[NT] Why haven't we solved world hunger?

[lunalum]

Most people simply don't have the time/money/influence to make more than a tiniest drop in the bucket. Those who do and care enough about world hunger to mobilize a new method of food distribution are few and far between.

 

[WALMART]

I was thinking about the humanitarian aid to Somalia earlier. lol.

I don't get it - on one hand, we can't play world police. On the other, the world needs policing.

Who's right and who's wrong?

 

[Evo]

Will post this in the NF forum too- but knowing we have the capacity as a planet and human species to END world hunger, and knowing that children die every day, and knowing we can forecast that more will die tomorrow, next month, next year etc- why don't we solve it?

Is it greed?
Is it apathy?
Is is racism?
Is it stupidity?

Should "nature take it's course" and people should starve to level off the population?

Or should we do something about it knowing that we can?

1) We live in a world that doesn't believe in interdependance.

2) Because the human species needs to firstly (in most all cases) figure out who is to blame.

Once you do that then they will say...ok so it's their problem let them fix it...or it's our problem we will come fix it

When we really could just all take responsibility for our own lives.

I'm not trying to attack the victim here - meaning I don't necessarily thinks it's the hungry people's fault that they're hungry (due to life circumstances) but everyone can take a little responsibility for their own life. Also the people that aren't starving or aren't helping, don't understand that they need to take responsibility as well. Everyone's involved not just the obvious parties.


3) Not everyone's sp-dom either, so other things are important to other people.

 

[Rasofy]

I know that's going to sound cold, but overpopulation would become a much bigger concern, and no onde wants that.

Maybe forced sterilization could offset this side effect, but that solution is ethically very questionable, so no smart politician would go there.

 

[Society]

(warning: link dump ahead)

world hunger is tied hand in hand with world poverty - sending money for the starving to buy food locally works better then sending the actual food, it's more economical and stimulates local growth of food production, and the increasing availability of mobile devices allowing for electronic transactions in 3rd world countries (and the infrastructure to support it in rural areas) removes the delivery (and thus oil and refrigeration) costs entirely - which means a much larger percentage of what you pay for is actually getting there. so no, the problem isn't the lack of available food or it's distribution, but rather lacking the currency to access it.

if you want to solve world hunger, you'd have to solve world poverty... and i have to tell you, it's not looking so good right now, but who knows, hans rosling might not be completely off target.

 

[prplchknz]

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/11/world/africa/kenya-water-discovery/index.html

read this article a month ago, but this thread reminded me of it. I thought it was a cool article

 

[AzulEyes]

I think that most of the famine and starvation problems which are referred to as "world hunger" are generally engineered or the natural consequences of crisis in law and order, its not "natural" and its not like an earthquake or volcano or tsunami or anything of that kind, there's been campaigns by development theorists and academics from the developing world or southern hemisphere and the developed or northern hemisphere to arrest and prosecute officials who have presided over famine and starvation in the same way that war crimes are prosecuted. However, given that the international community is pretty sluggish about human rights violations and war crimes when its blatantly obvious, ie Syria, Rwanda, Balkans, I doubt that its going to get into gear about famine and starvation.

There are also food security policies which the US and EU use which are blocked to the African Union by global free trade agreements, usually tied to debt repayments to the world bank or IMF restructuring of economies, environmental legislation is used in the same manner too preventing some forms of industrialisation which has been tied to desertification, deforestation and climate change.

Some of the proposals for changes in trade which would result in developing/southern hemisphere nations becoming the worlds agricultural producers are understandably being resisted by the developed world because of concerns about quality and food safety, if those regions are to be the agrarian sector then they need to cease being lawless or the shortage/starvation problems are just going to spread worldwide or perhaps poisoning and poor quality food resources is going to become endemic instead. There are also the problems, once experienced in nations like Ireland immortalised in the song Fields of Athenry, of producer nations producing cash crops for export in order to buy food resources and import them, so people starve amidst plenty, this is a risk with ethanol production for fuel, so nations could produce for fuel but have no domestic food stock of their own.

Some of those problems would be eliminated by food security policies being permitted by trade organisations, the EU has produced so called wine lakes and meat mountains through subsidised farming, why not let the African Union do something similar? And each trade block, US, EU, AU could see to its own agri-fuel production.

This is really great information and perspective! I'm learning a lot from you!

 

[AzulEyes]

Most people simply don't have the time/money/influence to make more than a tiniest drop in the bucket. Those who do and care enough about world hunger to mobilize a new method of food distribution are few and far between.

