logoalt Hacker News

_heimdall04/03/20251 replyview on HN

Self reliance and resilience, at least to certain pressures, would fit. I don't think many people would be willing to give up cheap electronics and only buy stuff we produce here, but those are reasonable goals even if uncommon.

Environmental concerns would actually fit the bill too, if one is willing to consider externalized costs. Its easy to ignore mining damage in other countries and all the oil burned shipping over the oceans. When that all happens at home people would more acutely feel the costs and may be more likely to fix it.


Replies

grayhatter04/03/2025

> Self reliance and resilience,

describe how a entirely domestic food chain would be more resilient than one that is global?

Self reliance is a defective meme that breaks down once you want anything other than individual survival. Dependence on a community allows humans to specialize. Humans being able to specialize is the only reason this comment, or this thread exists. More simply, not just the Internet, but modern life couldn't exist without it.

Once you acknowledge that interdependency is a reasonable trade-off for the other nice things about life. A simple infection no longer being a death sentence is a nice thing we've commoditized reasonably well. The only question is, how do you build a robust and resilient system?

show 1 reply