Math Models Predicted Global Uprisings

retroworks writes "Just over a year ago, complex systems theorists at the New England Complex Systems Institute warned that if food prices continued to climb, so too would the likelihood that there would be riots across the globe. Sure enough, we're seeing them now. The paper's author, Yaneer Bar-Yam, charted the rise in the FAO food price index—a measure the UN uses to map the cost of food over time—and found that whenever it rose above 210, riots broke out worldwide. It happened in 2008 after the economic collapse, and again in 2011, when a Tunisian street vendor who could no longer feed his family set himself on fire in protest."

Comments

Hindsight?

[Joce640k]

Is that with hindsight or without?

How many "models" are going unreported because they didn't work out too well?

Re:Hindsight?

[sjwt]

Its worse then that, their little graph only shows a handful of riots that they want to be on their.

I dont see any riots that do not meet their own agenda on it, hell the french riot a few times every year, I see none of the Australian riots I know of.
Total BS

Re:Hindsight?

[ChadSmith4920]

Models don't eat anyways

Re:Hindsight?

[Splab]

Racists much?

Currently there are massive riots in The Ukraine, Venezuela, Thailand; signs of growing civil unrest in central Europe - reports of riots in Brazil; All countries of course known for their muslim leadership...

Re:Hindsight?

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Occupy wall street was a protest against the rich in the little country known as USA.

A typical muslim country is it ? Not really.

Well, it's at least a land full of religious conservatives who don't drink tea but rather push it into the river.
There are many people who read and think too much about ancient obsolete books and think they have all the answers.

Re:Hindsight?

[whistlingtony]

Hint. when denying racism, it's usually best to avoid using racist words in the same post. "Muzzies" indeed

Re: Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not race. It's an ignorant culture/religion that creates these problem.

It's not racist to criticize a culture or religion, even if liberals try to convince you otherwise.

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

the french riot a few times every year

Citation needed.

French organizations protest regularly -- if you are in a big city, depending on the causes that you support, you may find a protest you can go several times a week. That is not a riot. I can't think of any cases where a French person in recent history burned themselves alive.

Re:Hindsight?

[p43751]

mod up. Soo funny.

Re:Hindsight?

[Ixokai]

I'm taking the "racists mush?" question to have been answered with "yes" when you go name a people "muzzies".

The point was, you're claiming Muslim rioting as a counterpoint, but even if its accepted that those riots are a part of this this trend of rioting spoken of-- they don't fit even your pattern, they *aren't* a counterpoint simply because you state it. Naming them to counter the argument is just racist handwaving at best: oh, well the Muslims (er, muzzies) are rioting, so clearly there's no pattern because, they like are muzzies, and muzzies, do that. You know. Cuz. They do. Muzzies. Riot.

There's no link between Muslims and the Ukraine and their riots unless you twist reality severely to try to force a point. The riots in the Ukraine are about (at least-- it very well may be a much more involved story) a segment of the population who has a history of successful revolution when in relation to serious belief of election fraud and corruption; and acts by the current government that are viewed as corrupt and against their interests (namely, aligning Ukraine more closely to Russia instead of the EU). Is that true? Dunno. But there's nothing Muslim about it.

To look at former Soviet satellite states and see their dislike for union with Russia as a sign of Muslim rioting just cuz, needs some serious [citation needed].

Thailand is a complex situation: they have a mix of pro-government people from varied situations, and anti-democracy forces who think there's something just wrong with their government and simple election counting when the counters have such tremendous control. Its sort of bemusing to hear some of riots which are specifically yelling: democracy bad! But, that is because of a nuanced and complicated situation they're going through, with an extremely wealthy subset seem to have democratic support of the rural masses at the cost of great disapproval in the middle classes of the city. This, of course, is a very broad stroke description of the situation. I'm not sure where to fall on the subject, and I lack seriously enough information to really have a solid idea. But.

The point is, it isn't because muslims happened. Culture happened. People happened. This is nuanced.

No comparison to the "muzzies" sheds any insight on this situation.

The because the real world is complicated, nuanced, and based on history and the context of real people living real lives.

Yes, some "muzzies" had riots, for reasons. That doesn't make every riot and every government going through growing pains because, you know, the muzzies.

Seriously, dude, you said "muzzies".

I should have just stopped there.

Racist much? Maybe not. Islamaphobic much, though?

Reads true.

Re: Hindsight?

[benjfowler]

Or lack of culture, as it were.

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Islam is a religion not a race. Hence the term Muslim, which means a follower of Islam, is not a racial term. "Muzzies" would however fall under the definition of bigotry though. Which is similar but not quite the same as racism.

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

'Islam' is not a race, you can argue he is sectarian, or that by 'Muzzies' he really meant 'Arabic people', but he has not made any statement that is specifically racist.

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't answer his question: What race is Islam?

Last time I checked it was a religious choice, like 'Christian', or 'Jewish', or 'Buddist'.

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

The key difference being you can't choose your race.

Re:Hindsight?

[plebeian]

I agree that the complexities of the world are hard to model, that does not mean the basis for the story is incorrect. Food prices have long been tied to an increase of social unrest (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/files/fp_uploaded_documents/130308_Bellemare%20Food%20Price%20Volatility%20and%20Social%20Unrest%20January.PDF provides a decent analysis of the situation). Those who write off the tie between food prices and rioting do so to their own detriment.

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsequitor much?
Self-immolation isn't a riot either, in any sense. It is, however, a form of protest.

Re:Hindsight?

[Lumpy]

Well the popular "hampster uprising" has not happened, but a lot of the doomsayers are still holding out for it to happen. It has become one of the most desirable outcomes.

Who wouldn't want a cute fuzzy wuzzy supreme leader?

Re:Hindsight?

[LF11]

Wow you are completely ignorant about the topic. "Jewish" is a race, a culture, AND a religion. And Islam does have racial connotations in that battles involving Islam are often divided along racial divisions as well. The same applies to Christianity. There are exceptions of course, but the pattern remains.

Re:Hindsight?

[Catiline]

How many "models" are going unreported because they didn't work out too well?

According to my model, 100% of them.

Re:Hindsight?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I dont see any riots that do not meet their own agenda on it

Or, they're simply trying to demonstrate that lack of food security causes riots, not that all riots are caused by lack of food security.

Re:Hindsight?

[drinkypoo]

I'm taking the "racists mush?" question to have been answered with "yes" when you go name a people "muzzies".

That's because you don't know the difference between a religion and a race.

Racist much? Maybe not. Islamaphobic much, though?

Oh, so you do understand the difference, but you were simply being disingenuous? Explain why anyone should be interested in your bullshit.

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsequitor much?
Self-immolation isn't a riot either, in any sense. It is, however, a form of protest.

TFA refers to food riots, in particular. If you flip off the driver for cutting into your lane, your protestations don't fall under the subject of the model.

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Jewish is a race. Islam isn't as much as you may want to whine that it is. But don't worry, there's still a word you can use to describe him that isn't "racist". It's bigot. You see, you idiots with your limited vocabulary just go on to bastardize words. Learn the language.

Re:Hindsight?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

And Islam does have racial connotations in that battles involving Islam are often divided along racial divisions as well.

Except wherever the population exhibits either no such divisions (or, conversely, the picture is so variegated that no 1:1 matching of finely distinguished races/ethnicities and religious affiliations exist), like the clashes between the Muslim Indians and the Hindu Indians, right? And Indonesians seem to be largely the same case.

Re:Hindsight?

[flyneye]

Muslims aren't a race , Einstein.

Re:Hindsight?

[flyneye]

LOL, never heard that one, sounds like a toy from Mattel. "Muzzies, just wind them up and watch them cuddle".

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a link between the Ukraine and the Arabic states. Both have harsh climates, poor access to potable water, and wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, often of different race than the local population. So increases in food price, or poor crops or cultural issues causing restricted food or water to the poor is _immediately_ felt. There's little "safety net" for them, and the priveleged wealthy aren't focused on helping them in crisis.

The result is riots, for pretty much the same reason in both places.

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Islam is a cult, founded by a thieving pedophile with mommy issues, based loosely on an older Hebrew Religion. Kind of like Catholicism and it's self serving take on the same religion. At least $cientology had the foresite to harvest money and power from the imagination of a schizophrenic Kansan.
We know they are cults by the results they produce which contrast the central message presented the suckers..er..public.

Re:Hindsight?

[AmiMoJo]

What race is Islam?

The line is blurred. Jews consider themselves a race, but Judaism is also a religion. When people talk about Muslim countries they mainly mean middle eastern ones run by Arabs or Asians (and don't confuse Asians with Orientals).

Re:Hindsight?

[flyneye]

uhm your heart was in the right place, but Judeans from Judea became the Jews. Unless you are Jewish to begin with, straining as hard as you can will not make you a Jew. You can convert, but will probably hear Goy jokes whispered wherever you go. Its a Raceligion.

Re:Hindsight?

[AmiMoJo]

Occupy was peaceful though, at least until the cops started attacking the protesters. Unfortunately it seems that the only way to create real change is to riot now, as governments have made damn sure peaceful protest is ignored.

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not much of a choice when the result of choosing something different is a public beheading.

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jewish is not a race, it is a purely cultural designation.

An easy test for 'is it a race?' is this: can you choose to no longer be a part of that race.

Some example answers to the question:

Black: No
Jewish: yes
Christian: yes
Asian: No
Caucasian: No
Muslim: yes
Last Thursdayist: Yes
Douchebag: Yes

Re:Hindsight?

[Atzanteol]

It's pretty obvious you're using "muslim" to mean "middle-eastern." Being "technically correct" doesn't really matter in casual conversation. You're a dick either way - we're just debating how to describe what *kind* of dick you are at this point.

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Judeans! Well I live in the UK, does that make me French (Norman) or German (Angle,Saxon).

Re:Hindsight?

[TapeCutter]

It's said that there are "three dinners between civilization and anarchy".

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

'Islamophobia' means 'an unjustified fear for anything related to islam'. I don't have such fear. I'd rather categorize it as hate. Islam is not a race. And islamophobia is a term used by religious cultists wanting to brand 'the others' as bad as racists. The fact that the UN recieves multiple requests to make islamophobia an international crime, punishable by death, says enough about how insecure these islamic countries are. Their cult is the only thing keeping their people in check, it seems.
Does 'the world' hate islam? Or does 'islam' hate 'the rest of the world'? Despite many attempts to prove the former, it seems we have a case of the latter.
Please, don't just believe me for my words. Educate yourself properly, read the hatemongering texts which people call the quran, listen to what islamic authority has to say, and judge a group of people on how they act against others.

Re: Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason it's triggering people's racism reaction is because you appear to be using Arab (and Persian) interchangeably with Muslim. The largest Muslim nation on Earth is Indonesia. There are almost as many Muslims in the United States as Jews. I assume you're not talking about those Muslims, since you seem to be referring to Middle Eastern issues.

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Muslum/Islam is a religion not a race! Get out much?

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Deriding someone for their race is dumb. That's genetics. Deriding someone because of which invisible sky elf the worship isn't.

Re:Hindsight?

[Splab]

Apparently a simple comment can cause quite a stir.

I'm very well aware that religion is not a race, however, when you have a bigot like the one I replied to, his world view is splitting races along religious lines.

And apparently everyone seems to miss my point - Civil unrest, riots and probably civil war in case of The Ukraine are happening around the globe right now - and spot on predictions for said events.

My point of the post was that it's not just the middle east having the darndest of time keeping their population down, rest of the world is currently plunging towards war.

Re:Hindsight?

[Chrisq]

Apparently a simple comment can cause quite a stir.

I'm very well aware that religion is not a race, however, when you have a bigot like the one I replied to, his world view is splitting races along religious lines.

No - its you who seems to confuse race and religion. I am quite aware that there are white muslims, black Muslims, brown muslims, and muslims of every race and colour you can think of. They are all as bad because of their belief in a violent, intolerant religion, not because of their colour.

Re:Hindsight?

[marcosdumay]

That's how one should work with models. Create lots of them, throw away the ones that didn't work, test the ones that work again and again to confirm that it wasn't just by chance.

