5 ms·

> they'd grow diversified crops to sell locally This is out of touch, many of these farmers are 100+ miles from a large population center. They can’t move enou

> they'd grow diversified crops to sell locally This is out of touch, many of these farmers are 100+ miles from a large population center. They can’t move enough produce at a local store to stay in business.

sophacles 6mo ago
And conversely you can't grow enough food local to a large population center to feed everyone.
- TimorousBestie 6mo ago
  Christopher Alexander figured this one out in A Pattern Language: https://www.patternlanguageindex.com/patterns/city-country-fingers https://www.patternlanguageindex.com/patterns/city-country-f...
  - bix6 6mo ago
    Why didn’t we do this? Seems cool.
    - HoldOnAMinute 6mo ago
      Because of perverse incentives
    - sophacles 6mo ago
      Because it trades most of the benefits of cities for the hassle of suburban life and less efficient food production.
    - TimorousBestie 6mo ago
      To be fair, Alexander was writing in the seventies, long after automobiles and the suburb had killed any hope of humane urban planning in the States.
    - zonkerdonker 6mo ago
      Big cities aren't typically in such an ideal planar geological setup as that. I'm having a hard time imagining how something like that would work in the Bay area, NYC, Seattle, Miami etc
    - boc 6mo ago
      Because it's like 1000x more efficient to move stuff on water vs land, so industrial cities clustered around ports and rivers since it's way easier to move stuff around.
  - nradov 6mo ago
    Bullshit. Christopher Alexander didn't know much about farming. I actually read his whole book. Most of his "patterns" are kind of quaint and twee, the sort of things that seem superficially attractive to people with no real domain knowledge. Highly overrated.
    - TimorousBestie 6mo ago
      Utopian optimism really has fallen out of style, I suppose.
    - registeredcorn 6mo ago
      Do you see there being a realistic alternative? I realize we can't really go backward in time, but I would prefer if the farmers that lived close to where I am sold to people who live local to me. That can happen to some degree (open yard stands), and I like to do that for some of the smaller farms, but it's really a kind of "nice to have" rather than a "The market stocks stuff that was grown a town or two over" type thing. I feel like something probably got lost when that kind of arrangement went away. There's still one or two local businesses that manage to make it into the local market for me which is neat to see, but that's more so because they are for frozen pastries and stuff, and can prepare a metric ton in advance, and the market can mark it up for being a "local specialty" type thing. I like to buy them when I can afford it. It just sucks that essentially every other thing on a shelf probably wasn't even made in the same time zone or hemisphere.
      - nradov 6mo ago
        Why do we need an alternative? Your preferences don't matter.
        AnimalMuppet 6mo ago
        Well, they matter some. They matter to registeredcorn. More widely, they matter in that farmers markets and roadside stands and such do exist. Why do they exist? Because there are enough people that want to buy from such places. I mean, it's never going to be the way that food is sold. But those preferences matter enough for niche markets to exist.
  - Tade0 6mo ago
    You'd have to either waste good soil by putting buildings on it, or use a lot of fertilizer.
goosejuice 6mo ago
Maybe, but it's not an argument against diversification. When it comes to agriculture, the incentives should be aligned such that a single point of failure like this is highly unlikely. That's not to say it's an easy problem to solve.
- bsder 6mo ago
  > That's not to say it's an easy problem to solve. Incorrect. You simply decide that having less than 5 suppliers at any level is unacceptable and you bust companies up, repeatedly until you have those suppliers. That way when one goes bankrupt, you don't wind up with complete supply chain disintegration. The solution is quite straightforward. However, it requires an electorate that has a couple of brain cells to rub together in order to understand the solution. And 30% of the US is willfully hostile to any real solutions while another 30% is happy to fiddle while everything burns.
  - pinkmuffinere 6mo ago
    > You simply decide that having less than 5 suppliers at any level is unacceptable and you bust companies up, repeatedly until you have those suppliers. This is a very extreme solution, and eliminates many of the benefits from horizontal integration even when the benefits are passed onto customers. Consider: - insurance companies - banking - utilities It’s also hard to implement. What counts as a supplier? Is Google the sole supplier for search functionality? If 4 suppliers provide 1% of demand, and one supplies 96%, does that comply? If there’s only one company offering some new service (e.g. driverless cars), do they immediately get broken up?
    - bsder 6mo ago
      > do they immediately get broken up? Yes. Always. At all levels. I might provide a limit below which that doesn't happen (like $50 million in revenue), but as soon as you cross that limit, scrutiny should be automatic. > This is a very extreme solution, and eliminates many of the benefits from horizontal integration even when the benefits are passed onto customers. Consider: - insurance companies - banking There is no advantage to horizontal integration for consumers in those industries. If anything, the value is negative. The fact that people are quite a bit happier about credit unions than Chase says everything you need to know. Sure, there are "efficiencies" to be gained by horizontal integration. What we have seen is that the horizontal integration is so strong that the industries are sclerotic in the face of crisis or change (see: toilet paper manufacturers in Covid who couldn't switch gears). It has become repeatedly clear that we need resilience and competition more than we need efficiency. > utilities Should be limited to natural monopolies and strongly controlled by the government. We have seen what happens when you create hybrid-type utilities that try to have some existence in the market (rather than being solidly government regulated) and the result is poor (see: PG&E).

sophacles 6mo ago

And conversely you can't grow enough food local to a large population center to feed everyone.

