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While I have no argument with you that self determination is the best way forward, the automatic assumption that colonialism was an umitigated disaster is also false. See one of my earlier posts discussiong what I found on Gapminder.

So you went from a meaningless metric like 40% of median income when comparing nations, to another nation-specific metric...

..and your link is to an opinion piece, whose citation is a broken link.

Is it really this hard to show that America is bad?

Then you go on about being in "the bottom 10% among western nations", which can be translated as "doing very well" ...

GDP/Capita vs Human Development Index. The graph shows that America is not out of line at all, contrary to your citeless claims.

...and you mentioned health care...

GDP/Capita vs Health Spending/Capita. America again is right on the line along with everyone else.

In both of these cases, we can predict with very good accuracy both the HDI score as well as health care spending per person for any country in the world, just by knowing its GDP/Capita. America isnt out of line.. your claims are.

Then you go on about education and other non-privatized things.. um, hello? Are you suggesting that because our public education system has failed, that we should try something else... like a private education system? Exactly what are you saying?

So you went from a meaningless metric like 40% of median income when comparing nations, to another nation-specific metric...

..and your link is to an opinion piece, whose citation is a broken link.

Is it really this hard to show that America is bad?

Then you go on about being in "the bottom 10% among western nations", which can be translated as "doing very well" ...

GDP/Capita vs Human Development Index. The graph shows that America is not out of line at all, contrary to your citeless claims.

...and you mentioned health care...

GDP/Capita vs Health Spending/Capita. America again is right on the line along with everyone else.

In both of these cases, we can predict with very good accuracy both the HDI score as well as health care spending per person for any country in the world, just by knowing its GDP/Capita. America isnt out of line.. your claims are.

Then you go on about education and other non-privatized things.. um, hello? Are you suggesting that because our public education system has failed, that we should try something else... like a private education system? Exactly what are you saying?

Funny. I just did a quick comparison of Kenya's stats in Gapminder to the dates listed in Wikipedia concerning major Kenyan historical events. From 1800-1922, life expectancy was flat and income was growing. After a 5 year dip in life expectancy from 1922-1927, both rose continuously all the way to 1983. Life expectancy went from 26 to 60.

From 1983-1988, life expectancy was flat again while income per person rose slowly. From 1988-2000, income per person was flat while life expectancy dropped to 52. 2001-2010, both rose again. Life expectancy still hasn't rebounded all the way back to its peak but it's moving in the right direction.

According to Wikipedia, Kenya became a German, then British colonial possession in 1885. It regained its independence in 1963. Based upon the data available, it looks to me as if being a colony was at worst a neutral function of people's lives. If anything, I think a strong case can be made that colonialization was an extremely positive influence for the long term health and well being of its populace. Similar tracks can be seen for virtually every African country that was formed from an old European colony.

Mind you, I'm NOT suggesting that self determination was a mistake. Far from it. I'm merely pointing out that the notion that European colonization of Africa was inherently damaging simply isn't borne out by the facts.

Going WAY off topic here, but there is one major facet that you've forgotten about; healthcare. The U.S. spends nearly twice as much as other industrialized nations for a demonstrably worse result in almost every measure. I've chosen to graph life expectancy versus % of GDP as the most obvious way of highlighting the point, but there are dozens if not hundreds of other variables available to use.

I strongly urge you to spend some time looking at some of the other variables. Watch what happens over time. There is very clearly a correlation between overall health and wellbeing of a nation and its internal politics. Another example that clearly demonstrates this is maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births) versus GDP per capita. Watch what happens in the U.S. after the 1980 and 1996 elections. These are both elections when so-called 'lesser government' ideologues gained additional political power and were able to push their agendas through legislation and manipulating political appointments. Pretty damning results, I'd say.

Going WAY off topic here, but there is one major facet that you've forgotten about; healthcare. The U.S. spends nearly twice as much as other industrialized nations for a demonstrably worse result in almost every measure. I've chosen to graph life expectancy versus % of GDP as the most obvious way of highlighting the point, but there are dozens if not hundreds of other variables available to use.

