Nice article! The upshot is that the boom of Chinese commodity prices in the mid-2010s is what stopped poor countries from catching up. That's a high level answer, but there's more nuance to it. In many places, I firmly believe the poor governance added with unnecessary bureaucracy is how half the countries lose sight on development. The prime example is India and to some extent Brazil.
Brazil is a prime example of what the lack of revolutions ousting old elites create in colonised countries.
There was no revolution for independence which kept the same families of land owners in the elites through it, after there was no revolution to phase out the monarchy in favour of the Republic, and the same entrenched elites managed to keep going since their local power was already settled. All of this is late 19th century.
Push this through the 20th century, and the same elites wanted to keep their power which was mostly based on agriculture production or mining: coffee, sugar cane, cattle, gold, iron ore, manganese. Any divergence of public policy investment away from these was met with hard pushback.
Industrialisation really only started in Brazil in the 1940s, it was rapid and captured by the same groups, just barely 20 odd years into the process the military dictatorship took over power and maintained the process of corporatism into the same elites (since most of those were supportive of the junta). Another 20 years of dictatorship left a corrupt political body, with the amnesty for the junta many members of the dictatorship party went back into normal political life under democratic rule with predictable outcomes to whom they would favour.
There never was a revolution such as land reform to distribute power in rural areas to more people, no industrial revolution to tear down agriculture/extractivism-based elites grip on power, and with corruption there's always the tilting of the scales towards the old elites with deep connections throughout all the layers of the State in new ventures.
Many issues with Brazil's high corruption stem from these roots, "coronelismo" [0] is still present even in large state capital cities.
"Poor governance" tends to be an easy catchall term to shift blame on for economic failures, but reality is, like you said, a lot more nuanced. India's socialist government looks justifiably horrible and inefficient when looked at through a rational economist's glasses, but what many don't realize is that its main priority for most of its existence has been stabilizing regions and preventing balkanization, which it has achieved significantly, sadly having to fall back to political nationalism (another catchall term the author of this article himself uses to push some blame) and socialist federal overreach to achieve it. We tend to be quick to notice failures but God knows how many circumstances we have dodged that were too close to disruptive civil war without recognizing it.
I probably don't understand your point, but if the result of having the prevention of balkanisation as the overriding goal is a "horrible and inefficient" government, why is it a good goal? If India had fractured into its component states (and you seem to imply that this has often been a strong threat), would the people have been poorer? It's rare that independent states ever want to rejoin their historical country of origin.
That's a good question but preferably left unanswered, because trying to find the answer could easily lead to some very, very bad outcomes.
Sub-Saharan Africa is an example of what happens when you allow balkanization through arbitrarily-drawn territorial lines (and all territorial lines are always inherently arbitrary enough to not please everyone). Perpetual war, misery, stagnation.
To be fair, I understand why 'preventing balkanization' is a target, but I'm not sure it's a correct one. By de-federalizing a bit, even temporarily, for a few decades, India might have fared a bit better overall. But I understand why they chose not to, it is a very dangerous choice that can end very poorly.
> While nearly three-quarters of the world’s cargo is carried by ocean-going ships, road vehicles like trucks and vans make up the majority, 65%, of freight’s emissions. Most ships burn fossil fuels and emit carbon, but they carry large amounts of freight at the same time, making them the most efficient way to move cargo. Road freight, however, can emit more than 100 times as much CO2 as ships to carry the same amount of freight the same distance. Road transport is also a fast-growing sector—80% of the global increase in diesel consumption can be attributed to trucks. E-commerce and home delivery are two reasons for this growth.
> Perhaps trains beat road transport efficiency to a similar degree.
Not just efficiency but you can use electric trains if your tracks are electrified. Add into that electricity production system that is mostly renewable+nuclear (the Nordics for example) and you get very very low emissions.
They do, trains are BAFFLINGLY fuel efficient in terms of pounds of cargo. Once they get up to speed, trains can move one ton of cargo about 480 mile per gallon, vs 130 with trucks
also, fuel is a huge cost (maybe even the main cost), and drag has a >linear relationship with speed- so the ships will slow down based on fuel prices.
The distance from Shenzhen to Long Beach is some 300 times the distance from Long Beach to Pasadena, depending on where exactly in Pasadena and which route you take. The CO2 emissions factor for a truck is some 10-100x that of a container ship. The exact ratio depends on what kind of truck, and what scope of emissions are being included. The more one accounts for, the more it will favor the boat. But overall, the emissions from the oceanic leg of the trip are probably anywhere from 1-3x those of the truck.
You have to normalize for package volume. There’s one ship involved, how many delivery vehicles and other auto related logistics until that whole shipload has reached its final destination?
The distance the boat has to cover is 11800 kilometers, and the truck covers only 54 kilometers. Taking that average of 12 times more usage from the table of sibling comment means the ship is still 20x worse.
Unfortunately a video but this covers it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aH3ZTTkGAs It talks about the meme about "pears grown in Argentina, packed in Thailand, sold in the US"
Gemini's summary about the shipping CO2 sections:
Shipping accounts for 80% of all international transport but only 37% of transport's carbon emissions (9:13 - 9:18).
Road transport is highlighted as the "King of pollution," making up less than 10% of international transport but over half of emissions (9:26 - 9:32).
Ferrying pears across the Earth is actually less carbon intensive than driving them in a truck to a packing plant across one's own country (9:48 - 9:52).
All international shipping combined is responsible for only 2.5% of global emissions (9:58 - 10:15).
