One of the terrible difficulties humanity faces is not realizing
that that is what we are. In an active Darwinian competition
against other life, not earth life, we are part of earth life in her
natural course and we cannot escape being part of the natural
evolutions on earth, wether we think we should or shouldnt be
stripping the oceans and poisoning the sky we are, the plain observed
fact is just that. we are, its part of our natural function to do so.

in the universe from time to time and place to place
life appears. when conditions are right life grows expands
and adapts and moves outward. Lifes major prime directive
is go forth and multiply. where life evolves sentient life evolve
into the natural bio matrix for the purpose of advancing the bio
matrix beyond its ability to drift in the wind. when we soil the bed
of earth we create conditions that will motivate a final minute percentage
of earth sentient life (if not us the next) to conquer the challenges of
space distances. Necessity is the mother of invention and when the time
comes it will happen. when we or they leave earth to save ourselves from
the earth being croweded and full of sin, we will take the rainforest to
breath eat and drink. when we get there we will tell ourselves look at
how cleverly we used nature. and nature will smile and say ah fooled the
self possesed legs again into thinking they were directing where we were
going.


we are the legs of earth life and the keepers of its garden but we dont
quite see what that means. We will drive ourselves outwards by the mechanisms population pressure and resource crisis, the same as happens
in nature with a slime mold spore and the subsequent life cycle of its colony.

we think we are outside nature but we are not, it is simply impossible to
be so show me a place outside of nature for us to stand on. we are part
of the matrix earth life, she has her own priorities, quite natural and quite
effective tried previously I am sure, by many other attempts to evolve
life elsewhere in the universe for the purpose of filling the universe and
unfreezing its energy to create a surplus.

adapt and overcome assimilate what can be conqured destroy or avoid
what cannot.


meh or maybe I should take up creation science instead
I miss all the singing and dancing.:|\\

This thread makes me want to club something... :yep:

:rotfl:

Let's say you are out seal clubbing...when you spot a group of hot chicks....everyone knows that there will be whale in the group...probably the one who's responsible for getting all of the fox's home...
One of your seals will have to take one for the team...shoot for the whale and get her out of the way....thus leaving all the hot chicks available for easy pickings...
Leaving me to the conclusion Seal clubbing is a must....:lol:

KD

I totally.... um.... wha? :hmm:

Club seals and eat lots of meat. :smug:

Seal clubbing :down:

Human clubbing :up:

Quite a few people I'd like to visit with a baseball bat :up:
I say leave the animals alone and turn to the prisons, it'd stop prison overcrowding :yep:

No Good the Pelts are all Tatoo'd

First of all I want to mkae it clear that I have no knowlege of how the seal population in newfoundland is doing, but concidering that they are quite close to human habitation the likelyhood that their natural predators have decreased in number is quite large, which could cause an explosion in the seal population, in which case culling their numbers is just fine in my book. Allso I have no problem of them being clubbed to death than being killed by other means.
Allso as with most everything those idealistic hypocrites from PETA are involved, it is overblown and focuses only on creatures generaly concidered cute.

Like it or not, humans beings are omnovores, meat is a part of our diet and to sustain this population industrialized farming is needed. It might not be pretty, but thats life for you. I have been to slaughterhouses, I have killed animals myself on both of our families famrs, I have gutted and skinned the animals as well as prepared the usable parts of the entrails for use in cooking.

I wonder what the world would be like if all the money and time devoted to animal charity programs* was devoted instead to humans in need. What a better place the world might be.

*Other than those sustaining or studying endangered/delicate animals/ecosystems.

Funny how a lot of people get all worked up about animals being slaughtered, but have no comment when humans are being gas-bombed. Or they even start protesting hystericly when the one who gas-bombed those people gets removed.

Well. That's mankind 101.

Save the seals!!!!!11!!111!!!!

Shave the whales!

I doubt that would work.

