22-Nov-10 News-Sunni Muslim population growth / food crisis

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Expand view Topic review: 22-Nov-10 News-Sunni Muslim population growth / food crisis

Re: 22-Nov-10 News-Sunni Muslim population growth / food crisis

by vincecate » Tue Nov 30, 2010 7:30 am

OLD1953 wrote: Taking the matter as simply one of food, many of the Muslim governments have paid for all the food their citizens could eat. [...]
Therefore, the Muslim welfare nations have both advanced technologies and high birth rates/low death rates, which leads to rapid population growth.
This could explain higher population growth rates inside Muslim welfare nations. But don't the higher birthrates hold even for Muslim populations in other countries like France or the UK?

Re: 22-Nov-10 News-Sunni Muslim population growth / food crisis

by OLD1953 » Sun Nov 28, 2010 11:19 pm

Unfortunately, I've been insanely busy for a while, so any replies are going to be delayed. That's just life, I'm afraid.

The Muslim welfare states began some decades ago. They've always been welfare states to a certain degree, as that article mentions in passing, but the advent of great quantities of oil money which began pre WWII caused the creation of the most comprehensive welfare states in the history of man, to the best of my knowledge.

Taking the matter as simply one of food, many of the Muslim governments have paid for all the food their citizens could eat. If you are a native of Kuwait or the UAE, there is absolutely zero chance you or your parents ever saw any possibility of hunger due to a large number of children, as food, education as far as you wanted, etc., were all provided at no cost to you, not even taxes.

Therefore, the Muslim welfare nations have both advanced technologies and high birth rates/low death rates, which leads to rapid population growth.

I emphasize native there, because persons who are not native citizens are not part of these welfare states. This is important, because in Kuwait, for example, there are about three foreigners to every native, because the natives usually do not work. I'm told by people who live there full time that a working Kuwaiti is rare outside the professions. Many Kuwaiti feel they should not work, that it's demeaning to engage in anything other than trade or managing their internal family affairs.

Ah, meant to relate that to Malthus.

Malthus lived in an era when most people were farmers. Famine for the masses struck when crops failed or there were too many people for the crops produced. Farmers generally ate what they produced. The situation now is different, few are farmers, therefore money is the deciding factor in the size of a family, as money is used to buy food. Welfare states such as many Muslim countries have in place encourage large families by paying all the expenses of that family. If these countries were thrown on their own resources, they are already (in many cases) beyond their own food production capability - by traditional farming methods. Some (Saudi Arabia and the UAE) have invested in high tech food production, such as hydroponics.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8614207.stm

GIven that hydroponics can produce food at levels more than an order of magnitude greater than the same area used for traditional farming methods, it seems unlikely they'll get hungry soon.

Re: 22-Nov-10 News-Sunni Muslim population growth / food crisis

by vincecate » Thu Nov 25, 2010 5:54 am

John wrote: I've seen some studies somewhere that indicate that a country in the bottom 5% on the poverty scale are the most likely to go to war. This would indicate a relationship between the Malthus effect and war.
This would certainly be interesting evidence. However, it is also possible that a heavy handed government causes a country to be poor and also causes wars. In this case poverty and war are common symptoms of the same disease (heavy handed governments) and not that food scarcity causes war. This the old statistical correlation does not assure causality problem.

Again, the theory makes sense, I just think there must be better supporting evidence if it is right.

Here is one possible type of evidence. When people are not well fed they tend to grow up to be shorter. So below average heights for an area indicate food scarcity. If we can see wars starting when younger generations are shorter than older generations, that would be good supporting evidence. A little Google searching and this looks like it may well be true.

For example, it seems people were shorter right before the US civil war. Also, the British were a couple inches shorter than the Americans in the revolutionary war, so maybe the British were not fed as well growing up. This article has these tidbits and other interesting stuff:

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/cuff.anthropometrics

Anyway, this seems an interesting way to go. One problem I worry about is getting height data around the different wars. But I guess they have dug up some bodies and measured those. Also, there are suits of armor and such. So it seems there may be usable height data.

Update: Height data would not show cases where famine hit suddenly. Seems like the Malthus theory is not a sudden thing, so maybe this is not a big problem.
Also, this is still a statistical correlation and so not exactly a proof. Still, I think it would be more convincing evidence.

