beckman466

> I am wondering to what extent the central planning is much more tractable now with the amount of data and computerization. It is not like free market is perfect in adjusting either (i.e. situation with timber or computer chips or containers in covid times). I'm not convinced that central planning is the best way to organize the state, but I'm wondering whether the intractability argument against is still valid or not.

I am personally very grateful to have come across the work of Lynn Foster and Bob Haugen (and a few other parties, e.g. Sensorica). They are working on exactly this problem. Their project is called http://valueflo.ws (their software org is: http://mikorizal.org). One of the projects I'm most excited about is the Valueflo.ws vocabulary on the Holochain distributed app framework: https://github.com/holo-rea. It can basically replace today's centralized Enterprise Resource Planning model with an ecology of fully distributed economic resource protocols.

Lynn did a fantastic presentation; which includes a good intro to their accounting model (Bill McCarthy's Resource Event Agent (REA)): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vymAHXGSM14

There is also a great story (using the example of making a pie) in pdf format on the Valueflo.ws website: http://mikorizal.org/ValueFlows-Story.pdf

NY Textile Lab is a project that is working to integrate Valueflows: https://www.newyorktextilelab.com/holochain-app-development

There is a great documentary that came out just a few weeks ago.

Cybersocialism: Project Cybersyn & The CIA Coup in Chile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJLA2_Ho7X0

> The major Achilles heel of communism is its central planning.

> The efforts that were undertaken to replace the price signal were also truly monumental, armies of bureaucrats collecting information on every detail of consumption and then trying project needs across an entire society. It's a herculean task even by today's standards of information processing.

No it's very much possible today. An exciting project I follow closely: http://valueflo.ws

> The question for me is: Does a more inclusive, compassionate, considered world view help people to help others in some small way?

The more important question is: what happens to people that they lose their compassionate worldview in the first place? Or are you telling me that you've never heard the contagious laughter of a baby who is lovingly cradled, or played with, by a caregiver/parent?

"The radical therapist David Smail argues that Margaret Thatcher's view that there's no such thing as society, only individuals and their families, finds "an unacknowledged echo in almost all approaches to therapy". Therapies such as cognitive behaviour therapy combine a focus on early life with the self-help doctrine that individuals can become masters of their own destiny. The idea is "with the expert help of your therapist or counsellor, you can change the world you are in the last analysis responsible for, so that it no longer causes you distress" – Smail calls this view "magical voluntarism".

Depression is the shadow side of entrepreneurial culture, what happens when magical voluntarism confronts limited opportunities. As psychologist Oliver James put it in his book The Selfish Capitalist, "in the entrepreneurial fantasy society," we are taught "that only the affluent are winners and that access to the top is open to anyone willing to work hard enough, regardless of their familial, ethnic or social background – if you do not succeed, there is only one person to blame." It's high time that the blame was placed elsewhere. We need to reverse the privatisation of stress and recognise that mental health is a political issue."

— Mark Fisher, Why mental health is a political issue

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/16/mental...

Thanks for your response, yet i'm not sure if you've read my question thoroughly enough because i'm not seeing a response to the question i posed, which is concerned with lack of access to scientific literacy opportunities.

> There is no such thing as "artificial scarcity of learning material"

There is when someone (like me) isn't methodologically literate or has a learning framework with which to compare, structure and integrate what they cover and will cover (i.e. a system for framing the clear-ish paths/lessons, that shows the overarching path forward, and that helps set and manage expectations (with the help of more experienced guides/peers), and give clarity on what could be gained). After falling through the cracks of the hunger-games -esque capitalist education system, I am not offered a second chance. Ours is a 'zero second chance' society.

So yes, maybe to you it seems like "there were never better times", yet that is not my reality. There are few bridges from where I'm located.

This is what Denise-Marie Ordway, author of the article linked to on this thread, says about it: "The researchers note that it’s tough for lay audiences to fully understand complex topics [...] They suggest a more sustainable solution for curbing misinformation is helping the public develop a type of scientific literacy known as methodological literacy. People who understand scientific methods and research designs can better evaluate claims about science and research, they explain."