I strongly urge you to spend some time looking at some of the other variables. Watch what happens over time. There is very clearly a correlation between overall health and wellbeing of a nation and its internal politics. Another example that clearly demonstrates this is maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births) versus GDP per capita. Watch what happens in the U.S. after the 1980 and 1996 elections. These are both elections when so-called 'lesser government' ideologues gained additional political power and were able to push their agendas through legislation and manipulating political appointments. Pretty damning results, I'd say.

In the US, healthcare isn't about getting people better, it's about maximising profits.

I have investigated this but could not find substantial evidence that the U.S. was significantly different from most other countries. That isnt to say that in the U.S. it isnt about profit, its to say that health care spending is surprisingly predictable simply based on the wealth of the people regardless of the country.

Here is a graph of health spending vs GDP/Capita.

The United States is right on the line with most everyone else, and those not near the line each have remarkable economic and political situations (oil rich nations, countries in political turmoil, bankrupt economies, etc..)

You hear you claim that HDI isnt linked with GDP/Capita.

Please explain why the correlation is so strong.

(may require Java?)

Only very recently did China surpass the U.S. in total CO2 emissions. Measured per capita the U.S. is still way in the lead. Nice animated chart om Gapminder: CO2 emissions since 1820

I think that the OP is painting with a broad brush, but what the rest of the web can learn from Craigslist is that you should let the content of your site drive its design, rather than shoehorning the content into whatever gizmos seem coolest.

Certainly there is content that needs some complex underlying technology to be presented at its best. Your example might be great ones, I don't use them, but I'd say something like Gapminder.org fits as well. But for every one of those there are probably 50 sites that would benefit from being simplified. Slashdot would. I just ordered some dress shirts and can say that Biased Cut, at best, makes dumb use of whizzy gadgets. I encounter far more sites where the gadgets just get in the way, or slow me down, than I do ones that are too simple.

In the last 100 years crop yields have dramatical increased. If we had used your argument at any time in the last 100 years, we would have massive famine in a decade. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/agr_cer_yie_kg_per_hec-cereal-yield-kg-per-hectare http://www.gapminder.org/labs/gapminder-agriculture/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=30;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=3.31483870967742;ti=2005$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1jiMAkmq1iMg;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=r67I2b0XlvDxkRoC1Jspz1A;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=20;iid=rlnTLt1ZGHEMuq0-l2DPfAA;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID0;by=grp$map_x;scale=log;dataMin=273;dataMax=95395$map_y;scale=lin;dataMin=63;dataMax=9789$map_s;sma=50;smi=1$cd;bd=0$inds=

It's a crappy straw man to throw out a generalization like "the last 100 years". I'm speaking of today, not some random time between 1911 and 2011.

Today we actually grow more calories worldwide than we need to feed all of humanity; we just waste too much of it. I'm not saying that was true in 1941, and it's complete obfuscation to suggest that I was.

Today we have vaccines for all but a half-dozen epidemic diseases, and reasonable means of controlling or severely reducing most of that remaining handful (if those means were fully practiced). We've even completely eradicated two infections diseases (the second was recent, and IIRC not infectious to humans but to horses, but it still demonstrates progress). I'm not saying that was true in 1941, either.

Don't dismiss me as some sort of rosy-eyed Luddite; I'm only saying that better social cooperation and "best practices" implementation can be of much more value in improving life right now than further research, not that further research is pointless or that we never should have done the science of the last 100 years.

There is no middle class now? Thats not what the Democrats tell me.

The facts are different than your claims. The Democrats keep saying that the middle class is being "eroded", yet the middle class is richer now than they were 30 years ago, with a higher standard of living, greater life expectancy, and so on.

Educate yourself with the software and data-set of a world-renowned socio-economic guru.

Stop listening to what the Democrats say, and start watching what they do. They appeal to your emotions in order to get you to dislike their opposition.. the problem is that the appeals are not honest. You've been told that before and had no trouble ignoring what people said in that case. Do the same for the Democrats. Stop listening and start watching.

Sure, because people that already have NOTHING cannot easily walk away from rising sea levels. What an ignorant douche you are.