TimorousBestie 6mo ago
Christopher Alexander figured this one out in A Pattern Language: https://www.patternlanguageindex.com/patterns/city-country-fingers https://www.patternlanguageindex.com/patterns/city-country-f...
- bix6 6mo ago
  Why didn’t we do this? Seems cool.
  - HoldOnAMinute 6mo ago
    Because of perverse incentives
  - sophacles 6mo ago
    Because it trades most of the benefits of cities for the hassle of suburban life and less efficient food production.
  - TimorousBestie 6mo ago
    To be fair, Alexander was writing in the seventies, long after automobiles and the suburb had killed any hope of humane urban planning in the States.
  - zonkerdonker 6mo ago
    Big cities aren't typically in such an ideal planar geological setup as that. I'm having a hard time imagining how something like that would work in the Bay area, NYC, Seattle, Miami etc
  - boc 6mo ago
    Because it's like 1000x more efficient to move stuff on water vs land, so industrial cities clustered around ports and rivers since it's way easier to move stuff around.
- nradov 6mo ago
  Bullshit. Christopher Alexander didn't know much about farming. I actually read his whole book. Most of his "patterns" are kind of quaint and twee, the sort of things that seem superficially attractive to people with no real domain knowledge. Highly overrated.
  - TimorousBestie 6mo ago
    Utopian optimism really has fallen out of style, I suppose.
  - registeredcorn 6mo ago
    Do you see there being a realistic alternative? I realize we can't really go backward in time, but I would prefer if the farmers that lived close to where I am sold to people who live local to me. That can happen to some degree (open yard stands), and I like to do that for some of the smaller farms, but it's really a kind of "nice to have" rather than a "The market stocks stuff that was grown a town or two over" type thing. I feel like something probably got lost when that kind of arrangement went away. There's still one or two local businesses that manage to make it into the local market for me which is neat to see, but that's more so because they are for frozen pastries and stuff, and can prepare a metric ton in advance, and the market can mark it up for being a "local specialty" type thing. I like to buy them when I can afford it. It just sucks that essentially every other thing on a shelf probably wasn't even made in the same time zone or hemisphere.
    - nradov 6mo ago
      Why do we need an alternative? Your preferences don't matter.
      - AnimalMuppet 6mo ago
        Well, they matter some. They matter to registeredcorn. More widely, they matter in that farmers markets and roadside stands and such do exist. Why do they exist? Because there are enough people that want to buy from such places. I mean, it's never going to be the way that food is sold. But those preferences matter enough for niche markets to exist.
- Tade0 6mo ago
  You'd have to either waste good soil by putting buildings on it, or use a lot of fertilizer.

goosejuice 6mo ago

Maybe, but it's not an argument against diversification. When it comes to agriculture, the incentives should be aligned such that a single point of failure like this is highly unlikely. That's not to say it's an easy problem to solve.

bsder 6mo ago
> That's not to say it's an easy problem to solve. Incorrect. You simply decide that having less than 5 suppliers at any level is unacceptable and you bust companies up, repeatedly until you have those suppliers. That way when one goes bankrupt, you don't wind up with complete supply chain disintegration. The solution is quite straightforward. However, it requires an electorate that has a couple of brain cells to rub together in order to understand the solution. And 30% of the US is willfully hostile to any real solutions while another 30% is happy to fiddle while everything burns.
- pinkmuffinere 6mo ago
  > You simply decide that having less than 5 suppliers at any level is unacceptable and you bust companies up, repeatedly until you have those suppliers. This is a very extreme solution, and eliminates many of the benefits from horizontal integration even when the benefits are passed onto customers. Consider: - insurance companies - banking - utilities It’s also hard to implement. What counts as a supplier? Is Google the sole supplier for search functionality? If 4 suppliers provide 1% of demand, and one supplies 96%, does that comply? If there’s only one company offering some new service (e.g. driverless cars), do they immediately get broken up?
  - bsder 6mo ago
    > do they immediately get broken up? Yes. Always. At all levels. I might provide a limit below which that doesn't happen (like $50 million in revenue), but as soon as you cross that limit, scrutiny should be automatic. > This is a very extreme solution, and eliminates many of the benefits from horizontal integration even when the benefits are passed onto customers. Consider: - insurance companies - banking There is no advantage to horizontal integration for consumers in those industries. If anything, the value is negative. The fact that people are quite a bit happier about credit unions than Chase says everything you need to know. Sure, there are "efficiencies" to be gained by horizontal integration. What we have seen is that the horizontal integration is so strong that the industries are sclerotic in the face of crisis or change (see: toilet paper manufacturers in Covid who couldn't switch gears). It has become repeatedly clear that we need resilience and competition more than we need efficiency. > utilities Should be limited to natural monopolies and strongly controlled by the government. We have seen what happens when you create hybrid-type utilities that try to have some existence in the market (rather than being solidly government regulated) and the result is poor (see: PG&E).