Dieoff starting in Africa

[Ludwig]

Hmmm...better abandon the Health Service - it only gets people to live longer. And as for old peoples' homes...pah!

In most places, throughout most of history, old people were simply left to die. They were simply too much of a burden to keep alive.

But then, throughout most of history, people were much more pragmatic about death than we are. Disease and war were all around. Part of the function of religion was to accommodate people to the fact of death. The decline of religion in the modern world is not just due to the discoveries of science - it's also due to the fact that thanks to medical and technological advances, death is not something that most of us worry about much until we reach old age.

When times are hard, people reach for religion and mysticism, never mind what science tells them.

I just happen to think that that Somalian lives are just as valuable as Surrey lives. Funny idea isn't it, thinking we're all equal? When I was little my mum taught me that we were all equal in the eye of God. Then I grew up and worked out that there was no god but the equality thing was still true. The god bit was just a metaphor that small children could understand. You really have to be a grown up to realise that the whole truth.

I could have guessed that you had a Christian upbringing Biff. Emotionally, you are a Christian through and through - you talk about moral imperatives without acknowledging that, without religion, there are no moral imperatives.

You take it as given that one should always help the weak and unfortunate, no matter whether the long-term consequences are worse than not helping them. This is a non-negotiable principle with you. But where does it come from; who's the authority dictating it? I'd guess, perhaps, it's your mother?

Don't get me wrong. I have the same ideals as you. But I'm not an idealist.

[2 As and a B]

In the case of the fish, we nick it. Plain and simple. End of.

A-hem.

Some Somali warlords, says Abshir, issued bogus fishing licences to companies from Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Russia, the UK, Ukraine, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Yemen, Egypt and Kenya.

[etc]

[biffvernon]

I could have guessed that you had a Christian upbringing Biff. Emotionally, you are a Christian through and through

Being born in 1950s Britain does make it rather likely that I had a Christian upbringing, but my Christianity is now about as strong as Richard Dawkins'. Most of the world religions have similar moral imperatives but it is quite wrong to deduce from that there there are no moral imperatives outside of religion. Ethics is not god-dependent.

[biffvernon]

In the case of the fish, we nick it. Plain and simple. End of.

A-hem.

Some Somali warlords, says Abshir, issued bogus fishing licences to companies from Italy, France, Spain, Greece, Russia, the UK, Ukraine, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Yemen, Egypt and Kenya.

[etc]

Did you read the whole article? Bit like a gangland boss saying to you "Sure, you have my permission to take the money from that bank (my cut is 10%)". If you then rob the bank you've still committed the crime.

[AndySir]

You are not actually listening to what I'm saying, Biff. Nor what anybody else says on this topic. You live in Biffworld.

I'm growing more than a little fed up with that attitude, UE. How many more posters are you going to have to dismiss as ignorant or not listening before you recognise the problem is closer to home?

Biff, as always, is absolutely correct in what is possible, what the moral course is and, as always, doesn't have a whelks chance in a supernova of actually happening.

[biffvernon]

Hmm...trying to weigh up the chances for a whelk in a supernova...maybe if it just kept its head tucked in all the bright stuff would just wizz by. You've got to leave room for hope.

[UndercoverElephant]

You are not actually listening to what I'm saying, Biff. Nor what anybody else says on this topic. You live in Biffworld.

I'm growing more than a little fed up with that attitude, UE. How many more posters are you going to have to dismiss as ignorant or not listening before you recognise the problem is closer to home?

As many as who are actually not listening.

I accused you of not listening during a thread about the weakness of a Dawkins-like philosophical position, and I stand by that accusation. As far as Biff is concerned, he's in a minority of one on most of the issues being discussed here.

Biff, as always, is absolutely correct in what is possible, what the moral course is and, as always, doesn't have a whelks chance in a supernova of actually happening.

Then you are agreeing me. Biff lacks any sense of realism. There's no point in planning for a future world where everybody is a vegetarian and African societies suddenly become less violent and corrupt, because it isn't going to happen.

As an aside, you can't just use the word "possible" in this situation explaining what sort of possibility you are talking about. Biff is correct about what might be physically possible, but that's not much use if probability of it actually happening in the real world is zero.

