I would say that food scarcity in preindustrial countries is not “manufactured” per se, because there isn’t an excess of food lying around in those places. You are right that people there starve in part because it isn’t profitable to get food to them, but there are other reasons too such as lack of adequate infrastructure to store and transport food and perhaps even lack of trained personnel to distribute it etc.

So really I think for preindustrial countries it’s a complex picture that basically boils down to the oppositional philosophy generally held when considering international relations. So in a situation like that I think it isn’t accurate to say that scarcity was manufactured in order to justify the existence of capitalism.

Also your statement that it isn’t profitable to industrialize other nations and so we don’t seems contrary to what I understand, which is that it is often profitable and that is why developed nations are often trying to invest in industrialization efforts (of course taking their unfair piece of the action in doing so). I feel that this principal of investing in industrialization has largely guided the international efforts of China, the USA, and others.

I think there is a big difference between “tough love” and unkindness. I don’t think being unkind is ever the best way to encourage someone to improve. Instead be “blunt” in communication/upfront with constructive criticism - which I see as a kindness.

It was not a relief, however, to learn that the sun will expand to be so large as to fully encompass the earth’s orbit long before it does eventually explode… In only 5 billion years… Which apparently was a few billion less than 6 year old me planned on living for!

I see how this meme is clearly targeting capitalism and not farmers, and I understand and agree with the point that money is the primary incentive for growing food under capitalism.

But in my opinion the part about letting people starve in order to manufacture scarcity misses the mark. As far as I can tell, the primary reason that so much food goes to waste is liability. No one wants to sell food that could reasonably be constrained as having caused an illness for fear of a lawsuit - if not for that fact, much more food “waste” would actually go to use. Even in the hypothetical absence of liability no overall food scarcity needs to be manufactured because there remains a scarcity of “premium” food.

Maybe someone can help me out with this… Every time I look at the scientific literature, it suggests that there is likely a link between acetaminophen use and changes in neural development in fetuses/very young children. Folks on Lemmy seem to feel that there is in fact NO evidence. Am I just looking at the wrong papers?

For example: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10814214/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0892036224000011 https://academic.oup.com/toxsci/article-abstract/138/1/139/1672900 https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/toxicology/articles/10.3389/ftox.2022.867748/full