[blix]

> It’s quite natural, normal humans also don’t hoard everything they can possibly think of needing...

For most of human history we did exactly that. The deeply interconnected "JIT Consumption" world is really quite new. And if consumption patterns suddenly change then you can't buy toilet paper anymore.

[munk-a]

I'd actually disagree pretty strongly with this. For most of human history the spoilage rate of pretty much everything we produced was so high that stockpiling goods for the sudden economic shocks was solely reserved to governing bodies. Remember how you built ten bazillion granaries in Civ? Sure, the game has taken quite a few liberties with history but we have evidence of communal food storage going all the way back to Babylon. When's the last time you saw a granary or any sort of food stock that was actually built and maintained by a government in the modern world?

Before the modern epoch it was really rare to personally stockpile goods due to the extreme possibilities of spoilage (everyone loves weevils and moths right?) - that's only been an option in the near history.

[blix]

For most of the pre-modern era, 'governing body' simply means a group with enough stockpiled resources, especially food, to project power. Anyone who could get in on this action tried to. Spoilage is an issue, but humans came up with many neat tricks to work around this, many of which are still used today (fermentation, for example). Anyone who didn't want to live or die soley by the whims of the local warlord during a harsh winter had to maintain their own food stockpile.

The great lie of Civ is to present this as centrally organized when for most of human history this power was very finely decentralized due to the expense of communication and logistics. But as socities become more centralized food stockpiles haven't disappeared. Many governments still maintain food stockpiles, especially poorer countries.

[anttisalmela]

National Emergency Supply Agency in Finland did have real granaries not a long ago - they still have emergency supplies of grain, nowadays it is just done by owning grain and paying private companies to store it in their normal logistical network.

In the beginning of the pandemic the agency was heavily in local news when they started deliveries of protective gear from their stockpiles - but to be honest, some rubber bands of the stored masks did need replacing.

[yunohn]

Do you have some sources to prove that “most of human history”, everyone was hoarding?

Necessity leads to JIT, only in times of surplus can you even try to hoard. Famines were common before, and still occur now - you just don’t notice now thanks to globalization and in part, essential reserves maintained by governments and companies.

[blix]

Humans very quickly realized that food doesn't always come in at a constant rate and learned to hoard[1] in times of plenty to protect against times of scarcity. As you note, current governments still stockpile food, but before power was so heavily centralized this responsiblity fell to smaller communities and family units. The very first proto-states formed around resource stockpiles[2], but food preservation had been a big deal for much longer, some 12k years ago[3], predating agriculture. In contrast, the expectation that I can go to Walmart and buy fresh ground beef at any time is not even a century old.

Neccesity leads to JIT, but also sustained surplus. If the winters are mild and food can grow year round, why bother stockpiling? If any widget can be obtained quickly and cheaply, why spend the extra effort to maintain inventory? If I can always buy ground beef at Walmart, why should I keep a winter's worth supply in my freezer? These practices are fine as long as the underlying assumptions remain valid. If one suddenly finds that they can't reliably buy toilet paper on demand, there is an incentive to hoard it. And that's exactly what happened.

[1] While it has taken on a somewhat different meaning in recent times, the early meaning of the word was 'to store and preserve for future use.' https://www.etymonline.com/word/hoard

[2] https://www.jstor.org/stable/44687105

[3] https://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/nchfp/factsheets/food_pre...

[yunohn]

So… what’s your point then?

We agree that humans were not able to hoard (ever, despite changing definitions) at the level we actually currently do. But, obviously, we don’t hoard enough to meet incredibly rare supply chain shortages like these.

It seems to me like we are at a well optimized level; do you feel otherwise, and if so, how do you plan to solve it without resource wastage and price increases?

[blix]

I don't think this is our last pandemic. Really the modern globalized era is a vanishingly small slice of human history. Ancient societies were often wiped out by unexpected events. I would not bet that nothing unexpected will ever happen again. On the contrary, the relatively consistent climate that has sustained literally all of human civilization is changing at an unprecedented rate. I expect frequent major challenges to existing systems. I think COVID is actually a minor challenge in this space; the economic effect is only so large because of how poorly we were prepared.

I reject your constraints. Optimizing for minimum resource wastage and price is also optimizing for minimim reslience to the unexpected. If you want to experience this first hand try living paycheck-to-paycheck. I'd rather pay more and consume less while relying on more resilient systems; I think we need it now more than ever.

[yunohn]

> If you want to experience this first hand try living paycheck-to-paycheck. I'd rather pay more and consume less

I don’t understand how you can have these statements side by side… Price increases by hoarding will affect the poor the most.

[blix]

So do price increases from supply chain shocks. And if you've ever lived paycheck-to-paycheck, you understand that even minor shocks get balloon out of control very quickly because resources are so tightly allocated.

We are just now living through an era where a relatively minor shock is going to have severe implications last several years (which have and will continue to hit the poorest the hardest). This is what happens when you allocate resources too tightly without sufficient slack.