Killing sparrows led to famines in China • Hacker News Board

Re: Killing sparrows led to famines in China

#51

Post by ch4s3 » Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 8:05 PM UTC

revelio wrote: post #48

nawgz wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like an unfalsifiable claim. Do you have any evidence supporting it, or are you "just asking questions"? Edit: I deserve to have been downvoted, I have misinterpreted the context of "right" in the parent post and they have educated me with articles in turn

History books? The evidence is abundant, it's weird that this is even in dispute. Not sure what the Chinese term was but the Soviets used the word "bourgeoisie" or sometimes "kulaks" where today we would say right wing/capitalists, and they used пропаганда (propaganda) for what today we would call misinformation. And counter-revolutionaries were just counter-revolutionaries, no change there. The only bit about hintym…

You're in luck, there's a whole wikipedia page covering the named offenses[1] of the cultural revolution. Rightist, reactionary, and class-enemy seem to have been common based on my reading.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_offences_in_China

Re: Killing sparrows led to famines in China

#52

Post by hintymad » Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 8:10 PM UTC

nawgz wrote: post #44

hintymad wrote: post #21

And whoever publicly even doubted the decision of Mao was labeled as right-wing who spread misinformation, or counter-revolutionaries who sabotaged the great socialism movement. Maybe there is some truth in the question: who's the arbiter of information?

That sounds like an unfalsifiable claim. Do you have any evidence supporting it, or are you "just asking questions"? Edit: I deserve to have been downvoted, I have misinterpreted the context of "right" in the parent post and they have educated me with articles in turn

Oh my god, are you serious? Or I just naively assumed that the dark history of China back in the 50s and 60s are well known? The Great Leap Forward. The Anti-Right Campaign (BTW, “right” in Marxism terms are akin to the left in the western world). The Four Cleansing Movement. The Campaign to Eliminate the Four Pests… Millions of people died of hunger and millions more lost their civil rights for decades! People who questioned whether an acre could produce more than 5000KG of rice got persecuted.

Just do the Google search on the terms.

Re: Killing sparrows led to famines in China

#53

Post by zabzonk » Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 8:12 PM UTC

fdye wrote: post #50

zabzonk wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

who else would you blame it on? communist, centralised states are reknown for causing these kinds of problems - look at the ussr in the 1920s and 30s.

So I think its fair to say the USSR, China, Cuba, North Kora were a form of communism that had the following characteristics. 1. Authoritarian 2. Central planning (perhaps the same thing) 3. Slow to change These are all valid criticisms based on what we know from history, etc. I think there is a bit of nuance here though based on a glance of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines and some basic history. 1. Chi…

> people don't start revolutions and try out radical types of government because their lives are going just swell!

of course they don't, and i deeply sympathise. but what they always seem to end up with like genocidal maniacs like mao and stalin. both communists. and of course, in the west, we had hitler. but after 1945 i would say human life has improved in the west - more than i can say for china (despite industrialisation) and the "former" ussr.

i should say i am someone of broadly left-wing leanings.

Re: Killing sparrows led to famines in China

#54

Post by hintymad » Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 8:13 PM UTC

hintymad wrote: post #21

And whoever publicly even doubted the decision of Mao was labeled as right-wing who spread misinformation, or counter-revolutionaries who sabotaged the great socialism movement. Maybe there is some truth in the question: who's the arbiter of information?

I honestly hope that people didn’t downvote the comment because of the mention of “right”. The “right” in China (or the third Internationale in general) is akin to the liberals in the western world.

The whole point of the comment is that truth matters and freedom of speech matters and government or any entity alone can’t be the arbiter of information

Re: Killing sparrows led to famines in China

#55

Post by bryanlarsen » Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 8:15 PM UTC

hidroto wrote: post #38

Brybry wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to this, the disease carrying mosquito species like aedes aegypti and aedes albopictus are invasive species in the Americas. These mosquitoes do some pollination but given that they're invasive it probably wouldn't be a big deal to wipe them out. Also, invasiveness is true of a lot of pests in North America: the American cockroach isn't American, it's from Africa. Brown rats, red/fire ants, and wild pigs are a…

a complication to eradicating a invasive species is when that species has replaced a native species ecological niche. getting rid of it at that point may cause more problems then it solves.

Luckily or unluckily depending on your perspective, there is no lack of other species of mosquitoes.

