[OFB Cafe] Hicks and City Slickehs

[Fred Smith]

On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 10:54 PM, Chris Olson <chris.olson at live.com> wrote:
>
> Big cities, as the world population continues to grow and moves to them, are unsustainable long term because we have to rape the planet to support them and keep their infrastructure intact.  I've said this before - we could seal off all the large population centers in the world - nothing or nobody goes in or out of the big cities.  No food, no fuel, nothing - they're sealed off.  All hell would break loose inside those sealed off big cities in a matter of days.  The majority of the people in them would die.  Meanwhile, those of us living in the rural areas would notice little difference in our quality of life.

But, as I was trying to point out, modern life isn't just about food
and clean water. People who live in cities produce things that are
(according to our current economy's pricing) much more valuable. They
produce technology, services and information.  They design, build and
maintain the communications infrastructure that, while you may not
depend on it to live, is obviously worth something to you because
you're paying those internet and cell phone bills every month. The
give you the software and hardware that lets your harvester drive
itself across your field, and the software to tune your diesel
engines.

So sure, seal off the cities and let 'em starve.  Then you can go back
to planting food the old fashioned way, with a mule and an iron plow.