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by oneplane 1436 days ago
It really depends on what those charts are based on, what they measure, how they scope dependency etc. but considering the scale of population and reliance on industrial processes there is practically no modern way of living that is reasonably locally sourced indefinitely.

There are things that can be done with no dependency, but they themselves are not as useful without dependants. Take cobalt mining for example; it's not something you need anyone else for, but once you got all that cobalt, who's going to process it? Who is going to buy it?

Same goes for more fundamental things like wheat and corn, either you do it at a small scale where you can't really live off of the returns, or you do it at a large scale but now you need dependants to buy it off of you.

(in the concepts I wrote I assumed independence from an isolationists perspective which isn't realistic but somehow does seem to coincide with the not-very-well-thought-through independence wishers)