[UndercoverElephant]

Hmm...trying to weigh up the chances for a whelk in a supernova...maybe if it just kept its head tucked in all the bright stuff would just wizz by. You've got to leave room for hope.

Why?

Why leave room for hope where there actually isn't any?

Or more to the point:

Why leave room for hope when not only there actually isn't any, but continuing to have hope leads to a multiplication of the net suffering? In the context of this thread, hope is doing more harm than good.

[biffvernon]

Biff is correct about what might be physically possible,

Thank you.

but that's not much use if probability of it actually happening in the real world is zero.

That's where we differ. I think that the probability is close to but not actually zero. Few things have a probability of zero. If one gives up all hope then the logic of much of one's everyday life is removed. Even the suicide bomber, presumably, has the hope that he will be rewarded in heaven so has a motivation for his action. I find it hard to imagine what life would be like without any hope.

[AndySir]

I think it is important to recognise that we have the power to save both the child now and to give the 3 future children full lives and that we will choose not to do so. The 'real world' which is preventing that course of action is politics and self-interest - our choices at individual, state and global level.

[UndercoverElephant]

Biff is correct about what might be physically possible,

Thank you.

but that's not much use if probability of it actually happening in the real world is zero.

That's where we differ. I think that the probability is close to but not actually zero. Few things have a probability of zero. If one gives up all hope then the logic of much of one's everyday life is removed. Even the suicide bomber, presumably, has the hope that he will be rewarded in heaven so has a motivation for his action. I find it hard to imagine what life would be like without any hope.

I realise that. I don't find it hard to imagine, because it is the reality I live in.

It's not much fun to live without hope (without the sort of hope you have, anyway), but I personally take a very dim view of self-delusion. If you are basing your decisions on hoping for something which is physically possible but so improbable that is might as well be physically impossible, then this looks to me to be indistinguishable from self-delusion. And when we are talking about the sort of things we are usually talking about (i.e. the fate of human civilisation and the ecosystem of Planet Earth) then making decisions based on unrealistic hoping is very dangerous.)

[UndercoverElephant]

I think it is important to recognise that we have the power to save both the child now and to give the 3 future children full lives and that we will choose not to do so. The 'real world' which is preventing that course of action is politics and self-interest - our choices at individual, state and global level.

But that is "the real world." And I say that as a person who believes in free will, unlike yourself. Yes, humans have both the physical and metaphysical capacity to do far better than most of us ever actually manage, and human civilisation does not have to be anything like as nasty and dysfunctional as it has turned out to be, but we can't just pretend that this "real world" isn't the one we are dealing with. We can't change human nature or the nature of global politics. Or at least we can't pretend that everybody-else is going to change, even if we try to change ourselves.

[AndySir]

We can't change human nature or the nature of global politics.

Adopting that, somewhat defeatist, attitude does mean that we will never manage to do any better. The presentation of alternatives as 'unrealistic' is a large part of what makes them unrealistic. I heartily commend Biff for taking the time to point out that it is NOT simply a binary choice between death now and more death later. More so since the man he was trying to convince sits six feet above all contradiction so he had no 'realistic' expectation of any positive results.

[UndercoverElephant]

We can't change human nature or the nature of global politics.

Adopting that, somewhat defeatist, attitude does mean that we will never manage to do any better. The presentation of alternatives as 'unrealistic' is a large part of what makes them unrealistic.

So a large part of the reason why humanity is not going to collectively adopt vegetarianism is because people like me insist that it is unrealistic to believe it is going to happen?

I don't agree.

Is my attitude "defeatist"? All I can say is that I am a realist. There is such a thing as a situation where defeat is inevitable, and when you find yourself in those situations, and you are a realist, then you are likely to end up being accused of defeatism.

[clv101]

Why leave room for hope where there actually isn't any?

You don't know that! If history tells us anything, is that predicting the future is fiendishly hard. You don't have any clearer idea of the absolute truth than any of us. 100 years from now the Horn of Africa could be a nicer place to live than Surrey.

Your attitude contributes to fulfilling your negative prophecy, attitudes like Biff's (as improbable as you think it) challenge that negative view.