Africa

[DarthPika]

There are soooo many things wrong with that statement.

First off, you have to have capital to help yourself out of a pit. You can't just say "Let's go buy supplies to make ourselves a better country!" That's not how it works. When you're dealing with some of the poorest nations (yet most densely populated) out there, you aren't just going to be able to do that, it isn't free.

Secondly, if we stop and help people just a little, we wont be suffering NEARLY as much as they will.

You just don't get it do you. We as a country (and most of the civilized world for that matter) actually WORKED together in some way to make our countries what they are today. Thousands of people fought and died to give us our country, so its not like it was just given to us. Africa on the other hand has done.. well.... pretty much nothing. I'm not going to judge them for it, but if they arn't willing to actually try and do something about it then we can't help them. If you think Iraq and the rest of the middle east is a mess, then how the heck are we supposed to do anything about Africa? Heck, WE ARE IN DEBT! Do you go around giving money away when you don't actually have any?

Its POINTLESS to keep dumping money into something where we have NO idea if its going to do anything to help.

For example, you have a plant in your basement. You spend lots of money on plant food, bottled water, and special lighting for it so it will live. Now this is fine as long as you keep pumping cash into the supplies. As long as you keep the cash flowing, the plant lives. Now, lets say you suddenly don't have any more money. The plant will be fine for a little while, but it will soon die. All this time you were thinking about short term, when had you been thinking about the long term, you would have planted it outside so it could grow on its own.

Its the same with Africa. We can keep dumping money into supplies and other short term items. Its great while we can keep it up, but it really isn't truly helping them. With out the money flow, they go right back to where they started. They need far more help then we can give them right now. I right now don't see anyway ANYONE can help Africa until the people there are willing to do something.

 

[Brady1]

This will make me sound like a horrible person, but I dont really care for your opinion if that is what it is, but if we stop people from dieing in Africa, then the world would overpopulate way too fast. This means that Africa having so many preventable deaths isn't entirly a bad thing. Think about the statistics. 33,000 children under five died from malnutrition, and 18,000 from poverty related diseases each day. If we somehow prevented them all, thats 51,000 people each day that would be on Earth that would not normally have been there. And if this continued each day, we would overpopulate ina MUCH MUCH shorter time than otherwise. I'm not saying death is a good thing, but sometimes it is necisary.

On another note, why save Africans over Americans. Why shoudl we(America) spend money on Africa before we fully fix OUR problems such as OUR homelss and OUR poverty percentage and OUR reasource problems.(I.E. oil, not enough renewables, ect ect). Why not leave Africa to do it? Or Sweeden? (That isn't a joke, Sweeden is the only country that turned a profit in 2008. Every other country went into debt.)

Overpopulate too fast? Again, the midset of a middle class American at work. Think about your family size and your house size. Its huge and small, respectively, right? :/ The African continent is HUGE. http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2006/11/20/35-the-size-of-africa/

Population of China: 1,330,044,544
Population of USA: 303,824,640
Population of Inida: 1,147,995,404
Population of Argentina: 40,482,000
Population of Europe (can't find Western Eruope only): 731,000,000
Total: 3,553,346,588
Population of Africa: 922,000,000
Difference: 2,631,346,588
I think theres no fear of overpopulation...Also, the average life expenancy in africa is under 50 years. Think about that. If your 25 years old, you have only another 25 years left to live on average. Heck, getting to 25 is a feat in some nations. Does that not sound disgusting to your human side? This is a common sense issue. Man has gotten to the point where it doesn't have to fight nature for survival (enough food, water, medicine, housing, etc.) and yet human suffering continues to exist to this day.

 

[Articjedi]

Thanks a lot Vergel, I come back from a nice prime rib dinner and I have this to look at to turn my stomach. Oh, and I'm not finding the offending remarks here so much racism as much as just being simple minded and petty. You want to talk about overpopulation, talk about India, which, although a very poor country, can't possibly be culturally inferior because for some reason, every time I need help with a program, it's always a guy from Bombay or New Dehli educating my inferior, Western butt on how to unfreeze my computer.

Funny how we're using Africa as a catch all for Africa, yet there are so many different peoples, languages, and cultures it's impossible to lump all of them into a single problem. That's where the topic really falls apart, and how any possible solutions also fall apart. Now if you wanted something specific, like kicking Mugabe out of office, or figuring out a way to stabilize Somalia, then we might have something to talk about, but this topic as is, isn't going to come to any reasonable conclusion because we're not talking about one issue, we're talking about a million issues and lumping them into one issue.

