The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People • Hacker News Board

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#71

Post by javajosh » Sat, Oct 28, 2023, 7:00 PM UTC

The solution is obvious, though: wealthy individuals, or collectives of such, should pay folks to live an authentic, poor, impoverished life, protect it as an island of authenticity, for some set period of time, and that person is forbidden from accessing their new wealth personally for X amount of time.

I'm not joking. This deal would appeal to many people who both want a hands-on life but who also want to retire to someplace other than an authentic, brutal poorhouse. In return, society gets to (synthetically) maintain a different way of life, which may come in handy when things change, when climate, asteroids, or revolts make "the old ways" more valuable again. And in the meantime, it would maintain a secret, private getaway for the ultra wealthy to enjoy very occasionally and discretely.

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#72

Post by jvanderbot » Sat, Oct 28, 2023, 7:03 PM UTC

progne wrote: post #59

"In fact, and horrifyingly, it’s likely that, as a result of environmental disaster, rural life in many parts of the world will collapse before urban life does, as suggested by a highly disturbing recent paper in Nature, showing how and where the “human climate niche” is likely to shrink. If anything, we are likely to become more reliant on long-distance transport to deliver our food – a prospect no one, myself inclu…

In the event of environmental disaster, those surplus calories would disappear. He's referring to the resilience of the supply chain vs the resilience of local food production when a "Big Disaster" hits.

A truly major drought would decimate local vegetable gardens and rabbit populations alike.

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#73

Post by geraldhh » Sat, Oct 28, 2023, 7:04 PM UTC

infecto wrote: post #41

photochemsyn wrote: post #15

The main thesis of the article is that famine due to crop failure (as opposed to famine due to war) has largely been eliminated by two modern technologies: industrial agricultural methods (synthetic fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, equipment) and global trade (air and ship transport managed by markets). This generally appears true - some time ago I tried to discover if total land area under agricultural production…

Upvote for the fellow techno-optimist. I am pretty excited with some of the startups I have seen in the electric farm equipment space. https://www.monarchtractor.com/ I don't own a farm so I don't have industry insight but it's exciting because I think this is a problem at least appears solvable. I realize large combines are probably an issue but if you can automate the process perhaps smaller machines workout becaus…

Thanks for the link!

Thou, while the description makes it seem like a high-utility and light-duty machine for high-margin farming (nuts&berries), it could also be total vaporware as the machines look "too tidy" and unused in the footage.

curious if anyone could chime in here and provide some organic feedback.

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#74

Post by jvanderbot » Sat, Oct 28, 2023, 7:04 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #42

AlbertCory wrote: post #20

The headline is misleading, but the sudden trendiness of a previously-unknown food is pretty devastating to everyone but the few who manage to cash in on the trend. Witness: Korean food. I love it as much as anyone and have a container of gochujang in the fridge, but I read once about some poor Korean who, when told that Westerners were suddenly very interested in their culture, just said, "Why?"

Where is the devastating part in this anecdote? Not disputing your thesis, there just seems to be a bit missing.

When my wife and I backpacked Peru, we stayed with some local farmers. They refused to tell us what they were serving us, because after quinoa took off, nobody locally could afford it, and they feared that we would start another such trend.

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#75

Post by analyte123 » Sat, Oct 28, 2023, 7:07 PM UTC

photochemsyn wrote: post #15

The main thesis of the article is that famine due to crop failure (as opposed to famine due to war) has largely been eliminated by two modern technologies: industrial agricultural methods (synthetic fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, equipment) and global trade (air and ship transport managed by markets). This generally appears true - some time ago I tried to discover if total land area under agricultural production…

I don't find the opposing argument convincing at all. If you look at the US for example, all direct energy usage for crops and livestock production (~800 Tbtu) plus energy used for fertilizer production (~350 Tbtu) adds up to about 1% of all energy consumption [1]. This includes all the energy used to farm crops for biofuels and for export. This does not suggest some sort of looming agricultural energy crisis. The basic formula of mechanized agriculture has been in place for at least 100 years, and what is generally still happening is steadily increasing yields, decreasing energy consumption, and more knowledge and concern for soil quality and sustainability.

