BBC2 8pm-9pm...dont panic about world poverty

8 out of 10 have electricity.  People thought 45pc

This is fascinating, marxists will hate it.

World fertility rate is below 2.5, and adult literacy over 80%. Must admit I wouldn't have guessed that low for fertility and that high for literacy unless told.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm5xF-UYgdg

For people who would like another 20 minutes of this sort of thing. Hans Rosling saying there's really rather a lot of people getting a decent education and life.

I think we all kind of knew things were getting better, it is just that there are so many people... Particularly in England, particularly old people, particularly the daily mail, particularly people who are actually well off relatively speaking, that are obsessd with telling us all that things are getting worse.  Fascinating programme.

Sub-Saharan Africa has just opened its first metro in Abacus Alibaba or whatever it's called.

http://www.economist.com/news/21665199-addis-ababa-has-opened-first-part-new-light-rail-system-sub-saharan-africa-gets-its-first-metro

I don't think things are getting better 1872 is my favourite year.  I like to live in the past.

1872 was a great year for sure...last time Liverpool won the league as well I think

Why are things not getting better, and why is it impossible for things to get better? Its because we have run out of countries.

Got my favourite year mixed up, april 1874.

Does the world produce enough food to feed everyone?

The world produces enough food to feed everyone. For the world as a whole, per capita food availability has risen from about 2220 kcal/person/day in the early 1960s to 2790 kcal/person/day in 2006-08, while developing countries even recorded a leap from 1850 kcal/person/day to over 2640 kcal/person/day. This growth in food availability in conjunction with improved access to food helped reduce the percentage of chronically undernourished people in developing countries from 34 percent in the mid 1970s to just 15 percent three decades later. (FAO 2012, p. 4) The principal problem is that many people in the world still do not have sufficient income to purchase (or land to grow) enough food.

poverty isn't really an issue but almost entirely due to western technology, the actual issues are free speech, corruption, injustice, propaganda, individual rights and so on.

Funny thing is the loony left appear to want world poverty the way they always distort and manipulate stats to create poverty(Toynbee is a master at this and often gets it wrong).  If there was no poverty they would have nothing to moan about, and they like moaning.

Nearly 1/2 of the world's population — more than 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 1.3 billion live in extreme poverty — less than $1.25 a day. 1 billion children worldwide are living in poverty. According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty.

Are these ' manipulated statistics ' ?

Yes, of course they are.

Oh dear

I mean how can you convert the vague concept of poverty into a dictionary definition let alone a statistical one.  $1.25 a day? 4 bucks a day?  Depends what you can buy for that surely. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_percentage_of_population_living_in_poverty

Even I could go through these stats and come to multiple conclusions by manipulating figures.  That programme last night debunked a fair few myths.  Now I reckon he will have been a bit clever with the stats himself, but it is at least nice to see two sides to the story.  Facts is so blinkered and unthinkingly lefty that you can only ever see the one side to every story.  If you don't question stuff, if you are not curious then you are a moron.  Facts you are a moron.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34312879

Interesting quiz at the bottom of this link.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growth

This is interesting too.  I thought that world population was growing exponentially and that we were all doomed.  REsources would run out and we'd all be fooked except the rich would look after themselves.  But the consensus (although there are notable detractors) appears to be that world population will stop growing before 2100 and peak at something like 10 billion, currently 7.5billion.  This is a fk of a lot of people and only a moron(yes that's you again Facts) would use these figures to conclude that there is no problem lets just carry on as we are.  But I found it quite encouraging and it is a point of view that I hadn't heard aired before.

I like to think that with technological improvements (agricultural and renewable energy being two major areas) and not a little bit of goodwill that we could work out a way of feeding and clothing and housing and educating these people and providing some level of medical care.  Alright don't suppose we'll ever get everything perfect but so long as population plateaus at least it seems like it is worth trying.

This is a fk of a lot of people and only a moron(yes that's you again Facts) would use these figures to conclude that there is no problem lets just carry on as we are.

Did you even read my post?  There are two sides to every story, try looking at both now and then facts.

Are we all doomed? Maybe the most interesting question out there.

Arguments for Yes:

1. There are so many ways it can go tits up that one of them is bound to occur.
2. Human nature is fundamentally selfish, so we'll always take a short-term solution that benefits us and our families/friends rather than a lomg-term solution that benefits everyone.
3. Capitalism relies on neverending, exponential growth, which will destroy the environment.

Arguments for No:

1. People have been predicting the end of the world for ages and it's never actually happened.
2. Ultimately, it's in our interest to work things out before things get that bad.
3. Technology will be able to get us out of any mess. Nuclear fusion would solve our energy needs forever, for example.

Personally, I'd make Yes favourite, but I'm not that sure. Having children is certainly out of the question though as I'd feel so awful if it all came apart this century. Even in the best of times lots of people are very miserable.

The outstanding current challenge, for me, is to see if we can make the necessary adjustments to capitalism to avoid a total collapse of developed economies, since nothing has changed sice 2008 imv and it's clear as day that as soon as we (UK, France, Italy, Spain, probably US etc.) clear the deficit, we'll be back in recession, only this time with a much higher debt. Bizarrely, world leaders don't seem to be taking it all that seriously.

Good post Patra.