I think this is at the heart of my intentions of this post (not saying I don't want to hear all perspectives! Because I do.) But I have a problem with people thinking there isn't a problem. And I have a problem with greed. And apathy.

 

[Andy]

Will post this in the NF forum too- but knowing we have the capacity as a planet and human species to END world hunger, and knowing that children die every day, and knowing we can forecast that more will die tomorrow, next month, next year etc- why don't we solve it?

Is it greed?
Is it apathy?
Is is racism?
Is it stupidity?

Should "nature take it's course" and people should starve to level off the population?

Or should we do something about it knowing that we can?

I think the short answer is because it requires a level of co-operation the human races has never achieved. We're too divided, self interested and suspicious of each other. Sadly, the suspicions are often justified. Human's have a marked tendancy to do things that benefit themselves while damaging the collective. Benefits fraud is a simple example. A lot of hunger is caused because of food theft, People with guns come along and take the food from farmers, who then starve and become less productive, making the problem worse.

 

[hjgbujhghg]

The problem is in ineffective processing of food. Europe and America throw away more food, than they eat. It's becuase of crazy "health" norms, like determined size of potatoes, that can go stores, throwing away all the package of fruits, when just one fruit is rotten, throwing away good foods from restaurant/bars. We extremly waste the food and take it for guaranteed. If we send to needy people all the good food we just throw away like nothing, we could feed half of this world.

 

[AzulEyes]

I think the short answer is because it requires a level of co-operation the human races has never achieved. We're too divided, self interested and suspicious of each other. Sadly, the suspicions are often justified. Human's have a marked tendancy to do things that benefit themselves while damaging the collective. Benefits fraud is a simple example. A lot of hunger is caused because of food theft, People with guns come along and take the food from farmers, who then starve and become less productive, making the problem worse.

I totally agree that greed is rampant, an epidemic, catastrophic and the "collective whole" is largely ignored.

 

[AzulEyes]

I have still to read thru all of these but I want to say- it is refreshing hearing all of the perspectives!

 

[Lark]

I think this is at the heart of my intentions of this post (not saying I don't want to hear all perspectives! Because I do.) But I have a problem with people thinking there isn't a problem. And I have a problem with greed. And apathy.

I'm not sure that greed and apathy explain away the problem though or its persistence.

There are structures which spell the continuing persistence of world hunger whether the individuals who are working within them are particularly greedy, altruistic, apathetic or interested.

This is like that old defense of capitalism that the system itself is fine but individuals are not, blaming the system is like blaming the motor car for drunk drivers, it could be true on the day to day that individuals rather than the office or rank or status are to be judged but when discuss big, big social problems it is most definitely the system which is at fault. Drunk drivers is one thing but trying to avoid crashing when the car has no steering collumn or breaks and headlights is a different story.

 

[Azure Flame]

who said we need to?

Israel was at one point rated the 11th happiest country in the world, and its a shit show over there.

Human beings gain a seretonin/dopamine reaction whenever they accomplish a goal. What a lot of people don't have experience with is the bliss and joy you experience when overcoming struggle. If your goal is to not die, every day becomes a celebration.

I once went on an expedition. We hiked 9 hours a day. It was exhausting. Every day was the hardest day of my life, the best meal of my life, and the best sleep of my life, and frankly, that's how every day should be. In america, its damn near impossible to starve to death, and all of our problems are taken care of. Struggle doesn't exist unless you strive to put it in your life. 3rd world problems being what they are.

 

[Lark]

who said we need to?

Israel was at one point rated the 11th happiest country in the world, and its a shit show over there.

Human beings gain a seretonin/dopamine reaction whenever they accomplish a goal. What a lot of people don't have experience with is the bliss and joy you experience when overcoming struggle. If your goal is to not die, every day becomes a celebration.

I once went on an expedition. We hiked 9 hours a day. It was exhausting. Every day was the hardest day of my life, the best meal of my life, and the best sleep of my life, and frankly, that's how every day should be. In america, its damn near impossible to starve to death, and all of our problems are taken care of. Struggle doesn't exist unless you strive to put it in your life. 3rd world problems being what they are.

I'm seriously unsure about arguments like this one, no one in the third world or who has or are experiencing threats from starvation or hunger is liable to ever make an argument like this one, it stinks of being made by someone hypothetically or far removed from the sorts of struggle which are being talked about.