The argument that we all need to leave cities behind and "return to the land" is squarely in the horseshoe zone of radical politics. These days I associate contempt for modernity, industrial agriculture and cities more with far-right ideologues than the far-left ones he is targeting here, but to me they are on both sides borne out of a similar unrealistic, apocalyptic, and utopian mindset; and especially the desire (conscious or not) that such a destructive transformation would address their personal struggles or political grievances.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=18431, https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#76

Post by kranke155 » Sat, Oct 28, 2023, 7:09 PM UTC

davedx wrote: post #53

kranke155 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats exactly how I felt. Do these two people feel important trading jabs through their environmentalist Penguin Books? Is this the environmental movement equivalent of a rap battle? It feels really useless and dead to keep "talking away" like this. I dont know who either of these people are, but have they actually saved an indingenous community or improved the diet of a large group? Finding, promoting and selling go…

You don’t think books with solutions (like the author has written) are useful?

Im sure that some are, but the text that is linked in this particular post - could you explain its usefulness?

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#77

Post by AlbertCory » Sat, Oct 28, 2023, 7:09 PM UTC

Almondsetat wrote: post #35

AlbertCory wrote: post #20

The headline is misleading, but the sudden trendiness of a previously-unknown food is pretty devastating to everyone but the few who manage to cash in on the trend. Witness: Korean food. I love it as much as anyone and have a container of gochujang in the fridge, but I read once about some poor Korean who, when told that Westerners were suddenly very interested in their culture, just said, "Why?"

The Korean government explicitly set up kpop for export, just like Thailand did with its food. If koreans feel that way then it’s a self inflicted wound

I've been to Thailand, not to Korea.

Somehow, the Thais don't seem to resent the tourists. Of course, that's just my perception as a Westerner.

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#78

Post by youngtaff » Sat, Oct 28, 2023, 7:13 PM UTC

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #67

picture wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While eating healthy can indeed be cheap, I think systemically there are other costs like having the free time and free energy (which both might be depleted after a long day of hard work), other issues like the need to have some sort of transit to a grocer with fresh goods. For many parts of the United States, there's only Dollar General within accessible distance, and many people cannot afford to own or rent cars, a…

Poorer people are fatter in other countries too, and in most countries (at least the developed ones), very few people work more than 8 hours per day (so enough time to cook), and grocery stores are easily accessible.

Poor people often have to work multiple jobs and often work many more hourse than 8 hours a day. The stress of worrying about how you’re going to feed your kids, pay energy costs, rent etc soon eats time too

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#79

Post by curiousllama » Sat, Oct 28, 2023, 7:15 PM UTC

progne wrote: post #59

"In fact, and horrifyingly, it’s likely that, as a result of environmental disaster, rural life in many parts of the world will collapse before urban life does, as suggested by a highly disturbing recent paper in Nature, showing how and where the “human climate niche” is likely to shrink. If anything, we are likely to become more reliant on long-distance transport to deliver our food – a prospect no one, myself inclu…

That paper you mention mostly highlights subsistence farmers - folks who definitionally don't have excess calories.

More generally, urban folks are more resilient because they're more flexible - as long as you're importing food, you're not reliant on one locale; you can always import as long as one place hasn't collapsed.

Re: The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People

#80

Post by jwells89 » Sat, Oct 28, 2023, 7:16 PM UTC

picture wrote: post #61

TacticalCoder wrote: post #60

Great TFA but I partially disagree with this: > A healthy, nutritious diet is much more expensive than a calorie sufficient one. As a result, three billion people cannot afford a healthy diet. Is that so? My wife is the kind to obsess on healthy eating and always tells me it's cheaper to cook healthy than to cook unhealthy stuff. She's the kind that forces me to eat soup as dinner and that's it. It's not expensive to…

While eating healthy can indeed be cheap, I think systemically there are other costs like having the free time and free energy (which both might be depleted after a long day of hard work), other issues like the need to have some sort of transit to a grocer with fresh goods. For many parts of the United States, there's only Dollar General within accessible distance, and many people cannot afford to own or rent cars, a…

Even if one technically has time, cooking is a considerable commitment and so it’s easy to end up having little to no downtime after working it into a schedule, especially in a family situation.

It’s hard to keep that kind of tight schedule up for long periods while maintaining sanity. Even if you start out cooking regularly and eating healthy it’s easy to burn out and wind up in a funk which then causes a spiraling effect that makes it ever-harder to get back to a healthy lifestyle.

So I might suggest that many don’t just need time and energy to be able to cook healthy, but enough to cook healthy and still have time and energy left over. In other words, a sustainable schedule.