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Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

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Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#11

Post by rocqua »

loorinm wrote: post #2

What an insane and fascinating read. Two things occured to me: I don’t really understand how and why war happens. Like, it starts out as two parties both wanting the same resource, and then somebody says “over my dead body” or something and then a million other people decide to also join in this fight? I do not get it. The other thing is : The “inherent harm of technology”. Every single advancement will 100% hurt som…

I think generally, long wars are a mistake.

My hypothesis. Party A wants Thing from party B. Moreover, party A things they could take it by force. Even if party B things they couldn't defend Thing, they can't just give it, because that sets a wrong precedent. Party B relies on being able to exact a very high toll should party A try to get thing.

Rationally, you don't declare a war you don't expect to win. So, in the above scenario, when part A declares war, they expect that party B cannot exact a high enough toll for Thing. When they do, it was a mistake.

The alternative are wars for 'moral' reasons, which are mostly about retribution or saving face. This is essentially how the murder of a prince lead escalated to a war that became WW1.

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#12

Post by nabla9 »

abainbridge wrote: post #9

> Fritz Haber set that future by on a different course by solving one of the greatest problems humanity ever faced: How to feed the world. He didn't solve it. He just delayed the problem for a while. Solving it requires stopping the exponential growth of the human population.

Human population is not growing exponentially anymore. Human population growth rate peaked 1962 at 2.1%, and it has been slowing down since.

Even remaining population growth is a big problem, but using he word 'exponentially' to describe growth that is slowing down and is most likely sublinear is not accurate.

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#13

Post by tyfon »

anvandare wrote: post #10
loorinm wrote: post #2

What an insane and fascinating read. Two things occured to me: I don’t really understand how and why war happens. Like, it starts out as two parties both wanting the same resource, and then somebody says “over my dead body” or something and then a million other people decide to also join in this fight? I do not get it. The other thing is : The “inherent harm of technology”. Every single advancement will 100% hurt som…

War is the essence of life. Limited resources means any growing system inevitably hits this (carrying) limit. Sooner or later, there are no more unclaimed resources available and you have to start competing with others for access to the resources. Mutation and evolution follows. The only alternative is to open up more resources (like the Haber–Bosch process did) but that's just postponing the inevitable. The amount o…

Hopefully, we will attain enough collective intelligence eventually that we will be able stop population growth and stop having irrational hatred for other humans.

I am however pessimistic.

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#14

Post by cdoxsey »

abainbridge wrote: post #9

> Fritz Haber set that future by on a different course by solving one of the greatest problems humanity ever faced: How to feed the world. He didn't solve it. He just delayed the problem for a while. Solving it requires stopping the exponential growth of the human population.

A lot of people don't know this but birth rates have fallen dramatically:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility

We will soon have the opposite problem in many countries - an aging population with no base of support.

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#15

Post by dsego »

nabla9 wrote: post #7
loorinm wrote: post #2

What an insane and fascinating read. Two things occured to me: I don’t really understand how and why war happens. Like, it starts out as two parties both wanting the same resource, and then somebody says “over my dead body” or something and then a million other people decide to also join in this fight? I do not get it. The other thing is : The “inherent harm of technology”. Every single advancement will 100% hurt som…

Is this "I don't get it" just rhetorical question or are you really not getting it and want to understand it? Rudyard Kipling's writings (before and during WWII) are probably the best source if you want to learn the sentiment that leads to the war. >million other people decide to also join in this fight Most people don't get to decide. Most of them are conscripted.

I think it's a generational thing. Young people born in time of peace romanticizing great battles, national pride etc. Peace is boring and hard, there are economical struggles, politics, many problems without someone to blame. In war time everything is much clearer, esp. for young boys, they just have to kill the bad guys (the other side) and receive accolades. Of course, the stage is usually already set up by propaganda, schools, one-sided history teaching and so on.

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#16

Post by carlmr »

okket wrote: post #6
loorinm wrote: post #2

What an insane and fascinating read. Two things occured to me: I don’t really understand how and why war happens. Like, it starts out as two parties both wanting the same resource, and then somebody says “over my dead body” or something and then a million other people decide to also join in this fight? I do not get it. The other thing is : The “inherent harm of technology”. Every single advancement will 100% hurt som…

Not only humanity itself. Feeding the world and letting humans grow from ~1 billion to ~8 billion certainly endangered/made many species go extinct. There is no such thing as a free meal, really.

This also reminded me of the first such revolution, the agricultural revolution. In A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harrari he says that it wasn't humans that domesticated wheat, but wheat that domesticated humans. The reasoning being that since we started to use wheat we've grown to too large numbers to go back to the previous lifestyle. We've been essentially trapped to continue using wheat, which was not even as good for our health.

A similar argument could be made about the Haber-Bosch process. There's no way back from too much growth. And there are serious side effects.

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#17

Post by soneca »

"Billions of people would not exist without him. And yet without him, World War I would have ended years earlier"

The article is very interesting, but there is this Hollywood simplistic approach where one man is responsible for all things. The text even mention the Allies developing a poison gas, why not other German chemic? No one other person would be able to discover how to produce amonia? I don't subscribe to this way of looking into historical figures.

Nevertheless, a great text.

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#18

Post by Quarrelsome »

dsego wrote: post #15
nabla9 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this "I don't get it" just rhetorical question or are you really not getting it and want to understand it? Rudyard Kipling's writings (before and during WWII) are probably the best source if you want to learn the sentiment that leads to the war. >million other people decide to also join in this fight Most people don't get to decide. Most of them are conscripted.

I think it's a generational thing. Young people born in time of peace romanticizing great battles, national pride etc. Peace is boring and hard, there are economical struggles, politics, many problems without someone to blame. In war time everything is much clearer, esp. for young boys, they just have to kill the bad guys (the other side) and receive accolades. Of course, the stage is usually already set up by propag…

^^ nobody wants to born into a settled and ordered world. Each generation wants to reshape the previous generations "order".

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#19

Post by Hattes »

rocqua wrote: post #11
loorinm wrote: post #2

What an insane and fascinating read. Two things occured to me: I don’t really understand how and why war happens. Like, it starts out as two parties both wanting the same resource, and then somebody says “over my dead body” or something and then a million other people decide to also join in this fight? I do not get it. The other thing is : The “inherent harm of technology”. Every single advancement will 100% hurt som…

I think generally, long wars are a mistake. My hypothesis. Party A wants Thing from party B. Moreover, party A things they could take it by force. Even if party B things they couldn't defend Thing, they can't just give it, because that sets a wrong precedent. Party B relies on being able to exact a very high toll should party A try to get thing. Rationally, you don't declare a war you don't expect to win. So, in the…

You may very well declare a war that you don't expect to win if you have even worse expectations for a future war. This was pretty much the situation of Germany in WW1, from my understanding.

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#20

Post by nabla9 »

soneca wrote: post #17

"Billions of people would not exist without him. And yet without him, World War I would have ended years earlier" The article is very interesting, but there is this Hollywood simplistic approach where one man is responsible for all things. The text even mention the Allies developing a poison gas, why not other German chemic? No one other person would be able to discover how to produce amonia? I don't subscribe to thi…

It seems that he was lobbying hard for the use of the gas.
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