We Are Now One Year Away From Global Riots, Complex Systems Theorists Say

http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/9/10/we-are-now-one-year-away-from-global-riots-complex-systems-theorists-say

by ca98am79 • 14 years ago

95 57 14 years ago

motherboard.vice.com

ceejayoz• 14 years ago

Why does the graph only go back to 2006?

fr0sty• 14 years ago

UN Food and Agriculture Organization website:

http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/wfs-home/foodpricesind...

dhx• 14 years ago

For data going back to 1990 see [1] and [2].

In figure 2, the paper [3] tries to fit the data to an exponential curve starting at 2004. The longer term data at [2] does not appear to support this fit.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_riots#1990s_-_2000

[2] http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/wfs-home/foodpricesind...

[3] http://arxiv.org/pdf/1108.2455v1.pdf

tocomment• 14 years ago

I've been wondering. Every time we have major droughts does that cause more irrigation infrastructure to be built? So do we become more resistent to drought each time we hit one?

I'd imagine farms also adapt by planting more drought resistant crops in the future.

graeme• 14 years ago

Irrigation water has to come from somewhere. In most areas the renewable aquifers are already tapped above refill rates, and the fossil aquifers are a fragile source, as they will run out.

Saline conversion plants are one option, but much more expensive than rain.

More droughts will obviously lead to more drought adaptation, but the effectiveness of the adaptation isn't automatic. I imagine they will encourage more efficient irrigation techniques though.

Tichy2• 14 years ago

I must admit, this doesn't quite sound like rocket science. When food prices soar, the likelihood for riots goes up. Who would have thought?

kvnn2• 14 years ago

What is your point? There are many things we can predict intuitively, but thats all we can do until someone puts in the time and effort to use the scientific method.

Once someone puts in this time, we can see why there is a cause, and how to affect it or learn from it.

For instance, the real reason people are rioting when food prices go up is that, in those parts of the world, the people spend 80% of their money on food.

Without knowing that, you could make all sorts of predictions about why people in Syria are rioting while people in the U.S. are playing Fifa.

Tichy2• 14 years ago

Come on, was this really the first time somebody correlated hunger with riots?

Also, I appreciate the scientific method, but it is not true that we can not know things without it. For example the people who go rioting because they are hungry know that they go rioting because they are hungry.

Over time, lots of people have rioted because they were hungry, and the knowledge has slowly attritioned into the public body of knowledge...

rickmode• 14 years ago

I wonder how much of this is over-fitting.

When I see statistical predictions like this I always wonder about the over-fitting problem.

Peroni• 14 years ago

Usually I would agree 100%. This stuff reeks of scaremongering however given the source you would have to assume that the Complex Systems Institute wouldn't allow themselves to be susceptible to overfitting.

majorapps• 14 years ago

Peer-reviewed science is built on anonymous reviewing so that assumptions like this are not an issue. Look at the data, not the publisher.

samwilliams2• 14 years ago

Repost [1]. The other thread has some interesting comments too.

1. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4503104

scrrr• 14 years ago

The [1] is a little bit too much, no? First, it's just one URL, secondly, it's right there. Or is this a convention when posting on HN?

sp3323• 14 years ago

It's not a strong convention but it's used fairly often. It makes the text more readable.

samwilliams2• 14 years ago

I had a pretty long debate with myself about that before posting. What I concluded was that I probably should use the [1] as I wanted to say something else afterwards and it is nicer not to have to extract the URL from a block of text (I personally believe). Had I only wanted to note that it was a repost I would have just put the URL in.

gambiting• 14 years ago

I think the main problem is, that there is simply too many people in the world. Of course it's very politically incorrect to say so, every politician will say that we need to increase our birth rates,not decrease them. But honestly,if we reduced the population to around 1-2 billion, we could all afford to live like we do today, with all our consumerism, fossil-fuel burning and so on. 7 billion people just cannot sustain that kind of lifestyle, not on this planet.

aychedee• 14 years ago

Well, you could kill yourself. If you think that's the moral solution to this problem.

mcantelon• 14 years ago

That's like suggesting that if someone has a problem with something in society not being adequately funded by the government that they should contribute their life savings to it.

hosh3• 14 years ago

I used to say that too. However, I could not get over this part: are you volunteering to be one of the 1-2 billion in the die-off so that rest of humanity can survive with this current lifestyle?

Barring people who are already suicidal, I doubt anyone would want to volunteer. This is a hard problem, well beyond the concerns of political correctness.

kvnn2• 14 years ago

He didn't say anything about a die-off. He said we need to decrease birth rates.

aplusbi• 14 years ago

I am volunteering to not have children (that are biologically mine).

