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Re:My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starv... by goombastic on Monday July 18, 2016 @12:42PM (#12116207)
Sometimes I wonder if all of the online computers, internet, apps and other stuff makes any sense. We have complicated our lives unnecessarily and multiplied beyond the capacity of our plant to hold us meaningfully or have a life with any semblance of contemplation.
Re:My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starv... by icebraining on Monday July 18, 2016 @12:47PM (#12116242)
What makes online computers & etc different? You could say that about many technologies, even about agriculture. Life was much simpler and sustainable when we were hunter-gatherers (I'm being sincere, not facetious).

In my opinion, whether they are "necessary" is irrelevant (by objective measures, most things aren't) and simplicity is not a meaningful goal in itself.

Re:My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starv... by clarkmoody on Monday July 18, 2016 @12:53PM (#12116292)
Simpler, yes. But everyone lived near subsistence, and maximum population density was enforced by war, human sacrifice, and starvation.
Re:My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starv... by icebraining on Monday July 18, 2016 @01:45PM (#12116742)
Re:My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starv... by adventured on Monday July 18, 2016 @12:53PM (#12116294)
Isn't it inherent to your opinion that it doesn't necessarily apply to how other people feel, such that you can't actually use "we" in the way you used it?

As a species, we're drastically better off today than we have ever been. That includes calorie counts globally. The human population of earth has far more food than it needs. There are radically fewer famines today, not more.

The suffering that is happening in Venezuela wasn't caused by 'complications of modern life,' much less apps.

I completely disagree with the base premise, and do not believe our lives are more complex. I believe our lives are drastically simplified versus the concerns of just a few hundred years ago: near total lack of any rights, serious fear of starvation or exposure, constant war, a life filled with non-stop violence and death, almost total poverty, extreme majority illiteracy, constant risk of premature death by unknown illnesses, extraordinarily horrible hygiene and living standards, no stable / functional / trustworthy systems of savings or retirement (meaning a constant fear of not making it through the next year), and on it goes.

Re:My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starv... by cgh on Monday July 18, 2016 @04:37PM (#12117923)
You are of course correct. By any objective measure, humanity has never had it so good. We live in the safest and most peaceful time in human history, as measured by the deaths caused by famine, disease, warfare and poverty. This is often overlooked in the common narrative that modern times are unusually violent and unstable.

We do however face grave environmental issues so it's not all a feel-good story.

Re:My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starv... by asdfologist on Monday July 18, 2016 @12:48PM (#12116252)
Without those things, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
Re:My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starv... by nice2some1nice on Monday July 18, 2016 @01:49PM (#12116781)
Maybe this discussion wouldn't have come to pass in the first place.
Re:My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starv... by botfly on Monday July 18, 2016 @01:28PM (#12116581)
You're free to simplify and to contemplate