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How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?

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Re: How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?

#231

Post by atlasunshrugged »

kartan wrote: post #75
einpoklum wrote: post #54

The question should really be "How are many national economies keeping innumerable people hungry, even though there's plenty of food to go around several times over?" In most places in the world it's easy and cheap enough to produce food and distribute it. Actually, it's so easy and cheap that many world states artificially subsidize agriculture/livestock farming/etc. to prevent them from collapsing due to low prices…

> "How are many national economies keeping innumerable people hungry, even though there's plenty of food to go around several times over?" I never see this question on TV. What I mainly see on Tv is talk about political strategies, result surveys and the like. Climate change is one of the few things that I see being discussed. And even that has a lot of this let's talk about politicians positions and poll results. I…

It's mainly focused on how to do good with your career but 80,000 hours (https://80000hours.org/) has a lot of resources and articles about basically what problems out there make sense to tackle and then career pathways to do so. Alternatively Effective Altruism (https://www.effectivealtruism.org/) has a bunch of resources more closely aligned with just understanding how to do the most good possible. If you're looking for something more one-off and easier rather than a career change or something significant, I recommend Givewell.org which ranks some of the charities that they've verified do the most good at the lowest cost and donating to one of them!

Re: How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?

#232

Post by bad_user »

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #229
mstaoru wrote: post #227

Another perspective on how China is able to provide enough food: - In Shanghai 96% white-collar workers have at least one disease of the "food triad" (diabetes, fatty liver, hypertension), up from ~80% in 00's. - In Beijing 26% of the whole population is overweight or obese, up from 11% in 00's. - China has the largest percentage of obese children in the World, only competing with Mexico. So there is enough food, but…

Does that necessarily mean that the food is low quality or just that there are more options and many are considerably unhealthier than the more traditional options (eg. more processed foods easily available now than in the past)

Ultra-processed food is "low quality food".

That's because: (1) it's rich in toxins due to the industrial processing and (2) it has a poor proteins/nutrients to energy ratio.

Nutrient hunger is a thing. Proteins are regulated by the brain. Micro nutrients might be regulated by the brain as well. When you eat ultra-processed food, you end up eating more food just to get the nutrients you need to live.

Ultra-processed food is also rich in calories, often being high in carbs and high in fat at the same time, a very unnatural combination that floods the brain with dopamine, making you overeat and crave for more.

You basically can't get lower quality than this.

Re: How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?

#233

Post by Aunche »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #165
Aunche wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese propaganda is definitely part of reason Chinese people online are unusually defensive. However, it doesn't help that a lot of "facts" about China that circulate on the internet are completely false. "Facts" like this one: > Plus there is a large group of astroturfers constantly scanning the web for mentions of China (aka “50 cent army”). The 50 cent army is really a China-only thing. I highly doubt that China…

They’re running concentration camps for a million people, on the grounds that some small number of them might end up being Islamic terrorists in the future. I don’t think paying a few people to sow discord on Reddit would be the most absurd use of resources they have.

Uyghurs who are devout Muslims impede development and are generally hostile to the Han Chinese. Redditors in America, on the other hand, literally have zero effect on China, so the party doesn't care what they think. Sowing discord might make sense, but it definitely wouldn't come in the form of defending China on internet forums.

Re: How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?

#234

Post by bluemaster »

tomp wrote: post #106
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #21

This and watching HBO's Chernobyl have prompted me to ask: how do communist countries work? Is there something I can read or watch to best understand things like who owns these farms, who profits from them, how do they pay workers, how do you buy a house, etc It's all as foreign to me as medieval peasants and nobles so I don't know how it works from day to day. The fact that China now has billionaires, and billionair…

China is not a communism these days (not sure if it ever was). It’s a market economy, just much less state-controlled/-directed than most Western economies (if you dispute that Western economies are state-controlled, just see US subsidies for agriculture and their political lobbying for Boeing)

Chinese people can't even own land. No fair legal system. No freedom of speech. Great firewall will block any web site considered "subversive".

Re: How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?

#235

Post by fireattack »

mstaoru wrote: post #227

Another perspective on how China is able to provide enough food: - In Shanghai 96% white-collar workers have at least one disease of the "food triad" (diabetes, fatty liver, hypertension), up from ~80% in 00's. - In Beijing 26% of the whole population is overweight or obese, up from 11% in 00's. - China has the largest percentage of obese children in the World, only competing with Mexico. So there is enough food, but…

You can't be serious, right?

I don't question any of your data or even your conclusion, but do you really think WHITE-COLLAR workers having diabetes is a proof of " food is low quality empty calories"?

To me, it's more about the fact that lots of young people (or people in general) in urban area have poor lifestyle. Barely has anything to do with the lack of food quality or nutrition.

And I highly doubt this phenomenon is unique to China.

Re: How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?

#236

Post by seanmcdirmid »

wolco wrote: post #209
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot seafood is flash frozen these days, even next to the coast and even in japan. It’s just the best way to deal with parasites. I don’t think you can eat sashimi in the USA that hasn’t been flash frozen.

lake/river fish usually have parasites and must be cooked. I was under the impression that ocean fish don't have the same level of parasites. You would never eat a catfish raw.

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/08/nyregion/sushi-fresh-from...

Re: How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?

#237

Post by bluemaster »

mikeash wrote: post #24
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #21

This and watching HBO's Chernobyl have prompted me to ask: how do communist countries work? Is there something I can read or watch to best understand things like who owns these farms, who profits from them, how do they pay workers, how do you buy a house, etc It's all as foreign to me as medieval peasants and nobles so I don't know how it works from day to day. The fact that China now has billionaires, and billionair…

China is communist in name only at this point. The government is authoritarian but the economy works in a pretty familiar way as far as business ownership and financial transactions.

[dead]

Re: How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?

#238

Post by bluemaster »

mstaoru wrote: post #227

Another perspective on how China is able to provide enough food: - In Shanghai 96% white-collar workers have at least one disease of the "food triad" (diabetes, fatty liver, hypertension), up from ~80% in 00's. - In Beijing 26% of the whole population is overweight or obese, up from 11% in 00's. - China has the largest percentage of obese children in the World, only competing with Mexico. So there is enough food, but…

Yes. In a country where even infant milk powder is tainted you can imagine what kind of food safety there is. Any those fish ponds, I bet a lot of them are polluted from industrial or agricultural contaminants. Unlike in US, the victim farmers usually cannot sue the polluters.

Re: How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?

#239

Post by piiswrong »

mstaoru wrote: post #227

Another perspective on how China is able to provide enough food: - In Shanghai 96% white-collar workers have at least one disease of the "food triad" (diabetes, fatty liver, hypertension), up from ~80% in 00's. - In Beijing 26% of the whole population is overweight or obese, up from 11% in 00's. - China has the largest percentage of obese children in the World, only competing with Mexico. So there is enough food, but…

more than 1/3 of Americans are obese. the US is one of the fattest countries in the world. Does that mean Americans are poor people who can only afford empty calories? wake up. people just like to eat unhealthy stuff when given the chance?.

Re: How is China able to provide enough food to feed over 1B people?

#240

Post by pts_ »

Iv wrote: post #224
n-exploit wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What can we do as computer scientists to best militate this risk and protect human life?

Make sure the Bengali alphabet is working in whatever software you are doing.

Even better create robust Bengali NLP models.
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