Intelligent Conversation about Karl Marx, Socialism and Communism

[Heavy Arms]

We can also look at Iceland, which for a number of reasons already favors a huge investment in greenhouse base domestic production and how successful they've been. Though they have a huge advantage with greenhouses because of their ample geothermal/hot water pumping infrastructure to provide an extremely efficient source of temperature and moisture control.

The problem with replicating that is mostly the sheer number of people that live in arid countries that cannot support themselves on pure domestic production. They'll either have to drastically reduce populations if global produce exports decrease, or we'll see increases in water-wars as they'll seek to increase control over stable water sources to feed their populations at other country's expense.

We would need a massive technological revolution in arid agriculture to make perspective two happen without a huge toll in human lives. Or some other improbable fix like having temperate and colder countries take in the excess populations in arid countries (and then there's the ethics of forced migration). A better managed mixed approach feels like the only viable solution. Arid areas being given space to export products hard to grow in a universal domestic production system in return for things most countries can grow excess of their domestic needs, while wetter areas do mostly local production with some export production to keep arid areas going.

Over time, there could be a push towards full local domestic as technology allows, but we're not there now, and need to get started on these issues a few decades ago.

[monteparnas]

So there are two perspectives. The first is simple. Grow what your soil and climate favor, put it on a ship and burn diesel to send it to export destinations. The second perspective is that we should use greenhouses to produce almost everything domestically, saving transport cost and reducing pollution. Given that the climate meltdown is a massive inside threat, I favor the second perspective.

There are even more nuances to it, like how the first option creates logistical knots that can become serious problems under certain circumstances like pandemics and wars. The current inflation crisis over the world comes from this, we had a series of supply chain problems from before the pandemic that came into nightmarish proportions due to it, like the Microchip Crisis being greatly enhanced by lockdowns and/or deaths in the few suppliers of some very specific electronics raw materials and then on the few large producers of microchips. Now the war in Ukraine affects one of the world's main cereal exporter on one side and one of the world's main oil exporter on the other. The lack of oil is affecting strategic decisions of refiners about to whom sell diesel, and one of the consequences is that for example Brazil is getting almost none and we'll face the worse of the diesel crisis during harvest, affecting food supply again.

One of the effects is on concentration of power in geopolitics. Putin is shamelessly using his control over a large supply of oil to curb actions against his war, and while it isn't perfect, it does work. Resisting him is costing the world a worsening in the crisis. Here in Brazil we couldn't even try because we still depend too much on Russian fertilizers. Taiwan stays in a particularly tough spot because China wants to control the island's microchip production that supply the whole world, but can't simply invade because the defense of this supply is a priority for the whole world. What if China finds a way in without affecting the supply, can the US defend the island and damn the entire electronics industry in the meantime?

But then, what about developing countries? Many are hugely reliant on just a few exports to sustain their economies and can't simply wish their way to self-reliance. It isn't just a matter of resources, we need proper technology and infrastructure. Why would a rich country that still has its own problems to deal with and tax payers to answer to invest the heft sums needed to raise others to self-reliance, when doing so will reduce surplus of basic supplies, and so raise its price in the international markets, instead of bringing any benefit to themselves and their people?

Heavy Arms already explained the problem with arid countries. When you consider the whole gamut of supplies that a country needs to go by, things get even worse, and again with countries that rely on those exports for money and protection. Not to say that this power balance also means that even within well established countries the decision of going self-reliant has a lot of strategic and political nuances to it.

[Heavy Arms]

We all have some honking big countries around. Internally geographically large countries can produce everything "domestically" and cause all of the big issues with export driven supply chains.

California is one state on one geographic side of the USA, and produces ~14% of all domestic food in the country, ~1/3rds of domestic vegetables and ~2/3rds of domestic fruits/nuts. The US cannot just internally shift this dynamic around and have other states grow more fruits so that one state isn't inherently necessary to the domestic nutritional health of the populace.

Canada, Brazil, Russia, China, India... any geographically large country is going to have to have at least an internal logically supply chain to get food from where growing food is easy to where people are for other important reasons.

[HorizonParty2021]

The standard example I referred to involved countries with advantages in producing various crops, which assumes they have enough fresh water to grow them. However, cold and wet versus hot and dry is an important dimension to consider. Nevada assures its food security by doing a lot of the canning of foodstuff produced in wetter states (like California). Most arid countries have great solar energy potential, which could be leveraged for fresh water using a particular technology.

I will preface the next subject by acknowledging that desalination, as done currently on large scale, poses ecological risks due to the brine pollution it outputs. So capturing all that brine and doing something useful with it is a technical challenge that will have to be met with innovation. Jordan, Israel and the UAE are investing in both solar energy and desalination, as part of an economic partnership (and unfortunately not so much into brine treatment). The first two countries hope to use increased access to fresh water to kickstart a process that would green desert, naturally, by having salt-tolerant plants near the coast passing water along to rows of crops that are increasingly freshwater as you go further inland.