ArbitraryLimits• 14 years ago

Um, you don't have to have people currently living die. Even if you found 5-6 billion people to sign up to die tomorrow, what would you do with their bodies? How would you provide for their children, if any? Would you allow parents to sign up their whole families? etc. etc. I'm pretty sure the GP was just talking about capping reproduction for a while.

alberich• 14 years ago

The divide between rich and poor was never related to the number of people on the planet. People have been starving on earth for many generations and, probably, a considerable fraction of the human population will always be deprived of basic needs. And if someone could come up with a solution for this, for providing everyone with a fair share of everything, I don't doubt he/she would be promptly killed :P

rdl2• 14 years ago

I wonder what the optimal population is for modern US quality of life. Clearly at 3000 or so, we wouldn't have enough specialization to have a decent quality of life. At 10b (and even at 7b), we're stretching available resources. I do think 1-2b would be a good number (if optimally selected).

Arguably if we had better technology, even an increase over current population could be an improvement (assuming a marginal extra person was engaged in productive activity); most of the constrained resources seem like they could be dealt with using cheaper energy (making recycling/low grade ores/etc. recoverable, better transportation to reduce crowding, dealing with pollution, etc.)

dasmoth• 14 years ago

Interesting attempt to answer a closely-related question: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/07/insuffic...

jnw2• 14 years ago

How well would the average US city cope with providing enough tap water for its population suddenly tripling?

bryanlarsen3• 14 years ago

A very common sentiment, but just wrong, in my opinion.

If there were fewer humans, the price of resources would drop, so we'd start using more of them frivolously, resulting in no significant benefit.

On the other hand, if there were more humans, the price of resources would rise, and we'd start using them more efficiently.

Quick quiz: what's the only commodity that has consistently risen in inflation-adjusted cost over the last few centuries, signalling that demand is greater than supply?

Answer: labour.

The large population of the world is what has allowed the intense specialization of the modern economy, leading to the technological revolution. Without the technological revolution we'd still be burning wood for heat, which is far more harmful on the environment than what we currently do, just to name one effect.

bryanlarsen3• 14 years ago

Heading off the inevitable "what about food?" comment.

Energy can be turned into food in a limited space very efficiently. Back of the envelope calculations show that a few hundred large nuclear power plants could feed the entire world. The only reason we don't do it this way is because it's cheaper to use the sun as a power source.

sp3323• 14 years ago

Adjusting for inflation, the average wage in the US has stagnated since the 80's. What does that say?

crpatino3• 14 years ago

No, I don't think this is accurate.

There are probably 1 billion people in the developed world enjoying a life of "consumerism, fossil-fuel burning and so on", plus a tiny minority composed of the elites of the global south. You may add roughly another billion people from the emerging economies (i.e. the BRIC countries), who have lesser, but rapidly growing, rates of per capita consumption.

We are already 1-2 billion people living what we'd consider a "normal life" by modern standards, maybe another 3-4 billion with tolerably low levels of resources, and 1 more billion in the most absolute poverty. Heck, I have not seen any study to confirm, but I suspect that the average pet in the US is better taken care off that the average child in a 3rd world shanty town (and probably have a longer expected lifespan too)!

So, yes, the population bomb is a problem, but it gets amplified by the per-capita expenditure, and the 80-96 percentile have a disproportionate weight on the overall effect.

(Contrary to OWS retoric, my opinion is that the "one percenters" are not the main part of the problem. They are not only too few, but subject to time and space limitations that prevent them to consume as much as their wealth would predict. At the end of day, they will use most of their money to make more money or gain political influence. What they use that influence for is yet another dimension of our predicament).

roc2• 14 years ago

I think you're misunderstanding OWS rhetoric; or conflating edge noise with the core philosophy.

Their primary complaint is that the 1% have already used their money to gain political influence to advantage the further consolidation of existing wealth and to disadvantage those who would make new wealth, potentially at the expense of the existing 1%.

It has nothing to do with other consumption, or lack thereof, of the 1%.

ktizo• 14 years ago

Contrary to OWS retoric, my opinion is that the "one percenters" are not the main part of the problem.

Irrespective of whether they are the main part of the problem or not, I think that demonising them is a really stupid idea that just plays towards divide and conquer politics. Ideally they should be co-opted as much as possible, mainly because they currently have most of the money.

ctdonath• 14 years ago

I think the main problem is

Based on _what_? Have you actually crunched any numbers, however casually? Have you looked at population trajectories? Have you considered that most people don't live at, or even anywhere close to, your elite level?

While far from definitive, I do play with world population numbers on occasion. My guestimate of world carrying capacity is around 33B people. Sure, it's not what you're used to, but it's sufficient (albeit mundane) food and shelter.

Population replacement rates are falling worldwide. World population is set to peak mid-century. Many first-world countries are facing population reduction at crisis rates, with a few having birth rates so low the country/culture is set to disappear entirely. Insofar as some think there should be fewer people, seems the species is pretty good at handling that without wanton interference.

"Too many people" is easy to say when you're very comfortable, assume everyone else lives as you do, and don't like the idea of having to give way to a few more. Don't forget that half the world's population functions under 1/20th of the official American "poverty line". Funny thing is, if "we could all afford to live like we do today" we'd be complaining about how bad off most people are and arguing for a population reduction to 0.5-0.9 billion so the survivors could live like the top 10%.

