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Re:First Urban ‘Agrihood’ in America Feeds 2,000 Households ... by RangerScience on Thursday February 02, 2017 @12:12PM (#13552187)
Hmmm I both like and dislike your argument.

The overall point is good - that there's nothing that's actually free (as in beer) once all costs are accounted for.

However - Things get muddier (heh) when you consider: - The supply so vastly outstrips demand ("more than enough for everyone") that the market price would be negligible - When the "true" per-person cost of "enough bricks" is negligible; only society as a whole needs enough brick to notice the cost. - When you consider what you are not charged for as a human; in other words, what other people are giving away for free that costs them their blood, sweat, and tears. (Typically, public art and the emotional labor that goes into being a human)

Note - I am very much not saying you're wrong. I'm saying that the real world appears to get waaay more complicated than that.

For example - If the per-person price is a dime, that's negligible, but across a billion people, that's a hundred million dollars. Hardly negligible. Taxes do this now - what's the space program cost each American, on average? A dollar a year? To each person, the space program is pretty much free, but to society, it's not.

For another example - Yosemite. Yosemite is free-ish - it's not charging market rates, that's for sure - and there definitely is NOT enough Yosemite "to care for every citizen". What's going on there?

So you're spot-on that it's not ultimately free, but also missing the point, which is that if society decided it was a good idea, it (probably) could be free for each individual.

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