[allisdust]

They have more than enough food to eat (except of course things that don't exactly grow there). They have surplus in energy and fertiliser.

What they would lack in the short and medium term are high tech products like chips, advanced medicine.

Given enough time and drive any energy and food surplus society can reinvent the high tech stuff.

Of course it doesn't mean they would, seeing how corrupt the whole ruling class is. But it is theoretically possible for them to be totally independent of the rest of the world. They are blessed with too many natural resources to not be able to do it.

[lostmsu]

There's also a question of trajectory of the high tech stuff vs the rest of the world. I don't see any reasons for it not to lag more and more behind.

[082349872349872]

Especially because lagging more and more behind is exactly what happened to the Union.