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The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

monbiot.com

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Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#21

Post by MichaelRo »

HideousKojima wrote: post #13
MichaelRo wrote: post #8

I resonate with the article for several reasons: - I lived in rural Romania through the 80s when Ceaușescu decided to basically return to war time rationalization of food. - My father was an agricultural engineer on a state farm, a specialty almost forgotten today yet of utmost importance in the 50s-60s when he graduated university and got the job. People today scorn at the idea of state farms but my father comes fro…

>There was no lack of protein but it wasn't the obscene frenzy I see in American movies (probably fake?): all beef chops meat and basically no bread or carbs or vegetables at all. It's not an every meal kind of thing, but it's a real thing. Especially if you go to a restaurant that specializes in barbecue. Here's a typical meal from Dickey's, the first chain barbeque restaurant I could think of: https://whatnowphilly…

Holly cow!

Well the only time I get near that is once a year when I have my habitual one week vacation at an all-inclusive resort in Crete (Greece).

I actually tried eating all-meat but I guess my taste is too permanently distorted now. I can't help but eat the soup then raid the appetizing cooked vegetables area. Not counting the absolutely delicious bread, I could eat just that. In addition to the obscene amount of meats I'm placing on my plate, with the limitation that I'm eating them all and if I want more I take another plate and go pick another round. Obscene compared to my regular, I guess. I hate it when I'm starting to get full which happens pretty quick actually.

I read an article here on Hacker News which said what truly getting rich means. Well for starters, food no longer matters. At all. Like you don't even know it exists, let alone care about price and quantity.

Well, although I'm far from worrying about food today as a senior software engineer in Romania, food is still a weakspot of mine.

Like, employing company struggles like any other to convince people to come to the office as opposed to fully remote.

Well, when they offer food I endure the gruesome 1.5 hours commute each way because it's worth it! At least that's what my monkey brained trained through communist penury tells me c:)

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#22

Post by smitty1e »

jfengel wrote: post #9
smitty1e wrote: post #2

> The argument in which he participates is a crucial one, the divisions are real and the debate needs to be had. Sorry, sir. We are in a reductionist moment in history, where sides have been chosen; judgements made; debate stifled; views anathematized; and conflict reduced to an inevitable choice that is the fault of "other".

Debate doesn't seem the least bit stifled to me. Just the opposite: there is so much that we can't actually come to any conclusions. Coming to conclusions and debating really are in opposition.

There is no debate in the sense of dispassionately presenting facts; sincerely seeking to understand the merits of the opposing view; being willing to own fault where factually based; accepting compromise, &c.

Unless I've missed, like, a lot.

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#23

Post by MichaelRo »

Someone wrote: post #14
MichaelRo wrote: post #8

I resonate with the article for several reasons: - I lived in rural Romania through the 80s when Ceaușescu decided to basically return to war time rationalization of food. - My father was an agricultural engineer on a state farm, a specialty almost forgotten today yet of utmost importance in the 50s-60s when he graduated university and got the job. People today scorn at the idea of state farms but my father comes fro…

> People today scorn at the idea of state farms but my father comes from a family of rather wealthy peasants from before collectivization and always told me that productivity was shit before modern cultivation methods, mechanization, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides were used. “Modern cultivation methods, mechanization, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides” don’t require the use of state far…

I'm not talking about today's Germany.

I was referring to post-war Eastern Europe where land property was so fragmented that famines would still happen because individual peasants didn't have enough land to meet MVP (minimum viable produce of anything should anything go awry and it always did).

And 1900s Germany doesn't require state farms precisely because commercially viable land was already concentrated enough (though heck knows what sacrifices that we'll never know) to be viable in the hands of capital that has the means to handle it.

State farms were a great step forward for humanity, in spite of the terrific occasional human costs it incurred on the imbeciles who couldn't read the times. Capital where it wasn't compared to no capital, that is.

