Oddbean

Hi, I'm devils advocate. Processed food is a specialization. It's a higher level of division of labour. This is what allowed you (or your nation) to accumulate wealth so you can afford to choose what you eat. It is also what made most of the world hunger go away and allowed to feed the billions of new people on this Earth. Not everybody has that option to choose. Economic laws claim that unprocessed food is less productive.

That's a fairly solid argument, and, in different circumstances, you may be correct. However, that kind of thinking only works on the very short term (less than 10 or so generations). Long term, you get what we have now with industrial monocropping, chemical fertilization, and exceedingly highly processed foods endangering the *entire* food supply chain, from soil to poop. Centralization always leads to failure, long term. Always. We are already seeing the limit of the system in place now. It will likely come crashing down in our lifetime.

Please don't take this the wrong way. I mostly agree that we eat junk. And I believe that we as a society have to deal with that. But see what I strongly believe in at economic level. Specialization (and division of labour) is not the same thing as central planning. Even if food supply was monopolized (it's clearly not) it doesn't mean central planning. Concurrency is still possible (well that may change in EU soon enough through regulations). better specialization allows the society to be more productive and accumulate capital to raise (more) people from poverty. Only at that point you can start the demand for better (more expensive) products. That's where the west may be at the moment. That's why you can choose. However, you can't take cheep food away from the poor. And yes, without processed food and synthetic fertilizers millions will die of hunger (see what happened on Sri Lanka recently). Decentralization as you refer to it is a regression of labour division. And a step to lower production. And inevitebly hunger. You can't tell if it's better to save on food and live longer or healthier (or whatever) for anybody but you. It's a subjective value.

"Please don't take this the wrong way. I mostly agree that we eat junk. And I believe that we as a society have to deal with that. But see what I strongly believe in at economic level." Cool. We can certainly agree on that. "Specialization (and division of labour) is not the same thing as central planning." Yes, but, also, I'm not talking about central planning, I'm talking about centralization. In the US there are lots only ~8 companies that produce and distribute most of the food people eat. There are only ~5 major meat processing companies. There is also only one FDA, which is one of the biggest problems since it just shouldn't exist and regulates small businesses out of existence with the help of the aforementioned big companies. While I suspect this is coordinated, let's not go into conspiracy and stick with what is. "Even if food supply was monopolized (it's clearly not) it doesn't mean central planning. Concurrency is still possible (well that may change in EU soon enough through regulations)." The food supply is a few short steps from being effectively monopolized and centralized. More people are waking up to this and there is more resistance, but, power has been ceded for too long and it will be a long struggle to top get people back to having more abundant, healthier, and less expensive food choices "better specialization allows the society to be more productive and accumulate capital to raise (more) people from poverty." Yes. Except that, again, short term gains are not good. Growing too fast is cancerous, not sustainable. I see the fascistic interplay between the state and the megacorps as the biggest threat, as that is the level of centralization and consolidation that is very dangerous to the future prospects of most humans. "Only at that point you can start the demand for better (more expensive) products." Agreed, but, I don't like to rush things. "That's where the west may be at the moment. That's why you can choose." Only if we push back against those that are part of ye satanic pedo death cult that explicitly wish to cull humanity to a small fraction of the current population. "However, you can't take cheep food away from the poor. And yes, without processed food and synthetic fertilizers millions will die of hunger (see what happened on Sri Lanka recently)." I agree. However, there's a difference between something like golden rice, which I consider to be one of the best things to come out of the last century, and the GMO corn that is currently engineered to get out lr bodies to produce antibodies to actively destroy sperm cells once ingested. "Decentralization as you refer to it is a regression of labour division. And a step to lower production. And inevitebly hunger." I would disagree, but only slightly, since, I don't want the world to suddenly move to a new food paradigm. I do want it to transition away from industrial monocropping which is harmful and destructive, not by force, but by choice and by using human ingenuity to overcome any apparent deficits and then exceed previous production. "You can't tell if it's better to save on food and live longer or healthier (or whatever) for anybody but you. It's a subjective value." Cheap food should always be an option. But, that food shouldn't kill you or prevent you from living a healthy life.