We are at the second step here, and have a model to pay attention now.

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

hey so-smart-dumbass, they aren't trying to predict EVERY riot/protest that occurs. they just want to show that there is a link between riots and food prices. jeez.

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

hey assholes: is 'Aussies' and bigoted, racists, or in some way negative word? why jump to conclusions about 'muzzies'? they both sound cute and affectionate to me. 'assholes' on the other hand...

Re:Hindsight?

[bluegutang]

Islam is a religion not a race. Hence the term Muslim, which means a follower of Islam, is not a racial term.

It's not quite that simple in practice. In Lebanon the main communities are Sunnis, Shiites, Christians and Druze. Each community includes many non-religious people and some who would describe themselves as atheists. But if you were born into the Sunni community, then your family is Sunni, the militia defending you is Sunni, and the militias attacking you are probably Shiite or Christian. That's your identity, regardless what you think about theological issues. It may not be a "race", but it's certainly an ethnicity. Not just a belief or point of view.

Re:Hindsight?

[tompaulco]

Occupy wall street was a protest against the rich in the little country known as USA.

I thought it was an exercise in irony, especially since the median income of the protestors is undoubtedly higher than mine, and I consider myself upper middle class.

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, we even have models that show increased farm subsidies leads to higher food prices....but we dont parade those models around much.

Re:Hindsight?

[tompaulco]

You forgot: test the ones that work again and again, with more and more input until all of them fail, and then publish the last one that failed.

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

And because religion is a belief rather than an ethnicity it follows in your example that people could convert their religion and therefore you would have self-contradictory designations like "Sunni Christian", "Christian Druze", and (horrors) "Shiite Sunni".

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Socialism does not work, don't believe me RTFA even "the food riots in places like wealthy, Socialist sweden..."

Re:Hindsight?

[PPH]

Food prices, politics, religion, losing the World Cup. The model should state "people riot when they don't get what they want". And then there's this 'Global Uprisings' thing. Different populations have different sensitivities to prices on various commodities. India might experience food riots. In the USA, we didn't 'riot' until the bond yields paid to the trust fund babies dropped after the banking crash. I have a difficult time calling that global.

Re:Hindsight?

[CannedTurkey]

I thought human was the race, and things like jewish or asian would be ethnicities.

Re:Hindsight?

[Oligonicella]

No. No it was not. There were rapes, stabbings and robberies amongst the occupiers.

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong, Bill de Blasio who got arrested during OWS Protest, and got recently elected as New York Mayor

Re:Hindsight?

[TangoMargarine]

Yeah...why should an abbreviation of a word with no other alteration be considered offensive? Cf. "Jap", "homo"...oh, it's because of *how* we say the word, not the word itself? But apparently my habit of shortening people's names down to 1 or 2 syllables is bigoted.

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you're saying is that each "ethnicity" has a unique set of shared values and experiences. We know that our experiences shape who we are as a person, so why is it considered "racist" to say that people with a common set of values and experiences behave similarly?

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your thoughts on containment in the US
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containment

Re:Hindsight?

[sumdumass]

I don't think the intent was to provide for all riots, just ones that met their criteriA when the fao index climbed above 210.

In essence, they are saying when X happens, Y follows. Not that all of Y is created by X. In a car anology, it would be like a new person shows up in New York City. We know when people cross the George Wahongton bridge in their car fro. West to east, they end up in NYC. But we also know they can fly in and enter from other routes by car too.so while X is true for Y, but Y is not limited to only X

Re:Hindsight?

[TangoMargarine]

Last time I checked it was a religious choice

Well, except for the part where they kill you if you believe but then leave (apostasy)...and they're not too hot on people who believe the wrong branch (Sunni vs. Shia) or people who choose other religions, either.

Re:Hindsight?

[mc6809e]

Racists much?

When did Islam become a race?

Re:Hindsight?

[TangoMargarine]

The term "Oriental" originally meant "of the East" (as compared to Europe, obviously). What do you say it means?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...

Re:Hindsight?

[sumdumass]

Actually, they are paraded around. Its one of the main reasons we have them. It stabilizes the pricesof food so we don't have massive swings downward which would cause farmers to lose their farms and then massive swings upwards from the resulting shortages.

In the long run, the slight increase in food costs are strategic in that it allows enough standing production and reserve capacity that the midwest can flood, the south can drought, the west can catch fire, and your food bill doesn't end up costing more then your mortgage payments a month or two after one of those happens.

Re:Hindsight?

[DigiShaman]

You mean the same muslims in China (Uyghurs), Malaysia, and Philippines are all middle-eastern?

Race and culture are two entirely separate things. Do not conflate the two. Above all, do not insinuate racism by another person. You only espouse your own ignorance in doing so. No, the problem is Islam. It's an evil theocratic fascist movement!!! There is nothing racists in point out the level of violence from this twisted culture.

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Racists much?

Islam is not a "race".

Therefore your accusation is baseless.

If you wanted to make a comment which helped you appear to be stupid, you did achieve that.

Re:Hindsight?

[psithurism]

Well, if you check reliable media outlets, a week after events, they usually do a better job of determining the source of the frustration. The protestors usually say something like: "U.S. is in our country replacing our interests with theirs, that's why I lost my job and my son is imprisoned for...what? No, I don't even get T.V. I've never heard of that movie."

There may be "triggers" that cause various groups to encourage protests to get started, but to motivate thousands of people to protest in areas where suspicion of subversive speech makes you disappear, you need some legitimate unhappiness. They get just as upset as you to hear, "someone far away did something improper," but when you are starving and unemployed, and you hear, "hey, were rioting to let them know we're unhappy, wanna join?" Then you might get moving.

Re:Hindsight?

[houghi]

Unfortunately it seems that the only way to create real change is to riot now

Please do tell about previous times when this was not the case.
There are some cases, but those are exceptions and often still pretty violent.

Re:Hindsight?

[sjwt]

I see no review on what data they cherry picked, all they have done is Map a curve and add chosen data points, they have shown no link.

Re:Hindsight?

[Anonymous Coward]

BS, that's government instigators making it look like there's unrest.
Occupy is about peace and working together. If you're not doing that you're not part of occupy.

Re:Hindsight?

[Keith Henson]

There is actually good reason from evolution to think these models are correct.

I wrote about this some years ago. Evolutionary Psychology, Memes and the Origin of War. It was published in an academic journal, but this version,

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/...

is not behind a paywall.

Re:Hindsight?

[jafac]

Can't do "bread and circuses" without bread.

Foundation

[Anonymous Coward]

hari seldon did that first with psychohistory I seem to recall..

Meanwhile in Finland....

[Anonymous Coward]

...goverment is thinking of increasing the tax of food from 14% to 22% ...Because it's the best way to suck money out of people. Everyone needs to eat :)

Re:Meanwhile in Finland....

[Viol8]

"a Tunisian street vendor who could no longer feed his family set himself on fire in protest."

Well, it was also the constant harassment from officials too according to wonkypedia.

However I have limited sympathy with a certain type of person who you see on TV bleating that they can't feed their 5 or 10 kids. Perhaps if they'd invested some money in contraception or maybe just kept their pants on occasionally they wouldn't be in this situation. Unfortunately reproduction ability isn't governed by IQ - if it was there wouldn't be over 7 billion and counting on this planet already.

Re:Meanwhile in Finland....

[benjfowler]

The story was that he killed himself because he was a Muslim who couldn't handle taking orders from a female authority figure -- a female policeman in this case.

Re:Meanwhile in Finland....

[TangoMargarine]

Why is this modded troll?

Your masters will learn to tune the system

[nut]

What worries me about this sort of knowledge, is that it could make it possible for political leaders to keep the masses working their asses off just above the breadline. But they can avoid pushing it so far that they get the kind of political activism that might result in regime change.

Re:Your masters will learn to tune the system

[BlackPignouf]

it could ???
"Bread and circuses" is a 2000 years old expression.

Re:Your masters will learn to tune the system

[swb]

You mean to say it's a 2000 year old *system*, not just an expression.

Re:Your masters will learn to tune the system

[Ramirozz]

Not government, businesses. They are always pushing people to work their asses off just above the breadline. Not all of them, but food prices are directed by inflation, so the minimum wages. What you are mentioning is part of the game already. And the government doesn't care.

Re:Your masters will learn to tune the system

[sproketboy]

"make it possible for industrial leaders and bankers to keep the masses working their asses off just above the breadline."
FTFY

Re:Your masters will learn to tune the system

[khallow]

It's older than that. For example, there's the "palace economies" of the bronze age, for example, the pharaohs of Egypt. So the earliest systems of this kind probably are 4000 or more years old.

Re:Your masters will learn to tune the system

[hjf]

The problem with these uprisings, particularly in Ukraine and Venezuela, is that they're not fueled by food prices. I don't know the fine details about the Ukrainian case but I've been reading quite a lot about Venezuela. And I happen to live in Argentina so I see a lot of parallels between the Venezuelan case and the Argentinian (Venezuela is a little window to the future for us Argentinians).

Basically, Chavez got to power through a coup in the 90s. Since then, Venezuela has been going downhill. Like all "socialist" countries, Venezuela has failed to establish a solid industry, financial sector (obviously), and "free trade" concept. In Venezuela, like in Argentina, everything has to be approved by the government. Many private businesses close, and to keep the unrest, the government hires those people, to create idle "Ministries". Following Castro's example (and leadership, since Venezuela now is effectively governed from Havana), venezuela has armed militias "to defend the revolution" (the estimated number is 300.000). They openly acknowledge this fact and the militias themselves say they will defend the revolution "by any means". Their army is also co-opted by Communists, and the intelligence services by Cuban agents (according to Venezuelans they're easy to spot, as they don't have a venezuelan accent).

Venezuela has also jailed the opposition leader, accusing him to be a CIA mole, instigating protests.

Obviously a system like this can only be sustained by corruption at all levels. Venezuela's government managed to destroy PDVSA, the country's oil company, and because of this, they destroyed all their economy (since they're completely based in oil and never bothered to diversify, since Venezuela had so much of it, fuel was cheaper than bottled water). Elections were "tight", and the other candidate lost by 1.8%, amongst accusations of burned ballots.

What's happening now is simply that a good portion of the population sees the country becoming a satellite of Cuba. Chavez signed an agreement giving Castro 53.000 barrels of oil a day, a number that's since been increased. In exchange, Castro sends "doctors" to Venezuela (and among those, a good deal of intelligence agents to indoctrinate the population and forces). People protesting are simply demanding the corruption to stop. The government is answering to this violently, claiming this is all a coup orchestrated by the CIA. They're just trying to hold on to power by the force.

I see this happening in Argentina soon. The government is using all of Venezuela's tactics (a little more subtle, but essentially the same). Food prices are high but not unaffordable. People protesting aren't the poor, it's the "middle" classes. The 50% of the country that didn't vote for this government, and through taxes, they have to support all the people living off government subsidies or working for the government, while having no benefits for themselves (in Argentina, the government is sticking its hand up the retirement funds to pay for subsidies for the "poor", essentially pissing your future).

What I see in both cases (Venezuela and Ukraine) is that protests start normally but they're later turned violent by communist chaos agents (Cuba in the venezuelan case, and Russians in Ukraine). While I don't think Russia is looking to become communist again (since the country is now ruled by the rich that made their fortune after 1991), they still use the same tactics they used in the USSR era.

Re:Your masters will learn to tune the system

[Anonymous Coward]

So the earliest systems of this kind probably are 4000 or more years old

This, right here.

The Bible chronicles the complaints of the Israelites while they were wandering the Sinai wilderness. They had just been freed from slavery in Egypt, and they were complaining that they missed the fish, cucumbers, watermelons, leeks, onions, and garlic and wanted to return to Egypt to be slaves (Numbers 11:5). And that was in 1513 B.C.E. This couldn't have been the first time this happened. So there's definitely evidence for your statement.

Re:Your masters will learn to tune the system

[ultranova]

What worries me about this sort of knowledge, is that it could make it possible for political leaders to keep the masses working their asses off just above the breadline.

