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[Sergarr]

Sergarr-- Not all localities in the former USSR were the same. Some required more criminality than others.  I am pretty sure your folks hoarded and or, stole, toilet paper, for instance.

Nah, they've been ordering enough weekly newspapers to cover for that, I've asked. And yeah that was probably the main reason why so many people were "reading" newspapers in USSR.

But really, the impression that I've got when I asked them about stuff is that life in USSR didn't really require criminality. Waiting in lines for several hours each time you wanted to buy something? Yes. Having to be on the lookout for any non-basic food-stuff deliveries so that you could buy them before they run out? Yes. Having to go through obscure bureaucracy all the time, sometimes cutting your way through the red tape with the help of friendly insiders? Yes.

But outright criminality? In late USSR? No. Most people weren't stupid to risk conflict with the USSR government, especially since every USSR's "militiamen"/policemen had full rights to shoot you dead or do even worse things, if you did anything out of ordinary. They didn't even had any non-lethal weapons with them, you know. Either you obey anything they say, or you get filled with bullets.

I'm pretty sure you have to be REALLY stupid to willingly choose to be a criminal in this situation.

[Frumple]

and the reasons for said starving tactic?  Being told "You are few, your voice is meaningless! Obey the voice of the majority, or lose your lands!"  is somehow a better narrative?

Protip: replacing the farmers wont make that cause go away. You just victimize more people.

... if you want to ignore the fact that someone making themselves an existential threat is going to be treated like an existential threat, or that the ag sector doesn't have nearly as much negotiating power as some folks seem to be portraying, I'unno what else to say.

So a question I have is - if city dwellers could magically make this automatic equipment that can do all agriculture, why don't we have it today? Why isn't food "free"?

I wouldn't mind that actually.

Been ninja'd a bit since I started typing, but eh. Free isn't what happens, but what does happen and has happened is the amount of people needed to support a nation's agriculture needs have shrunk, and shrunk drastically. Used to be gigantic chunks of a country's population was needed to keep it fed -- can't recall the exact percentage and don't particularly feel like wrestling a search engine to check, but iirc was somewhere over half. Nowadays it's, what, <3% of the population? Ah, sorry, checked. Less than 2% of the workforce, for the US. To produce enough it's an export. Food is cheap. Food is plentiful. It's not magic, but it's close. And the point is, what's making it cheap and plentiful isn't really long earned experience or somethin', for all it helps to whatever degree in some areas. It's advances in ag science, in farming machinery, in crop genetics, and so on -- and none of that, as noted, is somehow magically the unassailable domain of the rural population. They don't have enough of a lock on the tools and expertise needed to really be able to leverage withholding that as a credible threat, for all it's generally far less trouble to not work around or over them.

Ultimate point being, rural communities've got room to push on some subjects, but not an infinite amount, and the rural ag sector doesn't have nearly enough power to make it approach -- and that's not even getting into what actually controls gigantic chunks of said sector (hint: it's not people interested in antagonizing urban centered anything). Stuff like actual starvation threats or some kind of agriculture revolution just in't on the table. Not in the US, not since a long, long time ago.

Well, I did say "free", not actually free... but food is actually pretty inexpensive as it is.

So it's not so much really about food production.  The bigger issue is really what do you do with all those people that are being marginalized? Even if - and especially - if you don't agree with the views of the marginalized group?

That, well. You talk to them, work out compromises, try to help deal with the marginalization. Sometimes pressure can be used, if it's not stupid pressure. Even if they're not an actual threat it's still generally better and more effective to be working together rather than working at odds. Which is why, y'know. Oodles of federal and state money have been pouring into rural communities all our lives, at least when the GOP isn't screwing things on that front for the Nth time. Why folks have been trying to work with these rural/ex-manufacturing communities for as long as we've been alive, and so on.

[TempAcc]

This ricochets back to the talk I linked earlier, showing how automation has created a nearly unstoppable trend of social distruption that is creating a rather unique problem recently: the middle class is starting to slowly disappear, while the working class is increasing (in size). At the same time, the jobs for working class folks are disappearing even faster then middle class jobs, as the manufacturing industry needs to employ less and less people (while still producing more than ever because of automation), and even service jobs are getting automated in the long run (compare the 3 biggest companies in america about 50 years ago, all manufacturing industries related to automobiles that employed millions of people, with the current big three, all of silicon valley stock and service based, which today employ only little over 100k people).

Thing is, as automation takes over, things get more complex, causing you to need less people, and the people you actualy do need have to be way better trained than before. Low skill labor is pretty much doomed. At the same time, giving everyone opportunities for training is so unfeasible its pretty much out of the question.

At the crux of this, the ones who suffer most are working class people, both urban AND rural, while the middle class still only starts to feel the effects of automation caused distruption. So, what do they do? Do they pick the mummy-like avatar of establishment which hasn't shed a word in their favor for the sake of looking good for the identity politics crowd, or the insane guy who at least pretends to care for them and talks of change?

How do you save these people? Do you just kick them into a ditch and covertly embrace social darwinism because it suits your position?

[wierd]

and the reasons for said starving tactic?  Being told "You are few, your voice is meaningless! Obey the voice of the majority, or lose your lands!"  is somehow a better narrative?

Protip: replacing the farmers wont make that cause go away. You just victimize more people.

... if you want to ignore the fact that someone making themselves an existential threat is going to be treated like an existential threat, or that the ag sector doesn't have nearly as much negotiating power as some folks seem to be portraying, I'unno what else to say.

