If it's not oligarchs and despotic dictators that drive us into a apocalypse, it'll be these idealists. They have no real grasp of the topic (in this case agriculture) and forced a whole country to use organic farming. The resulting collapse in productivity and export bankrupted the country.
What did they expect? Well, they expected their aura of moral superiority to magically save them I guess. Instead, the cruel math of output vs input (rice and tea vs fertilizer) ground their idealism to dust.
We need to start keeping a scoreboard of countries ruined by clueless idealism. Chile, Venezuela, Sri Lanka. What others?
What happened was that they failed to employ competent people who could have managed the transition. There would have been pilot projects for each crop, and staged rollout. Any problems would be noticed long before they became any kind of crisis. Rollout for each problem crop would have paused until the problems were solved.
So, this is not a failure of idealism. It is a failure of management. It is possible that rollout would never have completed, but just as likely problems would have been solved, piecemeal, and outlay for imported fertilizers would have been radically reduced, one of the not-exactly-idealist goals of the project.
China's 30 million people starved by the CCP's management failings is a more stark example.
Doea anyone know about this Breakthrough Institute?
> The Breakthrough Institute is a global research center that identifies and promotes technological solutions to environmental and human development challenges.
JoeAltmaier|4 years ago
What did they expect? Well, they expected their aura of moral superiority to magically save them I guess. Instead, the cruel math of output vs input (rice and tea vs fertilizer) ground their idealism to dust.
We need to start keeping a scoreboard of countries ruined by clueless idealism. Chile, Venezuela, Sri Lanka. What others?
ncmncm|4 years ago
What happened was that they failed to employ competent people who could have managed the transition. There would have been pilot projects for each crop, and staged rollout. Any problems would be noticed long before they became any kind of crisis. Rollout for each problem crop would have paused until the problems were solved.
So, this is not a failure of idealism. It is a failure of management. It is possible that rollout would never have completed, but just as likely problems would have been solved, piecemeal, and outlay for imported fertilizers would have been radically reduced, one of the not-exactly-idealist goals of the project.
China's 30 million people starved by the CCP's management failings is a more stark example.
sdepablos|4 years ago
> The Breakthrough Institute is a global research center that identifies and promotes technological solutions to environmental and human development challenges.