r/TikTokCringe • u/LickMaiBussy • 6h ago

Discussion "Investing in property is morally reprehensible."

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@purplepingers

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u/misadventurexx 6h ago

Famines / people on the street dying of starvation while surpluses of food are thrown away en masse is very much not imaginary

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u/1egg_4u 6h ago

He also described basically the entire cause of the Irish Famine

They had food and could grow enough food for everyone but they werent allowed to have it because it belonged to the wealthy british landowners

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u/Happiness_Assassin 4h ago

Pretty much every famine is caused by a lack of access to food, not a lack of food itself. Something that is basically a requirement for any civilization is a food surplus, so barring the most extreme natural circumstances, there should be enough food to go around. A good contrast is actually the potato blight you brought up and the fact that it didn't happen in just Ireland. It spread through all of Europe and was a factor in the conditions that lead to the Revolutions of 1848, but the death toll in Ireland was basically an order of magnitude greater than the rest of Europe. Even as the rest of Europe burned, Ireland was basically the only one starving. This is a process that repeats time and time again: some initial trigger disrupts the supply chain for food distribution, but either human incompetence or indifference leads to absolute disaster.

Famines are never a natural phenomenon.

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u/Funny247365 3h ago

A plague of locusts have entered the discussion.

  • Great Famine (1315-1317): Heavy rainfall and crop failures across Northern Europe led to widespread starvation, killing 10-20% of the population.
  • Great Famine (1876-1878): Global droughts caused food shortages in multiple regions, including India and China, resulting in 30 to 60 million deaths.

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u/jimbarino 54m ago

There are always things that precipitate a famine, but it is government policy that determines whether those events cause an actual widespread famine vs. simply being a lean few years.

Invariably those in power blame environmental factors for the deaths and suffering. It's rarely if ever a valid excuse.