40oz_A_Knight: And remind me again..who colonized parts of Africa?

uh, yeah, if you're European and you are somehow on a high horse about Africa of all places, you really should STFU...

Mnemia: samimgreen: The US gives more than double of any other country in foreign aid except for Japan and it's still not enough. And that's just in direct foreign aid by the government. Get over your America-isn't-doing-enough bashing.

Depends on what you consider "enough".

Your comment is ambiguous and esoteric as to your point, but I will clarify. I do not believe that the America-basher will ever say that the country has given "enough" to others even though they are giving more than twice as much as anyone besides Japan, and is still 50% more than them. So I give it back to you, how much is enough?

netsharc: To some of you, who are you anyway to think you deserve to live more than those starving Africans?

That's human nature, it's how we move forward and it's why we didn't all die in caves I don't see YOU giving up your computer and moving to Africa to help those people.

samimgreen: And you know what? Americans would probably still come out on top again after a generation of redeveloping the infrastructure. It's the culture more than anything at this point....

Pretty much. If I remember Zimbabwe used to be the bread basket of Africa, producing food upon food. Then they kicked the white farmers out and gave the land to untrained locals. It's now in the midst of a massive famine.

Manfred J. Hattan: First, we kill all the Malthusans. Not because there's not enough resources for them but simply because they are annoying. Then Asians switch from water-intensive low-yield rice to less-water intensive, high-yield wheat. That alone gets world food way up in terms of Kcal AND frees up more water for sanitation, etc. We'll deal with other stuff as it comes up.

So you're one of those people that thinks that just because we've always found solutions to resource constraints in the past, we'll continue to find them into the future, forever? It's not just about resources, and it's not just about humans directly. We are also destroying the world's biodiversity at a breathtaking rate, which may well (read: likely will) come back to bite us in the ass. I don't subscribe to most of Malthus' theories, but I do believe that there is an upper limit to how many people the Earth can carry without severe negative consequences for billions of people's quality of life and for the security of our place in the environment.

The members of the UN spend of their time passing non-binding resolutions criticizing the US and Israel. China is in the Human Rights division.

Why should I donate a dime to them again?

/Where is all their money from the illegal food for oil scandal?

yankeestom: Gosling:
Other nations don't actually eat corn that much. When we send it to Africa, they tend to scratch their heads and wonder why we keep sending them animal feed. I know it sounds stupid, but that's how it is- you gotta find some crop they DON'T give to the animals and send them that.

Or maybe since they are farking STARVING, they can farking eat what we send them.

Indeed. Setting aside the whole "beggars cant be choosers" logic, if you can't figure out what to do with a crop that a large part of the world eats quite happily, I'm not sure that your death by starvation isn't fittingly Darwinian.

The Voice of Doom:Demon of the Fall
Broken Window Fallacy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window#War
Please elaborate how that applies to what I said.

Reminds me of a book I read...

The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed. A Floating Fortress, for example, has locked up in it the labour that would build several hundred cargo-ships. Ultimately it is scrapped as obsolete, never having brought any material benefit to anybody, and with further enormous labours another Floating Fortress is built.

-George Orwell, 1984 (Part 2, Ch. 9)

samimgreen: Your comment is ambiguous and esoteric as to your point, but I will clarify. I do not believe that the America-basher will ever say that the country has given "enough" to others even though they are giving more than twice as much as anyone besides Japan, and is still 50% more than them. So I give it back to you, how much is enough?

I consider it "enough" when we still have a surplus here. My understanding is that the surpluses are drying up because prices have risen so much that it's more profitable to sell the grain. But yeah, if we're creating a surplus through subsidies, we damn well should give it away to people who need it.

The US gets insulted when we don't donate enough and we get ridiculed when we try to topple the current, warlord regime. No matter what the US does; it will never be good enough for the world.

I pay my taxes. My taxes get turned into food and supplies for other countries. I've done my part. If that's not enough for you liberal loons, then I suggest you quit living like a Republican and lead what you preach.

ferretman: Demon of the Fall-

And what country provides their protection............the USA.

