From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Wed Mar 05 2003 - 00:45:25 MST
For those concerned with setting priorities (for humanity)
I offer the following.
A recent "New Scientist" report documents that we are losing
56 million people a year (deaths) and that it is likely that
poor diet (including obesity in large part) contributes to
60 percent of those deaths and nearly half the global burden
of disease. Note that "obesity" means you are consuming *more*
of the planetary resources than is necessary to survive.
Also note that I include myself in this category, so I'm
not pointing fingers without including myself.
Thus the U.S. could eliminate the entire population of Iraq
(~24 million people, a one time event) and still be
causing significantly less "extropic" damage than
excess caloric consumption is doing (*each* year).
So, *why* the blazes is the ExI list debating IRAQ when
it should be debating caloric intake? Just what part
of the principle of "rational thinking" is not being
understood (e.g. saving more people is perhaps better
than saving fewer people)? While I will freely
admit that saving any and all people is preferable
but that just isn't the world we live in -- particularly
when some of those people view it as their "job"
to eliminate others. One has to take sides and one
has to act. Where are the really extropic actors
who recognize just where the leverage points are?
The point of the above diatribe is that one might save
many more people with some carefully executed interventions
in obesity than days upon days of discussion about Iraq.
Food for thought (I hope).
(I apologize to any Iraqi citizens on the list for the
use of the above example, but I'm trying to make an
"extropic" point and must sometimes use extreme examples.)
Robert
Refs.
Cut sugar to battle obesity, says report. (3 Mar 2003)
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993453
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