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That idea is amazing and simple I hope to be able to buy the product or create it myself. Simple ideas work best in life most of the time ,but what about dehydration? Doesn't that make food last for many years?
Yes, of course, but dehydrated fruits and vegetables can't replace fresh ones. Ever try to make a salad from dehydrated greens, dehydrated tomatoes, dehydrated onions, dehydrated celery, and dehydrated cucumbers? It's not the same thing at all.
This is a simple invention that greatly extends the life of FRESH fruits and vegetables, no other preservation necessary.
So where are the facts here? So far we have only what someone said and who was introduced as someone famous. Talk about stacking the deck.
If he was so famous, did anyone here other than the OP know about him before? Maybe?
I'm laughing myself silly over this comment, because again you've fallen head first into one of your most frequently used fallacies, argumentum ad ignorantiam ("arguing from ignorance") -- in which you claim that because you don't know something it can't be true...
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A fallacy that occurs when someone argues that because we don't know something is true, it must be false, or because we lack proof that a statement is false, it must be true. Ignorance or lack of evidence doesn't necessarily mean a position or claim is true or false.
Common Examples: "No one has ever proven that UFOs exist. Therefore, they don't exist."
In other words, the fact that you are unfamiliar with Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome, author of "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth" and more than 30 other books, a man who might easily be called one of the "patron saints" of Green Living, and therefore because of your ignorance you ridicule him. that goes a long way toward explaining why you are so much at odds with other posters here.
To get the ball rolling, take a look at the iconic Time magazine cover and cover story from January 10, 1964, found at this link:
He has been called "the first poet of technology," "the greatest living genius of industrial-technical realization in building," "an anticipator of the world to come—which is different from being a prophet," "a seminal thinker," and "an inspired child." But all these encomiums are fairly recent. For most of his life, R. Buckminster Fuller was known simply as a crackpot.
He is also something more than the mere sum of his praise and criticism. He is a throwback to the classic American individualist, a mold which produced Thomas Edison and Thoreau—men with the fresh eye that cannot...
Or this from Life magazine...
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In Praise of an American Visionary
Bucky was a deep thinker who learned to become a great maker. He was driven by curiosity and optimism that was infectious. His dozens of books laid out plans to fix, manage or design around the world’s problems. Whether you agreed with his solutions didn’t matter much. In fact, it still doesn’t.
The real lesson in his books is in the beauty (and joy) of whole-systems thinking.
Or this, his official biography, from the Buckminster Fuller Institute
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R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER, 1895 - 1983
Hailed as "one of the greatest minds of our times," R. Buckminster Fuller was renowned for his comprehensive perspective on the world's problems. For more than five decades, he developed pioneering solutions that reflected his commitment to the potential of innovative design to create technology that does "more with less" and thereby improves human lives.
Grab yourself a little humility, and then let's talk about how the earth is a closed system, shall we? It's very much like a spaceship, and whatever we dump into our air and our water will persist and not go away, because there is no "away" for it to go to, and that whatever we have aboard the "spaceship" now is all we have to work with, except for the incoming sunlight.
And then he did brilliant whole system inventories of... well... everything, and showed how they interact and work together. His prodigian genius was to be able to see it all together, and to integrate what he saw into unified visions of how we could move from wholesale destruction of the planet toward true sustainability.
Bucky's calculations that all the people in the world could be well fed on the food that was already being grown, if so much of it wasn't spoiled in storage or transport, or wasn't located in the wrong geographical areas, absolutely transformed the entire Global Hunger movement. Charity organizations turned away from famine relief, which is transitory, toward relief of persistent hunger, which claims millions of lives every year and causes chronic suffering. Instead of sending a ton of dried meals to a village where hunger is rampant. today organizations are more likely to send a couple of goats, or to dig a well and supply a pump, which can have a longer lasting benefit. That all results from adoption of Buckminster Fuller's whole systems thinking about our life on earth.
He was a great man, a genius for the ages, an unparalleled thinker who made a huge difference in life, and a person who has much to teach us still.
All that and not one fact other than a he said. The condensed version is that the so called invention doesn't solve the problem claimed as evidenced by the contradiction in the OP.
If there was enough food in 1973 to feed the entire population of the world (according to the info the OP put out), then why isn't everyone being fed? It isn't because all the food is spoiling unless we're all going to regress to transporting fresh fruit and vegetables across India by walking and carrying everything in backpacks or maybe if we're lucky, wheelbarrows.
Spoiled food isn't the reason there are so many hungry people on the planet, it is the inability to buy the food in the first place.
Does the inventor have a solution to help all the hungry pay for the food saved from spoiling or does someone else have to figure that out?
The means to transport food before it spoils and get it to hungry people already exists and has existed for many decades.
We now have fast shipping, jets and all kinds of nifty things that can move other things from any point on the planet to any other point on the planet, in hours if we want, days easily and within a week without making too much of an effort.
Also invented (but apparently not brought up until I just did) is the fact that we also have the technology and means to grow food in areas where hunger exists. That food would be consumed, not sitting on some shelf because of some blue sky idea to preserve food.
The reasons so many people go hungry isn't because the food spoils before they can eat it, they can't get it to eat because they can't pay to get it.
Name one head of state on this planet that goes hungry because there isn't enough food to put on their tables every day. Somehow the same means of transportation that being them bon bons, fresh fruit and vegetables, not to mention fresh beef and other meats can only move a few bags of food at a time, enough for one family.
