/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.3591880]

Seeing the situation in the horn of Africa getting worse and worse, and seeing that the UN programs aren't as effective as widely believed to beat the famine I ask this question. What hinders us from giving the people in places like Sudan, Somalia etc. insects to eat? Of course the insects will be processed in a way that would make them look like powder or corn flakes.
Benefits:
1) Insects are high in proteins and vitamins
2) Cheap to breed

If the insects would be processed in a way that would make people not cringe at eating them then we might have a chance to solve this problem.

[Anonymous No.3591884]

>Seeing the situation in the horn of Africa getting worse and worse
Get the real data. The media only focuses on the shitholes. Part of sub-Saharan Africa are doing very well. A few parts are not.

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

[Anonymous No.3591891]

famine is good, it allows western corporations to steal gold, oil and diamond from africa without local resistance

[Anonymous No.3591895]

>>3591884
(cont)
However, you're absolutely right that insect protein would be a fantastically effective way to feed the world.

That said, we already have enough food. People aren't starving because the global food production is too low. It's all politics and corruption, especially the local governments. Great, huh?

Anyway, let's eat insects.
http://www.ted.com/talks/marcel_dicke_why_not_eat_insects.html

[Anonymous No.3591893]

They would just have more kids bro. We don't need more inferior black people on the planet. Overpopulation is already a problem.

[Anonymous No.3591896]

>>3591891
/thread

[Anonymous No.3591898]

Only people that group in a society where insects as food are looked as at cringe-worthy would have trouble eating them. I'm sure the Africans won't mind some tasty locust.

[Anonymous No.3591902]

Insects will definitely be part of the solution for the future. The current situation in Somalia is sadly the result of these people not knowing how to perform agriculture in a sane manner, they have way too much cattle and little reserves. Plus the whole muslim fanatic rebel shit that doesn't help either.

[Anonymous No.3591903]

>>3591893
It's not race. It's environment. When people get a higher standard of living, education, access to health care, etc, total fertility rates plummet naturally.

But I fully agree that just throwing food at the problem will NOT solve it.

[Anonymous No.3591918]

The media is pulling a Plato, you know that bs about lying if it truly benefits society. Fuck'em I say.

[Anonymous No.3591937]

>>3591880
Its not getting worse and worse.

[Anonymous No.3591942]

>>3591903
They also become atheists and assholes.

[Anonymous No.3591943]

>>3591942
A small price to pay when the alternative is a localized Malthusian catastrophe.

[Anonymous No.3591954]

>>3591943
I don't know. Giving the godless too much power ultimately makes them think they are gods, making an ironic catastrophe waiting to happen.

[Anonymous No.3591956]

>>3591954
>Giving the godless too much power ultimately makes them think they are gods, making an ironic catastrophe waiting to happen.
Oh do go on.

[Anonymous No.3591983]

>>3591956
They create a survelience state because human psychology still needs the surety that others will be have in a manner that believe they will. This leads to the technological build up of privacy invasion tools, leading to a form of omniscience governed by a few.

In essence, the godless will actualize god's various powers because they still require surety that the world around them is knowable.

[Anonymous No.3591990]

>>3591983
yeah, this would never happen in london.

[Anonymous No.3591995]

>>3591983
But societies have become demonstrably MORE democratic as time has gone on. Blacks and women can vote, more and more countries are holding elections...

And some of the worst authoritarianism we've experienced in the West has been the theocracies of the middle ages.

[Anonymous No.3592003]

>>3591983
>They create a survelience state because human psychology still needs the surety that others will be have in a manner that believe they will.

You're on a pretty good troll roll but I do hope you seriously understand the Justice System exists for a reason...

[Anonymous No.3592011]

>>3591995
And given one incident, 911, we've suddenly reversed the idea of privacy, and began to watch one another regardless of the ideals.

The sad fact is human psychology needs a way to relate to other people and trust them to do what they should do.

When you remove the god construct from psychology, you don't remove the need for understanding other people and trusting what you know.

Because of that, any tremor to society will increase the surveillance state. Barring revolution, that is a one way street.

[Anonymous No.3592012]

People have been eating insects for a long time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomophagy

[Anonymous No.3592025]

>>3592003
What good is the justice system if the evidence presented to it is primarily hearsay and is based on the flaws present in society, leading to all the cultural biases skewing and continuing oppression of minorities in culture?

