A 2025 Retrospective.

[taiwan_girl]

@Larry said in A 2025 Retrospective.:

@taiwan_girl said in A 2025 Retrospective.:

@Doctor-Phibes by any current measuring, the more agricultural a country is, the poorer it is.

Nope. Not true at all. lol

It is absolutely true. I am to sure why you say it is not true. What measuring do you use to dispute this?

I love farming, but farming is a tough business, especially when talking about subsistence farming.

Countries Most Dependent on Agriculture. The table below is a bit bad formatted but is the % of country GDP that is associated with agriculture. None of those countries would be considered "rich"

Rank Country Agriculture as Percentage of GDP
1 Liberia 76.9
2 Somalia 60.2
3 Guinea-Bissau 55.8
4 Central African Republic 53.1
5 Chad 52.7
6 Comoros 51.6
7 Sierra Leone 51.5
8 Togo 46
9 Ethiopia 41
10 Niger 39
11 Mali 38.8
12 Burma (Myanmar) 38.2
13 Democratic Republic of the Congo 37.5
14 Benin 36
15 Nepal 34.9

[Larry]

I thought you were using that fact to make the claim that the rural areas of the US are poor. I see now that you weren't, so I'm left with the question - why did you even bring it up if that wasn't your intent? Farm areas of third world countries has nothing to do with this discussion.

[taiwan_girl]

@Larry What I was trying to say (not very clearly LOL) was that agricultural areas need cities to prosper. And vice versa.

The sum of the parts is greater than the individual parts.

[Larry]

I see. Well, I was trying to respond based on the US, which was what we were talking about. And I can assure you that the vast majority of the rural (read "not urban") areas of the US do not need a thing from cities.

[jon-nyc]

@jon-nyc said in A 2025 Retrospective.:

Most of the wealth and substantially all of the creativity is in the blue areas.

Biden counties vs Trump counties, sized by income.

[Loki]

@jon-nyc said in A 2025 Retrospective.:

@jon-nyc said in A 2025 Retrospective.:

Most of the wealth and substantially all of the creativity is in the blue areas.

Biden counties vs Trump counties, sized by income.

So are most the problems, no?

[xenon]

@loki said in A 2025 Retrospective.:

@jon-nyc said in A 2025 Retrospective.:

@jon-nyc said in A 2025 Retrospective.:

Most of the wealth and substantially all of the creativity is in the blue areas.

Biden counties vs Trump counties, sized by income.

So are most the problems, no?

Link to video

[Jolly]

I'm just laughing at y'all. While rural areas may not have some of the things the urban areas have, let me list a few things...

1. Oil.
2. Natural gas.
3. Wheat
4. Corn.
5. Cattle
6. Chickens.
7. Coal
8. Hogs.
9. Rice
10. Sugar
11. Timber
12. Etc.

Now, I'm in a pretty rural area and the regional per capita income would never compare with Boston or New York. But...

I can draw a 120 mile circle and encompass a couple of automotive manufacturing plants, a refinery, one of the largest gas fields in the country, one of the largest soap mills in the country, the largest private sawmill in the country, two plywood/OSB plants, one of the biggest specialty aluminum factories in the country, four power plants, linerboard mill, toilet paper mill, a copy paper mill and the largest concentration of chemical plants in the country. And there's lots more, big and small.

Maybe y'all can import it, I don't know, but it looks to me that if y'all can't import it, you're going to starve in the dark, without anything to wipe your backside except your worthless, fiat money.

[Klaus]

@jolly said in A 2025 Retrospective.:

Oil.
Natural gas.
Wheat
Corn.
Cattle
Chickens.
Coal
Hogs.
Rice
Sugar
Timber
Etc.

And how much of those things could be produced without the technology, education, finance etc. mainly provided by cities? You are looking at standards of living from 300 years ago.

Have you ever climbed the stairs of the Eiffel tower? If the steps were labeled "countryside" or "city", you are claiming that you can reach the top merely because the bottommost step is labeled "countryside".

Like it or not, but it's a symbiotic relationship.

[George K]

I was assured that the Republicans are the party of the rich.

[Aqua Letifer]

@klaus said in A 2025 Retrospective.:

Like it or not, but it's a symbiotic relationship.

I can't believe this even needs to be pointed out.

[Jolly]

@aqua-letifer said in A 2025 Retrospective.:

@klaus said in A 2025 Retrospective.:

Like it or not, but it's a symbiotic relationship.

I can't believe this even needs to be pointed out.

Point it out. It's symbiotic, but if the two are separated, who dies and who lives?

That is the question.

[Klaus]

@jolly said in A 2025 Retrospective.:

Point it out. It's symbiotic, but if the two are separated, who dies and who lives?

As I said, the first step is labeled "countryside".

But life in it would look nothing like today's countryside.

[jon-nyc]

@jon-nyc said in A 2025 Retrospective.:

Jolly’s a prepper at heart. When he asks ‘which would do better’ I think he has survival scenarios in his mind that assume no trade with the outside world.

Like I said above...

[Jolly]

@jon-nyc said in A 2025 Retrospective.:

@jon-nyc said in A 2025 Retrospective.:

Jolly’s a prepper at heart. When he asks ‘which would do better’ I think he has survival scenarios in his mind that assume no trade with the outside world.

Like I said above...

Not that simple. Y'all continue to underestimate food, energy, chemical and manufacturing capacity of those red counties.

[Aqua Letifer]

@jolly said in A 2025 Retrospective.:

It's symbiotic, but if the two are separated, who dies and who lives?
That is the question.

I realize that's probably a huge hope for you, but I'm sorry to tell you that's very unlikely. Show me all the evidence in the world, and I'm going to counter with the long list of cities in America that continue to exist.

[A Former User]

Link to video

[Larry]

@klaus said in A 2025 Retrospective.:

@jolly said in A 2025 Retrospective.:

Point it out. It's symbiotic, but if the two are separated, who dies and who lives?

As I said, the first step is labeled "countryside".

But life in it would look nothing like today's countryside.

And by the same token, life in the city wouldn't be what it is today without the countryside. But the only time those in the countryside says anything is when city folk start up their "we're better educated, richer, and just plain better than you" crap. That's when we will remind city folk they have no reason to get all snooty, they make more money because it costs more to live there, and it costs more to live their because they keep voting for democrats, which causes those of us in the countryside to question their intelligence.....

[Axtremus]

@Jolly, @Larry, since you two claim to operate farms, what would it be like if you operate your farm without using any technology from “big city” for, say a year?

For example, no refined fossil fuel, no internal combustion engine, no mass produced chemical fertilizer, no mass produced chemical insecticide, no genetically modified/enhanced seeds, no antibiotics and no artificial hormones for the farm animals, no taking advantage of weather and climate forecasts made with “big city” technologies, no electronic anything? (Not sure what restrictions to put on irrigation, not sure how much “big city” water distribution and filtration systems and technologies you rely on these days anyway.)

Might be very interesting to just try it for a year, and show ‘em city boys what’s possible without the cities. And it might give you great material to write a book and go onto talk show circuits and pod casts to talk about this after your year long experiment.

[Mik]

Words fail.