First World guilt?

[Daft]

You're kidding right?

 

 

You are correct. African families have 10 children because only two or three survive, the population is stable. But white liberals feel sad because children are dying. White liberals ensure medical help reaches these people - so now 8 out of 10 survive. The population booms, then the local environment cannot cope with the number of people, water is short, food supplies dwindle, the environment is damaged.

 

Now you have a huge population that is starving and the land cannot cope. So now the white liberals must feed these people - hence the population continues to grow.

 

What has essentially happened is the more we go against the laws of nature and play with the delicate balance the more we move toward chaos and suffering.

 

Not everyone can prosper, not everyone can live and be happy. The law of nature is that the strong survive and the weak don't. The pursuit of ensuring that everyone lives as long as possible is only doing one thing - destroying the planet and ultimately ensuring the deaths of countless species of animals and plants and our entire ecosystem!

 

This will eventually lead to the end of us all.

 

Can you cite anything specific? Any ethnographies or articles about African families having 10 children? Where is your source for 8 out of 10 children surviving statistic? Or that their motivation to have so many children comes out of a need to replentish the population? Rather than say....I dunno, the grip Catholicism has on certain African countries and its insentience against contraception - which incidentally has lead to a hidden genocidal due to the spread of STIs, such as AIDS.

 

Have you been to Africa?

 

Can you define what you mean by the term 'liberal'? Can you define what it means to be 'white'? I have plenty of liberal black friends...a couple actually world for NGOs...Can they use your #LiberalWhite hashtag?

 

If we extend your logic further, are you for dismantling the NHS? Because why should we support people who cannot help themselves? You're right, not everyone can prosper, the strong survive; so why should we provide any kind of social health care in this country?

 

I'm fascinated, tell me more.

Edited January 29, 2013 by Daft
Automerged Doublepost

[bob]

For a lot of us, it's because we come from a long line of people from an era that caused the industrial revolution, as well as other events much further back.

 

Heritage, not luck.

 

I didn't mean it was lucky that he came out of his mother's womb rather than slipping out of some random African's vagina purely by accident. How horrible would it be if that were possible?

 

'Sorry ma'am we're afraid that your baby appears to have been born on the other side of the world. Bad luck. '

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

For a lot of us, it's because we come from a long line of people from an era that caused the industrial revolution, as well as other events much further back.

 

Heritage, not luck.

 

Heritage is luck, essentially. Being born in this part of the world rather than the poorest part of Africa, that's luck.

[Serebii]

Heritage is luck, essentially. Being born in this part of the world rather than the poorest part of Africa, that's luck.

That really isn't luck at all

[Zechs Merquise]

Can you cite anything specific? Any ethnographies or articles about African families having 10 children? Where is your source for 8 out of 10 children surviving statistic? Or that their motivation to have so many children comes out of a need to replentish the population? Rather than say....I dunno, the grip Catholicism has on certain African countries and its insentience against contraception - which incidentally has lead to a hidden genocidal due to the spread of STIs, such as AIDS.

 

Have you been to Africa?

 

Can you define what you mean by the term 'liberal'? Can you define what it means to be 'white'? I have plenty of liberal black friends...a couple actually world for NGOs...Can they use your #LiberalWhite hashtag?

 

If we extend your logic further, are you for dismantling the NHS? Because why should we support people who cannot help themselves? You're right, not everyone can prosper, the strong survive; so why should we provide any kind of social health care in this country?

 

I'm fascinated, tell me more.

 

You can be as sarcastic as you wish. But the global population boom will eventually be the destruction of the planet - and in places like Africa will lead to poverty and suffering on a previously unseen scale.

 

You only have to do a small amount of digging to find articles on why African families are often much larger than what you would expect in the western world. High infant mortality is a key part of that, as is tradition and a lesser focus on materialism which in western countries often puts parents off having more children.

[Daft]

I'm actually not being sarcastic. I'm just asking for you to back up your claims. I'm not saying you are wrong or right, I just want you to substantiate your answer logically and coherently.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

That really isn't luck at all

 

How so? People have no control over where, to whom or under what circumstances they've been born.

[Ville]

@Serebii How can that not be luck? You don't decide where you will be born, it's pure luck and nothing more.

