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[RedKing]

Difficult?  Sure.  But perfectly possible.

In Soviet Russia, everyone starves equally! (Except for the Politburo and the commisars, of course...they have to be taken care of to ensure they are able to take care of the People....)

Perfectly possible in the sense that a communist utopia is perfectly possible. If you don't account for power, greed, etc. In a capitalist system, it's nigh-impossible. In fact many hardcore libertarian capitalists would argue that it's essential that you don't provide these things, because it removes the impetus to work. (Or in case of lack of jobs, to steal and/or murder.)

[Siquo]

I beg to differ.

[kaijyuu]

We'll need some sort of energy revolution before we'll be able to provide basic necessities to everyone free of charge.

Once food production is ridiculously cheap, the population has leveled out, and we have robots or whatever to do all the physical labor building houses and managing farms, then sure. Right now, we're no where close.

[Andir]

In fact many hardcore libertarian capitalists would argue that it's essential that you don't provide these things, because it removes the impetus to work.

Not "the" impetus, "an" impetus.

I feel this needs justification because it feels "hateful" to me (I consider myself libertarian: "a person who upholds the principles of individual liberty especially of thought and action")  You did classify it with "hardcore", but I would say extremist.  Libertarianism is not Anarchy.  I do feel as though starvation could be a tool to encourage productivity, but I prefer if it doesn't get to that point.  If there comes a point when nobody wants to farm or produce food, you need to start rationing food in order to encourage work.  I consider Libertarianism as the choice to participate or not.  If all your needs are provided, you should be free to do as you wish... within reason (There must be some law.)

[Leafsnail]

Perfectly possible in the sense that a communist utopia is perfectly possible. If you don't account for power, greed, etc. In a capitalist system, it's nigh-impossible. In fact many hardcore libertarian capitalists would argue that it's essential that you don't provide these things, because it removes the impetus to work. (Or in case of lack of jobs, to steal and/or murder.)

I don't care what many hardcore capitalists would argue.  Plenty of countries provide basic welfare and healthcare to a reasonable degree.

[RedKing]

Perfectly possible in the sense that a communist utopia is perfectly possible. If you don't account for power, greed, etc. In a capitalist system, it's nigh-impossible. In fact many hardcore libertarian capitalists would argue that it's essential that you don't provide these things, because it removes the impetus to work. (Or in case of lack of jobs, to steal and/or murder.)

I don't care what many hardcore capitalists would argue.  Plenty of countries provide basic welfare and healthcare to a reasonable degree.

To a reasonable degree, yes. But there will still be gaps. There will still be people who fall through the cracks. So an ironclad guarantee of food, shelter and healthcare to every citizen is not as easy as some of y'all would like to think. I wish it was. And for the purposes of the discussion we were having (the United States of America), it's not anywhere near close. And it's getting further away every day.

[Duke 2.0]

And it's getting further away every day.

Politically maybe, scientifically not a problem. And even politically it's dubious with how volatile politics are. We can make it eventually, don't worry buddies.
 

[Bohandas]

We'll need some sort of energy revolution before we'll be able to provide basic necessities to everyone free of charge.

Once food production is ridiculously cheap, the population has leveled out, and we have robots or whatever to do all the physical labor building houses and managing farms, then sure. Right now, we're no where close.

Resource limitations are what CAUSE populations to level out. If you can feed more people, then GUESS WHAT! YOU'RE GONNA GET MORE PEOPLE!!!

[Duke 2.0]

 There seems to be a slightly different mechanic for humans. Our growth and plateaus seem more dependent on the state of society and if people are having 12 children to help them on the farm or only one while they are still studying for their medical degrees. Leveling out our population can be done alongside a large resource surplus.

[Vector]

Budget fuckery!

Fat children!

No more last meals in Texas!

Class warfare and income disparity!

Our growth and plateaus seem more dependent on the state of society and if people are having 12 children to help them on the farm or only one while they are still studying for their medical degrees.

Also, in humans we have this thing where we often have educated mothers saying "fuck no, I am not giving birth to any more children."

Bohandas, the US creates a hell of a lot of food.  A HELL of a lot.  And yet, somehow, we have our population leveling out a lot.

[TheBronzePickle]

The fun thing about the world is that, especially with modern methods of agriculture, we produce enough food to make everybody plump and happy, even without clearcutting and burning sections of rainforest pointlessly, and yet corruption and greed are so bad that the food is wasted.

[MonkeyHead]

Which is where the legendary EU food surplus mountains come in, and also the subsidies paid to farmers in the EU to keep fields fallow...

Genius huh?

[Virex]

Which is where the legendary EU food surplus mountains come in, and also the subsidies paid to farmers in the EU to keep fields fallow...

Genius huh?

So much this. The Netherlands, a country smaller than your average Landskreis or State, with less inhabitants than some of the largest cities on the earth is the number 3 exporter of agricultural products worldwide. Our efficiency has outpaced our ability to sell our goods. I wished Economists would work on that instead of new ways to repack high-risk mortgages...

[Sheb]

It's also because you only export high-value produce and vegetable rather than grains. It takes much less place to grow 1,000$ of tomatoes than 1,000$ of grain.

[Vector]

This is... interesting...

PETA opens new pornography website.  Contains image of theoretically naked woman with large white rabbit covering breasts and top part of midriff, shoulders exposed.