You idiot global warming fuckers living in your cushy western palaces have no fucking concept of reality. You just have this pet theory and cry and cry because nobody takes that unimportant bullshit seriously when there are problems in the world that put even your nightmare global warming scenarios to shame.

You know whats evil? Your fucking inaction.

Pink Floyd wrote a song about you.. On the Turning Away.

You know what carbon dioxide emissions do? THEY LIFT PEOPLE OUT OF POVERTY, ASSHOLE.

Here is my citation, ignorant eco-dipshit. Watch the whole fucking thing, This world renowned man has even visualization software available. Use it for at least an hour. Now, after doing all that.. GO SIT IN YOUR BEDROOM AND CRY ABOUT HOW BRAINWASHED AND IGNORANT YOU HAVE BEEN.

Actually broadband is a good indicator of whether you in fact live in a backwater shithole.

Your suggested strategy sounds great, and also may be its a very good milestone.
However according to Hans Rosling it is child mortality we need to focus on. We reduce child mortality considerably the population will stop growing. He has some interesting statistics and estimations on this. They are available on his website too

Actually, according to UN projection, the population should stabilise at around 9 billions. If the so-called first world is any indication, the population will then start to decrease.

http://www.gapminder.org/videos/reducing-child-mortality-a-moral-and-environmental-imperative/

Also, wars are no good to cull populations. Never were, never will be -- unless we all die.

From Gapminder.Org for 2006:

UK life expectancy 80 years. % of GDP spent on healthcare: 8.4%

US life expectancy 78 years. % of GDP spent on healthcare: 15%

In fact, the ONLY country in the world who spends more on healthcare as a percentage of GDP than the US is Timor-Leste at 16%. Most of the so-called 'socialist' medical plans are MUCH MUCH cheaper than the US and provide FAR better results. In fact, Every. Single. Country. who has a longer life expectancy than the US has a nationalized healthcare system that costs much less than ours. Why the HELL aren't the Dems hammering on this point?

Posted by a somewhat bitter US citizen who knows the answer but still doesn't like it. :-(

Saying America is not the best at anything is blasphemy.

Spend some time on Gapminder.Org. The data is all pulled from publicly available sources so it's easy to independently verify what that site can show you. A short perusal of the site will quickly make it obvious just how much those of us in the US are being cheated by the big insurance companies.

From Gapminder.Org for 2006:

UK life expectancy 80 years. % of GDP spent on healthcare: 8.4%

US life expectancy 78 years. % of GDP spent on healthcare: 15%

In fact, the ONLY country in the world who spends more on healthcare as a percentage of GDP than the US is Timor-Leste at 16%. Most of the so-called 'socialist' medical plans are MUCH MUCH cheaper than the US and provide FAR better results. In fact, Every. Single. Country. who has a longer life expectancy than the US has a nationalized healthcare system that costs much less than ours. Why the HELL aren't the Dems hammering on this point?

Posted by a somewhat bitter US citizen who knows the answer but still doesn't like it. :-(

Ugh, URL error: "the data" should link to http://www.gapminder.org/

Hans Rosling has some some quite convincing numbers & arguments why population isn't soaring (much longer, anyways)

Make sure you study the historical trends documented at http://www.gapminder.org/>Gapminder.Org before beginning your coloring. :-)

If sugar is so prevalent, and so incredibly deadly, our life expectancy should be dropping as refined sugars become more available. Let's see if that's true:

Life expectancy in the United States, the most sugar-fortified country on Earth, for the past 200 years (click "play")

NO.

Oh internet, how short your memory. Hans Rosling has already comprehensively debunked fears of a population explosion, all we need to do is elevate the third world out of poverty and the population will stabilise permanently at 9-12 billion.

http://www.gapminder.org/videos/hans-rosling-ted-2006-debunking-myths-about-the-third-world/

First, because wealth distribution is probably the single best predictor of both general quality of life and levels of violent crime in a country.

You got a citation for the quality of life part?

The countries with the greatest economic freedoms are also the countries with the greatest life expectancies (ex: Japan, Hong Kong, ..), and it is also highly correlated with greatest per capita GDP levels.

