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This will kill the rainforrest in Africa. Because the survivors will use it for bushmeat, wood, jobs, fields for cows, ...

dotancohen 9y ago
A friend of mine once retitled a similar headline "U.S. Malaria Donations create an additional 2M starving Africans". I'll not add _my_ opinion of the matter, but I would love to see intelligent discussion on the matter. Is saving lives from disease just putting these same people on the path to starvation?
- ckarmann 9y ago
  No, because at the same time, starvation is decreasing even though population is increasing. It's not a problem of too many people. You don't create a self-sustainable economy by destroying human capital.
- ksangeelee 9y ago
  No, saving lives from disease is removing obstacles to their survival.
tomjen3 9y ago
That is not true, but even if it were: fuck the rain forrest. What we are talking about here is peoples children.
- kodfodrasz 9y ago
  > fuck the rain forrest. What we are talking about here is peoples children. tell this to those whose children die of hunger because of climate change.
- NiklasMort 9y ago
  Obviously logic is not part of your thought process. If we continue to populate the earth, which has limited local resources with more and more people nobody is helped! Fuck the rain forest? Really? The Rain forest is more worth than a few billion people. People are not worth anything. Everybody is replaceable, there are nearly 8 billion of us. Stop being so arrogant and anthropocentric. @Thread: 2 million saved are 2 million more living shitty lives and potentially suffer from starvation, malnutrition, civil wars etc. If you want to help the people make sure there are less of them! Spending money on mosquito nets...seriously people, just saying that makes it ridiculous.
  - eru 9y ago
    Please take family planning into account: empirically parents aim for a specific number of offspring. Infant mortality does not usually change that target much, but it changes how many pregnancies are needed to reach it. Thus: two million children saved, is two million pregnancies less. (To a first order approximation. As people get richer, all kinds of things change over time.) You are right in some sense: people are replaceable, and they will be replaced. But at a cost in resources and of course emotions. Even if you only cared about the rainforest, and not about people at all, the smaller ecological footprint should warm your heart.
    - haihaibye 9y ago
      >> parents aim for a specific number of offspring https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/mar/15/why-have-four-children-when-you-could-have-seven-contraception-niger?CMP=share_btn_tw https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals... "women want an average of nine, while men say they want 11."
      - eru 9y ago
        That's interesting! Most of the rest of the world (even poor countries) operate differently. Will investigate.
    - NiklasMort 9y ago
      Trust me I am not a hardhearted bastard but from what I have seen in the world, despite being absolute subjective ,I can tell you that the biggest problem with population is caused by religion and old beliefs. And this ain't specific to third world countries, there are enough big families (4+ kids) from certain ethnic groups in Europe/US. Your pregnancy point is wrong though, so you say you save resources due to not having them start another pregnancy? Well the kid uses resources too and it does that at a increasing rate throughout the years. Once that kid has its own kids....you get the idea. Unfortunately there never will be a global population control so all is left is this: upon a certain number we'll have a massive humanitarian catastrophe, most likely ending in the death of hundreds of millions due to starvation or wars. Not only will the environment suffer heavily, but once again humanity takes a step backwards towards becoming brutes again.
madiathomas 9y ago
Ignorance on this comment is on another level. Please find some time and visit Africa. Stop learning about Africa from charity organisations who want to swindle you of your hard-earned cash. Obviously they will portray a bleak picture so that you can donate. We don't live in bushes. We have cities and some of us have a better quality of life than most people in the Western countries.
- someSven 9y ago
  Where did you get the idea about what I know and what I don't know about Africa? Is Malaria really mainly a problem for the city dwellers with high living standards? Brasil is destroying their rain forrest. And one reason why they can is because they don't have the same problem with Malaria.
  - madiathomas 9y ago
    Reading from your comment, it is clear you are commenting from an ignorant and misinformed position.

dotancohen 9y ago

A friend of mine once retitled a similar headline "U.S. Malaria Donations create an additional 2M starving Africans". I'll not add _my_ opinion of the matter, but I would love to see intelligent discussion on the matter. Is saving lives from disease just putting these same people on the path to starvation?

ckarmann 9y ago
No, because at the same time, starvation is decreasing even though population is increasing. It's not a problem of too many people. You don't create a self-sustainable economy by destroying human capital.
ksangeelee 9y ago
No, saving lives from disease is removing obstacles to their survival.

tomjen3 9y ago

That is not true, but even if it were: fuck the rain forrest. What we are talking about here is peoples children.

kodfodrasz 9y ago
> fuck the rain forrest. What we are talking about here is peoples children. tell this to those whose children die of hunger because of climate change.
NiklasMort 9y ago
Obviously logic is not part of your thought process. If we continue to populate the earth, which has limited local resources with more and more people nobody is helped! Fuck the rain forest? Really? The Rain forest is more worth than a few billion people. People are not worth anything. Everybody is replaceable, there are nearly 8 billion of us. Stop being so arrogant and anthropocentric. @Thread: 2 million saved are 2 million more living shitty lives and potentially suffer from starvation, malnutrition, civil wars etc. If you want to help the people make sure there are less of them! Spending money on mosquito nets...seriously people, just saying that makes it ridiculous.
- eru 9y ago
  Please take family planning into account: empirically parents aim for a specific number of offspring. Infant mortality does not usually change that target much, but it changes how many pregnancies are needed to reach it. Thus: two million children saved, is two million pregnancies less. (To a first order approximation. As people get richer, all kinds of things change over time.) You are right in some sense: people are replaceable, and they will be replaced. But at a cost in resources and of course emotions. Even if you only cared about the rainforest, and not about people at all, the smaller ecological footprint should warm your heart.
  - haihaibye 9y ago
    >> parents aim for a specific number of offspring https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/mar/15/why-have-four-children-when-you-could-have-seven-contraception-niger?CMP=share_btn_tw https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals... "women want an average of nine, while men say they want 11."
    - eru 9y ago
      That's interesting! Most of the rest of the world (even poor countries) operate differently. Will investigate.
  - NiklasMort 9y ago
    Trust me I am not a hardhearted bastard but from what I have seen in the world, despite being absolute subjective ,I can tell you that the biggest problem with population is caused by religion and old beliefs. And this ain't specific to third world countries, there are enough big families (4+ kids) from certain ethnic groups in Europe/US. Your pregnancy point is wrong though, so you say you save resources due to not having them start another pregnancy? Well the kid uses resources too and it does that at a increasing rate throughout the years. Once that kid has its own kids....you get the idea. Unfortunately there never will be a global population control so all is left is this: upon a certain number we'll have a massive humanitarian catastrophe, most likely ending in the death of hundreds of millions due to starvation or wars. Not only will the environment suffer heavily, but once again humanity takes a step backwards towards becoming brutes again.

madiathomas 9y ago

Ignorance on this comment is on another level. Please find some time and visit Africa. Stop learning about Africa from charity organisations who want to swindle you of your hard-earned cash. Obviously they will portray a bleak picture so that you can donate. We don't live in bushes. We have cities and some of us have a better quality of life than most people in the Western countries.

someSven 9y ago
Where did you get the idea about what I know and what I don't know about Africa? Is Malaria really mainly a problem for the city dwellers with high living standards? Brasil is destroying their rain forrest. And one reason why they can is because they don't have the same problem with Malaria.
- madiathomas 9y ago
  Reading from your comment, it is clear you are commenting from an ignorant and misinformed position.