> Have you been to a socialist country?

Socialism isn't a project for building socialist 'nations'. Capitalist borders only exist for the propertied class to control their capital. Socialism aims to build up and connect the exploited and alienated working class globally.

I'm living in a capitalist hellscape and i want to abolish silicon valley.

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/01/abolish-silicon-valley

my problem is that we are living in one of the most globally unequal times [1]. i just don’t know how relevant a hijacked practice is that misrepresents it’s origins.

the way ‘mindfulness research’ filters down today is a type of gaslighting. ‘McMindfulness’ (as Ron Purser calls it - he wrote a book with that same term) is often a vanity project by CEOs/executives/school boards in the west who have too much time on their hands. they impose it on their organizations and want to be patted on the back for their 'enlightened' solution. but it does nothing to improve the alienating material conditions most of the working class face, which is the root cause of their suffering.

“Mindfulness is said to be a $4bn industry. More than 60,000 books for sale on Amazon have a variant of “mindfulness” in their title, touting the benefits of Mindful Parenting, Mindful Eating, Mindful Teaching, Mindful Therapy, Mindful Leadership, Mindful Finance, a Mindful Nation, and Mindful Dog Owners, to name just a few. There is also The Mindfulness Colouring Book, part of a bestselling subgenre in itself. Besides books, there are workshops, online courses, glossy magazines, documentary films, smartphone apps, bells, cushions, bracelets, beauty products and other paraphernalia, as well as a lucrative and burgeoning conference circuit. Mindfulness programmes have made their way into schools, Wall Street and Silicon Valley corporations, law firms, and government agencies, including the US military.” [2]

and:

“What is the problem with people making money out of mindfulness?

I guess if you’re a devout capitalist there probably isn’t a problem. But the issue is that it’s a capitalist spirituality. It’s under the big umbrella of the ‘wellness industry’. What is troubling is how easily it has become accommodated within the mainstream marketplace – I think that should give us pause. Mindfulness is so market-friendly because it appeals to this highly individualistic, entrepreneurial ethos. It’s all about ‘me’ and self-improvement. It’s thriving in a culture of narcissism. The focus is firmly on delivering a more happy self. This is a real kind of social myopia: it squarely places the responsibility of being ‘happy’ within the individual themselves, rather than taking into account all the systemic, structural aspects of society that are causing the cultural malaise that has so many people flocking to the wellness industry for answers.”

Purser does offer a potential alternative:

“Is it possible to reclaim mindfulness from the marketplace?

Mindfulness has been hijacked by the neoliberal narrative, but I think it could be reclaimed by expanding its scope. From the very start, the Buddhist community, or sangha, was always going against the grain of the Hindu caste system in India. Buddhism was always countercultural. Mindfulness is now all about critique being turned inward, toward ourselves. We need to flip that critique back out, toward the systems and practices that are causing the problems in the first place. A collective form of mindfulness would not throw the baby out with the bathwater; it wouldn’t throw out self-care, would not disregard the therapeutic benefits of meditation — but it would expand the scope of its environment. We could sever its ties to the marketplace, to create a more collective practice that focuses on the alleviation of collective social suffering, rather than just that of the individual.” [3]

lastly though, i think it’s ironic that this article mentions a “classic study [that] had skilled golfers attempt to sink putts under different experimental conditions”. so you’re saying that in a stressed out society where people in the working class get no time for themselves to reflect, academic researchers in the west are going to do research on the golf playing propertied class to look for alternatives/solutions (no matter if those solutions are either 'mindfulness' or 'mindlessness' or whatever else)?

[1] https://mronline.org/2019/09/29/iphone-workers-today-are-25-...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/14/the-min...

[3] https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/books-art-and-cultur...

> Yes, there is a mindfulness "industry"

> But.

