Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Leviathan in Lockdown

lrb.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–47 of 47 posts

Re: Leviathan in Lockdown

#41

Post by carapace »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #39
carapace wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to bet against human stupidity, but yeah, essentially this virus will not cause famine. It just doesn't require that many people to grow and distribute food these days. (Even before the virus hit we have been massively overproducing and wasting food globally. People go hungry today not because of lack of production but because it's cheaper to throw away food than give it to those in need. Shamefull, IMO, but t…

I think you haven't been following supply chain news recently. Or what UN says. There's absolutely going to be famine in less developed countries, and much higher food prices and lower variety in the coming months in developed countries.

No, you're right, I was being provincial, just talking about North America.

Globally, yes, there will be famine. I don't have enough information to do other than speculate but even though it seems likely at this point I would be surprised if it happens due to lack of food rather than failures of distribution.

I believe that, if we can just get our act together a little bit, we can weather the virus and repair the economy and no one has to starve. We have the capacity to grow and deliver the food.

- - - -

I have to add, I was watching John Oliver's show the other day and he had a clip of that Alex Jones guy advocating cannibalism, talking openly about how he's down to eat his neighbors! I'm looking at him thinking, "You got a lotta meat on yer bones to talk like that fella."

When this all first started I was worried about the failure of the food system and the possibility of "long pork" appearing in city butcher shops. Once I got more information I felt silly: at it's worst this virus can't kill enough people fast enough to disrupt the system badly enough. The worst-case scenario still isn't that bad. It's still horrible, but at least we won't have to eat each other.

Re: Leviathan in Lockdown

#42

Post by m0llusk »

Seibai wrote: post #15
motohagiography wrote: post #6

The emphasis of plague doctors in that cover is pretty consistent with the things a state will face. Plague has been an essential factor in all government since beginning of time. There even is biblical trilemma for rulers that is basically the option of three days of plauge, three months of fleeing from your enemies, or three years of famine. The answer is rip the band-aid off and accept the plague casualties becaus…

What continues to shock me about HN is how many people seem to think there's a choice between casualties and economic harm. The consensus among economists is that not having a lockdown would be worse for the economy than having one: http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/policy-for-the-covid-19-cr... The opportunity to avoid economic damage passed as soon as COVID-19 became pandemic. Ending lockdowns early will make econo…

That is a bit of an oversimplification. Lockdowns don't go on forever, so what we are considering are the criteria for ending. There are other mitigations already proven and more on the way. Currently distancing, handwashing, masks, testing, and contact tracing have shown significant ability to reduce flare ups. Additionally various drugs targeting either the virus or its interactions with humans are coming available and there is already one vaccine beginning trials. These lockdowns began when initial counts of infected and killed suggested and extremely high rate of infection. Since then we have come to understand that appearance of a high initial rate was in part caused by the virus escaping into the general population earlier than realized. Perhaps most important there is now data from populations not locking down, locking down modestly, locking down strictly, and ending lockdown and there is very little evidence that lockdowns are having a strong effect. It is long understood by virologists and epidemiologists that if an infectious agent spreads to the general population lockdowns cease to have a demonstrable positive effect.

Re: Leviathan in Lockdown

#43

Post by jtbayly »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #30
jtbayly wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying famine can't happen today? I don't get it.

I think it's fair to say that famine can't happen in areas with access to modern agricultural technology. (Which is a very real difference; until modern times there was no country so rich or productive that it didn't have to worry about famine.)

But NYC doesn’t have such access. Only a small portion of the population does. The rest only have access to supply chains.

I’m not saying this virus is enough to cause famine in the USA. I just think it’s silly to assume that because (somewhere in our country) there is the capability to grow enough food for everybody that therefore there can’t be famine anymore.

Re: Leviathan in Lockdown

#44

Post by TeMPOraL »

carapace wrote: post #41
TeMPOraL wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you haven't been following supply chain news recently. Or what UN says. There's absolutely going to be famine in less developed countries, and much higher food prices and lower variety in the coming months in developed countries.

No, you're right, I was being provincial, just talking about North America. Globally, yes, there will be famine. I don't have enough information to do other than speculate but even though it seems likely at this point I would be surprised if it happens due to lack of food rather than failures of distribution. I believe that, if we can just get our act together a little bit, we can weather the virus and repair the eco…

Yeah, it won't come to cannibalism in North America. But I would be worried about pork prices if I were you. Or really, all food prices.

The thing is you (in the US) and we (in the generalized Western world) theoretically have enough capacity to grow and deliver food, but caveats abound. Right this very moment, farmers in the US are destroying fields of perfectly good produce, because with HoReCa market disappearing, the supply chain can't readjust fast enough to redirect all this food to grocery stores and food banks. Processing, packaging, shipping and certifications are all a problem, so as a result, whole harvests go to waste, and the farmers that won't be bankrupted by that may be very careful about what, and how much, they plant next season.

