Yakk

I respect Libertarian beliefs -- their party should prove it's usefulness by generating sufficient profit to operate. My intervention in the market in favour of a Libertarian party would be an insult to their belief system! ;-)

The Asian Tsunami did occur to places where they are well on their way to prosperity. Helping them recover from this disaster should result in them being able to both carry themselves, and help others, in a pretty short term, with a decent success rate. The problem is simple -- repair the tsunami damage, prevent epidemics.

Other areas of the world have larger problems whose solution is harder. How do you solve political/tribal instability? Resources worth more than people? (The Diamond-wars) Boom-bust weather that causes periodic starvation? Large families being the only at all safe retirement security?

Looking at it through the lens of the old saying 'give a man a fish, feed him for a day -- teach him to fish, feed him for a lifetime': I have the feeling that all we have to do in the Asian Tsunami crisis is to 'give them a fish', and they'll get back to fishing on their own, once they recover from the blow. That solution won't work everywhere -- we'd have to both provide fish, and learn how to teach them to fish, to prevent the suffering effectively.

A few problems.
One, in the event of technical collapse, you just wiped out everyone within a generation.
Second, giving a government eugenic control over humanity isn't something most people would be comfortable with.
Third, reversible vasectomies have a pretty high risk of not working -- some methods have problems in the 'reversible' portion, others in the 'vasectomy' portion.
Forth, the areas of the world under the worst population pressure have very little in the form of safe, stable and fair government, or large numbers of doctors who have time to waste doing vasectomies or vasectomy reversals.
Fifth, demographic collapses have certain economic problems: the USA's "pig in the python" problem would be far far worse in a society that actually had problems feeding it's people with it's current workforce.

Really, simply providing cheap and availiable birth control to the developing world would be a huge step forward. And right now, the theocracy in the US have reduced and/or cut funding to the organizations that provide birth control information, material and advice in the 3rd world (part of their anti-abortion policies).

Organizations like Oxfam, I think, attempt to provide development assistance to communities, rather than just aid. A single well can make all the difference in the world to 100s of people.

Another interesting idea (which I really don't know how to fund) is the micro-loan banks that are operating in India (and possibly elsewhere) right now. Basically, they provide people with microscopic loans (not grants) that allow them to bootstrap themselves out of poverty. The example I was described was a lady who wove chairs. She was paid a few cents per chair to make chairs from materials someone else provided. The loan of less than 1$ allowed her to buy her own materials and sell her own chairs, increasing her profit per chair by 10 times or more.

This works better in nations who aren't at the bottom of the barrel, but every stable and rich nation is another victory, and every step a triumph over poverty and suffering.

__________________
Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.