Protection of what country from which country?

b>SlothB77: notice they ask the United States for the money. No one else, just us.

We feed the world. In return, the world says thanks.

Or fark you. Ungrateful bastards. Let them starve.

No, we will continue to feed the children of the world no matter how many times they tell us they hate us and tell us we're so incredibly bad. Yeah, big bad America.

/I believe netsharc's anti-American ranting ass has been handed to him on a plate.

netsharc: I'm in favour of moving all the Americans to Africa and Africans to America...

Awsome, but all you UN biatches have to stay away or we stick a knife in your guts, because we are going to rape the land, extract the resources and build a viable infrastructure through the deserts, jungles, and anywhere else we want. It will be like the old west all over again and we know how that turned out.

You probably don't want us that close to the Palestinians though, because we would not be as reasonable as the Isreales.

netsharc:

I'm in favour of moving all the Americans to Africa and Africans to America...

So what then? We would just tame the wilds there, rebuild our great cities and prosper through rugged individualism, superior work ethic and our love of freedom, which sadly the rest of the world has been lacking for the last two-hundred centuries or so. Our former continent would probably fall into barbarism, and be run by collectives of warlords exploiting their people and selling off natural resources like Timber and coal to enrich themselves, while blaming the plight of the starving masses on us, for stealing the glory of their former homeland.

Mnemia: I consider it "enough" when we still have a surplus here. My understanding is that the surpluses are drying up because prices have risen so much that it's more profitable to sell the grain. But yeah, if we're creating a surplus through subsidies, we damn well should give it away to people who need it.

And who do you expect to pay the cost to ship it to Africa, protect the shipment from warlords, drive it to the proper destination, give it to those who actually need it and so on?

Dear The Rest of the World:

You are welcome for getting your ass out of WWI and WWII. Also for that whole cold war fighting oppressive dictators with our military.

We have carried you for far too long. We have to get our own house in order now, so umm... yeah find a way to make it on your own. When we get things sorted and come back to help, how about a little gratitude and less flag burning? Kthxbi.

The US

P.S. eat a dick.

jshine: The Voice of Doom:Demon of the Fall
Broken Window Fallacy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window#War
Please elaborate how that applies to what I said.

Reminds me of a book I read...

The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed. A Floating Fortress, for example, has locked up in it the labour that would build several hundred cargo-ships. Ultimately it is scrapped as obsolete, never having brought any material benefit to anybody, and with further enormous labours another Floating Fortress is built.

-George Orwell, 1984 (Part 2, Ch. 9)

And that's why Orwell should be mandatory reading, the world over.

Man, this thread sucks.

Mnemia: I do believe that there is an upper limit to how many people the Earth can carry without severe negative consequences for billions of people's quality of life and for the security of our place in the environment.

There is. It's about 14 billion.

Wanna solve the world's near-term problems? Wanna end Africa's endless appeals for food from the rest of the world? It's easy.

Kill Robert Mugabe. He alone is responsible for the reduction of enough food crops to feed almost 50 million people.

Mnemia: samimgreen: Your comment is ambiguous and esoteric as to your point, but I will clarify. I do not believe that the America-basher will ever say that the country has given "enough" to others even though they are giving more than twice as much as anyone besides Japan, and is still 50% more than them. So I give it back to you, how much is enough?

I consider it "enough" when we still have a surplus here. My understanding is that the surpluses are drying up because prices have risen so much that it's more profitable to sell the grain. But yeah, if we're creating a surplus through subsidies, we damn well should give it away to people who need it.

Gods-forbid that we should actually save anything, stock something away, have a little in the bank... Give til it hurts is a church thought and one I no longer ascribe to. The more I suffer is not the way to show how I really care more.

When we send it to Africa, they tend to scratch their heads and wonder why we keep sending them animal feed.

Despite the fact that many African peoples eat a lot of corn/maize? Weird.

Maybe they are confused by all the hippy GM-protesters who tell them that genetically modified corn is poison, POISON.

Y2Jericho:The US gets insulted when we don't donate enough and we get ridiculed when we try to topple the current, warlord regime.

