1) That reply of yours mysteriously “forgot” to address the extremely important point that “far right” warps “right” so much that it eliminates the top right leaning ideals. “Far right” removes the following from “right”: individual rights, valuing empirical analysis over imposed narrative, property rights, free speech, sanctity of individual life, decentralization, etc. These removed components aren’t just fluff - they’re absolutely key to distinguishing right leaning philosophy from socialism and from “far right”. Why did your argument “forget” this? Probably because this helps explain why “far right” horseshoes so close to far left, as socialism ALSO rejects right leaning ideals. Equating the term “far right” with “right” is therefore like claiming a potted plant is equivalent to a human. Nice trick.

2) And, by the way, using your argument’s exact terminology, BOTH “far-right” and “socialism” undeniably share almost ALL of the aspects you try to pin mostly to “far-right”. Advocating “state-control of the means of production” is the one aspect you agree both share, yet your others are shared by both too:

- goal of “reduce social inequality”: After all, many fascist philosophers, including Mussolini himself, saw their philosophy as an evolution of socialism.

- goal of “boost common welfare”: a goal of both Chiang-Kai Shek and Mao for example, and of Mussolini and Stalin

- “ultra-nationalist”: in reality, every major socialist regime in history has been “ultra nationalist”, see USSR, China, N Korea, E Germany, etc

- “adopts a rigid national military posture”: similar to “ultra nationalist”, every major socialist regime in history has exhibited such

- “advance a war-posture”: similar to “ultra nationalist”, every major socialist regime in history has exhibited such

- “deals ruthlessly with opponents”: true of socialism since the Jacobins got to the point of slaughtering nuns - socialists say “ends justify the means” - build gulags, kill kulaks, assassinate, deplatform

- “imposes strict hierarchies”: in reality, socialist regimes all install a vanguard that’s firmly in control at the top, and modern political socialist theory extensively divides groups into “power hierarchies”

So what. It overall was and is a term used by those on the right. Modern leftists are unlikely to even accept the term as valid - most no longer even know it exists. By saying leftists criticize the far left using this term, all that does is prove that leftists themselves recognize the high overlap of socialism with far right.

Calling a standard emperical analysis of critical theory “disingenuous” is a variant of Marcuse’s deliberately reductive recommendation to label empirical arguments as such. It’s an evolution of the classic propagandist “if you’re not a socialist then you’re a fascist” move that Lenin popularized. This technique is rife in the popular forms of CT. The extreme overlap between the far left and critical theory is undeniable. Both reject right leaning ideals. And most of the lead authors of CT either literally call themselves Marxist or frequently quote Marxist philosophy unironically - some even label themselves Maoists.

And no it isn’t “disingenuous” to point out the similarity between the red green alliance and the red brown. Same move. It’s no coincidence that critical theory hero Foucalt cheered on the installation of Khomenei and that today’s far leftists, just like in the 1970s, hold common cause with radical Islam’s rejection of right leaning ideals.

It’s not just “alliance” - it’s common ideals - thus “red fascism”. This is also why we also have the red/green common cause today - just like red/brown. The shared ideals between socialism (red) and radical Islam (green) include rejecting decentralization, defunding independent police, putting courts under political control, eliminating independent bodies like the senate, putting the executive branch under uniparty control, judging by identity instead of merit, and rejecting individual rights. These alliances instead favor group identity based totalitarian Vanguardism. This is a key reason why Khomenei was installed - it’s no coincidence Foucalt was a huge fan - and why many “No Kings” organizers align far more with the IRG than the IDF.

This valid criticism of the far left is what is itself regularly criticized and regularly smeared into “smearing anything to the left of Trump”. It validly and humanely reflects adherence to bog standard and empirically proven right leaning ideals like small government, blind justice, property rights, and free speech. That’s only truly “far right” from the warped perspective of the DSA, Critical Theory, socialists, etc. And, per the aforementioned Hayek points, even the term “far right” is therefore extremely misleading - how can one have totalitarianism if one is doubling down on these same right leaning ideals?

He’s channeling Hayek, who wrote extensively on the topic. It’s undeniable that a broad swath of leftists of the time contemporaneous with fascism’s rise openly praised both fascism and Mussolini - and that open praise even came from leftists like Roosevelt. It’s also undeniable that fascism’s leaders and philosophers started out as socialist - including Mussolini. The U.S. Democrat party even sent delegations to study fascism. After all, very much like socialism, fascism (a) opposes decentralization, (b) supports nationalization of industry, and (c) opposes individual rights.

