You have a gun with one bullet...
- Thread starter TopHatsaur
- Start date
Recommended Videos
This is a very very easy question
World Hunger gets it's fucking head blown off. There hasn't been a single time in recorded human history that somebody wasn't trying to murder a country/race/religion out of existence. This is a cycle that will never change.
World Hunger gets it's fucking head blown off. There hasn't been a single time in recorded human history that somebody wasn't trying to murder a country/race/religion out of existence. This is a cycle that will never change.
I think these guys are missing the point. This isn't an emotional problem, it's a logical mathematical one.TopHatsaur said:
- Let's say we have in the world an amount of people that we'll call "P".
- These people have an amount of resources between them that we'll call "R", such that when P = R, there is a perfect amount of resource with which to feed each person, no more and no less.
- They die at a certain rate that we'll call "D" for "death rate".
- Finally we have a fourth variable, "B", that defines the spread of resources. Let's define "B" as the number of people, between zero and P, who are receiving an equal or greater amount of resources than the average (R / P). That means that there are (P - B) people who are receiving LESS resources than the average.
Let us say that we have a sample of one hundred people. In the ideal balanced society, where everyone's wealth and death rates are stable, P, R, D and B are all equal to 100. We know that this isn't the case, because world hunger and war exists.
The existence of war means that the death rate is higher than natural (so D > 100).
The existence of world hunger means one of two things: either the resources are insufficient (R < 100), or there's a large imbalance in terms of the way the resources are being distributed (B < 100).
So we start with either: P = 100, R 100, B = 100. (Not enough resources, too many deaths.)
Or: P = 100, R = 100, D > 100, B < 100. (Too many deaths, resources are distributed between too few people.)
So we have two scenarios and three possible solutions.
*
Some assumptions: 1) that the magic "world hunger" bullet would increase the amount of total resources, or "R"; 2) that the magic "world war" bullet would decrease the death toll, or "D"; and 3) that wars are fought over and caused by a scarcity of resources. (This is a simplification - many wars happen for ideological reasons - but resources usually tend to be a factor. Bush, God, Iraq and oil, etc.)
*
Let's take scenario one: the resources are insufficient to feed everybody.
If we shoot world hunger, we increase R (total resources). This provides sufficient resources for everyone, thereby eliminating the need for wars, so D (death rate) falls and P (population) increases. So...
- If R => P, after adjusting for the reduction in D, the new population has enough food to feed itself. There are more people, everyone's well fed, and deaths are low. Ideal.
- If P > R, we go into a never-ending cycle of war and famine: world hunger is alleviated, death rates go down, but the amount of resources can't support the increased population. Population turns on itself, death rates go back up again, and the population drops to the point where they have enough resources once more. Wars end, death rate goes down, population goes up, etc, etc.
If we shoot war, D decreases, and as a result P increases. Now we don't have more resources but we have even more people to feed. Problem exacerbated.
Finally, if we shoot ourselves, P drops by one. R is temporarily increased and D is temporarily decreased to a stable point. After a hundred years, R and D go back to how they were. Except we've now got a much larger population who have become dependant on the resources that they no longer have. Problem exacerbated further.
*
Now let's take the scenario that the problem isn't a LACK of resources, but an IMBALANCE of them. In other words, there are enough resources to feed the populance, but those resources are being distributed in an unfair way, with the majority of resources reaching a minimum of people.
Shooting world hunger increases R. It does nothing to address the imbalance. R would have to dramatically rise, to the point that if the person receiving the lowest amount of resources had one fifth of what they need, every single person would have receive five times as much. If the poorest person had one twentieth of their need, every single person would receive twenty times as much. The poor have just enough but the rich get exponentially richer. A situation that provokes lots of minor civil unrest, but not revolution (as we see in modern-day America). The death rate would fall, but that wouldn't unduly affect things in this scenario.
Shooting world war, on the other hand, means the poor would stay hungry, the rich would stay rich, the death toll D would fall, and the amount of total resources available R would get smaller. This is a recipe for a Stalinist dictatorship. By stopping world war, you are damning the poor to be exploited, abused, and probably killed, by their rich overlords; and you are taking away their only method of recourse.
Finally, you martyr yourself. R increases, D decreases, and the net result is much the same as if you'd shot world hunger in the first place. Except you wouldn't be around to see the result.
*
CONCLUSIONS:
- If the world's hunger problems are caused by a lack of resources, shooting world war is actually counterproductive to achieving a stable balance. Your best option is to shoot world hunger.
- If the world's hunger problems are caused by an imbalance of resources, your best option is to shoot world hunger also; but you might want to use that bullet on the richest man instead to make an example of him.
- In either case, stopping world war actually makes the problem a helluva lot WORSE. That's a sobering thought.
*
What would I do? It's a toss-up between shooting world hunger and shooting Justin Bieber. I think world hunger would win out, but it'd be close.
War. Then this country would stop spending so much money on it and we might be able to accomplish anything... err... scratch that... Can I shoot the American government or just illogical thought processes all together? That would get something accomplished a lot faster.
I would shoot hunger. Eliminating hunger strengthens war. The only way to eliminate hunger is to redistribute wealth. So, essentially, shooting hunger causes a rash of warfare and redistribution of wealth.
I like the way that sounds.
I like the way that sounds.
War.
Shooting hunger will stop one reason for wars in 3rd world countries, and some second world countries, but the biggest wars will be competeting with nukes, killing everyones, and we will still have recorce wars, what happens when oil runs out? We're fucked, that's what happens.
Shooting hunger will stop one reason for wars in 3rd world countries, and some second world countries, but the biggest wars will be competeting with nukes, killing everyones, and we will still have recorce wars, what happens when oil runs out? We're fucked, that's what happens.
I'm sure whether you're saying that this would cause the poor to rise and create a system like Stalin's Russia or if you are saying Stalin's Russia was bad for the poor.TheMadDoctorsCat said:
The first cannot happen for there is no more war if you kill world war. The second was not the case.
World Hunger! More wars the merrier! Maybe we'll catch up on all the lost time spent on humanitarian efforts!
would take another bullet out of my pocket and cap both of them. then I would reload my gun and take over the world, since without war, nobody would resist.
Hunger kills a lot more people then war does, has killed a lot more people than war ever has. And I'm a selfish prick and far from suicidal.
world war, because World hunger can be stopped using the haber bosch process, and because science can lead the wrld ahead in finding solutions to hunger, it cant however fix stupidTopHatsaur said:
YES!!!!! beautiful, you my friend are awesome, and thats because of what you say and that friggin adorable calvin and hobbes avatarRegnes said:
World Hunger. Once that is taken care of, we can focus our attention and resources to finding peaceful solutions that will prevent us from world war.