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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?

#271
post #224

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.

How does that help? I'm being serious in asking.

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

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment basically says that China has forced the Tibetans into slavery. Is that typical of Chinese propaganda? > the Chinese government has also forced Tibetans to build a massive amount of greenhouses...they have to work in the greenhouses taking care of tomatoes.

If you are interested in seeing what Tibet is like today (literally) this vlogger is currently travelling through it (some of the farthest corners) in a camper: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJPCo6WJCb0aXShfcDDUffg/vid... This episode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2BtvivdbOw may be relevant to how "forced" is used in the original comment. The video shows villagers collecting trash off the sides of a remote high…

What do you mean when you say "since everything is presumably 'forced' there"?

If it is forced labor, even if paid, the distinction between forced labor and slavery is trivial compared to the distinction between forced labor and freedom.

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

#274
post #148

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…

Because powers that be want control more than they want happy, well-fed, even productive population. Ask any organizers of international food programs. In most cases local authorities will demand that they, not the international do-gooders, distributed the food. When they get hold of that food, they keep it under lock and key and distribute in a way that supports the existing power / social status structure, not in a…

Anytime you give a person group the ability to distribute necessary goods, you will organically create a patronage system.

That patronage system will out-compete other, non-patronage systems, because it will have a stronger internal power base.

There are only 2 classes of solution that work here, where “work” = “not accidentally create/enable a patronage scheme”:

1. Impose power from outside, non-locally. This is generally frowned on, as it’s basically colonialism.

2. Withhold the flow of outside aid, as this takes away the resources the local power structure is free-riding on to sustain its power base. This is also generally frowned on, as it feels like useful resources are being withheld.

Because both solutions are unacceptable, the status quo and its power structures persist.

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

#275
post #266

The author's answer to the question 'How do mainland Chinese feel about the protests in Hong Kong on the extradition law amendment?': https://www.quora.com/How-do-mainland-Chinese-feel-about-the...

That guy sure enjoys adding satellite imagery to his posts.

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

#276
post #266

The author's answer to the question 'How do mainland Chinese feel about the protests in Hong Kong on the extradition law amendment?': https://www.quora.com/How-do-mainland-Chinese-feel-about-the...

This person's post is frightful and despotic but true.

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

#278
post #266

The author's answer to the question 'How do mainland Chinese feel about the protests in Hong Kong on the extradition law amendment?': https://www.quora.com/How-do-mainland-Chinese-feel-about-the...

Oh my. That post is drooling of authotarianism and disgust for individuality and freedom, and it has an alarming amount of nationalism and militarism. If this is how the Chinese government is thinking and working, then we are in for a bad time.

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

#279
post #38
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, people search for jobs just like they would anywhere else, and if they don’t find one then they get to be unemployed and broke. Homelessness is definitely a thing. If you can’t afford a place to live then you’ll just have to make do.

Ah, yeah. Not sure "Communist" means much then.

1. In both China, and the Soviet Union, nobody would guarantee you a job. You had to find one for yourself. [1]

2. But because of funny accounting (When your business can operate at a loss, it's easy to overhire), there was no shortage of jobs. There was a shortage of good jobs.

3. Food and housing (At least in the USSR) was very heavily subsidized.

[1] Unless you were a collectivized rural farmer, in which case, you had very few options for leaving the kolhoz. It was shitty, hard work, that paid very little, and most of the people doing it, as well as their children had few alternatives.

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

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What toxins are these and why are they bad? The liver is quite capable at removing actual toxins and using that terminology makes you sound like a quack. (2) is a valid point, but (1) should be entirely prevented by the FDA.

Heavy metals and various industrial chemicals for example:

"The most neglected threat to public health in China is toxic soil" -- https://www.economist.com/briefing/2017/06/08/the-most-negle... (2017)

All the things in their air and water (Quote from the article: "Wen Jiabao, a former prime minister, once said that water problems threaten “the very survival of the Chinese nation”.".

- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-pollution-soil/chin...

- https://www.iisd.org/blog/toxic-soil-china

- https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/10949-C...

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