Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World • Hacker News Board

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#41

Post by 23443463455 » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 1:50 PM UTC

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…

You also highlight, maybe without realizing it, an inherent blind assumption that somehow more humans on the planet is better than less humans, when in every regard and all measures would indicate the clear opposite being true. It almost feels like an addiction, a compulsory habit or even a physiological dependency on the notion that more people is a good thing.

The sustainably and ecologically balanced and qualitatively positive carrying capacity of the planet is far lower than even today's population, but for some reason even just bringing that notion up is not only ignored, but even countered not with rational argument, but violently aggressive hostility ... just like one would expect someone addicted to react to the confrontation about their addiction.

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#42

Post by wbl » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 1:54 PM UTC

aalleavitch wrote: post #35

nscalf wrote: post #33

If you're interested in this, RadioLab did a great episode on good and evil and really took note of Fritz Haber. It's called The Bad Show. Fritz Haber was a really conflicting character, he seemed extremely patriotic and made a lot of personal sacrifices for his country. Every time I see someone who is described like that, I have to wonder how much of the disdain we have for him is because that wasn't our country? If…

Isn't that basically the case for all the famous men on the Manhattan project?

They made sacrifices for someone else's country. A lot of them were not US citizens.

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#43

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 1:55 PM UTC

mhneu wrote: post #37

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…

> how war happens Orwell captured one way total war can happen: a powerful small group of people gains control of a propaganda apparatus, and uses control of messaging to divide a country, or turn a country against a demonized minority group or external rival. That happened with Mao, with Hitler, with Stalin, with Mussolini. Today’s challenge is ensuring that the propaganda arms created by Murdoch and Mercer and Koch…

[deleted]

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#44

Post by myrandomcomment » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 2:00 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #31

bsder wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of World War I, Otto von Bismarck put together an interlocking set of alliances to forge the German Empire. Unfortunately, Wilhelm II was not as capable (I'm being nice--Wilhelm II was an idiot), and didn't know how to manage this properly. It is, of course, possible that even Bismarck could not have continued to manage them given the strains of nationalism that he set in motion. However, Bismarck was ver…

> "One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans" I absolutely despise these statements, that are perpetuated to the present day. I'm from near the Balkans, from Romania. They depict the Balkan region as being some sort of backwards warmongers, which is not the case (yes, the region is not very developed but it's far from the poorest regions on this planet; also, yes, I know…

You say this but just as soon as the yoke of Tito (and the follow on) was removed from the region everyone starting killing each other again. Historically it has been a very violent region filled with ethnic strife. The great powers just exploted that to help control, but it's existence is on the population.

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#45

Post by arca_vorago » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 2:03 PM UTC

js8 wrote: post #5

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 don’t really understand how and why war happens." I think we don't really know. We know that greed plays a role, but it is not always the case of someone stronger attacking someone weaker. In Steven Pinker's Better Angels of Our Nature, this is shortly discussed. IIRC he says that no reason put forward as an explanation for war can be conclusively proven from the available data (he mentions some war databases cont…

Some of us know but would be shunned if we told you. As a combat vet I have spent years since I got out trying to understand the big picture... and all I can tell you is the truth is nastier, and stranger, than fiction. I started out with just Iraq, but by the end of it had learned the GWOT was only the latest iteration of a long game that has been played over centuries.

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#46

Post by matthiasv » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 2:13 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #31

bsder wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of World War I, Otto von Bismarck put together an interlocking set of alliances to forge the German Empire. Unfortunately, Wilhelm II was not as capable (I'm being nice--Wilhelm II was an idiot), and didn't know how to manage this properly. It is, of course, possible that even Bismarck could not have continued to manage them given the strains of nationalism that he set in motion. However, Bismarck was ver…

> "One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans" I absolutely despise these statements, that are perpetuated to the present day. I'm from near the Balkans, from Romania. They depict the Balkan region as being some sort of backwards warmongers, which is not the case (yes, the region is not very developed but it's far from the poorest regions on this planet; also, yes, I know…

> I absolutely despise these statements.

The statement is true and you give yourself a very good description of it. He did not say "it will come of some damned fools" but "some damned foolish thing in the Balkans", i.e. the power play between Russia and Austria-Hungary.

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#47

Post by blablablaber » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 2:18 PM UTC

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…

"@but there is this Hollywood simplistic approach where one man is responsible for all things [..] I don't subscribe to this way of looking into historical figures"

I applaud you for that, this gives some hope that not all is lost. A real historian can only be someone who loves the truth ( .. more than his personal well-beign)

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#48

Post by jumbopapa » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 2:18 PM UTC

Oh yeah, I heard about this guy on the Joe Rogan Experience!

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#49

Post by foobarian » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 2:19 PM UTC

myrandomcomment wrote: post #44

oblio wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans" I absolutely despise these statements, that are perpetuated to the present day. I'm from near the Balkans, from Romania. They depict the Balkan region as being some sort of backwards warmongers, which is not the case (yes, the region is not very developed but it's far from the poorest regions on this planet; also, yes, I know…

You say this but just as soon as the yoke of Tito (and the follow on) was removed from the region everyone starting killing each other again. Historically it has been a very violent region filled with ethnic strife. The great powers just exploted that to help control, but it's existence is on the population.

I think the great powers had more to do with it than that. The Yugoslav region was right at the line between the Ottoman and Byzantine empires, and the Catholic world of the west. The great powers spent centuries turning that region into an elite military culture dedicated to defending against the other side. They stopped the Mongols (or at least the Mongols mysteriously turned around there and went home), they stopped the Turks and they stopped the Russians. And then when Tito was gone, their natural state was to go back to war due to centuries of tradition.

Re: Fritz Haber: A Monster Who Fed the World

#50

Post by Pulcinella » Tue, Feb 13, 2018, 2:22 PM UTC

jzl wrote: post #3

There is an incredible book about this topic called "The Alchemy of Air"@, which I highly recommend. It's one of the best non-fiction science books I've ever read. Also available on Audible. Fritz Haber's life story is intertwined with Einstein's and the book pairs extremely well with Walter Isaacson's Einstein biography, which is a MUST read (or audiobook listen). @ - Full title: "The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius…

I second this recommendation.

It also covers Carl Bosch, who took Haber’s process and industrialized it at BASF. Haber got the process to work in a small bespoke quartz reactor, which obviously wouldn’t scale.