[WrathOfJay]

I actually found this to be worth the time. I haven't paid much attention to the situation down there, and seeing it was enlightening.

Onto the content...

I wonder, can someone tell me why there are so many obese people in these video clips, if food is so hard to come by?

Why does there seem to be so many people sitting around? Surely with so much manpower available, there are way to make them productive on a large scale?

[a3n]

> I wonder, can someone tell me why there are so many obese people in these video clips, if food is so hard to come by?

If those people are alive (as they observably are), then logically they are getting food.

When you're poor, you generally can only afford low quality food. Low quality food is bad for your health, resulting in many problems including obesity and diabetes.

Low quality food is generally processed grain. It's cheap to make and cheap to keep "fresh," which is why we have so much of it in the US. Think high fructose corn syrup, and almost anything that comes in a box, and do the thought experiment across the food chain from the farm, through manufacturing and distribution, to consumption and the doctor's office.

When you see a population of obese people, don't think that their food problem is solved; realize that the food they have practical access to is a problem. (And yes, many rich people in rich countries are obese and have a choice, but many of those obese people are poor and do not, and we're not talking about a rich country at the moment.)

[cimmanom]

Additionally, consuming mostly processed grain leads to micronutrient deficiencies, which can in turn cause food cravings that are extremely difficult to resist -- causing people to overeat the food that is available.

[peterlk]

> Why does there seem to be so many people sitting around?

The fundamental problem with corruption, and the reason that corrupt dictatorships do not work in practice is that people need to be able to keep the things they produce. If, say, you are hungry, you might start a community garden to feed yourself and your neighbors. However, you can only feed yourself if men with guns don't decide that the garden is actually theirs. If you expand this system out to every facet of society, then there's no point in anyone helping anyone else because any public good is sucked up by corrupt people who claim it for themselves. Everyone must get by on less than is worth stealing, or they have to do it in secret.

[dragonwriter]

> The fundamental problem with corruption, and the reason that corrupt dictatorships do not work in practice

Corrupt dictatorships do work in practice.

They don't work for the common people, but then that's kind of not the point of a corrupt dictatorship.

[jdietrich]

According to The Economist, the average Venezuelan has lost 19lbs; more than half of children are either malnourished or at risk of malnutrition.

https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2017/03/31/venezuela-...

Univision reports that 57% of Venezuelans have gone hungry to feed their children.

https://www.univision.com/univision-news/latin-america/hungr...

The situation in Venezuela is clearly grave.

[um_ya]

Socialism and lack of economic freedom is ACTUALLY killing children. Too bad nobody talks about it.

[admax88q]

Food is cheap, but nutrition is expensive.

In many ways obesity is a symptom of malnutrition. When money is tight the cheapest foods available are little more than starch and/or sugar, they lack the any significant amount of nutrients, causing you to have hard to ignore cravings for more food.

[hutzlibu]

"Why does there seem to be so many people sitting around? Surely with so much manpower available, there are way to make them productive on a large scale?"

Yeah well, how to organize society? Let it organize on their own, free market, etc. - or organize it from top with commands.

In theory we have the first and they have the latter. But it is never that black and white.

Even if some try to paint it like that. And I doubt that there are really starving, "just" that it is hard to get meat for example. Only the very basics. So you still can get fat with rice and beans, but still suffer from malnutrition.

.. and "Revolutionary Kellogg's" ... I found quite hillarious.

[lentil_soup]

>> Why does there seem to be so many people sitting around?

Most of the people you see sitting around in the video are actually queuing for food. There's a huge shortage of food and you have to queue for hours hoping there's something left in the market when it's your turn to go in.

[yourapostasy]

> ...why there are so many obese people in these video clips, if food is so hard to come by?

This is generally the earlier stages of such a crisis; as the timeline extends, the caloric restriction will gradually chip away at the obesity, but it takes several years as most of these food scarcity crises are not zero calories per day average, but severely restricted, like maybe half TDEE. Fat is an extraordinarily dense caloric storage medium, so shedding obesity can take longer than most people anticipate at that rate. Most first world HN readers who have 18%+ body fat can eat zero calories for a month and not suffer long-term adverse effects, as long as they responsibly observe refeeding syndrome cautions, and a lot of body fat can leap right back on after the fast.

> Why does there seem to be so many people sitting around? Surely with so much manpower available, there are way to make them productive on a large scale?

Generally this happens when the population still somewhat expects the old status quo to somehow re-emerge, partly because they don't know any better. You usually don't see local currencies, co-ops, etc. self-organize until the knowledge is spread to the right individuals who are fed up enough with the crisis to take the initiative to change.

This knowledge gap is where the Internet can help. A DIY kit for those segments of the population left behind by capital owners, to implement autarky where it makes sense, minimize autarky externalities and adverse positive feedback loops where possible, and interface with the external currency where sensible and practical. Perhaps building tech stacks like local cryptocurrencies, payment systems, co-op logistical coordination (think ERP for co-ops), etc., that can be stood up within days of a community deciding to disconnect by firing up free tier cloud instances, and optionally, tech stacks/procedures for re-integration should they decide to do so later. Ideally, these stacks are auto-maintaining and administering, eliminating the need for a staff of administrators or bureaucracy until the locality that disconnects reaches about 20,000.

Open source blueprints for building automated chicken coops that start from basic designs and slowly let adopters build into fully-integrated vermi-, aqua-, humanure-culture reactors, outputting valuable proteins for the cost of sweat equity, mostly scavanged junk, and modest purchases from hardware stores, then time, bacteria, air, soil, rain, and solar thermal energy. DIY preventative medical procedures, basic first-aid equipment, etc. DIY food forestry, which can be started with machetes and shovels initially. DIY styrofoam and plastics recycling, into insulation and feedstock to create community-wide goods like cups/plates/etc. while continuously improving energy efficiency from discarded goods. The challenge is to go as low-tech and scavenging as much as possible, leveraging high-tech knowledge, then get that information into the hands of people in the form of actionable first steps to encourage them to take a small risk and build upon initial successes, and get them out of the mentality of a currency-based exchange as the current system has failed them and won't materially help them anytime in the foreseeable future.

[AlexCoventry]

> A DIY kit for those segments of the population left behind by capital owners

Anyone working on something like this?

[yourapostasy]

Yes, but not in a systematic manner. The information is mostly out there, but very scattered. You have to already be aware that this is even a possibility to pursue it over the web.

For example, there are forums who talk about how to deliberately manage property valuations downwards to decrease the property tax burden, but they aren't connected to forums that talk about ditching your decorative lawn for a food forest as part of managing property taxes lower, or how to dismantle an HOA's rules against a food forest, or how to negotiate with property tax assessment jurisdiction representatives for services that really matter, etc. It is all "intertwingled" as one wit used to like to say, which is what makes the solutions in each locality highly individualized yet able to share commonalities.

Most people are overwhelmed when their currency and/or economic order fails them (those systems don't have to fail outright for alternatives to become viable actions, just fail enough for an individual). We don't necessarily need a single one-stop shop for them, just a marketing brand that raises awareness the alternative is even possible could be sufficient. Like Tiny Homes or vandwellers for millenials coping with real estate asset overvaluation, and now spreading to other generations. Just a recognition that there are nearly endless entry points, and people can start very small and iterate their way up.

If enough people reach for alternatives when capitalism in its current form doesn't serve them, then market forces will re-shape capitalism into a form that better serves those people, or capitalism will be replaced by a more efficient exchange tool that people find by iterating towards.

[skywhopper]

What do you propose to "make them productive"?