(Untitled)

[raliyn]

What do you think is the biggest of the following problems in society (ie the one that is the most threatening to the survival of humanity):

1. Capitalism (ie, the me-centric screw everyone else attitude)
2. Overpopulation
3. Mass Media/Advertisement
4. Governments disregard for human rights

Comments

[hykue]

the real question is, what do you think is the biggest of the following problems in society?

I have no opinion on the matter and so am useless for discussion.

[dinospine]

the real real question is. which society are you talking about?

In "the West," if this applies to all of the countries tied together to make "the West," I'd say the largest problems are 1&3, which are basically two sides of the same coin, so to speak. Perhaps if people here were less focused on obtaining wealth, they would worry more about fixing a wide variety of problems. However, what these problems are is up to the interpreter, so if we, in the West, became less involved in the acquisition for wealth and more involved in fixing problems, some of these "problems" may result in religious wars and abortion-doctor murders. In some ways, Capitalism makes people chill out.

In many other societies, the largest problem is 4. Personally, I don't think overpopulation would be an issue if we attempted to distribute our food fairly. Also, it would have been nice if the Polio researchers in Africa didn't create HIV....

[natowelch]

Man, that's a tough choice. I'm going for Capitlaism, though.

Mass media flows from capitalism, I'd say. Government disregard for human rights, while a worthy problem, is still limited in scope and receding.

"Overpopulation" often strikes me as a bad way to express a variety of problems. If we're talking about too many people, then too many for what? We're a species that can solve our own resource efficiency and consumption issues in short order (in biological time). We can even curb our reproduction to an extent. The problem isn't having an intolerable number of people, it's the catastrophes that effect overstretched resource limits and sudden, catastrophic change (sea rise, storms, freshwater, drought, etc.) "Overpopulation" just seems like a catch-all term to blame ourselves for our own problems, and to somehow justify them in a way that leaves us as individuals feeling justified for doing nothing about it.