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Food time bombs and predicted starvation: the prospects of a Hormuz transit deal : Comments
By Binoy Kampmark, published 7/4/2026Hormuz is no longer just an oil chokepoint. It may soon become the trigger for a global hunger crisis.
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The best way to explain this, in a way that most could relate to, is it to give example scenarios of a man's physical fitness/health that correspond to a farmer crop's health:
Scenario 1:
Today, I could go to just about any amateur male league of a team sport played on a field (eg: hockey, soccer, league, AFL, etc.) and find some young men who can run 100 meters in under 12.5 seconds (ie:they average greater than 28.8km/h over 100m). Now the fastest person *ever* is Usain Bolt, who ran it in 9.58seconds (37.58km/h). Compare this in absolute terms: a fit amateur who doesn't even specialize in sprinting can sprint 100m at three quarters of the speed that the fastest ever can. ie. Usain Bolt is not 10 times faster, not 5 times faster, not 2 times faster, not even 1 and a half faster, but merely a bit more than 1 and a quarter times faster than amateurs.
NOW HERE'S THE IMPORTANT POINT: I seems that Usain Bolt is not that much faster than amateurs and indeed he isn't in absolute terms. HOWEVER, for the fit amateur to go from within about 25% to within 1% of Usain Bolt's speed it's going to take an massive, incredible effort (it might even be impossible due to genetics). That's because, for each percent point in gain of speed it requires more and more effort than the last percentage point. Continually increasing the training effort is giving them less and less reward. Eventually, they may even start to over-train and start running slower. The important point here is that overall, the relationship between training and speed is non-linear!
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