The "evil" countries with economic freedom are doing quite well. You may not want to admit it, so here is a god damned citation

Wealth disparity leads to higher rates of violent crime and lower rates of self reported happiness according to almost every sociological study to ever consider the topic. The correlation is extreme.

Self reported happiness? What kind of hogwash shit is that? Sounds to me like a measure of jealousy and it also sounds like it has no bearing on the quality of life of people.

Standard of living is a very flexible term and studies show exactly opposite results based upon how someone decides to measure it.

In other words, you failed to cite the stuff and even then feel that you have to qualify the un-cited sources as contradictory bullshit.

No, it's science. Maybe you should have read the Slashdot thread in the previous article about engineers and scientists in politics and how science is ignored.

Apparently you failed to learn what science is. Go to my citation above and play around. If you find your smoking gun, then let us have it. Pay particular attention to the Human Development Index as it related to GDP per person.

Contrary to popular belief, Americans are fucking very well off in spite of your rantings based on economic "hes too rich" jealousy.

"Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded"?

A non-trivial number of us must want to live in cities, else real estate there would be cheaper. If you look at census data for blobs-O-people (50K units, or larger), a minimum of 1/3 of the US population lives in density greater than or equal to 2000 people per square mile. (This is a minimum, because the 25,000 people living in my town, are not counted, nor are people living in nearby, dense, sub-50K towns.) 2000 per square mile is Lexington, MA, complete with office parks etc. It might not be that dense. It is, however, the density of Assen in the Netherlands, where they manage a bicycle trip share of 40% -- so it's clearly dense enough for many people to get out of their cars.

Charts, pointers to data, here.

You can also find other versions of this data at gapminder.org. Their claim is that we are less dense that quite a few countries (UK, Japan, France, Germany, South Korea) but that a higher fraction of our population is "urban" (82%, seems high, like to know how they define "urban").

You'd like to be able to play with his graphs you say? Here you go.

second let's have a non-logarithm axes for a typical unit that is thought of as linear... money.

As an FYI, if you want to see this same data with a linear scale, go to http://www.gapminder.org/world. By default, the x-axis has a logarithmic scale but can be changed to a linear one. Also, the data points can be changed per axis (for example, income per person on the x-axis can be changed to children per woman).

Developed country population growth will not stop without closed borders, which is not politically fashionable. Developing country population growth will not stop without massive increases in wealth, which has real physical limits. Barring epidemics or massive warfare, how do you envision population growth stopping? Because nowhere on Earth is it stopping voluntarily.

This is the central flaw of Malthusianism. If you look at this graph, you'll see that population growth (births/woman) slows down as you get richer, with some noted exceptions in cases of religion. This means that wealth = no population growth.

There are clearly limits to wealth. The question is how big they are. History shows us that they are a lot bigger than we think. Here is the question. What would happen if everyone had a US style suburban home. The answer is that the only thing stopping it is energy. This is because our suburbs are powered by fossil fuels, not renewables. If we changed the equation and switched to renewables, 10 billion people could live in suburbia. 10 billion americans = 100 terawatts. The solar influx to the earth = 175,000 terrawatts. The prices of metals are all going down, meaning that they are getting less scarce.

"Innovation" currently goes almost exclusively into creating new consumer trinkets, healthcare and military applications which destroy wealth, increase lifespan and consumption, and create resource shortages.

A lot of innovation is going into producing the hated consumer trinkets, but much is going into renewables and finding new reserves of metals.

Fertility (Children per Woman)

Education (Years, Men)

Education (Years, Women)

Fertility (Children per Woman)

Education (Years, Men)

Education (Years, Women)

Fertility (Children per Woman)

Education (Years, Men)

Education (Years, Women)

All that data is available. Turns out he's not some asshole saying "Trust me on this, you don't need to see anything." He's got a site where you can play with his data in his amazing graphing software, http://www.gapminder.org/. You can toy with the graph and run it backwards and forwards, and break out the information, you can download the raw data in excel format or view it on the web. All Creative Commons licensed.

It is quite open and available, and not hard to find to anyone willing to do even a cursory amount of research. Just key his name in to Google.

