In theory, yes, in practice the food would tend to get looted, the farmers killed, and the crops spoiled until a new government emerges that considers keeping people fed to be a higher priority than whatever else they were fighting over.
Of course, "charitable contributions" are a short term solution that actually undermine long term economic solutions.
Free food lowers the economic incentive for farmers to grow food.
I'm not saying bad government isn't an issue because it clearly is. I'm saying that if you removed all government interference, you'd probably still have people starving but for different reasons.
The interesting thing is, to assuming that geoengineering as a solution is impractical as much of the scientific community seems to suggest strikes me as odd being we have basically accidentally geoengineered ourselves into this mess, assuming the current causation theory is correct.
Accidentally changing something is often easier than cleaning up the mess you made. Here's an object lesson in how this works, please remember to execute each step before reading the next step.
1) Get a glass of milk
2) Pour the glass of milk on a carpeted area
3) Now pour it back into the glass
You might notice that step 3 is somewhat more difficult than step 2.
Its only 35 years ago [some] "[Reporters]" and "[Public Speakers]" ([happy] to [insult] your [science] here[,] [rationalists]) [were] telling us we were heading for a new Ice Age.
I've fixed the errors in your statement. I think you'll find reality does not support your point of view.
During the "mini ice age" 300 years ago, the notable feature was the lack of sunspots. Guess what the latest photos of the Sun show - NO sunspots.
Since it's only slightly colder with no sunspots now, and previously no sunspots caused an ice age, logically it should get much, much hotter when the sunspots come back. Do you really bother to think these things through?
Furthermore, we have no way to apply a thermostat to the sun, and it would be very dangerous to try and effect gross changes on our sun as long as we can't replace it easily.
What we can do, is stop the climate change that we're causing so that we don't amplify the negative effects of the sun. Once we have our emissions under control we can then think about trying to compensate for external inputs.
They're gambling. You see when you have nothing and no skills, then children can be a source of wealth. They're cheap unskilled labor, you don't have a job so you lose little income from having them, and if you get lucky and one of your children manages to get a good job then they can care for you in your old age.
They're having children because they have nothing to lose from having children.
Of course, there is an interesting flip side to the government issue. I think the case could be reasonably made that without governments we might actually have a food production and a food distribution problem.
The governments of western nations are responsible for keeping the price of food artificially high to keep farmers in Western Nations in business in the face of competition from developing nations. This has had terrible side effects of poverty and instability in developing nations and has had the positive side effect of not making western nations mostly dependent on importing food.
Why is that important? Because when a global food crisis does appear, nations who have to import food are most likely to starve. The oversupply of food which has devastated the economies of so many developing nations is at least partially attributable to the policies of governments.
Without government intervention it's likely that the world could produce enough food to feed 7 billion people, but wouldn't because the lowest income 1 billion couldn't afford to pay food producers enough to make growing that food attractive.
Not really. In many places the food distribution problem is also caused by lack of governments.
Of course, without governments the lack of food problem would be more evenly distributed around the world. I mean in a libertarian minimalist society people who's labor product is worth less than food starve and (in theory) die. Libertarians frequently forget that a starving, unproductive man will often stab a well-fed, productive man for the contents of his wallet.
That's an interesting question and one that I asked too before I read the article. Looks to me like the exemption is for "the video provider" and later on they explain that the video provider is YouTube and what YouTube does with the tracking cookies.
I'm sure it can easily be updated to include any other video providers they might choose to use.
You got that backwards. Gore won the statewide recount and would have lost on the original recount of the selected counties. Which is immaterial because after Bush's lawyers charged that only recounting a few counties should be considered a violation of the equality of votes, Gore's lawyers asked for a state wide recount instead.
If the Supreme Court hadn't run down the clock to prevent a recount, and then denied the recount on the basis that they deliberately hadn't left enough time to complete one, Gore would have been president in 2000.
Not that it particularly matters at this point, but if you're going to argue about this, you should at least get the facts straight:
Gore would have only won based on a state-wide recount. The limited recounts all gave Bush a very narrow margin of victory.
Interesting note: In most countries a margin of victory as slim as Bush's was in Florida would require, by law, a recount.
