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The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

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Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#141

Post by forgetfreeman »

kerkeslager wrote: post #94
forgetfreeman wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soil restoration requires fallow acreage cycles that are unsupportable given the acreage of idle land required when compared against the total of available arable land at present. Permaculture is little more than a product of the instagram-homesteader industrial complex intended to sell books and land speaking engagements. It produces at absolute max a third of the calories per acre of industrialized monocrop agricul…

> Soil restoration requires fallow acreage cycles that are unsupportable given the acreage of idle land required when compared against the total of available arable land at present. Fallow doesn't mean idle. Notably, raising animals on land that isn't producing crops is actively conducive to soil restoration and speeds the process, requiring less fallow time. Animals are already being raised on arable land, so a lot…

>I won't deny that Instagram overhypes permaculture, but there's plenty of hard scientific research being done on it as well.

No argument there. It beats the shit out of having a lawn.

>As noted above, a lot of arable land is used to raise animals,

Incorrect. The overwhelming majority of pasture lands aren't arable. See also: Wyoming.

> I'm hearing you talk about job creation like it's a bad thing.

No, you're hearing me talk about $25 heads of lettuce like they're a complete non-starter. Ag has some of the tightest margins of any industry and we're all still going broke every time we go to the grocery store. Ignoring the screaming match over immigration and migrant labor that's guaranteed to trigger once someone points out who's most likely to service any major increase in demand for ag labor, the added costs associated are absolutely going to get passed on to consumers. How many people do you think it would take to replace one X-series combine?

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#142

Post by forgetfreeman »

jraedisch wrote: post #87
forgetfreeman wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living on a lake is a prestige goal, not a requirement for existence. There is no meaningful scarcity at tier 1 of Maslow's hierarchy.

I love swimming and direct access to "nature". You left out child and health care, too. I do not see how any of these are prestige goals.

I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy downing half a fifth of tequila and setting fire to my neighbor's rose bushes but I don't consider that part of my definition of a functional society.

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#143

Post by pdonis »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #76
pdonis wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the paper: "[I]n-groups controlling abundance have increasingly chosen to produce non-necessary goods, rather than produce services to distribute necessary goods to regions with less abundance of necessary goods" This claim seems, to say the least, highly implausible given the amount of aid and charity that developed countries give to less developed countries. The chief obstacle to that aid having more of an eff…

I think you’re confusing my argument. I don’t suggest a solution I’m pointing out that the individual desire to increase personal happiness beyond basic needs for reproduction, significantly outweighs their desire to end that same extreme poverty condition for others. This might be a “duh” but the point is that my hypothesis is that this is a learned/taught perspective, and based on a foundational idea that is no lon…

> the individual desire to increase personal happiness beyond basic needs for reproduction, significantly outweighs their desire to end that same extreme poverty condition for others...my hypothesis is that this is a learned/taught perspective, and based on a foundational idea that is no longer true, aka a myth.

I think you're missing my point. My point is that, before we even get to your hypothesis about why the claim you make is true, we first need to agree that it is true. And I don't think it is. I think people in developed countries have a significant desire to help people in less developed countries--but our political system, which allows corrupt governments to stay in power even though their actions are making their people starve, frustrates that desire. We have been sending huge amounts of aid to the Third World for more than half a century, and we continue to do so, but it hasn't helped and it isn't helping.

In other words, to the extent that people in developed countries believe that they might as well focus on increasing their own personal happiness, it's because they don't see that trying to help people in less developed countries accomplishes anything. That is indeed a "learned perspective", but it's learned from actual experience of the effects of aid over the past half century and more, not from any kind of "myth" about scarcity. Indeed, if people in developed countries really believed that resources like food were scarce, we wouldn't have been sending all that aid to less developed countries for more than half a century. It's precisely because we know that we have excess resources and can afford to send them elsewhere to help, that there has been widespread political support in developed countries for sending all that aid. Any reduction in that support doesn't come from beliefs about scarcity; it comes from observing that the actual consequences of the aid are not the intended ones.

(Note, btw, that the existence of "excess resources" in developed countries for things like food depends on people in those countries creating wealth over and above the needs of bare subsistence. So "the individual desire to increase personal happiness beyond basic needs" in developed countries is required in order for there to be excess basic needs to be sent as aid to less developed countries.)

