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What alternative are you proposing? A planned economy that tries to grow exactly the right amount of food, and results in widespread famine if crop yields are l

by seoaeu 6y ago

What alternative are you proposing? A planned economy that tries to grow exactly the right amount of food, and results in widespread famine if crop yields are lower than expected? Millions of people would die. "Wasting" some amount of food every year is a far preferable option.

cassepipe 6y ago
I don't believe in (centrally) planned economy as it it is impossible to get accurate feedback on the state of the whole production apparently, about which industry needs what especially (although new tech could help who knows? ). But you will have a hard time convincing me that throwing away half of the food (and so much other stuff) we produce while having people starving is the most rational solution. So,I don't have a solution but do you agree that there is a problem and are you interested in thinking about how to fix it? Maybe the solution is not a centrally planned economy but centrally gathered information available to all? Subscription based production? I don't know, just throwing ideas.
- seoaeu 6y ago
  The human cost of having too little food is literally orders of magnitude worse than the cost of having too much. (Having too much necessarily implying having to waste/throw some of it away). To give a sense from past famines, take the fatality numbers from covid and add a zero or two. Add to this backdrop all the unpredictability that goes into producing food. Growing crops has months of lead time during which unpredictable events like droughts or floods or pests can obliterate a large fraction of your production. Even after harvesting, natural disasters or industrial accidents can destroy significant quantities of food (think of a grain elevator explosion). In short, growing surplus food is the only rational approach. Of course, what you do with the surplus once you have it is another question. There I agree with you that it is shameful we don't ensure more ends up in the hands of those going hungry.

by seoaeu 6y ago

cassepipe 6y ago

I don't believe in (centrally) planned economy as it it is impossible to get accurate feedback on the state of the whole production apparently, about which industry needs what especially (although new tech could help who knows? ). But you will have a hard time convincing me that throwing away half of the food (and so much other stuff) we produce while having people starving is the most rational solution. So,I don't have a solution but do you agree that there is a problem and are you interested in thinking about how to fix it? Maybe the solution is not a centrally planned economy but centrally gathered information available to all? Subscription based production? I don't know, just throwing ideas.

seoaeu 6y ago
The human cost of having too little food is literally orders of magnitude worse than the cost of having too much. (Having too much necessarily implying having to waste/throw some of it away). To give a sense from past famines, take the fatality numbers from covid and add a zero or two. Add to this backdrop all the unpredictability that goes into producing food. Growing crops has months of lead time during which unpredictable events like droughts or floods or pests can obliterate a large fraction of your production. Even after harvesting, natural disasters or industrial accidents can destroy significant quantities of food (think of a grain elevator explosion). In short, growing surplus food is the only rational approach. Of course, what you do with the surplus once you have it is another question. There I agree with you that it is shameful we don't ensure more ends up in the hands of those going hungry.