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GDP has been growing fine, but life expectancy in the US has been in historic decline for the past decade, largely driven by alcoholism, drug overdose, and suic

GDP has been growing fine, but life expectancy in the US has been in historic decline for the past decade, largely driven by alcoholism, drug overdose, and suicide. Meanwhile over 2 billion people worldwide are food insecure, and that number is rising. Technology has certainly improved the standard of living of many many people over the last couple centuries, but there is no guarantee that it will continue to do so. Perhaps instead of a blind focus on “growing the pie”, at this point in history we should be asking ourselves “what pie?” and “did everyone get a slice?” Edit: Updated “malnourished” to “food insecure”, my mistake for using the wrong terminology. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, there were 2.37 billion food insecure people in 2020, a number which has been steadily rising since 2014 with a larger jump since the start of the pandemic: https://www.fao.org/3/cb4474en/online/cb4474en.html https://www.fao.org/3/cb4474en/online/cb4474en.html

eatmyshorts 4y ago
I think your data is a little old. The undernourished, defined as fewer than 1800 calories per day, has steadily declined from 2000 until 2019, and then risen very slightly as a result of Covid. There's about 660 million that meet this threshold. Global malnutrition really has gotten significantly better over the past few decades. https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment
- luis_cho 4y ago
  Sadly we will know in the next years how fragile is the current food production system. High centralised food system based mainly on fossil fuels gives high yields until it doesn't. Every time I listen to Steven Pinker I think that he would learn a lot with Nassim Taleb books.
  - madacol 4y ago
    What do food systems have to do with fossil fuels?
    - thereisnospork 4y ago
      Fertilizer production uses a great deal of natural gas. The claims of fragility are unfounded though as natural gas supply isn't going anywhere and the use of natural gas in the process could be trivially (at great expense) replaced entirely by [nuclear powered] water electrolysis. We also grossly overproduce calories, both as a policy decision for anti-fragility and for raising meat. Both of which leave a lot of slack before starvation levels kick in. At least in the US, other countries may be closer to the limit.
    - heavyset_go 4y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process#Sources_of_hydrogen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process#Sources_of_hydro...
    - jacobolus 4y ago
      Food production uses fertilizers (from fossil fuels) and pesticides (from fossil fuels) and machinery (running on fossil fuels) to grow foods which are then processed (by machines running on fossil fuels) and shipped around the world (using fossil fuels).
      - madacol 4y ago
        Sure, energy. I just don't get the point. We are talking about long-run trends of food insecurity. Russia's invasion of Ukraine will probably be (and hopefully) a short temporary turn in the wrong direction
bergenty 4y ago
Your 2 billion number is incorrect. It was 500 million until 2020 and then slightly rose given the pandemic. That number has been dropping precipitously for decades.
bergenty 4y ago
Your 2 billion number is incorrect. It was 500 million until 2020 and then slightly rose given the pandemic. That number has been dropping precipitously for decades. At this rate (ignoring 2021), there should be almost no malnutrition by 2030.
throwaway0x7E6 4y ago
- ChadNauseam 4y ago
  > and why must a normal person give a damn about the misfortunes of junkies and alcoholics? You don't have to give a damn about anyone, but I'm friends and family with junkies and alcoholics, so I care. And even if you don't know any junkies or alcoholics and never will, can you not have sympathy for a person you've never met, even if some of their problems are to some degree their own fault? I know alcoholics who were binge-drinking at the age of 13 because their parents were alcoholics too and encouraged it. I have cousins that often threw up when they were toddlers years old because their parents gave them too much to drink. If you were in these circumstances, how sure are you that you wouldn't end up a junkie or an alcoholic yourself?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- gilmore606 4y ago
  > and why must a normal person give a damn about the misfortunes of junkies and alcoholics? I give a damn about living in a society suffering from a surfeit of junkies and alcoholics. That affects me.
- Barrin92 4y ago
  >and why must a normal person give a damn about the misfortunes of junkies and alcoholics? for starters because they're also normal people. If you think there's no drug users or alcoholics even among all the people you know you'd be very surprised. It takes a lot of callousness to think that people who struggle with addiction or really any other thing aren't exactly what 'normal' people are like. What I wonder about is when it became normal to put that much lack of empathy and compassion proudly on public display.
- avgcorrection 4y ago
  So your theory is that poor people in poor countries just keep having babies when they have less and less to feed them. And that’s it. What a genius you are.
BenoitP 4y ago
I have a very grim outlook on the future. > “did everyone get a slice?” I don't believe so, but it makes sense: we've always been at (economic) war with Eastasia/Oceania
- drekipus 4y ago
  I'm from Australia and I agree! give me pie!
floxy 4y ago
>life expectancy in the US has been in historic decline for the past decade https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/life-expectancy/life-expectancy-2018.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/life-expectancy/life-ex... https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data-visualization/mortality-trends/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data-visualization/mortality-trends...