According to the taxpayer's guide to spending available here http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/253.html in pdf format,
the Federal government set aside 756 million dolars for General and special Funds for foreign aid. Also, the "International Assistance Program" had a budget of around 15 billion dollars, primarily for humanitarian and economic relief.
That is to say nothing of the department of Education's 50-something billion dollar budget, and the Department of Health and Human Services'
half a trillion dollar budget (excepting the FDA's 1 billion dollar budget)


No private charity (or charites) can match that level of investment. Of course, since these are government expenditures, I would venture that they are spent poorly and as such are largely ineffective. And these are just a few of the examples in which the state doles out funds for human welfare.

Were that money to be placed in the hands of the people, who may choose to invest some of it in charity, then maybe they could significantly improve the lives of others.


Another problem is that most of the world's poorest countries have socialist or totalitarian governments and/or command economies. A brief visit to http://www.heritage.org/Index/ provides support for this argument.
I can post links to more sites with similar information, if needed.

Since these countries are in the grip of statist regimes, there is nothing that can really be done to help them. It's like the old adage, "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime."
You can never do anything but give these people fish, because their economic system will continually drive them into poverty. As their population grows, the amount of aid needed expands in direct proportion. (sometimes a J-curve:o )

Even if all the first and second-world nations united in providing relief for the 3rd world, which they already do to a significant degree, they would only bankrupt themselves within a few years or decades, thus bringing them closer to the status of those they sought to help. Remember that most (if not all) of the world's nations are already in debt.

The obvious solution seems to be replacing the regimes of such countries with military force or subterfuge. But this does not work, either. It incurs massive state debts, and there is no guarantee that the new regime will be permanent.

The only solution, and indeed the only thing that will ever happen, is to let the process of natural selection work. Weak and foolish nations wither and die. Intelligent ones prosper and become strong, for a time. Then they over-reach and overspend, and in time, they wither and die as well. And they are replaced by new powers, all of whom are doomed to repeat the same process.

The watchword must always be "Freedom". When people are free they trade, they produce, and they prosper. Sometimes they quarrel or cheat one another. When they do so, it is the role of government to intervene. Other than that, government is only an economic hinderance, and therefore, a threat to the people.

Within the realm of education, many countries have state-sponsored schools and perform better than the U.S. Generally, these countries allow competition amongst schools and allow parents to choose what school their child(ren) will go to. Competition benefits the children, as poor schools fail and good ones thrive.
However, the state still incurs considerable debt in doing so. A debt that will one day be unsustainable.

In the realm of citizen welfare the state fails again. It removes incentive and encourages the poor to maintain their lifestyle at the expense of others. After all, if one in destitution can recieve free money or guaranteed employment, why should they ever change?

Charity does similar things sometimes, but only because contributors allow it to do so. If a charity fails to achieve its' goal or is superceded by another, more effective charity, people will invest their charity dollars somewhere else.

Competition and the free market is what drives society and living standards upwards. Even the poor and disadvantaged benefit, and it has little to do with the collectivization of social authority.

Our money is wasted on humanitarian efforts in socialist or totalitarian countries. The prosperity of those countries is dependent entirely upon the will of their people.

Maybe they will revolt and establish a democratic and economically free regime. Maybe they won't. If so, sucks to be them. They will have to repeat history again.


Do you see what I am saying here? The effectiveness of foreign aid depends upon the nature of the donor state and the recipient state. If the recipient state has a poor economy and a centralist government, there is no hope for prosperity. If the donor state forces its' population to contribute to foreign aid efforts via taxes, it only brings itself closer to economic ruin.

Charity efforts (no matter whether state or private) towards places like the Democratic Republic of Congo or Indonesia or, or India, are a waste. They only make the problem worse.

It is govenrnment which determines the prosperity of the people and it is government which denies the same.

The absolute power of the state should be feared, respected, and brought to heel.
You cannot combat the power of foreign states by throwing money at them or their people.

Consider that before you donate $4 to a rich and evil dictator(president premier, whatever) in some 3rd world hellhole.


What a ridiculously long rant. Thoughts? Anyone?

Well, I wasn't necessarily talking about foreign aid.

Which human charities make the best use of the money is a whole different issue.

True. Very true. But the overall level of human development depends wholly on the political and economic systems of recipient nations.

So really, considering that the poorest nations in the world have centralist governments and economies, how much good could you do? How do we solve their problems?