Live Where The Food Is! World Hunger, Logistics, and Politics

An article in the latest National Geographic on Food states that the worlds farmers produce enough food to feed every human being on earth roughly 2868 calories per day, 768 calories more than the recommended 2100 calories per day by the World Food Programme. So why is there still hunger in the world? Why do approximately 40 Million people per year die of hunger and close to 1 Billion suffer some adverse effects from nutritional shortcomings?

We know why:

• War 
• Lack of infrastructure 
• Weather 
• Natural disasters 
• Government corruption 
• Lack of leadership 

Besides these reasons there is one more. In the areas of the world where we have more than enough we keep some people out. We maintain what we have by limiting the numbers of people and types of people we allow into our lands. We take care of our own. Nothing wrong with that in terms of survival. It is a fact. But most of us probably believe in more than just survival of the fittest. So we try to help by giving to those nations that have less. Problem is the problems listed above.

Comedian Sam Kinison had a famous rant about hunger:

"You want to help world hunger? Stop sending them food. Don't send them another bite, send them U-Hauls. Send them a guy that says, "You know, we've been coming here giving you food for about 35 years now and we were driving through the desert, and we realized there wouldn't BE world hunger if you people would live where the FOOD IS! YOU LIVE IN A DESERT!! UNDERSTAND THAT? YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT!! NOTHING GROWS HERE! NOTHING'S GONNA GROW HERE! Come here, you see this? This is sand. You know what it's gonna be 100 years from now? IT'S GONNA BE SAND!! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! We have deserts in America, we just don't LIVE in them, assholes!" The video of this can be viewed here: 

Hyperpower: The shot heard round the world

The shot heard round the world during the beginning of the American War for Independence was indeed heard in every country that has since rebelled against dictatorship and monarchy and chosen liberty and democracy. First throughout Europe and the rest of the Americas, then India, then through the old Soviet Block nations, the Arab Spring as a spurt at least, now undercurrents in China as well as other nations. Even if those revolutions may point to other inspirations, ever since America became an independent democracy, no matter the realities or debates about "how" democratic it is, people around the globe have known and been able to point to one place on earth where people stood up and declared their freedom and still declare it.

The American experiment has continued with setbacks and struggles. The American culture has grown into a distinct one through the first two centuries of its existence. That culture permeates the entire world through its television, movies, books, magazines, news, fashion, music, and other forms of art. Governments and religious institutions try to slow it or stop it but it can't be stopped because it consists of ideas, especially of ideas about freedoms that all should enjoy.

And what makes those ideas about freedom so irresistible is their nature as indicated by Thomas Jefferson, they are self-evident. Just as knowing that wind is real even though you can't see it or that gravity is real because you can sense it and feel it or that time is real because its passing leaves its marks, freedom of speech, of thought, of religion, of expression, and all of the other freedoms we hold dear and that our laws maintain, seem naturally right, correct, hard to argue against, true.

Even though America may win some military battles and wars and loose others, the power of its culture ceaselessly marches forward into every other culture in the world winning victory after victory, reshaping the world to at least grab hold of the freedoms at its core. Instead of a superpower, this cultural hegemony suggest what has been called hyperpower, an influence above and beyond military, political, and economic supremacy.

What Makes Things or Ideas Go Viral?

A recent book, "Contagious: Why Things Catch On" by Jonah Berger, lays out a road-map or a recipe for taking almost anything or any idea and making it go viral. This book completes a trilogy of books by different authors that look at different angles of this topic with the first being Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" and the second being Chip and Dan Heath's "Made To Stick". In "Contagious" Jonah Berger presents six ingredients that contribute to the making things spread across a populous, describes why each aspect is significant, and gives numerous examples . He lists the pieces as Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, and Stories (STEPPS).

John Berger offers the STEPPS as a framework which he defines succinctly with the following list/acronym which really must be understood alongside the book's narrative on the research behind it and the examples described as well as on the paramount concept that word of mouth IS the vehicle that makes things, products, ideas, etc. (IT) viral.

• (S) Social Currency - make talking about IT make people look good, appear smart, worth remarking on to others, feel like an insider, can game-like mechanics like points etc be employed to initiate competitive or habitual achievement type behaviors. 
•  (T) Triggers - make as many associations or links to IT from other things as is sensibly or logically possible; other things that are themselves popular, common place, or commonly encountered often in everyday life.
• (E) Emotion - make IT generate emotion when talked about, the more intense the type of feeling, negative or positive, the better as long as the negative type does not turn away people. 
• (P) Public - make IT publicly tangibly visible when people use IT or talk about IT and if possible make IT reverberate over time after public use or exposure. 
• (P) Practical Value - make IT help people and thus help people help others by sharing information about IT; make it easy for people to help others by spreading, sharing, or talking about IT
• (S) Stories - make IT part of a story that can be retold in a way that cannot leave out IT; make IT integral to the narrative but make sure the story is itself worth retelling by making it broadly interesting while also making use of the other STEPPS if possible within the tale. 

The more of the STEPPS that can be applied to IT the better but they are not an all or nothing proposition and they are not sequential. This is just a quick smattering of the concepts in this book. To fully understand each the book should be read in its entirety.