Wouldn't you rather have a justice system that could use CCTV, credit card records, location tracking devices, phone recordings and all the other material evidence to prove who did what?

I'm not quite sure you're understanding the argument.

[Anonymous No.3592038]

>>3592025
Too many want to hide the fact that they're cheating in their relationships, buying drugs, etc.

You'd have to get rid of a few laws before people would really accept public tracking. But BOY would it make solving crimes easier. And convictions of innocent people would all but disappear.

[Anonymous No.3592041]

>>3591880
hey, how about YOU start eating insects and give the africans some proper food. or you know, don't go around causing wars and donate more money

fuck

[Anonymous No.3592048]

>>3591880
>>3591880

>...chance to solve this problem
>implying starving Africans are a problem

[Anonymous No.3592052]

>>3592038
I agree, but the god construct replaces that. Given how much evidence in psychology refutes eye witness testimony as being close to garbage, theres no reason an 'enlightened' society would use it. Only a society based on 'moral' principles of the inherent good or trustworthyness of people, or their spirtual belief, or some other god construct, allows us to think that.

The entire point however is that ironically, a godless nation will construct a technological god, because the construct allows for human mental security.

[Anonymous No.3592053]

>>3592038

People currently think that taxing people who control a vast majority of the nation's wealth is so horrible, they'd risk the country defaulting on its debt.

What makes you think the crazies (Tea Party, Oathkeepers, etc) would agree to something like a national ID program?

[Anonymous No.3592061]

>>3592038
Well, as most arguments go against surveillance societies, the few innocents caught up would be those that the powerful few want to keep down.

And again, for the justice system to work properly, everyone has to be watching everyone else. Any black holes in the surveillence will unfairly unbalance society leading to the aforementioned catastrophe.

[Anonymous No.3592082]

>>3592053
Heh.

Societies don't do fucked up thinks because of specific ideologies, they do it because of human frailties.

It's like saying HIV kills people. No, it creates an immune deficiency that allows things like the common cold to kill you.

Ideologies/memes can be viral and humans are frail to latch on in the moment of need to these memes.

[Anonymous No.3592097]

>Bring starving Africans to America and offer them good education, food , etc
>They will be greatful and hardworking
>Send all "HURR DURR SOUTH WILL RAISE AGUN" racists to Africa
>We now have an educated labor force that will work for cheap in our country
>A lot of Bible thumpers are dead

[Anonymous No.3592099]

>>3592052
>Only a society based on 'moral' principles of the inherent good or trustworthyness of people, or their spirtual belief, or some other god construct, allows us to think that.
>only religious people are moral
Nice try.

[Anonymous No.3592107]

>>3592097
Holy shit, that might actually work. Too bad there's no grounds for deporting those people.

[Anonymous No.3592109]

>>3592099
Considering how many atheists claim morals are subjective, i'd say it's not a bad comment.

But if you want to ignore the context of the comment, and troll yourself, go ahead.

[Anonymous No.3592124]

>>3592109
>Considering how many atheists claim morals are subjective, i'd say it's not a bad comment.
Only angsty teenagers, and they're only really saying they should be allowed to smoke pot.

[Anonymous No.3592138]

>>3592107
Well, we could claim we're doing it for reparations. I mean, they're quite smart individuals, and we took like 400,000 africans, so if we send them back int he same manner that we took the africans, that should strengthen our willingness to make both countries a better place.

[Anonymous No.3592144]

>>3592138
But we want to send back the rednecks.

There HAVE been serious proposals about sending African Americans back to Africa, but they haven't been a real topic since the era right after the Civil War. It was one of the real options.

[Anonymous No.3592147]

[Anonymous No.3592152]

>>3592124

The point is still the same. Religion backs morals, and our justice system relies on various constructs such as eye witness testimony. This reliance is based on the assumption, which has been proven wrong, that people 'know what they see'.

If we were atheists in our justice system, we would have to accept that even the best eye witness will conjure 50% of their testimony, and that we can't believe it rationally.

It certainly isn't atheists who want to hear eye witness testimony, if they were informed of the statistics regarding how easily people's memories of events are manipulated after the fact.

[Anonymous No.3592164]

>>3592152
I think you're tying rationality and religiousity too closely together. You're conflating them.

