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Efficiency at a trade-off of resiliency. If you're talking about discretionary purchases, you probably value efficiency over resiliency. If you're talking agr

Efficiency at a trade-off of resiliency. If you're talking about discretionary purchases, you probably value efficiency over resiliency. If you're talking agriculture, we should value resiliency over efficiency.

Gigachad 5y ago
So we have benefited from decades of cheap consumer electronics and now people had to wait 10 months to get their playstation at RRP so their proposal is to build double the number of playstations for decades and landfill half of them so in the extremely rare case, they will have just enough.
- grayfaced 5y ago
  I would consider consumer electronics to be discretionary purchases. So what I suggested is the opposite of that. If disruptions are an acceptable risk, then you should prioritize efficiency. Consumer complaints are meaningless if they don't have a viable competitor to shift their money to. But we must prioritize resiliency when an economic shock would result in societal instability. I'm willing to pay more for food to be available 100% of the time versus paying 20% less for food to be available 80% of the time.
  - KittenInABox 5y ago
    Isn't that why the US government has longstanding agricultural subsidies, guarantees on prices, etc.? Do we really have a shortage of food?
    - grayfaced 5y ago
      That's the stated purpose. But it has no teeth. Last year we saw aisles empty of meat and lots of news about meat shortages. But during that time domestic pork supplies were down 40% in the same period that pork exports to China quadrupled. Those subsidies failed in their stated purpose of resiliency. During the bad times, all that mattered is where more profit could be found.
      - unpolloloco 5y ago
        I'd claim those subsidies worked fine then. The problem wasn't supply - It was delivery. There weren't enough drivers to move stuff around, so stuff didn't get moved around and shelves were empty. The supply chain's weakest link was delivery, so that broke. Exports to China used different infrastructure that wasn't as affected, so they still happened
      - roenxi 5y ago
        > During the bad times, all that mattered is where more profit could be found. The people in China need to eat too; the pork is going to be eaten. It is hard to understate how hard the Chinese have been working to provide goods, services and technologies to the rest of the world for the last 40-odd years. They've been quite clear the whole way through that one of the things they want in exchange for that is support feeding themselves. Them buying American pork in a tough year is not some capitalist failure. This is what hard work and savings is supposed to get China - front of the line in a crisis. It would be grossly unfair to pay them then tell them that they've actually got monopoly money that can't even buy pork.
      - summm 5y ago
        Meat can be easily substituted, so I'd consider that discretionary spending. Furthermore, producing meat consumes many times the plants, than if humans directly consumed those plants. So in an emergency, just stop producing meat and you'll have plenty of plant-based food left.
        speeder 5y ago
        Can you eat grass? I know I can't... Yes, producing meat requires animals eating a ton of plants and they also need a lot of water. Except that can be mostly grass (that humans don't eat), and the water is just rainwater (that the animals in question will piss later, so it will end on the ground anyway). The reason why animal-based farming exists is because it is the only way we have to get any food in certain parts of the planet where the only thing that grow naturally is grass.
        5y ago
88913527 5y ago
If hair clippers become mildly more difficult to procure over a 2-year window of an 80 year lifespan, all-in-all the efficiency seems to be worth it. I get 78 years of low prices for goods are that are useful to my everyday existence, but not critically vital and to which there are reasonable substitutes, if I need something in a pinch.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  Human experience simply cannot be averaged over large spans of times while ignoring the extremes. Dipping into the red means permanent damage. Imagine applying this line of thinking to your bank account -- "sure I spent $500k in two years on fast cars and fancy bars, but averaged over 80 years of paying small amounts of interest, the bank should be glad to make the sacrifice of stability in favor of efficiency."
  - 1_player 5y ago
    "Sure I spent $500k in two years, but I've been in the positive and saving for 80 years". The pandemic was just a blip on the radar, a period of adjustment we still don't understand fully economically, but it was not a Great Depression as it lasted only a couple months and affected just a part of the population (layoffs, but with goverment safety nets)
  - _3u10 5y ago
    umm... this is kind of the purpose of banks... get car now, enjoy car now, pay 3%, inflation is 5%. If you buy the car cash you pay more, and get it later. Lets take a C8 Stringray @ $100K, if you buy it today, it will cost $107K over 5 years. In five years it will cost you $128K.
    - nitrogen 5y ago
      No bank will let you go on a $500k spending binge when you've never had more than $5k in your account. And no amount of averaging over a lifetime will make up for the fact that rent is due now.

