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Comment by 80fj0348i | Hacker News Reader

Today, around 50% of US consumer spending is by the top 10% of wealthiest households. (per Moody's)

The end state of this looks like how humanity looked before the industrial revolution: A single-digit percent of the population has the vast majority of the wealth and virtually all real estate and luxury goods. Between 90% and 95% of the population has just enough to live on, and never enough to build generational wealth or have any class mobility.

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Pre-industrial societies were built on agriculture so whatever happens will be different. Recommended reading:

Pre-Industrial Societies: Anatomy of the Pre-Modern World https://www.amazon.com/dp/1780747411

I think those in poverty have an awful lot less ways to supplement bought food these days, they are largely legislated out of foraging in any meaningful way. So I think actually a large percentage will starve to death or be in prison.

People will take food without paying for it before dying. You don’t have to forage when you can loot grocery stores. At a point when a large percentage are going to die and the food is there, it will be bedlam and the police won’t be stopping it because their families will be part of the riot.

The notion that people will simply roll over and literally die for profit margins is absurd. The system will break and be rebuilt in that situation.

It wouldn't actually cost that much money to feed everyone in the world. Global hunger could be wiped out today. More likely everyone will get just enough food, but luxury foods like meat (especially beef) and premium items will be uncommon. Like pre-industrial diets.

That works for about a week.

Then they simply starve to death.

The "preppers" are some of the worst too. They'll be shooting people before that week is even done. Meanwhile their absurd "stash" only actually pencils out to about a month of supplies, then they also starve because they never seemed to notice that you have to start farming at some point, and therefore, have to be friendly and supportive with your neighbors instead of shooting them at the first sign of trouble.

The system never has to rebuild. Stable points aren't always at global inflection points. Feudalism can go back to reigning for the rest of human existence.

there will be no grocery stores

> People will take food without paying for it before dying.

Yeah, I don't know why people seem to not understand this.

There are so many guns in America.

If the shit really hits the fan economically and a significant amount of people can't legally afford to buy their next 3 meals, there is likely to be a lot of excess deaths, but many of them will not be from starvation.

there will be even more drones

the guns will be user to kill each other, not the elite

in a way, doing the elite work, no need to kill the underclass, they will take care of pruning itself

Food banks. Church pantries. Welfare programs. Meals with family and friends. Eat way less meat. Get hardcore into meal prep. https://traumbooks.itch.io/the-sad-bastard-cookbook. People will find ways to eat as long as there isn't an active warzone.

I'm much more worried about what housing looks like in the future.

Food banks depend on the largesse of the people that can afford to buy food though, which, well... if the only people remaining in that group are the ones gleefully saying how they're going to create a permanent underclass...

I've done social-work–adjacent stuff and I know a lot of NGOs in my country are quite strained (of course, probably housing more than food, so I don't disagree that might be more of a concern). I imagine it wouldn't be too different in America.

in America they are literally creating laws that it's illegal to feed the homeless

No, there are laws against distributing food without a permit because (1) there are people who give poisoned food to homeless people and (2) there are rules about food safety.

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