To me it seems like the GP isn't actually interested, just being a pedant whiner. "Oh his methods are flawed and it is too simple!" Of COURSE it is simple, it is a 4 minute spot for the BBC. It is not a dour academic presentation. That doesn't mean there isn't good data behind it, or that it isn't available. If you actually care, well then I'd say you should do research. After all that is what we are talking about. In this case, literally all you'd need to do is key "Hans Rosling" in to Google and the first site is his, with all the data and so on.

To the parent: Good analysis of why the GP is incorrect about his complaints.

To the grand parent: STFU and spend 30 seconds doing some research before being a pedantic whiner. If you care about facts and accuracy the least you could do is get them yourself.

Here you go:
Children per woman vs. Income
Children per woman vs. Literacy rate

Here you go:
Children per woman vs. Income
Children per woman vs. Literacy rate

To a certain extent, you can create your own graphs with Hans Rosling's software from http://www.gapminder.org/

You can play with the data used to create this graph on his website. Very highly configurable...Warning: serious prodictivity killer.

No, the 19th and 20th centuries were essentially the same in terms of wealth creation:
actual history of the increase in wealth in the US over two centuries

You seem to fear hyperinflation. Worry not, the US will end up like Japan: high debt, high unemployment, no inflation. Of course, it will be worse, because the social safety net in the US is much weaker. But hey, you approve of that, no?

You seem to think the gold standard is a good idea. It is not. There are no reason whatsoever to think that the availability of an ore can be magically adjusted to fit the economy's need.

You seem to think China is a freer market than the US: HAHAHAHAHA. Seriously, person.

For your edification, imagine the following. A tiny universe. it has a bank, a central bank and a worker.

The worker needs one unit of credit to produce two units of value. He starts off with nothing, and goes to the bank to borrow the unit. The bank has nothing and goes to the central bank to borrow the unit. The central bank prints the unit and emits one unit of debt. the bank lends the unit to the worker, who produces. He puts the product in the bank, who does not reimburse the central bank, but rather buys the debt, and uses that to further borrow something to lend to the worker, who produces. Note that the net of the two banks is 0, the worker has produced four, two of which went to the bank. The money in circulation is 4, only two of which were printed. There was no inflation, which is not desirable -- but hey :)

This is how value gets created out of nothing (actually, out of work and creativity). because in the end, money is created as the economy grows, and it doesn't matter. Only the actual goods and services produced (and consumed -- the system breaks down if the worker's work is not used up: a demand shock). Debt is irrelevant: in this example, riches are added to the system at the same rate as debt, but the ratio of debt to riches is constant.

Money is just a convenient counter for value. Nothing else. Fiat money is so much more flexible and convenient than gold it's not funny. Why would you want to prevent the amount of bills to grow with the economy rather than with the production of gold? This makes no sense.

Oh, no. Not the same standard of living. Not remotely.

We live much, much better. In fact, if you want to live with all the gadgets from the 60s, you don't need double income. You probably only need part of the first income. data

Do we live better? well, living better depends not only on income, but also health and education. And there was significant progress. more data -- but only since the 80s, although I will submit to you this interesting graph of child mortality: graph .

So what is obvious to you is in fact plain wrong. And this is a big issue, because you are not the only one: hardly anyone looks at the actual data to decide whether things are really getting worse. BTW, one of the things is getting worse in the US these days, and that is inequality. Look for the graphs showing the gini coefficient.

And before I conclude, one last graph, showing the effect of women's education on family size -- because you are arguing, whether you realise it or not, that half of the potential workforce should get no education. And sadly, this half will be women. graph Push the play button. Largish families of the sixties and stay-at-home mothers are a consequence of a largely uneducated female population, forced in that role. And it's a guy telling you that.

Oh, no. Not the same standard of living. Not remotely.

We live much, much better. In fact, if you want to live with all the gadgets from the 60s, you don't need double income. You probably only need part of the first income. data

Do we live better? well, living better depends not only on income, but also health and education. And there was significant progress. more data -- but only since the 80s, although I will submit to you this interesting graph of child mortality: graph .

So what is obvious to you is in fact plain wrong. And this is a big issue, because you are not the only one: hardly anyone looks at the actual data to decide whether things are really getting worse. BTW, one of the things is getting worse in the US these days, and that is inequality. Look for the graphs showing the gini coefficient.

