Will poverty be eliminated in 25 years?

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ribozyme

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This assertion gives me extreme optimism:
By the time a child born today graduates from college, Kurzweil believes, poverty, disease, and reliance on fossil fuels should be a thing of the past. Speaking of which, don’t get him started on global-warming hype.
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money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/05/14/100008848/index.htm?postversion=2007050209

I hope that we can eliminate poverty and rectify social inequality in the future. Although I believe in some of Kurzweil’s predictions, unfortunately, his work hasn’t completely quelled my doubts about his optimistic future. Superficially, it sounds like the quixotic world of Star Trek. I wonder if technology will solve all the maladies of the human species – poverty, disease, social inequality, and so on – and abolish suffering. However, some who aim to deprecate Kurzweil’s ideas use metaphors that are evocative of religion. For example:

“The rapture for nerds”

Don’t patronize my “religion” on this thread! 🙂

On what basis does Kurzweil base his “augury” on? – The Law of Accelerating Returns. Click on the figure in my signature. It’s a 56 page read (not double-spaced including graphs on Microsoft Word) but it is definitely worth an hour of your time for a perusal of that essay.
"If you went around saying that in a couple of decades we’ll have cell-sized, brain-enhancing robots circulating through our bloodstream, or that we’ll be able to upload a person’s consciousness into a computer, people would probably question your sanity.
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But if you say things like that and you’re Ray Kurzweil, you get invited to dinner at Bill Gates’ house - twice - so he can pick your brain for insights on the future of technology. The Microsoft (Charts, Fortune 500) chairman calls him a “visionary thinker and futurist.”
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Do you think Kurzweil is an over-optimistic pollyanna? I am a misanthrope and I loathe many aspects about the species Homo sapiens. For example:
Lee Silver, a Princeton biologist, said he’d love to believe in the future as Kurzweil sees it, but the problem is, humans are involved. The instinct to preserve individuality, and to gain advantage for yourself and your children, would survive any breakthrough into biological immortality – which Silver doesn’t think is possible. The gap between the haves and have-nots would widen and Kurzweil’s vision of a united humanity would become ever more elusive, he said.
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“I think it would require a change in human nature,” Silver said, “and I don’t think people want to do that.”
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wired.com/medtech/health/news/2005/02/66585

I do not know if our species can eliminate this destructive selfishness and I fear this attitude is internecine. Such sentiments are an impediment to human solidarity. One should concede that Kurzweil is rather adept at predicting technological trends, but one has to ask if he is apprised about humanity’s selfish nature.

Nevertheless, I’m excited about the future.
 
snickers

That depends where you stand on the Peak Oil debate, and how it plays into the question of non-organic sociological and technological specialization.

Myself, I’m really rather pessimistic about the whole thing, at least from the standpoint of Western society, which I’d wager has no more than a decade or two of life left in it. But from my point of view, I feel that I’m optimistic in the sense that it’s the best thing for humanity in the long run.
 
MilesXpisti said:
snickers

That depends where you stand on the Peak Oil debate, and how it plays into the question of non-organic sociological and technological specialization.

Myself, I’m really rather pessimistic about the whole thing, at least from the standpoint of Western society, which I’d wager has no more than a decade or two of life left in it. But from my point of view, I feel that I’m optimistic in the sense that it’s the best thing for humanity in the long run.
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We could eliminate poverty if we eliminated modern Western society.
 
Catholic Charities has a goal to cut poverty in half in about that time. When I got their email, I asked them, "How?"

And they can’t answer it – they can repeat their talking points, but can’t give any details.
 
Not gonna happen. There will always be people who for one reason or another will be poor. I know some people who are poor through bad luck, bad choices and some who are just plain ornery, mean and poor.
 
There will always be poverty b/c of how we define poverty.

A “poor” family in the U.S. would be upper middle class in China, and unimaginably wealthy 100 years ago.

In the U.S, we have basically eliminated real material poverty (with the exception of some homeless who won’t accept help due to mental illness or drug/alcohol addiction).

No one in the U.S starves to death or dies of exposure, who is willing to seek and accept help.

Most of the “poor” have multi-room apartments, cell phones, TV’s, DVD, etc. They are poor only in reference to the general income level.

God Bless
 
As long as poverty is measured as a % of the population based on income there will, by definition always be “poor” people.

Take the concept of “poor” into world context and things look a bit different here in the US (or in any developed nation). A typical poor person has a roof over his/her head, access to indoor plumbing, etc. According to the US Goverment, many poor Americans have cars, cable TV and jobs. A typical “poor” person in an undeveloped nation has essentially nothing but the clothes on their back.

