You are taking the point to an extreme, that one person controls all resources and refuses to give them up and therefore everybody else dies, and ultimately he dies as well. "Bill Gate's genes will perish because he's too selfish to feed his wife, kids, or the people around him." This is silly.
My point was, what benefit is there for millions of ResourcefullCountry citizens to give up their resources and ship them over to DyingCountry's citizens? Life (and human life) will definetly go on, just not in the area that had no resources to sustain the amount of life it had been sustaining.
I hate to say it, I believe that is a reflection of not just human nature, but nature in general. You will find many instances of colonies of individual animals that support each other in varying ways and thereby all members are benefited. However, are there instance where colonies of life will actively support remote dying colonies of a similar life (mammals, birds, fish, bacteria)? Or is this something new to humanity?
>
> I think somebody's been spending a little too much time in the
> libertarian newsgroups . . .
Anyhow, if you caught my original post, I said I go back and forth on this issue and have varying thoughts. I could argue the other way but then I'd get 1,000 list members agreeing with me. This way I get to play devils advocate and look for arguments I hadn't thought of, or maybe challenge others to think in a way they hadn't considered before.