the question was asked above (paraphrased many ways): "What would nay-sayers say if there were billions of poor starving in the streets w/o Dr Borlaug's work?" Wait a sec! Its not like there are _proportionately_ fewer poor and starved people today than 40 years ago, there are just an _absolutely_ larger number of people. Upgrades in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd world have been on the margins - so don't start with minimal increases in per capita income, most of the world is poor and starving right now - subsisting on 2$/day or less). This issue is far more complicated than food production. More food has made more poor people. There'd be fewer "rich", also - b/c billions of people would never have been born. I'm NOT saying kill 3 billion people, problem solved - I AM saying this topic is much more complex than how many iPhones there are on the planet.
I am not a fence-sitter, but this issue is complicated. I will start by finishing and say that your life is entirely up to you - it develops over long periods of time based on decisions you make. You also have to work with what you got, right? Sometimes it is a rare big decision that affects _your_ course, sometimes the small decision you make every day affects your course. That is how I approach this. My lifestyle is _somewhat_ like the "average american" with the car and computer - however I carry a daily reverence for the complexity of "humanity" as it relates to "technonogy." How can one ignore that the "high-flying" western lifestyle is so stressful and selfish as to merit careful consideration of its praise? That 80% of the population of Earth is kept "surviving" so that the other 20% can live such - from what I can tell - a stressful and self-destructive and very often "meaningless" lifestyle?
I've made many "different" decisions. For instance, I _chose_ to develop working knowledge of foraging and "living off the land" as our pre-industrial forefathers did. I am talking about thankfulness and respect and connection, not fundamentalist Green thinking. I am talking about going out and doing something, not reading or thinking or opinionating. These things are complex, use your head and your heart. If there is no easy solution for everyone, then what is the best you can do for yourself and your loved ones today? Bashing either side of this argument for the sake of it is not going to cut it for me.
Let me say this though, modern agriculture, as stated in a great post above, is based on petroleum and nat gas and it poisons us and our waters as much as it feeds us - so if you think eating is good so eating off the floor at taco bell is good then maybe you need to slow down a little.
To those that would tell me to go eat some dandelions and stop trying to use my computer to make a post admonishing the starving-off of billions: I simply say that I support no such policy, I am doing my best and I am not a poor African and I am thankful. But what is the end-game of the promotion of making more and more and more food? So that more people can be cramped into the unhealthy, Western, mostly paper-pusher and service-worker civilization? Have you been to an American hospital lately? Most of the ill are there of their own doing - not because we all just get old and sick and that's the way it is. My wife is a nurse and a good 30%+ of the patients there for chronic conditions are "bariatric" - what most of us would call really fat people. These people have all the time and money to eat and eat and make themselves sick, but they are so sick they can't work. Another significant % of their patients are drug-seekers who use "milking" or "creating" illness as their way to not work but to get access to opiates while they waste away b/c they really aren't living for anything anyway. Seeing how the masses abuse the modern-medical system, and how the insurance companies and gov't pay for it all while very little productive is actually going on - how do you think I feel about "Universal Healthcare?" I KNOW what three-quarters of the healthcare today is actually spent on, and it's not what the healthy masses who desire cheap-access imagine. Kill off these American addicts and selfish slobs and maybe we'd all have more money and be better off - but wait - will my wife still have a job? What about the millions of "good materialistic Americans" who are not quite there but well on their way to their self-induced illness? Is this what we want as the end-game for the 80% of the world trying to climb out of starvation using Dr. Borlaug's work? Corruption on top of selfishness on top of opulence mixed with pride and confusion?
If you are still reading, I'll wrap up like this: you are part material, your body, and part something else. That something else is what makes life worth living. All the material you want, the new car, new computer, carribean cruise, none of that will help your body or spirit be healthy if you don't have integrity and do things for the right reasons. And the right reasons have nothing to do with making more money for a "better" school, a bigger house, or a more exotic cruise. If you wrap your mind up entirely in the material world and causes, your spirit then your body will get sick and die - I don't care how good you think medicine is or how much food you have. If you ignore this advice, you will surely be lonely and sick in your final years - and maybe much worse. Most of us try desperately to ignore the downside to our selfish and materialistic society. If YOU win the lotto, then YOU will be happy, right? If YOU get the promotion and raise, THEN you will be happier, right?
