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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

#101

Post by andrepd »

zeroname wrote: post #90

TLDR; When the numbers don't fit the narrative, you need to pick out different numbers. " Here are a few points to keep in mind. Using the $1.90 line shows that only 700 million people live in poverty." It shows that "only" 700 million people live in extreme poverty as defined by the World Bank. " If $1.90 is inadequate to achieve basic nutrition and sustain normal human activity, then it’s too low – period. " Yeah,…

Wait a minute, how does that go one way but not the other? Why is using $7.4 "doctoring the data" to fit your narrative but $1.9 not?

The author uses arguments such as

>The USDA states that about $6.7/day is necessary for achieving basic nutrition. Peter Edwards argues that people need about $7.40 if they are to achieve normal human life expectancy. The New Economics Foundation concludes that around $8 is necessary to reduce infant mortality by a meaningful margin.

to support his view that 1.9$ is a ridiculous measure promoted only to make the graphs look good and the narrative of "neoliberal progress" work. While on the other hand, the ~7$ figure, which he argues based on those references is the bare minimum, makes it all look rather drab (71%->58% in 40 years...)

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#102

Post by andrepd »

barry-cotter wrote: post #41
andrewwharton wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, that's only a very small part of his rebuttal, dealing specifically with the period prior to 1970, as well as the fact that GDP estimates for this period "take little if any account of the goods and resources that people may have acquired from their land, from trees, from forests, from rivers and the sea, and in the form of gifts from relatives." From 1981 onward, I would summarize his argument as being t…

> - While some measures have improved, the picture is no where near as good as it is represented. Name a measure of human suffering that has not improved. Healthy lifespan, deaths in childbirth, infant mortality, they’ve all gotten better. > - Using $1.90 as the baseline to beat is too low for what we would consider as being out of poverty. The trend is the same regardless of which poverty line you pick. Poverty is d…

>The trend is the same regardless of which poverty line you pick. Poverty is decreasing, education, literacy and health are rising.

The story changes quite a bit - and you know it. If we use $7.40 per day, we see a decline in the proportion of people living in poverty, but it’s not nearly as dramatic as your rosy narrative would have it. In 1981 a staggering 71% lived in poverty. Today it hovers at 58% (for 2013, the most recent data). Suddenly your grand story of progress seems tepid, mediocre, and – in a world that’s as fabulously rich as ours – completely obscene.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#103

Post by andrepd »

Mirioron wrote: post #82
LaGrange wrote: post #43

So I went and read the Pinker's "rebuttal." He just casually avoided the claim about the entire base of their infographic being bogus, then went on to calling mild centre-left socialdemocrats "far leftists". Why is _anyone_ treating that guy seriously?

Because Pinker's rebuttal was initially supposed to be an email to somebody else. He recognized that Hickel was likely pushing an ideology and left it at that. Even in the email Pinker is saying that he's citing experts in the field. > then went on to calling mild centre-left socialdemocrats A central point in the criticism Hickel wrote was that markets don't work, but regulation, protectionism and state intervention…

I'm pretty sure regulation, protectionism and state intervention in a market economy is the definition of social-democracy.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#104

Post by empath75 »

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 has happened. The world has warmed by a degree. Insects are dying off. Coral reefs are dying off. Phytoplankton is at risk of dying off, the antarctic ice sheets are collapsing, the arctic thaws out completely almost in the summer time, permafrost is thawing I’m Siberia and Canada what more do you want?

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#105

Post by empath75 »

heyjudy wrote: post #35
grecy wrote: post #13

One of the most amazing things I learned reading the excellent "Factfullness" by Hans Rosling [1] is that the poorest countries in the world are currently improving faster than any country ever did, at any point in history. That's correct - countries like Lesotho and Central African Republic are improving faster than his home country of Sweden ever did, at any time. In only his lifetime Sweden went from having an inf…

Yet you fail to mention the thousands of deaths every month from Al Shabab and the genocides and famines that have happened repeatedly throught the continent. Putting lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig. China and India can pour all the money they want into various countries' infrastructure, it can all come tumbling down with the next disputed election or sectarian genocide.

People who say stuff like this forget that Europe nearly destroyed itself through war twice in just the last hundred years— and followed it up with an arms race that put the entire planet at risk of extinction. It was only the threat of nuclear annihilation that stopped Europeans from murdering each other on an industrial scale.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#106

Post by andrepd »

myspy wrote: post #72
haberman wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

I wonder why no one includes other metrics like being happy with life and having a dignified job. Metrics that are important and overlooked. Well, I have a job, but I have to slaughter animals for it, is something I would consider here too.

