Ironically, under the same circumstances you could argue for a compeltly free market economy (which nobody wants) and an abolision of all government welfare.

The thing you should keep in mind with the descent of man... is that it's pretty racist.  It suggests that there are fundamental biological differences between different races and that the "civlized" races will wipe out and replace the uncivilized ones. 

The book came from a time and a premise that stated "The White Man is farther along the evolutionary track then other such men."  Since white men due to their enviroment somehow developed more "advanced" technology.

As you and I know, there is no real difference between White and Black people outside of a few genetic diseases.  How you grow up is based on your situation and how your raised.

There are other possible reasons for cutting financial aid.  Such as forcing change since most countries in Africa are beholden to third world dictators... however there are still other problems.

Such as a lot of countries resources currently being under the control of outside countries.   A full out "Star Trek"... what ever the name of the rule is... type thing could theoreticaly work.  Though people would likely have to hardern their hearts to it.

As for the topic at first. Yeah, the Catholic Church probably could do more good with it's money.

So could Bono for that matter.. I mean, i hate Bono. He talks and bitches so much yet does so little outside of just showing up places and lending his "image".

Guy could probably buy a poor african country if he wanted to.


Fun fact. Ohio State University spends more on Sports scholarships then the national GDP of Djibouti. Theoretically the college could buy the country... by forgoing sports scholarships.

I know of a way to end world hunger!

Kill all of the hungry people

Don't worry I don't support my reasoning either. While I think it is a logical potential solution, I do not support in just about every moral way.

...

Your aid going to further empower the dictators argument. I couldn't agree more, aid will often end up in the hands of the government at some point and if that government is greedy and corrupt then it is just adding fuel to the fire. Stopping aid reaching these corrupt governments will prevent them from gaining further power over their citizens, which could lead to situation where the citizens can get their voice heard, or even overthrow their government.

...

However, that argument aside, stopping aid could still be a logical choice. Even if the government was 100% honourable and uncorrupt, then it would still be adding to the problem.

Aid facilitates population growth to unreasonable levels, more than the local environment can handle. The size of the population is a real strain on resources because the population size has been artificially inflated from external suppliers.

The population of many of these countries are already over the maximum capacity that could be supported because we facilitate a larger population than needed.

With each generation that we send aid, we are just increasing the amount of people who require it. We're not solving the problem at all, we're just adding to it.

...

Let me try an analogy.

If a school is drastically under-performing, what would be the solution?

Would you send twice as many pupils to the school the next year, and four times as many the year after; doubling the number with every year that passes. Which will increase class sizes exponentially, be an extreme strain on the resources and still keep the people who have run it so poorly in charge.

Or...

Would you take out the people (The government) who have ran the school so badly and replace them with someone who is competent. And work to keep the class sizes (population) at a manageable level which would be supported by the available resources that the school has, instead of inflating class sizes and straining the resources.

Logically the answer would be the second one. The first one is just increasing the problem for future generations as opposed to fixing it now. You see once you take out the moral and humanitarian problems (people starving, people dieing) the solution becomes quite clear. Which I think the school analogy shows this.

...

On a personal note: It's hard to argue for something you don't agree with lol.

Yeah, but as I said I don't particularly agree with the argument, I can just see the logic behind it.

...

The descent of man was a racist book (although at the time it used socially acceptable ideas). But I was trying to take the same argument and apply it to something outside of the context of the book, so hopefully I didn't come off as sounding racist.

...

I'm sure Darwin didn't mean the context to ever be used in the way I just proposed. I was asserting the point that sending aid is just inflating the population to a level where they will never be able to support themselves and the situation gets worse as opposed to better. It will mean that whatever aid we send today, we will have to send even more tomorrow. By throwing money at the problem, it doesn't go away, it only grows.

One thing that the Catholic church can do to prevent world hunger (And this wont cost them a penny) is to reverse their policy on birth control (particularly condoms). If they do this they would help those who are starving and sick.

If they truly want to stop the spread of hunger and disease in the third world, then they should reverse their policies. And this goes for all other religions operating there.

I disagree... I think that's exactly the way Darwin meant it to go context wise.

It's hard to argue that anyone who believed in evolution back then wouldn't believe that... or at least not do so and be intellectually honest with themselves.

Regardless... I think your overlooking one problem that makes what seems logical, illogical.

Even if things worked exactly as is postulated and changes happen.

Now you've got a more developed africa, gone mostly of dictators and flourishing.

Full of people who remember that we did nothing while they're mothers, brothers, fathers, sisters and children died.

They pull out of it to become rivals who hate us... conflict will ensue and the cycle will start over.

More unification is needed not less. We may need new methods of helping... but it's not logical to just leave them hanging.

I meant it by a completely different context to Darwin I think.

Anyway, let's take Charles Darwin out of it and look at it as a standalone point. I'm not saying these people are inferior in anyway, quite frankly I couldn't be more opposed to that argument. I'm saying that they are not given the right environment to survive, the overpopulation problem is a strain on their resources and the over population problem has been largely caused by western intervention.

...

As for your later point about them becoming a society that hates us. We don't live in a perfect world, everyone hates someone. But I would also hope that if the plan worked out, then they would learn to function independantly and recognise that independance doesn't come from handouts, but comes from learning to support yourself.

It may not happen, and they may be super pissed off at us if we stopped sending aid. But either way they could be better off and that would be what matters.

Extreme gap between rich and poor continues to widen all the time. Be grateful that you were lucky to have been born in a prosperous country. Anyway to the insensitive morons who suggested killing the poor people off- STFU you are racists. Hitler and Stalin and other evil dictators carried out barbaric measures of genocide.

A lot of measures need to be taken to fully eradicate worldwide poverty. Theoretically it could be done through redistribution of wealth but the political leaders and religious leaders being so corrupt would never let it happen. Donations to charities only a small amount of money ends up going to help the poor people in need.

Redistribution of wealth worked so well in Zimbabwe; after all, taking the farms away from the wealthy land-owners who knew how to produce food efficiently and giving it to uneducated and inexperienced individuals lead to a green-explosion of food production.

Wealth is a by-product of efficiency, and people who build wealth have demonstrated the reason why they’re the individual who is best suited to manage and control economic resources; certainly, there are individuals who inherit wealth but if that wealth is no managed well it tends to be lost rather quickly (where it can then be managed very efficiently by another individual).

Extreme poverty (the kind of poverty requiring foreign aid to prevent starvation) tends to be the result of heavy government control, mismanagement of the economy, lack of economic freedoms, and lack of adequate credit for individuals to produce wealth. If you take a country like Zimbabwe, institute a legal system based on British Common Law, and convert foreign aid to micro-loans to build an economy starvation would become a distant memory.