 

[PuRpLe]

Thank you for outlining why (most) Americans get such a bad name.

"I work 100000 hours a week! So I deserve to keep EVERYTHING I GET!!11!!1!!! Screw the community! Screw other people! I want my luxury steaks and pOKEMAN CARDS@!!!"

And the people that work just as hard and don't succeed? What do they get? A pat on the back?

Puh-leeeeez.

I don't know if any of you are Christian/religious but I'm pretty sure Jesus Christ focused mainly on helping the community (aka other people) instead of himself (aka selfishness)

But who would want to live there life like Jesus? lol

How is it selfishness when people are working hard? If I work hard for my money then it's MINE. I wouldn't call myself a capitalist and definetly not greedy but I don't believe it's right to call people selfish when they are "working hard for the money, so haaaard for the money" lol. Seriously though.

The guy above me has a point though, lumping Africa as a whole into one is a bit pointless...

But anyway, I really disagree with those saying we need to help those here in America first. The worst, most poor person in America is 100000x more fortunate than someone in need in Africa. How can you compare a needy person in Mississippi to a needy person in, say, Johannesburg? LOLZ. Makes no sense.

 

[ryanvergel]

Ok here we go.

Whats racist about my posts? Please show me. Really please do.

Once again, show me my racism. And there IS a goodness in millions of people dieing. If they DIDN"T, we would overuse our food, water, energy, and land supplies at a rate that I cant really calculate, and we would ALL DIE. A solution to this problem would be for Africa to control their population, but they choose not to.And, I am not sure about the person you were responding to, but I dont have much compassion for people who wont change and obviously dont care that the world would to help them if they did.

I assumed I won because you ignored me as if you had no response. I am sure anyone would have done the same. And, I like to argue. Its a hobbie, so, yes I am concerned with winning.

I usually try to spell hobbies I participate in correctly. You pretty much said what SPARTA did, but much less clearly and with a lot more confusion.

 

[moza]

"Every other country in the world". I suppose you werent serious. Lol

What other country doesn't have homeless/sick/people who are hungry/starving?

I chose Africa because this is the exact kind of mindset NOT to have. EVERYONE deserves to be fed.

If everyone deserves to be fed, then why did you single out Africa for this thread? Why not general world hunger? Or world disease? Singling out Africa is leaving out the rest of the population of the planet, which to me seems like the wrong mindset to have.
Sorry 'bout bein' nitpicky, but how do I have the wrong mindset when I asked you a question, yet you don't when you say that everyone deserves to be fed but singles out Africa in the thread. Replying to the rest of my post would be courteous as well, but I'll understand if you don't.

 

[ryanvergel]

Funny how we're using Africa as a catch all for Africa, yet there are so many different peoples, languages, and cultures it's impossible to lump all of them into a single problem. That's where the topic really falls apart, and how any possible solutions also fall apart. Now if you wanted something specific, like kicking Mugabe out of office, or figuring out a way to stabilize Somalia, then we might have something to talk about, but this topic as is, isn't going to come to any reasonable conclusion because we're not talking about one issue, we're talking about a million issues and lumping them into one issue.

I lumped a large sum of issues together because, well, they all have one central theme- Africa.

It doesn't make sense to say that because we have multiple topics we won't find solutions to problems.

If you want to talk about very isolated problems of the given subject, Africa, go ahead. I left the topic wide open for a specific reason.

offending remarks here so much racism as much as just being simple minded and petty.

Simple-minded, petty remarks, comparisons to animals, saying the culture and society is INFERIOR. These aren't instances of racism? What is racism then, other than being simple minded, petty, ignorant, and believing a culture to be inferior and thus less deserving of "privileges" like food. That... seems.. pretty racist to me?

Funny how we're using Africa as a catch all for Africa, yet there are so many different peoples, languages, and cultures it's impossible to lump all of them into a single problem.

I never said there was one single problem. I said there are all sorts of problems, and one huge one, which I want to pay attention to, is the fact that people in Africa need food.

To say that we can't have any positive discussion because we have a broad topic is pretty foolish though. Doesn't really make sense. I suppose when I take a class on poetry, that because it is SUCH a broad class, with so many types of poetry, forms of poetry, languages of poetry, authors of poetry, time periods of poetry, etc that we won't have any real discussion =(

A broad topic means no answers or solutions, guys. I am so so sorry to waste all of your time.

