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UPSG -> RE: Condoms in Africa, best you can do ? (3/22/2009 5:47:47 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Lynnxz
'A Modest Proposal' anyone?
Term, your outlook is arrogant, and ignorant. It isn't 'survival of the fittest', this isn't some crap animal planet show. It's Survival of the Richest, survival of the one born at the right place, and the right time. The kid born in the US to the laziest welfare grubbing scum in this country, has more opportunity and help than a child born in some of these countries in Africa will ever have.
I have to agree with some of the sentiment in your post, Lyn.
Full, Homo sapien sapiens, or that is to say humans, are animals. Within the half art, half science of taxonomy - Domain; Kingdom; Phylum; Class; Order; Family; Genus; Species - we fall under Kingdom: Animalia (animal). We modern humans are a subspecies of Homo sapiens. Hence, Homo sapien sapien, or Wise thinking thinking man.
Term, the continent of Africa - as a whole - has many problems and challenges (so does the continent of America by the way). I agree with those that make the proposition that one of continental Africa's major source of problems is having to many competing nation-states. There are something like 50 or more nation states on the continent of Africa. Now let me ask you, how well do you think each state on the mainland of the U.S. would do if they each were their own nation-state?
Every Governor of every state in the Union is in fact a President of his territorial state. These states are united under a federal Presidency residing in the Federal District of Columbia. The United States didn't always, but we do today, have a common currency backed by the Federal Government. This is one essential element of both U.S. security and prosperity in relation to the nation-states of Canada and Mexico which boarder it north and south.
Now, I'm going to say this politely, even in light of your rather hard-core stereotypes of continental Africa (which is home to some better hospitals than some Eastern European nation-states), a large and diverse place where not everyone is starving. Some Africans, no doubt, eat better than some Americans. That is, one has to bear in mind that per capita income can often reflect decades of inflation, if it is keeping up with inflation (rise in average cost of goods). So, Americans earn more money but that must be balanced with the cost of goods in the U.S. (as Carlos Ghosn, the Lebanese Brazilian has pointed out in his best selling book, food is phenomenally more expensive in Tokyo than it is in Rio de Janeiro). But what I wanted to say to you is this: your concept of evolution is lacking.
The theory of evolution is actually more complicated than most people think. Species can prove "fit" by cooperation. Competition within a sepecies against one another is called intraspecific competition. Competition among members of different species is interspecific competition.
Now, you are correct in your inference that behaviors work within evolution toward or against the success of a species or community of species. But like I said, that is applicable to cooperation also. And natural selection is about genetic, inherited traits, not about wearing condoms.
Also, the Pope is an extremely well educated man. He is far better educated than most Americans. The United States is the richest nation on earth and industrially adavanced, yet only 30% of its adult population 25 and older have a bachelor degree or better. That means 70% of adults in the United States age 25 and older don't have a bachelor degree. The numbers become smaller the further you climb the scale of education. And when you look at different cities some are above or below the national average. In the city of Milwaukee I think only about 18% or so of the population age 25 and older has a bachelor degree or better. And no this can't be blamed on Black-American males. Black-America with the combines sexes only make up roughly 13% of the U.S. population, and Black-American males make up roughly half of that. So, 30% is greater than that. The Pope is way above the mean (average) in the U.S. and the world for that matter.
Food wise, agricultural science has kept up with population growth in the world. You don't hear of great famines sweeping across India today even though they have more people than they did many years ago. Brazil and the United States feeds most the world - not by charity - by exporting food to the world for profit. It's called civilized economy. You could knock the world population down in half and famine could still sweep much of the globe if people survived as subsitance farmers like many in Ethiopia do (a place not surprising struck with sporadic famines). The Irish potatoe famine is an example of this. People in New York City don't live subject to the good will of mother nature feeding them by "blessing" their crops for the season. New Yorkers buy food.
As far as the spread of disease, your understanding of this is dated. We live in a global world (how did HIV arrive in the U.S.?), where drug resistant TB is already in Russia. I would suggest you read this woman's book "Betrayal of Trust" it might enlighten you about the new responsibilities of nation states in a global community: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurie_Garrett
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