 

Also, about the heritage thing...there's a reason different areas in the world have developed at different speeds, and that's also linked to luck. Born in an area where there are suitable plants and animals to plow the fields with, progress in Europe, China, Egypt was much faster than for example in Middle to South Africa, where you couldn't take cattle / horses even if you wanted, because the tze tze flies kept on killing them. No beasts of burden in America, Africa, Australia and New Guinea meant much harder agriculture, and NO WHEEL. Ergo a huge impact on the developing speed of these cultures...in 1492, Europeans using animal, water and wind power VS. Americans still using mainly man power. With such different conditions, there's gonna be a big difference, and there surely has been. That's why the European colonialists (and some people even today...) thought they were so superior, but they didn't even begin to think that maybe it wasn't due to the "barbarians" being so lazy and dumb, but because of the very unbalanced starting conditions.

 

Just like in personal life, some people are born highly talented, motivated, handsome / beautiful, intelligent, and others are not. Sure, people can also work on these qualities, but there's still a lot of luck involved as well, something the western fantasy ideal of "you can do whatever you want to do in life" fails miserably to acknowledge. I was born in a good family, luck. I was born in a wealthy, peaceful country, still luck. I was born healthy and relatively smart, luck luck luck. Clearly my position to do anything in life is vastly different from someone who has been born in shit-poor conditions, is handicapped, mentally retarded, horribly disfigured etc. Also different from those who have been born into a filthy rich family...Yet I didn't choose any of this, it just happened. I.e. luck.

Edited January 30, 2013 by Ville

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

@Serebii How can that not be luck? You don't decide where you will be born, it's pure luck and nothing more.

 

Also, about the heritage thing...there's a reason different areas in the world have developed at different speeds, and that's also linked to luck. Born in an area where there are suitable plants and animals to plow the fields with, progress in Europe, China, Egypt was much faster than for example in Middle to South Africa, where you couldn't take cattle even if you wanted, because the tze tze flies kept on killing them. No beasts of burden in America, Africa, Australia and New Guinea meant much harder agriculture, and NO WHEEL. Ergo a huge impact on the developing speed of these cultures...in 1492, Europeans using animal, water and wind power VS. Americans still using mainly man power. With such different conditions, there's gonna be a big difference, and there surely has been. That's why the European colonialists (and some people even today...) thought they were so superior, but they didn't even begin to think that maybe it wasn't due to the "barbarians" being so lazy and dumb, but because of the very unbalanced starting conditions.

 

Just like in personal life, some people are born highly talented, motivated, handsome / beautiful, intelligent, and others are not. Sure, people can also work on these qualities, but there's still a lot of luck involved as well, something the western fantasy ideal of "you can do whatever you want to do in life" fails miserably to acknowledge. I was born in a good family, luck. I was born in a wealthy, peaceful country, still luck. I was born healthy and relatively smart, luck luck luck. Clearly my position to do anything in life is vastly different from someone who has been born in shit-poor conditions, is handicapped, mentally retarded, horribly disfigured etc. Also different from those who have been born into a filthy rich family...Yet I didn't choose any of this, it just happened. I.e. luck.

 

I am out of thanks for today, but consider this post highly thanked.

[Oxigen_Waste]

For a lot of us, it's because we come from a long line of people from an era that caused the industrial revolution, as well as other events much further back.

 

Heritage, not luck.

 

Lucky you were born to such heritage, nonetheless. You had no weight in the decision of being born where you were.

 

That really isn't luck at all

 

Maybe "luck" isn't the right word, but it's pure chance. Had you been born in Liberia and your tale would be a very different one.

[Frank]

uhh, of course I feel it! How could you not? It's ridiculous. Just because we are not a direct reason for world poverty doesn't mean that a form of guilt doesn't manifest itself within us. Perhaps, there's a better word to describe it rather than guilt...an unsettling consciousness, maybe?

 

I've listened to one album quite frequently recently which addresses the world we occupy and how fucked up it is. Humanity really disgusts me. It's all a bit teenage-angsty / chicken soup for the teenage soul but I've recently become aware of how fucked up people are and how greed destroys so many. I need caffeine but every time I buy / brew coffee, how can I not think of the impoverished hands who've brought me the coffee beans? And at such a low, unfair wage. Every time I subconsciously think, thank you and I'm sorry.

[MoogleViper]

I need caffeine but every time I buy / brew coffee, how can I not think of the impoverished hands who've brought me the coffee beans? And at such a low, unfair wage. Every time I subconsciously think, thank you and I'm sorry.

 

You could always buy fair trade.