> I quite like "vague notions" like "feelings", myself :-)

it's funny how what you write is exactly "what you would hear from an 'intergalactic encyclopedia salesman'", to quote OP. thanks for proving OP's point.

i think the reason mindfulness falls flat is because it ignores the material reality of the working class in our profit-seeking economic system. it makes like miserable for a large group of people.

the problem is that you can't meditate your way out of poverty of precarity by using "a centuries-old tradition of self-investigation and awareness".

mindfulness is 'for' the propertied classes who usually collect all types of rent [1] and who aren't living paycheck to paycheck.

try telling an exhausted Amazon warehouse worker to 'try' mindfulness. often it's just a bunch of gaslighting hoo-ha

[1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day-corru...

Agreed. It’s also important to remember that as a member of the non-propertied working class you’re always creating more value than what you’re paid for; you’re creating invaluable intellectual property that will bring in truckloads of cash and capital even after you leave the company.

> Systematic misinformation. Have you compared FoxNews and CNN during the Trump presidency? It's like they were reporting about different planets. One group has a significantly better outcome when it comes to COVID, for example (the motivation behind this is, however, a complete mystery to me).

Agreed. I fear that deeply traumatized people like Tucker Carlson aren't able to care much about people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E0NcmcGdSI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQwP0XRBjq4&t=37s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzUC4FUTKII

> Have you compared FoxNews and CNN

or is there more? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--TsGaNyr0U&t=1785s

> So in your experience, people don't read movie reviews, don't listen to sports commentaries, don't read amazon comments? People don't listen to TV personalities telling them that malaria medication is good against COVID? In your experience, people read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer all day long, and discuss existentialism, rather than watching Netflix? Etc.

Your words, not mine. The question I'm trying to get your perspective on is: despite all this (movie review, amazon comments, TV personalities), why do people make bad decisions? You keep saying that they do (and I agree with you) and I'm asking you why you believe that this is the case. Why do they make bad decisions?

And a follow up question: why aren't people more hungry to learn (e.g. reading Nietzsche and Schopenhauer all day long and discussing existentialism if they want to)? Why do they instead watch Netflix, etc.?

Am I misunderstanding you somewhere? Please let me know.

I really appreciate your willingness to jump in there and describe what you see; sharing your knowledge.

> I don't think the scientific method is actually that easy for most people to grasp.

Do you think most people have the actual opportunity to learn and grasp it though?

My worries/experience: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28661179

I see what you mean, and I think it's about expectations.

1.) Most of us are trained to have to expect to defer to authority, because that's what today's school teaches, due to the commodification and artificial scarcity of science, and to the division of labor of our profit-seeking economic system.

2.) They expect not to be able to understand things in depth, because capital controls the amount of knowledge workers that are 'allowed' to reach expert status, so as to control the labor supply of knowledge workers.

> Science is the process of gaining, evaluating, and revising knowledge and understanding, Science is not a body of knowledge. It's an algorithm, not data. So clearly, having access to the largest book ever written does not say anything about scientific literacy.

Great description, loved "It's an algorithm, not data." especially.

> Here's the thing: people [...] love to not think for themselves.

Wtf? I agree with what you write before, but then in this comment you're grossly generalizing and calling people dumb. Why? Does it make you feel better? Maybe you could try to dig into your judgement here and share what emerges? Why do people 'love not to think for themselves', and then why are you different? Or what makes you and a few others uniquely able to see this?

I tried to honestly and state my personal state here if you're interested or need inspiration to describe your lens or your experience: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28661179

1.) What do you think has made people scientifically incompetent (not trusting experts)?

2.) What do you think the impact of our current economic system has been on science? About the way science has been commoditized and feedback loops of the collective learning of humanity have been enclosed/black-boxed and made artificially scarce (innovations in the forms of patents, and other commoditized knowledge)? [1]

> Exactly! Fuck those people who studied a topic for 40 years -- why would they know one iota more about it than I do, or the facebook group of my crazy uncle -- they all have access to Google, after all!

I'm glad to see you state that access to Google and the 'commercial' web (can't think of better word) is not a good benchmark for access to humanity's shared inheritance. I see that claim too often.

[1] https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2019/02/19/dont-fooled-patent-pur...

