Why is the US government..

[Resist-Refuse]

Spending billions on weapons, to kill and destroy, when they could be spending billions on things like, ending poverty?

Seriously.

[Memorize]

You know those billions we spend on NASA. The billions we use when we can't even reach the next planet over to set a person on it. The billions we once spent to create a pen that could write in space. Yeah, could've been spend on ending poverty.

[Kojima]

You can't just end poverty. Unless you mean so they make nanomachines that reproduce and create food..... Like that's going to come out in less than 50 years. However, I assume you mean to buy food with money and give it to people. It's not that easy, donate sure, but not just go, "KoBlam! Here's some food, poverty is now ended". It's like the war on terrorism. You can't just go fight a war and end terrorism, it will take wars and wars, and even then, it's not likely it will end. The war on poverty is just as complicated. Can't just spend money and hope everyone is happy. Help ending poverty, yes, but ending it isn't some easy task. It's not like if you give some Ethiopians pancakes, it will last forever. It will only temporarily help.

[Idiosyncratic]

Poverty will exist as long as everyone can own their own money. Under Communism no one was poor, because, well they all were.

[Durin413]

The only way were gonna end third-world poverty is by killing the third-world.

[JMHX]

At 2/4/07 10:09 PM, Durin413 wrote: The only way were gonna end third-world poverty is by killing the third-world.

ONWARD!

[hongkongexpress]

At 2/4/07 10:09 PM, Durin413 wrote: The only way were gonna end third-world poverty is by killing the third-world.

>> Or letting the 3rd world kill themselves. They want Jihad and Ethnic wars so bad in Africa. We should just let them do that to themselves. We try to bring peace there, try peace plans after peace plans only to have all our efforts explode in some Bantu chief's uprising, or Jihad terrorist attack. It's a futile attempt. We should just pull ourselves out of AFrica, and Asia, (the uncivilized parts of Asia like Indonesia), and let them slaughter themselves in riots untill they get sick of violence themselves and change things themselves. They're adult. They have brains. We've been helping them since 1945, and nothing but dead peacekeepers and no progress has resulted.

If they want to die to AIDS, and Leperosy and polio and other diseases that accompany war and genocide. That's what they chose.

[random8982]

At 2/4/07 10:19 PM, hongkongexpress wrote:

>> Or letting the 3rd world kill themselves. They want Jihad and Ethnic wars so bad in Africa. We should just let them do that to themselves. We try to bring peace there, try peace plans after peace plans only to have all our efforts explode in some Bantu chief's uprising, or Jihad terrorist attack. It's a futile attempt. We should just pull ourselves out of AFrica, and Asia, (the uncivilized parts of Asia like Indonesia), and let them slaughter themselves in riots untill they get sick of violence themselves and change things themselves. They're adult. They have brains. We've been helping them since 1945, and nothing but dead peacekeepers and no progress has resulted.

If they want to die to AIDS, and Leperosy and polio and other diseases that accompany war and genocide. That's what they chose.

Ehhh....generally a plausible idea except for the fact that every church around the world would throw a shit fit that America has stopped helping these 'poor souls.' And we can't restrict churches from sending missionaries over there because of separation of church and state and due to the fact that they fund those little excursions internally.

The other thing would be that if we just leave things like polio and leperosy unchecked, the strain could evolve and we could have an international pandemic on our hands as people and animals migrate.

And Africa is a great place to do AIDS research considering more than half the population there seems to have it.

[Draconias]

At 2/4/07 09:34 PM, Resist-Refuse wrote: Spending billions on weapons, to kill and destroy, when they could be spending billions on things like, ending poverty?

Poverty can not be "solved" by throwing money at it because it is caused by relative deprivation. If anyone exists in a better condition, anywhere, then the lowest on the ladder face "poverty" and grow angry. Self-sufficiency and decentralized, individual actions are necessary to deal with poverty, and self-destructive people can not be stopped from driving themselves into poverty regardless of the situation.

[outlawwarrior781]

poverty cannot be solved until we advance in technology.

[JoS]

I fucking hate the word 3rd world. people use it and do not even know what it means. The term 3rd world does not mean poor., it means non-alligned, most noteably during the cold war, countries who sided with neither the West or the Sino-Soviet bloc. However the majority of the countries were poor nations.

[HogWashSoup]

At 2/4/07 09:34 PM, Resist-Refuse wrote: Spending billions on weapons, to kill and destroy, when they could be spending billions on things like, ending poverty?

Seriously.

because the us government watched too many war movies and want to be macho.

[SmilingAssasin]

At 2/4/07 09:37 PM, Memorize wrote: The billions we once spent to create a pen that could write in space.

Yeah and you know what the Russians did? They used pencils ha ha

Waste of money? I think so

[Alphabit]

At 2/4/07 09:37 PM, Memorize wrote: The billions we once spent to create a pen that could write in space.

Idiots... Why didn't the Americans think of adding pressure inside the tube that contains the ink?

[MortifiedPenguins]

Because poverty will exist as long as man exists. Except it will be named differently and placed at different levels of material wealth.

