There are no famines anymore, unless people want them.

South Sudan is starving. As reported by Foreign Policy, the world’s newest country is also one of the world’s hungriest:

On February 20, the United Nations declared a famine in parts of the country, saying that some have already died from hunger and another 100,000 people are on the brink of starvation. One million more are headed toward the same fate. “Our worst fears have been realized,” Serge Tissot, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s representative in South Sudan, said in a news release.

In an age where Hobbsian scarcity has been nearly conquered, it is discomforting in the extreme to see starving children on HD video. Humans produce some 17 percent more food per person than thirty years ago, yet that means little to the South Sudanese.

In the cruelties of its civil war, there are key geopolitical understandings to be had in South Sudan. Why do some countries starve? How can one African country peacefully reject a dictator while another pits two democratically elected leaders into armed conflict? How much blame does the rest of the world deserve and what does this say about the future of our species? (more…)