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Re: Atanu Dey's Funny Takes on Things.



David Lloyd-Jones (dlj@inforamp.net) wrote:
: On 30 Nov 1996 04:38:53 GMT, atanu@are.Berkeley.EDU (Atanu Dey) wrote:

: Atanu Dey's posts strike me as slightly twisted at every point.
: Clearly he comes from a culture different from mine, though in some
: cases it's only a matter of his being a culture where it is allowable
: to say things that are only thought in mine.

  True, I do come from a different culture.  However, why that should
  matter in a debate about causes and effects, is not clear to me.
  The natural laws are not any different there nor is my mentality
  primitive just because I have a different cultural background.  My
  perception of what is the problem may be different from yours,
  though. 

  I am not sure I follow your second sentence above.  Do you mean that
  I am guilty of a cultural gaffe?

: However we seem to agree on one thing: since the  price of labour is
: rising throughout the world, it is clear that there is no surplus of
: people.

  This is the crux of the disagreement then.  I do not see how such a
  broad generalization is justified.  From casual observation of the
  labor situation in India, I conclude that there is an overwhelming
  surplus of labor.  Tasks that can be done efficiently by one person
  is often done inefficiently by 10 people - just so that we can
  provide 10 with employment.  The efficiency loss is staggering.
  There is nothing I can say here which could possibly convince you of
  the truth of what I believe in; so I shall let it pass.

: Let me add that while Dey's posts seem to be shot through with
: intelligence and sometimes wit, nevertheless they often show  a broad

  Intelligence?  Wit?  Surely, you jest.  

: and deep ignorance, both of facts and of the way things work.  Just to

  True.  Deep ignorance, factual and perceptual, is more near the
  mark.  

: give an example here, "restricting" birth rates neither lessens births
: nor population growth; both are reduced by unconstricted family life
: in the presence of hope.
:                                                              -dlj.

  Why is reducing birth rates not going to reduce population growth?
  And in what way have I implied that 'the presence of hope' is not a
  major determinant of family size?  It is precisely the hopelessness
  of the situation that causes people to procreate mindlessly.  There
  is one sure fire way to break the cycle - forceable reduction in the
  family size.  The alternatives are horrible to contemplate - mass
  starvation or at best, an existence devoid of any humanity.

  dlj, I have seen poverty.  Not as an abstract number in a learned
  journal but in the form of a six year old girl rummaging through
  garbage hoping to find something edible.  I have asked myself the
  reason for the sort of injustice that condemns a potential
  bio-chemist, or a painter, or a dancer, or a loving mother, or an
  engineer to rummaging through garbage heaps throughout childhood. 
  What would have been so terrible if that child had not been born?
  True, humanity has a glorious future ahead in 50, 100, or whatever
  number of years that your calculations indicate that rising global
  prosperity will reduce global poverty and all alive then will live
  in utopian bliss.  But what about the real suffering of real humans
  in the interim?  Why don't you consider the alternative of reducing
  human suffering by seeing that those whose future holds only going
  through garbage dumps should not be born in the first place?  I can
  speak for myself and given the alternative of never existing against
  having to spend a joyless miserable existence, I would choose not
  being born.  Where is the empathy, compassion and the sorrow?

  Regards,

  Atanu



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