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China’s Pig Pandemic
- crazygorilla 7y agoWhat I worry about is that an increasing population also means an increasing "surface area" where diseases can occur in the first place, not just that they spread faster.
- techVentureStar 7y agoI am not sure what is related to hacker news here? pig flu or china?
- whoevercares 7y ago>>Meanwhile, China's hierarchical system remains fragmented and autonomous below the top levels of power. exponential decay wrt distance to Beijing
- toxik 7y ago「天高皇帝遠」 as the Chinese saying goes. (en: Heaven is high and the emperor far away)
- elgenie 7y agoRussian has a very similar adage: До Бога высоко, до Царя́ далеко. (God is high above and the Tsar is far away)
- ipeev 7y agoБог високо, цар далеко in Bulgarian too.
- networkimprov 7y agoI heard: "The mountains are high, and the emperor is far away."
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ChoGGi 7y agoChina’s Pig Pandemic Should Worry Everyone What's up with the title? I could understand for something like SARS, but African swine fever only affects pigs.
- zelon88 7y agoAside from the very good points I've already seen pointed out... The prediction is that 30% of China's pig herd will die. Pork is their staple protein and if 30% of their supply disappears the price will go through the roof and then it will be almost impossible to deny on Chinese media that there's an out-of-control epidemic and the government isn't prepared to do anything about it.
- exhilaration 7y agoDon't they have massive pork reserves?
- tekno45 7y agoIt takes time to get to where it needs to go. There would still be a shock.
- bluGill 7y agoI doubt it (but I don't know). Pork doesn't store well, your best best is freeze it, but that requires constant energy. You can salt it as well. Either way though after 1 year quality goes way down. China does have large stores of Corn and Soybeans, which they can feed to pigs. Grain stores fairly well once you dry it, no need for expensive refrigeration. Quality goes down over time, but you can still get several years. Since most of this is feed to animals quality loss is not as big a deal (poison of a few animals is an economic issue - moral concerns can be hid from consumers much easier)
- avar 7y ago> Your best best is freeze it, but that requires constant energy. Making up the difference between freezing and the ambient temperature requires constant energy. China has access to a lot of land where the mean average temperature gets close to or below freezing[1], they've also got access to permafrost[2] areas. Whether they have long-term strategic stockpiles of meat is another matter, but I don't see why running such a stockpile wouldn't be relatively cheap for them given their access to cold areas. Once you decide to store meat long enough it makes sense to put it on a train to Tibet instead of paying to keep it in a freezer in the heat by the coast. 1. https://www.topchinatravel.com/china-map/average-annual-temperature-map-of-china.htm https://www.topchinatravel.com/china-map/average-annual-temp... 2. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Distribution-of-permafrost-and-seasonally-frozen-ground-in-China_fig3_248243349 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Distribution-of-permafro...
- cageface 7y agoThis is why I object when people say diet is a personal choice and we shouldn't criticize people for what they choose to eat. I don't think it's helpful to be judgemental or accusatory. But it's also true that if you eat meat you are also exacerbating problems that affect us all. Including climate change, antibiotic resistance, and new epidemics that arise from raising animals in conditions in which they were never intended to live. I also think it's an example of how the conditions we oppose on animals eventually rebound on the conditions we impose on each other. Once you start to devalue life to such an extreme degree it starts to snowball.
- LeifCarrotson 7y agoAttempts to cause huge changes to global industries, like changing meat production to use fewer antibiotics, can almost never be brought about by suggesting that 7 billion people make a personal choice to eat less meat. That message will never be heard by the meat industry decision makers who are deciding how and how much to medicate their animals. But regulations directly impact their decision-making process.
- cageface 7y agoIt already has happened. Fast food chains have at least had to apply some humane standards to the meat producers they buy from thanks to pressure from the public. And many of them are also rolling out meat substitutes due to customer demand. Most social change comes from the ground up, not the top down. Companies like Tyson aren’t inherently evil, they just prioritize profits. Tyson is investing in meat replacements right now because customers have said they want them.
- Retric 7y agoThere are many examples where global industries seeing real change based on individual preferences. Organic food may only be 5% of the US market, but that’s still a noticeable and growing change based on personal preference. The critical threshold is people having equivalent options. If meat substitutes become indistinguishable they are going to explode across the market, just look at the adoption of filler in many food segments.
- dqpb 7y agoThere is no pig pandemic in china. And for anyone who says there is: -1000 social credit points. No more fast trains for you.
- sebazzz 7y agoI know you're joking, but do the social credit points apply on foreigners? People who might want to visit China in the future?
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoThe latest article I read in the Chinese press about social credit development said including foreigners in the system was a high priority. Right now, foreigners in China have a hard time getting any kind of credit (eg I had to get a credit card through my wife), so the government wants to fix that. I doubt it will apply to non residents, however.
- gerbilly 7y ago> Right now, foreigners in China have a hard time getting any kind of credit [...] so the government wants to fix that. Another case of the cure being worse than the disease.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoDepending on your point of view. It is annoying not being trusted at all, but at least I can take the fast train even if I post unharmonious content on hacker news.
- abc-xyz 7y agoYou're capable of posting unharmonious content on HN with no (visible) consequence, not because you're a foreigner, but because you post the content here.
- z2 7y ago
- logfromblammo 7y agoWhen I don my foil hat, I hypothesize that the swine fever was intentionally introduced and propagated by unregistered agents of the US as retaliatory sabotage for increased tariffs (62%?) against US pork products. China represents 17% of the export market for US pork.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- garrywang57 7y agoGrab it: ZetPDF.com
- AndyMcConachie 7y agoTFA says: "For decades, the Chinese government’s top priority has been the preservation of social stability." It should say: "For millenia, the Chinese government’s top priority has been the preservation of social stability."
- jquery 7y agoIsn’t the idea if a “continuous China” for millennia largely a myth? Expanding, fracturing, re-unifying? [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Chinese_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Chinese_history
- kartan 7y agoI think that it is like any other country. The USA has existed for 232 years. But Alaska and Hawaii only joined in 1959. New Mexico joined in 1912. And has been divided for 1.7% of the time (4 years of civil war) while still was incomplete. All nations sell the idea that has longer histories that they really have. The concept of nation is a useful improvement over tribalism and city-states. But, it is just fiction. Nations are created, changed and destroyed all the time. So, you are completely right about China being largely a myth.
- shanhaiguan 7y agoSuccessive Chinese governments have of course had many periods of great instability over history. But the Chinese nation as a people (or at least the Han conception of it) has existed for far longer than any one government, and stability, unity, harmony, etc. have been a part of that nation's identity and ideals for a long time.
- samat 7y agoUyghur minorities are reaping tons of harmony in concentration camps, to be sure.
- simonebrunozzi 7y ago
- Creationer 7y agoA potential human death toll in the millions - meh. We're growing 1.5 million net extra humans every week. Call me back when we're talking death toll in the billions. At this point, it would probably be the best thing to happen to Earth.
- aaron695 7y agoThere's been news articles and even a map tracking it for a while https://www.pigprogress.net/Health/African-Swine-Fever/ASF-China/?dossier=35415&widgetid=0 https://www.pigprogress.net/Health/African-Swine-Fever/ASF-C... So not sure who exactly is ignoring it, China or the world?