Truncating the Y axis is misleading, and in this case seems intentionally so. Around 100 billion people have ever lived past infancy. The ratio of the next year in Africa vs Ukraine is an irrelevant comparison of parts of noise. Also, is 1,000,000 is a reasonable estimate? That’s about 1⁄6 of worldwide COVID deaths, and a few years’ worth of malaria deaths. Have EA orgs or the like have shifted their focus from malaria to food? There is a worthwhile question here, but it’s not about comparing very different populations and summarizing all outcomes as “death or not”. I’d be very happy to have an exploration of “how do we end the Ukrainian invasion in a medium-term european-lifestyle-compatible way with a minimum of worldwide pain and horror”. This could easily include questions of how to feed people in Africa better by modifying sanctions or by other means.
An additional 1,000,000 deaths would mean 12% more deaths due to starvation. If food prices go up by significantly more than 12% as predictions suggest, the number seems in the right ballpark.
Fair enough. 1M additional deaths by starvation is about a 4% increase in overall deaths (note: couldn’t easily find good statistics on this so may be off by a bit). And there will certainly be longer-term sub-mortality impacts from it as well. I really do NOT mean to imply that it’s all fine and not a concern. I mostly want to argue against overstating this aspect by picking extreme dimensions of comparison.
I don’t think there is a simple framing for it, and I don’t think it’s a binary decision. You might frame it in terms of how to make more of Africa food-independent regardless of this year’s crises. You might frame it in terms of carve-outs for sanctions. You might frame it in terms of escalating militarily instead of economically (at the risk of a LOT more death). Or even try to estimate the longer-term hedonic cost of just letting Russia attack without repercussion.
All of these involve comparisons of world states conditional on actions. They rarely can be done by picking two population numbers as representative of the entire outcome.
[Bowing out, here. Feel free to respond or make final comments. ]
Truncating the Y axis is misleading, and in this case seems intentionally so. Around 100 billion people have ever lived past infancy. The ratio of the next year in Africa vs Ukraine is an irrelevant comparison of parts of noise. Also, is 1,000,000 is a reasonable estimate? That’s about 1⁄6 of worldwide COVID deaths, and a few years’ worth of malaria deaths. Have EA orgs or the like have shifted their focus from malaria to food?
There is a worthwhile question here, but it’s not about comparing very different populations and summarizing all outcomes as “death or not”. I’d be very happy to have an exploration of “how do we end the Ukrainian invasion in a medium-term european-lifestyle-compatible way with a minimum of worldwide pain and horror”. This could easily include questions of how to feed people in Africa better by modifying sanctions or by other means.
https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/people-and-poverty/hunger-and-obesity/how-many-people-die-from-hunger-each-year/story suggests that as of 2017 we had 9 million starving per year.
An additional 1,000,000 deaths would mean 12% more deaths due to starvation. If food prices go up by significantly more than 12% as predictions suggest, the number seems in the right ballpark.
Fair enough. 1M additional deaths by starvation is about a 4% increase in overall deaths (note: couldn’t easily find good statistics on this so may be off by a bit). And there will certainly be longer-term sub-mortality impacts from it as well. I really do NOT mean to imply that it’s all fine and not a concern. I mostly want to argue against overstating this aspect by picking extreme dimensions of comparison.
What do you think would be better ways to compare the scale of the damage done to Africans by the sanctions compared to that done to Ukrainiens?
I don’t think there’s a good way to make that comparison, because it’s strongly embedded in a false dichotomy.
What framing do you think would be better for thinking about the unintented consequences of letting a significant number of Africans starve?
I don’t think there is a simple framing for it, and I don’t think it’s a binary decision. You might frame it in terms of how to make more of Africa food-independent regardless of this year’s crises. You might frame it in terms of carve-outs for sanctions. You might frame it in terms of escalating militarily instead of economically (at the risk of a LOT more death). Or even try to estimate the longer-term hedonic cost of just letting Russia attack without repercussion.
All of these involve comparisons of world states conditional on actions. They rarely can be done by picking two population numbers as representative of the entire outcome.
[Bowing out, here. Feel free to respond or make final comments. ]