Gillian my post is called hitting people over the head with a two-by-four to gain their attention.
I worked in Africa for seven years mostly in Malawi, had many long discussions with people in agriculture, more recently my son worked as an Intern in Premier Arap Moi's office in Kenya. The climate, the soil and the water supply are the problems.
All made worse by overpopulation. Not to speak of inefficiency and corruption in all branches of administration.
I did not say anything about provision of BIOLOGICAL sufficiency in the West. We provide luxury & excessive "necessities" to most, look at the rates of obesity, for one. Those unfortunate kids you mention are again the result of a breakdown of social structures, starting with a breakdown of family ties, more marked in the US than in Canada but present everywhere in the West.

In my time in Africa, there were no orphans to be found anywhere. The extended family took care of them all. The head of that was in most tribes, the mother's uncle, her father's brother and his word, with the power of tradition behind it was law. He decided on the "bride price" when she married, he decided who was to look after the "orphans" if both parennts died. The bride price, "buying" a wife ignorant Europeans called it, was an insurance, if the husband mistreated the wife, she would leave him and go back to her family & he lost his cattle or whatever the price had been. If she left him for no good reason, he got the price back. The children went with the mother. The total breakdown of tribal customs as Western "civilisation" was adopted ended much of this, and facillitated the spread of AIDS once that appeared.

And in respect of our so-called civilisation. When Ghandi (Winston Churchill's "naked fakir") was visiting Britain in the 1920's he was asked what he thought of Western Civilisation. His considered reply was that he thought it would be a very good idea.

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Ronald Brak.

I find the idea that the whole world will become industrialised simply childish. Who is going to buy the products & with what? Which industrialised nations will allow competitors to outcompete them? The example of a highly trained, highly motivated, exceptionally able, and hardworking nation like China is not going to work for the whole world. It will work on paper and in the virtual world of the internet, not in practice.
For an example, just think what a people like the Japanese or the Germans would have done with the resources of Russia. And what have the Russians done?

I think you are a confused by what the term industrialized means. A country does not need to outcompete anyone else to become industrialized. A country does not need to be like China and sell the products of light manufacturing to become industrialized. A country does not even need to engage in trade to become industrialized. What is required for a nation to become industrialized is for the people to use technology to improve their productivity. So that people can achieve more in a day's work than they could before. This is happening over the entire world. Your statement that not every country can industrialize when every single one, with the possible exception of some war zones, is industrializing, is strange.

This thread's getting way too political.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

It has come face to face with hard reality and fixed opinions. Time to go back to Fun & Games, either here, or in Academia, or in good old real pork barrel politics.

Your post #61 helped put thing in perspective for me on what you trying to say toejam, for a moment I was not sure what to make of your previous posts.
The big confusion for me was the 21 years sterilisation, my mother gave birth to me when she was in her 30s and I would like to think that I turned out fine.

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This whole internet thing is probably not a passing fad.-Ronald Brak
While speech might be free, consequences cost.-Doodler

In my "Brave New World" (another name for a man-created hell on earth), people would just have to have kids early or never. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. I BIG BROTHER & KORJIK'S ARMY, WE"RE ALL WATCHING YOU>

Be careful with your wording.
Both Germans and Japanese have been very civilized peoples for most of their history. Same is true for Russians.
If you want to make a point about evil dictatorships, name them.

I agree.

I am not talking about dictatorships. I am talking about the innate/tradition reinforced abilities of those two peoples, their energy, organising talents and dedicated hard work, as contrasted with the sloth & incompetence of the Russians.
The evil dictatorships were evil for us, outsiders, for the Germans & Japanese they were a godsend until they started to lose the war.
Peter the Great, as ruthless a ruler as Stalin, tried to civilise his people, if by that we mean Europeinisation (is this a word?), & succeeded, partially. But Stalin dragged them back into his own asiatic absolutism, paranoid & cruel.

I think we better quit this before we all get banned for politicising the thread.
Perhaps transfer it to the pages of Pravda on line:-

http://engforum.pravda.ru/

& stir up the Russian Nazis that hang out there. I've done it in the past & am willing to try again. They're round you in a blink of an eye, just like African killer bees. World Coverage is a good Forum there. Anyone want to come???

You make me very happy.

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If ever I should meet you again, by land or sea,
I will always remember your kindness to me.

Actually after a quick look at the names there (on Pravda, see my post above), all the RussNazis are on the Main Forum.

The World Coverage has BushNazis, ZionNazis, Antisemites, Islamonazis & other such pleasant people.

Careful what you say there. Pravda's server is in Arlington Virginia (!!!), not far from CIA headquarters, & no doubt the CIA is plugged into it 24/7 .

Guess those Ruskies can't produce a good enough server of their own.

Yeah. Just ask the German Jews. Oh, wait . . . .

Your ideas are impractical and not based on real-world situations, despite your experiences in Africa. Despite what you claim, there are orphans. However, they have someone to take them in; this is usually the case in the West, too. It may not be the extended family, but the extended family is not always the best choice for the health and wellbeing of the child. Further, those poor American children are often born into families with close extended family networks. They're still starving.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

As always, Gillian says it best. Your ideas are simply not based in fact, toejam.

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Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

You people are not telling me anything new, you're still reeling from my two-by-four. Did you read my post at #66?

"Reality" and "Fixed Opinions" are mutually exclusive. There's a good reason why politics are banned by the rules here.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Yes, but I'm afraid I found its meaning unclear. Was it meant in jest?

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Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

I've found that it's never a good idea to tell people how they are reacting to something you've said or done unless you've got evidence that it is the case.

Yes, please.

No, thanks.

I try.


Okay, who turned the Gee Whiz thought party into Twelve Angry Men?
I put this here in order to learn something, and I did. It doesn't need to be boosted off the off topic babbling. It needs to be moderated.

As to the number, it was an offhand remark by David Drake who paraphrased Drakes voyages into some science fiction works. I wasn't planning on taking it too seriously.

Sometimes the cow does have to be spherical in order to get the correct answers.

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Gimme a minute to read through Jay's latest observations...

Yes, indeed.
All I want to say is that with all that virtual money, I'd spend more on birth control than on bandaid charity. Nets for Africa a very good idea, but not enough to solve the real problem. --- i.e. overpopulation,---- there & elswhere.