Sunday, November 1, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Peak oil, peak food, peak population
I ran across a couple of interesting posts in the last few days. This one:
and also:
From A Billion Teenagers, for Better or Worse
Now, there is good reason to think that the world is at peak oil. There is also good reason to think the world is at peak food right now. [I'm not going to go find the quotes, I shall just assert it for the purposes of this thought experiment.]
Given peak food, that implies that food to feed the 200 million or so new people to be born in the next 2 years will come from that being eaten by those already here. Most likely, it will come from those who are already poor, so that people who are now getting by barely will move into the category of hunger. [The world population now is about 6.8 billion.]
Just for the heck of it, let me assume that each new person represents two new hungry person -- the person just born & someone else who moves from having just enough food to not eating enough.
This would mean that the 200 million new people added in the next two years means 400 million more hungry people -- or 200 million more each year.
Thus, in 2011, we would expect to have 1.4 billion hungry, or about 20% of the world population. In 2016, another 5 years, there would be 7.5 billion people, of which 1.9 billion would be hungry, or about 25%. By 2018, we would be looking at something on the order of 30%.
People who are hungry tend to be angry, quarrelsome, scared and all sorts of unpleasant things like that, and arguably for good reason. I think that when the percent of hunger gets into the 30% and climbing range we are going to see widespread conflict.
According to the World Bank, over a billion people around the world are now chronically hungry.From Hungry World: A Silent Crisis Calls for Urgent Action
and also:
Fresh population projections put the number of humans over seven billion in 2011, just 12 years after humanity passed the six billion mark.
From A Billion Teenagers, for Better or Worse
Now, there is good reason to think that the world is at peak oil. There is also good reason to think the world is at peak food right now. [I'm not going to go find the quotes, I shall just assert it for the purposes of this thought experiment.]
Given peak food, that implies that food to feed the 200 million or so new people to be born in the next 2 years will come from that being eaten by those already here. Most likely, it will come from those who are already poor, so that people who are now getting by barely will move into the category of hunger. [The world population now is about 6.8 billion.]
Just for the heck of it, let me assume that each new person represents two new hungry person -- the person just born & someone else who moves from having just enough food to not eating enough.
This would mean that the 200 million new people added in the next two years means 400 million more hungry people -- or 200 million more each year.
Thus, in 2011, we would expect to have 1.4 billion hungry, or about 20% of the world population. In 2016, another 5 years, there would be 7.5 billion people, of which 1.9 billion would be hungry, or about 25%. By 2018, we would be looking at something on the order of 30%.
People who are hungry tend to be angry, quarrelsome, scared and all sorts of unpleasant things like that, and arguably for good reason. I think that when the percent of hunger gets into the 30% and climbing range we are going to see widespread conflict.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Scientific goverment
A decisionmaker may make decision x, thinking it will produce effect X, Nature. cats its vote -- nature decrees that decision produces effect Y, totally different and possibly quite undesirable.
The problem here could be described as a disconect between the model the descison maker is using and the relevant reality.
It doesn't matter if the decision makers in question are dictators, monarchs, an oligarchy, a democracy or a group of clowns standing on their heads. In principal, any of these could make decisons that have the expected effect or not (though if the clowns make good decisions, it might be surprising, since I doubt they would have much attention to put to the task). In general, it is more likely to make a decision that produces the desired outcome if the mental model behind it is sufficiently accurate.
A case in point is the discussion on the health care reform which is being proposed. Krugman makes a cogent argument why it is needed, which makes sense. Other people just say "This would cost money" and want it to fail:
The much-feared Obama healthcare initiative seems to be stalled. Markets are relieved, because this initiative, as it was presented, amounted to a huge transfer payment that would be funded by future tax increases.
Personally, I think Krugman is making all kinds of sense and is right (leaving aside Malthus). However, my point here is that Krugman has a meaningful economic model he is using, while David Kotok seems to be parroting the conservative line, which seems to basically consist of "we don't like it, so it is bad".
I am coming to the conclusion that we would be far better off being governed by some kind of scientific process, one that in effect, consults the natural world on the effect of decisions rather than prejudice and preference only.
Questions of value are not answerable by scientific processes, these must continue to be decided by people. However, the question of how to implement policies that produce the outcomes that are valued can meaningfully have scientific inputs, which if followed have a hope of leaving we the people better off.
