> Growing food has turned into an engineering problem where people think you solve it by investing the least possible resources into it.
This is not a bad thing. Food is so abundant that globally, more people are obese than underweight. This is pretty remarkable considering that for all of human history, up until recently, periods of mass starvation was the norm.
Does not look like it. Humanity and Meat production have scaled pretty well in the 20th century. And we have way less food shortages that we have ever had before.
> The article actually says we produce enough to feed the whole world.
The issue is not whether we could feed the whole world, the issue is whether we do. If we don't, then the hypothesis that we could is small comfort to those who are starving.
> Massive death tolls from famines always come down to political stupidity.
Political stupidity is much harder to sustain with small populations, people who can vote with their feet.
> Are you saying that food demand is so unpredictable from year to year that we need to produce and extra 40% as a buffer to avoid famine?
I think GP is saying that food supply is so unpredictable (climate, pests, etc.) that suppliers need to target a large excess of production to avoid famine.
> These kinds of long arc problems for the consumers of the food
You always have to compare with the long arc problems by not making changes... Like the increased nitrogen runoff destroying ecosystems in lakes and oceans, and the reduced yield meaning humans on the margins die of starvation.
How many humans should we kill by starvation to be a little more cautious about deploying this tech?
> Agriculture made humanity a lot more resilient to changes in food supply. Maybe this has negative consequences at the individual level but as a species level it's pretty clear which one is more favorable.
Sounds like it would be a trade-off then, not a clear favorite, depending on what you're optimizing for. Especially when we can afford to focus on maintaining health at an individual level too.
We could probably feed a lot more, if we crammed everyone into small cages and fed them like factory farmed animals.
The question is why you would want so many people living like that? You are already indirectly pointing out that meat will be off the menu for future generations and I am sure there will many other things that will need to be sacrificed as the population increases (for example, fish populations don't sound like they are keeping up with demand). And at some point there are going to be some hard limits on how many people can be fed.
This is a strange way to describe moving towards a more sustainable [cheaper and healthier] diet.
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