> Using complicated language because it is more precise is not gatekeeping.

But that's not what OP said.

They said "science is sometimes also guilty of this". They didn't say "always guilty".

> Bingo. You figured out public school.

what do you see as alternatives?

It's great to see a lot of comments with an awareness that many in today's society aren't verifying (or able to verify?) the science they come across.

Yet I'm not seeing much talk yet of theories and frameworks that take this reality as a starting point. That takes this widespread scientific non-competence as a starting point to then chart a path forward to a competent society.

In other words, what are some strategies to support and guide people into becoming competent? How do we prevent this non-competence from showing up in the next generations?

As someone who has a shoddy base when it comes to science, I am still often missing the societal acknowledgement that 1.) it is hard to find patient, compassionate teachers and suitable material if you didn't do well early on (e.g. my sister did, I didn't), and 2.) that acknowledge the reality of both a.) having to untangle existing miseducation (shoddy, neglected base), while b.) giving enough time and space for the right scientific theories to fall into place (i.e. for competence or 'mastery' to start occurring). In other words: many of you here agree that people aren't able to derive or verify their own scientific explorations, yet what are the best learning frameworks for these adults to re-base their scientific/critical thinking skills?

As I said before, I currently have quite a shoddy base (to my great sorrow), how and where do i start remedying this? How do I rebuild my base, starting from where I am at now? Who has done this before? Who has achieved this? What was their path like?

Personally I currently believe the big intellectual 'gap' between the intellectually competent and less-than competent is a combination of 1.) artificial scarcity of learning material and opportunities caused by the profit-motive in academia/sciences, together with the criminalization of cooperation due to intellectual property laws (the propertied class enclosing and monopolizing knowledge) [1], and 2.) the knock on effect this causes on the non-propertied class (those who do not own the black box (intellectual) property they create, and who receive wages to work on this property for a firm), as they are forced to focus on their own skillset and position [2], over fostering widespread peer learning (e.g. passing on their knowledge) and the shared building and emergence of a rich network/web of collective intelligence [3]. Added on top of this brew are the psychological effects on society of a small group of people who believe they are innately intellectually superior (because they have been told throughout their lives that they are, and they have been put on a pedestal: 'rewarded' [4]), while living and working in today's black box society. That small group does not believe it is possible to get a 'second chance' at building a scientific base because they unconsciously believe that the current economic system (the bourgeois property system and it's profit motive) hands out work to the 'right' people, every time. [4] Essentially they have come to completely attach their identity and self-worth to their professional and technical strengths/skills. [5]

In my experience there is unfortunately no talking with most of these people. Until they personally witness the miraculous intellectual growth of another human being who emerged from a place different than they have, or in an area they didn't expect, their ego will protect them. This ego-protection is is not necessarily a bad thing in our current dog-eat-dog world, yet it does mean that a new groundbreaking compassionate learning framework is less than likely to emerge from their circles.

So to summarize, and to spell out what the above reality means for me: to today's society I am 'not worth spending time nurturing' because I am seen as a 'very late bloomer' (worst framing: I am a lost cause because I was lazy and I supposedly didn't 'get with the program' early enough [6]). In many areas I do not yet have the competences to actively contribute to a specific scientific or technological endeavor, yet also very few places to turn to to properly, sustainably and affordably 'skill up'. Both the 1.) curse of knowledge [7] and 2.) the lack of time and patience experienced by existing many knowledge workers, due to the stress and they experience, means that finding allies for growth is made nearly impossible. To conclude, and to emphasize my aforementioned arguments: the underlying challenge seems to me to be how we remove the profit motive from science and from technological research and development.

"The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before.

This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.

I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society."

— Albert Einstein, Why Socialism? [8]

So anyway, what beautiful frameworks do what I described above (and earlier) [9]? What will help me become scientifically competent? Who has gone there before (from my starting point); who should I talk to?

-

[1] Marianna Mazzucato, https://web.archive.org/web/20160204223931/https://nybooks.c...