(My favourite, early example of that is flour being forever out of stock in some countries, like the UK. Turns out, it's not for the lack of flour, but lack of packaging - as bakeries lost a big chunk of their market and people started baking bread at home, there isn't enough capacity to package the flour in consumer-sized bags. But if you want to buy flour by 50 kilo bags, you can easily find someone who'll accommodate you.)

Similar stories from the US wrt. meat processing - farmers struggling to find ways to euthanize and dispose of hogs, as meat processing plants around the country suffered a series of COVID-19 outbreaks. There's no way to buffer hogs; they take lots of space and food, and keep growing in size beyond what the pipeline is able to process. Last I checked on /r/supplychain, the processing capacity is reported to have risen again to 71% of the usual.

Then, for more varied fruits & vegs there's the ongoing migrant worker problem that I don't think has been resolved, though it has fallen off the news cycle a while ago. But in April, farmers were worried that they'll have to destroy their whole fields because without cheap migrant labor, they can't sell their harvest.

(With the exception of massive meat processing plant shutdowns, the I hear the same stories all around Europe as well.)

--

As for the poorer countries - remember that locust plague we discussed on HN early this year? They're still out there, and on their way to eat India.

Re: Leviathan in Lockdown

#45

Post by carapace »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #44
carapace wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're right, I was being provincial, just talking about North America. Globally, yes, there will be famine. I don't have enough information to do other than speculate but even though it seems likely at this point I would be surprised if it happens due to lack of food rather than failures of distribution. I believe that, if we can just get our act together a little bit, we can weather the virus and repair the eco…

Yeah, it won't come to cannibalism in North America. But I would be worried about pork prices if I were you. Or really, all food prices. The thing is you (in the US) and we (in the generalized Western world) theoretically have enough capacity to grow and deliver food, but caveats abound. Right this very moment, farmers in the US are destroying fields of perfectly good produce, because with HoReCa market disappearing,…

I agree with you, caveats abound. (As a Permaculture enthusiast the whole agricultural system looks like one big caveat to me! But that's a tangent.) I hope people and information come together well enough to mitigate the worst of the waste and shortages.

(Frankly I haven't heard enough Americans saying, "Let's roll!" on this. We should be nailing it down and positioning ourselves to be ready to help the harder-hit nations in the next few months. That's the American way!)

All the noise about "sacrifice the weak to save the economy" (coming from about ~15% or 3/20 folks only) is IMO a distraction from focusing on the vital systems and figuring out and doing what has to be done to keep things stable.

As long as people don't starve we can sort the paperwork.

If you have a bunch of hungry people and a bunch of food in fields there has to be some synergy there, eh? (Not trying to be flip, just upbeat.)

Re: Leviathan in Lockdown

#46

Post by shadowprofile77 »

m0llusk wrote: post #42
Seibai wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What continues to shock me about HN is how many people seem to think there's a choice between casualties and economic harm. The consensus among economists is that not having a lockdown would be worse for the economy than having one: http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/policy-for-the-covid-19-cr... The opportunity to avoid economic damage passed as soon as COVID-19 became pandemic. Ending lockdowns early will make econo…

That is a bit of an oversimplification. Lockdowns don't go on forever, so what we are considering are the criteria for ending. There are other mitigations already proven and more on the way. Currently distancing, handwashing, masks, testing, and contact tracing have shown significant ability to reduce flare ups. Additionally various drugs targeting either the virus or its interactions with humans are coming available…

Source on the virus escaping into the population earlier than thought being a cause of high initial infection rate numbers? If you don't mind. I'm honestly curious

Re: Leviathan in Lockdown

#47

Post by m0llusk »

shadowprofile77 wrote: post #46
m0llusk wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a bit of an oversimplification. Lockdowns don't go on forever, so what we are considering are the criteria for ending. There are other mitigations already proven and more on the way. Currently distancing, handwashing, masks, testing, and contact tracing have shown significant ability to reduce flare ups. Additionally various drugs targeting either the virus or its interactions with humans are coming available…

Source on the virus escaping into the population earlier than thought being a cause of high initial infection rate numbers? If you don't mind. I'm honestly curious

That is actually a difficult question to answer properly. At a high level I have been following COVID-19 through many sources, primarily summaries on University of California Television and Ivor Cummins on YouTube and then going from there to reading the most notable studies. It is fairly basic, though. If you look at early data we were going from just a few cases to many quite quickly and it makes sense that extrapolation from the first small numbers ended up being off.
Post reply on HN