 

[ryanvergel]

If everyone deserves to be fed, then why did you single out Africa for this thread? Why not general world hunger? Or world disease? Singling out Africa is leaving out the rest of the population of the planet, which to me seems like the wrong mindset to have.
Sorry 'bout bein' nitpicky, but how do I have the wrong mindset when I asked you a question, yet you don't when you say that everyone deserves to be fed but singles out Africa in the thread. Replying to the rest of my post would be courteous as well, but I'll understand if you don't.

I wanted to see if there was a particular response, mindset, perspective to helping Africa specifically, and as we have seen, there is a strong racial bias to NOT help Africa because some ignorant people here feel their culture is inferior and "deserving" of their fate of starving to death.

How is singling out an example ignoring the rest of the world's problems? That's just illogical.

Africa could be any place. It could be a smaller place, a country. It could be a general region. It could be a city. It really doesn't matter. I didn't exemplify Africa because I felt they were MORE deserving- in fact, I chose it because others out there feel it is LESS deserving for whatever reason.

 

[vaporeon]

I wanted to see if there was a particular response, mindset, perspective to helping Africa specifically, and as we have seen, there is a strong racial bias to NOT help Africa because some ignorant people here feel their culture is inferior and "deserving" of their fate of starving to death.

How is singling out an example ignoring the rest of the world's problems? That's just illogical.

Africa could be any place. It could be a smaller place, a country. It could be a general region. It could be a city. It really doesn't matter. I didn't exemplify Africa because I felt they were MORE deserving- in fact, I chose it because others out there feel it is LESS deserving for whatever reason.

You should have know you would get answers like that if you look back the the election threads. You should have ask what do you think of Africa to see what people would say. But I have to agree with you when you said you had no idea people here were like that. But like I said, I hope then don't need and help one day.

 

[Articjedi]

It isn't foolish, the causes why various countries don't have food can be just as different as the countries themselves. You might as well be asking why there isn't any food in Africa, the Middle East, North and South America, Eurasia and Australia. What answers are you expecting? That the reason we can't just dump a pile of food in Africa is because it would wreck their local farmers and turn them all into welfare states? There's not a quick easy solution, there's going to be a slow grinding one where no foreign power has the resources or the political will to do so.

 

[Ardoptres]

What other country doesn't have homeless/sick/people who are hungry/starving?

Well, Denmark doesn't. All homeless people here choose to be homeless, because they like that way of living.

What do you mean by sick? Like a mental disease?

 

[toxictaipan]

"We" will save Africa once the U.S. gets a grip on saving ITSELF.


I'm sorry for all those people in Africa, and other countrys like Africa, but you seriously think that they come first, second, or even third in this dog-eat-dog world?

Haha!! You sir, are funny.

 

[Mewtant]

Hey Ryan - Looks like you got more than you bargained for (although I'm not really sure what you thought the response would be). I think it boils down to the following:

1) The question was posed at a bad time. I'm not saying it shouldn't/couldn't be addressed, however due to the economy people are a little...er...touchy about the subject of economic aid to other countries.

2) You will ALWAYS get the "help people in America first" responses. Tough to argue with this although it should be a COMPLETELY different topic.

3) No matter what the topic, some people just want to argue. It's the way of the world.

4) I think most people have a tough time with the African couple who can't feed their 5 kids. Why did they decide to pro-create anyway? Did they even think about it? Is it some religious necessity? I don't know the answer. I DO know that if I saw children dying right and left and I couldn't afford to feed myself, I would probably not get the nearest village hottie pregnant. But that's just me. It's a bit frustrating that they are having sex and kids and it becomes OUR problem. Next thing you know we're going to be paying welfare moms more money for more kids. Oh....wait...I guess we already do that.

I give you major props for sticking with this topic... and although we don't see eye-to-eye 100%, I do respect your passion and tenacity. I just wish these folks would help themselves a little more (read: stop breeding) and I'd feel better about sending money, food, water, medicine, etc.

 

[ryanvergel]

It isn't foolish, the causes why various countries don't have food can be just as different as the countries themselves. You might as well be asking why there isn't any food in Africa, the Middle East, North and South America, Eurasia and Australia. What answers are you expecting? That the reason we can't just dump a pile of food in Africa is because it would wreck their local farmers and turn them all into welfare states? There's not a quick easy solution, there's going to be a slow grinding one where no foreign power has the resources or the political will to do so.