So a question I have is - if city dwellers could magically make this automatic equipment that can do all agriculture, why don't we have it today? Why isn't food "free"?

I wouldn't mind that actually.

Been ninja'd a bit since I started typing, but eh. Free isn't what happens, but what does happen and has happened is the amount of people needed to support a nation's agriculture needs have shrunk, and shrunk drastically. Used to be gigantic chunks of a country's population was needed to keep it fed -- can't recall the exact percentage and don't particularly feel like wrestling a search engine to check, but iirc was somewhere over half. Nowadays it's, what, <3% of the population? Ah, sorry, checked. Less than 2% of the workforce, for the US. To produce enough it's an export. Food is cheap. Food is plentiful. It's not magic, but it's close. And the point is, what's making it cheap and plentiful isn't really long earned experience or somethin', for all it helps to whatever degree in some areas. It's advances in ag science, in farming machinery, in crop genetics, and so on -- and none of that, as noted, is somehow magically the unassailable domain of the rural population. They don't have enough of a lock on the tools and expertise needed to really be able to leverage withholding that as a credible threat, for all it's generally far less trouble to not work around or over them.

Ultimate point being, rural communities've got room to push on some subjects, but not an infinite amount, and the rural ag sector doesn't have nearly enough power to make it approach -- and that's not even getting into what actually controls gigantic chunks of said sector (hint: it's not people interested in antagonizing urban centered anything). Stuff like actual starvation threats or some kind of agriculture revolution just in't on the table. Not in the US, not since a long, long time ago.

Well, I did say "free", not actually free... but food is actually pretty inexpensive as it is.

So it's not so much really about food production.  The bigger issue is really what do you do with all those people that are being marginalized? Even if - and especially - if you don't agree with the views of the marginalized group?

That, well. You talk to them, work out compromises, try to help deal with the marginalization. Sometimes pressure can be used, if it's not stupid pressure. Even if they're not an actual threat it's still generally better and more effective to be working together rather than working at odds. Which is why, y'know. Oodles of federal and state money have been pouring into rural communities all our lives, at least when the GOP isn't screwing things on that front for the Nth time. Why folks have been trying to work with these rural/ex-manufacturing communities for as long as we've been alive, and so on.

Frumple:

And the threat of being kicked off your own property, for noncompliance, is not an existential threat?

[Vilanat]

Interesting discussion.

Any farming experts here got some data? Let's ask a theoretical question, could Manhattan feed itself by transforming all its Parks (mainly central park obviously) into agriculture? i presume crops won't be efficient, but Eggs, Chicken meat and Milk might. if we take Trump Tower and Trump Building and transform them into vertical pigs farm, it might be able to provide enough bacon.

[wierd]

You will either 1) overload the sewer system, 2) give everyone around trump tower serious diseases.

Also, what will the pigs eat?  As the PETA people love to point out, most of our cropland is used to provide the fodder for meat animals, like pigs.

[Draignean]

Interesting discussion.

Any farming experts here got some data? Let's ask a theoretical question, could Manhattan feed itself by transforming all its Parks (mainly central park obviously) into agriculture? i presume crops won't be efficient, but Eggs, Chicken meat and Milk might. if we take Trump Tower and Trump Building and transform them into vertical pigs farm, it might be able to provide enough bacon.

MEAT IS NOT EFFICIENT. You. Must. Feed. The. Animals.

[Neonivek]

Digital Millennium Copyright Act

DANG IT I knew my old enemy would reappear.

And there is no way in heck that Trump is going to get rid of it. Heck he will probably pass worse laws... Expect Disney to rule the internet.

[Frumple]

Interesting discussion.

Any farming experts here got some data? Let's ask a theoretical question, could Manhattan feed itself by transforming all its Parks (mainly central park obviously) into agriculture? i presume crops won't be efficient, but Eggs, Chicken meat and Milk might. if we take Trump Tower and Trump Building and transform them into vertical pigs farm, it might be able to provide enough bacon.

No expert, but the rough answer is "not really". It could help, particular some of the newer stuff that's aiming to compact agriculture square footage impact significantly, but there's a lot more to farming than just land space, and large scale farming (which is what you'd need to feed something like manhattan) takes up a lot of that space besides. We don't have substantial farming efforts inside urban areas for a reason, heh.

And yeah, what draig said.

[Vilanat]

Yeah, googled it a little and stumbled on this:

http://visual.ly/how-big-backyard-do-you-need-live-land

Central Park could sustain around 1600 people according to this infographic. damn we are inefficient.

[Frumple]

Hey, we're more efficient than we used to be :V

Well, so far as getting the stuff off the ground. Less so the biological processing bit. Squishy things are pretty bad on that front in general, really.

[wierd]

It kinda resets the importance of those "few people", doesn't it? ;P

[Shadowlord]

Ii presume crops won't be efficient, but Eggs, Chicken meat and Milk might.

[Extended Mark Hamill Joker Laugh]

*cough*

Ever take a biology course? (Or physics, lol)

[Frumple]

It kinda resets the importance of those "few people", doesn't it? ;P

Not even remotely? Hard to be important when you're easy to replace, at least beyond basic "is human" stuff.

[Reelya]

1996 you say?

who was president then?  Oh, right-- Clinton.  The same guy who repealed glass-stegal, because "we didnt need it anymore".

Which is misleading as the entire bill was written and sponsored by Republicans and passed by Republican congress and senate majorities. Clinton's mistake was to not veto the bill. Which is like saying it's my fault you got punched because I didn't stop you punching yourself in the head.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm%E2%80%93Leach%E2%80%93Bliley_Act