Comment on C-c-changes
fckreddit@lemmy.ml 4 days agoThis is what a focus on short-term economics and short term politics brings us to. Governments across the world could have focussed on a more sustainable community-based(?) approach. But that’s too difficult. Instead, they prefer tooting the horns of their economic ‘developments’ that just makes things worse.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
When and why do you think our time preferences have shortened?
Adalast@lemmy.world 3 days ago
That is a big question. Rectally sourced information here, but I would probably guess it started in the wake of the Dust Bowl.
frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
Close. WWII America had to invest heavily in farms to feed soldiers who need 4,000 kcal diets to support marching around with heavy packs all day long in potentially cold weather. That investment drove up automation in the farm industry, particularly with corn and soybeans.
War ends, but the infrastructure is all still there. If farms weren’t heavily subsidized, they would collapse. There was real risk of fields going fallow on a mass level, resulting in too little food to feed the population. And then you have to keep subsidizing it, forever. Nobody has figured out a way out of that logic while maintaining a mostly capitalist production system.
Adalast@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Interesting take. Would you attribute the overall look to short term gains to the same point in time and reasoning? It is obviously a nuanced problem and I am sure Nixon and Reagan’s fingerprints can be found on the problem somewhere, but they were obviously not the root.