I, for one, happen to be proud of the amount that we contribute to various causes.

When it comes to the (mis)use of the military though, there is a point to be made. Saddam certainly was a bad guy, but we had no mandate to remove him. Additionally, we don't exactly have the moral authority to do so. What did Saddam do that was so bad? Torture people in secret prisons? We do that too. Start wars and invade other countries. Yup, check. ...so we can't exactly claim that this is a war of moral authority. Hell, we prosecuted Nazis in the Nuremberg trials for acts that we are now justifying. It's a disgusting situation...

Gosling: vernonFL: robisfunky: ORLLY? Or do we simply pour enough resources into them to make them livable?

Las Vegas and Phoenix are doomed in the long run. Do you really think that they can keep growing at the rate they are now?

My prediction is big water problems in the western US in about 20 years. In 50 years? Who knows what kind of a mess there will be?

They're going to keep growing. And they're calling on us in the Great Lakes region to give them our water. Never mind the fact that that water won't be replaced and then OUR water levels get dangerously low too. (And by the way, I personally do not have right to that water either even though I'm only 40 miles from it. I'm not in the Great Lakes Basin, which means any water I use would not eventually drain back to the lake. Inside the basin it will. Parts of Chicagoland are outside the basin, yet got access, and the lake has dipped to historic lows.)

Though you are right on that point: some cities need to learn that they can only sustain a certain size. After that, resources get sparse. Atlanta is learning that right now. They were not meant to be the 9th-largest city in America when they built at the source of a river. You build at the mouth, you idiots. You know, the place where Savannah is.)

If you talk to most people in the southwest (beside real estate developers, urban planners, and recent transplants), you'll find that most of us have no interest in your water and would much rather limit our growth to what can be supplied by existing water resources.

If it wasn't for people moving from everywhere else in the country wanting to play golf and landscape the way they did back home (where they got 40 inches of rain per year and the humidity never dropped below 80%), we wouldn't have a problem. Idiots want 350 days of sun per year and lush green everywhere too.

Funny how the world works, some countries are full of fatasses while others starve to death.

netsharc: I'm in favour of moving all the Americans to Africa and Africans to America...
But then we would be swimming in natural resources, and that much closer to all that oil we claim to own. did you think about your cunning remark? or were you unaware of the resources in Africa? I mean you point still sinks in, we are evil and own interest in other countries. I am just saying you should have picked someplace else. like the Gobi reaon.....

Manfred J. Hattan: Mnemia: I do believe that there is an upper limit to how many people the Earth can carry without severe negative consequences for billions of people's quality of life and for the security of our place in the environment.

There is. It's about 14 billion.

Wanna solve the world's near-term problems? Wanna end Africa's endless appeals for food from the rest of the world? It's easy.

Kill Robert Mugabe. He alone is responsible for the reduction of enough food crops to feed almost 50 million people.

And get the West to cut down on agricultural subsidies so that food prices would actually reflect market value. Bonus is we'd save a fist-load of taxes and slimmer women.

netsharc: To some of you, who are you anyway to think you deserve to live more than those starving Africans?

Well I'm not starving, for starters. That stacks the odds in my favor.

I'm in favour of moving all the Americans to Africa and Africans to America...

How about you be in favor of getting your home country to pick up some Goddamn slack? If you think WE have a sense of entitlement, haven't you noticed that everybody just expects the US to make up the difference? What about Europe? How aboot Canada? China?

Jesus, you people piss me the fark off.

Why is it that in creationism threads everyone is so quick to point out the importance of being an expert on a certain field (ie: scientists should be the judges of what is science and what is not), but in this thread everyone seems to know all about how to end poverty and starvation?

It a seperate economics disciple, you know.

Mnemia: samimgreen: Your comment is ambiguous and esoteric as to your point, but I will clarify. I do not believe that the America-basher will ever say that the country has given "enough" to others even though they are giving more than twice as much as anyone besides Japan, and is still 50% more than them. So I give it back to you, how much is enough?

I consider it "enough" when we still have a surplus here. My understanding is that the surpluses are drying up because prices have risen so much that it's more profitable to sell the grain. But yeah, if we're creating a surplus through subsidies, we damn well should give it away to people who need it.

