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Comment by forgetfulness | Hacker News Reader

Reads as an "A Modest Proposal" type of critique piece. Not the right tone for the UN but it's not actually arguing for what it's stating.

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The author of this piece has a book, "Freedom from want: the human right to adequate food". The publisher's summary quotes Richard Pierre Claude, founding editor of Human Rights Quarterly and professor emeritus, University of Maryland:

"As a legal claim, the 'human right to adequate food' may seem thin gruel, but George Kent enriches the concept with data-based policy analysis, compelling ethical arguments, and a full review of concerned international, national, and nongovernmental organizations. He persuasively makes the case for accountability where the face of famine, malnutrition, and starvation confront the hands of those who hold political power at every level in our new global economy."

Most of the major long-term famines in living memory were caused by politics and armed conflict, not really from a lack of food. For example the 1983-85 Ethiopian famine happened in the middle of a war where opposing factions used hunger as a weapon and stole food from civilians. The leaders didn't give a shit about "human rights".

Satire can be useful and persuasive (assuming it's satire) but it's not right for a mainstream institution to be publishing something like that with apparently no disclaimer at least on the bottom that the piece is meant to be thought-provoking in some way rather than a serious piece.

Let's ban the UN for misinformation I guess. Isn't that the thing to do?

Hey Monster, what you write isn't too logical.

For 'banning the UN for misinformation' there logically needs to be misinformation.

While you might not like the tone of the article, I couldn't find any claim that is demonstrably untrue.

Perhaps it was a performative example of how satire works.

Or maybe it was just meant to be a humorous comment. Why. So. Serious?

Facebook and Twitter have banned a lot of "misinformation" that was actually true (or at least not demonstrably untrue).

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