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A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

jasonhickel.org

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Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#51

Post by [deleted] »

Aeolun wrote: post #38
goatlover wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It probably won't. The reason is climate change. But as is the case with automation predictions and massive net job destruction, it hasn't happened yet. So it's possible we're wrong about such predictions. We've been wrong in the past about environmental doom and job loss. Or maybe not this time, but we should keep that in mind and be a little bit skeptical about our current state of knowledge when predicting the f…

Anecdotally, I’ve seen more climate related disasters in the past year than in the previous 5 before that.

[deleted]

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#52

Post by vanderZwan »

andrewwharton wrote: post #27
woolvalley wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This shows it's not an apocalypse story, but a story debating the details, with a positive upside that humanity has more capacity than in the past to relieve this poverty too.

Absolutely. I think his main issue is with Pinker and Gates way overselling any successes and attributing them to neoliberal globalization. I'd posit that anyone characterizing this as an apocalypse story hasn't actually read the article.

Do any of these debates (by Pinker, Gates, etc) about neoliberal globalization address the elephant in the room that is the history of CIA interventions, and IMF and the World Bank and structural adjustments?

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#53

Post by ljcn »

benj111 wrote: post #44
hannob wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so in just one more lifetime they'll be where the world leaders are today. This is where you are probably wrong and which so often is used in the narrative of "things are getting better". You make an implicit assumption that this development will go on. It probably won't. The reason is climate change.

"The reason is climate change." The reason isn't climate change. The Central African Republic has just come out of a civil war. Of course things are going to improve rapidly, because that farmer that was in a refugee camp can now go home and grow enough to barely feed his family. You can't extrapolate that out to the CAR overtaking first world countries in a generation simply because that farmer hasn't been educated…

You misunderstood - the user wrote that the improvement probably won't continue due to climate change (which is expected to negatively impact developing countries more than developed).

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#54

Post by teddyh »

johnchristopher wrote: post #48
Maro wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the Factfullness book, and I thought it's really poorly argued. I remember my BP was through the roof on the plane when I was reading that. HR is not believable imo. (I work in data, I'm a physicist.)

BP ? HR ?

Probably “Blood Pressure” and “Hans Rosling”.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#55

Post by sgift »

goatlover wrote: post #21
hannob wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so in just one more lifetime they'll be where the world leaders are today. This is where you are probably wrong and which so often is used in the narrative of "things are getting better". You make an implicit assumption that this development will go on. It probably won't. The reason is climate change.

> It probably won't. The reason is climate change. But as is the case with automation predictions and massive net job destruction, it hasn't happened yet. So it's possible we're wrong about such predictions. We've been wrong in the past about environmental doom and job loss. Or maybe not this time, but we should keep that in mind and be a little bit skeptical about our current state of knowledge when predicting the f…

> It would be one thing if the trend was clearly toward things getting worse because of climate change. But it's not so far.

Someone tell Fiji, I'm sure they will be happy to hear that:

https://unfccc.int/news/how-fiji-is-impacted-by-climate-chan...

https://www.salon.com/2012/09/19/first_village_relocated_due...

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#56

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

prepend wrote: post #42
Mirioron wrote: post #20

> Real data on poverty has only been collected since 1981, by the World Bank. Perhaps we didn't collect data on poverty globally before that, but we most certainly collected data on poverty before that regionally.

This is the oddest argument in the article, I think. No one claims the data are perfect or identical before 1981, but it’s what we have and it’s used. I think it’s acceptable to provide an alternate proxy. Or to critique the methods rigorously. But it is frustrating when a rhetorical trick is used to point out how the pre-1981 data are different than 1981, that is known by anyone reading Pinker, and then throw out al…

I stopped reading after he began with that GDP point and spent so much time on it. Felt like a manipulative attack to dismiss an entire argument (“your argument is so laughably wrong, you can’t even get basic facts right.”)

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#57

Post by lazyjones »

bko wrote: post #26

The author nit-picks some of the numbers, noting that the poverty numbers prior to some date are unreliable. But this is all meaningless as the numbers aren't Pinker's point. The point is that society is getting richer and both relative and absolute poverty is dropping across the world. I think most reasonable people would believe this to be true. Those of us old enough remember a time where we didn't have the luxuri…

> true. Those of us old enough remember a time where we didn't have the luxuries we have today. We had a choice of three channels on television, paid exorbitant long distance fees to call our family abroad and rarely traveled by plane.

The same people always seem to forget about this when they complain about not being able to afford proper housing or to sustain a family on a single income though.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#58

Post by haberman »

colechristensen wrote: post #2

Can anyone summarize what is going on here? It seems like a flamewar with graphs, and not interesting enough to invest the time in reading.

This is a story of competing narratives.

Pinker says the world is improving by most measures, and this is a credit to our global system (though of course there is always room for improvement).

Many people, including Jason Hickel, strongly object to Pinker's characterization. They think the global system is fundamentally broken and flawed and we should be ashamed for letting it happen.

Ultimately it's a capitalism vs. socialism fight.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#59

Post by onion2k »

goatlover wrote: post #21
hannob wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so in just one more lifetime they'll be where the world leaders are today. This is where you are probably wrong and which so often is used in the narrative of "things are getting better". You make an implicit assumption that this development will go on. It probably won't. The reason is climate change.

> It probably won't. The reason is climate change. But as is the case with automation predictions and massive net job destruction, it hasn't happened yet. So it's possible we're wrong about such predictions. We've been wrong in the past about environmental doom and job loss. Or maybe not this time, but we should keep that in mind and be a little bit skeptical about our current state of knowledge when predicting the f…

So it's possible we're wrong about such predictions.

Not all predictions are equal. We're a lot better at modelling things now than we ever have been in the past. That's not to say we're definitely right this time, but the probability that we actually are right is much higher than at any point in history.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#60

Post by huffmsa »

huffmsa wrote: post #49

England, what's with the clown show you've got going on at your unis? First the naked Brexit lady now this guy. 1) subsistence agrarian lifestyles were not better than our industrialized world. If Mr Hickel disagrees, he should lay down the pen and pick up the plow. 2) decreased child mortality and increased lifespans (thanks industrialized medicine!) means more people alive but not necessarily economically useful =>…

It appears that his keyboard warrior friends have found this comment.

Down votes should really require an explanation.

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