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Originally Posted by Damien
Well it's totally missed the point of natural selection  Nature decides who is best adapted to the environment, not us. |
precisely, which is why our interference is not helping.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
Not to mention we are the same species anyway and your instinct should be to help those in need and not let them die, that is how we evolved as a species. Our brains, our ability to communicate, and our compassion and ability to feel empathy.
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societies morals dictate we should be compassionate. our instincts tell us to protect that which will benefit ourselves (our children for our genes, our friends for our troop, etc). giving money to charity does not benefit the giver in any way, thus instinct is irrelevent. compassion and empathy derive mainly from religious virtues and an evolved phsychological understanding for ethical thought.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
Then we get into the impracticality of abandoning a continent to die (not to mention the inhumanity which would be a massive stain of the soul of the Human race), and the misunderstanding of how decent aid can help towards a long term solution. Most aid is now targeted at education and health, two of the main barriers to helping those poorest in our world to work forwards a better future. These schemes are successful, but Africa is a big place.
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by all means, set them up and support them, but aid work just seems to be in an endless cycle of bailing out to the point now that these people are dependant on aid to live. this is not building them a better future, this is setting them up to be in debt to the 1st world and forever in their pockets. inhumane it might be, but that comes back to my point on compassion.
regardless of what views are on this, this is the way of the world, the way of nature. and yes, natural selection is about survival of the fittest and those who adapt best to their environment, but what you have missed out is that as a race, humans now change their environment to suit their own needs, rather than changing ourselves to suit our surroundings. we have evolved from that, no denying it. you only need to look around your home to see that. so what benefit does the human race gain from keeping the weak alive and thus creating a burden for it's own back?
we all have the capacity to be compassionate. I want to see people die as much as the next person, but you cannot deny that we are defying nature. we are effectively jumping up and down on the finely tuned scales that nature has created over millions of years. so who are we to decide who lives and who dies? should we not let the old pro nature do that job? she's certainly had more practice at it than we have.