I'm as much a fan of the strenuous life as anyone else in the first world, ie mainly theoretical or "voluntary", but I'm glad its within the limits it is and that other sorts of struggle, less life threatening sorts, are mine by choice instead.

 

[Society]

I think the short answer is because it requires a level of co-operation the human races has never achieved.

hmm... i agree with this premise. so the question is: what would be required to achieve it?

 

[Andy]

hmm... i agree with this premise. so the question is: what would be required to achieve it?

Difficult question. Problem someone to be in charge of the whole world and thus able to move food and other supplies around as they saw fit, rather than as economics and various disperate parties saw fit. Also for the governing body to be humane enough to bother solving world hunger. Of course, that raises the question of how anybody could manage to rule the world and do so with enough authority and stability to make such things happen. Unfortunately "how to rule the world" is such a stereotypical INTJ subject, I'm not sure I can bring myself to answer it! Besides, most of the methods currently available for world domination tend to conflict someone with the idea of humane governmentship.

Perhaps we will have to wait to the age of space colonisation to solve world hunger. Once there are people living across the solarsystem Earth will look small enough for us to consider having just one body in charge.

 

[Society]

Perhaps we will have to wait to the age of space colonisation to solve world hunger. Once there are people living across the solarsystem Earth will look small enough for us to consider having just one body in charge.

who's to say there wouldn't be interplanetary hunger? what happens when an asteroid mining colony finds that a vein of ice wasn't as deep as they thought it was and now water & fuel becomes super expensive for them? what if some company's stock falls and the colony get a delay of basic supplies shipments? a central radiation shield breaks down and they now have to sell water to afford replacement and they have to close parts of the hydroponics.... when your entire infrastructure is artificial, every little economical instability can lead to a much larger death toll.

Besides, most of the methods currently available for world domination tend to conflict someone with the idea of humane governmentship.

it's interesting though... so many people like the idea of earth standing united - at least in theory - but the real question is the price: would people give up their nation's sovereignty for it?

 

[Lark]

Questions such as this one are salient in any society most of the time but the fact that they were more salient in the past in some nations and only in others presently is key.

Smith's Wealth of Nations, other literary economic works like it were all part of a discourse and discussion about how to work all this out.

Smith's basic idea was that it was not a question of distribution but of production, max out production and even the least will have enough, when the least has enough who cares what the uber-rich have right? So goes the idea. Rawls et al only produced a variation on this theme, comparing an unequal and egalitarian society they concluded that if the least well off in an unequal society were doing better than the least well off in an egalitarian one then the unequal society is the better one.

However, Smith's ideas have got to fall down in an era when maxing out production is unstainable and no solution. I think he was a humanist and was sincere and was trying to devise a way in which people could be helped without disturbing property rights and interests, not because he didnt care to but because his whole idea is about how to harness the selfish, not because it is a virtue, but because it is a fact for the common good. Its a kind of social alchemy which is at work.

Smith did say that any nation in which the greater part were in want could not be said to be prospering, that and a lot of other lines from his works read like a lot of other political-literary books but socialist, communist and utopian ones, even some of the conservatives got in on the act.

I tend to think if people had full possession of the information they may feel differently about the distributive idea, the true nature of inequality and plutonomy pretty much escapes people. They dont like the idea of redistribution because to date it has been pretty much horizontal, the least pay for other parts of the least, the really, really uber rich are not disturbed in the least by taxation or redistribution because like povery its something that happens to other people.

 

[Andy]

who's to say there wouldn't be interplanetary hunger? what happens when an asteroid mining colony finds that a vein of ice wasn't as deep as they thought it was and now water & fuel becomes super expensive for them? what if some company's stock falls and the colony get a delay of basic supplies shipments? a central radiation shield breaks down and they now have to sell water to afford replacement and they have to close parts of the hydroponics.... when your entire infrastructure is artificial, every little economical instability can lead to a much larger death toll.



it's interesting though... so many people like the idea of earth standing united - at least in theory - but the real question is the price: would people give up their nation's sovereignty for it?

I'm quite sure there would be interplanetary hunger - I never said otherwise. All I was implying was that space colonisatyion would make Earth seem smaller, psychologiccally speaking, making it easier to rule under a single government. Then world hunger would be easier to solve. I didn't say didly squat about solving interplanetary hunger. Or, indeed, interplanetary unity.

The isssue of soverignty is why I say Earth has to look small, so that the idea of national independancy looks about as stupid as trying to declare your street an independent nation.