eatmyshorts 4y ago

I think your data is a little old. The undernourished, defined as fewer than 1800 calories per day, has steadily declined from 2000 until 2019, and then risen very slightly as a result of Covid. There's about 660 million that meet this threshold. Global malnutrition really has gotten significantly better over the past few decades. https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment

luis_cho 4y ago
Sadly we will know in the next years how fragile is the current food production system. High centralised food system based mainly on fossil fuels gives high yields until it doesn't. Every time I listen to Steven Pinker I think that he would learn a lot with Nassim Taleb books.
- madacol 4y ago
  What do food systems have to do with fossil fuels?
  - thereisnospork 4y ago
    Fertilizer production uses a great deal of natural gas. The claims of fragility are unfounded though as natural gas supply isn't going anywhere and the use of natural gas in the process could be trivially (at great expense) replaced entirely by [nuclear powered] water electrolysis. We also grossly overproduce calories, both as a policy decision for anti-fragility and for raising meat. Both of which leave a lot of slack before starvation levels kick in. At least in the US, other countries may be closer to the limit.
  - heavyset_go 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process#Sources_of_hydrogen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process#Sources_of_hydro...
  - jacobolus 4y ago
    Food production uses fertilizers (from fossil fuels) and pesticides (from fossil fuels) and machinery (running on fossil fuels) to grow foods which are then processed (by machines running on fossil fuels) and shipped around the world (using fossil fuels).
    - madacol 4y ago
      Sure, energy. I just don't get the point. We are talking about long-run trends of food insecurity. Russia's invasion of Ukraine will probably be (and hopefully) a short temporary turn in the wrong direction

bergenty 4y ago

Your 2 billion number is incorrect. It was 500 million until 2020 and then slightly rose given the pandemic. That number has been dropping precipitously for decades.

bergenty 4y ago

Your 2 billion number is incorrect. It was 500 million until 2020 and then slightly rose given the pandemic. That number has been dropping precipitously for decades. At this rate (ignoring 2021), there should be almost no malnutrition by 2030.

throwaway0x7E6 4y ago

ChadNauseam 4y ago
> and why must a normal person give a damn about the misfortunes of junkies and alcoholics? You don't have to give a damn about anyone, but I'm friends and family with junkies and alcoholics, so I care. And even if you don't know any junkies or alcoholics and never will, can you not have sympathy for a person you've never met, even if some of their problems are to some degree their own fault? I know alcoholics who were binge-drinking at the age of 13 because their parents were alcoholics too and encouraged it. I have cousins that often threw up when they were toddlers years old because their parents gave them too much to drink. If you were in these circumstances, how sure are you that you wouldn't end up a junkie or an alcoholic yourself?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
gilmore606 4y ago
> and why must a normal person give a damn about the misfortunes of junkies and alcoholics? I give a damn about living in a society suffering from a surfeit of junkies and alcoholics. That affects me.
Barrin92 4y ago
>and why must a normal person give a damn about the misfortunes of junkies and alcoholics? for starters because they're also normal people. If you think there's no drug users or alcoholics even among all the people you know you'd be very surprised. It takes a lot of callousness to think that people who struggle with addiction or really any other thing aren't exactly what 'normal' people are like. What I wonder about is when it became normal to put that much lack of empathy and compassion proudly on public display.
avgcorrection 4y ago
So your theory is that poor people in poor countries just keep having babies when they have less and less to feed them. And that’s it. What a genius you are.

BenoitP 4y ago

I have a very grim outlook on the future. > “did everyone get a slice?” I don't believe so, but it makes sense: we've always been at (economic) war with Eastasia/Oceania

drekipus 4y ago
I'm from Australia and I agree! give me pie!

floxy 4y ago

>life expectancy in the US has been in historic decline for the past decade https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/life-expectancy/life-expectancy-2018.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/life-expectancy/life-ex... https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data-visualization/mortality-trends/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data-visualization/mortality-trends...