Scientific models can only go so far and they are of limited accuracy, of course. However, with research and feedback they can be improved.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Energy bottleneck?
I was reading Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution (which I recommend as interesting, at least to those interested in complex systems and/or biology).
Along the way, when he was talking about the evolution of plants and the way that chloroplasts manufacture plant material and energy from sunlight, he said something to the effect that when we figure out just a few more details, we'll have the solution to the energy crisis.
This points up something interesting. The commentators on energy seem to fall into these main groups:
So far as I can tell, each of these has a hold of some part of the elephant for their facts. Peak oil is real and in the short run, it is going to be of great importance and produce a huge bottleneck. The world has a huge amount of infrastructure that is tied to oil and, even more important, it has no alternative that is able to bridge the gap over the next decade or so. That is, there isn't any other source available that could inject enough energy into the system to replace the oil shortfall. Even if there were, the existing infrastructure could probably not manage an alternative form -- e.g. there is no way to power 18-wheeler trucks on electricity, even if there were a distribution system to deliver from, say, a wind farm, to them.
However, there is lots of energy that is potentially available and, given the resources, people are able to figure out technology to extract it from our environment and make it useful. Artificial chloroplasts are one idea, solar thermal is another. Wind power, solar panels, whatever. It can be done, but there is a form of activation energy, as it were, that is needed to develop such systems and build the infrastructure. It is apparent that this won't happen until peak oil is staring us in the face, and then it will take time to develop and deploy them.
Thus, there is a bottleneck in energy availability, which is coinciding with a time in which the population growth rate combined with population size is producing a rapid increase in absolute population size -- hence "interesting times".
Along the way, when he was talking about the evolution of plants and the way that chloroplasts manufacture plant material and energy from sunlight, he said something to the effect that when we figure out just a few more details, we'll have the solution to the energy crisis.
This points up something interesting. The commentators on energy seem to fall into these main groups:
- There isn't any problem, what peak oil? And anyway, if oil gets scarce, we'll invent something else.
- OMG, oil is running out and we are all doomed. We must give up driving, water in bottles and all sorts of extravagance to survive. Everyone should sit in sackcloth and ashes and do penance for the sins of the recent past.
So far as I can tell, each of these has a hold of some part of the elephant for their facts. Peak oil is real and in the short run, it is going to be of great importance and produce a huge bottleneck. The world has a huge amount of infrastructure that is tied to oil and, even more important, it has no alternative that is able to bridge the gap over the next decade or so. That is, there isn't any other source available that could inject enough energy into the system to replace the oil shortfall. Even if there were, the existing infrastructure could probably not manage an alternative form -- e.g. there is no way to power 18-wheeler trucks on electricity, even if there were a distribution system to deliver from, say, a wind farm, to them.
However, there is lots of energy that is potentially available and, given the resources, people are able to figure out technology to extract it from our environment and make it useful. Artificial chloroplasts are one idea, solar thermal is another. Wind power, solar panels, whatever. It can be done, but there is a form of activation energy, as it were, that is needed to develop such systems and build the infrastructure. It is apparent that this won't happen until peak oil is staring us in the face, and then it will take time to develop and deploy them.
Thus, there is a bottleneck in energy availability, which is coinciding with a time in which the population growth rate combined with population size is producing a rapid increase in absolute population size -- hence "interesting times".
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Constraints
It seems to me that when people put on their thinking hats and start devising ideas of how political life should be organized, they act almost as if human nature and human society are tabula rasa, something they can form into any shape they want.
In fact, there is every reason to think that both human nature and human social organization have deep internal structure. While it is certainly admirable to set goals to organize them into ways that will be good for all the inhabitants, these goals can only be met if the methods, the structures that are set up, work according to the rules of human and social nature.
At a practical level, we don't know what these natural laws are and we must have some structure. However, it seems to me that this should be a very active field of research, with much input from mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists, biologists, evolutionary theorists and people of that nature that study complex systems. In our complex social world, we have only the faintest understanding of what effect any action will have at a macro level. Doing experiments on the real system is dangerous, plus there are a very limited number of scenarios that can be explored.