And before I conclude, one last graph, showing the effect of women's education on family size -- because you are arguing, whether you realise it or not, that half of the potential workforce should get no education. And sadly, this half will be women. graph Push the play button. Largish families of the sixties and stay-at-home mothers are a consequence of a largely uneducated female population, forced in that role. And it's a guy telling you that.

Oh, no. Not the same standard of living. Not remotely.

We live much, much better. In fact, if you want to live with all the gadgets from the 60s, you don't need double income. You probably only need part of the first income. data

Do we live better? well, living better depends not only on income, but also health and education. And there was significant progress. more data -- but only since the 80s, although I will submit to you this interesting graph of child mortality: graph .

So what is obvious to you is in fact plain wrong. And this is a big issue, because you are not the only one: hardly anyone looks at the actual data to decide whether things are really getting worse. BTW, one of the things is getting worse in the US these days, and that is inequality. Look for the graphs showing the gini coefficient.

And before I conclude, one last graph, showing the effect of women's education on family size -- because you are arguing, whether you realise it or not, that half of the potential workforce should get no education. And sadly, this half will be women. graph Push the play button. Largish families of the sixties and stay-at-home mothers are a consequence of a largely uneducated female population, forced in that role. And it's a guy telling you that.

Oh, no. Not the same standard of living. Not remotely.

We live much, much better. In fact, if you want to live with all the gadgets from the 60s, you don't need double income. You probably only need part of the first income. data

Do we live better? well, living better depends not only on income, but also health and education. And there was significant progress. more data -- but only since the 80s, although I will submit to you this interesting graph of child mortality: graph .

So what is obvious to you is in fact plain wrong. And this is a big issue, because you are not the only one: hardly anyone looks at the actual data to decide whether things are really getting worse. BTW, one of the things is getting worse in the US these days, and that is inequality. Look for the graphs showing the gini coefficient.

And before I conclude, one last graph, showing the effect of women's education on family size -- because you are arguing, whether you realise it or not, that half of the potential workforce should get no education. And sadly, this half will be women. graph Push the play button. Largish families of the sixties and stay-at-home mothers are a consequence of a largely uneducated female population, forced in that role. And it's a guy telling you that.

There is a continuum of countries between the OECD and Zimbabwe.

http://www.gapminder.org/downloads/gapminder-world-map/

In fact, putting all of central Africa in a lump is silly. There is more difference now within central Africa than there used to be between the first and third world in the 60s...

Why do you assume I vote Republican? Actually, I voted for Cynthia McKinney in the last election, and Nader in years before, mostly as a protest vote. :-) I'm in a "safe state" so I knew the Democrats would win in those states anyway.

Do you see how your assumptions could be part of the problem? Also, Democrats, like Republicans, are a big part of the problem... Democrats are not engaging with these bigger trends. Obama is a mostly a corporatist and upholder of a broken status-quo relative to what we could see. Look at who he put in charge of US economic policy (people from Wall Street). Look who he put in charge of "education" reform (people from big schools). He's also a militarist -- within three days, he used military killer robots (drones) in a way that lead to the (claimed) deaths of three children.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5575883.ece
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/features/view/feature/Obama-Finds-Predator-Drones-Hilarious-1171
Solutions to moving beyond that:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html

You're not engaging with the factual information I presented (as factual as stuff is from the US Government http://www.shadowstats.com/ ). Why? Is it perhaps just too unsettling to think about the implications? Those jobs and population figures are not much of calculations as a statement of facts as presented by the US government and a simple prediction of population growth the next decade based on the last decade.

It's true there are retirements coming up, but that is not going to fix the big trend. And in the short term (next decade) many people in the USA lost much of their retirement nest egg and are working longer, either postponing retirement or going back to work after the had retirement (incidentally, depressing wages).

So, again, where are thirty million net new jobs going to come from in the USA over the next decade?

Are you suggesting people stop trying to make sense of macroeconomic trends? Sure, doing volunteer stuff etc. is great, and I do, but you also just can't stick your head in the sand. Also, how can anyone start a business and hope for success in it if the fundamental dynamics of the economy are changing and they are not aware of it?

