Question: What would be the consequences of enacting Peter Singer's "solution" to world poverty?

Enacting Singer's solution to world poverty would actually, I think, make the problem worse. Firstly, as a weak note, many people don't appreciate being treated like children - being 'babied' by other nations. I doubt that it applies to every country, but I'm sure that it makes us some small portion of people in these impoverished nations. More seriously, however, enacting Singer's plan would actually perpetuate the problem and make it worse.

Imagine this scenario; there is a community of two men and two women, the land that they live on can support only four people well. These men and women couple up and one has a male child and the other a female. There are now three couples, and two people that the land cannot support; either two people (one-third of the population) will be starving or the whole group will suffer with eating two-thirds of their needs. Imagine now that a nation sends enough money to feed all six of these people. They now no longer have to worry about food and can adjust there priorities on furthering the population. These three couples then have two female children and two male twins, making five couples or ten people on land that can only support four; either six people (three-fifths of the population) will be starving or each member in the group will have to eat forty percent what they require. The nation sending them food then has to sent three times as much food to feed the six people, whom will then create more children. They will continue to grow dependent on the supplying nations, and the supplying nation will be bound to continue giving a growing portion of it's food, or else watch the larger population, which the helped create, starve. In the above example, the supplying nation could either let two starve or let six starve. Additionally, the quality of life in the supplying nation is also decreasing because they will have less food to distribute.

I think it would be best to let them to their own devices, meaning not stealing their resources and not helping them with food or money. Educating them is a good idea too; if you could teach them how to live off of their land it would prevent all that non-sense; unless, of course, the land cannot actually support more than it's original quota.

Needs Excuse For Cause *Creates Advantageous Problem For Cause*

Question: There is a surplus of these animals that we eat, so why not take advantage of that fact?

Well, in short, I can say that the surplus is not a natural occurrence. We have removed ourselves from the food chain, and many of the extinctions and surpluses/over-populations are our fault, not nature's. Deer, for instance, are over-populated because we have killed natural predators like wolves. The case with farm animals is that there is only a surplus because those animals are bred specifically to be eaten. Without us, they would resume a normal population, additionally we would give other predators another food source, because as it is now, these animals, to are brought into the realm of exemption from the food chain; which also hinders evolutionary development. Its not exactly commonplace morality to create huge problems and then take advantage of those things. We don't destroy houses and say "well, there are no houses here, we may as well build that amusement park that we had no room for." So why do we create surpluses of animals and then use that as an excuse to eat them?

On that note, there is a human surplus, so we should probably get to eating them, since humans are animals too. the only difference there is the sentimental value.

Pet Owning and So On.

In response to Chris - full post here

While I think that I mostly agree here, I think that it is important to recognize that the only reason that domesticate dogs cannot properly survive in the wilderness, is because we have domesticated them for so long. If they were back in nature for a significant length of time, the dogs best at adapting would learn survive.

You argue here that bird's were not meant to be in cages; what do you mean by meant? Bodily functions and features do not indicate that a dog should be inside a house most of the day.

Also, I think what you are trying to say is that it is unethical to domesticate animals and that in the event that you have domesticated an animal, it would be unethical to not own domesticated animals.

In Defense of the Vatican (Never Thought I Would)

In response to Tyler - full post here

There are a few problems with this argument. Firstly, I think it would bad to incorrectly assume that allotting a large sum of money to impoverished nations would solve all of the poverty problems. In fact, I think that quite the opposite is the case. Any redistribution of money only perpetuates the problem. The problem with poverty is a symptom of our society and its economic system; sending money to the impoverished nations is treating a symptom and not treating the disease that hides behind it.

Secondly, it would be an incredibly poor choice to threaten the Vatican given that the largest denomination of Christianity is Catholicism (comprising of almost 50%). Catholics exist all over the world and attacking the Vatican would undoubtedly cause World War III; it would be war between all countries and religions, and that, sir, would help absolutely nobody. I do not think that it is possible to take up arms against the Vatican without the consequence of starting a war, which would make this method the least effective when we are forced to spend large sums of money on supporting an army.

Thirdly, I do not think that it would at all be a morally correct to attack or threaten to attack the Vatican, because, again, it will probably result in many deaths. Additionally, threatening the lives of many people who are not actively contributing to the poverty problem (not the most responsible), is not moral. The Vatican is simply retaining wealth, meaning that it does not spend it often. The United States, however, along with other European nations are actively stealing resources from impoverished nations. They then try to cloud that up by donating a portion of their profits back to the people from whom they stole resources.

Finally, the Vatican receives it's money through tourism and from the donations of those who consider the catholic church to be more worth of their money than a poverty relief organization. The Vatican cannot be blamed because a large number of people continue to give them money. Granted, they do ask for it, but people do not have to act according to the Pope's requisition. If people gave their money to those organizations rather than the catholic church, it would accomplish a similar goal to what you are suggesting, without causing World War III. Not that I think the goal of your plan actually does any good.