"Just above breadline" is also known as "living wage", and is a bleeding heart liberal position, verging on outright communism. Why do you hate freedom so much, comrade?

But they can avoid pushing it so far that they get the kind of political activism that might result in regime change.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. There are plenty of malicious imbeciles, both in Washington and here on Slashdot, who oppose welfare and/or minimum wage on ideological grounds and apparently think people who can't afford food will simply quietly die.

Re:Your masters will learn to tune the system

[Anonymous Coward]

Minimum wage is for teenagers, not people who need to buy food.
In the US, people who "can't afford food" don't die; they go get some--legally.
And food stamps aren't about feeding people; they're about making sure people keep buying the expensive brands instead of economizing.

Re:Your masters will learn to tune the system

[Anonymous Coward]

Congrats, you're the 12th "person" to post this on the internet about this story with this exact same response! Sadly I can only find about 12 news stories related to Venezuela, and many of them haven't lasted very long. The US propaganda ministry is in firefighting mode it appears.

Re:Your masters will learn to tune the system

[Anonymous Coward]

Could make it possible? What the fuck do you think has been going on? You think politicians dreamed up things like welfare because they actually care? Hell, minimum wage was first instituted in the US to push blacks out of labor markets with the end goal of their race being entirely dependent on the government like their ancestors had been to plantation owners. Governments want pets over whom they may be masters.

Re:Your masters will learn to tune the system

[arvindsg]

If a majority of our comrades can be kept satisfied with breads and circuses, then perhaps then any nation will eventually move to the same state we find ourselves in.

Re:Your masters will learn to tune the system

[Anonymous Coward]

well, that is the whole point of this research.

Hari Seldon would be pleased...

[Anonymous Coward]

'nuff said

And Weatherchick Predicts Snow In Winter

[Anonymous Coward]

Not at all surprising, even for a chick.

Populations go up...

[Viol8]

... food availability goes down for the same amount of farmland.

Sure , we could chop down all the forests and bulldoze all the other wild habitats to use more of it for agriculture , or ... people could use contraception or keep their fscking pants on now and then. If I see one more sob story of some halfwit who can't feed their ten kids....

Re:Populations go up...

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. It might be easier to feed the family if it were smaller.......

Re:Populations go up...

[silentcoder]

Coming from a country where it's a political hot potato to have insurance cover birth control but not viagra... I find your comment incredibly stupid.

Re:Populations go up...

[qbast]

Efficiency goes up as well. Today 10 farmers or 10 hectares can produce much more food than it could 300 years ago.

Re:Populations go up...

[benjfowler]

"Past performance is not indicative of future returns".

The Green Revolution has run its course. Increases in yield per acre are stagnating, in some cases, dropping, because of resource depletion and bad farming practices.

Because the easy wins have been made, and improvements in yields are stagnating, if not, falling (because of loss of topsoil, aquifer depletion, salination, etc).

Yet, the Third World population is spiralling out of control. Our looming resource-depletion Armageddon will start in places like Egypt first, where they have drastically exceeded the land's carry capacity, and they're culturally totally incapable of getting a grip on the situation. They think Allah will make it all good, and will do so until Western border guards start shooting at the refugees.

When the end comes, it'll hit us HARD. I, for one, are hoping we're tooled up for a fight, because it'll literally be a fight for survival.

Re:Populations go up...

[Viol8]

At what cost? Loss of wild habitats, sterile monocultures , pesticide poisoning of what little wildlife is left, fertilizer runoff causing o2 depletion in the rivers, soil erosion due to constant tilling, huge CO2 footprint due to fossil fuels required to produce agrichemicals and machinery to work the land and so on and on and on.

The methods of 300 years ago had survived for millenia. The way we've abused the planet in the last century we'll do well to be able to maintain this production for the next 100 years, never mind 1000.

Re:Populations go up...

[silentcoder]

>Sadly people like you are part of the problem. But keep your head in the sand if it makes you feel better.

People like me ? And what pray-tell kind of people, am I ?
You know exactly fuckall about me.
You don't know if I'm married or single. You don't know if I have children. You don't know if I'm monogamous, polyamorous, a swinger. You don't know which gender I identify with, what my sexual orientation is, whether I'm religious and if so what religion.
You don't know if I like anal sex, giving or receiving, you don't know whether I like bagels or pizza more.
You literally know absolutely nothing about me - except the one thing I have told you in that comment: a clear indication that I believe birth control should be readily available.
Considering I am not biologically capable of having children - clearly this is not out of personal concern.

Absolutely everything else you may think you know about me is based entirely on extrapolation from that solitary un-contexted statement with zero affirming evidence.

I will therefore, take your declarations regarding my head and sand (about which I'll tell you something new about me: I know that this expression is fucking stupid because no animal actually does that - least of all the ostrich and I should know as I live in their native habitat) and being part of "the problem" as just more utterly ignorant claptrap.
How can you know whether I'm part of what you perceive as the problem ? How can you know what I propose to do about it ?
You have no idea of my thoughts on *anything at all* !
Yet you feel you know me well enough to make such declarations based purely on what you imagine I may, possibly, think.

Now that is arrogant and stupid in the extreme - just like the comment I replied to.

Re:Populations go up...

[qbast]

At what cost? Loss of wild habitats, sterile monocultures , pesticide poisoning of what little wildlife is left, fertilizer runoff causing o2 depletion in the rivers, soil erosion due to constant tilling, huge CO2 footprint due to fossil fuels required to produce agrichemicals and machinery to work the land and so on and on and on.

And how exactly does it contradict simple fact that food availability does not go down?

The methods of 300 years ago had survived for millenia. The way we've abused the planet in the last century we'll do well to be able to maintain this production for the next 100 years, never mind 1000.

Oh yes, lament about 'good old days' and abuse of planet while using your computer, living in nice apartment, driving a car and enjoying modern medicine. We are quite adaptable species, when environment changes we will adapt again.

Re:Populations go up...

[K. S. Kyosuke]

But it's not like there's no progress possible regarding the state of affairs from three hundred years ago, is it? Replace pesticides with better weed management (physical or mechanical techniques), overuse of fertilizers with more reasonable dosages (aren't the Israelis are onto something with drip irrigation?), fossil fuels with sustainable energy sources etc. Really, when you think about it, it appears to me that we increased agricultural production hand in hand with minimizing human labour by merely switching to an agricultural equivalent of carpet bombing. I'm thoroughly convinced nowadays that what the world will need in the centuries to come will be some advanced robotic equivalent to human labour and its fine hands - the agricultural equivalent of precision guided missiles, so as to speak.

Re:Populations go up...

[silentcoder]

>Well going by that whining self righteous queenie rant you're obviously fairly young, early 20s, maybe teens and probably gay.

You got every single one of your guesses wrong.
I am in my mid-thirties, married, polyamorous and bisexual and my wife is currently pregnant.

> quite clear that you're the sort who think people have no responsibility for the amount of children they have if they can't get free birth control

Nope, I didn't say that - I do however have the capacity to do math and say that if poor people have ready access to birth control for free they are more likely to use it - because people who spend their entire income on a place to live and a meal don't have anything to spare on your ideas and abstinence doesn't EXIST in the real world.

>Actually it wasn't clear at all. Is english a 2nd language for you?

Yes, actually, but it happens to be one I have a university degree in - from how terrible *your* English is -you MUST be a first language speaker however. To paraphrase G.B. Shaw: nobody who had been taught English could possibly use it so badly - only native speakers rape English.

>Being gay doesn't mean you're incapable, you just don't want to.

That sentence was badly put I admit -it should have read "get pregnant" not "have children" - I'm having a child in June.

> So if you were angling for a bit of sympathy you're out of luck pal.

I have neither the need nor the desire for sympathy - I was EXPRESSING sympathy, not asking for it.

You know... the headline on this site says it's for smart-asses, you are only *half* qualified to be here (the second half - I'm saying you're an ass).

And you still know practically nothing about me - but you have told me a great deal about you: you are a judgmental moralist who blame the oppressed for their own oppression. You call me part of the problem - I say you ARE the problem.

Re:Populations go up...

[Ramirozz]

Availability is a technological issue that in most cases is solved, and if it is not is because bad management of resources or access to technology. The scarcity argument was ok 100 years ago, not today, even with GMO. Food prices go up and down because inflation, and inflation is uncontrolled because how the banking system works and because the same system works with speculation. Then there is this false idea that people are in control of their lives. Poor people (I mean, really poor) will always have more children, it is their scape. You will be amazed to see research that demonstrates that it is not only the lack of access to birth planning techniques but also how sex is an scape in very problematic areas... and a cultural requirement in some areas. So poverty is the cause for big, unplanned, families.

Re:Populations go up...

[Opportunist]

Wait, your insurance covers birth control but not viagra?

What magical country is that that is run by women instead of old, impotent assholes?

Re:Populations go up...

[silentcoder]

I don't know if that country exists - but my insurance covers either, provided you have a doctor's prescription.

Re: Populations go up...

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that if we went back to the agricultural practices of 300 years ago the food shortage for the 7+ billion people on this planet would cause cause catastrophic political turmoil and riots all over the world -- probably including where you live. Not to mention the billions that would starve to death. Its easy to be an armchair critic, but unless you have a non-resource using solution that will get similar yield per sqki then all you are doing is whining about something from a myopic point of view.

Re:Populations go up...

[silentcoder]

>In other words you're a cheating gay man in denial - plenty of gay men get married and have kids and plenty of men like to dress up their cheating as some kind of acceptable lifestyle. Even Elton John was married to a woman once btw.

Judgemental and moralistic - but no, I don't cheat. There are no lies or secrets in our household. I have my boyfriends and girlfriends - and so does my equally bisexual wife. It's part of what we have in common. I love watching her eat pussy, she loves watching me suck cock.
What we don't do - is give a flying fuck about whether you approve or not.
I am also no gay - I'm bisexual. I like sucking cock, I LOVE eating pussy - if anything I'm bi but closer to straight.

>Sadly it doesn't seem to help your clarity. Please explain exactly which part of "Coming from a country where it's a political hot potato to have insurance cover birth control but not viagra" translates to "birth control should be readily available". Or perhaps you just use google translate for everything?

The clarity problem is not with my expression but with your comprehension. Then again, with a mind as narrow and closed as you're displaying - I'm surprised you can remember to alternate your breathing between "in" and "out".

>Ah yes, quote or paraphrase some well known cliche - the last resort of those who can't think up their own counter arguments.

Says the guy who writes entire posts that sound like his paraphrasing Fred Phelps.

>Actually the plural is spelt "ass's" Mr English Degree.

Actually the apostrophe in English is used only:
1) To indicate letters left out in a word (when writing in accent or if a word's spelling has changed historically). E.g. "Wham, bam thank you Ma'm".
2) To indicate possession.
Ass's would only be correct if you were talking about something owned by an ass.
E.g. "You're ass's pimples are filled with less bile than your comments".
3) In contractions e.g. "What's up with that ?"

The plural form of ass is asses and the the possessive plural is asses' .

>Its only people who have no morals who *don't* judge others.
Judge all you want - but don't try to force your morals on other people.
Also - "different morals from you" is not the same thing as "no morals".

>But I guess language degrees don't require the comprehension of simple logic.
The do when your second major is in Philosophy specializing in logic - in fact, that requires advanced logic skills (simple won't cut it). When you throw in a third major in computer science - you kind of have to be *really* good at logic to get that degree.
Now ask yourself- just how good does somebody have to be at these things to get special dispensation from a university allowing him to take computer science as an extra, credited major when he is enrolled to for a degree in English Literature and Philosophy ?

 

Re:Populations go up...

[Viol8]

Are you sure you're in your 30s? You sound like a teenager who's just discovered sex and wants to shock everyone with the words he knows.

"I am also no gay - I'm bisexual"

Its "not gay". And yes, its pretty obvious you are. Like I said, you're just in denial. And I doubt you even have a wife.

"Fred Phelps."

Never heard of him. Is he a Yank?

