3 ms·

Most people who are stuck in large cities would simply starve to death.

saalweachter 9y ago
I mean, maybe? There are people starving to death (or to an infirmity that leads to death, rather than literally starving to death) inside and outside of cities today, so it can certainly happen. There's 120 sq miles of cornfields in New Jersey and 160 of soybeans, which are enough to feed Manhattan for a year, even if they're not currently allocated to feeding people in Manhattan and not enough to feed the entire metropolitan area. There's a considerable amount of food within one day's walk of even giant cities like New York. Moreover, non-mechanized transport and storage of grain is kind of something humans are good at. Pre-modern cities relied heavily on it for hundreds of years. Rome, London and Beijing weren't relying on food grown by farmers living in the city. In any non-magically-fast collapse (eg, the oil supply is cut by 20% per year until only a negligible amount remains on the market versus ALL OIL LITERALLY DISAPPEARS OVERNIGHT) I think there's going to be a decent glide path to an alternate structuring of civilization (electric-solar heavy farm equipment; reduced quantities of grain-fed meat; electric-solar rail and increased river/canal transport) that we'll be heavily incentivized to take. (The end-of-the-world that scares me most is a _rapid_ shift in climate leading to significantly reduced growing seasons which allow for significantly less food production world-wide; I can't see any way that doesn't turn bad, and I am not sure what an individual would do to safe guard themselves against it besides hide in an unmarked cave with a massive food store until things are magically better.)
- Clubber 9y ago
  >There's 120 sq miles of cornfields in New Jersey and 160 of soybeans, which are enough to feed Manhattan for a year, even if they're not currently allocated to feeding people in Manhattan and not enough to feed the entire metropolitan area. There's a considerable amount of food within one day's walk of even giant cities like New York. Ya, but that's the farmer's food, so you're talking about stealing it. The farmer might not like that and shoot at you. Even if he doesn't, what mechanism is in place to make sure that food is distributed evenly over the course of a year? How are you going to keep that corn from spoiling? What's going to stop a group of people sealing it just for themselves? That's a lot of faith in local governance and structure. >I think there's going to be a decent glide path to an alternate structuring of civilization I would think so too, but it's fun imagining what would happen if it were abrupt (largely because of the word imagining rather than living through).

I mean, maybe? There are people starving to death (or to an infirmity that leads to death, rather than literally starving to death) inside and outside of cities today, so it can certainly happen. There's 120 sq miles of cornfields in New Jersey and 160 of soybeans, which are enough to feed Manhattan for a year, even if they're not currently allocated to feeding people in Manhattan and not enough to feed the entire metropolitan area. There's a considerable amount of food within one day's walk of even giant cities like New York. Moreover, non-mechanized transport and storage of grain is kind of something humans are good at. Pre-modern cities relied heavily on it for hundreds of years. Rome, London and Beijing weren't relying on food grown by farmers living in the city. In any non-magically-fast collapse (eg, the oil supply is cut by 20% per year until only a negligible amount remains on the market versus ALL OIL LITERALLY DISAPPEARS OVERNIGHT) I think there's going to be a decent glide path to an alternate structuring of civilization (electric-solar heavy farm equipment; reduced quantities of grain-fed meat; electric-solar rail and increased river/canal transport) that we'll be heavily incentivized to take. (The end-of-the-world that scares me most is a _rapid_ shift in climate leading to significantly reduced growing seasons which allow for significantly less food production world-wide; I can't see any way that doesn't turn bad, and I am not sure what an individual would do to safe guard themselves against it besides hide in an unmarked cave with a massive food store until things are magically better.)

Clubber 9y ago
>There's 120 sq miles of cornfields in New Jersey and 160 of soybeans, which are enough to feed Manhattan for a year, even if they're not currently allocated to feeding people in Manhattan and not enough to feed the entire metropolitan area. There's a considerable amount of food within one day's walk of even giant cities like New York. Ya, but that's the farmer's food, so you're talking about stealing it. The farmer might not like that and shoot at you. Even if he doesn't, what mechanism is in place to make sure that food is distributed evenly over the course of a year? How are you going to keep that corn from spoiling? What's going to stop a group of people sealing it just for themselves? That's a lot of faith in local governance and structure. >I think there's going to be a decent glide path to an alternate structuring of civilization I would think so too, but it's fun imagining what would happen if it were abrupt (largely because of the word imagining rather than living through).