Is anyone else starting to wonder whether somebody is intentionally raising an army for some future purpose in Africa?

Like the thing preventing “development” in Africa isn’t that too many of their children die early. Or, if it is, can someone enlighten me? I don’t understand how that is the problem with “development” occurring there.

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fwipsy 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Some people think that preventing the deaths of children is an end in itself, even if it's not the most effective way to contribute to "development."

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victorbjorklund 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You can say the same thing with saving the life of people with rare sicknesses or disabilities in the west. Of course it would be cheaper to let them die as babies. But that’s not a society we wanna live in.

	▲	pfannkuchen 12 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Well the thing with that is that it’s a limited operation. You save the person, and then, if they have kids, their kids won’t be any more likely to be similarly afflicted than anyone else’s kids. A more apt comparison would be helping someone with a disabling genetic condition to have kids who will then have the same disabling genetic condition. If you can fix the genetic condition at the same time then sure this is a noble aim. But otherwise, are you not just kicking the can down the road? Saving the person themselves would be fine, to be clear, I’m just commenting specifically on the “and helping them to have children with the same condition” bit. And where “development” would be curing the condition by allowing them to be self sustaining without continual outside intervention.

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manarth 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Because the UN expects the population to double by 2070?

That's a simple extrapolation of growth rates and some assumptions about improvements in mortality.

110 new homes isn't going to make a dent in raising an army.

	▲	pfannkuchen 12 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That and the whole refugee problem in Europe. If we could fix the problems driving refugees out, then great. If we are creating more future refugees (a pattern which could easily be weaponized by destabilizing countries and then propagandizing their plight, for example), then not sure that’s such a good idea. Oh and also you don’t have to look forwards at projections, you can look backwards at the population growth, it’s not as if this sort of thing just started yesterday.