Also, if you look at the basic demographics of what is going on in the world (see Hans Rosling), you will see that "foreigners" are rapidly increasing in their ability to produce their own stuff. The USA has very little relative advantage anymore, the way it did when it was the only major intact economy after WWII.
    http://www.gapminder.org/
    http://www.ted.com/speakers/hans_rosling.html
And, you'd also see that even China is automating to cut labor costs...
    http://www.plasticsnews.com/china/english/headlines2.html?id=1278958338

Anyway, you might want to think about how you are filtering, spinning, and assuming information here.

The good news is, this all helps me get a better sense of how to present things, so thanks.

Just for gigles, go look at gapminder. See http://www.gapminder.org/world/?PHPSESSID=kinokshem5859bcbqa0iv1v1h3#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=21;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=6;ti=2006$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1jiMAkmq1iMg;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1gkNuUEXOGag;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=8.21;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1NHPC9MyZ9SQ;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID0;iid=pyj6tScZqmEfbZyl0qjbiRQ;by=grp$map_x;scale=log;dataMin=294;dataMax=76977$map_y;scale=log;dataMin=-1.2196;dataMax=26$map_s;sma=58;smi=1$cd;bd=0$inds=;modified=6 Your argument is a bit silly. It it like a glutton complaining that his neighbors their 3 children eat more than he does, so they should be the ones to go on a diet. Yes, 1.32 billion Chinese use more energy than 0.31 billion Americans. Are we so special that we deserve 4x the CO2 per capita as the rest of the world?

We are obviously on opposite ends of the political spectrum. You seem to be some sort of anarchist, mutualist or just generally socialist while I'm a minarchist with anarcho-capitalist leanings. So there is almost zero chance of either of us denting the other's opinions and views.

I consider most of what you wrote so insanely contra-factual and fantastic that I'm not even going to respond to the claims that I consider more difficult to oppose as I don't see much point in even trying to debate when we are so far apart.

No need, we know the wealth was generated. The problem is, ALL of it is in the hands of a tiny minority, NOT in the hands of "humanity". True there was a lot less wealth in the world before the 1800's, but just as true- that wealth was MUCH more evenly distributed, and it was in constant motion. The difference between the rich and the poor was fairly small and nobody HAD to starve.

I'm not saying the entire world is wealthy, only the countries with decent institutions and freedoms (i.e. capitalism) have most of the wealth. BUT even the poorest of today in capitalist countries have a living standard (in some or most ways) that is higher than even the rich had in the 1800's. Granted much of this is due to industrialism but it isn't a fluke that the capitalist west is the most industrialized.

Not having enough food or at least toiling 12 hours a day in the fields for just enough to eat and not much else was the norm. And that's if there wasn't a drought or some other calamity that disturbed the cultivation. You need to go to gapminder and look at actual stats to realize how fucking far off the mark you are. http://www.gapminder.org/

To me - I say you measure the success of an economy NOT by it's total size. Not by it's corporate profits. None of that shit matters. What matters is - how many people EAT today. How many people got that plate of food with honest labor ?

I make shit wages. I do various physical labor but mostly construction. I'm more or less the equivalent of a Mexican outside a hardware store in the US but with more job security. I need to work about two hours to eat (very well) in a day. If we're talking the cheapest possible but still nutritious (as in calories, proteins and vitamins not the whole foods kind of nutritious) I could probably get away with half an hour worth of labor. Food is not a problem in the capitalist parts of the world.

Just how naive must you be to think that all, let alone MOST trade in the world today is voluntary ? Do you really think that sweatshop workers CHOOSE to work the way they do ? That there is benefit ? To them ? The whole point of predation and exploitation is to leave the other party with no CHOICE but to trade with you, EVEN at their own detriment.

Trade by definition must be voluntary (voluntary in this case=without external coercion) otherwise it would not be trade. It would be called forcible exchange of goods or something like that.

