Throughout human history, as Harari famously pointed out in his book “Homo Deus,” we have been battling three primary enemies: famine, plague, and war. Despite our significant efforts to overcome them, we continue to suffer from these afflictions. In this entry, I will focus on the first of these enemies: famine.
Indeed, until quite recently, starvation was a constant threat. Food supply and distribution represent one of humanity’s most critical challenges. While we don’t live on bread alone, without it, we cannot survive. In fact, a series of revolutions have been pivotal in changing the way we manage our food supply and distribution. The first of these was the Agricultural Revolution. Prior to this, humans mainly relied on hunting and gathering for sustenance. We hunted animals and gathered edible plants, seeds, and fruits – gifts from the earth, so to speak. Consequently, the human population remained minimal for nearly a million years, accounting for almost 90% of the entire history of the human race.
It was only around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago that our methods of food supply and distribution underwent a complete transformation. We began to domesticate animals and settled in specific areas, often near large rivers, where we discovered how to cultivate plants. This ushered in the Agricultural Revolution, which even altered the way we perceive time. To put it bluntly, it can be argued that agriculture endowed humans with an advanced cognitive sense of time and numbers. Maintaining agricultural fields and domestic animals required a keen understanding of these concepts. We had to remember that sowing seeds would lead to a harvest several months later. We needed to know when and how to move and feed our domestic animals, among other tasks.
While hunting and gathering certainly required advanced cognitive capacities, the Agricultural Revolution enhanced these abilities, particularly in large-scale numeric complexity. The concept of “more than ten” evolved from a vague notion of “many” to a need for precise counting and mathematical understanding. Similarly, our conception of time advanced to the point where we had to manage sophisticated calendars based on celestial movements. These developments laid the crucial foundations for the emergence of advanced civilizations.
Indeed, all the major civilizations, including those of Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, China, Mesoamerica, the Andes, and the Aegean, arose upon the readiness of our cognitive advancements. Moreover, without these civilizations — along with more detailed developments in areas like Minoan, Mycenaean, Phoenician, and the Persian Empire — the so-called Greek philosophy, which forms the foundation of Western civilizations and the birth of science and technology, would never have emerged. As our collective cognitive capacities advanced on a large scale, the practical applications became unprecedented. This reached a tipping point around the nineteenth century with the Industrial Revolution, ushering in the era of mass production.
While the Agricultural Revolution mitigated famine to the extent that humans could expand their communities from tribes into various types of civilizations, it did not completely eliminate starvation. Compared to hunting and gathering, the productivity of agriculture is tremendous. As Malthus somewhat deceptively worried about, we believed that food deficiency could never be fully solved, as food supply could not keep up with the incremental increase in human population growth. As Marx and Engels noted, albeit limitedly, even this insufficient food supply, and wealth itself, could not be equally and fairly distributed among all humans due to the very civilizations we created. Those in power accumulated most of the wealth, while the rest remained poor and alienated. This so-called disparity between the 1% and 99% still pervades in the twenty-first century. As Piketty pointed out in “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” there is a mechanism by which wealth continues to accumulate among the already wealthy, while those without capital assets may find it increasingly difficult to improve their economic position.
The Industrial Revolution marked a pivotal shift from manual labor to industrial, automated, and mass productive labor, ushering in an era of material prosperity unprecedented in human history. While famine persists, the evidence of material abundance is undeniable, with the human population surpassing 8 billion, a feat that would have been impossible without the Industrial Revolution. This growth has been exponential, particularly post-industrialization, whereas it remained relatively stable for thousands of years following the Agricultural Revolution.
The crux of the issue now lies more in the equal and fair distribution of wealth, rather than the mere existence of wealth. Focusing on food supply and distribution, the challenge is increasingly about equitable distribution. However, this issue is not as straightforward as twentieth-century Marxists might have suggested. When we discuss distribution, given the highly advanced mechanisms currently in place, it appears that everyone already has enough. In fact, in the most remote villages—be they in mountains, deserts, or islands—even in the middle of nowhere, we see billboards for soft drinks from global corporations, instant noodles, canned foods, and various sweets, all thanks to a globally advanced food supply system. The supply chain seems near-perfect. People in rural villages can access the same kind of junk food as urban residents do in convenience stores and shopping malls. So, when it comes to the availability of such foods, the supply is ample.
But is this purely an issue of distribution? The answer is both yes and no. It’s ‘yes’ because, again, the distribution of junk food is almost perfect. But it’s also ‘no.’ The real issue is that, particularly for those in poverty, the only affordable options are often these unhealthy foods. This situation points to a distorted form of distribution, perhaps influenced by the strategies of global food supply corporations.
It seems famine is over. We are overfed. But we are bombarded by the abundance of junk food with an excess of sugar. Harari also stated as follows:
Indeed, in most countries today overeating has become a far worse problem than famine. In the eighteenth century, Marie Antoinette allegedly advised the starving masses that if they ran out of bread, they should just eat cake instead. Today, the poor are following this advice to the letter. Whereas the rich residents of Beverly Hills eat lettuce salads and steamed tofu with quinoa, in the slums and ghettos the poor gorge on Twinkie cakes, Cheetos, hamburgers, and pizza. In 2014 more than 2.1 billion people were overweight, compared to 850 million who suffered from malnutrition. Half of humankind is expected to be overweight by 2030. In 2010 famine and malnutrition combined killed about 1 million people, whereas obesity killed 3 million.
As Marie Antoinette allegedly suggested, we are now being fed cake instead of bread. But have we truly overcome famine? I argue that we haven’t. Ironically, we’re facing a new type of famine—a famine of overeating junk food, reflecting a certain post-modern consumerism. This isn’t just about food; it extends to information too. We’re encountering a kind of distorted distribution.
Decades ago, visiting libraries meant accessing quality books selected by librarians. If we consider knowledge as the mind’s nourishment, then we used to feast on high-quality content. However, in today’s digital age, while access to information has been revolutionized – making quality knowledge readily available at our fingertips – we’re paradoxically suffering from a famine caused by this distorted distribution. We find ourselves addicted to both junk food and junk knowledge. Both are easily accessible, appealing, and plentiful. Yet, much like junk food silently undermines our physical health, junk knowledge insidiously affects our minds.
Image by Dinh Khoi Nguyen
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