Rant-tastic

[keaalu]

I consider myself to be a fairly moderate person; not a lot really shocks me. I used to watch the “VCL Horrors” community out of a sense of sheer morbid fascination, and because it was a source of vague amusement to look at all the atrociously bad porn/angst/whatever, but it was never so OMG VOMIT! as a lot of people tried to make out, so...

This, however, made my blood boil.

I could happily rant for pages about this – not the whole “cutting the human population down to size” thing, but the disgusting way these people were behaving about Africa. Sure, I’m a liberal leftie and I hate to see anyone or anything die needlessly. I’m sure someone must have made an original post with the intention of a joke, even if it WAS in excruciatingly bad taste. It was rather the fact that so many people have agreed that Africans are all lazy useless idiots who DESERVE to starve to death!

If I had said this about New Orleans, I’d have been lynched. If I’d said “well, the people killed by the flooding in America this past few weeks will have helped towards the 2 million!” I’d have been verbally slaughtered. (I hasten to add I don’t mean I wanted to say it, rather am making a comparison.) But because it’s happening in Africa then it’s fine. Who cares about Africa? They don’t make any cool television programs, they don't supply us with inordinately cheap goods, they don’t add to our technological distinctiveness, so they don’t need to be added to the USA-Collective.

The people in VCL Horrors (who I thought were equally moderate, considering individuals) all seem to subscribe to the same “dumb Yank” stereotype – the whole “world outside my borders? Where?” mindset. Nobody seems to have cottoned on to the fact that many of the problems in Africa are of WESTERN ORIGIN. They’re all poor, because they have MASSIVE debts to the “developed countries” (The US and the UK included) which they can’t pay off. What did you think Live8 was for, for chrissake? Did you all just sleep through it? The famine in Ethiopia in the early 1980s was probably caused by “global dimming” caused by, guess what! Western pollution. They don’t tend to use condoms and have large families because, guess what! Western religions have indoctrinated them all so much that they believe contraception is a sin and it’s God’s will for them to have large families! That’s if they can even AFFORD them.

No, I'm not trying to say Africa is perfect. I'm not trying to say they're innocent victims. But christ, people, look at the bigger picture for once rather than what YOU can get out of it.

You want 2 million people to die? You want the human race to become extinct? Fine. You start the ball rolling, There’s a razor. Don’t worry about taking your time.

(Apologies to any Americans reading this – I’m not trying to blanket-bomb. It just seems to be US citizens being the most outspoken about “fuck Africa! What about ME?” from where I’m sitting.)

Comments

[slaskia.livejournal.com]

I don't dare try to view the pic that started the whole debate (or any thing from VCL for that matter due to the filters on these computers), but after skimming through a good deal of the comments I have to agree with you.

Just my opinion, but I consider many aspects of Pre-westernised African culture (with the exception of female mutalation) superior to our western culture. Why?

- They live off the land, taking only what they need.
- Their population was held in check by nature itself.

Add western aspects to it and those natural 'checks and balances' go right out the window. Take damn religion and politics out of it and they may stand a chance at recovering. As it stands now most of the aid we give them (money wise especially) goes right into the already fat pockets of greedy politicans.

Yeah I think we are overpopulated myself, but why are they saying it's people in Africa that need to be 'trimmed'? China holds 1/3rd of the world population by itself...

Oh wait! We can't do that! China actually contributes to the global economy! Why the frag should that be a flipping factor in it?

I personally never intend to 'add' to the population by popping out smelly, screaming rugrats myself.

[keaalu.livejournal.com]

"As it stands now most of the aid we give them (money wise especially) goes right into the already fat pockets of greedy politicans."
My point exactly, I ran out of time at lunch to mention it. It's not so much that they're greedy for themselves, I think, they just want to play with the big boys and they spend it stupidly. The money gets hijacked by bureaucrats and tyrants and shuttled into politics and and bribes in pockets.

