[bamboozled]

Unless you can provide some hard figures, that number is probably not really accurate.

I'd say an insane amount of effort would go into all the things around growing food.

I've grown food and built houses and I can tell you, both things required a LOT of work, and if you want to do it efficiently, you need a LOT of good material and tech. None of that stuff falls out of trees. Ask Russians who are now under sanctions.

We now also have climate change, droughts floods and more thrown into that food growing complexity mix. One major famine could wipe out millions.

[_heimdall]

I'd argue that the labor required for growing food and building houses is highly dependent on the scale you are trying to achieve.

Raising enough food for a small family is very doable when you don't spend 40+ hours per week working for the paycheck. Building a small house is definitely a big project, but very doable as long as you aren't attempting to wind the clock all the way back and milling your own lumber. It can be done with a surprisingly small set of tools if the house is reasonably sized and designed with your tools and skills in mind from the beginning.

Is the average person going to build their own 2,500 square foot two-story house and grow enough food to feed everyone? Obviously not. But could a person build a 900 sq ft ranch, have a garden feeding their family, and raise animals for their own meat, dairy, and eggs? They absolutely can, I'm doing it today, and if climate change concerns you the reduced impact on the environment is huge.