You can argue about the degree of correlation, but I don't think the "religion = believes in eyewitness testimony" thing holds water.

[Anonymous No.3592168]

>>3592109
Society's morals aren't subjective. Murdering others is bad. Stuff like that.

Personal morals *are* subjective. Take pirating, for instance. There are people who think it's wrong. There are people who think it's right? It's subjective.

[Anonymous No.3592189]

>>3592097

they would probably be ok, since they are used to concepts such as building buildings and living somewhere near your source of water etc. the africans don't live near the wells because it attracts mosquitos and large predators, but if you build a building that houses the well and pumps the water then you don't have to live 10 miles away or some retarded shit. honestly, most of the problems that people in africa still have are shit that white people solved for themselves in several thousand years BC. and as long as they continue to expect aid, they're not going to fix anything for themselves. btw, when charities go to fix stuff for them like building a proper pump or a granary or something, the locals then get into ridiculous tribal arguments about ownership of the new thing and then inevitably they break it anyway.

tl:dr; fuck africa, it's a shithole.

[Anonymous No.3592193]

>>3592168
What people think a society should do can't change whether that suggestion effective in practice. See: communism.

As I understand it, morality is just about finding the set of principles, values, organization, etc. that is most effective in providing for the basic needs of the members of society.

Suggestions are based on subjective judgments, sure, and even what humans want is subjective, but the results of implementing a given idea are not.

You can decide what you value, but not whether plan X will produce it effectively in reality.

[Anonymous No.3592197]

>>3592164
Well what I'm demonstrating is the original thesis statement: Religion supports human's need to understand and believe that other humans are XYZ so that they can be secure. As religion decreases, the need for knowing XYZ does not decrease, nescitating a rational way to know XYZ, leading to the surveillance state.

I'm a bit side tracked because someone brought up justic.

[Anonymous No.3592201]

>>3592193
Enter my favorite arguement: Religion is no different that political ideology, such that it can't be proven to make civilization better.

Key point: Libertarianism.

[Anonymous No.3592203]

>>3592168

you picked a classic example that can be argued in many different ways by many different people. killing someone is bad, but what about execution? what about the military? is an execution really justice or is it just revenge? at what point does defending yourself become an acceptable reason for killing someone? how much harm do you have to experience yourself? obviously in some parts of the world you can kill someone who walks onto your property, which supposedly falls under the banner of self defence, where the self is extended to one's property. but then how much danger are you in if someone is just walking across your fields to get somewhere? the law would protect people in some places for killing someone under those circumstances. in other places, you yourself would then be killed by the state for doing the same thing. what exactly do you define as murder, public service, or defense? you really chose a bad example of something you thought was clear-cut.

[Anonymous No.3592208]

>>3592168
Yes morals are subjective, people do tend to agree on things that benefit society as a whole, because it benefits them as well.

[Anonymous No.3592228]

there exists enough real food that we don't have to look for obscure sources.
the problem is flooding their agriculture and basic craftsmen based economy with free imported food will make it collapse and then they will be totally dependent on us.

[Anonymous No.3592230]

>>3592201
My view is that we CAN study what works and what doesn't, and all moral systems that do not produce human happiness effectively are wrong, as they fail in their intended goal. This puts all possible moral systems on a grey scale of how effectively they produce what people want.

[Anonymous No.3592243]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN7ehccspao

[Anonymous No.3592254]

>>3592243
Hahahaha.

[Anonymous No.3592273]

>>3592243
WE HAVE DESERTS IN AMERICA WE JUST DON'T LIVE IN EM, ASSSHOOOOOOOOOOOOLE!

[Anonymous No.3592280]

>>3592230
True you can study them, you can run simulations, you can experiment.

But what it comes to in the end, is what actually happens, which can't at this point, be easily manipulated or installed, nor can it ever come near utopian enlightenment.

What it boils down to is fundamentally, our ability to perceive what other people want and are capable of, needs to be backed by an enigmatic source, because there is no way to directly confirm it.

As such, religion stems from this, and so would a surveillance state.

[Anonymous No.3592284]

>>3591898

seriously. apparently mud cakes are a significant part of the local economy somewhere.

