3 ms·

War causes famines. Ethiopia, for example. Certainly in the 20th century. I can't read the paper, but the abstract says it's specifically about China in the

War causes famines. Ethiopia, for example. Certainly in the 20th century. I can't read the paper, but the abstract says it's specifically about China in the years 1470-1911. Well, what on Earth could that say about our planet in the 21st century? One would think that studying famines and epidemics and wars of the 20th century would yield more statistics and lessons that would be a lot more relevant to the 21st century than any centuries previous to the 20th. Given my knowledge of 20th century history, I'm quite ready to say that the title of this submission is simply backwards. Moreover, the title of the submission does not match TFA's. And TFA's does not match the paper's (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0959683618761549 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095968361876154...). So I'm calling this click bait, and declaring it jumping to conclusions to the exclusion of general and widespread knowledge of 20th century history.

sofixa 4y ago
I think the point is to try to "prove" the opposite. Wars causing epidemics and famines is a well established fact and it's a "natural" part of mass scale conflict - men go to fight, men die, big swathes of land are damaged, foraging, etc. create conditions for famine, and meanwhile improper handling of the many dead coupled with the massive movements of people in closely cramped quarters ( be it armies moving, supplies, sieges, etc.) create conditions for epidemics. There's even cholera now in Ukraine due to the invasion. So those two are nothing new. But the opposite, that unstable social conditions due to famine/epidemic causing social unrest causing war, is also interesting, has happened many times ( e.g. the 1848 revolutions in Europe, Arab Spring), and could be indicative of the future, as the article says - we're in for a lot of social unrest due to unstable social conditions due to climate change ( famines, epidemics, swathes of land becoming uninhabitable thus forcing migration, etc.).
- cryptonector 4y ago
  Famines cause revolutions, for sure. Famines don't cause wars (except for revolutionary wars). Otherwise the famines in Ukraine (30s), China (50s and 60s), Africa (80s), etc. might have caused wars, but they did not. And it's been a while since we've seen famines even cause revolutions. Famously, of course, the French Revolution. Governments are very powerful now and can put down revolts before they gain steam. The Arab Spring revolts had external support. The wars in Libya and Syria were not caused by famine but by external powers getting involved in internal power struggles. But if you insist, famines cause revolutions -> revolutions often fail -> failed revolutions often lead to wider war. Although the main example of this is... the French Revolution, 233 years ago. None of WWI, WWII, the Franco-Prussian war, the U.S. Civil War, the Crimean war, the Triple Alliance War, the Cold War, the Vietnam war, the Korean war, the Iraq wars, the wars in Afghanistan, the Ukraine war, etc., were caused by famine. Not one! That's going back to the 1850s (Crimean war). That's a list of rather salient wars. Got any counter-examples?
  - hyperman1 4y ago
    Ww2 had as one of its causes the hyperinflation, which was a result of the excessive payments for WW1 repairs, as required by mainly France. While not a full blown famine, the German people had serious economic problems (and hunger as a consequence), and a clear enemy causing them. This caused resentment and a feeding ground for extremists like Hitler.
    - cryptonector 4y ago
      Not really. The hyperinflation ended well before Hitler's rise. And the German people almost certainly did not want war.
      - hyperman1 4y ago
        Cf Wikipedia: Hyperinflation was until 1923 and the following invasion of the Ruhr for non payment by France until 1925. This is the same year Hitler famous book was published. He was a well known if infamous politician by then, wikipedia gives him 6.5% of votes in 1924. Things were better in Germany for a few years and Hitler might have vanished into the background, until 1929, when the US stock market crashed, taking with it core loans the German Weimar republic needed. This crashed the economy again, while they were still recovering from the previous crash. The NSDAP party started its meteoric rise in this second crash, buth only because the suffering from the hyperinflation and the war before it had laid a solid base.
deleted 4y ago
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sajrar 4y ago
I think more generally it is a great example of this bias we have of taking high dimension, complex processes and reducing things to one or two variables. "The stock market went down today because of X" We can't help ourselves even when we know this is a complete nonsensical over simplification. I can't imagine any war in the last 2-3k years only has two causal variables in reality.

sofixa 4y ago

I think the point is to try to "prove" the opposite. Wars causing epidemics and famines is a well established fact and it's a "natural" part of mass scale conflict - men go to fight, men die, big swathes of land are damaged, foraging, etc. create conditions for famine, and meanwhile improper handling of the many dead coupled with the massive movements of people in closely cramped quarters ( be it armies moving, supplies, sieges, etc.) create conditions for epidemics. There's even cholera now in Ukraine due to the invasion. So those two are nothing new. But the opposite, that unstable social conditions due to famine/epidemic causing social unrest causing war, is also interesting, has happened many times ( e.g. the 1848 revolutions in Europe, Arab Spring), and could be indicative of the future, as the article says - we're in for a lot of social unrest due to unstable social conditions due to climate change ( famines, epidemics, swathes of land becoming uninhabitable thus forcing migration, etc.).

cryptonector 4y ago
Famines cause revolutions, for sure. Famines don't cause wars (except for revolutionary wars). Otherwise the famines in Ukraine (30s), China (50s and 60s), Africa (80s), etc. might have caused wars, but they did not. And it's been a while since we've seen famines even cause revolutions. Famously, of course, the French Revolution. Governments are very powerful now and can put down revolts before they gain steam. The Arab Spring revolts had external support. The wars in Libya and Syria were not caused by famine but by external powers getting involved in internal power struggles. But if you insist, famines cause revolutions -> revolutions often fail -> failed revolutions often lead to wider war. Although the main example of this is... the French Revolution, 233 years ago. None of WWI, WWII, the Franco-Prussian war, the U.S. Civil War, the Crimean war, the Triple Alliance War, the Cold War, the Vietnam war, the Korean war, the Iraq wars, the wars in Afghanistan, the Ukraine war, etc., were caused by famine. Not one! That's going back to the 1850s (Crimean war). That's a list of rather salient wars. Got any counter-examples?
- hyperman1 4y ago
  Ww2 had as one of its causes the hyperinflation, which was a result of the excessive payments for WW1 repairs, as required by mainly France. While not a full blown famine, the German people had serious economic problems (and hunger as a consequence), and a clear enemy causing them. This caused resentment and a feeding ground for extremists like Hitler.
  - cryptonector 4y ago
    Not really. The hyperinflation ended well before Hitler's rise. And the German people almost certainly did not want war.
    - hyperman1 4y ago
      Cf Wikipedia: Hyperinflation was until 1923 and the following invasion of the Ruhr for non payment by France until 1925. This is the same year Hitler famous book was published. He was a well known if infamous politician by then, wikipedia gives him 6.5% of votes in 1924. Things were better in Germany for a few years and Hitler might have vanished into the background, until 1929, when the US stock market crashed, taking with it core loans the German Weimar republic needed. This crashed the economy again, while they were still recovering from the previous crash. The NSDAP party started its meteoric rise in this second crash, buth only because the suffering from the hyperinflation and the war before it had laid a solid base.

deleted 4y ago

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sajrar 4y ago

I think more generally it is a great example of this bias we have of taking high dimension, complex processes and reducing things to one or two variables. "The stock market went down today because of X" We can't help ourselves even when we know this is a complete nonsensical over simplification. I can't imagine any war in the last 2-3k years only has two causal variables in reality.