[Korriken]

povery is caused by materialism, once everyone has the exact same things and live in a perfectly identical house with identical appliances and food and so forth, poverty will exist, if the rest of the world has 2 story houses and 3 bathrooms and yours only has 2 bathrooms, you're impoverished!

the best way to end world hunger is to let 'em die. the human population grows exponentially, the world food supply does not. the human population already outnumbers the number of people the world can sustain. the people in these underdeveloped countried breed like rats. if we just allow them to breed and keep them fed and housed, the problem will reoccur when their children start having children.

I hate to say it, but, the human population needs to be reduced.

Human life is WAY overvalued. "every life is precious" whatever. people die on a daily basis, thats nothing new. and why keep people with AIDS alive anyway? they just fall to any illness that hits them anyway. if everyone with AIDS died, then AIDS would be gone. problem is, those with aids, keep spreading it.

[MindControlFun]

Since when is it the government's job to spend billions of dollars to fix the mistakes of a few people? If you're in poverty, it's part of the American dream to work hard and get yourself out...

[Engelsman]

Because those poverty stricken countries are also spending billions on weapons, to kill and destroy.

[Dre-Man]

Because by invading other people's countries and "liberating" them from their cruel leaders and government we're assisting them and making them happy!

[random8982]

At 2/5/07 12:22 AM, JoS wrote: I fucking hate the word 3rd world. people use it and do not even know what it means. The term 3rd world does not mean poor., it means non-alligned, most noteably during the cold war, countries who sided with neither the West or the Sino-Soviet bloc. However the majority of the countries were poor nations.

What is Third World?

Third world is also a term to describe countries that are not alligned (especially in the cold war) but it also means POOR and UNDERDEVELOPED countries.

[SyntheticTacos]

It's fairly simple to give a man a fish, but it's a lot harder to teach a man to fish.

Basically the problem is making other companies self-sufficient to a certain degree. Another problem is that not all of the donations that are made to poor nations go through- corrupt regimes sometimes keep them for themselves.

Because you can't end poverty when you're dead.

[SolInvictus]

At 2/4/07 09:34 PM, Resist-Refuse wrote: Spending billions on weapons, to kill and destroy, when they could be spending billions on things like, ending poverty?

Seriously.

because punks are awesome.

[hongkongexpress]

At 2/5/07 12:22 AM, JoS wrote: I fucking hate the word 3rd world. people use it and do not even know what it means. The term 3rd world does not mean poor., it means non-alligned, most noteably during the cold war, countries who sided with neither the West or the Sino-Soviet bloc. However the majority of the countries were poor nations.

>> I believe the term was coined by Che Guevara. Who was fed up with being used by the commies. And wanted as you said, non Alined countries, to unify with development, instead of being in the sphere of influence for the COMINTER, or the west.

[Srath]

We could set population laws, but that's not gonna happen until it gets extreme. If the population goes up at this rate and the rainforests are still bieng cut down, then were going to die of lack of air. So, of course, were going to concentrate on pens that can right in space. If there's anything we should be working on right now, it's global warming.

[Begoner]

At 2/10/07 12:39 PM, Grammer wrote: America is already spending billions of relief in undeveloped nations. I don't have the stats, but I heard it's in the hundred billions. I could be wrong, so feel free to correct me, or prove me right.

America is spending around $30 billion dollars annually on official development assistance (however, the major recipient of this aid is Iraq). However, it has failed to meet its obligation according the the agreement reached by rich, industrial nations at the UN in 1970 that they would spend 0.7% of their GDP on ODA, as have most other countries which were party to the pledge. The US has spent around 0.22% of its GDP on it, falling way behind other European countries. Below is a site which discusses this issue in a very in-depth manner -- it's quite long, though, but you should at least look at the graphs, which are quite interesting.

http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt /USAid.asp

[plagueofthings]

At 2/4/07 09:37 PM, Memorize wrote: You know those billions we spend on NASA. The billions we use when we can't even reach the next planet over to set a person on it. The billions we once spent to create a pen that could write in space. Yeah, could've been spend on ending poverty.

Let's disband NASA. The private sector has already proven that they're better at not killing astronauts. There are plans to build a commercial spaceport in New Mexico, and once they launch the first commercial space flight, I predict NASA will be gone for good.

LOL, a pen that can write in space. And the Russians just brought a pencil. Silly Americans, making everything complicated.

[Denta]

At 2/4/07 09:34 PM, Resist-Refuse wrote: Spending billions on weapons, to kill and destroy, when they could be spending billions on things like, ending poverty?

Seriously.

They're making bombs to make peace.

But it sounds fucking crazy to me.

[JakeHero]

You're all lucky we give that much. Considering all these shitholes countries in Asia and Africa are that because of marxist governments. We shouldn't even bother, they could free themselves from such poverty if they adopt a more free-trade economic model.

[Mr-Coffee]

At 2/4/07 09:34 PM, Resist-Refuse wrote: Spending billions on weapons, to kill and destroy, when they could be spending billions on things like, ending poverty?

Seriously.

What ignorance. Billions... even trillions of dollars could never even come close to ending poverty. You act like we Americans have bucketloads of cash to throw around. Ending poverty is an impossible and unrealistic goal. Instead of asking what Americans can do, and relying on others, why don't to try to do some good yourself?

Really.