It's more profitable to sell than it is to give away? Orly?

Demon of the Fall:

Yeah really, after the UN got down on its hands and knees to beg you guys to invade Iraq, this is how it repays you?

That's not cricket at all!

I reread my own post and didn't see anywhere where I said the UN asked us to attack Iraq. However, what I did say is, that when we asked for help in Iraq, we received none from the UN, only some personal allies.So until we are stable again the rest of the world can fark off with its need for aid.

Alas, even though we need the money for ourselves, because we are a giving nation, we will still give more money for aid then all the other countries on Earth, and get smeared for not giving enough.

Demon of the Fall: jshine: The Voice of Doom:Demon of the Fall
Broken Window Fallacy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window#War
Please elaborate how that applies to what I said.

Reminds me of a book I read...

The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed. A Floating Fortress, for example, has locked up in it the labour that would build several hundred cargo-ships. Ultimately it is scrapped as obsolete, never having brought any material benefit to anybody, and with further enormous labours another Floating Fortress is built.

-George Orwell, 1984 (Part 2, Ch. 9)

And that's why Orwell should be mandatory reading, the world over.

Yeah so that the fallacy of the point of war being destruction can be pointed out. There is a difference between fighting a war and slamming the fist of god down on an upstart with precision. You do not fight a war with equality, you do it with overwhelming odds in order to reduce the collateral damage.

Why don't we just bring the Africans over here, let them work us and give them food and shelter in return?

/wait

jshine: Y2Jericho:The US gets insulted when we don't donate enough and we get ridiculed when we try to topple the current, warlord regime.

I, for one, happen to be proud of the amount that we contribute to various causes.

When it comes to the (mis)use of the military though, there is a point to be made. Saddam certainly was a bad guy, but we had no mandate to remove him. Additionally, we don't exactly have the moral authority to do so. What did Saddam do that was so bad? Torture people in secret prisons? We do that too. Start wars and invade other countries. Yup, check. ...so we can't exactly claim that this is a war of moral authority. Hell, we prosecuted Nazis in the Nuremberg trials for acts that we are now justifying. It's a disgusting situation...

We're going to have to agree on something and agree to disagree on others.

samimgreen: Gash: Hear go the Americans with the UN-bashing. Funny, they liked the UN fine when it rescued the sorry asses of their "elite" troops in Mogadishu.

broken clock...twice a day...

/and they just saved us the gas money is all

Yeah, but umm... see it was the 10th Mountain Division (a US Army Division) under UN command that effectuated the rescue... and see if it had NOT been under UN command the US Commander running the snatch op could have just called them in and saved several American lives, but we had go to through the UN to get them cleared.

First and last time US will put troops under UN Control....

So the UN can eat a dick (since that is the phrase of the thread)

Ashtrey: Why don't we just bring the Africans over here, let them work us and give them food and shelter in return?

/wait

We already trained one wave. It's about time to send them back home so they use what we taught them to fix their own damn country.

Let them starve. They aren't producing anything which is viable to the free market, so they serve no purpose. We then waltz in and take their resources. They get put out of their misery, we profit. Win-Win!!!!

moof: Ok, ok, we get it, USians don't like the UN.

Here's a suggestion, why don't you quit it? Seriously. Just get out. The Security Council's decision making would be a lot more streamlined without US vetoing. As for US influence on the IMF, WTO, WIPO,... Good riddance.

That is because the US pays most of the UN's bills. Think about it. The UN is some slacker kid who has a rich uncle that keeps telling him to ship up. The kid will avoid the uncle as much as he can, but damn the uncle if that fat birthday check is late.

Galen_Rasputin:
Let us modify that scenario a bit to make it more like what you are trying to portray. All you have to do is give the American something that is useless for survival, say marijuana,

ummmmmmm... you could make food, fuel, fabric, or medicine (non-recreational) from it.

I think that makes it rather handy. Our forefathers agreed.