[2] Wendy Liu, Gatekeeping in the tech industry: https://dellsystem.me/posts/fragments-50

[3] Aaron Swartz, Guerilla Open Access Manifesto: https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamj...

[4] Alfie Kohn, Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise and Other Bribes: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/541132.Punished_by_Rewar...

[5] Discussion on 'The Role of Jargon in Left Politics?': https://www.reddit.com/r/CriticalTheory/comments/l49hci/the_...

[6] Devon Price, Laziness Does Not Exist - But unseen barriers do: https://archive.is/s4Dn0 / https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e...

[7] Wikipedia, Curse of knowledge: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge

[8] Albert Einstein, Why Socialism?: https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/

[9] Me on a new distributed rhizomatic education system: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25753856

> do tell us if you have come up with or know of a (successful) business model where you do not have to collect the data of users. Nothing comes for free.

http://valueflo.ws asset backed flow -protocols built on top of the holochain dweb framework.

> can it deposit that money in a bank account and be said to be the owner of the assets.

most definitely, yes. why wouldn't it be the owner?

wow who knew that sand (silicon) could potentially invent new things? /sarcasm

but on a serious note, why do people say things like "humans are nothing but complicated biological machines"?

i mean, why do you really want to replicate the human brain?

i don't get it. is it alienation, loneliness? projecting your hope for connection and understanding onto something you program? is it to stay in control and avoid disappointment?

today too many vital feedback loops of science and technology are withheld from the commons by the propertied class. imagine what we could do if all science was mapped, further developed and universally shared in the open; no longer monopolized behind corporate walls. that's something that excites me a lot. not black box 'AI' owned by Musk, Zuck, Brin, Page, Cook or whomever. seriously, science fiction about this whole AI thing is unrealistic and dystopian.

when we start to realize most science and technology was publicly funded, will we seriously consider ditching the criminalization of knowledge sharing (intellectual property laws)?

“Many of the problems being faced today by the [US] are due to the fact that US taxpayer...do not realize that corporations are making money from innovation that has been supported by their taxes.” That they are not aware of the benefits to competition seems to be a triumph of free-market ideology over good sense.

How many Americans are aware that Google’s basic algorithm was developed with a National Science Foundation grant?" [1]

do we really want to destroy the world so we can have a 'Free Guy' Ryan Reynolds -like fake AI friend?

"90% of machine learning is burning down a forest so that you can train a computer to do phrenology" [2]

— @cooljqln

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20160204223931/https://nybooks.c...

[2] https://twitter.com/cooljqln/status/1441577367416098820

> It arrived one morning in March, bearing news that Facebook had received an order from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to turn over data from personal accounts Lackey uses to chat with friends and exchange cat photos.

> the email said Facebook had been forced to keep this intrusion secret

This is some scary shit. Seriously, social media companies are sociopathic friends who record everything you say and then throw it into the public in a mangled mess if you don't obey.

Sinophobia*

the point is that there is too much Sinaphobia in mainstream western news outlets that means global north countries' behavior is not proportionately called out. many stories about China are unfounded and dangerous, and mostly have to do with China being technologically strong.

your point? both statistics are valid and relevant, and aren't mutually exclusive.

weird comment. statistics aren't a game you win.

Why don't we instead give all humans full universal access to all knowledge, science and technology, instead of feeding books into black box 'AI' for 'summaries'?

Why should an 'AI' have universal access to this material, and not the working class? Especially the working class in the global south. They are so far from universal access. It's only a matter of time before the capitalist academia comes down on emancipatory initiatives/projects (yet capital disrupting), like Sci-Hub.

I write 'AI' because i see the pursuit of a general artificial intelligence in the labs of the propertied class (on their own profit-seeking, commons-hostile terms), despite the fact that there is widespread suffering caused by today's global production system, as a disgusting joke.

The supposed inevitability of today's widespread suffering across the world is a false truth pulled over our eyes by the propertied class.

World peace and full equality in this new digital age is a matter of priorities.

> Automated, and hidden taxes is one of the reason the government can actually steal errrr collect as much money as it does

The government creates, and then rents to us (usury), the money we all use [1]. It holds a monopoly on money creation.