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#144

Post by kerkeslager »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #141
kerkeslager wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Soil restoration requires fallow acreage cycles that are unsupportable given the acreage of idle land required when compared against the total of available arable land at present. Fallow doesn't mean idle. Notably, raising animals on land that isn't producing crops is actively conducive to soil restoration and speeds the process, requiring less fallow time. Animals are already being raised on arable land, so a lot…

>I won't deny that Instagram overhypes permaculture, but there's plenty of hard scientific research being done on it as well. No argument there. It beats the shit out of having a lawn. >As noted above, a lot of arable land is used to raise animals, Incorrect. The overwhelming majority of pasture lands aren't arable. See also: Wyoming. > I'm hearing you talk about job creation like it's a bad thing. No, you're hearing…

> > As noted above, a lot of arable land is used to raise animals,

> The overwhelming majority of pasture lands aren't arable. See also: Wyoming.

True, but that's not a refutation of what I said. I didn't say a lot of pasture lands are arable, I said "a lot of arable land is used to raise animals."

I'd also like to reiterate my point that cattle are not the animals I'd like to see more of.

> No, you're hearing me talk about $25 heads of lettuce like they're a complete non-starter.

We're already subsidizing agriculture massively, and while there are many forms of government spending I oppose, a subsidy which a) allows people to afford food, b) pays workers, and c) improves our food sustainability and security, is exactly the sort of thing I want my taxes going to.

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#145

Post by pdonis »

imtringued wrote: post #123
pdonis wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the paper: "[I]n-groups controlling abundance have increasingly chosen to produce non-necessary goods, rather than produce services to distribute necessary goods to regions with less abundance of necessary goods" This claim seems, to say the least, highly implausible given the amount of aid and charity that developed countries give to less developed countries. The chief obstacle to that aid having more of an eff…

Developing countries receive aid for geopolitical reasons, not to actually help them out. The IMF gives contradictory advice that doesn't help. China, Korea, Japan etc all ignored IMF advice and see where that got them. >In other words, solutions to the scarcity problems you describe in less developed countries appear to me to be primarily political, not economic. Uhm, that was the entire point of the paper. There is…

> Developing countries receive aid for geopolitical reasons

The point isn't why those countries agree to receive aid, it's why there is political support in developed countries for sending it. If the paper's hypothetical were true, that people in developed countries prefer to increase their own personal happiness instead of helping others, the aid would never be sent because voters in developed countries would never support it.

> There is material abundance but no access.

The paper doesn't just make this factual claim (well, it's sort of factual--talk about "access" already presupposes particular ideological views, but let that pass). It makes an additional claim about why this is true. I don't think that additional claim is true (see above and my other post upthread in response to the author).

> you can project the hoarding behaviour onto the corrupt cronies

The "hoarding behavior" that the paper claims is not the behavior of the corrupt cronies in the countries receiving aid, it's the behavior of the people in the countries that are sending aid. And that claim about "hoarding behavior" is wrong, as I've already posted elsewhere in this discussion.

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#146

Post by orwin »

littlestymaar wrote: post #133
orwin wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the black death killed France's first demographic transition, China might have had 2, and it is possible that one happened during the golden age of Islam too (and we don't know nearly enough about mesoamerican natives). Abundance of food, and local peace is clearly the common denominator for demographic transition. The reason it did not happen in continetal europe is the amount of warring that took place…

> To be fair, the black death killed France's first demographic transition Never heard of that, any sources to recommend on the topic? > Abundance of food, and local peace is clearly the common denominator for demographic transition That sounds really suspicious as description of France in the eighteenth century…

Louis-Henri Fournet was probably the historian I've read that from first. You can find the book on Amazon, but it's in French (tableau synoptique de l'histoire du monde). I used to be quite interested in the first empire era, then found his book on it, then found the book I've told you about and now I just read stuff on western history, from Louise de Savoie to the first world war

18 to 20 millions in a smaller territory than modern France. I also read that northern Italy demography was the same density, and only reach the same density circa 1850, but i'm not sure if it's from Fournet or a criticism of Fournet (I love reading historians' criticism, but the majority are academic papers or thesis)

[edit] > That sounds really suspicious as description of France in the eighteenth century…

Yeah, I was adding to the argument, I'm 100% in agreement.

