Predicting Food Crises Through News Streams

[Webster]

Science Advances: Predicting food crises using news streams

Abstract
--Anticipating food crisis outbreaks is crucial to efficiently allocate emergency relief and reduce human suffering. However, existing predictive models rely on risk measures that are often delayed, outdated, or incomplete. Using the text of 11.2 million news articles focused on food-insecure countries and published between 1980 and 2020, we leverage recent advances in deep learning to extract high-frequency precursors to food crises that are both interpretable and validated by traditional risk indicators. We demonstrate that over the period from July 2009 to July 2020 and across 21 food-insecure countries, news indicators substantially improve the district-level predictions of food insecurity up to 12 months ahead relative to baseline models that do not include text information. These results could have profound implications on how humanitarian aid gets allocated and open previously unexplored avenues for machine learning to improve decision-making in data-scarce environments.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abm3449

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

We're already in one!!!! Its crazy how much things cost.

 

[duskpire]

We're already in one!!!! Its crazy how much things cost.

I'm not surprised. Overpopulation will do that.

 

[Webster]

I'm not surprised. Overpopulation will do that.

What is the myth of overpopulation? - Population Research Institute

The myth of overpopulation is an unfounded belief that: the number of people on Earth will exceed the carrying capacity of the planet in the foreseeable future, leading to economic or social collapse, and that actions ought to be taken to curb population growth. Population alarmists who buy into...

www.pop.org

The myth of overpopulation is an unfounded belief that: the number of people on Earth will exceed the carrying capacity of the planet in the foreseeable future, leading to economic or social collapse, and that actions ought to be taken to curb population growth.

Population alarmists who buy into the overpopulation myth believe that the world’s growing population will strip the Earth of its useable resources and will outpace innovation and rates of production. This, they believe, will cause diminishing standards of living, more poverty, more hunger, famine and starvation, water shortages, pestilence, war and conflict over diminishing resources, the evisceration of wildlife habitats, and environmental catastrophes (i.e. global climate change).

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Where did the overpopulation myth come from?
In 1798, an Anglican minister by the name of Thomas Malthus published the first edition of his An Essay on the Principle of Population where he speculated that, under perfect economic conditions, humans reproduce exponentially while their ability to increase agricultural output increases only linearly at best.

--- --- ---

What was the affect of Malthus' theory?
Malthus’ ideas on population selection inspired Charles Darwin to formulate his theory of evolution and were highly influential on Francis Galton and the field of eugenics.

Neo-Malthusian theories on overpopulation and population control endured into the 20th and 21st centuries and were foundational for the population control and radical environmentalist movements of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. U.S. and U.N. foreign aid policies and structures still in place today were largely put into place during the 1960s and 1970s and influenced by Neo-Malthusian theories, placing a heavy emphasis on reducing population growth in the developing world as a principle aim of foreign development assistance.

By the early 20th century, Social Darwinism and eugenics was all the rage and population control was primarily advocated as a way to improve the gene pool and to weed out undesirables, primarily through sterilization. Social Darwinism was frequently mixed with pseudoscience, racism, and hyper nationalism, a toxic concoction which was later extended to its full brutal scale by the Nazi party in Germany during the Holocaust in their attempt to create a master race.

You were saying, Wessel?

 

[duskpire]

What is the myth of overpopulation? - Population Research Institute

The myth of overpopulation is an unfounded belief that: the number of people on Earth will exceed the carrying capacity of the planet in the foreseeable future, leading to economic or social collapse, and that actions ought to be taken to curb population growth. Population alarmists who buy into...

www.pop.org

You were saying, Wessel?

Sorry. The PRI is a Catholic Advocacy Group that spreads misinformation and offers no evidence for their claims. They have little to no credibility.

Reasoning: Propaganda, Pseudoscience, Poor Sourcing, Lack of Transparency, Anti-LGBTQ
Bias Rating: EXTREME RIGHT
Factual Reporting: LOW
Country: USA
Press Freedom Rank: MOSTLY FREE
Media Type: Organization/Foundation
Traffic/Popularity: Minimal Traffic
MBFC Credibility Rating: LOW CREDIBILITY

History​

Founded in 1989, by Paul Marx, a family sociologist, a Catholic priest, and Benedictine monk, Population Research Institute (PRI) is a “non-profit research group whose goals are to expose the myth of overpopulation as well as “human rights abuses committed in population control programs, and to make the case that people are the world’s greatest resource.” Essentially, the primary function of the group is to operate programs against the advancement of contraception, sterilization, and abortion. They further claim their “global network of pro-life groups spans over 30 countries.”