In fact, there is every reason to think that both human nature and human social organization have deep internal structure. While it is certainly admirable to set goals to organize them into ways that will be good for all the inhabitants, these goals can only be met if the methods, the structures that are set up, work according to the rules of human and social nature.
At a practical level, we don't know what these natural laws are and we must have some structure. However, it seems to me that this should be a very active field of research, with much input from mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists, biologists, evolutionary theorists and people of that nature that study complex systems. In our complex social world, we have only the faintest understanding of what effect any action will have at a macro level. Doing experiments on the real system is dangerous, plus there are a very limited number of scenarios that can be explored.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Epidemics
The virulence of pathogens is related to how quickly they can move from one host to another. The more quickly they jump, the more virulent they are.
In the 3rd world, so I am told, the population density is high and the sanitation is low. Why don't they have epidemics? They do have endemic disease -- malaria, TB and so on. They don't have the reruns of the black death. Why not?
I now have a guess at an answer. Having high population densities and poor sanitation doesn't by itself mean that pathogens move quickly from one host to the next. It is the job of the immune system to protect the individual against invasion, with endemic disease, the immune systems have had a chance to develop defenses against the prevailing diseases going around. Some people will get sick, sure, but many will not and the velocity will still be fairly low, low enough to keep the virulence in check.
It follows, then, that if a novel disease, one that immune systems are not familiar with, were to get loose, then an epidemic could follow. This could be caused by evolution, some new disease evolves from the existing ones (e.g. the new flu) or it could be caused by population movement, diseases that are endemic in one area moving to a new area in which they are unfamiliar.
This might be how the plague developed in the 14th century. I read, if I remember correctly, that one of the things that happened in the early 14th century was increased trade between Europe and the far east. It is fairly well agreed that the plague came from the east, perhaps it became an epidemic due to increased population densities (making transmittal easier) and having a novel pathogen introduced from some distance away.
In the 3rd world, so I am told, the population density is high and the sanitation is low. Why don't they have epidemics? They do have endemic disease -- malaria, TB and so on. They don't have the reruns of the black death. Why not?
I now have a guess at an answer. Having high population densities and poor sanitation doesn't by itself mean that pathogens move quickly from one host to the next. It is the job of the immune system to protect the individual against invasion, with endemic disease, the immune systems have had a chance to develop defenses against the prevailing diseases going around. Some people will get sick, sure, but many will not and the velocity will still be fairly low, low enough to keep the virulence in check.
It follows, then, that if a novel disease, one that immune systems are not familiar with, were to get loose, then an epidemic could follow. This could be caused by evolution, some new disease evolves from the existing ones (e.g. the new flu) or it could be caused by population movement, diseases that are endemic in one area moving to a new area in which they are unfamiliar.
This might be how the plague developed in the 14th century. I read, if I remember correctly, that one of the things that happened in the early 14th century was increased trade between Europe and the far east. It is fairly well agreed that the plague came from the east, perhaps it became an epidemic due to increased population densities (making transmittal easier) and having a novel pathogen introduced from some distance away.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
An imaginary future
I read recently that in Pakistan, about 20% of the population is hungry -- presumably as defined by the UN, which is less than 1800 calories/day for an adult. The population growth rate is is 1.99% (according to google just now). That implies that they'll add on the order of 3 million people a year (starting from 150 million, again from google).
It is reasonable to think that peak oil happened last year & that peak food will happen at about the same time. In all probability, as the world population grows, richer countries (and people) will get more food while poorer countries get less.
Thus, as a first approximation (and this post is in hugely round numbers) let us assume that as the population of Pakistan grows over the next few years, the amount of food available to the country stays constant. Also, the new people get fed something, which takes food away from people already there. Another wild approximation -- each new person added means that an existing one moves from adequate nutrition to being underfed.
By that logic, Pakistan will add 15 million people in the next 5 years and another 15 million people will move to being underfed, taking the percent of the population that are hungry to about 36% (60 million out of 165 million).
When enough of the population is malnourished, society is likely to become unstable. The options are famine, civil war or external war or some combination of these. The most politically popular is likely to be external war, by the logic that someone is going to die, but better them than us.