1. There are so many ways it can go tits up that one of them is bound to occur.

How many ways can it go t1ts up very quickly with no chance to kind of come up with a new plan though?  ASteroid I suppose.  Do we literally have the capability to make a nuclear bomb that blows up the entire planet?  Could we in years to come.  The global warming thing won't happen overnight and my instinct is that we will get a solution of sorts that avoids serious loss of life.  I could be guilty of a head in the sand attitude there though for sure.

By doomed, I guess I don't actually mean that the entire human race will be wiped out, just that billions would die and there would be a very serious reduction in quality of life for the rest.

Even a relatively small nuclear war would totally fk things up for everyone. Nuclear proliferation obviously increases the risk of this.

Environmentally speaking, I agree that we'll probably find ways to cope with climate change well enough that only people from poor countries die, but that will just encourage us to keep using up resources, cutting down forests and polluting until eventually something goes seriously wrong, for instance with the food supply. I reckon there could be one really bad year with loads of crop failures that pushes up food prices to the extent that billions go hungry, leading to global social unrest, revolutions, etc. We’re supposed to always be nine meals away from anarchy, after all.

People really dislike it when their quality of life falls. One reason I live in South America is that the region is still growing economically, so things are getting better every year. Britons still have a better quality of life in absolute terms, but can feel things stagnating or getting worse. I imagine that if things got bad enough, UK inhabitants just wouldn’t accept it anymore, would find some way to blame foreigners/immigrants (NAP) and vote in UKIP or something. If that happens in several European countries (i.e. nationalist cretins in charge all over the place), there really could be a war.

I think you can rule out asteroids and (non-man-made) viruses/diseases because why would they happen to strike now (when we’re far better equipped to deal with them than in 6AD, say).

The problem is not population growth from this point  it is that we have already run out of space. The only reason mankind has survived until now is because in the past the world was big enough to allow small areas of progress. People who were clever, rational, peaceful and good were able to escape from the masses of violent, irrational and barbaric people.

It is this inabily, because there are no new countries, globalisation means there is no escape just like Easter island.
The world is small now and there is no safe refuge from other people.

Even if population didn't grow,or declined, well too bad...technolgy means we are now spread over every surface of land and that same technology has brought people and countries within a few minutes or days from each other. This is why it is very unlikely that things will get better. In the past the sheer size of the earth helped us survive, now technology means it is no bigger than Easter island and we can see the beginnings of the same outcome.

Capitalism relies on neverending, exponential growth, which will destroy the environment.

then

One reason I live in South America is that the region is still growing economically, so things are getting better every year.

patra sounds a right hypocritical coont

actually the west has controlled or decreased population, and has ever increasing air, water, and environmental controls. generally speaking the west is far cleaner and environmentally conscious than it has been for hundreds of years.

got to hand it to lfc, when he gets a silly theory in his head he proper goes with it.  Doesn't look sideways or nothing.

I reckon if world population does plateau at 10 or 11 billion then that will be sustainable food and water wise given that we haven't got to the limits of technology yet.  There is so much land in the world, think we have an acre of land per person in the UK.  And we are one of the most densely populated countries in the world.   Continued efficiencies and getting stuff to the right place at the right time will make 11 billion sustainable if politics and human greed allows.

They reckon the key to population control is education. So as things generally improve worlwide it's likely that world population could reduce after it has plateaued.

rob_dylan  • September 25, 2015 10:24 AM BST 
got to hand it to lfc, when he gets a silly theory in his head he proper goes with it.  Doesn't look sideways or nothing.

It is not a silly theory.....there are serious questions about our population expansion

The first is Global Warming..we do not know if this is true or not, but if it where
our sea levels will rise considerably, meaning 100 of millions of people from some of the poorest areas of the world would
find themselves below sea level

China contradicts his theory, by controlling their population they have got their population out of permanent
agricultural poverty, other countries could well follow this, notably in Indian sub continent.

When populations expand, what do they do, emigrate...where do you they come...to the richer countries
do we need half of Africa emigrating here

tbh I have not watched it, but I will consider the pros he puts up,

Sep 25, 2015 -- 1:50AM, polybot wrote:

Capitalism relies on neverending, exponential growth, which will destroy the environment.thenOne reason I live in South America is that the region is still growing economically, so things are getting better every year.patra sounds a right hypocritical coont actually the west has controlled or decreased population, and has ever increasing air, water, and environmental controls. generally speaking the west is far cleaner and environmentally conscious than it has been for hundreds of years.

We're all hypocritical coonts to a certain extent, and I'm certainly no exception. But you've got to live somewhere and wherever it is, you're going to be using up resources and causing damage to the environment. Does it really matter that much where I live? I think I'd be using up resources at roughly the same rate, I just choose to be in the part of the world currently enjoying a massive piss-up than the part where the crippling hangover is just beginning to make itself felt.

Anyway, my point is that (wearing my "We're doomed" hat) there's a choice between short-term economic misery and long-term environmental misery, so all roads lead to misery in any case.

Your right Patra Capitalism does rely on never ending expansion
why we get boom and bust cycles

The only thing that can expand indefinitely is the Universe as far as I know

We do need to look at population growths in my opinion..it also the rate we are increasing our population which is also the worry
we need to slow it down...be better for everybody long term and make life better