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The US produces more than enough food for everyone on the planet. There is ample room across the nation to build enough housing for everyone. Why don't we do it

The US produces more than enough food for everyone on the planet. There is ample room across the nation to build enough housing for everyone. Why don't we do it? Because the zero-sum neoliberal worldview has been ingrained in the American mind thanks to absurd concepts of exceptionalism and "individual liberty" and so the prevailing sentiment of the day is "fuck you got mine" in the biggest christian nation on earth.

jdminhbg 11y ago
> zero-sum neoliberal worldview This makes about as much sense as "the laissez-faire fascist worldview" or the "growth at any costs environmental worldview."
- mattnewton 11y ago
  I think it's a great description then for an emerging worldview that simultaneously believes in too big to fail for banks but not in people, champions social equality but supports laws that allow racial profiling by police and TSA, and believes the war in Iraq was a mistake but that we should support Isreal unilaterally
  - jdminhbg 11y ago
    That's not what "zero-sum" means.
gnaritas 11y ago
That's not even close to true. Take food for example, you're simply wrong because the issue with food isn't production, it's transportation and distribution of the food to the places that need it that is and always has been the issue. It doesn't matter if we produce extra food here, the resources required to deliver it to where it's needed are massive and impractical; that's why we don't do it, it isn't because of a zero-sum neoliberal worldview; it's because no one wants to pay for it. > "fuck you got mine" in the biggest christian nation on earth. I fail to see what Christian's have anything to do with the matter. And we aren't a Christian nation, we're a secular nation with a lot of Christians, huge difference.
- yolesaber 11y ago
  The US exports billions upon billions of dollars worth of food annually, mostly to Canada and China. The infrastructure is already in place. We can deploy military technology anywhere in the world, but we can't export food? C'mon. It's not a technological issue in the least anymore. > "that's why we don't do it, it isn't because of a zero-sum neoliberal worldview; it's because no one wants to pay for it." Uh, the zero-sum neoliberal worldview is EXACTLY why we don't do it - because such a worldview says that if no one wants to pay for it then it's not worth it despite the fact that it could vastly improve welfare throughout the world and ensure more peace and stability than any "democracy spreading" wars ever could. >"And we aren't a Christian nation, we're a secular nation with a lot of Christians, huge difference." If you want to play semantics, fine you're right. There is no state religion (excepting the fact that christianity is part of our founding myth, it's all over the US currency, in our pledge of allegiance, in our symbology etc). But the point is there are hundreds of millions of Christians in this country, a religion whose foundational text (New Testament) is filled with endless cries to help the poor, to give away the material pleasures of life to help another, and yet we embrace the exact opposite. It's an example of how we've perverted our principles.
  - gnaritas 11y ago
    > The infrastructure is already in place. We can deploy military technology anywhere in the world, but we can't export food? C'mon. It's not a technological issue in the least anymore. You are mistaken due to that bad metaphor. There is a vast difference between deploying some troops anywhere in the world, and setting up a permanent supply chain for food to everywhere in the world that needs food; tons of places don't even have decent roads nor the local government approval/agreement to allow the relief or not steal the relief. They are not remotely comparable. Getting food to the places it'd be needed is absolutely not a solved problem.

jdminhbg 11y ago

> zero-sum neoliberal worldview This makes about as much sense as "the laissez-faire fascist worldview" or the "growth at any costs environmental worldview."

mattnewton 11y ago
I think it's a great description then for an emerging worldview that simultaneously believes in too big to fail for banks but not in people, champions social equality but supports laws that allow racial profiling by police and TSA, and believes the war in Iraq was a mistake but that we should support Isreal unilaterally
- jdminhbg 11y ago
  That's not what "zero-sum" means.

gnaritas 11y ago

That's not even close to true. Take food for example, you're simply wrong because the issue with food isn't production, it's transportation and distribution of the food to the places that need it that is and always has been the issue. It doesn't matter if we produce extra food here, the resources required to deliver it to where it's needed are massive and impractical; that's why we don't do it, it isn't because of a zero-sum neoliberal worldview; it's because no one wants to pay for it. > "fuck you got mine" in the biggest christian nation on earth. I fail to see what Christian's have anything to do with the matter. And we aren't a Christian nation, we're a secular nation with a lot of Christians, huge difference.

yolesaber 11y ago
The US exports billions upon billions of dollars worth of food annually, mostly to Canada and China. The infrastructure is already in place. We can deploy military technology anywhere in the world, but we can't export food? C'mon. It's not a technological issue in the least anymore. > "that's why we don't do it, it isn't because of a zero-sum neoliberal worldview; it's because no one wants to pay for it." Uh, the zero-sum neoliberal worldview is EXACTLY why we don't do it - because such a worldview says that if no one wants to pay for it then it's not worth it despite the fact that it could vastly improve welfare throughout the world and ensure more peace and stability than any "democracy spreading" wars ever could. >"And we aren't a Christian nation, we're a secular nation with a lot of Christians, huge difference." If you want to play semantics, fine you're right. There is no state religion (excepting the fact that christianity is part of our founding myth, it's all over the US currency, in our pledge of allegiance, in our symbology etc). But the point is there are hundreds of millions of Christians in this country, a religion whose foundational text (New Testament) is filled with endless cries to help the poor, to give away the material pleasures of life to help another, and yet we embrace the exact opposite. It's an example of how we've perverted our principles.
- gnaritas 11y ago
  > The infrastructure is already in place. We can deploy military technology anywhere in the world, but we can't export food? C'mon. It's not a technological issue in the least anymore. You are mistaken due to that bad metaphor. There is a vast difference between deploying some troops anywhere in the world, and setting up a permanent supply chain for food to everywhere in the world that needs food; tons of places don't even have decent roads nor the local government approval/agreement to allow the relief or not steal the relief. They are not remotely comparable. Getting food to the places it'd be needed is absolutely not a solved problem.