What are Pakistan's options for external war? Going against India may be attractive, but perhaps suicidal. Also, India is crowded with people, as is China. There isn't a lot of room for Pakistanis to move in and set up shop. Afghanistan is already seen as part of themselves. Iran has lots of people and is ethnically Persian, plus it's on the bad side of the US - a possiblity. Then there are the northern 'stans ... Tajikstan, Kyrgystan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhastan. These areas are lightly settled and the al Quada doctrine says they should be "liberated". The problem, of course, is that Russia would object.
Suppose they do decide to go north. They cut a deal with India, that Pakistan will quit fighting with India over Kashmir if India will support them in moving against the central Asian states. They cut a deal with China, that it can have part of Russia and/or Kazakhastan if China helps them out against Russia.
So, now there is Pakistan, India & China, moving into central Asia. Russia objects & the US and Europe back them up. Saudia Arabia backs the US and the government is overthrown, then the new one comes in on the Asian side (giving Asia lots of oil at the expense of the west). Africa & the rest of Asia, except Japan & Australia (western side) come in one the Asian side. It's the West against the East ...
It is reasonable to think that peak oil happened last year & that peak food will happen at about the same time. In all probability, as the world population grows, richer countries (and people) will get more food while poorer countries get less.
Thus, as a first approximation (and this post is in hugely round numbers) let us assume that as the population of Pakistan grows over the next few years, the amount of food available to the country stays constant. Also, the new people get fed something, which takes food away from people already there. Another wild approximation -- each new person added means that an existing one moves from adequate nutrition to being underfed.
By that logic, Pakistan will add 15 million people in the next 5 years and another 15 million people will move to being underfed, taking the percent of the population that are hungry to about 36% (60 million out of 165 million).
When enough of the population is malnourished, society is likely to become unstable. The options are famine, civil war or external war or some combination of these. The most politically popular is likely to be external war, by the logic that someone is going to die, but better them than us.
What are Pakistan's options for external war? Going against India may be attractive, but perhaps suicidal. Also, India is crowded with people, as is China. There isn't a lot of room for Pakistanis to move in and set up shop. Afghanistan is already seen as part of themselves. Iran has lots of people and is ethnically Persian, plus it's on the bad side of the US - a possiblity. Then there are the northern 'stans ... Tajikstan, Kyrgystan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhastan. These areas are lightly settled and the al Quada doctrine says they should be "liberated". The problem, of course, is that Russia would object.
Suppose they do decide to go north. They cut a deal with India, that Pakistan will quit fighting with India over Kashmir if India will support them in moving against the central Asian states. They cut a deal with China, that it can have part of Russia and/or Kazakhastan if China helps them out against Russia.
So, now there is Pakistan, India & China, moving into central Asia. Russia objects & the US and Europe back them up. Saudia Arabia backs the US and the government is overthrown, then the new one comes in on the Asian side (giving Asia lots of oil at the expense of the west). Africa & the rest of Asia, except Japan & Australia (western side) come in one the Asian side. It's the West against the East ...
Aux barricades
Ethnic Uighurs waited with sticks behind a barricade in their neighborhood in Urumqi on Wednesday.
It's 1848 again, or something like that.
Monday, July 6, 2009
China & the high tech society
When I posted recently about the troubles of having an authoritarian high tech society, one of the examples that came to my mind was modern China. Another actually is pre-revolutionary France -- not as high tech, I'll admit, but one in which the populace had rising, but unmet, expectations.
I am reading a book now on modern China -- China: Fragile Superpower: How China's Internal Politics Could Derail Its Peaceful Rise. The commentary describing the book remarks
["It" is war between the US & China.]
When I read the tea leaves, I doubt that anything can prevent breakage in China. It's an authoritarian country that is trying to turn itself into a modern, high tech society, which seems impossible enough on the surface. Then add in:
In other words, even if China did not have an authoritarian government, it would have trouble. Does it look like the government can square this circle?
The headlines today read: China Locks Down Restive Region After Deadly Clashes Does this mean that things have gotten so bad the government can't prevent the news from getting out or that they are becoming more open?
The big question though, is how much longer will China be stable & in what way will it explode?
I am reading a book now on modern China -- China: Fragile Superpower: How China's Internal Politics Could Derail Its Peaceful Rise. The commentary describing the book remarks
She sets out to explain why it is not a mere fantasy and why we, basically, need to be nice to China to keep the nightmare at bay.
