The cost of fixing things.

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

Back in the 80s, I  went to a presentation on world poverty being run by a group called The Hunger Project.

One of the arguments being discussed was that poverty was not inevitable. we had , after all, put a man on the moon - so could we not end poverty on Planet Earth?

Think of the cost of giving every child on Earth a decent home with running water, with proper sanitation, and then giving all those children a primary education and then an adequate diet. the cost would run into astronomical figures.

I was actually shown the figure on a screen - a huge number with a whole string of noughts on the end.
" And yet, " the speaker told us " this is what the UK spends every year on chocolate and sweets, its what Europeans spend every month on alcohol, and it's what the USA spends every day on armaments."

Wow!

A more recent figure put it at three trillion US dollars. A trillion = 1,000,000,000,000.  It's a thousand billions, and a billion is a thousand millions. That is a lot of money - and yet, I wonder  how much that would come to in terms of government spending? Is it an accurate estimate even? It must be added that the money needs to be spent wisely and not funnelled off by corrupt dictators - but what would the cost be of eliminating endemic poverty , and could the world actually raise that amount?

Comments

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Well I could say "Neener Neener, you're an idiot" if you prefer but I usually stick in the area of actual discourse which occasionally requires some verbosity.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

You're right, the binary opposite of giant walls of text are single line insults, there's nothing inbetween.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

By bindly assuming a derogatory motivation (smugness) was behind a wordy answer he gave, it would seem an insult responding to an insult was, if not productive, perhaps fitting. Maybe that is something to think about.

So he writes in longform. Clearly that implies a moral deficiency and a personal failing. Huh?!?

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

By blindly assuming I'm blindly assuming, I'm having trouble finding credibility in your argument.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

I had no idea that typing at length was objectively smug.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

When you use it as a defense to not have to debate, people will call you on it.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

There is no way you can know this was the intent. If there is, and I'm not aware of it, I would like to learn your technique of discernment.

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

if so, i can give rasilio some pointers on the art of being smug in ten words or less..