Another touchy subject

  • Thread starter Thread starter Anonymous
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There definately is nothing worth killing yourself over...until you get to the point where you dont remember a day of your life, or you're so disabled that you cant do a thing, like Terri Schivo, I think she'd rather have died than been in that state for another 10 years.
 
[!--QuoteBegin-LooseCannon+Oct 25 2005, 03:11 AM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(LooseCannon @ Oct 25 2005, 03:11 AM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]Fact is, we have no business interfering in the direction of African development - for better or for worse.  We need to step back and let the people who are supposed to die, die, so that as Africa develops on its own, it'll develop into a mature society wherein people don't feel socially pressed to have 12 kids because they fear only 3 will survive.
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This a very harsh statement. It is not the children's fault that they are dying. We should give aid to countries sticken with famine and disease because if we didn't, they would not develop into a mature socitey. If we didn't help them, who would?

As for the debate on euthanasia, I am studying the sanctity of human life in RE classes. I believe it is wrong for anybody to take their own life or for anybody else to take it for them. This includes standing idly by as nations starve.
 
*yawn* Your argument is full of the same emotional semantics that got Africa into the state it is today in. "We have to save the dying children!" "It's up to us to help the babies!" "The parents aren't good enough to do it so we have to!" "They're too savage to stop their babies from dying! We have to civilize the savages!"

These children are intended to die. That's how nature goes. First, you live in a natural, nomadic lifestyle with high infant mortality. Thus, you have lots of children. Also, your lifespan is shortened, so more people, the better.

Then you progress to an agriculturally based society. Now your birth rates start to fall, naturally, as infant mortality decreases. Even so, your population expands over hundreds of years, and your culture evolves to suit it.

Then you hit the part where you're only having 2-3 kids, because you've entered the modern era with medical care, where those children will each reach 60 or so. Now you don't need to have even as many as 5 kids to ensure that they'll all live.

Finally, you reach the point where you only have 1 or no children, because there's no real need. Kids are more for pleasure than reproduction, pleasure and pride. As a result, the population begins to decrease. This is starting to occur in Germany, Sweden, Holland.

So if you have a culture that is only barely removed from stage 1, thrust into stage 3 or 4 medical technology without the culture or understanding to voluntarily reduce their childbirth rates, you get what has happened in Africa and southeast Asia - massive overpopulation almost overnight.

This leads to a whole series of problems. Like desertification, overfarming, pollution, mass poverty and hunger. You have to remember that we don't know how long it took for people to settle into agricultural lifestyles from nomadic ones. It took the Natives of North America something like 15,000 years to start forming empires, like the Olmec Empire and its successors the Mayans and the Aztecs. We think it took about the same for the first civilizations to pop up in the Mesopotamian regions.

These people just cannot handle our immunizations, our medicine, our practice or our culture, and what right do we have to continue to foist it upon them?
 
LC, I am SO glad to finally find at least ONE person that is able to analyze a situation as coldly and removed as needed. You should see the blank stares of astonishment I get when I mention similar criticism of similar subjects... it is rare when I think like that to begin with, but when I do I hate everyone else's ability to "make the jump" with me.
 
[!--QuoteBegin-LooseCannon+Oct 26 2005, 09:46 AM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(LooseCannon @ Oct 26 2005, 09:46 AM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]Then you progress to an agriculturally based society.  Now your birth rates start to fall, naturally, as infant mortality decreases.
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Not entirely correct, LC. Agricultural societies often maintain very high birth rates because the children are needed as help on the farm. Medical advances will lower the birth rate somewhat, but in European and American history it was very common for farming families to have at least 10 children as recently as 1920.
 
I am from the Netherlands. If I am correct, my country was the first country which permitted euthanasia by law. It's legal. The only other country with euthanasia besides the Netherlands is Belgium.

I am not against it. When a sick person (who can't be healed anymore) is suffering very much with severe pains without end, this person can die if he/she wants.

It sounds simple, but there are very strict rules and conditions. I don't know them that well (I am not a doctor) but I am sure people are very careful with euthanasia.

People who are against euthanasia, whatever the circumstances are, don't have problems with endless suffering.