"Now ask yourself- just how good does somebody have to be at these things to get special dispensation from a university allowing him to take computer science as an extra, credited major when he is enrolled to for a degree in English Literature and Philosophy ?"

Simple - you're just a kid sitting in his bedroom making it all up to suit the argument. There are hundreds of you on this site.

Re:Populations go up...

[Viol8]

"while using your computer, living in nice apartment, driving a car and enjoying modern medicin"

Sure, I use modern tech , but I use public transport and I don't have 10 kids. There's something called sustainability.

"We are quite adaptable species, when environment changes we will adapt again."

Oh dear, is the old hand waving "it'll be alright in the end, we don't need to worry or change" argument really all you've got?

Re:Populations go up...

[silentcoder]

"Lillith held up a mirror to life, and chopped off all the bits of life that didn't fit".

I'm getting bored with this, you're also not the first person who has come up with this bigoted crap that bisexual men don't exist. You're not only judgemental, bigoted and reprehensible in every possible way - you are, like every other person like you I've known - an ignorant idiot as well.

Thank you for the incredible sense of superiority you've made me feel. I would almost imagine you're hitting on me - except for the fact that you are so utterly not my type.

Re:Populations go up...

[TangoMargarine]

because people who spend their entire income on a place to live and a meal don't have anything to spare on your ideas and abstinence doesn't EXIST in the real world.

It's a hell of a lot cheaper to buy condoms than it is to raise another child...

Re:Populations go up...

[Viol8]

"Lillith held up a mirror to life, and chopped off all the bits of life that didn't fit".

Oh look , another cut and paste quote. How original.

"bigoted crap that bisexual men don't exist"

You don't. You're just gay sonny but won't admit it to yourself much less anyone else.

"You're not only judgemental, bigoted and reprehensible in every possible way - you are, like every other person like you I've known - an ignorant idiot as well."

Ooo , meow! Careful with that handbag now!

" I would almost imagine you're hitting on me"

LOL , oh yes, go on drag the old "X apparently doesn't like Y , so imply X must secretly be Y" comeback out from its coffin! Jesus, you really still are at chapter 1 of the Dummies Guide to Debating arn't you mate? :o)

Re:Populations go up...

[qbast]

"while using your computer, living in nice apartment, driving a car and enjoying modern medicin"

Sure, I use modern tech , but I use public transport and I don't have 10 kids. There's something called sustainability.

Ooh, you use public transport so it is all right. That minuscule reduction in somehow balances all resources spent to to build your house, your computer and million other modern conveniences that you have no problem accepting. But that's all right, you use public transport so this make your life 'sustainable' and gives you right to bitch about how *others* abuse the planet.

"We are quite adaptable species, when environment changes we will adapt again."

Oh dear, is the old hand waving "it'll be alright in the end, we don't need to worry or change" argument really all you've got?

We will change when we need to change. I see it as better argument than your pathetic hypocrisy.

Re:Populations go up...

[silentcoder]

Why don't you educate yourself instead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

The tripe that bisexual people don't exist at all is one of the most common forms of biphobia. I know it may be hard for you to wrap your head around but I am genuinely attracted to people *regardless* of their physical sex.
Indeed I more commonly identify as sapiosexual - I am attracted to minds and intellect, not to physical appearance or shape.

Your simple-minded heterosexist view of the world is offensive but that isn't what I hate about it - what I hate about it is that it causes other people harm.

We have a massive problem all over the world right now caused by the likes of you. LGBTQ people have suicide rates far above the norm in societies everywhere -and the highest of all for trans people.

That you are ignorant and there is a mountain of scientific data proving your bigotry false doesn't concern me much - what does concern me is that everytime you spout your crap you are helping to kill some innocent kid - and in my book that means putting a bullet in your head is saving lives.
I know that most of the LGBTQ community wouldn't agree with me saying that - they think that sounding militaristic harms our cause and mostly, I think they are right and since I'm a pacifist I would never physically harm you - but believe me you make me want to.
Not because of hatred for you, not because of anger, not because I could care two shits what you think - because what you SAY is KILLING people.

Re:Populations go up...

[Anonymous Coward]

To sum up, you want weed pulling robots?

Re:Populations go up...

[mjwx]

"Past performance is not indicative of future returns".

The slash and burn method has run its course. Increases in yield per acre are stagnating, in some cases, dropping, because of resource depletion and bad farming practices.

Fixed that for you. The problems we're getting in farms these days like pesticide resistance, salination and soil erosion are due to bad farming practices, but not the green movement. Decreasing yields are due to arable lands being systematically destroyed by bad practices as not doing crop rotation and relying on nitrate based fertilisers to compensate. Soil erosion is often directly linked to farmers removing trees from the edges of fields.

Re:Populations go up...

[silentcoder]

>It's a hell of a lot cheaper to buy condoms than it is to raise another child...

You are actually right about that - but there are two problems with condoms.
1) It is something men have to do - suggesting condoms as the sole solution here disempowers woman to make birth control decisions about their own bodies. Poor communities tend to be more sexist already.
2) Among the poor children are often seen (incorrectly) as an investment rather than a financial burden, and this may even appear true on a very shallow level (more than one libertarian have told me poor people have more kids because kids make more money than they cost) - the trouble is that if you spend less on a child's upbringing than that child is likely to earn over a lifetime - it means you're not investing in an education that allows for social mobility. Sure your childs contributions may slightly reduce the family's suffering over his lifetime, but he is nevertheless almost certainly doomed to be another generation in poverty.
Trying to get this message across widely while dealing with traditionalists and anti-birth-control religions is hard enough already, to compound it by focussing only on a birth control method that more than half the worlds' population have no control over is to take a difficult thing and make it quite impossible.

Re:Populations go up...

[Viol8]

"But that's all right, you use public transport so this make your life 'sustainable' and gives you right to bitch about how *others* abuse the planet."

Having a child is THE most enviromentally damaging thing any one person can do because that child will on average live for 60 years. I currently have none and don't plan on having any , so yes, it doesn't give me the fucking right to bitch about feckless morons having 10 kids then whining that they can't feed them.

"We will change when we need to change. I see it as better argument than your pathetic hypocrisy."

Nothing hypocritical about my argument whereas yours is nothing but lame vague on a wing and a prayer hand waving. You say we can change , we can cope , blah fucking blah , well tell me - how come there are still 4 MILLION people homeless after typhoon haiyan in indonesia if we such a resilient species? We seem to be pretty bloody useless at coping with natural disasters frankly.

Re:Populations go up...

[Viol8]

*yawn* Cry me a river.

Re:Populations go up...

[silentcoder]

Nice response to the topic of DEAD CHILDREN.

I don't need to be critical of you - you have pretty much done a bangup job of proving that you don't belong in civilization.

Now me... I wouldn't consider "The Next Anders Breivik" an admiral ambition...

Re:Populations go up...

[silentcoder]

s#admiral#admirable#g

Re:Populations go up...

[qbast]

"But that's all right, you use public transport so this make your life 'sustainable' and gives you right to bitch about how *others* abuse the planet."

Having a child is THE most enviromentally damaging thing any one person can do because that child will on average live for 60 years. I currently have none and don't plan on having any , so yes, it doesn't give me the fucking right to bitch about feckless morons having 10 kids then whining that they can't feed them.

Here goes another strawman devastated by might of your logic. It is not about you non-existent kid - it is about YOUR lifestyle depleting oil, rare earth metals and multitude of other irreplaceable resources. So either go live in cave eating only what you can raise (without depleting soil of course) or stop embarrassing yourself with your white rich kid understanding of 'sustainability'. Also how much child is environmentally damaging varies - you can be sure that 10 kids born to some forgotten tribe in Amazonian jungle are much less damaging than your single person.

"We will change when we need to change. I see it as better argument than your pathetic hypocrisy."

Nothing hypocritical about my argument whereas yours is nothing but lame vague on a wing and a prayer hand waving.

Let me use smaller words then. You are depleting planet resources. You are bitching about others doing the same. That's hypocrisy.

You say we can change , we can cope , blah fucking blah , well tell me - how come there are still 4 MILLION people homeless after typhoon haiyan in indonesia if we such a resilient species? We seem to be pretty bloody useless at coping with natural disasters frankly.

Do you expect them to become 4 million corpses tomorrow? If not, they are coping and they proved to be quite resilient. In time they will build back.

Re:Populations go up...

[Viol8]

"So either go live in cave eating only what you can raise (without depleting soil of course) or stop embarrassing yourself with your white rich kid understanding of 'sustainability'"

Oh spare me. I've probably been on this planet a lot longer and seen a lot more than you have from your mums basement sunshine. And if you'd ever visited africa you'd know the majority of people there have mobile phones and a lot have computers and cars especially in the cities so your standard issue westerner-using-up-resources-guilt-trip argument has been dead and buried for a long time.

And aside from going and living in the middle of a jungle or desert there's not a lot I can do about using tech given society is based around it now. However I DO have a choice about how many kids I have and so does everyone else on this planet.

"you can be sure that 10 kids born to some forgotten tribe in Amazonian jungle are much less damaging than your single person"

Sure, for one generation. Then those 10 kids each have 10 kids. Am I more damaging than 100 tribesmen? Doubt it. What about 1000 , or 10K? Where does it stop?

"Do you expect them to become 4 million corpses tomorrow?"

A large number have serious illnesses due to the conditions which some have already died from. But hey, you don't give a shit because Harry Potter will come along, wave a magic wand and make it all better , right?

Re:Populations go up...

[Viol8]

Oh dear. One minute its poor trannies killing themselves because someone said something nasty to them, now your latest hysterical and pathetic attempt at moral equivalence involves dead children (which is NOT the topic btw) and anders breivik in a vain attempt to win an argument you lost 3 posts back. You nauseating and sad individual.

Re:Populations go up...

[silentcoder]

Tansexual kiling themselves because of bullying and people like you - and you're response was "cry me a river" - this from somebody who claims to be speaking of morality.
How are you DIFFERENT from Breivik ? You both are happy to see people dead who don't share your specific set of morals - the only difference is he had the gutts to pull the trigger himself. You kill by your cowardly words.

did they really?

[Anonymous Coward]

A few weeks ago I tried to test the theory from this paper, and get some data on the Ukrainian food price index. After a bit of digging on the FAO site I just could not find the "food price index" data. It could very well be my ineptitude.. but where is the data?

Interesting

[water-and-sewer]

I've read a lot of those old "doomsaying" articles and in general they're interesting. But the Malthusians have been preaching the same apocalypses for a long time now and they've generally failed to come true.

I agree resource scarcity is essentially at the root of most of our problems, and over at http://www.dictatorshandbook.n... the discussion basically revolves around the idea that religious wars are a proxy for resource grabs, while bad governments either prevent more violence or promote it to achieve short-term political gains.

Bring on the world war and let's get back out of everyone's face. And let the MiddleEast burn, so we can do something nice on the ashes.

Hey speaking of predicting uprisings, I'll bet Dice's models never predicted so many Slashdotters would bail out in disgust their commentary on the new Beta was ignored! See you on Usenet at comp.misc.

Re:Interesting

[drinkypoo]

I've read a lot of those old "doomsaying" articles and in general they're interesting. But the Malthusians have been preaching the same apocalypses for a long time now and they've generally failed to come true.

Except this guy predicted riots which then did not fail to come true. So uh, what does that have to do with this?

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

I've read a lot of those old "doomsaying" articles and in general they're interesting. But the Malthusians have been preaching the same apocalypses for a long time now and they've generally failed to come true.

In the past hundred years, many tens of millions of people have died fighting over control of resources. Japan invaded Southeast Asia in World War II mostly because of oil. Germany invaded Russia and Eastern Europe to control agricultural production and to control access to resources. The US is involved in the Middle East mostly because of oil. Sure there are always complex motivations when people start killing one another over something, but it usually takes perceived control over some natural resource to motivate a lot of people to join the fight.

Perceived or experienced scarcity is much more important than actual scarcity as measured by overall availability of any particular resource. There might be plenty of food and fuel in the world to go around if it were distributed equitably and efficiently, but things are not usually distributed equitably and disruptions can cause local scarcities.