Why might I as well be asking why there isn't food in Europe? That doesn't make any sense. Yes, the causes for each region's poor status varies greatly. HOWEVER, there are COMMON themes and COMMON problems. To wipe off the ability to solve Africa's problems in a general thread because there are multiple societies, countries and cultures just doesn't make sense. Obviously if there is a continental problem in Africa, one that spreads beyond its borders and cultures- like AIDS or chronic malnutrition, it would be able to discuss the subjects in a wider context, that being the continent. Why are you so obsessed with trying to derail the topic on an illogical base like "this topic is too wide, and therefore there can be no solutions." That doesn't make sense. You can't dismiss anything we discuss on the basis that because the topic is wide or general that nothing was legitimately discussed.

So I guess if we discuss something like "The Drug War" or "Communism"- that because the topics are so wide, 'with the the causes why various countries "don't have food/have a drug problem/are Communist/whatever" can be just as different as the countries themselves.' that we cannot have any discussion whatsoever. Basically, you're not making any sense, Chin.

PS, I never suggested that as a solution. That would be stupid.

 

[ryanvergel]

Hey Ryan - Looks like you got more than you bargained for (although I'm not really sure what you thought the response would be). I think it boils down to the following:

1) The question was posed at a bad time. I'm not saying it shouldn't/couldn't be addressed, however due to the economy people are a little...er...touchy about the subject of economic aid to other countries.

2) You will ALWAYS get the "help people in America first" responses. Tough to argue with this although it should be a COMPLETELY different topic.

3) No matter what the topic, some people just want to argue. It's the way of the world.

4) I think most people have a tough time with the African couple who can't feed their 5 kids. Why did they decide to pro-create anyway? Did they even think about it? Is it some religious necessity? I don't know the answer. I DO know that if I saw children dying right and left and I couldn't afford to feed myself, I would probably not get the nearest village hottie pregnant. But that's just me. It's a bit frustrating that they are having sex and kids and it becomes OUR problem. Next thing you know we're going to be paying welfare moms more money for more kids. Oh....wait...I guess we already do that.

I give you major props for sticking with this topic... and although we don't see eye-to-eye 100%, I do respect your passion and tenacity. I just wish these folks would help themselves a little more (read: stop breeding) and I'd feel better about sending money, food, water, medicine, etc.

Yeah, I wasn't quite sure what I was expecting, but I think it was a little more positive and open-minded than what I actually found.

1. Yeah, people are quite touchy about the economic situation. Maybe we can better sympathize with people in other countries having no food or economy whatsoever. We show our true colors when the chips are down. Does this mean the US is nothing but a bunch of greedy, ignorant, racist pigs? I'm thinking so more and more.

2. Yeah, the thing is though, this argument is entirely faulty. Help America? Our economic system necessitates that we have jobless individuals. As for the US having people who go without food- that is just purely our own greed. We cannot compare our situations, or the situation of our poor, with the rest of the world. Besides, the argument that we cannot help Africa or X place because we have to help ourselves DOES NOT WORK. It only works if we CANNOT help others AND ourselves at the same time, so I will say this ONCE more. THIS IS NOT THE CASE. We have the resources to help both sides, so PLEASE- everyone, stop posting this horrible, dated argument that "America has to help America first". Not only is it illogical in the fact that it places individuals who live closer as being more deserving of life, but it makes bad assumptions about our capabilities.

3. Yeah =(

4. There is a correlation between the relative development of a society and its birth rate, and as development occurs birth rate decreases. If your average life expectancy was a solid 30 years shorter, combined with rampant disease, you might have more children. Or some Africans are just doing wrong things and making things worse for themselves. However, as ArcticJedi said, using this kind of reasoning to exclude the entire populace, or specific places that need a lot of attention, is merely stereotyping one practice for an entire continent, among many ways of life.

5. I, too, wish the breeding in certain places would decrease, especially areas afflicted with a high number of HIV carriers.

 

[yoyofsho16]

You just don't get it do you. We as a country (and most of the civilized world for that matter) actually WORKED together in some way to make our countries what they are today. Thousands of people fought and died to give us our country, so its not like it was just given to us. Africa on the other hand has done.. well.... pretty much nothing. I'm not going to judge them for it, but if they arn't willing to actually try and do something about it then we can't help them. If you think Iraq and the rest of the middle east is a mess, then how the heck are we supposed to do anything about Africa? Heck, WE ARE IN DEBT! Do you go around giving money away when you don't actually have any?

Its POINTLESS to keep dumping money into something where we have NO idea if its going to do anything to help.

