this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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Though let us consider the ch-ch-ch-ch-changes that would actually be necessary for each of these to exercise real choice in the matter at hand:
The Public: Die, because that is the only thing that doesn't actively destroy the biosphere, because you have no actual meaningful control over anything
Farmers: Change professions, likely losing everything (at which point they become "The Public"), because you can't even control what seeds you buy (See: Agricorps), let alone anything else you do with the land, and it's all a monopsony, anyway (See: Agricorps) so you can't even choose who buys your crops or for how much you sell them.
Government: Literally the only thing required here is to take a long view and invest in infrastructure that also has huge short-term benefits. Realistically, the actual reason is because the politicians get money from the corpocrats (See: Agricorps), and don't want to not get money from the corpocrats.
Agricorps: It is explicitly against their fiduciary duty to tank the value of long-term investment in their own business by making the planet uninhabitable. The only change required is to actually hold to fiduciary duty, rather than "number go up, STONKS".
Huh, it's almost as if there are very specific problems that can be traced to a single, specific spiderman here... interesting.
This is what a focus on short-term economics and short term politics brings us to. Governments across the world could have focussed on a more sustainable community-based(?) approach. But that's too difficult. Instead, they prefer tooting the horns of their economic 'developments' that just makes things worse.
When and why do you think our time preferences have shortened?
That is a big question. Rectally sourced information here, but I would probably guess it started in the wake of the Dust Bowl.
Close. WWII America had to invest heavily in farms to feed soldiers who need 4,000 kcal diets to support marching around with heavy packs all day long in potentially cold weather. That investment drove up automation in the farm industry, particularly with corn and soybeans.
War ends, but the infrastructure is all still there. If farms weren't heavily subsidized, they would collapse. There was real risk of fields going fallow on a mass level, resulting in too little food to feed the population. And then you have to keep subsidizing it, forever. Nobody has figured out a way out of that logic while maintaining a mostly capitalist production system.
Interesting take. Would you attribute the overall look to short term gains to the same point in time and reasoning? It is obviously a nuanced problem and I am sure Nixon and Reagan's fingerprints can be found on the problem somewhere, but they were obviously not the root.