The lord giveth...

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, here in Norway the VAT for food items was reduced from 25% down to half. The consumers didn't notice because the shops just pocketed the difference and pretended nothing had happened.

Everything is not always the govt's fault.

Re:The lord giveth...

[dargaud]

Same in France with the VAT on restaurants. Pissed off the gov who reinstated the tax after a few years.

Re:The lord giveth...

[Opportunist]

What did anyone expect? That some business owner simply forgo profit?

The price of a good is not dependent on its production cost. The price of a good is only dependent on how much you can ask to net the highest profit. The only time the production cost comes into play is when the asking price drops below the production cost, then it simply will not be produced anymore. Else it doesn't matter jack how much it costs to make it, the price will ALWAYS be what someone is willing to pay.

Re:The lord giveth...

[Anonymous Coward]

In an alternate universe where nobody cares about ROI, you are absolutely correct.

Re:The lord giveth...

[marcosdumay]

Looks like there wasn't enough competition on the market.

Let me guess, the tax was reduced by a complex procedure that applied to some business and not others, and was too expensive for small business to follow anyway. Am I right?

Re:The lord giveth...

[slew]

the price will ALWAYS be what someone is willing to pay.

Of course in abstract that might seem true, but that's not how it works. There is price elasticity, market segmentation, and opportunity cost of redeploying your investment elsewhere....

In a group of people, there are individuals willing to pay a range of prices for range of items, it behooves you to set the price to minimize the opportunity cost of your choices.

The big lever in a non-command economy is the market segmentation approach: identify alternate profitable price points and offer them variants to maximize your profit. Why charge the same price to everyone? You can offer a crappy discount version to increase your volume at a lower margin and/or a luxury version to snag those who are willing to pay more.

Of course if your ideology doesn't admit an idea in the form of from each according to the ability to pay and to each what they need/want, well, I really don't know what your ideology is...

Re:The lord giveth...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Meanwhile, here in Norway the VAT for food items was reduced from 25% down to half. The consumers didn't notice because the shops just pocketed the difference and pretended nothing had happened."

Well when the tax is already baked into the price people pay - meaning its not added in at the point of purchase - then no one really knows how much is govt tax and how much is the actual price of the product.

Yes, I'm sure the shops just pocketed the difference - they didnt use the money to hire any more people or buy any more goods for their shop or anything like that - the money just was put into mattresses and never came out.

Re:The lord giveth...

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile in California nothing at the grocery store is taxed unless it's a prepared item. You can buy bread, meat, etc. and make a sandwich tax free; but if you buy a sandwich at the deli counter it's somewhere around 10% give or take a few percent based on your locality.

Re:The lord giveth...

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably the razor thin earnings before capital costs plus the pressure of raising wages is eating the benefits of lowering the tax. The smaller the business the less capable it would be in offering the benefits to the customers due to proportionally higher operating costs. VAT is generally a very simple system, particularly so inside a country and for actors in a single market sector.

Re:The lord giveth...

[mjwx]

Looks like there wasn't enough competition on the market.

Let me guess, the tax was reduced by a complex procedure that applied to some business and not others, and was too expensive for small business to follow anyway. Am I right?

Nope, if it was done in the same fashion as Australia, some items are GST (Goods and Services Tax, or version of VAT) exempt, all the stores had to do was alter their POS (Point of Sale) settings to not charge tax on that. Which the stores in Norway would have had to have done to pocket the difference anyway.

I'm guessing you're an American and are used to a sales tax system that is a complete and total clusterfuck, countries with VAT/GST are much simpler.

Callous knobhead

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical libertarian psycopath response, that.

How about we manage to BOTH keep our pants on AND manage to muster some empathy for people who are actually starving? Some of you cretins are such ethical one-trick ponies it's embarassing.

Re:Callous knobhead

[benjfowler]

Oohhhh, and if we don't always, constantly show "empathy" (and of course, soon after, give free money and lebensraum to people who fuck up, and want everyone else to take responsibility for it) for others, we are BAD people.

Right.

This place is turning into a low-rent knockoff of Comment Is Free.

Fuck "empathy". If Third World assholes can't keep their legs crossed and they end up in a Malthusian catastrophe, why should we bail them out.

Re:Callous knobhead

[Viol8]

Spot on. But some expect some self hating bleading heart to mod you down anytime soon.

Re:Callous knobhead

[qbast]

How about ... not ? I can manage some empathy for people starving without their fault (for example war refugees). I will spare none for idiots who breed like rabbits and expect others to feed their spawn.

Re:Callous knobhead

[benjfowler]

Agreed. The fact that there is some kind of human right to breed out of control is a complete nonsense, and must end.

Re:Callous knobhead

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends. Do you want your HDTV to cost $500 or $2000?

If you want it to cost $500 then you want that third world to be a viable place to manufacture and do business in. What does that mean? That means not telling Third World assholes to keep their legs crossed etc.

Re:Callous knobhead

[Ramirozz]

I am assuming you didn't read the story. Check the list, not all of them are third world countries. France, Sweden, Greece... come on, the US, a first worl country is in that path to. But, what they all have in common? the same economic system.

Re:Callous knobhead

[Opportunist]

But it's ok to bail out banks that can't keep their act together and invest sensibly, right?

Re:Callous knobhead

[khallow]

Check the list, not all of them are third world countries.

Why is that list at all relevant? He hasn't even shown correlation between being on the list and some sort of sensitivity to food prices.

the same economic system.

So everyone has both Greece's huge black market economy and Sweden's relatively enlightened socialist policies? Or is it something like a lot of people buy food with money?

Re:Callous knobhead

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not about bailing them out, it's about stop raping them with stock marketing on food and water prices.

Imagine having nothing to eat, but there's a huuuge warehouse full of food just a few miles from you away. It belongs to a bank, there they stockpile food to decrease availability and to increase prices. Suddenly someone buys the well you were drinking from or is building a huge dam, that will dry out your rivers, and now you have to buy your water. But I forgot, "fuck empathy".

Re:Callous knobhead

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that the "spawn" are themselves "people starving without their fault", right?

Or did you think they used their magical time machine to go back and drag their parents into bed?

Re:Callous knobhead

[Anonymous Coward]

So everyone has both Greece's huge black market economy and Sweden's relatively enlightened socialist policies?

Sure, why not?

Black market could be something as simple as paying somebody in cash to avoid paying the Tax Man. It's not all about the mafia and contraband stuff. The popular thought amongst libertarians and others is that most nations have too much taxes, too much government and too many regulations, so it's not strange if there's a huge black market almost everywhere. Some people might never venture into it, or they might unconsciously participate (again, paying in cash), but the black market is there.

Another popular thought amongst libertarians is that most nations, particularly developed nations, have too much welfare and entitlements, aka socialist policies. Whether they are "relatively enlightened" is in the eye of the beholder. I mean, some people still actually think ObamaCare is one of those enlightened policies, or at least part of a devious plan to bring about the enlightened policy of single payer.

The difference between nations is more in whether the people makes a fuss about it. Greece probably makes more of a fuss about black markets, while Americans make more of a fuss about social polices (or the lack thereof, or how they're not enlightened and in fact hurt people)

Re:Callous knobhead

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll go far, young man.

Re:Callous knobhead

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck is this? Nobody actually (except the banks, and fuck them) thinks that. Using bank bailouts as a counterpoint or rebuttal for anything, ever, is absurd.

Re:Callous knobhead

[Ramirozz]

Mmm... the entire article is about the relationship between food prices and uprisings. My reply went to the other guy who mentioned third world people reproducing like rabbits was the problem, which is not. That is why that answer. About the economic system, I don't know what your doubt is about my claim. Each country has its own variables, but the game is the same.

Re:Callous knobhead

[DigiShaman]

Talk to YOUR government about that. I sure as shit didn't for the current POTUS.

Re:Callous knobhead

[Anonymous Coward]

Talk to YOUR government about that. I sure as shit didn't for the current POTUS.

But did you sure as shit for Romney? Do you think that makes you better or worse? I mean, I know it'd make you an angry white guy, but what else does it make you?

Re: Callous knobhead

[DigiShaman]

Hopeless. It makes me feel hopeless that people would vote for someone out of white guilt and tribal pride. Not once, but TWICE!!

I just read that most people know more about pop culture than their own congressman. Fucking ignorant little shits. If they're feeling the pain and stress, they deserve every bit of it. Suffer and suffer some more! Ignorance should be painful.

Re:Callous knobhead

[khallow]

the entire article is about the relationship between food prices and uprisings

So what? Where's the correlations? Especially for countries like Sweden or France.

About the economic system, I don't know what your doubt is about my claim. Each country has its own variables, but the game is the same.

A system is not "the game". Everyone has wants and there are resources of varying degrees of scarcity which can be used to fulfill those wants. This economic game is the same for everyone, yes. But how they decide to meet those wants with those resources, the "economic system" in other words, can be very different.

Re:Callous knobhead

[khallow]

...libertarians...libertarians...

You can tell when you're on Slashdot. Way too many people are obsessed with libertarians.

As to your claim that one size fits all, it's worth noting that the countries on the list have vastly different economies, governments, and problems that they face. Greece for example has a huge amount of tax evasion.

The difference between nations is more in whether the people makes a fuss about it.

Let's consider an analogy. This would like claiming we have similar life issues and the only difference is that I'm making a fuss about my death from cancer in six months while you're not making a fuss about your 50 years of future life expectancy.

Re:Callous knobhead

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that they were REQUIRED by Congress to make these bad loans, right?

Re:Callous knobhead

[Anonymous Coward]

Oohhhh, and if we don't always, constantly show "empathy" (and of course, soon after, give free money and lebensraum to people who fuck up, and want everyone else to take responsibility for it) for others, we are BAD people.

That is exactly what those in power have spent a lot of (your publicly funded) resources to ensure your belief. That's how they purposefully ruin the global economy multiple times and make even more money from the outcomes.

Re:Callous knobhead

[Anonymous Coward]

You can tell when you're on Slashdot. Way too many people are obsessed with libertarians.

Please follow the thread Some other AC started talking about libertarians. I'm only keeping on topic. If you don't like all this talk about libertarians, perhaps you shouldn't have come into this thread, or this site, in the first place.

Now, putting aside your irrelevant rant...

As to your claim that one size fits all, it's worth noting that the countries on the list have vastly different economies, governments, and problems that they face. Greece for example has a huge amount of tax evasion.

I didn't claim one size fits all. You asked "so everyone has both Greece's huge black market economy and Sweden's relatively enlightened socialist policies?"

I answered yes, as "different economies" have different black markets, not that they would be smaller or larger.

For Greece, their huge black market is tax evasion. In other countries, they have something else. China for example has piracy. Nigeria has a lot of scams. Somalia has pirates. The US has a mix of copyright infringement (the less badass form of piracy, which according to copyright math, 1 pirated song is $150k in damages), drugs (one argument to legalize is for tax revenue), TERRORISTS (if only the terrorists go away, we won't have to spend so much money on the NSA and our tiger repelling rocks!), and tax evasion too (depending on who you talk to, it's either the eeevvvul rich people not "paying their fair share" or the laaaaaazy poor people sucking up welfare and robbing from productive members of society)

This would like claiming we have similar life issues and the only difference is that I'm making a fuss about my death from cancer in six months while you're not making a fuss about your 50 years of future life expectancy.

No, it's nothing like that at all. I'm claiming we all have to deal with problems in life, just different ones. You have to deal with cancer for the next six months. I have to deal with figuring out how to make a living to support myself and my loved ones for the next 50 years.

What if you're a rich person in the first world, but I'm poor as dirt living in a 3rd world country? You use your money to check off your bucket list and enjoy your remaining six months. I have 50 years ahead of me, but it's 50 years of struggle

We both had the opportunity to live. We aren't entitled to equal outcomes like the liberals want (or do you have something against an obsession with liberals too?)

Re:Callous knobhead

[khallow]

I answered yes, as "different economies" have different black markets, not that they would be smaller or larger.

