Deck chairs on the Titanic

[mstriumph]

.................



The dirty and desperate baddies banding together to steal from the good tillers of the earth. .......................

you mean like the Tax Office and politicians??

[mstriumph]

Another consideration is how much "notice" they will have in order to prepare for such eventualities. If this sudden requirement to become self-sufficient were a sudden thing, then probably a whole growing season would be lost while people got their shit together. This would have a significant effect on dependent populations.

In reality such a change would only be driven by dire calamity, as people could never make themselves "transition" to a lower plane of production without some pressing incentive.

as SPman said, we did it because we have enquiring minds - we learnt much, connected with our forebears, lost weight and garnered a useable crop of oats [and many, many blisters!! ]

[mstriumph]

................... This means that many roles and functions our society currently enjoys would be little more than frippery and dismissed almost immediately. People who did not have skills or knowledge that could make a direct and tangiable contribution would be dispensed with.

............

you mean it may be almost worth it

[Okey Dokey]

you mean like the Tax Office and politicians??

Yes, them too! I guess I was picturing the common robber-bandits before the elected ones!

[Pwalo]

So if we all grow our own veges, dig really deep long drops, we'll all be ok.

There are some very thoughtful comments here, but I would like to remind you that things haven't turned to s@#$ yet. They may do in the future, or they may not. Or perhaps we'll be blindsided tonight by an asteroid, and that'll be our lot.

I guess all I'm trying to say is that you're all paranoid, or you've just got too much time on your hands. It's all a bit like the stock market talking itself into a recession.

The truth is we don't know what's going to happen. All we do know is that mankind (in the PC non gender specific meaning) has managed to survive for this long, so I'd take a shot that it'll find a way to cope with whatever comes along.

[Ocean1]

I guess all I'm trying to say is that you're all paranoid,

*Gropes around in what's left of memory...*

"I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?"

*Admits defeat and goes to look…*

- Tom Clancy. Apparently.

[Hitcher]

Ballance Agri manufacture fertiliser at plants in Mt Maunganui,Awarua, Kapuni and Whangarei. Ravenscroft (surely EVERYBODY ahs heard of *them*) have plants at Dunedin Christchurch and napier.

Probably others too.

These plants combine ingredients all sourced from overseas. Ravensdown is probably what everybody has heard of.

And a few smears of guano on coastal rocks off the Otago coast do not a phosphate rock resource make. To the nearest significant decimal place, New Zealand has no indigenous phosphate resource that could sensibly be used for agricultural fertiliser purposes.