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From: gjk@talcott.UUCP (Greg J Kuperberg)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Re: poor starving people
Message-ID: <133@talcott.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Nov-84 12:20:41 EST
Article-I.D.: talcott.133
Posted: Tue Nov 27 12:20:41 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Nov-84 07:53:03 EST
References: <642@amd.UUCP> <590@amdahl.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: Harvard
Lines: 36

From Frank Dibbell:
> I don't know if the famine is temporary or not, but starvation is one
> of nature's ways of population control:  if humans will not maintain
> their numbers at a level sustainable by the land, nature will do it
> for them.
> 
> Unfortunately, not everyone would consent to voluntary sterilization
> in order to receive food, and there are too many ``bleeding heart''
> liberal organizations, and institutions like the Catholic Church,
> who under the guise of ``humanity'' would want to feed these people
> anyway.
> 
> If we continue to play God, continuing to tamper with nature, and are
> somehow able to keep all these people alive, what will we do for the
> next famine?  And the one after that?  Ultimately it will strain even
> our own country's ability to feed itself, resulting in a massive
> global famine.  Then what?
> 
> No one ever said that life would be fair.

This is really ridiculous.  Ever since the invention of the plow we have
been "playing God."  The whole point of human civilization is to alter
nature.  U.S. aid is precisely an attempt to "maintain our numbers at a
level sustainable by the land," and nature doing it for us is exactly what
we're trying to avoid.

Furthermore, the plight of Ethiopia is hardly due to nature alone.  Japan
is far more crowded, and yet so much better off.  It would also help if
farmers in Ethiopia used rotational grazing.  It would also help if the
Cubans left.
-----
			Greg Kuperberg
		     harvard!talcott!gjk

"I believe that Ronald Reagan can make this country what it once was---an
arctic wasteland, covered with ice." -Steve Martin