News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:The scientists who starved to death surrounded by food by ggm on Sunday August 19, 2018 @06:53PM (#17796654)
The next time somebody refutes the Churchill "then why are we fighting" quote (he didn't say it, according to Snopes) we now have this story to point to. Churchill's comments before the war were about the arts, but this one about the sciences fits in the same niche: If you believed in the role of the seed bank/collection, eating it was the last thing on your mind.
Re:The scientists who starved to death surrounded by food by rule_follower on Monday August 20, 2018 @01:46AM (#17797954)
The man who founded the seedbank was sent to the gulag and sentenced to death for calling out Lysenko as a fraud. The Soviets failed to evacuate the contents of the seedbank, leaving it to be destroyed or raided. I don't understand how allying with such a government can be deemed a natural consequence of seeking to preserve knowledge and culture. The heroes in this story are solely the individual scientists.
Re:The scientists who starved to death surrounded by food by Asooka on Monday August 20, 2018 @05:36AM (#17798664)
It was a necessary evil at the time to stop the Nazis, which were a more immediate threat to the West. Note that immediately after the war, relations with the Soviets cooled significantly.
Re:The scientists who starved to death surrounded by food by skrebbel on Monday August 20, 2018 @07:33AM (#17799129)
A bit off topic, I find it a bit ironic that you bring up Churchill in a discussion about famine, given that he was directly responsible for the starvation of millions of Indians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943

I keep being surprised how true it is that the victors get to write the history books. Churchill killed a third as many people as Hitler did but people generally seem to be OK with that.

Re:The scientists who starved to death surrounded by food by NeedMoreTea on Monday August 20, 2018 @09:27AM (#17799690)
Churchill directly responsible?

1. The UK had a coalition government and a war cabinet of 9 not a dictatorship by Churchill, so "directly responsible" is pure hyperbole.

2. Burma fell in 42 from which point Bengal lost previous regular rice imports and was now on the front line with the Japanese.

3. Many of the Indian states under their respective Maharajas applied trade restrictions with Bengal after the fall of Burma, through 42 starting with Punjab. That significantly heightened food shortages and profiteering. It was the inability to internally import rice that was perhaps the largest single factor.

4. Bengal was inundated with half a million refugees fleeing Burma.

5. At that point in the war there was little could be done to prevent Japanese attacks in the Bay of Bengal. The War Cabinet did indeed decline Mountbatten's requests for shipping food due to expected losses.

6. A series of natural disasters in the region, including extensive crop disease and a cyclone that killed 15,000 and spread the disease spores widely.

Churchill personally could have prevented all that, at the height of the war?

Now had you pointed at Bengal's governor, who made some questionable decisions during the crisis, I think you'd have had more of a case.

Re:The scientists who starved to death surrounded by food by danieka on Monday August 20, 2018 @02:12PM (#17802320)
Thank you for taking the time to respond in such detail. Also, your username checks out.
Re:The scientists who starved to death surrounded by food by loco5niner on Monday August 20, 2018 @03:41PM (#17803209)
Seems like a questionable claim.