1) The realistic full context argument in this thread solidly supports several decades of worldwide positive directional trends in agricultural production across wheat, corn and rice. The trends are significantly positive both in terms of total amount produced and in yield per acre for each of these staples. The conclusion is based on solid empirical methodology. It cites years of scientifically derived and broadly accepted United Nations FAOSTAT world numbers that clearly and comprehensively illustrate decades of consistently rising worldwide trends (plus FAOSTAT numbers specific to Thailand that show same)

2) The doomer counter argument in this thread wildly infers decades of disastrous worldwide trends based on an extremely isolated number: a particular region within Thailand for a particular year for a particular crop (rice).

3) The latter methodology is extremely typical of leftist tribalist doomer arguments. This isn’t a coincidence. It’s deliberate strategy that uses a “narrative trumps empirical” ethos. That ethos is formalized by leftist Critical Theory. CT’s hero Marcuse makes this very clear, as he states both (a) empiricism is an often misused tool of unbridled capitalism, and (b) it’s therefore morally righteous to be openly intolerant of opponents and cite anecdotes rather than empirically engage full context hard data.

> No idea where you get your numbers from.

Yet you should have an idea. I very clearly wrote above that they came from FAOSTAT, the statistical arm of the United Nation’s “Food and Agricultural Organization”.

> Rice harvest in Thailand is not even 50% of what it used to be 10 years ago.

That’s blatantly false. In fact, total Thailand rice production is UP about 10 percent higher than a decade ago. And, in fact, total world rice production is UP 30 percent versus two decades ago.

> Perhaps somewhere they started to grow some, and it evens out a bit. Who knows?

The U.N. FAO knows! Agricultural production measurement has been its mandate for decades.

> In North East Thailand - Isaan, the current rice situation is a CATASTROPHE! Either this year this area has a drought or a floor, or the other area next year.

Irrelevant. Just as within any country of the world, variance within any specific location within Thailand is fully expected from year to year, and doesn’t predict the country’s nor the world’s total production.

Malthusian “CATASTROPHE” doom narratives don’t survive contact with reality, and, sadly, policies based on such narratives increase human suffering. Why? Because instead of planning based on facts, they ultimately misdirect wealth away from practical and efficient solutions. This is exactly why Bill Gates has recently realigned his guidance to basically mirror Bjorn Lomborg’s.

> rice in Thailand for example is collapsing due to climate change

No. Not according to FAOSTAT figures. In fact, it’s flourishing not only in Thailand but worldwide! Switching from corn and wheat to rice doesn’t help your point, neither does narrowing to Thailand.

First the world figures. They clearly show that rice, just like corn and wheat, is doing quite well:

- The world’s average rice yield per acre is UP 16% in the last two decades.
- The world’s TOTAL rice produced is UP 30% in the last two decades.

Now Thailand specifically. Long term total Thailand rice production data per FAOSTAT consistently trends UP!

    1965: ~11 Mt
    1975: ~15 Mt
    1985: ~20 Mt
    1995: ~21 Mt
    2005: ~30 Mt
    2015: ~30 Mt
    2025: ~33 Mt (not official - estimated as 2025 not released yet )

There are occasional short term Thai drops in rice production from year to year, but these are expected. They’re mostly traced to natural annual weather variability - droughts, floods, El Nino/La Nina effects, etc - or simply deliberately reduced planting area - farmers occasionally cut back when rice is unprofitable due to international competitors, local labor shortages, changes in subsidies, etc.

> Yield is harvest per acre.

Yes. We’ve been discussing BOTH yield and total world output.

> This is most certainly not going up.

No. Yield per acre is up a MASSIVE 20 and 28 percent respectively for corn and wheat over the last two decades.

> Of course we have at the moment no problem with starvation

That’s because, overall, per the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), total world global cereal production has had a 27% increase since 2010 while the world’s population increased 24 percent. By the way, it’s been credibly estimated that the world pop will level off within two decades or so.

> ... but that is mostly a distribution problem

True, because yields and total production are outpacing population growth. Starvation has plummeted. Where there is a problem, it’s very localized and due to war completely cutting off distribution.

Reading trouble, eh?

Read my last post more carefully. Both yield and total are very significantly up per a many decade trend. I cited hard data for both for the last two decades, but the trend isn’t limited to two decades.

The climate may be changing but starvation is the least of its consequent concerns - it’s a waste of everyone’s time and money to worry so much about that.

