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Comment by jungletime | Hacker News Reader

The current global economy is only possible because of cheap global shipping using tanker ships.

Just take a look at a map of ship traffic. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-every-ship-real...

Its so cheap, it makes possible to catch salmon in Alaska, process it in China and sell it back in Alaska.

But its a singular failure point. If at any point war or pandemic disrupts this traffic, millions of people will die of hunger.

Cities like Dubai and Honolulu don't have any hope of feeding their million strong populations with their local farming and natural resources. Its either impossible, or they have totally abandoned their food production capability for cheaper shipped produce.

I would move to Hawaii, but the probability of all out cannibalism in a war situation is real threat there.

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You might like to read about Cuba’s agricultural crisis after the collapse of the USSR, and how quickly they were able to adapt, despite being an isolated island nation. It might give you more confidence to pursure your dream to move to Hawaii!

Before 1991, Cuban agriculture was heavily based on cash crops and relied on subsidized Soviet oil. The collapse had severe effects and caused a famine, made worse by state interference. Despite all this, the ability of the people to quickly adapt away from industrial agriculture to organic and urban farming saved them from mass starvation. It’s an inspiring story of human adaptability through the most difficult of times.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Period

Thanks, I watched a documentary about this on the "Nature of Things".

https://curio.ca/en/video/cuba-the-accidental-revolution-sus...

I don't know if this was true in Cuba. But many people in the former soviet union states already relied on growing their own food because of shortages in stores. So basic farming knowledge, and even relying on small farmers was more common. To what degree and how quickly a place like Hawaii would adopt I'm not sure. Many farms in Hawaii are geared to monocrop production, and are large and corporately owned. They would first need to taken over. Also, Hawaii is a paradise. But growing common agricultural crops there is surprisingly difficult.

Gardening in Hawaii, problems in paradise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQBJiozXwaU

You might enjoy reading about Cannibal Island.

https://www.rferl.org/a/cannibal-island-in-1933-nearly-5-000...

Thanks for the interesting links!

There is no war involving the US that involves the US being crippled without nuclear weapons.

If you are worried about war related cannibalism, you should be far more worried about dying from nuclear annihilation...

Consider that the US ran out of face masks, and PPEs because it could not import them from China earlier this year. And the US public was without adequate supplies for months. And the government made vague health statements about their benefit, so that the healthcare workers would be rationed enough face masks without the public buying them all out.

I think its a safe bet that people already died because of supply chain disruptions. And this is something as simple to manufacturing as a cloth covering. Imagine a disruption to food supplies.

All it would take is a couple tankers worth of food shipments to be delayed to Oahu, by a month, and people are starving there. Everything is now "held with bubble gum and shoes string", and "just in time delivery" in this economy. There are no large food storage supplies on Oahu that I am aware of.

Hawaii is reliant on the mainland US for the bulk of its food imports AFAIK, not a global network.

It’s also in an insanely strategically valuable position.

If shipping between the mainland US and Hawaii has stopped for a month, US aircraft carriers have been sunk. Nuclear weapons have most likely been used.

You’ve absolutely got a point here about the fragility built into the current system, it just doesn’t nearly apply as much to Hawaii due to other factors.

Thats ludicrous, no-one sane will commit collective suicide of the human race. This was well covered in the Yes Minister, which I consider a documentary: https://youtu.be/o861Ka9TtT4

Suppose, magically, the entire US navy was sank overnight. Would you rather loose some random war in a remote place or be "dying from nuclear annihilation"? Even if you were to loose Hawaii, if that worth the nuclear winter?

Secondly - Global trade is fragile - shipping just needs to become unsafe and disrupted. Even some dudes with AKs on a wooden boat managed to take control of oil tankers.

Imagine there were automated kamikadze-bot robo-submarines, shipping could become too dangerous. They could even be useless against military ships, just dangerous to commercial ones and too numerous / stealthy to control.

Imagine there were automated kamikadze-bot robo-submarines

We've had those for almost a century. They're called "homing torpedoes". :-)

I think something loitering was meant, call it CARP for combat aquatic robo patrol.

Or SHARK, for Superbly hidden attack robot killer

So what?

"Spontane Verdampfung führt zur Entkrampfung!"

or, "Spontaneous evaporation is your salvation!"

Strange. With your nickname I imagined you might possibly enjoy that :)

Seems like I've tokenized that wrong. cf. https://youtu.be/ZgI4DdINQLQ

Global shipping empire is why Oceania is named Oceania.

(A hegemon who rules the waves may, on occasion, also waive the rules. However, when Britannia had the empire, she was in favour of free trade.)

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