Africa is giving nothing to anyone -- apart from AIDS (2008) | Hacker News Reader

Africa is giving nothing to anyone -- apart from AIDS (2008)

independent.ie

24 pointstheoden15 comments

It's incorrect to blame the Africans. Aid failed not because people there are somewhat less civilized (hypersexual bullshit), but because foreign aid money is feeding the dictators that maintain the system. The big cash doesn't come from exports, but from naive westerners feeding them aid money. That way, whatever leader crops up, he would have a stake in maintaining a poor, half-starving people.

Africans are no different human beings, they're just subjected to the same incentives everyone else is.

While that's an argument which sounds good, I find myself wondering why the population is increasing so much if the populace is half-starved. Having children when you are unable to feed yourself is extremely counterproductive.

Not if your aim is to continue your bloodline. Having a child or two to carry on your genes is a luxury for the rich, who can expect at least one child to live on through sexual maturity.

It's not rational, it's biological.

For the rich? For the rich in Western countries where the costs are "prohibitive" and both parents usually "have to" work, or so do many people in reproductive age say. Immmigrants and many minorities however don't mind not having an HD TV or Playstation 3 and it's normal that one of the parents doesn't work, usually the mother. If you look closely at the birth rates in many European countries, they account for a high number of births. In Spain they account for more than half the number of births for this past decade. Which just goes to show that if people are not having children is not because they can't afford it, it's because they don't want.

What about South Africa?

South Africa doesn't receive that much aid in relative terms.

And is incidentally, pretty much the only African nation I would consider visiting...

Oh, ok, fine. Here's an webapp I wrote, you can use it for free: http://billable.co.za

This guy sounds like a total dick and isn't a stickler for details, but he does touch on an important conundrum stated more eloquently by other social scientists like Jared Diamond in his book "Collapse."

The conundrum being that feeding people and providing them with vaccines, new crops and other means for a better life without checks on population growth can lead to some serious problems - competition for a limited amount of environmental resources probably being the biggest one.

How do we ethically balance our concern for fellow human beings who are suffering in abject poverty on the one hand, and what kinds of problems overpopulation can lead to because of those same efforts in environmentally strained areas on the other hand is a tough question to answer.

Context: Opinion column from 2008 in an Irish independent newspaper.

So what can I, the average Joe Hacker, do to genuinely help Africa to start on the road to recovery?

The article argues that you should do nothing, and allow natural population control mechanisms take care of it.

Of course, "starvation as population control is cruel" is one of the more common defenses for deer hunting from where I grew up... but this line of reasoning is going down a path that should not be trod...

Google for 'hackers for charity'.

Last time I checked Johnny was doing some good stuff.

This know-nothingist piece doesn't belong on HN.

Africans are people too.

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