The cynic answer is that "happiness with life" and a "dignified job" don't make the bosses any money. Numbers on a spreadsheet on the other hand...

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#107

Post by benj111 »

huffmsa wrote: post #95
benj111 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$1 a day if you're a factory worker needs to pay your rent, and your food, and your fuel, then your support network has gone, so grandparents cant look after kids etc, etc. $1 a day for a farmer means they don't have those costs. Social networks are still in place, etc, etc. As you say, Quality of life is not a dollar amount.

So let's address that. Do you believe that quality of life for a randomly chosen person has improved since 1820? My reading of Hinkel is that he does not believe it.

Of course life has improved since 1820.

My reading of Hinkel was that comparing a farmer to a factory worker is an apples and oranges comparison, because its doesn't take into account the non monetary benefits the farmer has.

I would rather be a farmer on $1 a day than a factory worker on $1 a day, because the factory workers $ has to buy so much more stuff.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#108

Post by LaGrange »

readittwice wrote: post #98
LaGrange wrote: post #43

So I went and read the Pinker's "rebuttal." He just casually avoided the claim about the entire base of their infographic being bogus, then went on to calling mild centre-left socialdemocrats "far leftists". Why is _anyone_ treating that guy seriously?

To be fair Pinker wrote that in a private mail. When you criticize this, then also let's not forget what on the other hand Hinkel wrote in his article published in the Guardian newspaper: > It is madness – and no amount of mansplaining from billionaires will be adequate to justify it. We can certainly discuss about the data and how to interpret it, but using such phrases in a newspaper-article isn't really helpful ei…

> wrote in his article published in the Guardian newspaper:

[mansplaining]

...I mean, Hinkel's a dude too and should perhaps avoid the term, but these are men spouting nonsense and telling off more expertised people, so it's not too far off.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#109

Post by LaGrange »

Mirioron wrote: post #82
LaGrange wrote: post #43

So I went and read the Pinker's "rebuttal." He just casually avoided the claim about the entire base of their infographic being bogus, then went on to calling mild centre-left socialdemocrats "far leftists". Why is _anyone_ treating that guy seriously?

Because Pinker's rebuttal was initially supposed to be an email to somebody else. He recognized that Hickel was likely pushing an ideology and left it at that. Even in the email Pinker is saying that he's citing experts in the field. > then went on to calling mild centre-left socialdemocrats A central point in the criticism Hickel wrote was that markets don't work, but regulation, protectionism and state intervention…

> Because Pinker's rebuttal was initially supposed to be an email to somebody else.

...you can't really be serious? It's published. With his knowledge. He could have edited it, or at least quickly tweeted "omg this was terrible I'm sorry I had a heated gaming moment."

> A central point in the criticism Hickel wrote was that markets don't work, but regulation, protectionism and state intervention does. I'm not sure that would qualify him as a "mild centre-left social democrat".

That's literally the definition of a mild centre-left social democrat.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#110

Post by megous »

grecy wrote: post #96
pizza234 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those poor countries are improving faster than Sweden ever did... so in just one more lifetime they'll be where the world leaders are today. This is a very simplistic extrapolation. There are significant factors, primarily social/cultural ones, that will halt the relative development of those countries, sooner or later.

> primarily social/cultural ones, that will halt the relative development of those countries, sooner or later. Hans addresses this in the book, actually. What you said has no basis in fact, and makes no sense. Do you think people said exactly the same thing about Sweden a generation ago? Why / why not? We in the West have this completely-made-up assumption that "they" can't develop like "we" did, with absolutely no g…

> We in the West have this completely-made-up assumption that "they" can't develop like "we" did, with absolutely no grounding in fact.

They can. But "we" developed in a very turbulent and deadly ways. Just handful of decades ago, during WWI and WWII, "we" were killing millions of people, helping spread massive disease outbreaks that killed other millions in just a few years, created economy destroying monetary and isolationist policies, impoverished millions, destroyed advanced industrialized countries in the middle of Europe with communism, were colonizing, destabilizing and exploiting natural resources of other countries, etc.

We're still humans, and all this is still possible to repeat. And developing "like we did", is not necessarily something great or positive. It can mean pretty much anything, unless you cherry-pick baselessly.

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