(Slightly OT): Any of you guys familiar with the famous Simon/Erlich commodities prices bets?

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Just remembered those, and how much those bets and the whole issues surrounding them reminded me of the whole Y2K Doomer/Polly debate.

So many people here fascinated by commodities and shortages, certain some of you must be aware of it.

Found one page that has a short summary (followed by some spoof fake interviews by Erlich, they aren't real)

http://stgtech.com/staff/gcallah/lt/humor/EhrlichFriends.html

"The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now."

-- Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb, 1971

On February 8, 1998, population economist Julian Simon died of a heart attack. Simon was known for his unflinching belief in the ingenuity of humans, and in their ability to adapt to changing conditions. He made (and won) a famous bet with Paul Ehrlich in 1980 concerning Ehrlich's prediction of increasingly severe scarcity in basic commodities. As the opening quote illustrates, Ehrlich also predicted inevitable mass starvation that never occurred, and was at the forefront of the brilliant prognosticators who, in the 1970s, confidently predicted global cooling was taking place.

I remember reading some of Simon's work..great stuff.

Shame he didn't live to write about (and see the end result) of the whole Y2K thing..I'm sure he would have been highly amused :-)

One thing that I always like to note that people have COMPLETELY forgotten about these days is how many scientists were warning of a New Ice Age in the mid-70s...you could pick up public-oriented science magazines with breathless, exciting articles about the "global cooling" that may have already begun, etc. Food for thought.

-- John H Krempasky (johnk@dmv.com), January 15, 2000

Answers

Another good summary with more detail about the actual bet here:

http://capitalismmagazine.com/1998/april/april98_reason_vs_faith.htm

-- John H Krempasky (johnk@dmv.com), January 15, 2000.


John

"and see the end result"

yup, 2 weeks into the year and your mind is made up.

THAT is highly amusing...

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 15, 2000.


Well let's see...

We did have alot of starvation in big chunks of Asia in the 70s. Bangladesh comes to mind for one example. India slowly began to pull out of famine in the late 70s. But then we had near starvation in China, Cambodia and Laos. We had a lot more starvation throughout Africa in the 1980s and the 1990s... including Rwanda, Somalia... Ethiopia, Sudan, Congo, well most of central Africa for much if not most of the last 20 years. Maybe Erlich was off a little on the numbers, but he was moving in the right direction ... just off a little on timing and initial extent.

-- Dick Moody (dickmoody@yahoo.com), January 15, 2000.


Dick,

The problem being, of course, is that famines have generally had nothing to do with a shortage of food.

They have to do with either the deliberate evilness or stupidity of people.

People starve because it's in the perceived political best interest of one group to make another group starve, or a government feels the imposition of a certain ideology on the country justifies the deliberate starvation of much of the population (typical of socialist/communist governments).

-- John H Krempasky (johnk@dmv.com), January 15, 2000.


---and in north korea past two winters a lot of rural peasants were reduced to eating grass and some reports of cannibalism. It got so bad, they were evaccing over the border to CHINA! And this despite successfully blackmailing the west into providing shiploads of food in "exchange" for not building nukes and missiles, which of course happened...NOT!

IMO, both sides of the "yes there's global warning/cooling", and the rush "pollution makes money so it's cool" pollys who say it's bunk are wrong, BOTH things are happening. 1-the earth goes through cyclic changes, and 2-humans DO effect the environment and weather. It's obvious as all get out. The two together causes screwy things to happen, and ZIP scientists can predict what. Weather dood on the toob is NO better than the guys I remember from the 50's, NADA. Only thing different there is the cool live radar pics, that's it. It just costs more now to do it.

-- zog (zzoggy@yahoo.com), January 15, 2000.



Andy,

Get an actual prediction right sometime, and we'll talk :-)(you're one of the stars of the archives here, of course.)

Ah, one more good article from Wired: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/4388/wiredsimon.html

This a a good quote:

He always found it somewhat peculiar that neither the Science piece nor his public wager with Ehrlich nor anything else that he did, said, or wrote seemed to make much of a dent on the world at large. For some reason he could never comprehend, people were inclined to believe the very worst about anything and everything; they were immune to contrary evidence just as if they'd been medically vaccinated against the force of fact. Furthermore, there seemed to be a bizarre reverse-Cassandra effect operating in the universe: whereas the mythical Cassandra spoke the awful truth and was not believed, these days "experts" spoke awful falsehoods, and they were believed. Repeatedly being wrong actually seemed to be an advantage, conferring some sort of puzzling magic glow upon the speaker.

There was Lester Brown, for example, founder and president of the Worldwatch Institute, who in 1981 wrote: "The period of global food security is over. As the demand for food continues to press against the supply, inevitably real food prices will rise. The question no longer seems to be whether they will rise but how much."

All during the 1980s, however, wheat and rice prices declined; in mid- century, in fact, they reached all-time lows. But this made no difference, and in 1986, for his work on the "global economy and the natural resources and the systems that support it," Lester Brown, too, received a MacArthur Foundation "genius" award.

