That’s a great argument made by people who had the luxury of having food to eat. Would you volunteer to be one of the billion people who would have died had Borlaug not acted to save them? It’s a real easy argument to make when your head is not on the chopping block.
Besides, some of those people could grow up to be the next Norman Borlaug. They could inspire the next breakthrough that saves people’s lives.
Something I covered in some detail in an undergrad anthropology class was the impact of the Green Revolution on Bali. It was a terrible idea. The traditional irrigation system was disrupted because the new fields got priority so they could capitalize on the promise of higher yields. The grain had a shorter growing season, meaning that they could have more harvests, and the fields started to be put under continuous production. They were understandably more focused on the cash crop vs. subsistence, so rice costs actually went up despite higher initial production.
It didn’t take long for the first problems to turn up. First was a bumper crop of insects, then a plague of rodents and other pests, both due in part to the disruption of the irrigation schedule and having crops available year round. Then came lower yields despite the application of pesticides (bought with loans from the World Bank) and more fertilizer. Soil conditions degraded, diseases borne by the pests started to become a problem, and runoff from the fields was poisoning the water supply.
About 15 years after GR farming was introduced, the Balinese completely did away with the new farming and went back to their traditional methods in 1989. They’re still dealing with soil and groundwater pollution. And, of course, they had to pay back the loans they took from other nations to buy the grain, pesticides, fertilizer, and some equipment needed for “optimizing” yields with GR crops.
As far as I know, not many actually died as a result of it, but the Green Revolution came close to being a disaster for Bali, and has had a lasting impact even decades later. What saved them was the wise decision to cut their losses and go back to subsistence farming while finding another way to pay their debts without doing something to further destroy their economy and ecology.
Maurice R. Hilleman, who saved more lives than any other human who has ever lived.
He was a microbiologist who developed vaccines, about 40 of them over his lifetime. Including most of the one we all got as kids: chickenpox, measles, mumps, rubella (German measles), and encephalitis, Haemophilus influenzae (a brain-damaging flu), hepatitis A, hepatitis B, meningitis, pneumonia, and many more. Note that many of these diseases used have major epidemics sweeping across countries periodically, killing thousands. But since his vaccines were introduced, such widespread epidemics have disappeared.
Hardly known at all, yet millions are alive today because of his work.
He also figured out how to combine vaccines, so one shot could protect people from several of these diseases.
Thomas Mitchell- bka Scarlett’s father in GWTW. He won an Oscar (STAGECOACH) and worked non-stop so it’s not like he died in a flop house or went Lugosi, but it’s surprising to me that he’s not better remembered because he was an amazing actor- Irish land baron, alcoholic doctor, bumbling uncle (ancestor of Randy from MY NAME IS EARL), pool hustler, etc., he always brought it to the part (and originated the role of Detective Columbo), but he’s mostly forgotten today.
Philo Farnsworth- the Mormon farmboy who— well, I won’t say he* invented* television, but he certainly invented technologies that made it possible, and he got the ideas for television transmission when plowing a field when he was 14 years old (looking at the lines of overturned earth and imagining waves). He got neither money nor recognition for his creation in his lifetime hardly, save for a carton of cigarettes on a game show in the 1950s. (He’s probably one of the few Mormons to die of lung cancer and it was because his doctor convinced him to start smoking! This being back when cigarettes were seen as stress relievers.)
For that matter, Farnsworth’s archenemies: David Sarnoff and Vladimir Zworykin. The whole story of the invention of television is a great tale involving personality conflicts, David v. Goliath, corporate theft, an asshole boss who changed history by his flip decision not to allow an employee bereavement leave, competing teams, etc… (The legal battles twixt Sarnoff/Farnsworth followed immediately by WW2 delayed the advent of TV as a universal medium for a decade- think of how things may have been different if TV sets had been fully available and mass marketed by the late 1930s.)
And then there’s Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern- schplenden- schlitter- crasscrenbon- fried- digger- dingle- dangle- dongle- dungle- burstein- von- knacker- thrasher- apple- banger- horowitz- ticolensic- grander- knotty- spelltinkle- grandlich- grumblemeyer- spelterwasser- kurstlich- himbleeisen- bahnwagen- gutenabend- bitte- ein- nürnburger- bratwustle- gerspurten- mitz- weimache- luber- hundsfut- gumberaber- shönedanker- kalbsfleisch- mittler- aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm. Why is it his name is never included with the great composers?
To not have Monsanto and it’s ilk running the global food industry? To have a world where “sustainable agriculture” isn’t just a buzzword? Sure, I would. It’d be an honour.
…or the next Josef Mengele.
Oh, dear, I did the “it’s” thing…
I don’t believe for a second that you’d actually be volunteering to starve to death in such a situation.
But that’s not much of a criticism, since I think you’d be pretty nuts if you were eagerly volunteering for starvation.
Sure, overpopulation is a problem, and one without obvious answers. But I would submit that choosing to starve a billion people is obviously not the answer – at least not a moral answer. If withholding food from a starving person is immoral (and I think it is), surely withholding the means for them to feed themselves is equally immoral.
Now, the question of whether these are sustainable advances may be more legitimate. I don’t know enough about the methods Borlaug introduced that I can really assess that part. I’m just saying I don’t buy the part of the argument where people act like overpopulation frees us of our moral obligation to protect human life.
Roky Erickson and Chris D., because they’re freaking brilliant.
For that matter, Farnsworth’s archenemies: David Sarnoff and Vladimir Zworykin. The whole story of the invention of television is a great tale involving personality conflicts, David v. Goliath, corporate theft, an asshole boss who changed history by his flip decision not to allow an employee bereavement leave, competing teams, etc… (The legal battles twixt Sarnoff/Farnsworth followed immediately by WW2 delayed the advent of TV as a universal medium for a decade- think of how things may have been different if TV sets had been fully available and mass marketed by the late 1930s.)