But then we find that your answer is actually "no".

For Greece, their huge black market is tax evasion. In other countries, they have something else. China for example has piracy. Nigeria has a lot of scams. Somalia has pirates.

All which are very different than Greece's black market. Or for that matter, Sweden's black market.

I recognize that one can blur or refine an equivalence so that any two things can be conflated or distinguished. Here, I believe the differences matter a great deal. Keep in mind that the story is a claim about how greater food scarcity leads to societal instability. Since different economic systems can lead to vastly different ability to afford food, this means that economic systems effectively make food and other such things less scarce and more available.

That's my answer to the question "Sure, why not?"

Some other AC started talking about libertarians.

So what? Nobody else was in the thread.

Re:Callous knobhead

[Opportunist]

Talk for your country. In my country they were by no means obligated to play roulette with my money.

Re:Callous knobhead

[Anonymous Coward]

But then we find that your answer is actually "no".

No, we did not.

All which are very different than Greece's black market. Or for that matter, Sweden's black market.

Which is what I said.

I recognize that one can blur or refine an equivalence so that any two things can be conflated or distinguished. Here, I believe the differences matter a great deal.

I don't. Keep in mind the story is about "global" uprisings. Individual countries like Greece or Sweden are merely data points.

"The world is seeing uprisings because Greece is poor and can't afford food!" That statement makes no sense.

Keep in mind that the story is a claim about how greater food scarcity leads to societal instability. Since different economic systems can lead to vastly different ability to afford food, this means that economic systems effectively make food and other such things less scarce and more available.

Food scarcity is not a function of the ability of individual countries to afford food. Food scarcity is a function of the whole world's ability to grow food. We live in the age of globalization where food is produced in one place and distributed all over the world.

A country like Greece can individually make itself better off, but if it doesn't help contribute to the global production of food, food prices will still be higher. They, being better off, might be able to afford it, but some other poor country will find itself unable to afford food.

The best way to allow more people to afford food is to increase global supply, which isn't restricted to Greece or any single country. Norman Borlaug, may he rest in peace, is attributed to have saved more than a billion people from starvation. He has done more solving food scarcity than all the people chasing after tax evaders in Greece (or the USA, for that matter)

So what? Nobody else was in the thread.

Indeed, so what? So what if there's an obsession with libertarians (there isn't any here though)?

It's worth noting my mentioning of libertarians not done out of obsession, but declaring that the beliefs are not coming from a socialist liberal perspective. After all, if there's one thing slashdot is more obsessed about than libertarians, it is a fear of lefty propaganda.

Predicted two years ago, it works.

[esldude]

http://news.slashdot.org/story... A rare instance of getting it right. This very prediction was predicted before the riots happened. Predicted when, and wasn't too terribly far off I suppose. Of course slashdot having no memory didn't even realize it was already covered.

Re:Predicted two years ago, it works.

[Atzanteol]

Getting it right is easy. Not getting it wrong is hard. What is the false positive rate for this model? How many uprisings did it miss?

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day...

Re:Predicted two years ago, it works.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not meant to perform predictions with pinpoint accuracy. It's meant to demonstrate the possibility of a causal relationship between food prices and unrest. It doesn't take a stroke of genius to realize such a relationship exists, but it can be tricky to demonstrate it numerically.

Yours is only the most recent post I've seen on this page that evaluates the model using a standard it is not intended to achieve. Go by the words of the researchers, and not discussion or popsci posts on a forum. The researchers choose their words carefully; those who pass on their work merely choose words.

Re:Predicted two years ago, it works.

[Anonymous Coward]

If it could be pinpointed then we would not hear about the model. Governments would be paying to keep it quiet so they could use it without mitigating it.

Re:Foundation and Empire

[rusty0101]

But even he was unable to forsee the Mule.

Instant moral judgement...

[Anonymous Coward]

..."Muzzies" would however fall under the definition of bigotry though...

How can you make these snap decisions? Is there a training course for it, or are you naturally a moron?

In my world, "whistlingtony" falls under the definition of paedophile fascist. Or whatever is the current group that society is being taught to hate. Perhaps gypsies? Or Climate Change deniers...?

Re:Instant moral judgement...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe people should stop throwing around words like racist in situations that they don't apply to.

Re:Instant moral judgement...

[zakeria]

I detect a riot about to happen and I never used some fancy Math

Re:Instant moral judgement...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah , it got nothin' to do with Lance Armstrong, Nascar, the Olympics or any of the successful racists out there, dedicating their lives to racing.

Re:Instant moral judgement...

[flyneye]

Nah, this is just /.
Kinda remind you of slam dancing in the pit, back in the 80s/90s.But with fewer skinheads.

Re:Instant moral judgement...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's racist!

Re:Instant moral judgement...

[sumdumass]

Its probably just gas.

My formula

[erroneus]

AngryPeople + BadGovernment = Uprising

Re:My formula

[Ramirozz]

I would say Stupid economic system (speculation, scarcity, inflation) -> Bad Governmen -> Angry People -> Uprising... it is a chain. This will happen even in relatively peaceful places like Costa Rica. Check the pattern: the system creates money based on inflation, inflation makes everything cost more (or money worth less and less, as you want to see it), Governments can't keep up, ever (see the US... even China has a huge debt), more borrowing, food and basic services fail, roads fail, infrastructure fails, labor oportunities go down, inequality, raise of racism, crime (poeple fighting each other for stuff). It begins with the poor and immigrants (the one with less oportunities) then the middle class follows... when an important part of the middle class is affected, riots start.

Re:My formula

[Opportunist]

No, there must be something else in the mix. Or do we just get no reports about the riots all over the US?

Re:My formula

[Anonymous Coward]

All this has happened before, it will all happen again.

Re:My formula

[erroneus]

Well there is a lot more to it than that... Angry people must also have little to nothing to lose. That's where the tyrants and their greedy supporters always seem to screw up. They need to maintain a minimum level of "something to lose" to maintain control over their subjects. But the greed of the supporters is unlimited and that's a problem of the leadership to help them understand...which they inevitably fail to do.

So [Tyrant] [Supporters] [Subjects]

The Tyrant-Supporter relationship is pretty tricky too. Supporters want wealth and power. They know they can get it through any tyrant but the one in office is the obvious choice until the Tyrant, trying to avoid crossing that "nothing to lose" threshold with the subjects, have to limit the amount the supporters can get from the subjects. Limit the supporters enough and they will want to replace the tyrant which will give them more. So that balance is pretty tricky indeed and is always destined to collapse because someone ALWAYS gets unhappy enough to make changes.

The best answer, of course, would be a constitutional amendment targeting the Tyrant-Supporters relationship. And by supporters, I mean lobbyist and all of that muck. It might be easier to say "separate money from politics" but that's pretty hard indeed.

Re:My formula

[Anonymous Coward]

We need a mobile game called BadGovernment. AngryPeople, for all intents and purposes, already exists. How else could we have that 14th of July simulator?

Re:My formula

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because the Tea Party aren't violent or anarchists like Democrat leaders have been pinning them as for years? It's almost as if they're trying to set something off with the insults. Really says something about the US though. We (everyone in the country) obviously fear a lot to lose given the amount of divisiveness and polarization we've gone through over the past decade or so.

Re:My formula

[Anonymous Coward]

AngryPeople + BadGovernment + CIA financing = Uprising

No shit, Sherlock!

[ReeceTarbert]

Do we really need complex systems theorists to tell us that "if food prices continued to climb, so too would the likelihood that there would be riots across the globe"?!?

Okay then, where do I apply for D.O.T.O.M.O.O. (Department of the Obvious Made Obviously Obvious)?

RT.

Just as much

[Chrisq]

Racist much? Maybe not. Islamaphobic much, though?

If you mean hating an ideology that wants to subdue or kill all others then I suppose I am just as islamaphobic as the allies in WWII were naziphobic.

Re:Just as much

[AmiMoJo]

Hating the ideology is fine, hating practitioners of Islam simply because they believe it is not. A phobia is an irrational fear or hatred, and since not all Muslims are bad people to hate/fear them all fits that description.

Hitler was a Roman Catholic. That religion has some pretty nasty ideas. Hating all Roman Catholics on that basis would be considered a phobia.

Re:Just as much

[Chrisq]

Hating the ideology is fine, hating practitioners of Islam simply because they believe it is not.

I agree that is the ideal, the allies should have hated Nazism as an ideology whereas they should not have hated practitioners who simply believed it. Ideally we should always give people the chance to reform where to do so does not put others at risk, bearing in mind the necessity of punishment as a deterrent.

I freely admit that I don't always live up to that ideal, when I read about Muslims holding little girls by the hair before shooting them at point-blank range, kidnapping and raping women, or destroying buildings full of innocents I feel some hatred towards the people, not just Islam.

Re:Just as much

[Opportunist]

Actually, most Muslims are by no means radical. Quite a few are pissed at the radical asshats who give the whole bunch a bad name. And bluntly, most of the "radicals" don't give a shit about Islam actually. They just noticed that this is how they get us to listen. Just say "I'm gonna bomb your $place" and suddenly the "Westener" shuts up and listens. They found out that this works. Not only that, but that we start apologizing for "insulting" them. So anything we do or say is suddenly an insult.

Fuck it!

If you don't wanna see caricatures of your prophet, you can do what I did because I didn't like "2 girls 1 cup". I simply didn't look. Yes, whoever looks at it is a sicko, or for you, dear Islamist, a heretic but guess what, it's none of your business. I will not apologize for not being like you want me to be. Why? Because in my country where I live I can be the way I want to be! If I come to some country where the Islam is considered the state religion, I will of course heed the laws there and yes, that means that I will certainly not show around caricatures of your Prophet, because that's not allowed there. No problem. Your country, your rules.

But my country, my rules! And it's gonna be a very cold day in HELL before I let some radical, religious idiot rule my country.

(which is, btw, also a reason why I'd rather not move to the US)

Re:Just as much

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't let your hate spill over to people who have done nothing to deserve it. There are people who would do things like this given the power to do so no matter what their religion. The problem is the religious people in power say that this sort of thing is ok so the sadistic come out of the woodwork and happily do the work.

Just look at any example when one group of people declares themselves superior to another, they have power and no one is around to protect the victims.

Re:Just as much

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice snapper at the end, there :)

Re:Just as much

[hey!]

The rational response was not to hate Nazism per se, but the things that made it vicious. Xenophobia and scapegoating are high on that list. Once you are committed against xenophobia and ultra-nationalism in general, it automatically follows that you're committed against Nazism in particular.

Likewise it makes no sense for you to fear Islam per se, but rather the vicious things you associate with Islam.

If you knew more about Islam, you would see that those things are not universal in people who consider themselves Muslim. Islam is 1400 years old and has developed many very distinct flavors. The new age sufi imam renting space out in the local Unitarian church for Friday prayers doesn't have much in common with some Yemeni Wahabbist firebrand, in fact that firebrand hates the sufis even more than he hates you.

The thing about tyrannical regimes is that they like to scapegoat, and that requires inciting fear and hatred. To do that the regime will make use of any ideas that have convenient resonance in the subservient population, whether that is antsemitism, anti-colonialism, or islamaphobia.

Re:Just as much

[dcollins]

I call BS. For a decade I've lived in a predominantly Muslim area of Brooklyn, NY and not once has anyone tried to subdue or kill me.

There have been nights where something wonky happened in another neighborhood and I breathed a sigh of relief when I got back here and felt safe again.

Re:Just as much

[T.E.D.]

If you mean hating an ideology that wants to subdue or kill all others ....

It certainly isn't impossible to find stuff that implies that in the Koran. However, it isn't impossible to find stuff that implies that in The Bible either. Cherry-pick a verse here or there, and it can look pretty bad. It misses the point of the religion completely to do that, but I've seen it done.

So out of curiosity, do you hate Christianity too, or are you just being selective about which religion you apply those standards to?

For any Christian reading the parent and thinking perhaps its fine to throw the word "hate" around like this, I'd advise you go reread I Corinthians 13 and think about your own failures for a while. We are supposed to be better than that.