[Axel the Possum No.3592286]

>>3591880

Better suggestion: Gather local farmers and give them the machinery, technical know-how, and other systems to allow them to grow crops on par with any farm in the developed world.

Bam. Self-sufficiency.

[Anonymous No.3592290]

>>3592286
until their local warlord or government rounds them up and shoots them

[Anonymous No.3592293]

>>3592243

semi-related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjsikRTIX28

[Axel the Possum No.3592298]

>>3592290

That does tend to be an obstacle, yes. Still, better than throwing away money. If we feed them, they're dependent on us and potentially die from warlords anyway when they come to steal the food. If they feed themselves, they're independent and can start an economy... And may also be killed by warlords.

Either way, warlords are dicks, but this way things can at least potentially improve.

[Anonymous No.3592306]

>>3592286
Eh? do you forget the part where 1st world farmers have gas, fertilizer and insect/pesticides and most of it relies on a dense network of resource allocation. Also, water.

[Anonymous No.3592330]

>>3592286

Believe it or not, the UN has tried this. They lack the intelligence to operate the machinery and cannot maintain it in the slightest. They're too lazy to learn and too ignorant to do anything else.

The fact that everywhere else moved on and they are the same as they were 4000 years ago speaks volumes.

[Anonymous No.3592354]

>>3592330
> they are the same as they were 4000 years ago speaks volumes.

So use them for slave labor, or have mandatory visectomies/hysterectomies for everyone but the first born child in the families.

[Anonymous No.3592367]

I really do witsh there was some way to help

[Anonymous No.3592379]

>what people think
teach a man to fish, and he will have food forever

>this is what actually happens
teach a man to fish, and he will reproduce until the fish can not feed his family any more

the fundamental problem with african famines is that having 8 or more children per family is common.

[Anonymous No.3592388]

Insects? What's wrong with importing cattle? No, the problems run deeper than just food production.

Subsaharan africans never went through the selection pressures that their cousins who left the continent 60,000 years ago had to endure.

You want to "save" africa? Here's the plan.
Start importing white or asian women to blanda up the local population and increase traits like IQ. Encourage interbreeding. Provide free food and water with hormone blockers to make the populace more docile. Offer real economic incentives to men for marriage and to provide stability of a father figure to african families. Encourage private property ownership and a patriarchal system of leadership. Oh, and bring back white oversight, kind of like the old (but economically successful)South Africa, but under the guise of the "benevolent" UN or yet another corrupt NGO that pretends to give a fuck.

[Anonymous No.3592395]

>>3592388
>encourage interbreeding
why? and how?
>hormone blockers in the water to make them more docile
I like the idea, but some might say that it's "unethical"

[Anonymous No.3592403]

>>3592395
it's also unethical to let them kill each other, while having the means to stop them.

a bystander watching and not doing anything to help is guilty, not as much as the guy who ran over the other with his car, but he is.

[Anonymous No.3592408]

>>3592403
Oh eugenics, what can't you do?

[Anonymous No.3592409]

>>3591891
>>3591891
>>3591891
>>3591891
>>3591891
>>3591891
>>3591891
>>3591891
>>3591891
>>3591891
>>3591891

[Anonymous No.3592421]

>>3592388

How very Kipling.

"Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!"

[Anonymous No.3592437]

>>3592395
I'll welcome a population of Tiger Woods' heirs(black-asian hybrid) playing with golf clubs on the african Veldt rather than those of Robert Mugabe running around with Machetes.

>"unethical"
The current situation facing the african people, consisting of of mass starvation and tribal violence, is the preferred status quo for most of these corrupt foreign aid organizations and their cronies.

Most spoiled liberal arts majors would also have to get a real job flipping burgers instead of bullshit like the peace corps to make themselves feel useful.

[Anonymous No.3592457]

>>3592388
White and asian women are the only known places to make white or asian kids. I think we'll keep those. It's ok though, Chinese men of which there are tens of million surplus will fuck the shit out of the african women over the next several decades and lighten them like the white man never did.

[Anonymous No.3592486]

>>3592457
http://clutchmagonline.com/2011/06/new-trend-chinese-migrant-workers-in-africa-marry-black-women/

with the large influx of chinese workers and investment into africa, this may be a viable alternative.

[Anonymous No.3592502]

>>3592486
One step closer to beautiful Poly-Blasian women.