["It" is war between the US & China.]
When I read the tea leaves, I doubt that anything can prevent breakage in China. It's an authoritarian country that is trying to turn itself into a modern, high tech society, which seems impossible enough on the surface. Then add in:
Inside China, she argues, the party leadership is hemmed in by threats to its stability: a rapidly aging population, the rise of the Internet, privatization of the economy, a widening gap between urban rich and rural poor, a restive population fed up with corruption, pollution that not only sickens but kills, mounting unemployment in an economy that needs to grow 7 percent annually just to provide jobs for 25 million new people entering the workforce.
In other words, even if China did not have an authoritarian government, it would have trouble. Does it look like the government can square this circle?
"All around them," Shirk contends, "the leaders see new social forces unleashed by economic reforms that could subvert the regime." Moreover, Shirk describes a regime -- half Mafia, half corporate board -- so obsessed with staying in power that it is ill-equipped to deal with these challenges. In a country where communist ideology is dead and a dog-eat-dog form of capitalism is ascendant, you'd think economic interests would be supreme. That's not the case, Shirk argues. After the crackdown on student-led protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the military and security services gained even more power than they already had in a society built on Chairman Mao's maxim that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
The headlines today read: China Locks Down Restive Region After Deadly Clashes Does this mean that things have gotten so bad the government can't prevent the news from getting out or that they are becoming more open?
The big question though, is how much longer will China be stable & in what way will it explode?
Sunday, July 5, 2009
All models are wrong, but some are useful
It seems to me -- and I realize that there are many would would disagree violently -- that this applies to the idea of God.
To start with, I (unlike most people it seems) distinguish the idea of God from religion. Religion, I claim, is a social phenomenon. God is (and I speak loosely here) a mystical one. Religion trades on the idea of God, but it's really about people.
The ideas that people have about God (including the things that religion claims) are, in essence, models. The best of them say "there is something there, but we can't describe it or say what it does or how it works". This, of course, doesn't give much to work with. :-)
People go on to flesh out these ideas, with what they believe about God. Being as how God is something that can't really be described, these ideas -- which are mental models -- must be wrong in some way. However, the models themselves do have effects on people and thus, are more or less useful to the people that hold them.
The models people hold about God don't affect what it is (so I claim), but they do affect the people that have them. Thus, while they are wrong (God being ineffable and all), some are useful. Also, I will add, the models that are useful to one person may or may not be useful to another.
People that believe in an angry or vengeful God will find the world a fearful place (or perhaps it is the other way round, frightened people will believe in an angry God), while people who believe that God is on their side, however hard it may be to understand how that happens, will have a reason to reject fear. Angry and frightened people will foment strife, peaceful and secure people will work for peace. Thus, what people believe to be true of God matters, independent of the nature of the deity itself.
To start with, I (unlike most people it seems) distinguish the idea of God from religion. Religion, I claim, is a social phenomenon. God is (and I speak loosely here) a mystical one. Religion trades on the idea of God, but it's really about people.
The ideas that people have about God (including the things that religion claims) are, in essence, models. The best of them say "there is something there, but we can't describe it or say what it does or how it works". This, of course, doesn't give much to work with. :-)
People go on to flesh out these ideas, with what they believe about God. Being as how God is something that can't really be described, these ideas -- which are mental models -- must be wrong in some way. However, the models themselves do have effects on people and thus, are more or less useful to the people that hold them.
The models people hold about God don't affect what it is (so I claim), but they do affect the people that have them. Thus, while they are wrong (God being ineffable and all), some are useful. Also, I will add, the models that are useful to one person may or may not be useful to another.
People that believe in an angry or vengeful God will find the world a fearful place (or perhaps it is the other way round, frightened people will believe in an angry God), while people who believe that God is on their side, however hard it may be to understand how that happens, will have a reason to reject fear. Angry and frightened people will foment strife, peaceful and secure people will work for peace. Thus, what people believe to be true of God matters, independent of the nature of the deity itself.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
High tech societies
It has occurred to me that in a high tech society, there must be a large population of people that use their own good sense to make significant decisions.
For example, the way that my job works is that people come to me & say something to the effect of "We have this vague idea of something that needs to be done. Go do it." My task then, is to make something sensible of that vague idea & then implement what I come up with.