I am against euthanasia when a person wants to die because of mental problems.
Don't help depressed people to die. In other words I am against suicide. There is always hope, there is always help for such people. As long as people around them find out soon enough.
 
[!--QuoteBegin-Forostar+Oct 26 2005, 11:37 PM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Forostar @ Oct 26 2005, 11:37 PM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]People who are against euthanasia, whatever the circumstances are, don't have problems with endless suffering.
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I agree. Strangely enough, this argument can also be used against LC's argument.
 
[!--QuoteBegin-Perun+Oct 26 2005, 09:41 PM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Perun @ Oct 26 2005, 09:41 PM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]I agree. Strangely enough, this argument can also be used against LC's argument.
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I don't like his words. I am not that cold minded towards people. A human is not a statistic imo. I am not a number, I am a free man! [!--emo&;)--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/wink.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'wink.gif\' /][!--endemo--]

His post has nothing to do with euthanasia nor the theory behind it.
 
Meh...lol, I agree with you Forostar, that statemment adds another meaning to the song "The Prisoner".
 
[!--QuoteBegin-SinisterMinisterX+Oct 26 2005, 08:50 PM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(SinisterMinisterX @ Oct 26 2005, 08:50 PM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]Not entirely correct, LC. Agricultural societies often maintain very high birth rates because the children are needed as help on the farm. Medical advances will lower the birth rate somewhat, but in European and American history it was very common for farming families to have at least 10 children as recently as 1920.
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Of course you're correct, SMX. I was over simplifying my point for the sake of conciseness. My point is that infant mortality declines with the creation of an enlightened agricultural civilization, which eventually leads to a decrease in childbirth. This is mostly due to the smaller urban families that are now possible, whereas a farm can feed a dozen people. The groundwork is here layed for the eventual decline of population, simply because of the security of the farm versus the insecurity of the wild.

The problem we have is that we're offering people who have no security of the farm or of a job, or no conception of keeping their family managable by using condoms or other forms of contraception (which, despite popular belief, are easily available in underdeveloped nations).
 
[!--QuoteBegin-Onhell+Oct 26 2005, 08:28 PM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Onhell @ Oct 26 2005, 08:28 PM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]LC, I am SO glad to finally find at least ONE person that is able to analyze a situation as coldly and removed as needed. You should see the blank stares of astonishment I get when I mention similar criticism of similar subjects... it is rare when I think like that to begin with, but when I do I hate everyone else's ability to "make the jump" with me.
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Believe it or not, I'm not actually this harsh. BUT, I think someone needs to think like this, because this option needs to be out there.
 
Well, well. Oh my. LC, let me tell you just gave us all a good look at eurocentric thinking. Lovely. Although I do agree in part with you (yes, unfortunately, people have to die, that's how nature works), your posts bring the white men kind of thinking, the same that has brought evil everywhere. Yes, your posts capture the anachronic thinking of 'we are superior to them, they are primitive, only our civilization is civilized; they are wrong we are right'.

Oh, and by the way, don't you guys think that part of the fault of Africa's state is due to Eropean colonization in the past? Aren't the powerful countries, partialy at least, to blame? Don't they have some fault for the dying children? Don't they have a "moral" debt towards them? Well, I think so!
 
Trust me, you got my post completely wrong. My point is not superior. My point is that western society has evolved to a different point to date, and that it's our belief in our superiority that's gotten us into this mess. If we had just left Africa alone to develop as it would, we'd be doing much better.

Africa's current state is *entirely* due to European contact and colonization. The fault for children dying, however, is not our fault. It is our fault that they live beyond infancy to enjoy a slightly longer life of suffering. These children are supposed to die. Period. We have no right to alter nature.
 
Sorry LC, my mistake, I got it all wrong.

Yes, I totally agree with your last post. What would have happened if Africa had been left alone to follow its own development? That question can only dwell in our minds, although the answer is not available.

But well, LC, dont you think it sucks? I mean the fact that they are dying? Beyond the cruel facts, I think it sucks...
 
Yup. It does suck. And I wish, realistically, that we could aid in a manner that would really help. But what we're doing right now is worse than nothing.
 
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