Did you read that article you linked? It mentions nothing about the Hoover dam or infrastructure projects. It was about anti-competition laws and laws that strengthened labor unions.
The problem with health insurance is that it doesn't mix well with profit motive. Sick people are bad for profits, thus logically the company wants to get rid of them and improve it's profit motive. Even though doing so negates the value of the service it's supposed to provide.
They're a for profit corporation, as long as the healthy customers are willing to keep paying they not only don't have to care that they're doing a lousy job, they're required by their shareholders to do the worst possible job of paying out benefits they can.
That might be a good thing. If the quality of the software was included in the price, then it'd be much easier to either avoid or put out of business the worst offenders.
1) They have a flash developers and he needs something to do. 2) By embedding the information in flash it makes it take more effort to copy the information out.
I've noticed that every game I've seen advertised for the 360 lately has been cross platform. It's usually rock band or something similar in those commercials.
By that logic, everyone should be developing games for the... PS2?
After all, it's got 5 times the install base of the Wii. The problem with "hardcore" games is that most of the people who like to play them don't actually own a Wii or also own a platform that caters to "hardcore" gamers. So, by producing the game for the Wii, you're either not selling to your target audience. If you go cross platform, your game either looks terrible compared the games on the 360 and PS3 or looks terrible on the Wii compared to PS3 and/or 360 version which naturally hurts sales on the Wii further and makes it less profitable to create the Wii version.
Like most of the people actually faced with this decision, it's just not a good risk to take unless your company name rhymes with Mintendo.
Slashdot Mirror
In theory, yes, in practice the food would tend to get looted, the farmers killed, and the crops spoiled until a new government emerges that considers keeping people fed to be a higher priority than whatever else they were fighting over.
Of course, "charitable contributions" are a short term solution that actually undermine long term economic solutions.
Free food lowers the economic incentive for farmers to grow food.
I'm not saying bad government isn't an issue because it clearly is. I'm saying that if you removed all government interference, you'd probably still have people starving but for different reasons.
The interesting thing is, to assuming that geoengineering as a solution is impractical as much of the scientific community seems to suggest strikes me as odd being we have basically accidentally geoengineered ourselves into this mess, assuming the current causation theory is correct.
Accidentally changing something is often easier than cleaning up the mess you made. Here's an object lesson in how this works, please remember to execute each step before reading the next step.
1) Get a glass of milk
2) Pour the glass of milk on a carpeted area
3) Now pour it back into the glass
You might notice that step 3 is somewhat more difficult than step 2.
You can reproduce in any number you want after you finish inventing economical faster that light transportation. Until then, back to the lab for you!
Its only 35 years ago [some] "[Reporters]" and "[Public Speakers]" ([happy] to [insult] your [science] here[,] [rationalists]) [were] telling us we were heading for a new Ice Age.
I've fixed the errors in your statement. I think you'll find reality does not support your point of view.
During the "mini ice age" 300 years ago, the notable feature was the lack of sunspots. Guess what the latest photos of the Sun show - NO sunspots.
Since it's only slightly colder with no sunspots now, and previously no sunspots caused an ice age, logically it should get much, much hotter when the sunspots come back. Do you really bother to think these things through?
Furthermore, we have no way to apply a thermostat to the sun, and it would be very dangerous to try and effect gross changes on our sun as long as we can't replace it easily.
What we can do, is stop the climate change that we're causing so that we don't amplify the negative effects of the sun. Once we have our emissions under control we can then think about trying to compensate for external inputs.
You can justify any behavior by saying "It hasn't killed me yet".
That doesn't make it a sane justification.
The actual answer is pretty simple:
They're gambling. You see when you have nothing and no skills, then children can be a source of wealth. They're cheap unskilled labor, you don't have a job so you lose little income from having them, and if you get lucky and one of your children manages to get a good job then they can care for you in your old age.
They're having children because they have nothing to lose from having children.
Of course, there is an interesting flip side to the government issue. I think the case could be reasonably made that without governments we might actually have a food production and a food distribution problem.
The governments of western nations are responsible for keeping the price of food artificially high to keep farmers in Western Nations in business in the face of competition from developing nations. This has had terrible side effects of poverty and instability in developing nations and has had the positive side effect of not making western nations mostly dependent on importing food.
