Live data from Hacker News

The Coming Food Catastrophe

economist.com

611–620 of 634 posts

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#611
post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When USA nuked Japanese civilians we didn't call it genocide. Targeting civilians is not the definition of genocide.

But the targeting of a specific ethnic group, because they are that ethnic group is, isn't it?. I think this is a pretty good article on the topic, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61017352 and presents both perspectives.

Killing people who support an opposing faction isn't genocide either, that is just regular dictatorship terror tactics. The fact that Putin argues that Ukranians don't exist and that they all are Russians just supports that it isn't a genocide, as he doesn't intend to kill all Russians, just the "Russians" who refuse to be Russians.

Instead of calling it a genocide, call it a massacre. Russia is massacring Ukranians, nobody is arguing against that, and the world stopped accepting such behavior even in wars a long time ago. Prematurely calling it a genocide just makes people stop listening to you.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#612
post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite the opposite. The best move for the US would be to let Ukraine fall, which would re-stabilize food and fuel prices.

I really don’t think the USA can afford to let Ukraine fail. They are basically committed to destroying the Russian economy now, and having them lose the war in Ukraine is an important part in that. If Russia is able to defeat Ukraine, end the war and stabilise the situation, they will be in a better position to convince countries to work around the sanctions they are facing, which would amount to an end-run around t…

So this is accurate in my opinion, but you're essentially saying the quiet part out loud. You're saying the war has nothing to do with saving Ukraine, but rather protecting the hegemony of the US dollar.

I suspect if everybody understood that's what we're really concerned with, support for Ukraine would drop precipitously.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#613
post #515
post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite the opposite. The best move for the US would be to let Ukraine fall, which would re-stabilize food and fuel prices.

Yes, give Russia another weapon (in addition to gas used to influence decision makers in much of Europe) to wield upon the world.

We're weakening ourselves and doing massive damage to our middle class in the US because we want to get back at Putin for...what exactly?

Also, the Ruble is stronger than it's been in years, so all of this appears to be having the opposite effect - https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/ruble-hits-7-year-high-gas...

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#614
post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.constitution.ru/en/10003000-05.htm Article 81

no shit, but who do people expect to come after Putin? what would taking out Bush Jr. in the early phase of operation Iraqi Freedom accomplish? would the next guy immediately withdraw from Iraq and apologize to the world for the past wrongdoings?

Well not much given who was the vice-president. But US of then was in a completely different situation from Russia today.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that sounds like both a bad idea, and an unrealistic idea, most of all because in that presentation russia considers itself an equal to the others in the list, which it most certainly is not, in nearly all respects in a more generalized sense, russia actually doesn't care about any of the countries listed but itself, except insofar as it can convince those countries to support russia the world is already multipolar,…

>”the world is already multipolar, as was pointed out – look to the UN for an example of how multiple poles interact with each other in a civilized fashion – nearly 200 of them!” This isn’t what polarity refers to. The nations of the UN are not at all equal in terms of power and influence. While no one would question that the United States, Russia, and China are the “poles” in this system, no one would regard any of…

In the UN the nations are more equal than anywhere else.

At tha General Assembly all nations are equal. And after all of the abuses of veto powers discussions to eliminate the permanent Security Council positions are once again picking up steam.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would it suddenly be WWIII? Is russia really going to say "Well, they shot down our plane so its global thermonuclear war time". Because Vladimir Putin is currently very very defective.

More like incompetent

I suspect he's about as far down the vascular dementia pathway as Trump is, despite being five years younger.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but feeding cows corn is silly. They can't digest it and you end up with bland greasy inedible meat, and corn is quite hard to grow.

ahem, wrong it gets converted to fatty acids see https://www.lakeforest.edu/news/a-difficult-reality-to-diges... Its why they have fast weight gains In fact reducing corn yields and switching to a different crop will save farmers money as framers have to over supply fertilizer as they are planting corn too close together to get yields without using fertilizer i.e. corn take out more from soil than it gives back

Yeah, but you get bland greasy meat that's barely worth using for pet food.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh it was already a crime against ukrainian people when puppet of kiev aka zelenskyyy and neo-nazi azov battalion took Ukraine to a war with Russia.

that's not what the Ukrainian people think, or what the world thinks, but it is certainly what the genocidal russian invaders think

world = 5 western countries and their puppets in the media and outside.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's not what the Ukrainian people think, or what the world thinks, but it is certainly what the genocidal russian invaders think

world = 5 western countries and their puppets in the media and outside.

incorrect: https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2022/3/3/unga-resolution-...

it's funny you should mention 5, as that is exactly the amount of countries out of 180+ that voted to support russia, including russia

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#620
post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess if you really wanted to, you could take cellulase in the way that people can take lactase to mitigate the effects of lactose intolerance. How you'd actually get your stomach to brew that up into anything useful in time is anyone's guess, and what it would do to the rest of you is an exercise for the keen experimenter. We are basically too active and too large to eat grass, even if we had lactase.

I think they were imagining something more like a bakery / brewery / chemical plant that would turn grasses into edible bread / porridge / slop.

Well, you've got a chemical plant that can turn tough cellulose-y grasses and leaves and heather into stuff we can eat, it's called a sheep.
Post reply on HN