To eliminate “poor” would be to completely equalize and redistribute income such that everyone had exactly the same things. It is unlikely to ever happen because some people have the capacity to earn more, others have the capacity to demand more, many have the capacity to expect more but not want to exert effort to earn it, still others do not have the mental or physical capacity for much. It all boils down to a question of “fairness” and asking thinks like is it fair that a president of a company should make $1 or even $10 MILLION dollars while a laborer makes $7 per hour? And if you say no, then is it fair that TV personality Matt Lauer makes $17 Million or Oprah Windfrey makes $50 Million? What is fair and who determines it? And when you figure that out then you have to take “it” away from the folks who have it and “give it” to the folks who don’t . . . but if you simply give it, will they spend it wisely, or even fairly? Look to the communist economic model for something that reasonably resembles fairness? China, North Korea and Cuba . . . there is less poverty because nobody is considered poor, but then by our standards most of their populations would be living at/below/near our poverty lines!!!
 
Poverty, I think, cannot be measured entirely in material goods and money. There is hopelessness, lack of human dignity, and a degraded condition.

A poor person is, in my opinion, one who does not support himself. And the “solution” to poverty is to educate people and make them self-supporting.

There will always be those who cannot or will not support themselves, but they are only a fraction of those we consider “poor” today.
 
vern_humphrey said:
Poverty, I think, cannot be measured entirely in material goods and money. There is hopelessness, lack of human dignity, and a degraded condition.

A poor person is, in my opinion, one who does not support himself. And the “solution” to poverty is to educate people and make them self-supporting.

There will always be those who cannot or will not support themselves, but they are only a fraction of those we consider “poor” today.
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Your obviously not thinking in global terms.
 
Will there still be selfish people on this planet in 25 years?

Yes

Therefore, there will still be poverty, injustice, and an inequitable distribution of wealth.

Jesus told us we would always have the poor with us. We must give special care to them, but we will never really eliminate poverty until we eliminate sin: in other words… at the Second Coming.
 
vern_humphrey said:
If we can’t deal with poverty in our own country, we have no warrant to go swanning around the globe telling other people how to solve their problems.
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So until you deal with your own poverty how do you recommend dealing with third world poverty in the interim?
 
bilop said:
There are plenty of middle and upper class people that fit that description.

God Bless
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Yes, there are. A good example is Brittany Spears. Her problems aren’t due to lack of money.
 
Proletarian said:
So until you deal with your own poverty how do you recommend dealing with third world poverty in the interim?
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Until we solve our own problems, I don’t think we have a lot of credibility in this area.

But if you want a personal opinion, a lot of Third World poverty is associated with tribal warfare and brutal dictatorships. The only solution to that problem involves large quantities of ammunition.

And you willing to walk point?
 
vern_humphrey said:
Until we solve our own problems, I don’t think we have a lot of credibility in this area.
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Agreed.

I actually was reading somewhere HERE on CA (wish I could find it) where a prominent member of Kenya’s government was suggesting that foreign aid is actually destroying much of Africa, leading to more bloodshed and tribal rivalries as one tribe garners power it gets to control the aid . . . and this is evident in the Darfur region of Sudan.
 
melensdad said:
Agreed.

I actually was reading somewhere HERE on CA (wish I could find it) where a prominent member of Kenya’s government was suggesting that foreign aid is actually destroying much of Africa, leading to more bloodshed and tribal rivalries as one tribe garners power it gets to control the aid . . . and this is evident in the Darfur region of Sudan.
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Yep – I read the same thread and the cited comments. And he’s right.

Also, when we forgave international debt, the nations that **weren’t **paying their debts got them wiped out. The nations that were paying them didn’t – and Kenya is one of the latter.

The lesson is, if you borrow, steal the money, use it to enrich yourself and your cronies, and buy arms to oppress your people, we’ll wipe the slate clean and you can borrow more. If you use the money to develop your nation. benefit your people and work hard to replay the debt, you’re screwed.
 
vern_humphrey said:
. . . If you use the money to develop your nation. benefit your people and work hard to replay the debt, you’re screwed.
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Not only that, but by using it for so-called humanitarian efforts instead of to build your economy you end up in a situation of being dependent on the aid. No different than the way some people spiral down on welfare. As social programs are built up the costs never go away and the 3rd world economies cannot support the programs so the need/demand for aid becomes ever increasing.
 
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