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Originally Posted by Duffman
Right now you are sitting (assuming on a chair in a house typing on a computer). I also assume you are getting some enjoyment out of it or you wouldnt be doing it? Point is somebody had to cut down some lumber to build the house, somebody had to drill the oil to make the plastic for your computer, somebody had to work in the rifinery to upgrade the oil. Somebody is working at a powerplant to provide the electricity to run your stuff. Some teacher had to provide 13+ years of education to you so you could read and write on this forum. The list goes on and on, but if all those people were not productive you could not be doing something as simple as typing on this forum. Additionally you need to be productive to afford the house, desk computer... Unless you want to live in a box under a bridge and eat garbage the world needs productivity, but again somebody had to manufacture the box the bridge and the garbage. The problem with Africa is nobody is doing anything so they dont have anything. Even the simplest things had to be produced by someone.
Productivity is not evil, I can use increased productivity for 2 things, either to have more stuff or to have the same amount of stuff and work less to get it.
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Agreed.
Lost cause, I agree with many of your points, but you're confusing moral imperative with economic imperative. However I don't agree that an African is merely focused on feeding people whereas the evil American farmer is just in it to make a profit.
Many African farmers grow coffee beans, Ethopia is one of the
largest exporters of Coffee beans, but no one eats them. So they don't only grow food to eat it. Instead they grow coffee beans and then trade them for food and other goods, the same as many American farmers.
Also, I've never met anyone who digs ditches. The closest I've ever come was installing some sprinkler systems, but I used an electric ditch digging tool to do that, which allowed me to dig ditches twenty or thirty times faster.
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Originally Posted by LostCause
Hvatum suggests the world would be better off if technology can maintain our way of life and decrease our impact. I think the two are inversely related. Modern day life is only focused on improvement: going faster, making more stuff, cramming more into a day. Maintaining our way of life would eventually require an infinite amount of energy and matter to be available. Alongside infinite efficiency, that is impossible. If you need more stuff all the time, you can't decrease your impact.
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I call BS. First of all, we can't possibly consume an infinite amount of resources. Secondly, if all of our energy sources and an absolute minimal impact on the environment and we recycled almost all of our resources then we could consume many times what we do now and have a lesser impact.
Sure, if you want an infinite standard of living where each person eventually has an entire planet for themselves filled with robots that build gigantic pyramid monuments out of frozen Osmium, then yes, you're right. But again, you're confusing issues and putting words into my mouth by reaching that conclusion. France
already has a lesser impact today on the environment than they did (per Capita) twenty years ago, so right there the facts on the ground prove my point. Sadly the Greenpeace hysterics and crony capitalists have stopped real progress on that front in America.
Honestly, if you really want to do what's "absolutely best" for the world, what are you doing posting on the internet or driving a car around? Why don't you just get a bicycle and grow organic food in the forest? (Ok, I know that's not really fair, but you see my point)
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Originally Posted by LostCause
I think our views are well established in this thread and I want you to know that I appreciate your viewpoint. You did make me reconsider some of my thoughts and helped define how I feel, but like debating politics, I think we might be exhausting the usefulness of this debate. Great debate, though.
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Agreed. I totally respect your viewpoint too, and I see where we disagree. I also enjoy debating, arguing is good fun.