[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vtsnowedin', 'I')t is a bit disconcerting that we need to debate the difference between want and need. You need air. If you are deprived of it for more then three minutes you will die. You want high speed internet but if you are deprived of it you might have to read a book.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ralfy', '
')What I offered is not ironic as basic needs and "wants" are things that people want. The question is which ones allow allows for long-term health. See the first paragraph of the wiki entry for details and my previous post on the matter.

[ralfy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '
')
Seems how my statement is what set this all off I will be blunt. What the world worker union or whomever says is irrelevant to my distinction between a want and a need. In order to be born and live long enough to have a child and raise that child until it can bring forth grandchildren to carry on your genetic line there are basic needs.
These are
1) adequate shelter to keep you from roasting/freezing/exposure to bad weather.
2) adequate food to have life and energy left over to reproduce successfully.
3) adequate potable water for drinking and cooking purposes.
4) adequate clothing so that when you are outside your shelter you are not exposed to conditions that will kill or maim you.

That is it for NEEDS. For wants
1) I prefer a nice warm in winter cool in summer private house, but if I have to I can live 20 people to a hut where body heat keeps us from freezing in the winter.
2) I prefer a wide variety of foods to choose from in all seasons and the fresher the better, but I can live on canned tuna and Ramen noodles if I have too. Been there, done that.
3) I prefer showers and baths and clean clothes and mopped floors. If I have too I can live in one set of clothes without bathing only hand washing before meals. That was how most Americans lived as recently as 1900 and as late as 1960 bathing once a week was considered perfectly normal.
4) I prefer having a closet full of clothing and a choice of outer wear to fit the conditions outside from barefoot to heavy winter boots. If I had too I could have one set of clothes that would be worn in layers depending on weather conditions just like people did in the past.

None of this is to say education and health care are unimportant, but the vast bulk of humans who have ever lived got their education from their parents/tribe/employer and you went to the Doctor if you were very ill or badly injured and just muddled on through otherwise. Needs are what you have to have to muddle on through, Wants make life more interesting and often longer. Following the basic hygiene rules put out in the old Testament book Deuteronomy or Leviticus greatly slows the spread of infectious disease. Part of the reason Jewish adherents were persecuted in the middle ages is they had much better hygiene so they had much lower disease rates and their Christian adherent neighbors blamed them for the illnesses they suffered from. Cleanliness is next to Godliness is just a catch phrase to us, but before modern antibiotics it was life saving advice.

I believe our civilization is at a fork in the road, either we work our way around Peak Oil and continue our current high technology lifestyle, or we fall back a very very long way. Civilizations have collapsed hundreds of times in the human history that we know of, usually leaving a remnant population of about ten percent who are good survivor types. We talk about the 'collapse' of the Soviet Union, but it really was not in any real sense of the term, it was just a political dissolution and a deep depression. The Hopi Indians, the Mayans, the Moche, Ancient Egypt several times, the Fertile Crescent several times, the Chinese several times, the cultures of India several times went through cycles where the population drop was extreme. People starved, or fled, or fought until most of them did not live there any more. Ancient ruins are RUINS because the people building and maintaining them stopped doing so. Sometimes the population decline took 100 years, like it did in Rome between 450-550 AD. Other times like the Mayan civilization it looks as if one day the people were working the fields and the next day they were gone.

We are either about to have our hour of greatest triumph, or deepest despair. If we fail as a civilization we could do it overnight like the Maya or over a century like Rome. For the city of Rome between a third and half the population was on public assistance right before the end, when they could no longer feed the poor they fled the city or starved.

If we do not navigate the peak well many of us will be facing the same dilemma of where does our next meal come from. Having grown up in the country I can tell you there is not a lot of food stored here any longer, it gets hauled away by truck and train as soon as it is harvested and sold away. Nobody stores food any longer, so if the distribution system fails we are all in very big trouble. The good news is 30% of Americans are now obese so they can last months without food. The bad news is in a total collapse like the dystopian books and movies scenario after those few months there are no new crops coming in to eat, and the wildlife and pet populations will have been devastated by desperate people looking for anything to eat. Smart animal husbandry will give you a sustainable yield of meat from range land, a desperate crowd of hungry people will slaughter and waste without thought for the next year. Eating the seeds will feed you for a few weeks, but then you have nothing to plant for the next years growing season.

[Pops]

And OS makes my point.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ased on what the world agrees a need vs. a want...

[ralfy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', '
')Feel free to play all the word games you want. Extremes of both sides of the political aisle do this a lot to justify irrational positions. If you want to, for example, define a fish as a bicycle, it's a free country, but don't expect to have much credibility among educated people. Wiki uses a long tortured discussion of "want" and "need", using lots of words, but saying little specific. I'm sure it's great if your desire is to distort, but if your desire is to find an accurate definition for common usage, I'm unimpressed.

[Tanada]

Proper hygiene has done far more for infant mortality rates than every doctor who ever drew a breath, and the good ones will admit that if you ask them.

[vtsnowedin]

I would not rank education as a "need". So many in the world have none and carry on undisturbed. I would rank it as a tool which helps people acquire the things they truly need efficiently and avoiding needles waste. Education about heath care and sanitation would also be a tool not a need.
Wanting something a lot or a majority of people wanting something does not elevate it to a need. After all millions of people "want" to win the lottery but all that wanting does not improve their chances of winning or elevate winning to a need.
On a personal level health care may be a need if you are already sick but as the human race is over populated the world does not "need" any one individual (myself included) to survive and the planet most certainly doesn't "Need" humans and could get along quite nicely without us.

[ralfy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'P')roper hygiene has done far more for infant mortality rates than every doctor who ever drew a breath, and the good ones will admit that if you ask them.

[ralfy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vtsnowedin', 'I') would not rank education as a "need". So many in the world have none and carry on undisturbed. I would rank it as a tool which helps people acquire the things they truly need efficiently and avoiding needles waste. Education about heath care and sanitation would also be a tool not a need.
Wanting something a lot or a majority of people wanting something does not elevate it to a need. After all millions of people "want" to win the lottery but all that wanting does not improve their chances of winning or elevate winning to a need.
On a personal level health care may be a need if you are already sick but as the human race is over populated the world does not "need" any one individual (myself included) to survive and the planet most certainly doesn't "Need" humans and could get along quite nicely without us.

[Subjectivist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ralfy', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'P')roper hygiene has done far more for infant mortality rates than every doctor who ever drew a breath, and the good ones will admit that if you ask them.

[ralfy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Subjectivist', '
')
I see proper hygiene as cultural. Muslims have had proper hygiene for almost 800 years and Jews have had it for 3500 years. Japanese culture has had it for hundreds of years without it being based on either religion.