Math Models Predicted Global Uprisings 265
retroworks writes "Just over a year ago, complex systems theorists at the New England Complex Systems Institute warned that if food prices continued to climb, so too would the likelihood that there would be riots across the globe. Sure enough, we're seeing them now. The paper's author, Yaneer Bar-Yam, charted the rise in the FAO food price index—a measure the UN uses to map the cost of food over time—and found that whenever it rose above 210, riots broke out worldwide. It happened in 2008 after the economic collapse, and again in 2011, when a Tunisian street vendor who could no longer feed his family set himself on fire in protest."
Re:Hindsight? (Score:3, Interesting)
Its worse then that, their little graph only shows a handful of riots that they want to be on their.
I dont see any riots that do not meet their own agenda on it, hell the french riot a few times every year, I see none of the Australian riots I know of.
Total BS
The lord giveth... (Score:4, Interesting)
Meanwhile, here in Norway the VAT for food items was reduced from 25% down to half. The consumers didn't notice because the shops just pocketed the difference and pretended nothing had happened.
Everything is not always the govt's fault.
Re:Populations go up... (Score:2, Interesting)
At what cost? Loss of wild habitats, sterile monocultures , pesticide poisoning of what little wildlife is left, fertilizer runoff causing o2 depletion in the rivers, soil erosion due to constant tilling, huge CO2 footprint due to fossil fuels required to produce agrichemicals and machinery to work the land and so on and on and on.
The methods of 300 years ago had survived for millenia. The way we've abused the planet in the last century we'll do well to be able to maintain this production for the next 100 years, never mind 1000.
Re:Hindsight? (Score:2, Interesting)
Occupy was peaceful though, at least until the cops started attacking the protesters. Unfortunately it seems that the only way to create real change is to riot now, as governments have made damn sure peaceful protest is ignored.
Re:Callous knobhead (Score:5, Interesting)
But it's ok to bail out banks that can't keep their act together and invest sensibly, right?
Re:Predicted two years ago, it works. (Score:4, Interesting)
Getting it right is easy. Not getting it wrong is hard. What is the false positive rate for this model? How many uprisings did it miss?
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day...