Talking about 1900s Germany, that reminds me of a story my grandpa told me. He had a cousin that moved from rural Romania to urban Germany in order to work in a factory, after abandoning his pig trade that my grandma was doing (fattening pigs and selling them in an animal market). The idea was not to immigrate but to make enough hard $$$ as to buy here at home enough land that he couldn't have even dreamed otherwise. An early IT-guy I guess :)

Anyhow after he came back, the women of the village asked his wife who was at all times following him. "How did you manage to buy things given you speak no German at all?!". "Well, unlike the backwards shop here where the seller sits behind a counter under the presumption that you'll steal shit and asks you what you want, in Deutschland shops are open space. They provide you with a basket on entry, into which said basket you freely pick stuff from shelves in the store and all you have to do upon exit is show the basket to the clerk store and they will show you the number. You pay that (it's just numbers so you don't have to know any German at all) and off you go".

That was 1900s... Very advanced by comparison.

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#24

Post by eh_why_not »

Off topic: maybe used to reading technical papers too much, but this is an overly long article for a pass-by read, and it has no paragraph summarizing the author's main thesis.

What are some good online services that can take a URL and give back a few bullet points? (which would then help decide whether to spend 20 - 30 mins to read the arguments)

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#25

Post by Mistletoe »

eh_why_not wrote: post #24

Off topic: maybe used to reading technical papers too much, but this is an overly long article for a pass-by read, and it has no paragraph summarizing the author's main thesis. What are some good online services that can take a URL and give back a few bullet points? (which would then help decide whether to spend 20 - 30 mins to read the arguments)

https://zapier.com/blog/how-to-use-chatgpt-to-summarize-an-a...

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#26

Post by cscurmudgeon »

teknopaul wrote: post #17

Starts out so wrong. I live in Spain, traditionally good food still a staple. Most of the world I have visited is like that too. OK USA has screwed it's food chain, but that does not apply outside. People generally value traditions, and specifically food traditions, highly. It's a long way from financially difficult to keep these alive. People just have to decide they want to and spend time, not money. People round h…

Just because you value traditions it doesn’t void basic economic laws proved over centuries (supply and demand).

> OK USA has screwed it's food chain, but that does not apply outside.

How? Spain imports quite a bit food.

https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/opportunities-us-agricultural-....

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#27

Post by cscurmudgeon »

simbolit wrote: post #10

"falling hunger during a time of rising population" I find it astonishing that Monbiot manages to mention China's famines in the 1950s and 1960s, but somehow fails to mention that most of the progress in the fight against hunger since the 1970s was made here: If you exclude China from the numbers, "falling hunger during a time of rising population" didn't really happen. Old story: China bad.

Nah not really. Hint: India

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#28

Post by cscurmudgeon »

feedforward wrote: post #12
simbolit wrote: post #10

"falling hunger during a time of rising population" I find it astonishing that Monbiot manages to mention China's famines in the 1950s and 1960s, but somehow fails to mention that most of the progress in the fight against hunger since the 1970s was made here: If you exclude China from the numbers, "falling hunger during a time of rising population" didn't really happen. Old story: China bad.

China was plagued by famine for centuries, including one in 1906 larger than the one a decade after the PRC was established. China's victory over malnutrition was won over the past 60 years, but none of this is convenient to his narrative.

A bit part of it due to West opening it’s markets to mainland China. Remember neighboring country of Taiwan didn’t face issues and famines like those caused by Mao.

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#29

Post by c0pium »

feedforward wrote: post #12
simbolit wrote: post #10

"falling hunger during a time of rising population" I find it astonishing that Monbiot manages to mention China's famines in the 1950s and 1960s, but somehow fails to mention that most of the progress in the fight against hunger since the 1970s was made here: If you exclude China from the numbers, "falling hunger during a time of rising population" didn't really happen. Old story: China bad.

China was plagued by famine for centuries, including one in 1906 larger than the one a decade after the PRC was established. China's victory over malnutrition was won over the past 60 years, but none of this is convenient to his narrative.

1906 was roughly 20 million, which is slightly under the official estimates for the Great Leap Forward. The actual number for 59-61 is closer to 45 million. So no.

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#30

Post by ForkMeOnTinder »

eh_why_not wrote: post #24

Off topic: maybe used to reading technical papers too much, but this is an overly long article for a pass-by read, and it has no paragraph summarizing the author's main thesis. What are some good online services that can take a URL and give back a few bullet points? (which would then help decide whether to spend 20 - 30 mins to read the arguments)

I've been happy with Kagi's summarizer (it's not free though)

https://kagi.com/summarizer/index.html

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