Re:Just as much

[mjwx]

Racist much? Maybe not. Islamaphobic much, though?

If you mean hating an ideology that wants to subdue or kill all others then I suppose I am just as islamaphobic as the allies in WWII were naziphobic.

The correct term is Xenophobic, which you seem to fit to a tea.

Claiming the all Muslims are radical because of the actions of a few is like claiming allAmericans are racist because of the actions of the KKK.

Ironically, since you've already godwined this, the way you're acting is more like the Nazi propagandists of the 30's used to operate, except you're picking on Muslims instead of Jews. It's the big lie all over again, the evil Jew, erm sorry, I mean Muslim is coming to take over your lands, covert your wife and turk your jerb. Do not question the evidece, it is as clear as day and I'll draw a bad analogy to some old tragedy to try to prevent you from thinking critically about what I've said. Barbarians at the gate and all that.

Same old xenophobic bollocks.

Re:Just as much

[Anonymous Coward]

you mean Obama is a religious idiot ?

Please remember,

[Anonymous Coward]

Correlation does not imply causality!

Dang straight!

[cascadingstylesheet]

I demand that Scrooge McDuck release all the grain that he has hoarded in his Money Bin, right now!

Perfect name

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't help but point out that a guy named "Yam" is talking about food shortages....

News at 11!

[Anonymous Coward]

When people can't feed themselves they become desperate!

Re: Foundation and Empire

[xmundt]

That is the problem with random mutations. They are unpredictable, both in when they will appear and in how they will affect society.

You want a fedora with that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta love autistic neckbeards who are so anti-social they see "liberals" everywhere they look. Not everyone who actually cares about other human beings is a communist you confounded moron.

Re:You want a fedora with that?

[benjfowler]

Sure, keep displaying your ignorance with that false dichotomy, and demonising people who don't want to pay to have their countries filled up with illiterate, violent scum.

Sure, you might be happy to have your kids pack-raped by roving gangs of young Muslim men. YOU might be happy with suffering disrespect and hatred at the hands of foreigners in your own country. Just don't inflict it on me or my kids, and furthermore, don't expect me to pay for it.

I DON'T want to be forced to pay through the nose for the slum-ification of my country because some fucking liberal hipster wants to smoke shisha.

Re:You want a fedora with that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, keep displaying your ignorance with that false dichotomy, and demonising people who don't want to pay to have their countries filled up with illiterate, violent scum.

Sure, you might be happy to have your kids pack-raped by roving gangs of young Muslim men. YOU might be happy with suffering disrespect and hatred at the hands of foreigners in your own country. Just don't inflict it on me or my kids, and furthermore, don't expect me to pay for it.

I DON'T want to be forced to pay through the nose for the slum-ification of my country because some fucking liberal hipster wants to smoke shisha.

Hmmm.. Projection much?

The Bread Price

[prefec2]

The so called bread price was always a key trigger for uprisings. If the price climbed faster than the actual income of the people, hunger was unavoidable. And of course people tend to become violent when they have suddenly not enough to eat.

Re:The Bread Price

[Ramirozz]

Exactly... and that has a name: inflation. People confuse religion / poverty / food supply with the problem. There are countries in that list which are first world countries. So, if it is not food production (which since more than 100 years ago, scarcity was solved with technology) what do they all have in common? the economic / banking system. Same pattern all over the world: speculation, debt rising, inflation... price increase, increased gap and inequality... it turns to crime, more poor, lack of jobs and opportunities... when it hits the middle class, uprisings are a common thing.

Re:The Bread Price

[Anonymous Coward]

The so called bread price was always a key trigger for uprisings. If the price climbed faster than the actual income of the people, hunger was unavoidable. And of course people tend to become violent when they have suddenly not enough to eat.

That's why we do it gradually - so you are too weak to be violent.

I call BS...

[captainpanic]

In 2006, the food index was only 127. Yet, there were 15 large scale riots, 9 large scale strikes, 6 wars, of which at least 2 new wars in 2006, and countless other conflicts not mentioned on the wikipedia page about conflicts in 2006. And I just picked a random year.

Conflicts (general): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Strikes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Riots: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Food index: http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsi...

Re:I call BS...

[argStyopa]

Agreed.
While I suspect that yes, food costs and shortages certainly make such uprisings more likely (hungry people tend to get a little crabby and short tempered) the causality of this is highly suspect.

I'd suspect that yes, at extreme values, hunger can drive civil issues. Otherwise it's more of an aggravating factor, as the uprisings around the world in 2013 were - at least as far as the news covered them - largely political and opportunistic. Note in particular the sort of 'infectious' pattern, where one populace sees another succeed, so they start dissenting themselves. Clearly, that's not hunger-driven.

Re:I call BS...

[Anubis IV]

Indeed. With a world as large and complex as we have, there are virtually always conflicts that can be cited as happening at any given time. Being able to point out that some happened when a particular trigger condition was met does not in an of itself even demonstrate correlation, let alone causation.

Re:I call BS...

[Anonymous Coward]

Food certainly played a part in the Tunisian protests, but more important than the food index were wikileaks revelations such as the fact that President Ben Ali's son in law's pet Tiger consumed four chickens a day while most Tunisians were struggling to put food on the table.

Re:I call BS...

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition, if you have a look at the current prices and at that 'model' you will also notice that we did not reach the "threshold" that inevitably leads to uprising.. The model is just wrong.

Oh yeah.

[Anonymous Coward]

Islam isn't a race. It's a religion. Also, in Thailand most of the vielence is in the southern parts, in islamist areas. They want to have their own islamist country there. Ukraina also has very strong islamist influence. Central europes unrest is partly caused by islam. Religion of peace, yeaah.

Math Model? Seriously?

[dcw3]

We need a model to tell us that food shortages increase the risk of uprisings? How about one that tells us the probability of riots when the temperature increases. Sounds like someone got funding, and produced a study proving the obvious.

And, I may be completely off base since I didn't read TFA.

Uninformed, brian-fucked moron that ought to be

[Anonymous Coward]

By the Flying Spaghetti Monster, you are an uninformed brain-fucked moron who will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. Truely.

First, there is nothing like a 'Third World' anymore. Go, look it up. http://www.gapminder.org, you stinkin' wet assfart. Go get your facts straight. Strike that - get some facts, your leprous waste of perfectly good matter, energy and space.
Second, to you honestly think that the few millions the USA and Europe fork over - barely a fraction of a hundredth of a percent of GDP - make up for all the human misery they brought to all the developing countries, the havoc and tragedy they caused and all the resource that got stolen by US American and European companies? Fuck you sideways, you retarded dirtbag. You really ought to put out of your misery, you developmental challenged pile of shit.
Thirdly, did you ever take a look at the population figures of Europe and the USA in the late 19th, early 20 century? I guess not, you miserable asshole. Average family size? Eight children per woman. Not even sub-saharan Africa nowadays has such a familiy size, you degenerated brainfuck.
Fourthly, do you know who consumes the most resource, by absolute measure and per-capita? Europeans and US Americans. So don't give me 'take responsibility for others' shit, you child-molesting monkey-shagger that likes to lick his own shit. Take responsibility for your own turd.

Fuck you, fuck your parents, siblings and children. Fuck the red-necked pit of incest you crawled out of and please, please die soon, along with you uninformed attitudes and your colonial-themed, supremacist memes.

Uninformed brain-fucked moron

[Anonymous Coward]

By the Flying Spaghetti Monster, you are an uninformed brain-fucked moron who will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. Truely.
First, there is nothing like a 'Third World' anymore. Go, look it up. http://www.gapminder.org, you stinkin' wet assfart. Go get your facts straight. Strike that - get some facts, your leprous waste of perfectly good matter, energy and space.
Second, to you honestly think that the few millions the USA and Europe fork over - barely a fraction of a hundredth of a percent of GDP - make up for all the human misery they brought to all the developing countries, the havoc and tragedy they caused and all the resource that got stolen by US American and European companies? Fuck you sideways, you retarded dirtbag. You really ought to put out of your misery, you developmental challenged pile of shit.
Thirdly, did you ever take a look at the population figures of Europe and the USA in the late 19th, early 20 century? I guess not, you miserable asshole. Average family size? Eight children per woman. Not even sub-saharan Africa nowadays has such a familiy size, you degenerated brainfuck.
Fourthly, do you know who consumes the most resource, by absolute measure and per-capita? Europeans and US Americans. So don't give me 'take responsibility for others' shit, you child-molesting monkey-shagger that likes to lick his own shit. Take responsibility for your own turd.
Fuck you, fuck your parents, siblings and children. Fuck the red-necked pit of incest you crawled out of and please, please die soon, along with you uninformed attitudes and your colonial-themed, supremacist memes.

Screw predictions, I'm disappointed!

[BisuDagger]

I came here to see how good looking the math models were.

News to Me

[Anonymous Coward]

To the best of my knowledge, starvation never causes uprisings.
By models did they mean take the slightest look at human history?

Drought

[TapeCutter]

It's neither of those things. The fertile crescent and parts of N Africa suffered a sever drought which coincided with the GFC. 10% of Syria's population was internally displaced between 2007-2011, forced off their farm and into the cities. The cables leaked by Snowden included a (correct) prediction of civil war in Syria due to the internal displacement, the diplomat even correctly predicted the city where it started.

Food riots when food prices go up!

[mbone]

Shocking! Who would have ever guessed before the advent of complicated math models that food riots tend to occur when food prices go up !

Next up, complicated fluid dynamics models that show that when it rains, you may get wet.

Really Coward?

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on... and hebrews got they're religion from even older cults... like every other religion or cult, it has something preceding it where they based itself from... In you're comentary you could probably offend more then half the worlds people... I don't belong to any church, but i don't go around calling everyones belief stupid... Go crawl wherever you came from or learn to live in society... if you can!

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

You love to step on everyone's toes, right? You Islam hater. You remind of those deviant groups from that religion... hmmm... what are they called? Oh, I remember "terrorists"...
You may not strap a bomb to you're body and blow up, but you defenitly encourage them to do that, for youre total lack of respect for others...

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

You love to step on everyone's toes, right? You Islam hater. You remind of those deviant groups from that religion... hmmm... what are they called? Oh, I remember "terrorists"...
You may not strap a bomb to you're body and blow up, but you defenitly encourage them to do that, for youre total lack of respect for others...

You sound like someone who rapes women "who deserve it"... because, yeah, it's *our* fault when the terrorists kill us. That woman shouldn't have worn those clothes, you think?

Food Or Fuel?

[JimSadler]

Just maybe we might want to consider making it illegal to use farm land to make ethanol. And maybe we could keep prices down in the US if we halted the export of agricultural products and seafood. And if we were ever intelligent enough to close our borders and have enforced birth control quotas we could regain economic sanity.

Re:Food Or Fuel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just maybe we might want to consider making it illegal to use farm land to make ethanol

NooooooooooooooooOOOooooo! DONOTWANT!

I mean, I won't put that blended shit in any engine I own, but don't make it illegal to make delicious, happy alcohol. Just end the retarded subsidies that are distorting the market and the situation will promptly work itself out.

Re:I call BS... - Agreed

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. This is malarky. There have always been these sorts of things and it does not result in great change or anything like that. Things swing back and forth.

Complex system?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hungry people = pitchforks and torches.

You don't seem to understand your own interests

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck "empathy". If Third World assholes can't keep their legs crossed and they end up in a Malthusian catastrophe, why should we bail them out.

So they don't murder you and your offspring.

Oh, wait, I see; you didn't actually ever read Dr. Malthus, did you?

The starving masses don't go away when you run out of bullets and call "time out!" to reload. America's boardroom class seems to have forgotten this simple truth, so their empire will fall and their children's blood will run in the streets. That's the way it works, you know? The tree of liberty's natural manure needs replenishing from time to time.

Except...food prices are not up?

[TomRC]

The FAO food price index doesn't appear to be especially "up" right now:

http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsi...

So how does this model work again?

Re:Except...food prices are not up?

