
As I understand it, Gates funds health related research, e.g. clean drinking water or malaria. Your parent was discussing the simple provision of free food.
Good question! Firstly I would like to suggest that even if you can only tackle the symptom, not the cause, it would still be worthwhile - a patient with untreatable cancer should nonetheless get painkillers. You are correct that the number of people in the second generation would be higher than the number you bring out of famine. But if you do nothing the second generation would be even larger still since the fertil…
Thought provoking answer! I'm not OP, but I always wondered: how do nations coming out of poverty (with high birth rates as part of life or tradition) culturally transition to a nation where low birth rates are the norm? The scenario I'm thinking of is a nation that beats poverty and improves standard of living, but falls back into it because the population refuses to adapt and decrease the number of births.
The lowering of birthrates doesn't seem to usually be a result of forcing oneself to adapt. You may be thinking of China's stance on having a single child, but in most countries where populations have plateaued and birth rates have gone down, it just happened naturally. Nobody "refuses" or tries to adapt. It simply happens, as a result of socio-economic pressures, and is probably inevitable without some strong external influence.
"You may ask now whether I personally would be in favor of such a move by our government. My answer is an emphatic yes. Indeed, I would not mind at all if my annual taxes were increased by a number of dollars for the purpose of feeding hungry children, wherever they may live."
I suspect that excessive influence of religion led to all those other problems.
Excessive influence of religion leads to poverty, poor health, and a high child mortality rate? Do you have any sources to back this besides a general feeling that religion is "bad"?
TED Talk Hans Rosling: Let my dataset change your mindset:
Good question! Firstly I would like to suggest that even if you can only tackle the symptom, not the cause, it would still be worthwhile - a patient with untreatable cancer should nonetheless get painkillers. You are correct that the number of people in the second generation would be higher than the number you bring out of famine. But if you do nothing the second generation would be even larger still since the fertil…
> But if you do nothing the second generation would be even larger still since the fertility rate of the extremely poor is so high. Obviously the population must eventually plateau or decline, due to finite resources. I think it will be extremely difficult to alleviate the cause of poverty in many African countries. It seems that they have a high fertility rate mainly because their religion/culture demands it. It see…
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.
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.
Given the location she may have been a C of E nun, but if she was Catholic, another curt response would have been: Why doesn't the Catholic Church spend its incredible wealth on the starving children? Why is it immune from the question of 'what's more important than hungry kids'? The Catholic Church is an astoundingly wealthy organisation and could make a mint from sales of both art and property, both of which they have plenty lying unused.
"You may ask now whether I personally would be in favor of such a move by our government. My answer is an emphatic yes. Indeed, I would not mind at all if my annual taxes were increased by a number of dollars for the purpose of feeding hungry children, wherever they may live." Amen to that.
Coupled with improving the effectiveness of distribution of aid to recipients, which would involve increasing the cooperation of the recipient governments and decreasing the corruption of those same governments and independent thugs, alluded to in the letter.
And now it gets complicated. Money is necessary but far from sufficient, and the problem is very much not lack of resources.
> When he [Michael Faraday] demonstrated his apparatus [the dynamo] to His Majesty's Government, the prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, asked, "Of what use is it?" To which Faraday replied: "I don't know, but I'll wager that some day you'll tax it."