Okay. Lets get down to the nitty gritty here. Why does the Op ignore the 5 main reasons that hunger exits? Could it be because it doesn't fit the invention?
1. Poverty trap (that would be MONEY!)
2. Lack of investment in agriculture (that would be MONEY!)
3. Climate and weather (read and see how money plays in that too)
4. War and displacement
5. Unstable markets
This is from the World Food Program.
More information:
Why do people go hungry? The OP theorizes that it is because food is spoiling. Anyone saying different is, well, told they simply don't understand.
Pay attention to how much it costs to feed a gild in need of food - $45. Well now, $45 solves the problem according to them but not the OP. The point is of course - MONEY, not food spoiling as a major problem.
Hungry people don't store food. Who would even think that hungry people are going to store fruits and vegetables that they can't get in the first place?
Hello?
Then this which is just as valid and note that food spoilage is not a primary problem causing hunger:
"Five things contribute to most of the world's hunger:
Poverty: Poor people do not have the resources—whether land, tools or money—needed to grow or buy food on a consistent basis.
Armed Conflict: War disrupts agricultural production, and governments often spend more on arms than on social programs.
Environmental Overload: Over-consumption by wealthy nations and rapid population growth in poor nations strain natural resources and make it harder for poor people to feed themselves.
Discrimination: Lack of access to education, credit and employment—a recipe for hunger—is often the result of racial, gender or ethnic discrimination.
Lack of Clout: In the final analysis, chronic hunger is caused by powerlessness. People who don't have power to protect their own interests are hungry. The burden of this condition falls most acutely on children, women and elderly people."
1. Poverty trap (that would be MONEY!)
2. Lack of investment in agriculture (that would be MONEY!)
3. Climate and weather (read and see how money plays in that too)
4. War and displacement
5. Unstable markets
Your ability to misread, misquote, and misstate what others say is epic. It's absolutely beyond compare. Here's what this site you linked to actually says, from the top of the page. (I invite others to fact check me on this)
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What causes hunger?
The world produces enough to feed the entire global population of 7 billion people. And yet, one person in eight on the planet goes to bed hungry each night. In some countries, one child in three is underweight. Why does hunger exist?
OK, let's stop right there... that says almost the exact thing I said in my opening post, the thing you've been ridiculing ever since.
It goes on to say...
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There are many reasons for the presence of hunger in the world and they are often interconnected. Here are six that we think are important.
And here we can see you've actually misstated the very next point in your summary. WFP says there are many reasons why people go hungry in a world that grows enough food for everyone, and they talk about six they think are important. Somehow you lost one in your summary, the 6th one. I wonder why?
Oh, yes, here it is, just a few paragraphs down the page. Let's examine it to see why you didn't mention it... Yes, I see now, according to the United Nations World Food Programme, one of the six most important causes of world hunger is.... (drum roll please).... .
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Food wastage
One third of all food produced (1.3 billion tons) is never consumed. This food wastage represents a missed opportunity to improve global food security in a world where one in 8 is hungry.
Producing this food also uses up precious natural resources that we need to feed the planet. Each year, food that is produced but not eaten guzzles up a volume of water equivalent to the annual flow of Russia's Volga River. Producing this food also adds 3.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, with consequences for the climate and, ultimately, for food production.
In other words, I believe that what you posted is dishonest, a deliberate misquote of what was said, because the part you deleted supports what I said from the beginning. Did you honestly believe nobody would catch you at it?
And just to wrap this up, I never claimed this invention would end world hunger, and I even pointed out that I thought the article was exaggerated (that's what "overblown" means), but I thought the invention sounded interesting. You manufactured your whole reductio ad absurdum rant, completely trashing this thread, out of your own imagination, rather than just talking like a person about what I actually said, and about what the World Food Programme says.
Exactly where does it say food shortages are the result of spoilage or can't you remember what you say from one post another?
From the OP:
"The famous engineer and futurist Buckminster Fuller, who invented the geodesic dome, said in many ways that we grow enough food to feed everyone in the world, if we could just get it to people to eat before it rots or gets spoiled by insects and rodents. "
The OPs premise? That food spoilage is the primary reason people go hungry. The proof? He upholds for display some invention that reduces spoilage. Notice one very important thing, the OP talks about food getting spoiled by insects and rodents yet that doesn't come up again. Why? Because preservation of food from spoilage does not preclude damage from insects or rodents. It seems insects and rodents like fresh food too, LOL.
I'm typical fashion, once proved wrong the OP is no longer relevant and imagination takes over.
The OP states food spoilage is the reason that people go hungry and that eliminating spoilage would cure hunger. That is the farce is has been proven to be.
Last edited by Mack Knife; 11-12-2014 at 02:11 AM..
Right here on CD. California's drought affects food production. Spoiling isn't the biggest concern, just getting certain foods is, like Avocados. So what, they just bring them up from Mexico and elsewhere. Food travels hundreds and even thousands of miles and arrives fresh and what dictates getting it? A consumer willing to pay for it.
And look, just click and get fresh fruit and veggies delivered to your doorstep:
Does it cost a lot? You bet but for a price you can get it. How does the person in an impoverished location get it? Well, they can't. Not because the food would spoil on the way there (there are other services that delivery anywhere) but because they don't have Internet connectivity nor a computer.
Would the invention so touted by the OP solve a food spoiling problem? It might but would it solve the hunger problem? A big N O.
With one exception, no one on this thread has agreed with you.
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