Are we including the effects of Global Capitalism? On top of mortality from global poverty, it’s hard to tally all the deaths from capitalist Imperialism, Colonialism, and Neo-colonialism.

If one starts from the assumption that extreme poverty is the natural state of humanity, then it may appear as good news that only a fraction of the global population lives in extreme poverty today. However, if extreme poverty is a sign of severe social dislocation, relatively rare under normal conditions, then it should concern us that - despite many instances of progress since the middle of the 20th century - such dislocation remains so prevalent under contemporary capitalism. Depending on the subsistence basket one uses to measure poverty, as of 2008, between 200 million and 1.21 billion people live in extreme poverty (Moatsos, 2017, Moatsos, 2021; see also our discussion in Appendix VI).18 While direct comparisons with the wage data are difficult because of the variety of baskets used, this suggests that under contemporary capitalism hundreds of millions of people currently live in conditions comparable to Europe during the Black Death (Figure 4, Figure 5), the catastrophes induced by the American genocides (Figure 7) and the slave trade (Figure 9), or famine-ravaged British India (Figure 11). To the extent there has been progress against extreme poverty in recent decades, it has generally been slow and shallow.

• Capitalism and extreme poverty: A global analysis of real wages, human height, and mortality since the long 16th century

Mosquitoes, I know this one!

I knew it, it’s the cat.

Old testament god

temujin? who claims he’s leftist?

Rupert Murdoch.

That monster’s contribution to climate denial borders on apocalyptic - throw in extras like eroding democracy, stoking racial hatred, and contributions to class warfare like fighting off affordable access to to healthcare make him a tough one to beat.