[dmreedy]

"Man – despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication and his many accomplishments – owes his existence to a 6-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains."

I'd hesitate to be flippant about the complexities and difficulties in the generation of food, and the market forces that it drives. And I'd certainly hesitate to claim that anyone has "better things to do".

[timwaagh]

As fancy as it is to use fancy phrases, the lecturing tone here is not matched by any substance. The argument boils down to an appeal to authority followed by a personal attack.

[dmreedy]

I like to think of it as an encouragement to meditate a bit more on, for example, why this "solution" (let the free market handle it) isn't currently already solving everything. Not argument by authority, just a reminder that perhaps you are not the first person to have thought about this problem.

And an admonishment against the hubris of just casually dropping deeply loaded positions like "Europe has more important things to worry about" than Africa or Ukraine. Hell even casual the separation of Ukraine as something outside of Europe.

If you took it as a personal attack, then perhaps it is just because a hit dog will holler.