For example, you have a plant in your basement. You spend lots of money on plant food, bottled water, and special lighting for it so it will live. Now this is fine as long as you keep pumping cash into the supplies. As long as you keep the cash flowing, the plant lives. Now, lets say you suddenly don't have any more money. The plant will be fine for a little while, but it will soon die. All this time you were thinking about short term, when had you been thinking about the long term, you would have planted it outside so it could grow on its own.

Its the same with Africa. We can keep dumping money into supplies and other short term items. Its great while we can keep it up, but it really isn't truly helping them. With out the money flow, they go right back to where they started. They need far more help then we can give them right now. I right now don't see anyway ANYONE can help Africa until the people there are willing to do something.

Well, maybe if we didn't spend all of our time taking away their people as opposed to introducing industry to Africa, they would be a little bit more developed.

Do you go around giving money away when you don't actually have any?

Funny that that's exactly what your "godly" president did for us in the past 8 years.

 

[ryanvergel]

Well, maybe if we didn't spend all of our time taking away their people as opposed to introducing industry to Africa, they would be a little bit more developed.



Funny that that's exactly what your "godly" president did for us in the past 8 years.

No way! You're making the connection that Europe and the US has been raping Africa for HUNDREDS of years, and yet all of you people are surprised about their condition. After millions of people were taken out and the infrastructure destroyed, we started colonizing, and then abruptly leaving and leaving the continent in ruins.

We took what we wanted, all the slaves, diamonds, and other things we wanted, and are now leaving them to rot and die.

All the racists in this thread would be greatly benefited if they read some post-colonial theory.

For example, you have a plant in your basement. You spend lots of money on plant food, bottled water, and special lighting for it so it will live. Now this is fine as long as you keep pumping cash into the supplies. As long as you keep the cash flowing, the plant lives. Now, lets say you suddenly don't have any more money. The plant will be fine for a little while, but it will soon die. All this time you were thinking about short term, when had you been thinking about the long term, you would have planted it outside so it could grow on its own.

A very poor analogy indeed.
1. You assume that the outside would be beneficial to your plant's growth. You don't take into account season, climate, or location. If you lived in New York and it is January, would you try to plant this outside?
2. You assume that planting indoors first was a bad idea. Who is to say that the plant is supposed to stay indoors permanently. Maybe it was planted indoors so as to make it hardy and ABLE to live outdoors.
3. If you remove the "cash flow" the plant is as bad as it was if left outside- you have to hope the conditions around the "plant" are suitable for its growth. Otherwise it would have been just as bad to plant it outside as inside- in fact, WORSE.

 

[Articjedi]

Yeah, I wasn't quite sure what I was expecting, but I think it was a little more positive and open-minded than what I actually found.

1. Yeah, people are quite touchy about the economic situation. Maybe we can better sympathize with people in other countries having no food or economy whatsoever. We show our true colors when the chips are down. Does this mean the US is nothing but a bunch of greedy, ignorant, racist pigs? I'm thinking so more and more.

You ever read anything about how some congressmen reacted to the aftermath of the massive earthquake we had in Southeast Asia? Some of the responses to the calls for financial aid were disgusting.

Looks like I got something through, but I still say that generalizing a problem is going to get general, and therefore unhelpful, responses from the rest of the people in the thread. I haven't seen anything particularly helpful here, nor am Iexpecting anyone to be knowledgeable about the starvation in Africa, so I'm not still sure what you're expecting from everyone's responses.

 

[ryanvergel]

You ever read anything about how some congressmen reacted to the aftermath of the massive earthquake we had in Southeast Asia? Some of the responses to the calls for financial aid were disgusting.

Looks like I got something through, but I still say that generalizing a problem is going to get general, and therefore unhelpful, responses from the rest of the people in the thread. I haven't seen anything particularly helpful here, nor am Iexpecting anyone to be knowledgeable about the starvation in Africa, so I'm not still sure what you're expecting from everyone's responses.

Well, this is a pokemon forum and everything. But it is helpful at least so that we can discuss this situation and at least come opinions to take to the real life. This thread might have 25 people posting, have hundreds view it and consider it, no matter what it's doing.

Again, I didn't know what I was expecting. I was expecting less cultural elitism though.

 

[Articjedi]

Actually, it doesn't surprise me one bit. People like to rationalize their position to ease the guilt over others not having it, or the fact that it was through our exploitation and sloth that nothing gets helped. Why it goes straight to cultural elitism is beyond me, but as I said, it's just them rationalizing themselves.