Plus, remember that China (and the bulk of Asia minor) is a great source of sweatshop goods for the people that can't BEAR the thought of paying a person a decent wage in the price they pay for their clothes. It's a culture of "I'm all right, Jack" - so the poorer people can go to hell.

[holophote.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

American chain stores are horrible and I refuse to shop in them. Fair trade, not free trade.

My thoughts on Malthusianism and nationalism are here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/holohedron/139132.html).

[holophote.livejournal.com]

Not so much in the post, but in the comment a couple of comments down. :)

[admiralmemo.livejournal.com]

I believe the reason Africa is pointed at as the problem is not due to size, but due to growth rate. Some African countries will balloon to almost 300% more population next year, while counties in the Western hemisphere will only have a modest 25% more and countries in Europe will actually have less population than this year. China may have 1/3 of the population of the whole world, but it has a slow growth rate.

This is not to say that I have any answers to the world population problem, but I say the problem is not in the number of people, but in the accelerating growth of people. If Africa slowed its explosive population growth, I don't think there'd be much of a population problem in the world.

[slaskia.livejournal.com]

China's population growth is slow because they have that 'one child per family' law, which causes it's own problems (abandoned baby girls, if not outright infanticide, because boys are more 'valued' in their culture). Why did they go that route? Cause they saw that they were getting too big for their space.

As Keaalu mentioned, western religion (well, technically not 'western' as it originated in the middle east/europe) taught them that contraception was 'evil' and that popping out lots of babies was the way to go. Get religion out of the picture and you'll be on your way to solving the problem....

[keaalu.livejournal.com]

Eh, Rach, Europe IS part of the Western world. ;)

Africa may have a fast-growing population, but it seems like 25% of children there die before their 6th birthday because of various treatable diseases like malaria - at least, treatable in the "developed" world but which they can't afford - or of starvation. And starvation isn't a nice way to go, it takes a looong painful time. That was partly what made me angriest, the way they were insinuating we should just let them all starve.

[admiralmemo.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. That aspect. I'm not currently trying to think about the problems that giving them cures to such diseases would have on population, as well. Not that I believe anyone should suffer when there's no good reason to, but fixing that one problem woutld exacerbate the other. The mindset in Africa is to have many children due to the fact that if you have ten children, the probability is good that one will survive all the diseases of childhood to be an adult that can take care of you when you grow old. Curing illness and allowing the children to grow up so all of them live to be adults doesn't change the mindset. You just end up with people who have big families because that was the way they'd always done it. You need to fix the mindset to fix the population problem. Plus, if you fix the population growth, you're a step closer to fixing the starvation problem, since there wouldn't be nearly as many people to feed.

As for the previous comment on religion, I wouldn't blame the religion itself, but the ones spreading it. The missionaries probably all injected all their own ideas into it and, since they were the only source for it in the area, everyone took it that that was how the religion was supposed to go.

As for China, the law is a good one to curb population growth, but coupled with that culture, it ends up terrible that so many girls get abandoned and/or killed. That's a flaw in the combination of the two, but the law itself isn't bad. Also, not that I think valuing one person over another is much of a good thing, but if you're going to do it, do it more like it was done in the Voyager episode "Critical Care," and base it on what people's accomplishments and not simply something like sex, skin color, or so forth. Therefore, a baby girl and a baby boy would be equal in that they haven't accomplished much of anything. (No, this is not the way I want to see the world going, since I see all human life as sacred, but I see it as a better system than some things I've seen in the world.)

[duraji-synth.livejournal.com]

Wow, you actually left the VCL_Horrors group!

By the way, I agree with everything you said here, even if I'm at a loss for words right now to say anything profound or special.

[keaalu.livejournal.com]

What can I say, I don't really want to be associated with that sort of talk. Giggling over bad art, sure. The rest? No thanks.

[duraji-synth.livejournal.com]

I'm still there to giggle over bad art, but I don't blame you at all for taking a stand against them. Hey, but at least we still met each other through that group while you were there. :)