5 ms·
The problem is government which has an incentive to "feed everyone" which means cheap food by any means necessary. Food prices must go up, let them naturally go
by zo1 5y ago
The problem is government which has an incentive to "feed everyone" which means cheap food by any means necessary. Food prices must go up, let them naturally go up. That means less food for poorer people, which in turn slowly means less people (lower birth rates, poor and bigger families struggling, etc), until we reach equilibrium with our environment under the terms we accept.
It's the only fair way to do it, IMO.
- mcguire 5y agoOne interesting thing about the green revolution was that food went from 1/3 of the average American household budget to 1/6. Oh, and to paraphrase Hitchhiker's Guide, programmers will probably the first ones up against the wall when the revolution comes.
- Beached 5y agoI overall agree with this statement. I'm mostly disagreeing with the yield assumption. the cubins do not grow the same yield per acre as we do. they may have food security/sovereignty, but they do it at the cost of more land then otherwise could have done.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago>Food prices must go up, let them naturally go up. That means less food for poorer people, which in turn slowly means less people (lower birth rates, poor and bigger families struggling, etc), until we reach equilibrium with our environment under the terms we accept. Unless there's something in it for them by their own assessment people will not make sacrifices of that magnitude.
- vkou 5y agoUnlike you, neither I, nor the government are keen on seeing bread riots. Civil wars and regime changes aren't a lot of fun to live... or die through.
- tomrod 5y agoDo you support social Darwinism? It is "dismal" but unnecessary through good governance. We really do have enough resources to ensure moderate standards of living. Political upheaval would be appropriately considered a market failure.
- treeman79 5y agoWith enough effort all counties could be like Venezuela!
- vkou 5y agoWhat, a petrostate that mismanaged its major industry, that was later sanctioned and embargoed by its biggest trading partner for political reasons?
- tomrod 5y agoThat's basically what I'm hearing too! item = np.random.choice(["macroeconomics","Venezuela"]) meme_du_jour: f"tell me you don't know about {item} without telling me you don't know about {item}" print(meme_du_jour)
- KarlKemp 5y agoSure, but why should people‘s income decide who lives and who dies? I’d say let’s kill all the psychopaths first. Like those fantasizing about mass starvation. On a less violent note, every country has seen birth rates decline as it became richer. Modern western societies only grow through immigration, and even many countries in, say, Africa, have seen drastic declines. Humanity doesn’t expand until it unavoidably runs out of food, that’s a 19th century idea.
- thephyber 5y agoYou are ignoring the time scales, locations of the worst effects, and lots of other side effects like food protectionism and the planning that farmers have to make 9 months before the food shortages happen. Government isn’t directly responsible for food prices, but they frequently involve themselves because social order/stability requires reasonable food prices. When store shelves are empty in a neighborhood/ region, riots break out. Riots work on the time scale of hours/days. Families having fewer kids is on the time scale of years. Farmers planning for likely yields/costs is months/years. Your idea of “fair” suggests you would just shrug at the famines caused by Stalin and Mao regimes and blame the people because they weren’t willing to pay enough. When people are food desperate, social order, norms, and predictability break down. This is why governments have strong incentives to intervene to ensure reasonable food prices.