First, thank you for your time and effort you put into this conversation. Probably the biggest misunderstanding we face here is that I refer to the free market. And you kindof indirectly present (justified and probably rightful) fear of interventions from the state (also via allied corporations). There are still things we should not forget and we should not sacrifice everything and everyone (like hugely reducing hunger and powerty) we've built just because some evil actors. That would make us equaly evil. When someone calls to abolish chemical fertilizers or similar I tend to get triggered and also demand economic proves that it's doable and ideally I'd like to know the opprtunity costs. If you'd like to continue in this conversation I have plenty to talk about 😂

"First, thank you for your time and effort you put into this conversation." You're very welcome! I enjoy discussions of yours kind. "Probably the biggest misunderstanding we face here is that I refer to the free market. And you kindof indirectly present (justified and probably rightful) fear of interventions from the state (also via allied corporations)." We do not and have not had a free market. I'm not sure we will unless civilization collapses. I do not want that. I know that it would cause too much suffering for too many to be a good thing even if I am more prepared for that than most. Since we lack a free market, we have to deal with what we've got now, which is entirely dependent on chemical fertilizers, which the stupid conflict in Ukraine is interrupting the supply of, and this has been estimated to cause a few million deaths in the near term as prices and availability are moving in very unfavorable directions. Outside of that, you have the insidious bureaucrats restricting the use of chemical fertilizers in various places in Europe. I don't think that you can deny that there is a war for control of food production that is manipulating the market in ways that favor very few instead of the rest of humanity (though I don't really like talking in collectivist terms since I am exceedingly individuality oriented). "There are still things we should not forget and we should not sacrifice everything and everyone (like hugely reducing hunger and powerty) we've built just because some evil actors. That would make us equaly evil." Yes, except that in my limited knowledge, everything that we currently have is built on lies, and not just little fibs here and there, big, fat, juicy, crazy, insane lies. Any system that is built on lies will crumble. I am looking to exit that system and build my own network of capable, diverse, like-minded people who can handle the collapse of civilization. If it doesn't happen, so much the better. We'll be very hard to manipulate with hunger or propoganda or financial controls. "When someone calls to abolish chemical fertilizers or similar I tend to get triggered and also demand economic proves that it's doable and ideally I'd like to know the opprtunity costs." I'm not, nor have I ever or will ever call for banning chemical fertilizers. They are useful even in more holistic methods of food production. I do not think that most food production should rely on cheap chemicals from antagonistic or corrupt countries. Food, shelter, water, and clothing are the four basic pillars of our sometimes fail physical existence. I don't intend to allow others to dictate any of those to me. Yes, other people can make better clothes than I can, but... I'm going to be able to get by if need be, if the convenience isn't available. "If you'd like to continue in this conversation I have plenty to talk about 😂" Oh, you might be surprised at how much I can talk... LOL

It's not that important that there is not a completly free market. I come from a country which has this intervetionalist market since 1989 (actually 90s were the quite good in terms of national market) and now EU. 40 years of central planning under russia, protectionsim under austria all the way back to feudalism. From my POV it's OK(ish). There was a free market though in the history. Liberalism and free market were a thing until Great war. If we want to fix the mess socialism of all forms caused (from Marx to Keynes) we should focus on bringing back free market and capitalism. Bitching about 8 corps trying to kill us is IMO ineffective way to spend energy. Convincing ppl not to eat garbage even more. If you're poor you don't (usually) have choices. We as a society need to fight for a chance for poor to not stay poor. As I mentioned you can't decide if a shelter or new shoes are more imporant then not eating processed food. The only way to achieve that is to rise our productivity. It's been proved that you can only do that with more effective production means (like technology) and/or better labour divison and specialization. If we step back and talk about let's say computer chips instead of food. Is it better to have taiwan/tsmc specialized in making high volume of high quality processors for low prices or demand decentralization leading to crappy expensive chips? Btw. something probably about to happen in US and EU by forcefully bringing the chip production somewhere to no enterpretour would choose willingly. Decentralization is good for political power distribution not production. I'll give an example. If you have only one mine of let's say cooltium and you need that thing to make pretty much everything you will concentrate the production there. You centralize to reduce costs and provide customers better prices the concurrency.