This general pattern is the norm for most of the people that I know. It isn't, of course, the way that everyone's job works, but my kind of job is essential to keeping the technology running. [My particular job is actually about making new technology, but new technology is required for wealth creation.]
The point here is that a high tech society requires a large supply of people who have almost complete freedom to do anything sensible in their jobs. In short, it trains people to think and act for themselves.
An authoritarian (much less totalitarian) government requires people to follow instructions, to do as the government decrees. This is incompatible with having people make decisions for themselves.
It follows that a society with a large amount of advanced technology is incompatible with an authoritarian regime. As people learn the habit of thinking for themselves in their jobs, they are likely to continue that behaviour to the rest of their lives and in particular, start to have independent thoughts about the way the government organizes their society. These people have de-facto power, since they keep the technology working -- they keep the lights on & the economy running. Sooner or later, there will be change. It may be peaceful, but it is more likely to be violent, a la the French Revolution.
For example, the way that my job works is that people come to me & say something to the effect of "We have this vague idea of something that needs to be done. Go do it." My task then, is to make something sensible of that vague idea & then implement what I come up with.
This general pattern is the norm for most of the people that I know. It isn't, of course, the way that everyone's job works, but my kind of job is essential to keeping the technology running. [My particular job is actually about making new technology, but new technology is required for wealth creation.]
The point here is that a high tech society requires a large supply of people who have almost complete freedom to do anything sensible in their jobs. In short, it trains people to think and act for themselves.
An authoritarian (much less totalitarian) government requires people to follow instructions, to do as the government decrees. This is incompatible with having people make decisions for themselves.
It follows that a society with a large amount of advanced technology is incompatible with an authoritarian regime. As people learn the habit of thinking for themselves in their jobs, they are likely to continue that behaviour to the rest of their lives and in particular, start to have independent thoughts about the way the government organizes their society. These people have de-facto power, since they keep the technology working -- they keep the lights on & the economy running. Sooner or later, there will be change. It may be peaceful, but it is more likely to be violent, a la the French Revolution.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Somebody's Gotta Do It
I ran across this sentence buried in a post, entitled Somebody's Gotta Do It the other day:
In the meantime, this is my big three list of things to look for:
The last of these strikes me as the most tractable, but I don't see any major progress happening.
In the meantime, I think I'll watch out for the disaster.
Yet I can’t tell you how often I’ve sat down with an activist whose latest policy paper is all about solutions, and in heart-to-heart conversation they reveal that they don’t really think our species has much of a chance of avoiding major catastrophe, maybe even extinction.Ok, so we are heading to disaster. I'm not going to worry about extinction. If it happens, c'est la vie, or c'est la morte, but there isn't anything to concern myself with after that. :-)
In the meantime, this is my big three list of things to look for:
- A way (or some ways) to organize society that is humane, sustainable and attainable. I know there are people who offer solutions, but I have yet to hear one that I believe would be both good & could actually happen. The ones that sound good usually seem to require a population made of saints, which I think has no more chance of happening than an ice sculpture of Notre Dame being around the morning after a big party in Hades.
- Population control and/or reduction
- Sustainable and abundant energy
The last of these strikes me as the most tractable, but I don't see any major progress happening.
In the meantime, I think I'll watch out for the disaster.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
The growth of poverty
I have heard people say things to the effect that we, the relatively rich of the world, can't continue hogging the worlds resources.
I think this is a misunderstanding of the problem -- not that I do understand it, of course. However, the view from 20,000 feet looks something like:
- 50 years ago, say, there were about 1/2 as many people in the world.
- In the last 50 years, the amount of global wealth has grown a lot.
- In the rich parts of the world, the amount of wealth per person has grown and the growth of the population has stopped.
- In the poorer societies, the wealth of the society has grown, but the wealth per person has not. They have produced more people, not more wealth per person. [I claim that the wealth of the society must have grown, or these societies could not have increased their populations so dramatically.]
Hence I conclude that the problem is that there is something structurally wrong with poor societies that prevents them from bringing their people up from poverty.
In this light, it is actually worth asking why the richer societies have provided more wealth per person when the norm through history is to have large numbers of poor and a few rich people in most larger societies. It seems to me that a large part of the reason is possibly the migration of a reasonably technologically advanced society to a new continent. That by itself isn't enough to explain the difference though, since the US, for example, provides more for its people than Mexico.