/not a NORML plug. I find spray paint handy, but I don't recommend huffing it, either.

aedude01: Gotta figure out a cheap, quick, easy way to refine salt-water first...

Icebergs are fresh water.

Y2Jericho: ManicParroT: I find it funny that Americans are talking about how the UN has no credibility left. Because America has so much they can afford to point fingers.

I find it EQUALLY funny that you think that Americans should give a damn what YOU think.


A sunny September morning should have made it obvious to you that it matters very much what the rest of the world thinks. But you prefer to live in an American box and repeat the mistakes of the past.

jshine: Y2Jericho:The US gets insulted when we don't donate enough and we get ridiculed when we try to topple the current, warlord regime.

I, for one, happen to be proud of the amount that we contribute to various causes.

When it comes to the (mis)use of the military though, there is a point to be made. Saddam certainly was a bad guy, but we had no mandate to remove him. Additionally, we don't exactly have the moral authority to do so. What did Saddam do that was so bad? Torture people in secret prisons? We do that too. Start wars and invade other countries. Yup, check. ...so we can't exactly claim that this is a war of moral authority. Hell, we prosecuted Nazis in the Nuremberg trials for acts that we are now justifying. It's a disgusting situation...

You are like the difference between an accountant and a finance manager. An accountant keeps looking backward and frets about how all the numbers are not lining up just right and if we just cut this and stop expanding there, everything would be fine. Status quo is utopia to the accountant. The finance guy looks at the possibilities and the cause and effect of future actions and chooses the best course of action according to that. Sometimes they are wrong, but right choices lead to rewards for many.

Can you see what I'm saying? Stop biatching about how everything is wrong and talk about how to make things right in your eyes. Biatching about a war you don't believe in, Bush lied, people died, no war for oil, and all that crap, how about you start talking about solutions and the risks/rewards involved in them.

/stupid liberal beancounters...

Y2Jericho
Ashtrey: Why don't we just bring the Africans over here, let them work us and give them food and shelter in return?

/wait

We already trained one wave. It's about time to send them back home so they use what we taught them to fix their own damn country.

Hey, thats no blatantly racist or anything!

/sarcasm

RockyMtnMan:

My point was 5 years ago the UN made it perfectly clear that invading Iraq was going to be a clusterfark, many world leaders made it perfectly clear it was going to be a clusterfark, many of America's smartest individuals and think-tanks made it perfectly clear it was going to be a clusterfark.

So when it turned out to be a clusterfark, and the economy tanked, you have other people to be angry at besides the UN. But angry is what you definitely should be.

Yes, we know... The UN can't do anything without America.

RockyMtnMan: Y2Jericho
Ashtrey: Why don't we just bring the Africans over here, let them work us and give them food and shelter in return?

/wait

We already trained one wave. It's about time to send them back home so they use what we taught them to fix their own damn country.

Hey, thats no blatantly racist or anything!

/sarcasm

That was my only troll post in this thread...
I'm stil awaiting my scores...

Give an African some grains, feed him for a day.

Give an African a machine gun, feed him for a lifetime.

ManicParroT: Y2Jericho: ManicParroT: I find it funny that Americans are talking about how the UN has no credibility left. Because America has so much they can afford to point fingers.

I find it EQUALLY funny that you think that Americans should give a damn what YOU think.


A sunny September morning should have made it obvious to you that it matters very much what the rest of the world thinks. But you prefer to live in an American box and repeat the mistakes of the past.

Shouldn't you be off oppressing negroes or something?

bgrainger: samimgreen: Gash: Hear go the Americans with the UN-bashing. Funny, they liked the UN fine when it rescued the sorry asses of their "elite" troops in Mogadishu.

broken clock...twice a day...

/and they just saved us the gas money is all

Yeah, but umm... see it was the 10th Mountain Division (a US Army Division) under UN command that effectuated the rescue... and see if it had NOT been under UN command the US Commander running the snatch op could have just called them in and saved several American lives, but we had go to through the UN to get them cleared.

First and last time US will put troops under UN Control....

So the UN can eat a dick (since that is the phrase of the thread)

Oh yes, now I recall. Thank you for the reminder and education.