Governments can create money to build infrastructure, hospitals and housing (many leftist governments in Europe have [2]) at will. Government doesn't need to collect taxes to do any of the things I mentioned, that's a myth. External constraints on national budgets are a myth. National budgets are just monetary debts by the government carried by citizens. [3]

[1] Inequality: Why are the rich getting richer? | Positive Money: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzCegQVljdY

[2] What could Vienna’s low-cost housing policy teach the UK? | Rent controls mean public sector workers and those on lower pay can afford to live and work in the Austrian capital: https://theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/12/vienna-housing-p...

[3] The truth is out: money is just an IOU, and the banks are rolling in it - David Graeber, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/18/truth-...

> Once again government creates a problem, then people look to government to solve the very problem it created which creates even more problems

What? And your answer is the private sector? Yeah i totally love how Bill Gates is trying to make Indian and African farmers dependent on Monsanto/Bayer's toxic GMO seeds. [1][2]

I don't think that the dichotomy that you allude to, between the government/state and business/companies, makes much sense:

1.) A national government is what creates the laws and maintains the registry of land/resources (land/resources which are owned by companies)

2.) A company is literally a database entry in a government database, the state issues the 'birth certificates' and 'death certificates' (folding a business or bankruptcy) for companies.

3.) When a profit-seeking company builds up knowledge today they want to enclose it by using intellectual property laws (useful for a monopoly).

4.) Competition between nations leads to useless competition, because often the same research and development has to be done twice (or just, every time again for each new country) - wasting resources and labor. The working class pays for all this dearly, since they are not part of the propertied class and are thus completely at the mercy of their whims and with only their labor to sell.

So yeah, the nation state needs the concept of companies, and companies are only possible by having a state. Capitalism and nationalism/patriotism is the name of this game.

Imagine if all of humanity pooled all it's non-scarce resources, removing all knowledge gatekeeping apparatus that blocks the diffusion of innovation by creating artificial scarcity where none need be. Imagine all technology and science open access for the benefit of the working class. What a dream. [3]

[1] https://grain.org/en/article/6511-why-the-bill-gates-global-...

[2] https://grain.org/en/article/5910-under-the-cover-of-philant...

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/j...

This is only a half measure and doesn't directly tackle the emissions or pollution problems in today's disgustingly wasteful and destructive global food production system.

We need 1.) more travel distance labels that show where things are from, while 2.) at the same time showing how much of the costs are government subsidized, as well as the emissions generated by the transportation costs.

Of course we need corresponding shifts, e.g. in helping communities learn how to cook with seasonal vegetables etc.. Living in the Netherlands, I don't need to eat asparagus from Peru in December.

But yeah, like in the airline and oil industries, it's the use of subsidies that's one of the root problems (although we all know that the US military industrial complex alone is one of the biggest polluters [1]).

We need more signaling systems that show the real costs; not to shame the working class who buy food (or pretend they have any real power to effect change), but to help reveal to them the wastefulness and destruction of the current system.

"Many urbanised people have lost touch with the sources of their food, and may not realize that the distance their food travels has been steadily increasing. In the US, the average pound of food now travels 1,500 miles before it reaches the dinner table, and the distance continues to grow.

Much of this transport is needless: every day, identical commodities pass in opposite directions, criss-crossing the globe. The ‘logic’ of the global economy leads the US and other nations to import hundreds of thousands of tons of staple foods each year, while simultaneously exporting roughly the same amount. In an era of dwindling fossil fuel reserves and rising CO2 emissions, this is both senseless and wasteful. But it is a trend that is accelerating as governments systematically promote a single, globalized food system."

- Helena Norberg Hodge [2]

[1] https://qz.com/1655268/us-military-is-a-bigger-polluter-than...

[2] https://www.localfutures.org/the-case-for-local-food/

Definitely we need a mix. These look great, the more alternatives available and explored the better for us all. Hopefully these systems and standards will organically diverge, converge, and diverge again (into infinity), as is key to any kind of technological development/experimentation.