How to select whom goes without food and water...

[So rightwing that I broke the Political Compass!]

All plausible efforts for reducing waste and overconsumption have been implemented, and emigration to resource-plentiful areas is not a possibility.... how should those that go without and therefore die be determined?

(This is an entirely realistic scenario that is actually occuring in some countries)

Possibilities that come to mind:
-Totally random selection by lottery
-Letting anarchy occur(survival of the fittest)
-Letting capitalism determine it(survival of the richest)
-Denying the oldest citizens(survival of the youngest)
-Determining which citizens are already the least healthy(survival of the healthiest)
-Denying folks in prison/with criminal convictions(survival of the law abiding)...


Countless other possibilities exist. Which would you favour? Personally I favour some combination of the last three on my list.

[courts]

Well 4, 5 and 6 would be preferable to me.  But in actuality it would just be 2 and/or 3 by that point for obvious reasons.

[dead0man]

We're not running out of food.  Actually, the opposite is happening.  There is enough food in the world to feed everyone.  cite

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People starve because of sh**tty governments.

The water issue is a bit more problematic.  It's both getting better and worse at the same time.  But the biggest issue making it hard for certain peoples to get clean water is, again, sh**tty governments.  cite

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But the future might not be as bright....

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[tpfkaw]

Number 3.  There's enough water for the next million years; when current supplies are depleted (which is doubtful in the first place, there's quite a bit of freshwater and there's always more of it) desalinization will become economically viable.  Similarly, there's enough arable land in the US alone to potentially feed several billion people; the only reason people don't have enough food is because of crazy government policies like paying farmers *not* to grow food, banning modern agricultural methods at the behest of reactionary wackos, and tariffs on agricultural products.

[TNF]

Number 3.  There's enough water for the next million years; when current supplies are depleted (which is doubtful in the first place, there's quite a bit of freshwater and there's always more of it) desalinization will become economically viable.  Similarly, there's enough arable land in the US alone to potentially feed several billion people; the only reason people don't have enough food is because of crazy government policies like paying farmers *not* to grow food, banning modern agricultural methods at the behest of reactionary wackos, and tariffs on agricultural products.

It's crazy to prevent depletion of the soil?

[tpfkaw]

Number 3.  There's enough water for the next million years; when current supplies are depleted (which is doubtful in the first place, there's quite a bit of freshwater and there's always more of it) desalinization will become economically viable.  Similarly, there's enough arable land in the US alone to potentially feed several billion people; the only reason people don't have enough food is because of crazy government policies like paying farmers *not* to grow food, banning modern agricultural methods at the behest of reactionary wackos, and tariffs on agricultural products.

It's crazy to prevent depletion of the soil?

Modern farming methods (the Green Revolution) involve constantly replenishing the nutrients in the soil, such that it will never be depleted.  Such methods have saved over a billion lives from starvation, so of course there are genocidal Malthusian nutcases for whom it's more important to prevent fish from possibly being poisoned than for billions of third-world brown people not to die in famines (as I alluded to in my post).

The US government policy does not and never had anything to do with soil depletion, it is explicitly designed to reduce the food supply so that agribusiness can collect additional profit.  While millions of people still starve to death each year, such a policy is breathtakingly immoral.

[dead0man]

While you are correct that the US govt policy is to limit the amount of food grown to keep prices artificially high and that it is wrong, it's not why people in Africa and Asia starve.  It may be a contributing factor, but it's certainly not the only reason and likely isn't even a primary reason (though that could be argued).

[tpfkaw]

While you are correct that the US govt policy is to limit the amount of food grown to keep prices artificially high and that it is wrong, it's not why people in Africa and Asia starve.  It may be a contributing factor, but it's certainly not the only reason and likely isn't even a primary reason (though that could be argued).

I didn't say it was the reason people in other countries starve, I'm just saying that increasing the world food supply will lower the price of food and put it within reach of more people.  (So yeah, it's somewhat indirectly a reason people in poor countries starve).

[Redalgo]

There is enough food and water to go around, and if people had to go without it I would still want public policies to attempt providing these resources for everyone. If people are going to die it is not going to be because we decided they were expendable and gave up on them. There are many viable strategies for coping with disputes over resource allocation in a sustainable manner without having people die off but each of these political-economic paradigms comes with its own strong points in addition to shortcomings to overcome. Innovation and long-term vision is what we really need more than anything - it's merely that as things are most people cannot be bothered to care enough about the needs of many others to help if it means suffering inconveniences of their own.

[So rightwing that I broke the Political Compass!]

A few points:

To repeat: their are already places suffering a lack of food and water. A system of determining who to let go is relevant at least for them.

Other places- Yemen for example- are poised on the cusp of crippling water shortages.

Furthermore if we see significant climate destabilization(due to AGW, natural climate shifts or something like Yellowstone erupting) this will be a necessary decision for all surviving polities. .

[opebo]

We can't just let people starve and die of dehydration - we must allow them to die humanely in euthanasia booths with light muzak and slide shows.  Then their bodies can be processed into Soylent Green to at least alleviate the problem a little.

[The Mikado]

The glaring misuse of "whom" in the topic is distracting me from the thread.

[Redalgo]

To repeat: their are already places suffering a lack of food and water. A system of determining who to let go is relevant at least for them.

Other places- Yemen for example- are poised on the cusp of crippling water shortages.

Furthermore if we see significant climate destabilization(due to AGW, natural climate shifts or something like Yellowstone erupting) this will be a necessary decision for all surviving polities.

In which case, I favor a lottery system from which nobody in the country is exempt after food and water access is rationed so as to cut off supplies to all new kids born to a mother after her first until such a time as the population has returned to a sustainable level. In the meanwhile, providing basic resources to the people would be an extremely high priority. More funds could be obtained by disbanding the country's armed forces, raising tax rates if they are not already rather high, and pleading for assistance from more developed countries still capable of providing for themselves.