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Was Africa saved by AIDS?

di Malebranche

Muffin Snuffer
di Malebranche
Joined
Mar 28, 2006
Messages
107
This was a stupid topic to discuss. Very stupid, indeed.

EDIT: So yeah, this topic has caught some grief, and will catch more, so I acknowledge that it was a mistake and apologise in advance to anyone who continues to read beyond this.

We hear alot about the incredibly high percentage of the African population currently afflicted with AIDS, and while I do feel sympathy for some of these people (namely the children born of HIV-infected parents), I offer the following point.

Lets say for the sake of arguement that the AIDS epidemic began around 1982 in Africa. We're talking full-swing of things and growing out of control. Since then it is safe assumption that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, have died because of complications with AIDS. Now, consider if this population hadn't died. A majority of these people, within the last twenty-four years, would have most likely procreated at least once. Some may have had two, three, four, a dozen children even. The population would be much higher now, in a place where millions upon millions are already starving. There would be more fighters for civil and tribal wars. There would be more people squeezed into underdeveloped cities and population centers.

If not for the AIDS epidemic, I think Africa would be far worse off than it currently is.

Your take?
 
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It boils down to a few questions:

If it were you, would you rather die of starvation, or of AIDS?
Is AIDS curable? Is starvation?

If you can answer those question, you might be close to finding your answer.
 
Starvation is cureable, but not in the current state of affairs.

The state of affairs not being the assets available throughout the world, but rather, the assets that the rest of the world is willing to give to Africa to fix the problem.

I'm not trying to come off in such a way that you should think I support AIDS or anything. I'm just saying that if not for AIDS, Africa would could possibly be much worse off than it currently is.

Though in the process of writing this response, I've considered the fact that AIDS continues as an epidemic, and if the increase of cases continues to blossom, it will remain as it is: a horrible tragedy to the continent, and the world.
 
Because Africa has the highest population effected by the syndrome, by far. The same as I can say Botswana has over 1/3 of the population currently diagnosed, or that Nigeria has over 3 million people with AIDS. Where it is a problem and epidemic all over the world, is a centralized threat to an entire continent in Africa.
 
That's a very informative website. Thanks, Steve, I'm reading through it now.

I should note that my preferred means of world population devestation is the removal of all warning labels.
 
People die one way or another so what? I don't think this topic is so bad. It is merely the way it is posted and explained that is a problem. If you are saying that people dying of aids saved them from dieing from starvation or some other disease, how is that saved?
 
Rasmus said:
My take would get me banned here until after the heat death of the universe.
Click to expand...


I'm afraid that I'm with you on this one. I don't think I'll reply, either.

I don't see the need for people to be dying for either reason, myself.
 
I'm with Rasmus on this, but wouldn't want to get banned quite this quickly, so first a couple of problems with what you say ;)

There's a lot of Africans. Unsurprisingly, they do lots of things other than fight in civil/tribal wars (btw, you don't mention interstate wars/conflicts - are these more productive than civil wars?) Unless something drastic changes, AIDS is likely to kill off a large part of the younger generation at a time when they would normally be working productively - as well as obviously being bad for those who die and their friends/families, this is not good for the economies or the societies in the continent.

Africa's a big place. Don't you need to distinguish between different countries/different regions (the economy in South Africa, for example, is much stronger than in Zimbabwe)? Again, big parts of Africa are relatively peaceful.

As JJ notes, neither war nor starvation are inevitable.

Jon
 
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Di Malebranche said:
If not for the AIDS epidemic, I think Africa would be far worse off than it currently is.

Your take?
Click to expand...
No one can say, but the flip side is that those dying fastest are the young; meaning those who might have been able to make it a better place.

Obviously there is something wrong with their cultures that prevents them from learning from known truths and changing their promiscuity (I'm not automatically opposed to that, just the lack of smarts, as in condoms).

The bottom line is that they reap what they sow. That applies to all humans. Wars are another method of limiting population and sometimes educating them. Africa has plenty of both and hopefully evolution will run its course and do what it does best, eventually.

:(
 
Ironically, much of the spread of AIDS in Africa is due to modernisation- better roads and the internal combustion engine. Viruses travel by truck these days - and of course, by plane.
Human genetic variation inside Africa is greater than in the rest of the world put together. If Africa can't evolve resistance to HIV, ultimately, it's unlikely the rest of mankind will.
Africa is chapter one.
The HIV story has a long way to go yet.
 
If you visit the website I posted above, on a worldwide basis among developing nations, there are 2.67 million mortalities due to AIDS (1.9 million in sub-Sahran Africa). A close second is lower respiratory diseases
(usually pneumonias) at 2.64 million, Ischemic Heart Disease at 2.48 million and Diarrheal diseases at 1.78 million. Malaria kills 1.1 million and TB finishes off another 1.02 million people in developing nations. Starvation isn't up there. AIDS just happens to be at the top of the list but if it weren't there, people who die of AIDS would clearly be dying of something next on the list. In the developed world (e.g. the US and Western Europe) Ischemic Heart Disease kills 3.5 million people (more than AIDS),
related cerebrovascular disease knocks off another 3.3 million people. Chronic lung disease kills 1.8 million. AIDS isn't even in the top ten, but if it were, it would just kill people who won't have a chance to die of heart or vascular disease. Neither starvation or war seems to be in the top ten in either world although unquestionnably they cause deaths.

My answer would be, if anything, is that AIDS has saved Africa and Africans so they don't die of other diseases, starvation not being one of them although the point about famine due to an exploding population is difficult to assess since other diseases may move in to do this. By the same token if people in the developed world don't die of heart and CV disease, even at a later age, and people live much longer, who's to say their continued existence wouldn't precipitate a famine crisis as well?
 
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I agree, you should never have started this topic, as its premise is worthy of Iamme. And that's not a compliment.

If Africa had developed economically, you'd have higher educational levels and, consequently, longer life expectancy, smaller fertility rate and less deaths by preventable diseases, including AIDS. By killing people in working age, and children, with all the medical costs it implies, along with the social problems of having too many orphans and disabled people, it is fair to say that Africa's economic development will be hindered. It is very much when doctors say that smoking will shorten your life in x years. In this case, AIDS will slow or stall Africa's development, and losing decades of growing, at this point, might mean they won't catch up with other nations any time soon.
 
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