Of course the sweatshop workers choose to work in sweatshops! The alternative is starving or toiling in the fields for 12 hours a day. Or working for some local firm which pays much poorer wages than a western company does. All the western world had sweatshops in the dawn of industrialization and there was no-one forcing people to work in the factories or the cottage industries. People voluntarily moved from a life of being farmers to a life of being industrial workers.

Pure capitalism demands an unemployment rate of around 20% - because that is great for corporate profits (as long as you only care about the really HUGE companies of course).

Pure capitalism demands an unemployment rate that is equal to the percentage of people who are unwilling to work at current wages or are in the process of switching jobs.

But to me the most successfull economies is countries like Sweden and De

Those indexes are biased since they neglect key aspects of human happiness like community; health; external costs like pollution, systemic risk, and defense that businesses often pass on to society; and the corrupting effects of the concentraation of wealth in a few hands as the rich get richer -- things implicit in the original poster's comment.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

From:
    http://www.amconmag.com/article/2005/mar/14/00017/
"""
The most fundamental problem with libertarianism is very simple: freedom, though a good thing, is simply not the only good thing in life. Simple physical security, which even a prisoner can possess, is not freedom, but one cannot live without it. Prosperity is connected to freedom, in that it makes us free to consume, but it is not the same thing, in that one can be rich but as unfree as a Victorian tycoon's wife. A family is in fact one of the least free things imaginable, as the emotional satisfactions of it derive from relations that we are either born into without choice or, once they are chosen, entail obligations that we cannot walk away from with ease or justice. But security, prosperity, and family are in fact the bulk of happiness for most real people and the principal issues that concern governments.
"""

Like many conservatives, they leave out community and health as part of a good life, but otherwise it's a great essay.

Hans Rosling has shown that many materially poor countries have made great progress towards building prosperous and healthy societies under a variety of political assumptions (often ones that emphasize social welfare).
    http://www.gapminder.org/
    http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty.html

Another index:
http://www.rprogress.org/sustainability_indicators/genuine_progress_indicator.htm

As the value of human labor continues to fall from automation, better design, and voluntary social netwoks, we will need new models of prosperity that are not mainly about "every person for themselves". Freedom is also not very secure or meaningful without face-to-face community, which is often just assumed, but seems rarer these days as our individualized consumer-oriented society fails in so many ways.

I agree most of the world's problems are social problems (even if better technology can make some social problems easier to solve through increasing abundance).

On people never having enough, Maslow's hierarchy of needs suggests otherwise:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
"Maslow studied what he called exemplary people such as Albert Einstein, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Frederick Douglass rather than mentally ill or neurotic people, writing that "the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy." Maslow also studied the healthiest 1% of the college student population."

The needs near the top of the pyramid, like self-actualization, often don't take much material goods to realize them. They are often even about creating a surplus of goods for everyone. The problem is that between schooling and advertising, US Americans have been kept from maturing and growing in other than consumerist ways... Consider how Hans Rosling talks here about how many other non-US societies have managed to increase social equity and health without so much material stuff:
  http://www.gapminder.org/videos/ted-talks/hans-rosling-ted-talk-2007-seemingly-impossible-is-possible

Fixing poverty is the best population control.

http://www.gapminder.org/videos/what-stops-population-growth/

If we have to feed $Y millions this year, and 1.1 * $Y millions the next, and so on, we're not making any progress.

If population growth is the only thing that improves, I might agree with you. Is that really the case though? What about measuring the amount of sick people that need treatment? You act as if people is merely a burden rather than a resource.

For instance, the massive amount of donated clothes destroys the clothing industry in those places.

Only if all the following conditions exist:

There actually IS a clothing industry in whatever place we're talking about.
The clothing is actually donated rather than someone just buying clothing locally.
The people who can't afford clothing would have somehow went out and bought it rather than continue to wear rags.
A significant portion of the clothing in the theoretical clothing industry is sold internally rather than exported

Given that we're talking about economically depressed region, I'd say at least one of those conditions isn't going to apply.

Feed people once, then make sure they can keep feeding themselves without further intervention.

How long is once? And what makes you think progress hasn't been made? The world is a big place, and expecting everything everywhere to just turn around in a few decades isn't realistic. If you really think no progress has been made in these countries, I'd suggest taking a look over at gap minder