Don’t be so sure about this one — there are a fair number of people who do grow much or all of their own food, and often at least some of the other necessities as well. Those who are good at it seem to end up with some leisure time as well (although whether they read HN, I don’t know). There are always arguments around the corner cases — nobody gets to be 100% self sufficient, there are usually bought in tools or something — but it seems to be possible to get quite close.
Rejecting specialisation completely is perhaps a bit extreme for me, but I can certainly see a lot of advantages to not allowing oneself to be defined by ones speciality.
Can you find a blacksmith who would trade tools for food? I’ve never had cause to find out but it wouldn’t shock me if you could...
Philosophically I like the idea of being a generalist. It's good to know. at least rudimentarily how to build simple things and look after yourself. But lets not kid ourselves, if we all did this we'd be back to the stone/iron age.
Even a "generalist" is [from a high-level perspective] a specialist.
It’s also somewhat accessible to hobbyists. My sister has done some pretty neat stuff.
Those sort of universal arguments can mislead. What if everybody worked as a programmer, then we would all starve. That doesn't make programming a morally bad career choice.
Then, if everyone had to do it, the technology to make computers and HN possible would not exist.
Our society is what it is because of specialized roles.
Then, whenever everyone competes against each other, a group of people takes advantage and ends up prevailing against them all.
Finally, planning is not everything. "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth" - Mike Tyson