[Phil153]

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Countries that are dirt poor tend not to care about "civilization" or "ideals". They care more about if they're going to eat that day. Protectionist policies perpetuate poverty (say that three times fast lol), so you are in effect promoting these characteristics.

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Disagree. Tibet comes to mind. Also, our aid, loans and trading with Africa doesn't seem to have had much impact. I'm a great believer that social development must come from within.

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How? Creating more wealth (which free trade does) is a solution to overpopulation.

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Are you joking? I can't tell. The populations of the second and third world have exploded because Western technology and know how has given them the ability to support many times the population they could otherwise. I mentioned Asia's green revolution which came from the advanced Western technologies of pesticides, better rice strains and crop management. Consider the scenario where Europe had never established forced empires or traded technology with the rest of the world. The population of many regions would be a fraction of what it is today in my opinion.

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For two, it harms their local environments significantly. How?

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Overpopulation again. Most of the world will breed like rabbits until all of their natural resources are consumed. We see this in just about every third world country, from China to India to Brazil to Africa. Population pressures are the cause of most of the environmental damage in these countries - most forest destruction is done via slash and burn agriculture for example, done by peasant farmers in overpopulated areas.

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Protectionism incentives resource wars. The better the ability to trade with people for resources the less likely you are to go to war for them.

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No, lack of resources incentives resource wars. The industrial development of the second and third world - based almost entirely on Western inventiveness, know how and technology - is going to put a serious strain on world resources. The oil situation alone (it's looking very much like we've peaked already), combined with the rise of fascist China which is funded by US consumers and US know how, is likely to make the future rather ugly.


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The more technological advantage we have, and less industrial development the rest of the world has, the better.

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Yeah, that's why we didn't give boatloads of money to Europe and Japan for industrial development after WW2....

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I have no trouble with giving money and trade to the advanced and responsible civilizations I mentioned.