Greenhouses are getting more and more impressive in terms of water conservation. This vertical farm boasts no pesticides, no soil and ninety percent less water usage. Geodesic domes are starting to become a thing and are suitable for use in Arctic areas. Innovation in geothermal technology is making it possible to obtain this type of energy anywhere, not just over super-hot magma pockets.

One thing I had considered is how much Canadian cities spend on snow removal every year. It is a substantial part of the budget and burns a lot of gasoline. It must be possible to design a city that uses ground-heat to melt snow.

We definitely need geopolitical stability in order to solve existential problems. If we could build large scale Arctic infrastructure, we could capture the methane before it comes up and use it as a fuel source. Turning into CO2 (maybe sequestering that) is way better than leaving it as CH4, destined for the atmosphere.

What about developing countries? They have an advantage when it comes to building new, green infrastructure. People in developed countries face the cost of buying and tearing down high value real estate that was built using older building methods that don't favor energy efficiency. It's a lower purchasing cost and less working around obstacles in developing countries. Foreign investment doesn't have to be a foreign government. It can be international investors. It can even be local investors, since even the poorest countries have some people who can afford to take a risk.

[monteparnas]

What about developing countries? They have an advantage when it comes to building new, green infrastructure. People in developed countries face the cost of buying and tearing down high value real estate that was built using older building methods that don't favor energy efficiency. It's a lower purchasing cost and less working around obstacles in developing countries. Foreign investment doesn't have to be a foreign government. It can be international investors. It can even be local investors, since even the poorest countries have some people who can afford to take a risk.

You're facing the question from a limited perspective still, and an environmental one in an economics thread.

If having some billionaries make risk investments were enough, we wouldn't face such a problem in the first place. Actual infrastructure for large populations is far more complex and costly, to build, integrate and maintain. New technologies are important, but they need to be easy, cheap and reliable to replicate before they can be considered a possible solution.

While it is true that developing countries have an easier time building with those new technologies once that happens, it doesn't solve the problem of having the resources to build in the first place, or establishing enough infrastructure for their population and production needs.

Even telling apart "developed" and "developing" countries isn't always that simple when you get to the actual differences between them, how much they can produce, what are the actual challenges and logistics. Just as the distinction between "First" and "Third" worlds, or the "Western World", it is an artifact of shallow political analysis that can be useful in some circumstances, but actually fails horribly to really describe any meaningful and actionable phenomena. And on most contexts it is also gratuitously offensive, precisely because of that.

The problem of scale is, for example, why a lot of people, including myself, went back to advocate for nuclear power. It's non-renewable by definition, and we all know the risks and problems, but it is the cleaner and safer solution we have by sheer scale. Wind and solar are becoming better, cheaper, more reliable, but they're still just too short from the needed scale. Hydro is still incredibly problematic as a source, and I talk from a country that relies mostly from hydro, the sheer logistics and environmental impacts of it are only better than fossil fuels.

All things considered, the problem of economics is that we have to provide food, water, power, education, jobs, everything for more than 7 billion people living in wildly different areas and distances from main logistical hubs, with consideration for their context, relationships with local powers, and how this whole system will be affected by time and external factors.

By the way, local wealth is more frequently a problem than solution. They're wealthy enough to easily bypass the problems and occupy a niche that favors from inequality to pump money into their coffers. One thing Russia, Cuba and China have in common is that before their respective revolutions they were under self-inflicted crisis caused by people that got obscene profits from it. To some scale, this kind of situation happens everywhere, from the US to Brazil to Congo. You can't solve this just by expecting people to do what is right out of the goodness of their hearts.

[Iguazu]

I did find, a copy of the Communist Manifesto, in a used bookstore in San Carlos Bariloche, AR. An Australian said we was going to steal it because that little book, changed the lives of millions. Granted, I read it years ago; it was difficult to read, and as I recalled, had an angry-tone about it. And just to top things off, I did read, at the same time, Ayn Rand's Anthem, which, I was thinking, "La chica fue vivir en nubes de pedos" (She's out of touch with reality). A year ago, I found a copy of Mein Kampf at a local used book store; a lot of the guys want to read it, but I'm not finished with it and I'm not loaning it out as it took almost a decade of checking out used bookstores to find a Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf; it's a boring read as I've only read the first few chapters and don't want to start it again.

[Heavy Arms]

The Communist Manifesto wasn't ever really meant to be read by the general public. It wasn't even Marx and Engel's idea to produce it. The Communist League (an organization that worked to create Communist parties in different countries) asked them to write it as a sort of base-line organizational document of what a Communist party is supposed to believe, advocate for, and why. It's best to approach is as a political instruction manual than a press release or academic paper.

[Iguazu]

I'm reading, The Condition of the Working Class In England, by Friedrich Engels and this book, is more World of Darkness, then anything published thus far; it would be a great, Dark Eras, chapter.