Julian Simon never received a MacArthur award.

"MacArthur!" he says. "I can't even get a McDonald's!"

This did not discourage him. Doomslaying was a thankless task, but it had to be done, like taking out the garbage: it had to be carted to the dump today even if there'd be another big pile of it tomorrow.

-- John H Krempasky (johnk@dmv.com), January 15, 2000.


South Korea has a much larger population than North Korea. (And, it must be granted, more arable land and a more favorable climate, being further south and not as hilly. Still, a valid comparison)

Yet they don't have ANY famine problems at all while North Koreans eat twigs. Notice the BIG difference between North and South Korea?

What Erlich was talking about was stuff like mass famine in the UNITED STATES in the 80s, much less the rest of the world. And famine because of environmental problems/overpopulation.

North Koreans don't have enough to eat because they have one of the last remaining examples of the tried-and-true, proven world's most retarded form of government, not because they're overpopulated or ruined their environment.

Communism/socialism has been the most effective famine-producer the world has ever seen. Ethnic hatred is fairly close (The Ethiopian famine was a deliberate effort on the part of the Ethiopian government to starve a particular group....Live Aid and it's ilk were the among the biggest wastes of time ever seen.....ships full of food aid had to wait for long periods outside Ethiopian ports so the government could unload tanks ahead of them. And most of what did get landed sat on the docks.)

Somalia was an interesting case, and actually fairly unusual, where simple anarchy drove the famine, rather than deliberate government planning or mismanagement. But again, it wasn't because of climate or overpopulation or environmental problems, the multi-sided clan warfare made it too dangerous to transport food or for farmers to plant or harvest crops.

-- John H Krempasky (johnk@dmv.com), January 15, 2000.


John, I predict in 6 months time you will realise that y2k has a kick. Until then you and your buddies have closed your minds to any other possibility than the one CNN/ABC/CBS presented to you on day one and two. That is ALSO highly amusing. Do those blinkers irritate your eyes?

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 15, 2000.

John,

Thanks for the post...interesting debate.

North Korea suffered from some extreme weather conditions that contributed to the famine, and although there is certainly a problem there...much of it was promoted for political/military reasons. Many of the rice fields were lost from severe flooding. Climate is a bit different in SK, but the winters are still brrrrrutally cold.

There is also a great deal of corruption that occurs at the top levels of government and a lot of funding provided to assist a noble cause can "mysteriously" disappear...you wonder where it went until you see a few extra Mercedes Benz' cruising around. It's very sad.

NK had rations of salt to only 1 tsp. per day for the common people and the gov provided a bowl of noodles per day that was so lacking in nutrition many died from that regardless. An organization called World Vision (as well as some others) has done some wonderful work with NK famine awareness/aid, and improvements have been made...some bridges restored, etc.

You've made some valid points John. I always appreciate your contributions to the this forum. =)

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), January 15, 2000.


You may wish to read POVERTY AND FAMINES by Sen, who won the Nobel Economics 1998 prize. There is no single cause of famine. Unemployement of those closest to the edge is one very big factor. This is what happened in the 1970's in Bangaladesh.

-- ..- (dit@dot.dash), January 15, 2000.


Hi John, Your comments about famine being more political or moral rather than scarcity of resouces are right on. Thanks for the post.

-- JoseMiami (caris@prodigy.net), January 15, 2000.

In 1972 I went to a lecture at UW-Madison by a highly respected environmental scientist. The subject of the lecture was "The Coming Ice Age". The fashions and trendiness in Science are as blatent as in pop society. Oh well, he had a family. He had to make a living.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), January 15, 2000.

I saw a special on an educational station regarding the scientific work done in Antarctica. There was one scientist who actually said (paraphrased):

"I believe that we will see an increasingly higher global temperature from the current global warming that will eventually trigger a period of global cooling once it reaches a certain level."

Talk about covering your bets!

Hot'n cold Kook

-- Y2Kook (Y2Kook@usa.net), January 15, 2000.


Andy,

I found it quite amusing that you found it amusing that someone other than youself had his mind made up. :-)

Jerry

-- Jerry B (skeptic76@erols.com), January 15, 2000.


I am on the "Front Line" with 550 Acres in central Texas. I am the youngest person in the County trying to farm. Most farmers and ranchers are mid 50's and 60's, where is all the food coming from when that generation passes away?
If I didn't have good computer consulting income, I couldn't have even started. To walk away from stock market "riches" and invest everything for long long term plain returns is foolish to most people.
Commodities are being sold below production cost, this should mean we are awash in corn, wheat, and soybeans. The real numbers are scary, the US holdovers in soybeans amount to a 47-48 day supply. Corn is better at 65 days. This is JIT at its best, weather, disease, energy costs, or a number of other factors could devour our reserves in a season.
I will try to prove Simon right and adapt to changing conditions and apply Aggie ingenuity to increasing yields, but the basic numbers favor Paul Ehrlich IMHO.

-- Possible Impact (posim@hotmail.com), January 15, 2000.


Jerry,

LOL!

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 16, 2000.


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