But there's only so many seats at that table - and that's why you want it so bad. But 80% of people are gonna be growing your food and mowing your lawn and cleaning your toilets. Show me a way out of that and I'll show you some beachside property in Arizona that is real up-and-coming.
Yes, there are absolutely beneficial solutions to all of this, but only YOU can affect YOU. And seek and ye shall find. I can't go into my solutions here, much less yours.
There, if you've never heard anything like that before then boo-ya, good luck trying to put that genie back in its bottle if you dare try.
I've made many "different" decisions. For instance, I _chose_ to develop working knowledge of foraging and "living off the land" as our pre-industrial forefathers did. I am talking about thankfulness and respect and connection, not fundamentalist Green thinking. I am talking about going out and doing something, not reading or thinking or opinionating. These things are complex, use your head and your heart. If there is no easy solution for everyone, then what is the best you can do for yourself and your loved ones today? Bashing either side of this argument for the sake of it is not going to cut it for me.
Let me say this though, modern agriculture, as stated in a great post above, is based on petroleum and nat gas and it poisons us and our waters as much as it feeds us - so if you think eating is good so eating off the floor at taco bell is good then maybe you need to slow down a little.
To those that would tell me to go eat some dandelions and stop trying to use my computer to make a post admonishing the starving-off of billions: I simply say that I support no such policy, I am doing my best and I am not a poor African and I am thankful. But what is the end-game of the promotion of making more and more and more food? So that more people can be cramped into the unhealthy, Western, mostly paper-pusher and service-worker civilization? Have you been to an American hospital lately? Most of the ill are there of their own doing - not because we all just get old and sick and that's the way it is. My wife is a nurse and a good 30%+ of the patients there for chronic conditions are "bariatric" - what most of us would call really fat people. These people have all the time and money to eat and eat and make themselves sick, but they are so sick they can't work. Another significant % of their patients are drug-seekers who use "milking" or "creating" illness as their way to not work but to get access to opiates while they waste away b/c they really aren't living for anything anyway. Seeing how the masses abuse the modern-medical system, and how the insurance companies and gov't pay for it all while very little productive is actually going on - how do you think I feel about "Universal Healthcare?" I KNOW what three-quarters of the healthcare today is actually spent on, and it's not what the healthy masses who desire cheap-access imagine. Kill off these American addicts and selfish slobs and maybe we'd all have more money and be better off - but wait - will my wife still have a job? What about the millions of "good materialistic Americans" who are not quite there but well on their way to their self-induced illness? Is this what we want as the end-game for the 80% of the world trying to climb out of starvation using Dr. Borlaug's work? Corruption on top of selfishness on top of opulence mixed with pride and confusion?
If you are still reading, I'll wrap up like this: you are part material, your body, and part something else. That something else is what makes life worth living. All the material you want, the new car, new computer, carribean cruise, none of that will help your body or spirit be healthy if you don't have integrity and do things for the right reasons. And the right reasons have nothing to do with making more money for a "better" school, a bigger house, or a more exotic cruise. If you wrap your mind up entirely in the material world and causes, your spirit then your body will get sick and die - I don't care how good you think medicine is or how much food you have. If you ignore this advice, you will surely be lonely and sick in your final years - and maybe much worse. Most of us try desperately to ignore the downside to our selfish and materialistic society. If YOU win the lotto, then YOU will be happy, right? If YOU get the promotion and raise, THEN you will be happier, right?
But there's only so many seats at that table - and that's why you want it so bad. But 80% of people are gonna be growing your food and mowing your lawn and cleaning your toilets. Show me a way out of that and I'll show you some beachside property in Arizona that is real up-and-coming.
Yes, there are absolutely beneficial solutions to all of this, but only YOU can affect YOU. And seek and ye shall find. I can't go into my solutions here, much less yours.
There, if you've never heard anything like that before then boo-ya, good luck trying to put that genie back in its bottle if you dare try.