Why is that important? Because when a global food crisis does appear, nations who have to import food are most likely to starve. The oversupply of food which has devastated the economies of so many developing nations is at least partially attributable to the policies of governments.
Without government intervention it's likely that the world could produce enough food to feed 7 billion people, but wouldn't because the lowest income 1 billion couldn't afford to pay food producers enough to make growing that food attractive.
Not really. In many places the food distribution problem is also caused by lack of governments.
Of course, without governments the lack of food problem would be more evenly distributed around the world. I mean in a libertarian minimalist society people who's labor product is worth less than food starve and (in theory) die. Libertarians frequently forget that a starving, unproductive man will often stab a well-fed, productive man for the contents of his wallet.
.. same as the old troll?
If that's all the he does to pay back his 4th largest contributor, that'd put him in contention for least corruption politician ever.
I don't think shows anything other than Obama's web staff like using YouTube on the White House web site.
That's an interesting question and one that I asked too before I read the article. Looks to me like the exemption is for "the video provider" and later on they explain that the video provider is YouTube and what YouTube does with the tracking cookies.
I'm sure it can easily be updated to include any other video providers they might choose to use.
You got that backwards. Gore won the statewide recount and would have lost on the original recount of the selected counties. Which is immaterial because after Bush's lawyers charged that only recounting a few counties should be considered a violation of the equality of votes, Gore's lawyers asked for a state wide recount instead.
If the Supreme Court hadn't run down the clock to prevent a recount, and then denied the recount on the basis that they deliberately hadn't left enough time to complete one, Gore would have been president in 2000.
Not that it particularly matters at this point, but if you're going to argue about this, you should at least get the facts straight:
Gore would have only won based on a state-wide recount. The limited recounts all gave Bush a very narrow margin of victory.
Interesting note: In most countries a margin of victory as slim as Bush's was in Florida would require, by law, a recount.
They do, she has it, but she doesn't know how to save as Word document.
Apparently she only called Dell and not Verizon or the College for help with her problems.
Actually, I find things rarely "just work" with Microsoft software. About 66% of it works, and hopefully you never have to use the other 34%.
Someone needs to convince him that he has to explicitly define what words are profane in his bill.
Then were it to get passed, he and everyone who voted for it could be the first people imprisoned by the law.
...
That doesn't change the fact the evidence you cited doesn't support the conclusions you've made.
Did you read that article you linked? It mentions nothing about the Hoover dam or infrastructure projects. It was about anti-competition laws and laws that strengthened labor unions.
The problem with health insurance is that it doesn't mix well with profit motive. Sick people are bad for profits, thus logically the company wants to get rid of them and improve it's profit motive. Even though doing so negates the value of the service it's supposed to provide.
They're a for profit corporation, as long as the healthy customers are willing to keep paying they not only don't have to care that they're doing a lousy job, they're required by their shareholders to do the worst possible job of paying out benefits they can.
I thought they bought from the company with the best steaks and hookers. Wow. Managers these days don't check anything out.
That might be a good thing. If the quality of the software was included in the price, then it'd be much easier to either avoid or put out of business the worst offenders.
I think there's two real reasons:
1) They have a flash developers and he needs something to do.
2) By embedding the information in flash it makes it take more effort to copy the information out.
I've noticed that every game I've seen advertised for the 360 lately has been cross platform. It's usually rock band or something similar in those commercials.
By that logic, everyone should be developing games for the... PS2?
After all, it's got 5 times the install base of the Wii. The problem with "hardcore" games is that most of the people who like to play them don't actually own a Wii or also own a platform that caters to "hardcore" gamers. So, by producing the game for the Wii, you're either not selling to your target audience. If you go cross platform, your game either looks terrible compared the games on the 360 and PS3 or looks terrible on the Wii compared to PS3 and/or 360 version which naturally hurts sales on the Wii further and makes it less profitable to create the Wii version.
Like most of the people actually faced with this decision, it's just not a good risk to take unless your company name rhymes with Mintendo.
From what I understand there's a couple of games that try something like this and the combat was described as boring and uninspired.