Milky Pin-Ups Are Traditional-40’s Pinup Photos Made With High-Speed Milk [NSFW]

Ummm… there _is_ no better possible use for resources.

It’s OK to mean “I live in a rich country and can afford it and I like it that way”; most of us do. But don’t pretend that not helping the rest of the world is some kind of moral achievement.

My morals say that the person who thinks other human beings don’t have value should _definitely_ be the first one we leave to die. Out of common sense.

Oh, you meant that _other_ human beings have no intrinsic value, but _you_ are special and worthy? Like fuck. Disregard for others makes you a liability no matter what else you do or have.

A thousand of you will never equal one Malala Yousafzai – so while we’re “focusing on long-term problems”, why not take all your resources and give them to her? She’ll definitely do something more useful and long-term than you would.

(Answer: because thankfully the rest of us don’t think like you.)

Bonus points for implying that the heat-death of the earth in 600 million years is somehow the real reason you should be self-centred now. Because screwing the rest of humanity and helping yourself will _totally_ improve how we deal with that.

“If we bent the full force of the Earth’s potential towards things like starvation and poverty, yes, we could probably raise the low bar in areas of the world, but at the cost of also limiting the high bar of achievement.”

Ah, _now_ I understand your misconception. And it is – your statement is flat out wrong. It’s a false choice. Not merely false, but the opposite of correct. The _only_ way to raise the high bar is to raise the low.

The biggest thing preventing smart long-term goals – better science, orbital work, leaving the planet – is that the vast majority of our great scientists never get to see a physics textbook; the vast majority
of our genius engineers live in starvation and poverty and never touch a rocket. Only a fraction of the world’s population get to contribute to the problem at all. And that’s a killer.

Science is a cumulative effort, Kevin – more scientists means more progress.

(I took your challenge and asked a rocket engineer – I happen to know one. Not NASA, since I live in the UK, but close enough. She thought it was patently ridiculous to suggest that feeding African children somehow _prevented_ deep space exploration.)

The resource cost to solve the world’s starvation / poverty problem is _tiny_. It’s massively less than the amount we currently waste on guard labour because the problem hasn’t been solved. The wealth we already possess is _far_ more than enough to do the job.

It’s not a fraction of 1% of what the smart long-term infrastructure projects will cost.

(And of course Malala’s impact is yet to be determined – but it’s not zero, or nobody would be shooting at her. It’s certainly more than that of any fool who sits elsewhere going “oh no, we can’t help anyone, improving the world economy would stop us mining the asteroids”.)

The fact that they _noticed_ her disagreeing with them was basis enough.

It’s a subtle point, but an important one. Her work was having an effect already; that’s why they were angry.

“What happens when you solve a starvation problem without solving cultural problems including over population?”

Well, historically, what happens is that those problems solve themselves, _very_ quickly. Because overpopulation isn’t a “cultural” problem, it’s a poverty problem. (How was the overpopulation problem “solved” in the US? It didn’t need to be; rich people self-regulate the number of children they have, very effectively. It’s only poor people who don’t have a choice.)

Yes, raising education and food supply is very expensive. But armies are much more so, and we pay for those without blinking. The estimated total cost of the Iraq/Afghanistan War (including interest on loans taken to pay for it, etc.) is over $3.2 _trillion_. Even if you only count the direct spending – money actually spent directly on the army by the DoD – the figure is over $750 billion.

If a school building in Iraq cost $10million, and each school needed 50 staff (it doesn’t) paid $100,000 a year (obviously, real wages are nothing like this high), that $750 billion would have been enough money for 12,500 schools during the same period.

Do you think we might _possibly_ have had better results in the area by funding 12,000 schools than by bombing large parts of it flat? ‘Cause I do.

By comparison to your fraction of a percent on space exploration, 25% of the US labour economy is in “guard labour” – than is, either unemployment or work which produces nothing, gains no knowledge, and keeps poor people busy protecting the property of the rich. (Yes, that’s hyperbole… but the amount isn’t; look it up.)

As for solving starvation: there is _already_ enough food. The starvation problem has nothing to do with agricultural capacity and everything to do with corruption, violence and a few parasitic corporations.

(And why do we spend nothing on space? You _know_ the answer to that, Kevin – it’s because politicians don’t care about anything that doesn’t pay off before the next election, and the population are too busy being distracted by artificial crises to make them.)

This is true. Your proposed solution appears to be “ignore that problem, hope it goes away, and despise humans generally in the mean time”. I suggest that this will not, in fact, lead to asteroid mining.

If you want humans to work on the long term, you need to (a) educate them, and (b) not have them be too busy trying to stay alive this week. Hence, the urgent need to help other people instead of sitting around feeling superior.

Fixing global education and starvation problems is the cheapest, easiest, most reliable way to improve our technical advancement. It is cheaper and more productive than ANYTHING else we can do. You are flat out, completely, wrong.

It’s only the arrogance of privilege that lets you look at that mass of engineers, mathematicians and scientists – none of whom will ever contribute anything to our advancement – and say “isn’t a problem”.

All our advancement to date was achieved by the less than 5% of the species in a position to do so. Give the other 95% a chance to engineer… and we make 20 times as much progress.

The vast majority of the technical capability of the human species is wasted because the people who have it are too busy starving.

In my youth, the world was going to end due to starvation – induced
by overpopulation – and that most certainly would all take place by the
year 2000. (I didn’t believe it then either, but lots of people did.)
And while I’m ranting, I should also mention that in the old history
books, the earth was claimed to be much younger and the dinosaurs lived
not nearly so long ago as the books now claim. It amazes me how carbon
dating done today can yield such a different result in yesteryear – the
process is done the same way as before ( so the “better technology now
days” card can’t be played here). And what is the definition of
insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different
result? Perhaps not. Perhaps real insanity is doing the same test over
and over and getting a drastically different result that then gets
believed by millions of us. My point is, experts have a poor track
record in the truth telling department, so don’t swallow everything you
hear, because the experts are sometimes not even as accurate as 1960’s
weathermen. The fact is, and it is a fact, the entire current population
of the earth could be fed sufficiently if the entire Canadian province
of Saskatchewan was put under cultivation. The real problem is the same
problem as there has nearly always been – greed leading to corruption.
And the result of corruption, mingled with greed, is that the poor and
powerless suffer and die. And until everyone gets that and then behaves
themselves, no amount of food will save us. Greed and corruption only
lead one place – and if you look back at history, I won’t have to tell
you what that unhappy place is.

Just a thought or two while you all argue among yourselves from such shaky positions of supposed strength. Be careful who’s wagon you hitch yourself to.
Davis

http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2013/03/04/africas-food-markets-could-create-one-trillion-dollar-opportunity-2030