this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
302 points (99.7% liked)

the_dunk_tank

15914 readers
12 users here now

It's the dunk tank.

This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.

Rule 1: All posts must include links to the subject matter, and no identifying information should be redacted.

Rule 2: If your source is a reactionary website, please use archive.is instead of linking directly.

Rule 3: No sectarianism.

Rule 4: TERF/SWERFs Not Welcome

Rule 5: No ableism of any kind (that includes stuff like libt*rd)

Rule 6: Do not post fellow hexbears.

Rule 7: Do not individually target other instances' admins or moderators.

Rule 8: The subject of a post cannot be low hanging fruit, that is comments/posts made by a private person that have low amount of upvotes/likes/views. Comments/Posts made on other instances that are accessible from hexbear are an exception to this. Posts that do not meet this requirement can be posted to !shitreactionariessay@lemmygrad.ml

Rule 9: if you post ironic rage bait im going to make a personal visit to your house to make sure you never make this mistake again

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] uralsolo@hexbear.net 99 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Farmers putting the entire food supply at risk by growing nothing but cash crops is the ur-inefficiency of market based production. There are probably Babylonian tablets complaining about a shortage of cereals because everyone tried to grow dates instead.

[–] NoGodsNoMasters@hexbear.net 71 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Capitalism breeds innovation"

-Ea-Nāṣir

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 21 points 1 year ago

I want this inscribed on a shitty copper ingot that somehow is hurtling through the front window of the chamber of commerce at 32mph.

[–] PolPotPie@hexbear.net 59 points 1 year ago (2 children)

dutch devoting 100% of arable land to tulip futures

spoilerprobably didn't happen but what if it did

[–] zifnab25@hexbear.net 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don't know if it ever meaningfully ate into the supply of arable land, but the tulip speculation must certainly incentivized a whole bunch of farmers to plant additional tulips (or, at least, claim to do so) for the purpose of cashing in on the bubble.

[–] TheLastHero@hexbear.net 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Not in their lovely, white, European metropole of course, but in their colonies in Indonesia (Dutch East Indies), the Dutch would rip up food crops and force villagers to plant cash crops instead as part of their "Cultivation System" (Cultuurstelsel)

Instead of land taxes, 20% of village land had to be devoted to government crops for export or, alternatively, peasants had to work in government-owned plantations for 60 days of the year. To allow the enforcement of these policies, Javanese villagers were more formally linked to their villages and were sometimes prevented from traveling freely around the island without permission. As a result of this policy, much of Java became a Dutch plantation. Some remarks while in theory only 20% of land were used as export crop plantation or peasants have to work for 66 days, in practice they used more portions of lands (same sources claim nearly reach 100%) until native populations had little to plant food crops which result famine in many areas and, sometimes, peasants still had to work more than 66 days.

[–] JuneFall@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This is so cruel and I will talk with my students about it in time.

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago

Ugh. Just had to do some bureaucracy hell to get an id and the whole time i was thinking id is just a weapon the state uses to control and exploit you.

[–] Alaskaball@hexbear.net 38 points 1 year ago

3rd horseman of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse from the book of Revelations is commonly called Famine, but he specifically does NOT blight crops, does not damage food. His weapon is the scales, and "destroys" not by weather or worm, but market manipulation.

In a world where food is more than abundant, the only reason why a person would starve to death is because it's unprofitable to save human lives.

3 year throwback post referencing the grapes of Wrath quote

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's one of America's primary weapons. We dump corn on a region until all the local food producing farmers are driven under, then the region has no choice but to import. And sometimes, whoopsie, we decide we want to use the corn for some other awful product, and people starve.

[–] autismdragon@hexbear.net 9 points 1 year ago

There's a moment from "Fed Up" that I'm absolutely obsessed with for some reason that this reminds me of. (AutiADHD moment).

Bill Clinton is one of the interviewees in it, and at one point he's talking about corn syrup, and pauses to say in the mostly faux-folksy way imaginable "which I don't think is a good use of corn". Idk why but it just stuck in my head.