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I've actually attempted small slices of this.

The work isn't necessarily the difficult part, but the baggage to continue to exist and be recognized by the rest of the system is where things go awry.

Seeing as there is astonishingly low pressure to actually keep prices low, you have a maximization function in place that ends up ensuring that you're either having to maximize for capital influx to equip yourself for maximal time efficiency, or you end up having to condition yourself to be able to physically do the work, which tends to cost a great deal of time and regular personal upkeep.

Mind, this has just been forays into agriculture and basic manufacturing (blacksmithing/rudimentary fabrication).

All of this dive has also been done in an environment where most are content to live and let live. So the random interloper deciding to flex muscle to subduct your aspirations to self-sustainability are not a factor; and raw material processing has not hit the top of my research pile yet.

While everything is in reach, efficiency while doing it is always the most hard won fight to win.

On the other hand, you also learn a few warts of the system by doing this type of work as well. Our current society has become incredibly transaction-centric instead of people-community centric. When trivial transportation costs have effectively globalised the world, your ability to forge effective self-sustaining in groups outside the fiscal sense suffers.

I believe this may be a contributing factor to the recent resurgence of nationalistic tendencies. As every member of the market has begun to realize how tightly coupled everything has become, there is a desire to cut out the additional complexity and figure out a way to keep the in-group/culture sustainable regardless of fiscal outcomes.

Furthermore, technological advancement inevitably introduces higher severity and complexity problems, as well as extending the physical implications of addressing those very problems. Take the increasing prevalence of ant-biotic/fungal resistant bacteria/fungi as an example, or the consequences of climate change fueled by shifts in our atmospheric composition and biosphere depletion.

It's not at all a trivial matter, and when your technological carrying capacity is mated with a positive feedback loop, (drive to procreate/attain more wealth) you have a recipe for change that won't be denied.

The only thing people seem to be selectively blind to is The bits and pieces they are willing to accept as being caused by technological progress, and whether or not they can/should be remedied.



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