[DigiShaman]

Obviously you haven't been paying attention. The same ones that move our food to our local grocery stores. Diesel trucks already are pretty damn efficient for what they do. And being that fuel prices already cut into barely-living wage standards (and unsafe sleepless driving), it's to their advantage to increase MPG through market forces on their own. The main goal of Obama isn't to increase the MPG standards, but reduce greenhouse emissions from semi trucks. The goals may be one-in-the-same, but the premise of reducing CO2 has far more crippling ramifications.

Unless they plan on forcing truckers to retrofit existing trucks with modifications (through government subsidies [your tax dollars]), there's just no way they can increase MPG when hauling heavy cargo with existing trucks. To my knowledge, newer trucks are already on the bleeding edge of technology that isn't cost prohibitive. That last part is key.

And people, don't bring up trains using diesel-eletric engines. It's only diesel-eletric because there isn't a transmission that can be made small enough to support the gearing necessary to drive it.

Re:Math Model? Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

i agree. history and deductive reasoning is all you need to realize that people will be very upset with their leaders when they can't find food or work. no need to invent some complex mathematical equation...unless you're tenaciously trying to milk the public for every ounce of pain and sacrifice you can get without getting deposed, which means you probably need to be deposed.

(awesome! my captcha is 'hookers'!)

Drone riots

[Anonymous Coward]

They just need to allocate more resources to Psych, or maybe switch their Econmics from Free Market to Planned or Green

Sim City anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I quit playing Sim City when my people rioted and burned down the city...

Not to nitpick

[Anonymous Coward]

but go look again exactly what is the source of the issue in Thailand. Hint: It starts with i and ends with m.

Venezuela and the Ukraine are of course just the usual bunch of communist thugs stirring shit up because that's what they like to do.

Chavez was elected, he didn't gain power in a coup

[Elder Entropist]

He attempted a coup in 1992, but that failed.

He gained the presidency though legitimate elections in 1998.

Though he certainly wasn't very committed to democracy while in power.

Re:Foundation and Empire

[cellocgw]

But even [Seldon] was unable to forsee the Mule.

Dunno -- my vote is still that the Mule was another leftover positronic-brain-based robot with a (bad pun alert!) chip on his shoulder.

Seldon probably correctly assumed that all such robots had been lost or destroyed millennia earlier.

Actually not

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to fail when you predict riots, as there are riots every day in the World.

lol

[Anonymous Coward]

n/t

APK

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad to see you're back. Can you express that last post in terms of a customized hosts file?

Stop digging Viol8

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a judgmental, bigoted, psychopathic idiot and everyone reading this can see that.

You are not doing your (correct) position about the need to reduce populations and population growth any favors by your ridiculous and fallacious arguments.

NOT glad to see "your kind"

[Anonymous Coward]

Sociopathic trolls w/ no balls posting by AC ("Gee, wonder WHO this ac is", not (Lumpy)) & a condition others that are expert in their analysis arena seem to say YOU fit actually -> http://nakedsecurity.sophos.co...

* Your "kind" (lowest of the low online & weasels I call "not men") are described there, perfectly... sociopath trolls.

APK

P.S.=> Why don't you do something of service to others instead of being punks? I have & it's worth it & the RIGHT thing to do, for FREE & it works (I challenge & have challenged repeatedly, my naysayers & trolls like you to prove it doesn't in its 17 enumerated points, here) -> http://start64.com/index.php?o... For Pete's sake - being a psycho freak with NO BALLS, accomplishments, or integrity is not being a man, & it's no way to live a life imo - but, that's only me, however, I'd strongly wager the majority of normal folks agree with my sentiments... apk

Addendum = Whoops: Wrong "S" word... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadists, not sociopaths (correcting myself before the 'grammar nazi trolls' do) but EITHER way? That article shows the mind of sicko trolls online, like the ones I have to deal with here in the 2 'ac trolls' (GOSH Golly Gee - wonder who THAT really is (not)).

APK

P.S.=> Still - @ this point, seeing LUMPY "Run, Forrest: RUN!!!"'s good enough for me, for now, so... I bid you TROLLS "adieu" since you're reduced to "EATING YOUR WORDS" -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... which IS, & you just KNOW I've just GOTTA say it, as-is-per my OWN nigh inimitable style:

THIS? This was just "too, Too, TOO EASY - just '2ez'" & it always is, just like to the ac troll I replied to in that link above (who hasn't shown me he's done better than I on that tiny app... fool doesn't realize I've programmed or CO-programmed systems that span millions of lines running entire companies MIS lifeblood over time professionally since 1994 or so)... apk

LMAO - weak trolls MAKE my point... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks trolls, see subject-line, & this: You've shown WHO "can't 'face the nusic'" of his own actions (you sow the wind, I am your whirlwind of righteous indignation) & you WON'T answer, will you?

Nope - just 'downmods' to *try* to attempt to "hide" what you've earned libeling me, & best part's seeing you "EAT YOUR WORDS" yet again, here http://slashdot.org/comments.p... & of course, also the post I just replied to (my own).

You're NO man, despite your "big talk" I've seen from you... period.

* He's STRUCK speechless, & certainly hasn't shown me he's done better on HIS part, though he sure "talks a good game" (as is his usual, but nothing to demonstrate of his own I've ever seen @ least to compare to it... I'd RESPECT him more then @ least, but I have none for a BIG TALKER "service man" (probably a lie) allegedly who acts like a PUNK - the USA's in DEEP SHIT if THAT is the type defending us, because we'll lose wars with weasels like THAT @ the wheel).

APK

P.S.=> Sorry folks - he hasn't shown me any differently & I gave him EVERY fair chance on any grounds to do so... nope, he does a "Run, Forrest: RUN" & uses AC trolling posts (that's what I see, & I am FAIRLY SURE that's his game... that of a sadistic troll, whom imo & those of the folks noted @ SOPHOS security, have issues)... I am all done with that fool - he's running ("Oh sure" - he'll CLAIM he was ignoring me because he's "Too GOOD to talk to me" or apologize for libeling me... anyone NORMAL, knows the difference - that's where "his kind", the NOT MAN online as I call them, fail... they don't understand that, because they have the issues noted here http://nakedsecurity.sophos.co... )...

... apk

We are hungry in Venezuela.

[Ateocinico]

There has been a lot of protest in recent years in Venezuela for several political and labor issues. But recent protest were sparked by food scarcity, food cost and rampant criminality. Even university staff members struggle to have enough money for spending in food.

I want my MTV!

[MXB2001]

Oh and a burger and fries. Or there will be trouble...

Solid correlation. Skeptics here has stuff to expl

[benno.hansen2159]

I blogged about their first paper back when it was news. Might be interesting to review at least because I blatantly copied two of their graphs. Graphs that seem to document solid correlation. I think the causality is quit obvious too. The "we're always just three meals from anarchy" rule of thumb. The societal mechanics are obvious. Can any of you skeptic commenters actually refute the correlation and the causality?

Food Riots in History

[Anonymous Coward]

During the US Civil War during the siege of Petersburg - there was a Bread Riot in Richmond Virginia. the Union blockade cause a food shortage which cause the price of bread to go up beyond the ability of women to buy food - the Bread riot started with one woman who used a pistol to rob bakery for bread and the rest of the women there just mobbed the bakery for all the bread they could take with them. The incident lead to a full fledge food riot in Richmond the capitol of the US Confederacy -- this incident is often just a foot note in history... Such riots are a product of a John Calhoun's Behavior sink - a breakdown of civilization.
.

World models

[Anonymous Coward]

Once upon a time, the "Club of Rome" developed a "World Model" comprised of numerous differential equations and supporting constraint equations. The model was a significant stack of Fortran code requiring batch processing on the then-fast computers, followed by analysis of the tables of printed output..

The Club of Rome organization still exists.

In the 70's, working for a think-tank, tI helped to rework/enhance that Fortran code to provide a more interactive setup of the constraints and senerios, ability to save setups and results on disk (instead of boxes of cards), and graphical results. As with any model, much regression testing was performed to validate the model's behavior and assumptions (make sure the rework we did didn't mess up the computations!).

Once validated, the tool was much easier to operate. The think-tank was able to run many situations with various setups and constraints. I was privilaged to participate and see how those runs performed. Many (most) runs went unstable in about 100 years; certainly in 250 years. Viewing these runs was (and still is) unsettling.

Today, 40 +/- years later, I have observed the world stage unfold over time, and for the most part, I have to confirm it is possible to model with significant accuracy.
  Timing of events may be a bit fuzzy, however, the overall actions, reactions, and results do happen.

I still have a 1" Magtape (DECtape for anyone who remembers) copy of our think-tank's code of the era.

Let's all hope our children and grandchildren and their children's children are better stewards of our planet than some before them.

World War 3

[Anonymous Coward]

After almost a year researching the Bible and world history to see if there could be any way the old book was consistent, I found out a way to predict things in the future. That was November 7, 2012. If the calculations I made then are correct and the Bible is consistent (almost impossible propositions), then there will be a world war starting on the first days of August 2014, most likely August 6.
I was able to explain all Bible inconsistencies I knew about, except one: the deluge. That's the weakest point. Ancient DNA is the key to disprove the Bible. All other inconsistencies, including evolution as a fact and the fossil record, can be explained -- they are consistent with the Bible account. What is inconsistent is an almighty God directly involved. If an almighty being were involved, 6 billion years, 6 thousand, 6 days, any period longer than an instant would set a limit on God's unlimited power. God's only direct creation was the Word, the Logos. That's why he is called the firstborn, the only begotten god. The Logos was created with finite power and wisdom. That's why he took 6 creative days (millions of years each) to prepare the Earth -- which already existed when the first day began. That's why the Logos needed approval after each creation day: it's good. Specs and acceptance of the deliverables -- God almighty was the Client. No, not good, erase these dinosaurs and start over. An all knowing being cannot do anything good. Anything excellent. It must be sublime, because any possible improvement can be seen in the instant of creation. Natural selection is a tuning, optimizing procedure. It's good to tune parameters, not to create complexity. It can be used to optimize the tuning of a database system, not to build it from scratch. Genetic algorithms, modeled after natural selection, can't make miracles -- it can optimize an antenna design. Optimization is not enough. How many generations are there in 2 million years? That's the number of iterations natural selection had to cross the gap between ape and human. Well, it's a parallel algorithm, but most of the parallelization is spent in finding one good mutation per generation, if any. This mutation must spread through natural selection (differential reproductive capacity), which consumes many steps to achieve critical mass within the species. How many useful steps are left? Genetic algorithms can run billions of possibilities in one second in supercomputers, with a smart filter, a goal oriented optimization. Natural selection is blind. Survival of the best at surviving, that's it. How could it have created a conscious being in so few steps? How our algorithms that mimic natural selection can't do much more using orders of magnitude more steps per *second*, with intelligent guidance? Inconsistencies are the keys to assemble the puzzle. Well, maybe there is something missing in our knowledge of the mechanism of evolution. I offer intelligent guidance and design as an option consistent with the Bible. I can't discard other possibilities. Increased knowledge always helps see a clearer picture. As I said, ancient DNA can be used to disprove the Bible. Unless there's a WW3 on the first days of August 2014, then I will seriously consider what Bible prophecies have to say. By the way, the war lasts about 18 months (21 months tops). It's not the end of the world, if the Bible is right. Ah, interestingly, in each creation day, God said "Let something be done!". Only when humans were created he said instead: "Let US do man in OUR image...". The all knowing God included Himself in the project team in our case. That was probably after Neanderthal. Ethical issues on trial and error experimentation with intelligent beings arose. Some team members didn't like it and rebelled. Less than 0.1% genetic difference? I could have done that! That's why Satan thought he knew Job better than God. Follow @ricardokal on Twitter to get more info when it's available.

Just another day...

[Anonymous Coward]

on the job.

Re:Truman show

[Anonymous Coward]

... Our tax dollars are well spent.

No one but an entity funded by tax dollars could afford to do this.

SCIENCE SUCKS

[Anonymous Coward]

...and the world is STILL flat.