[sholanozie]

You pretty much hit the nail on the head here. It really is alarming to think that we have not started to plan for this almost inevitable scenario in ~20 years time. We need to begin re-thinking our role as humans in an economy which increasingly does not require us.

[partisan]

How do you plan for the collapse of the economy?

[losteric]

Start by having level-headed discussions about the value of life.

I know a lot of families taking on massive debt to help pay for their parent's old age. Five-Six figures here and there to extend their parent's lives by a decade or two, saddling themselves with debt and leaving the next generation with no assets... Likely after moving the entire family to a decaying suburban city. All so the previous generation can stick around with a much poorer quality of life.

Health care has a far larger impact than the number on the bill. We need to openly talk about life and accept the inevitableness of death.

[mhurron]

I wonder if you'll be so ready to give up your life right around retirement age instead of trying to have it extended 'by a decade or two.'

It's so incredibly easy to say when you're simply throwing others lives away, rarely do people do it with their own.

[losteric]

I'll fight tooth and nail for every minute of my own independent life... But I would never dream of crippling my children's future just to exist in an "assisted-living" retirement home. Personally, that's an undignified life that's not worth living... modern day vampires.

Again, this is just my personal position regarding my life's value vs my descendants. I'm advocating the questions, not my answer.

This is a hard problem, which means the questions are hard to ask and the answers are difficult to accept... Death has never been easy. However it's a conversation that families and society at large need to have.

Culturally, we are lagging behind what science can do... We can do so much but never stepped back to ask if we should. Society needs to make conscious decisions instead of blindly following our biological instincts.

[sholanozie]

The first step is to invest, as communities, into producing as much food as possible locally in order to lessen our dependence on the global economic system. We have the technology to turn all those shuttered Targets and malls into indoor farms powered largely by renewable sources. An ironic side effect would be the creation of jobs and a reduction in the net cost of feeding a city.

[hueving]

Locally grown food is an unsustainable luxury that doesn't work for large portions of the US because there is not year round farm worthy land close enough by to sustain the population.

[douche]

You could do what people always did, and grow crops that keep through the winter. You're not going to be eating fresh kale and tomatoes in January, you'll be eating your turnips and beets and potatoes and apples out of cold-storage, and making bread with your oats and corn and wheat that you harvested in the fall.

[sholanozie]

Did you read my comment? I propose using currently-available technology to grow food indoors.

[grogenaut]

What's the difference in energy cost from farming indoors in an area that can't support it normally and growing things in season in areas that can and transporting it? Got any studies to link? I'm curious. Heat is incredibly energy costly so I'd be interested in seeing a calculation.

[devonkim]

The crop yields from climate controlled agriculture can be inferred a bit from the results that are coming in from Japan. This is not economical in rural regions like much of the US only (IMO) because locals make so little capital. But if we treat it a lot like subsistence farming and communities pool together capital to start indoor farms, this could help.

My skepticism is mostly around not the economics but the sheer accumulation of desperation in these small communities creating high corruption and theft rates ruining the efficacy of the concept.

[sholanozie]

I don't have any links to studies - I'm relying on the idea that renewable sources can contribute significantly to the overall energy requirements.

When you take into account the amount of energy required to grow food, refrigerate it, ship it halfway around the world, and distribute it to stores, surely the amount of energy required to grow food locally is inconsequential.

[icebraining]

Why not just move somewhere with arable land?

[sholanozie]

That's what most people will do. This current refugee "crisis" is nothing compared to the vast migrations that climate change will instigate.

[nine_k]

How about job availability?

[icebraining]

Oh, I assumed we were talking about a post-jobs era. The idea that growing food to sustain a community can be done as a after-hours hobby sounds a little naive.