Another idea is that of the labor movement, which forced the owners of the means of production to share the proceeds with their laborers.
In more recent history, much of the wealth in the rich societies has come about as a result of skilled labor. These skills tend to be rare, in that they can take years to develop and there tend to be relatively few people who develop any given set. As a result, the people who have the skills tend to be valuable to those that would employ them, resulting in high wages.
In other words, I suspect that a highly technological and specialized society will tend to produce wealth for a larger segment of the society due to the high value of the specialized skills needed to make it work and the high barrier to entry (the time required) to gain those skills.
I think this is a misunderstanding of the problem -- not that I do understand it, of course. However, the view from 20,000 feet looks something like:
- 50 years ago, say, there were about 1/2 as many people in the world.
- In the last 50 years, the amount of global wealth has grown a lot.
- In the rich parts of the world, the amount of wealth per person has grown and the growth of the population has stopped.
- In the poorer societies, the wealth of the society has grown, but the wealth per person has not. They have produced more people, not more wealth per person. [I claim that the wealth of the society must have grown, or these societies could not have increased their populations so dramatically.]
Hence I conclude that the problem is that there is something structurally wrong with poor societies that prevents them from bringing their people up from poverty.
In this light, it is actually worth asking why the richer societies have provided more wealth per person when the norm through history is to have large numbers of poor and a few rich people in most larger societies. It seems to me that a large part of the reason is possibly the migration of a reasonably technologically advanced society to a new continent. That by itself isn't enough to explain the difference though, since the US, for example, provides more for its people than Mexico.
Another idea is that of the labor movement, which forced the owners of the means of production to share the proceeds with their laborers.
In more recent history, much of the wealth in the rich societies has come about as a result of skilled labor. These skills tend to be rare, in that they can take years to develop and there tend to be relatively few people who develop any given set. As a result, the people who have the skills tend to be valuable to those that would employ them, resulting in high wages.
In other words, I suspect that a highly technological and specialized society will tend to produce wealth for a larger segment of the society due to the high value of the specialized skills needed to make it work and the high barrier to entry (the time required) to gain those skills.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Another guess
So here's another guess at a possible future ...
In the next two to four years, the world economy more or less claws its way back to not shrinking. The US grumbles, but the rest of the world has more trouble.
After a while (e.g. 2-5 years), either China or Pakistan goes unstable. There is widespread civil unrest in those countries. At some point, Pakistan and India go to war.
Then the middle east and north africa go unstable. This causes oil production, which was dropping already, to drop quite a lot.
That in turn, affects food production, which was barely keeping up with population growth, to drop. Asia and Africa see local fighting, of the Somali pirates and Darfur crisis variety in much larger amounts.
The lack of food and civil disturbance drives people into environments, like refugee camps, in which many people are crowded together with minimal sanitation and food. These spawn epidemic diseases, which spread beyond the camps to the cities.
Some people react by forming into militias to take over their neighbors resources. Existing infrastructure (e.g. roads, bridges, farms, oil wells) is destroyed. This reduces the effective carrying capacity of the affected regions.
World population drops, due to starvation and disease, mostly, with some warfare thrown in.
In the next two to four years, the world economy more or less claws its way back to not shrinking. The US grumbles, but the rest of the world has more trouble.
After a while (e.g. 2-5 years), either China or Pakistan goes unstable. There is widespread civil unrest in those countries. At some point, Pakistan and India go to war.
Then the middle east and north africa go unstable. This causes oil production, which was dropping already, to drop quite a lot.
That in turn, affects food production, which was barely keeping up with population growth, to drop. Asia and Africa see local fighting, of the Somali pirates and Darfur crisis variety in much larger amounts.
The lack of food and civil disturbance drives people into environments, like refugee camps, in which many people are crowded together with minimal sanitation and food. These spawn epidemic diseases, which spread beyond the camps to the cities.
Some people react by forming into militias to take over their neighbors resources. Existing infrastructure (e.g. roads, bridges, farms, oil wells) is destroyed. This reduces the effective carrying capacity of the affected regions.
World population drops, due to starvation and disease, mostly, with some warfare thrown in.
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