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#147

Post by [deleted] »

kerkeslager wrote: post #134
smokel wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a way, companies are simply groups of humans working together. Who is to say that the rottenness emerges from the working together, or whether it is already present in the individual humans? Pre-capitalist societies are known to be even more murder-driven than the current one. Consult the Old Testament for some tips on how to be moral assholes.

> In a way, companies are simply groups of humans working together. I mean, no, companies are a lot more than that. > Who is to say that the rottenness emerges from the working together, or whether it is already present in the individual humans? Who cares? Certainly not me. The source of the rottenness isn't particularly relevant to the fact that it's happening and people aren't doing anything about it.

[deleted]

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#148

Post by MichaelZuo »

kerkeslager wrote: post #136
MichaelZuo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 'corporation' is just a group of people who've signed a pile of contracts, sometimes all physically located in one jurisdiction, but often in multiple simultaneously. So it doesn't seem likely anyone on HN ever genuinely thought they all groups of people are 'morally pure'. If they seemed like it they were probably just pulling your leg or trolling. It's even less likely that anyone actually does 'nothing' when the…

> So it doesn't seem likely anyone on HN ever genuinely thought they all groups of people are 'morally pure'. Right, that was just a straw man argument the person I was responding to was making. > It's even less likely that anyone actually does 'nothing' when they encounter groups of suspicious people in real life, unless they are an extreme doormat. I have never been talking about abstract people doing nothing when…

Your still assuming their behaviour in actuality can be ascertained via what they type out in the comments box...

This seems like a stretch to be honest, especially since most HN users use pseudonyms.

Have you ever considered they might just want to rile you up online, for whatever reasons, but in real life know perfectly well what's what?

e.g. even someone very inclined to go against your comments and arguments would in fact still understand that a subset of 'corporations' are suspicious to some degree, but put on some pretence and so on.

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#149

Post by AndrewKemendo »

pdonis wrote: post #143
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re confusing my argument. I don’t suggest a solution I’m pointing out that the individual desire to increase personal happiness beyond basic needs for reproduction, significantly outweighs their desire to end that same extreme poverty condition for others. This might be a “duh” but the point is that my hypothesis is that this is a learned/taught perspective, and based on a foundational idea that is no lon…

> the individual desire to increase personal happiness beyond basic needs for reproduction, significantly outweighs their desire to end that same extreme poverty condition for others...my hypothesis is that this is a learned/taught perspective, and based on a foundational idea that is no longer true, aka a myth. I think you're missing my point. My point is that, before we even get to your hypothesis about why the cla…

Your perspective boils down to “we’ve already tried to and failed.”

To which I would argue, in fact, we have not tried it, even barely

Actually trying would look more like the following:

The children who are currently mining for Mica for beauty products on behalf of LoReal would be stockholders outright of stock in LVM, as a result of their work, not literal slaves

You are suggesting that the process that we have used so far, which is individually determined capital redistribution via means that pick apart the donation through service fees, middleman functions, etc.

This is what you are suggesting is trying?

No. What I’m saying is that the people who hoard wealth and power will hoard more wealth and power up until socially that is no longer acceptable. we need to determine ways to distribute or rather, not steal in the first place, the value that labor is creating.

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#150

Post by kerkeslager »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #148
kerkeslager wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So it doesn't seem likely anyone on HN ever genuinely thought they all groups of people are 'morally pure'. Right, that was just a straw man argument the person I was responding to was making. > It's even less likely that anyone actually does 'nothing' when they encounter groups of suspicious people in real life, unless they are an extreme doormat. I have never been talking about abstract people doing nothing when…

Your still assuming their behaviour in actuality can be ascertained via what they type out in the comments box... This seems like a stretch to be honest, especially since most HN users use pseudonyms. Have you ever considered they might just want to rile you up online, for whatever reasons, but in real life know perfectly well what's what? e.g. even someone very inclined to go against your comments and arguments woul…

> Your still assuming their behaviour in actuality can be ascertained via what they type out in the comments box...

Please refrain from telling me what I think. You don't know what I think.

> Have you ever considered they might just want to rile you up online, for whatever reasons, but in real life know perfectly well what's what?

I've come across this pro-corporate, anti-human ideology in person as well.

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