Re: Killing sparrows led to famines in China

#56

Post by hintymad » Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 8:20 PM UTC

revelio wrote: post #48

nawgz wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like an unfalsifiable claim. Do you have any evidence supporting it, or are you "just asking questions"? Edit: I deserve to have been downvoted, I have misinterpreted the context of "right" in the parent post and they have educated me with articles in turn

History books? The evidence is abundant, it's weird that this is even in dispute. Not sure what the Chinese term was but the Soviets used the word "bourgeoisie" or sometimes "kulaks" where today we would say right wing/capitalists, and they used пропаганда (propaganda) for what today we would call misinformation. And counter-revolutionaries were just counter-revolutionaries, no change there. The only bit about hintym…

> Not sure what the Chinese term was but the Soviets used the word "bourgeoisie" or sometimes "kulaks"

Yup, Chinese did use "bourgeoisie" too. It's called Xiaozi （小资）, though the connotation of the word today has drastically changed. Before and during the Culture Revolution, the word referred to those who didn't have complete conviction in the Revolution and were attracted to the "corrupted life style" of the western world. However, bourgeoisies were educable. If they refused the education, whatever that means, they would turn into the right.

Re: Killing sparrows led to famines in China

#57

Post by idoubtit » Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 8:23 PM UTC

I've read about this several times, and I'm not surprised the story is popular. Many people see China as a foe, so they like to smear it. That's alright, but anyone should be extra cautious when a story is just what most people want. Stories tend to inflate and bend to please their auditory.

For instance, consider the claim that China had to import 250,000 sparrows from the USSR. Where does it come from? This article seems to be a mash-up of a few sources, mainly Wikipedia. Indeed Wikipedia has the same claim, which is sourced from the book "Mao: The Real Story", by Alexander Pantsov. The said book has just a single sentence about this: "As a result, the Chinese even had to import sparrows from the Soviet Union." A vague assertion: no source, no date, no number of birds. Searching the web only showed many deformations of this (imported from Russia (sic), or USSR and Canada, or imported a million sparrows...). I couldn't find more about this in JSTOR and SciHub.

Overall, I haven't see anything compelling about this detail (importing sparrows) and not much about the main claim (killing sparrows is the main cause of the famine).

One last thought: pesticides have killed scores of birds and insects, especially in the USA. Probably much more than the Four Pests Campaign did. And ecological imbalances have obviously suffered during the last decades: among others, bees are waning in many countries. It seems a bit hypocritical to blame Mao in the past and forget Monsanto-Bayer and Co in the present.

Re: Killing sparrows led to famines in China

#58

Post by alfor » Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 8:28 PM UTC

jemmyw wrote: post #40

alfor wrote: post #17

Another example of the peril of central planning and total authority. Make me think of the climate change orthodoxy were we focus solely on co2 and forget about all the other human problems.

Not really. Climate change is a multiplier or interwoven with lot of those other problems. Plus burning fossil fuels is so central to our economies that we haven't even stopped co2 emissions rising. If we'd actually focused on co2, rather than the less than minimum effort made so far, then maybe there'd be more space for the other problems. Instead this one problem looms larger and larger.

Look into the work of Tony Seba: renewable are on an exponential growth.

Tesla Master plan 3 highlight the step needed to fully transition

Bjorn Longburgh explain in his book and interview what are the different priorities and costs associated with the different way we can do good in the world.

I am super into renewable, but climate change will not be a problem at the current speed of innovation. We should focus on making the poor richer so they then can care about the environment. We should also tell young people to have kids, that there is not too many people on the planet and we should be way more careful with the risks of nuclear war.

Not too long ago we were afraid of widespread famine in the 2000 and the return of Ice age, and probably many others thing.

Re: Killing sparrows led to famines in China

#59

Post by pvaldes » Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 8:30 PM UTC

bluSCALE4 wrote: post #7

This is why I was concerned when I heard Google, of all companies, released lab grown mosquitos to wipe them out. I'm curious what happened with this effort. It's not exactly a vote of confidence when the other guy trying to do this is Bill Gates.

History runs in circles. Everybody wants to be an hero, so they will refuse to see the danger or to understand that ecosystems don't grant a second try if you change something and regret it later.

Mao died in 1976. Sparrows still remain extinct in most of China.

Re: Killing sparrows led to famines in China

#60

Post by Tiktaalik » Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 8:36 PM UTC

zabzonk wrote: post #16

kevviiinn wrote: post #6

I find it rather strange that people tend to blame the famine on communism and central planning

who else would you blame it on? communist, centralised states are reknown for causing these kinds of problems - look at the ussr in the 1920s and 30s.

It wasn't just the communists that were not thinking about the consequences, making moronic choices and ruining ecosystems.

See also: Frogs and Rabbits in Australia, Deer in Haida Gwaii, Mongooses in Hawaii, the list goes on and on...