In the past (exemplified by _The_Population_Bomb_) similar predictions were made lamenting the world's inability to support X billion people; we're well beyond those feared limits now and doing quite well. Technology (notice which discussion board we're on here) is very good at working out ways of drastically improving resource providence. The problem with food isn't lack thereof - thanks to technology we have more than enough for everyone; the problem with food is politicization of distribution. Insofar as some resources really are limited (and there are valid arguments that fossil fuels et al are not nearly as limited as naysayers claim), high tech enables better/cheaper/sustainable solutions. Problems can be resolved with solutions, some of which are unimaginable now but will be normal in the not-far future.

So the question remains: on what objective grounds can you claim "there is simply too many people in the world"? Why can't Y-Combinator types view the "too many" problem as a challenge for making 7-10B people sustainable & comfortable? 1-2B is a heck of a reduction, presumably beyond mere curbing of procreation; as others ask - are you willing to sacrifice yourself and/or [potential] offspring to get there? and how far are you willing to go to enforce the view on those of us who disagree?

CWuestefeld• 14 years ago

This is a common sentiment, and one that's been around quite a while -- at least two centuries, dating back to Thomas Malthus [1]. Back then, he thought the world was at its max carrying capacity, and disaster was imminent. The idea keeps coming back, as with Paul Ehrlich in the '70s, which climaxed in the Simon-Ehrlich wager [2] (which was flawed, but still a pretty good demonstration).

The thing is, we're always on the verge of disaster, but the price mechanism of the market continually motivates people to seek out alternatives. So we always find a new way to achieve something "just in time".

Consider the history of lighting. There's no way we could continue to light our homes with candles or whale oil; as the whales got scarce, the price of oil increased, and that's a big part of what drove the invention of newer means of generating light.

The fact is that the single greatest resource at our disposal is the human mind: that's what allows us to invent new alternatives, to get away from the things that become scarce. All of human history shows that the more people we've got, the better off we are.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon-Ehrlich_wager

cs702• 14 years ago

Any analysis of this kind is by necessity an oversimplification of complex reality, but I have lived, traveled, and done business in several 'developing' countries, and this makes a LOT of sense to me. In my experience, when most adults in a country can earn a living and feed their children, people don't take to the streets.

These findings by complex systems theorists also remind me of a powerful map I saw in the book "Collapse" by Jared Diamond (of "Guns, Germs, and Steel" fame) -- a map showing that the areas around the planet which are currently suffering from the most political, institutional, and even societal breakdown also happen to be those that have suffered the most ecological damage, such that self-sustaining agriculture is not a viable option for them in the immediate future.

mhb• 14 years ago

The claim that ...we maintain a global food system perennially subject to ... exploitation from speculators... and the link they provide which doesn't support that does not enhance the credibility of this article.

paulsutter• 14 years ago

It seems the article is predicting riots on global television (which recently happened), not global riots (a scary thought never experienced in history).

The riots we see on television are about camera work and a vocal minority. The news doesn't try to represent reality. They take any anecdote they can find and do everything they can to turn it into riveting television.

On TV San Francisco appeared to be destroyed in the 1989 earthquake. I lived in Cupertino. It didn't seem a big deal till power came on in the morning, and we saw the news. Wow! A major disaster! I drove north to see the devastation. When I arrived in San Francisco, 99.99% of the city was completely normal.

Quick, what percentage of the population of NYC participated in Occupy Wall Street?

bunderbunder• 14 years ago

Reminds me of Fox News's "coverage" of last year's protests in Madison, Wisconsin. They kept showing shots of unruly crowds in which you could alternately see palm trees and Chicago landmarks in the background.

mainevent• 14 years ago

Living in Clapham Junction, an area that was severely affected, during the London riots in 2011 I would say the opposite was true. Whilst many parts of the city were being trashed, the news struggled to keep up. It was much worse and widespread than they were able to depict.

Video I took at the end of my street whilst a local shop was torched: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4n7uCeV5nU&feature=plcp

FWIW, earthquakes are different to riots. I did the same as you in Christchurch, New Zealand recently after the earthquake there and would agree, the majority of the city was untouched with the epicentre being destroyed.

lambersley2• 14 years ago

'Riots globally' not "Global Riot"

anonimo• 14 years ago

I'm very skeptical of the validity of this study.

The graph shows no riots at all between 2008 and 2012. E.g. there are no data points in the graph for the riots related to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons. They resulted in more than 100 deaths! [1]

In 2011, from the top of my head, there were riots in the UK, the Vancouver Stanley Cup riots in Canada [2], and anti-government riots in Thai.

In my country, Brazil, football hooliganism is rampant, there are at least a few riots a year.

In short, they must be using a very arbitrary definition of "riot", that just so happens to coincide with their theory.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoo...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Vancouver_Stanley_Cup_riot

chaostheory• 14 years ago

While the information is sparse, I think it's good that articles with this theme get posted on HN a little more often. With few exceptions most of the startups and projects that I see (including my own) do little to address more important problems like this one. It's good to be reminded of that every now and then.

We Are Now One Year Away From Global Riots, Complex Systems Theorists Say

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