Gigachad 5y ago

So we have benefited from decades of cheap consumer electronics and now people had to wait 10 months to get their playstation at RRP so their proposal is to build double the number of playstations for decades and landfill half of them so in the extremely rare case, they will have just enough.

grayfaced 5y ago
I would consider consumer electronics to be discretionary purchases. So what I suggested is the opposite of that. If disruptions are an acceptable risk, then you should prioritize efficiency. Consumer complaints are meaningless if they don't have a viable competitor to shift their money to. But we must prioritize resiliency when an economic shock would result in societal instability. I'm willing to pay more for food to be available 100% of the time versus paying 20% less for food to be available 80% of the time.
- KittenInABox 5y ago
  Isn't that why the US government has longstanding agricultural subsidies, guarantees on prices, etc.? Do we really have a shortage of food?
  - grayfaced 5y ago
    That's the stated purpose. But it has no teeth. Last year we saw aisles empty of meat and lots of news about meat shortages. But during that time domestic pork supplies were down 40% in the same period that pork exports to China quadrupled. Those subsidies failed in their stated purpose of resiliency. During the bad times, all that mattered is where more profit could be found.
    - unpolloloco 5y ago
      I'd claim those subsidies worked fine then. The problem wasn't supply - It was delivery. There weren't enough drivers to move stuff around, so stuff didn't get moved around and shelves were empty. The supply chain's weakest link was delivery, so that broke. Exports to China used different infrastructure that wasn't as affected, so they still happened
    - roenxi 5y ago
      > During the bad times, all that mattered is where more profit could be found. The people in China need to eat too; the pork is going to be eaten. It is hard to understate how hard the Chinese have been working to provide goods, services and technologies to the rest of the world for the last 40-odd years. They've been quite clear the whole way through that one of the things they want in exchange for that is support feeding themselves. Them buying American pork in a tough year is not some capitalist failure. This is what hard work and savings is supposed to get China - front of the line in a crisis. It would be grossly unfair to pay them then tell them that they've actually got monopoly money that can't even buy pork.
    - summm 5y ago
      Meat can be easily substituted, so I'd consider that discretionary spending. Furthermore, producing meat consumes many times the plants, than if humans directly consumed those plants. So in an emergency, just stop producing meat and you'll have plenty of plant-based food left.
      - speeder 5y ago
        Can you eat grass? I know I can't... Yes, producing meat requires animals eating a ton of plants and they also need a lot of water. Except that can be mostly grass (that humans don't eat), and the water is just rainwater (that the animals in question will piss later, so it will end on the ground anyway). The reason why animal-based farming exists is because it is the only way we have to get any food in certain parts of the planet where the only thing that grow naturally is grass.
        5y ago

88913527 5y ago

If hair clippers become mildly more difficult to procure over a 2-year window of an 80 year lifespan, all-in-all the efficiency seems to be worth it. I get 78 years of low prices for goods are that are useful to my everyday existence, but not critically vital and to which there are reasonable substitutes, if I need something in a pinch.

nitrogen 5y ago
Human experience simply cannot be averaged over large spans of times while ignoring the extremes. Dipping into the red means permanent damage. Imagine applying this line of thinking to your bank account -- "sure I spent $500k in two years on fast cars and fancy bars, but averaged over 80 years of paying small amounts of interest, the bank should be glad to make the sacrifice of stability in favor of efficiency."
- 1_player 5y ago
  "Sure I spent $500k in two years, but I've been in the positive and saving for 80 years". The pandemic was just a blip on the radar, a period of adjustment we still don't understand fully economically, but it was not a Great Depression as it lasted only a couple months and affected just a part of the population (layoffs, but with goverment safety nets)
- _3u10 5y ago
  umm... this is kind of the purpose of banks... get car now, enjoy car now, pay 3%, inflation is 5%. If you buy the car cash you pay more, and get it later. Lets take a C8 Stringray @ $100K, if you buy it today, it will cost $107K over 5 years. In five years it will cost you $128K.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    No bank will let you go on a $500k spending binge when you've never had more than $5k in your account. And no amount of averaging over a lifetime will make up for the fact that rent is due now.