X-Message-Number: 15816 Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 12:27:25 -0500 From: James Swayze <> Subject: Numbers of suffering people References: <> I don't think it is accurate to try to use raw numbers to assess the level of suffering in the world today compared to past times. I feel we (everyone, first through third world) are way better off now than in any time in the past. If one disagrees perhaps one could pick a time from the past that one feels was better. I'll promptly point out the horrors of that time and why one really doesn't want to exist then. Yes in terms of shear numbers of people at any one time more may be in dire straights right now but that's only because the population has grown exponentially acquiring 90% of the total in just the last century. What is more accurate is PER CAPITA statistics (caps used for italics). Per capita we live in the best times yet. I feel it will only get better. My reason is I follow the trend. Over all we are tending toward betterment of life for all. No it's not fast enough but with technology, the very technology that frightens the pants off the luddites, it will soon speed up exponentially. We must stay the ignorant hordes from storming the gates. Corporations have pushed GM foods on the public because if they had asked John Q. Public his opinion there'd be no GM foods! John Q. Public's mental image of a scientist is Frankensteinian...white coated, hair unkempt, wild eyed, frenetically mixing mysterious contents of foaming test tubes....boom!! James Swayze -- Some of our views are spacious some are merely space--RUSH Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15816