And we should mention the inventor of superheterodyne AM receivers and FM radio: Major Edwin Armstrong: his patents were stolen by RCA (Sarnoff), and Armstrong was driven to suicide.
In all fairness, Farnsworth’s TV system (the “image dissector” was not the best system (Zworykin’s “Iconoscope” was bettr. But Zworykin did not invent the Iconoscope-it was invented by Dr. Boris Rosing, of the Imperial university of St. Petersburg (Russia).
I should also nominate Prof. Igor Sikorski-a pioneer of aviation (built the world’s fist 4-engine bombers, and build the world’s first inter-continental transport plane (the “China Clippers”).
Given your hypothetical - if I die, I am certain no Green Revolution happens, and the world wakes up to its problems sooner, then I would certainly do it. Why do you doubt this? I’d also willingly die by hunger strike to end all whaling, bring about world peace, or end worldwide oppression of women. Because these are things I believe in, just like I believe overpopulation is the greatest threat facing us today.
I didn’t say I’d be eager, I said it would be an honour. Not the same thing.
Firstly, I don’t agree that it’s that binary - that absent the GR, a billion people would have starved. Secondly, it’s a relativistic game, isn’t it - which is more moral, starve 1 billion today or 10 billion in a century? It’s not like the GR has prevented famine in the one continent where it occurs most frequently.
He also invented a working fusion reactor.
Anyway…
•Cyril Kornbluth, science fiction writer. “I’d buy THAT for a [del]dollar[/del] quarter!”
•Major Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr. Technically the first black astronaut, but died in a crash before he ever made it into space. There but for the grace of god…
•And, on a related note…Robert M. White. X-15 pilot and, as far as I can tell, the only person to fly combat missions after earning their astronaut wings. I just thought that was kind of notable.
Vardis Fisher. Good, prolific author that few people even know.
I’ve posted similarly before; a significant amount of the most important blues artists in history are virtually unknown. Besides Muddy Waters & B.B. King (and to a lesser degree, Robert Johnson, T-Bone Walker, John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy, Leadbelly, and perhaps Bessie Smith) all are shrouded in anonymity.
To scratch the surface:
Son House
Howlin’ Wolf
Charley Patton
Skip James
Blind Willie Johnson
Big Bill Broonzy
Willie Dixon
Freddie King
Mississippi John Hurt
Blind Willie McTell
.
.
.
I remember my father mentioning that he worked with White’s brother at the time he was flying the X-15. My father found it amusing that this famous pilot was named bobwhite. I know this post means nothing to anyone else.
. . . Amos Milburn
Would you be willing to watch your children starve to death for the same lofty goal?
Would you tell them as they were dying how big an honor it was since they would be helping avoid hypothetical future suffering for 10 billion people who don’t exist yet and whom they will never meet?
. . . um, right forum up there?
And, soon, No Line On The Horizon (the new U2 album). 
If you are a fan, I highly recommend his documentary, Here Is What Is–really fascinating to see him at work and to see how intuitive he is.
Andrew Dice Clay. He was hot for a while, but then he crashed, big time. His work was hilarious, and Ford Fairlane could have been funny with just a little editing. He was also a very studly actor on Crime Story. His getting fat may have been what did him in. Or maybe his trying to be a singer; but, hey, Patrick Swayze tried to sing, and nobody hates him rabidly.
Clay deserved better than he got.
Also, L. Ron Hubbard. Sure, he made an evil religion, but apparently, he was some kind of genius.
Music: Michael Hedges. He seems to be cult status, but he should be much greater. Of course, his croaking didn’t help.
Mountain: Big hit with ’ Mississippi Queen’, but their other great stuff was rarely, if ever, aired.
I agree about Jay Mohr; I saw one of his comedy skits on one of those unknown shows in the early 90s, and he was hilarious!
Martin Mull was also super hilarious, and he always seemed to have 2nd banana status (disregarding Fernwood tonight) and he should have been honored for at least a generation.
That’s all for now.
Tesla has had a renaissance. There is no heavy metal band named Edison! 
Agreed! I remember from a documentary about the race to the South Pole that Amundsen experienced that nonsense in his lifetime. His success story had to compete with the dramatic tragedy of the Scot expedition, and with bad P.R. over him using sled dogs as meat. IMNSHO, he did what he needed to do to survive, and succeeded in both getting to the Pole first, and in getting home alive.
Sorry, dude, I’ve got to disagree about Teller. I don’t want to turn this into a Teller pitting, but check out his Wikipedia page for some of his - ahem! - controversies. I don’t think we should rename Jahn-Teller resonances to expunge his legitimate scientific work, but if he’s forgotten by the general public that’s fine by me. We owe him no more of our freedom than any other participant in the Manhattan Project.
My pick would be Enrico Fermi. He was brilliant in several distinct areas of physics, in both theory and experiment. By all reports he was also the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet. Maybe if cancer hadn’t gotten him at age 53 he would be better known. And maybe not, he was never much of a self-promoter.
Another one is James Clark Maxwell. Perhaps the greatest physical scientist of the 19th Century, but now only known to people who have taken introductory college physics. Died at age 48 after a career of stunning brilliance. One can only imagine what he might have done in his fifties.
One more - Oliver Heaviside. Lesson: Don’t spend your adult life pissing off an entire institution of higher learning. They’ll rename everything you did after you die. Hence Laplace transforms instead of Heaviside transforms, the ionosphere instead of the Heaviside layer, the telegrapher’s equations instead of Heaviside’s equations, Dirac Delta function instead of Heaviside Step function. Criminey - Heaviside put Maxwell’s equation in their modern, vector calculus form. That alone is huge!