[Barrin92]

There's really nothing absurd about this. A country like Ethiopia consists of independent actors. Someone might sell food abroad to Europe, someone in Europe might decide to send food to Ethiopia.

There's really no way to stop this other than to outlaw all exports of food while starting to centrally distribute food in Ethiopia. This is neither productive nor would it reduce the amount of starving people in Ethiopia. In fact, it would increase the amount of poverty.

There are certainly poor people who have trouble affording basic goods in California. Still the solution is not to stop all exports of goods from California to Washington and vice versa. This would just make everybody worse off.

[RobertoG]

Any country that pretend to develop and keep some independence need to prioritize a minimum of food production. That's a strategic need. Europe is a good example of that, where food production is strongly protected. I bet is the same in the States.

The point of the original post is that those "independent actors" are not "independents", not from Ethiopia.

[teddyh]

> Any country that pretend to develop and keep some independence need to prioritize a minimum of food production. That's a strategic need.

To turn this back to software, I am strongly reminded of Joel Spolsky’s discussion of when and what to outsource:

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/10/14/in-defense-of-not-...

“If it’s a core business function — do it yourself, no matter what.”

[ballenarosada]

- "independent actors are acting rationally in this situation."

- "the only alternative is this particular strawman policy, which would make things worse"

- "there's nothing absurd about people starving due to preventable causes"

[ryandrake]

A thing could be both morally/ethically absurd and, when viewed through the tinted lens of capitalism, totally logical, rational, and expected.