[statuslover9000]

GDP has been growing fine, but life expectancy in the US has been in historic decline for the past decade, largely driven by alcoholism, drug overdose, and suicide. Meanwhile over 2 billion people worldwide are food insecure, and that number is rising.

Technology has certainly improved the standard of living of many many people over the last couple centuries, but there is no guarantee that it will continue to do so. Perhaps instead of a blind focus on “growing the pie”, at this point in history we should be asking ourselves “what pie?” and “did everyone get a slice?”

Edit: Updated “malnourished” to “food insecure”, my mistake for using the wrong terminology. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, there were 2.37 billion food insecure people in 2020, a number which has been steadily rising since 2014 with a larger jump since the start of the pandemic: https://www.fao.org/3/cb4474en/online/cb4474en.html

[eatmyshorts]

I think your data is a little old. The undernourished, defined as fewer than 1800 calories per day, has steadily declined from 2000 until 2019, and then risen very slightly as a result of Covid. There's about 660 million that meet this threshold. Global malnutrition really has gotten significantly better over the past few decades. https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment

[luis_cho]

Sadly we will know in the next years how fragile is the current food production system. High centralised food system based mainly on fossil fuels gives high yields until it doesn't.

Every time I listen to Steven Pinker I think that he would learn a lot with Nassim Taleb books.

[madacol]

What do food systems have to do with fossil fuels?

[jacobolus]

Food production uses fertilizers (from fossil fuels) and pesticides (from fossil fuels) and machinery (running on fossil fuels) to grow foods which are then processed (by machines running on fossil fuels) and shipped around the world (using fossil fuels).

[madacol]

Sure, energy. I just don't get the point.

We are talking about long-run trends of food insecurity. Russia's invasion of Ukraine will probably be (and hopefully) a short temporary turn in the wrong direction

[heavyset_go]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process#Sources_of_hydro...

[thereisnospork]

Fertilizer production uses a great deal of natural gas.

The claims of fragility are unfounded though as natural gas supply isn't going anywhere and the use of natural gas in the process could be trivially (at great expense) replaced entirely by [nuclear powered] water electrolysis.

We also grossly overproduce calories, both as a policy decision for anti-fragility and for raising meat. Both of which leave a lot of slack before starvation levels kick in. At least in the US, other countries may be closer to the limit.

[bergenty]

Your 2 billion number is incorrect. It was 500 million until 2020 and then slightly rose given the pandemic. That number has been dropping precipitously for decades. At this rate (ignoring 2021), there should be almost no malnutrition by 2030.

[floxy]

>life expectancy in the US has been in historic decline for the past decade

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/life-expectancy/life-ex...

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data-visualization/mortality-trends...

[bergenty]

Your 2 billion number is incorrect. It was 500 million until 2020 and then slightly rose given the pandemic. That number has been dropping precipitously for decades.

[BenoitP]

I have a very grim outlook on the future.

> “did everyone get a slice?”

I don't believe so, but it makes sense: we've always been at (economic) war with Eastasia/Oceania

[drekipus]

I'm from Australia and I agree! give me pie!