Re: 22-Nov-10 News-Sunni Muslim population growth / food crisis

by John » Thu Nov 25, 2010 12:15 am

OLD1953 wrote: > My objection to your invocations of Malthus spring from other
> reasons. Firstly, Malthus said that all societies would reproduce
> to starvations edge. This is not the case in the modern world,
> Malthus cannot explain the birth rate declines in Italy, Japan,
> etc. Any such decline is flatly contrary to Malthus. Since I know
> you are aware of this, and even mentioned it in the linked
> article, you are modifying Malthus and that's my second issue,
> which is that either you haven't explained the modifications or I
> haven't understood them.

> In any event, the reasons for the population increase in Muslim
> countries is clear to me, probably because I've spent a good deal
> of time here (currently in Iraq). The Muslim countries are using
> their oil money to fund enormous welfare systems, which
> essentially pay natives to have children. They do not undergo
> economic hardship from large families to the relative degree (in
> discussing social conditions, all things are relative to your
> nearest neighbors) that families in the West do from having large
> numbers of children.

> The very high birthrate in the UAE, for example, is easy to
> explain. Just read this:

> http://emirateseconomist.blogspot.com/2 ... state.html
As I've written before, Malthus was basically correct, but he made two
errors. First, he made a mathematically error that I won't discuss
here because it's irrelevant. And second, he said that the
consequence of what I call the Malthus effect would be famines. This
is wrong: The effect is war.

If an animal is faced with starvation, he may simply silently die. An
entire species might silently go extinct.

But human beings are never silent. Human beings almost never starve
to death. Long before they reach that point, they'll start rioting,
demonstrating, killing. A man will do whatever he has to in order to
feed himself and his family. That's what Malthus didn't take into
account.

As for the reason for the high birth rate among Muslims, I'm not aware
of any correlation between wealth and birth rate. There are two
problems. First, the high birth rate has been occurring for decades.
And second, many of the Muslim states are poor (such as Syria and
Gaza), while many of the Western countries are wealth (such as the US
and Germany).

John

Re: 22-Nov-10 News-Sunni Muslim population growth / food crisis

by John » Thu Nov 25, 2010 12:12 am

burt wrote: > I'm sorry to say that NOBODY proved until now that any kind of
> Maltus effect was related to wars. wars could come from the nature
> of the man (it is what you suggest, by the way, in the
> generational eras) So "Malthus effect" is a word which looks like
> being something you have to believe or not, not a theory (a theory
> is based on facts).
Saying that war is just human nature is a copout, an excuse for not
answering the question.

I've seen some studies somewhere that indicate that a country in the
bottom 5% on the poverty scale are the most likely to go to war. This
would indicate a relationship between the Malthus effect and war.

John

Re: 22-Nov-10 News-Sunni Muslim population growth / food crisis

by OLD1953 » Wed Nov 24, 2010 12:49 pm

Hi John,

I think perhaps we've got a bit of noise in the comm channel, at least where I'm concerned, because I certainly believe many wars have started over food, historically. The Vikings raided for food and money to buy food. Russia has been aggressive forever, because their weather is dreadful and you cannot get reliable harvests in Russia, year over year. Of course many wars start over food or things that lead to possession of food, trade routes and so forth. (I've always wondered about the Children's Crusade, and whether they were marching, at least in part, because of lack of food at home.)

Currently, North Korea is attacking South Korea and it's pretty obvious, they want another bribe of food and fuel to make them stop.

And several other nations moving towards war now are short of food. It's very likely WWIII will break out in Asia, which is a rather small area to be supporting over half the humans on Earth, nearly four billions. Of course they have food problems.

So I've no problem with the statement that many wars begin due to food pressures, though I'd argue about "all wars". Europe certainly had internal wars after the black death cut back the population, and they were able to support a larger population just decades earlier. True, their food production declined because the number of farmers available declined, but the potential was still there.

My objection to your invocations of Malthus spring from other reasons. Firstly, Malthus said that all societies would reproduce to starvations edge. This is not the case in the modern world, Malthus cannot explain the birth rate declines in Italy, Japan, etc. Any such decline is flatly contrary to Malthus. Since I know you are aware of this, and even mentioned it in the linked article, you are modifying Malthus and that's my second issue, which is that either you haven't explained the modifications or I haven't understood them.