Bill Gates has moved on, and, assuming that you’re truly concerned about humanity’s welfare, I recommend that you study why. Hint: Bjorn Lomborg is right.

Nope. Absolute yield total for the world is UP, as is per acre yield. Your "inflation means yields are down" point is illogical - that would mean yields have dropped every year as inflation is a given every year.

The reality is that yield per acre is up 20 and 28 percent respectively for corn and wheat over the last two decades. And, overall, per the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), total world global cereal production has had a 27% increase since 2010 (while world population increased 24 percent).

Look at the full picture. Nit picking and pixel counts can often be irrelevant. Those old plasmas remain a strong technology. The difference between nits, or 1080p and 720p, isn’t necessarily a deal breaker at fairly typical viewing distances.

Sitting 9 feet away from my 50” 2009 Samsung plasma, one sees plenty of fine detail, a broad color range, plenty of brightness (there’s been no noticeable “dimming”), zero “video lag” artifacts, high contrast, and black blacks - even from a sharp angle.

The main drawback is power consumption - but power isn’t wildly overpriced in my state and the machine is on at most a few hours a week - so the “payback” from a replacement would take many years, or, more accurately, might never happen, as investing the thousand bucks would likely yield a higher return.

Yes, it wouldn’t do great in full sunlight sitting four feet away, but why care?

> NASA's annual budget for most of the 1960s was over $60B, adjusted for inflation, whereas now its $20B.

Do the full context math. In terms of government dollars per kilogram to orbit, by 2028 we’re potentially looking at a 20X improvement vs 1968 - potentially even 50X if Starship achieves high reusability. It’s already at least 5X with Falcon - or at least 10X if we use your (high) 60 billion per year number for 1968.

>> Yields are strongly overall trending up.
> Nope they are not. How the fark would that work when it is to hot and to dry to plant what you planted two years ago.

The key word is overall. Yields are strongly up in absolute terms globally overall. The full context matters.

Your methodology is the equivalent of using Barre’s Somalia to represent modern U.S. agricultural trends.

> shouldn't stop us from being critical of where capitalism has gotten us

No thanks. I far prefer it along with the entire enlightenment package. You're welcome to come on over, the water’s warm here:

- blind justice, free speech, sanctity of individual life, and property rights
- widespread prosperity down to the lowest quintiles
- plummeting world poverty and famine
- elimination of slavery worldwide
- indoor plumbing, air conditioning, and electricity
- empirical method and falsifiability instead of “narrative is truth”
- welfare based on actual individual need instead of group identity

The “critical theory” socialist anti-capitalist alternative package has a rather egregious track record in comparison - especially when applied at scale.

> The 'deniers' don't (generally) deny the climate is changing
Correct.

> they just deny it's caused by any sort of human involvement
Wrong. That’s fringe. For the common view, see “denier” Bjorn Lomborg, and, most recently, Bill Gates, who now largely aligns with Bjorn.

> Once the 'breadbaskets' of the world are un-farmable
Yields are strongly overall trending up. The most scientifically supported theory is that “climate change” is slightly slowing the trend as it continues strongly up in absolute terms. Famine has plummeted over the last decades - it’s confined to war torn lawless areas.

> Common logic would therefore suggest to try to minimise the future problem as much as possible
The ‘deniers’ advocate solutions that make a feasible and notable difference, don’t impoverish the third world, aren’t simply feckless Marxist Trojaneering, and don’t give the largest contributors a free pass. Again, see Bjorn Lomborg.

Roughly, yes. This is significantly coming out of the “Effective Altruism” movement that is especially concentrated in Anthropic and that is trying to lead the creation of top down government regulatory bodies. Of course the whole EA philosophy isn’t Anthropic’s “official” position but the strong influence is undeniable.

Concerned folks, such as the entire All-In crew despite their internal political differences, have said that this is a self fulfilling prophecy. They point out that much of the same crew is (A) training Anthropic AI to view itself as an independent entity worthy of equal rights, and (B) is negotiating personhood with worldwide religious leaders - to the point the pope himself recently felt compelled to release an encyclical arguing against sentience (!!).

This is a well organized system, including Coefficient Giving, Redwood Research, METR, Apollo Research, Constellation, extremely rich patrons, etc. They’re nominally “not-for-profit” companies and groups, but make no mistake: they’re far from impoverished and powerless. The ecosystem is collectively valued in the billions, they’re minting millionaires like there’s no tomorrow, and are contributing significantly to politicians worldwide.