> I believe you very well know it’s not, and are transparently arguing in bad faith.

That is actually what you are talking about; "uncompetitive" looks like something in the real world. There isn't an abstract dial that someone twiddles to set the efficiency of two otherwise identical outcomes - the competitive one will typically look more advanced and competently organised in observable ways.

To live in nice houses and have good food requires a competitive economy. The uncompetitive version was literally living in the forest with some meagre shelter and maybe having a wood fire to cook food (that was probably going to make someone very sick). The reason the word "competitive" turns up so much is people living in a competitive society get to have a more comfortable lifestyle. People literally starve to death if the food system isn't run with a competitive system that tends towards efficiency; that experiment has been run far too many times.

What the experiment has repeatedly shown is that people living in non-competitive systems starve to death when they get in the way of a system that has been optimized solely for ruthless economic efficiency.

The big one that leaps to mind was the famines with the communist experiments in the 20th century. But there are other, smaller examples that crop up disturbingly regularly. Sri Lanka's fertiliser ban was a jaw-dropper; Zimbabwe redistributing land away from whites was also interesting. There are probably a lot more though, messing with food logistics on the theory there are more important things than producing lots of food seems to be one of those things countries do from time to time.

People can argue about the moral and ideological sanity of these things, but the fact is tolerating economic inefficiencies into the food system can quickly leads to there not being enough food.

The big ones that leapt to my mind were the Great Irish famine the duration of which food exports to Great Britain were higher than food imports, Bengal famine (the Brits again), and starvation of Native Americans through targeted eradication of the bison.

You stated one ludicrous extreme (food comes out of the ground! shelter is planks and nails!) and I stated another ludicrous extreme. You can make my position look simplistic and I can make your position look simplistic. You can't then cry foul.

You are also assuming, in bad faith, an "all" where I did not place one. It is an undeniable fact with evidence beyond any reasonable doubt, including police reports and documented studies by the district, that the makeshift shacks in the rural woods near my house are made by drug addicts that are eschewing the readily available social housing for the specific reason that they can't go to that housing due to its explicit restrictions on drug use.

> ludicrous extreme

I don’t understand this. Are you not familiar with farming and houses? You know humans grow plants to eat (including in backyards and balconies in cities) and make cabins, chalets, houses, entire neighbourhoods (Sweden currently planning the largest) with wood, right?

You are making a caricature of modern lifestyle farming, not an argument for people literally living as they did in the past. Going to your local garden center and buying some seedlings and putting them on your balcony isn't demonstrative of a life like our ancestors lived. Living in one of the wealthiest countries to ever have existed and going to the hardware store to buy expensive hardwoods to decorate your house isn't the same as living as our ancestors did.

You don't realize the luxury you have and for some reason you assume that it is possible without that wealth. The reality of that lifestyle without tremendous wealth is more like subsistence farming in Africa and less like Swedish planned neighborhoods.

> (…) not an argument for people literally living as they did in the past. (…) isn't demonstrative of a life like our ancestors lived. (…) isn't the same as living as our ancestors did.

Correct. Nowhere did I defend or make an appeal to live life “as they did in the past” or “like our ancestor did”. We should (and don’t really have a choice but to) live forward, not backward. We should take the good things we learned and apply them positively to our lives in the present and future, and not strive for change and consumption for their own sakes.

You said: "Humanity survived and thrived before all this unfettered consumption, we don’t need to kill ourselves for more."

To deny that your juxtaposition of this claim with your point about growing seeds and nailing together planks doesn't pass my personal test of credibility. You say: "Stop and think for a moment. You can literally eat food which grows from the ground and make a shelter with a handful of planks and nails." but that isn't indicative of a thriving life as I demonstrated. You can do both of those things and still live in squalor, a condition I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

You then suggest that I don't understand farming or house construction to defend that point, as if the existence of backyard gardens or wood cabins proves the point that a modern comfortable life is possible with gardens and wood cabins. My point is that the wealth we have makes balcony gardens and wood cabins possible and you are reasoning backwards. To be clear, we get to enjoy the modern luxury of backyard gardens and wood cabins by being wealthy and we don't get to be wealthy by making backyard gardens and wood cabins.

> We should take the good things we learned and apply them positively to our lives in the present and future

Sure, and I can argue competitiveness could be a lesson we have learned that can be applied positively. The way it is used positively in team sports and many other aspects of society.