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A comment on Do we need a better understanding of 'progress'?. Parent comment

Re:Do we need a better understanding of 'progress'? by eatmyshorts on Friday June 17, 2022 @04:15PM (#31783676)
I think your data is a little old. The undernourished, defined as fewer than 1800 calories per day, has steadily declined from 2000 until 2019, and then risen very slightly as a result of Covid. There's about 660 million that meet this threshold. Global malnutrition really has gotten significantly better over the past few decades. https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment
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Re:Do we need a better understanding of 'progress'? by luis_cho on Friday June 17, 2022 @04:56PM (#31784271)
Sadly we will know in the next years how fragile is the current food production system. High centralised food system based mainly on fossil fuels gives high yields until it doesn't.

Every time I listen to Steven Pinker I think that he would learn a lot with Nassim Taleb books.

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Re:Do we need a better understanding of 'progress'? by madacol on Friday June 17, 2022 @08:14PM (#31786130)
What do food systems have to do with fossil fuels?
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Re:Do we need a better understanding of 'progress'? by jacobolus on Friday June 17, 2022 @11:50PM (#31787126)
Food production uses fertilizers (from fossil fuels) and pesticides (from fossil fuels) and machinery (running on fossil fuels) to grow foods which are then processed (by machines running on fossil fuels) and shipped around the world (using fossil fuels).
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Re:Do we need a better understanding of 'progress'? by madacol on Saturday June 18, 2022 @07:09AM (#31788796)
Sure, energy. I just don't get the point.

We are talking about long-run trends of food insecurity. Russia's invasion of Ukraine will probably be (and hopefully) a short temporary turn in the wrong direction

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Re:Do we need a better understanding of 'progress'? by heavyset_go on Friday June 17, 2022 @10:35PM (#31786838)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process#Sources_of_hydro...
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Re:Do we need a better understanding of 'progress'? by thereisnospork on Friday June 17, 2022 @08:35PM (#31786243)
Fertilizer production uses a great deal of natural gas.

The claims of fragility are unfounded though as natural gas supply isn't going anywhere and the use of natural gas in the process could be trivially (at great expense) replaced entirely by [nuclear powered] water electrolysis.

We also grossly overproduce calories, both as a policy decision for anti-fragility and for raising meat. Both of which leave a lot of slack before starvation levels kick in. At least in the US, other countries may be closer to the limit.

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