In any event, the reasons for the population increase in Muslim countries is clear to me, probably because I've spent a good deal of time here (currently in Iraq). The Muslim countries are using their oil money to fund enormous welfare systems, which essentially pay natives to have children. They do not undergo economic hardship from large families to the relative degree (in discussing social conditions, all things are relative to your nearest neighbors) that families in the West do from having large numbers of children.

The very high birthrate in the UAE, for example, is easy to explain. Just read this:

http://emirateseconomist.blogspot.com/2 ... state.html

The impact from large numbers of children is muted or nonexistant in such conditions.

The other reason for high birth rates is high death rates. The higher the death rate rises, the higher the birth rate rises. One might even predict an increase in birth rates in the US as the death rates go up as the baby boomers age. High birth rates in Africa must be balanced against high death rates, and though the population will generally increase over time in such conditions, the birth rates alone are insufficient data to use to estimate the rate of change of population growth.

Took a couple of days thinking this over before I replied, so I think I said what I wanted to say.

Re: 22-Nov-10 News-Sunni Muslim population growth / food crisis

by vincecate » Wed Nov 24, 2010 8:16 am

John wrote: So much verbiage. And yet, you've made no attempt to answer the question:

If the food supply grows as fast as the population, then how
do you guys explain the tens of thousands of wars that occur
every century?
Also, I like the basic generational dynamics logic that after the people who fought the last war die off the people still alive don't really understand how horrible war is. I think this works even if there is still enough food. So it might just be that wars come before food scarcity ever becomes a problem.

But again, the food scarcity theory sounds plausible. I just would like to see better how the historical evidence really lines up with that theory. Can it alone predict wars?

Primates fight in what is much like a war when food becomes scare or to gain territory. To me this also supports your theory.

http://news.discovery.com/animals/chimp ... avior.html

Re: 22-Nov-10 News-Sunni Muslim population growth / food crisis

by shoshin » Tue Nov 23, 2010 9:40 am

good article, more on xenophobia, this time in Germany...here are 2 snippets, then the link...

"Nowhere in Europe is the gap between public opinion and published opinion as wide as in Germany. And nowhere has public policy been more influenced by a 1960s generation, post-national, society-is-to-blame kind of liberalism. Yet this “official” liberalism has never reflected the way people live and think, even in the German chattering classes. When I lived in the country, 20 years ago, it felt far more socially conservative than the similar circles I had come from in London."

"Ultimately, Sarrazin’s hard-headedness is a welcome counterpoint to the wishful thinking of the 1968 generation. The former finance minister of Berlin, who looks like a soldier in the Kaiser’s army, is a member of the awkward squad. You can imagine him causing minor riots at liberal Berlin dinner parties. Most of his argument is clear-eyed and well-informed, but he could not resist the provocations both on intelligence and on the nature of the underclass, which he never bothers to define. Yet the fact that his book has been so influential, despite the provocations, marks an important step forward for Germany—not only in facing up to the failures of its past immigration policies, but also in bridging the wide gap between popular opinion and the political class and thus preventing a German Haider."



http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/ ... sm-review/

Re: 22-Nov-10 News-Sunni Muslim population growth / food crisis

by burt » Tue Nov 23, 2010 3:53 am

John wrote:So much verbiage. And yet, you've made no attempt to answer the question:

If the food supply grows as fast as the population, then how
do you guys explain the tens of thousands of wars that occur
every century?

John
I'm sorry to say that NOBODY proved until now that any kind of Maltus effect was related to wars. wars could come from the nature of the man (it is what you suggest, by the way, in the generational eras)
So "Malthus effect" is a word which looks like being something you have to believe or not, not a theory (a theory is based on facts).

If you have any serious readings about that I'd be glad to read them.

Regards

Re: 22-Nov-10 News-Sunni Muslim population growth / food crisis

by vincecate » Mon Nov 22, 2010 7:05 pm

John wrote: So much verbiage. And yet, you've made no attempt to answer the question:

If the food supply grows as fast as the population, then how
do you guys explain the tens of thousands of wars that occur
every century?
Here is a really cool video showing how amazingly fast wars changed the European map over the last 1000 years:

http://vimeo.com/16914018

Certainly the history books provide many other reasons for war. Such as land, self determination, religion, empire building, oil, gold, diamonds, money, debts, women, treaties, nationalism, honor, etc.

Now theoretically your explanation makes sense. And perhaps there really is a deeper stress in the system of not having enough food and these are just the official recorded reasons. So, perhaps you are right. However, I don't think the experimental evidence has been well established yet.

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