I did some napkin math on this as I recently picked up a 3D Printer and wondered the environmental comparison to print-at-home vs pick something up at the store and I was surprised. Had some help from Claude but "last mile delivery" is absolutely where the majority of the kWh is burned in the supply chain.
Container ships use ~0.015 kWh per ton-km[1] and a car is ~1.35 kWh/km.
If you go to the store and end up getting >10 things it becomes "worth it" from an energy standpoint. Anything less printing at home seemed to be more economical... Not an expert though just saying it opened my eyes to how inefficient "last mile delivery" energy consumption is.
> In 2022, researchers from the University of Michigan and Ford Motor Co. modeled a single 36-item grocery cart to compare greenhouse emissions from an e-commerce grocery delivery and a traditional trip to the store to get the same items. Gregory Keoleian and colleagues at the university's Center for Sustainable Systems found that using an electric vehicle to pick up groceries could cut emissions by as much as half, compared to a gas-powered vehicle.
> They also found that home delivery could be an even better option. That's because with a delivery vehicle, orders are often clustered, with a driver dropping off not just your groceries, but also hitting neighbors during the same run. "Delivery is actually going to be more efficient in general than driving yourself in a gasoline SUV to the store to pick up your groceries," Keoleian says.
> A recent USDA survey found that in 88% of U.S households, people hop in their car to buy groceries, driving an average of 4 miles to their preferred store. ... All these car trips result in carbon pollution: over 17 million metric tons of CO2 come from car tailpipes just from driving back and forth to the grocery store.
> While it is common for the consumer to associate convenience in the food industry with increased greenhouse gas emissions, this is not always the case. Results from a 2013 University of Washington study indicate that grocery delivery has the potential to reduce carbon emissions anywhere from 20 to 75 percent (Ma 2013), while another study out of Finland found the potential for grocery delivery to reduce emissions by up to 87 percent (Siikavirta et al. 2002).
> Buying goods online can be better for the environment than in-store shopping for one fundamental reason: With online shopping, a single truck or van can replace multiple car trips, by multiple households, to stores. It helps to think of it this way: In most of the United States, almost every purchase means putting a vehicle on the road—either your own or a delivery company’s.
So the EPA report is bullshit interpretation of the USDA study:
>A recent USDA survey found that in 88% of U.S households, people hop in their car to buy groceries, driving an average of 4 miles to their preferred store.2
USDA study:
>Overall, households are, on average, 2.2 miles from the nearest SNAP-authorized supermarket or supercenter, but their usual store is 3.8 miles away.
Based on these questions:
>This report presents initial findings from the FoodAPS survey on three key questions:
1. How do shoppers travel to their main store and how far do they travel to get there?
2. In what type of store (eg., supermarket, mass merchandiser, convenience store) do
U.S. households typically shop for groceries?
3. Do store and travel mode differ by participation in food assistance programs or food
security status?
This can only tell us the distance to the store and does not support "All these car trips result in carbon pollution: over 17 million metric tons of CO2 come from car tailpipes just from driving back and forth to the grocery store."
In order to draw that conclusion, you need to show that the travel to and from grocery store was single purpose. Which is not supported by the data.
Most people I know don't go out of their way to go grocery shopping nor do they take specific trips to do so. It will be done in conjunction with another outing or when returning from work.
This could also! explain the reason that food secure people travel greater distance, as they tend to travel greater distance overall they choose a location closer to their travel route rather than their dwelling.
I liked the new guidelines given here [1]. However, I disagree with the protein target recommendation. Feels way too much for a normal healthy adult with reasonable activity.
> Protein target: 1.2–1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight per day.
Agreed, this protein target is high for likely many people.
Results from this meta-analysis [1] says
> protein intakes at amounts greater than ~1.6 g/kg/day do not further contribute RET [resistance exercise training]-induced gains in FFM [fat-free mass].
Said more plainly: if you're working out to gain muscle, anything more than 1.6g/kg/day won't help your muscle gains.
For those curious about why, see Figure 5. Americans also get too much protein already, ~20% more than recommended [2]. There are negative effects from too much protein (~>2g/kg/day) like kidney stones, heart disease, colon cancer [3]. Going back to the 1.2-1.6 g/kg/day range, this can be a good range if you're already working out, so get out there and walk/run/weight lift/swim/bike!
Protein is way underated for overall health
that 1.2-1.6g per kg of body weight (0.54-0.73g per pound) seems about right
but its mostly directly related to lean mass. Most people don't realize how much they actually need.
There's a lot of misinformation and stereotypes surrounding protein consumption—often portrayed as something only for bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts.
But for people aging, people looking for strength, folks looking for reducing fat and feeling more full. Protein is extremely helpful
> "Hold on. I think I hear another heckle. What is that? There are mobile phone apps that can measure things now? Really? Right. Security. Where's security?"
According to Nietzsche, masters create morality; slaves respond to master morality with their slave morality. Unlike master morality, which is sentiment, slave morality is based on ressentiment—devaluing what the master values and what the slave does not have. As master morality originates in the strong, slave morality originates in the weak. Because slave morality is a reaction to oppression, it vilifies its oppressors
This discourse in the comments reminded me of co-operative game strategies, a multi-party Prisoner's dilemma in some sense. If you want to see this in action amongst a group of individuals, you might enjoy this game by Tom Scott [1].
> Bhargava’s Law: Only 1 out of 10 research ideas make it into industrial practice.
Not sure of the source for this. Nevertheless, this is ridiculously high percentage of projects that ever see an industrial angle, at least in basic sciences. Perhaps, this is restricted to engineering.
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