Read our profile on United States government and media.

Funded by / Ownership​

PRI is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) think tank that is primarily funded through donations. However, they lack transparency as they do not disclose donors of funding sources on the website. According to Media Transparency, they have received $130K from the conservative The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc. Further, charity navigator rates them 1 out of 4 stars for Financial, Accountability, and Transparency.

Analysis / Bias​

In review, the Population Research Institute is a Catholic advocacy group that promotes banning abortion and contraception. The views expressed align with the Christian right and often are at odds with science. The website publishes in-depth reports such as this: Innocents Betrayed: A side of family planning the White House does not discuss. They also publish a weekly briefing that features loaded emotional wording such as this: Population control policies to combat climate change prove deadly, demographer says. This story relies on the Questionable Daily Mail as its primary source. Further, they sometimes republish news from other poor sources such as LifeSiteNews, which holds extreme right views such as this: Transgender people are suffering, and indulging their delusions will not help them as well as anti-LGBTQ messages, How to Defeat the Enemies of Natural Marriage.


When it comes to science, they have published unproven information such as this: Out of India Comes Yet More Evidence that Abortion Causes Breast Cancer. According to the American Cancer Society the consensus of studies indicates that “induced abortion is not linked to an increase in breast cancer risk.” Further, they frequently do not align with the consensus of science regarding human-influenced climate change: Climate Change Alarmism Results in Anti-Baby Madness.

PRI has also faced criticism from some groups, such as the Ten Million Club, which states they have a “religious hidden agenda (against family planning and contraception) that motivates its deceiving claims, stating that those are not backed up by any original research as PRI has never been published in a single peer-review paper in any scientific journal.” Finally, the Southern Poverty Law Center has called the Population Research Institute “an anti-choice and anti-LGBT organization.”

Failed Fact Checks

• See evidence above.

Overall, we rate the Population Research Institute Questionable based on extreme right-wing bias, promotion of propaganda and pseudoscience, as well the use of poor sources, and lack of transparency with funding. (D. Van Zandt 11/19/2019) Updated (09/07/2022)

Population Research Institute - Bias and Credibility

QUESTIONABLE SOURCE A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, consistent promotion of propaganda/conspiracies, poor or no

mediabiasfactcheck.com

 

[duskpire]

@Webster

According to both universities based on empirical documentation, we are overpopulated. You do realize they teach about this in public schools and college?

Overpopulation already exists for billions of poor people living under insecure conditions around the world: on unsuitable land, in unsafe houses, lacking fresh water, or living in severely polluted environments. Natural catastrophes such as drought, flooding, or earthquakes may kill people, but overpopulation does too, by severely increasing people’s vulnerability. But the news media rarely reports this fact.

Overpopulation exists today in crowded mega-cities where many residents have never seen a wild landscape. Even small green spots are disappearing in densely populated urban areas, which will become increasingly crowded as population growth and urbanization continue. The negative effects of crowding and lack of connection to nature are well documented.

A Brief on Overpopulation - Why it Matters and What You Can Do About It - MAHB

As humanity has surpassed the 8 billion people milestone, it is more important now than ever to talk about population. What will we do if we continue to grow at exponential rates? What are ethical, viable strategies to decrease population? “First off, let me get this straight, discussing...

mahb.stanford.edu

The global population is currently rising at a steady rate. The number of humans existing on Earth has never been as high as it is now. In 1800, Earth had approximately 1 billion inhabitants, which rose to 2.3 billion in 1940, then 3.7 billion in 1970, and approximately 7.5 billion today. In the last five decades, Earth has experienced an extreme population boom. This phenomenon is known as overpopulation, where the condition in which the amount of humans currently existing on Earth outstrips future resource availability and earth’s carrying capacity. Throughout human history, birth and death rates have always counterbalanced each other, which ensured that Earth had a maintainable population growth level. However, in the 1960s, the global population increased at an unparalleled rate. This brought about a variety of apocalyptic predictions, most prominently, a revival of the Malthusian trap panic.

Public Health and Overpopulation: The United Nations Takes Action

With the world’s population rising faster than ever before, will our population growth outpace our resource reserves? How can the dangerous effects of overpopulation be managed without diminishing the major improvements in our quality of life that come about thanks to population growth?

hir.harvard.edu

 

[Webster]

we are overpopulated

Yeah, and Malthus is still wrong.

 

[duskpire]

Yeah, and Malthus is still wrong.

Wow. Really? That's your play? I'm afraid you're going to have to do better than that. I am still unconvinced by your argument. But hey, that's okay if you don't believe anything about overpopulation. Whatever floats your boat.