Conflating self sufficiency with total isolated independence. Farmers sell food instead of eating all of it because they need things that food itself can't provide. Even before a medium of exchange existed farmers were bartering their food in communities, and to detach yourself from society probably meant death (or at least a high sacrifice and risk). When we talk about self sufficiency today we are expressing something related but in a context so extreme that it disfigures what we mean. Today we would like the robber baron's entire sword arm removed from our arsehole. And only a little bit, in some instances, even if we were to leave it in at the wrist it would be a modern victory for the centuries, literal Ceasar level legend material. The level of interaction between us and the state today is entirely unprecedented and there has been zero stymie, no relief and no regression of the arm's procedure into the ass.

If we were left alone today only to be pestered once a year for literal wheat by a tax man, society "as we know it" would collapse into base social traditions and expectations. There is a problem with scale in comparing freedom and independence today to those concepts as they existed for our ancestors many centuries ago. It is like talking about inches and feet and then jumping straight into talk about lightyears with no segue or asterisk. Illustrated in a chart, an axis would be broken to "skip to" a feature at its extreme. Two entirely separate charts would organize it better: Antiquity & Today.

Conflating self sufficiency with total isolated independence. Farmers sell food instead of eating all of it because they need things that food itself can't provide. Even before a medium of exchange existed farmers were bartering their food in communities, and to detach yourself from society probably meant death (or at least a high sacrifice and risk). When we talk about self sufficiency today we are expressing something related but in a context so extreme that it disfigures what we mean. Today we would like the robber baron's entire sword arm removed from our arsehole. And only a little bit, in some instances, even if we were to leave it in at the wrist it would be a modern victory. The level of interaction between us and the state today is entirely unprecedented and there has been zero stymie, no relief and no regression of the arm's procedure into the ass.

If we were left alone today only to be pestered once a year for literal wheat by a tax man, society "as we know it" would collapse into base social traditions and expectations. There is a problem with scale in comparing freedom and independence today to those concepts as they existed for our ancestors many centuries ago. It is like talking about inches and feet and then jumping straight into talk about lightyears with no segue or asterisk. Illustrated in a chart, an axis would be broken to "skip to" a feature at its extreme. Two entirely separate charts would organize it better: Antiquity & Today.

Conflating self sufficiency with total isolated independence. Farmers sell food instead of eating all of it because they need things that food itself can't provide. Even before a medium of exchange existed farmers were bartering their food in communities, and to detach yourself from society probably meant death. But ehen people talk about self sufficiency today they really just want to remove the robber baron's entire sword arm from our arsehole. Even if we had to leave it in at the wrist it would be a modern victory. The level of interaction between us and the state today is entirely unprecedented and there has been zero stymie, no relief and no regression of the arm's procedure into the ass.

If we were left alone today only to be pestered once a year for literal wheat by a tax man, society "as we know it" would collapse into base social traditions and expectations. There is a problem with scale in comparing freedom and independence today to those concepts as they existed for our ancestors many centuries ago. It is like talking about inches and feet and then jumping straight into talk about lightyears with no segue or asterisk. Illustrated in a chart, an axis would be broken to "skip to" a feature at its extreme. Two entirely separate charts would organize it better: Antiquity & Today.