Hi all -
For epidemiological insight, seek input from epidemiologists. For economic insight, talk with ecologically informed economists. I'm not a professional ecological economist, but I'm deeply informed from my in depth non-professional study of this field.
So...
Rather than responding to the skeptics about my prognosis individually, please allow me to respond to all of you together.
I'm a human ecologist and a systems thinker. As such, part of my job is to understand complex systems in their full complexity.
What I said about the potential future risks to food security cannot be evaluated within a closed system analysis, but must be understood in relation to the total system which allows us all to have not only food, but money for food -- and jobs for money, and so forth.
Food security has to be understood in relation to the total economy. How many of you have thoroughly studied these intertwined systems?
The mainstream media is -- quite naturally -- downplaying the risks to the total global economy and its financial systems. If you understand modern political systems and their attached media system, you'll know that they are part of a Big Club which is in service, most of all, to protecting the present economic paradigm and its associated systems. Their job is largely to promote confidence in the prevailing economic system -- and so they downplay its fragility as a system.
In fact, we've rarely seen such a fragile economic / financial system as the one which is now imploding. This is not just my opinion, but the opinion of many qualified economists who are rarely mentioned in the mainstream media -- for reasons obvious to those of us who study complex systems in the way I do (and they do).
Those who understand complex, intertwined systems know that artificial human systems -- like our economy and its financial sub-system -- know that it is comprised of interconnected nodes in which failure of ANY of the nodes in the network will further weaken the other nodes in that network. Those who have carefully studied the current financial / economic system in our world know it is exceptionally fragile and prone to collapse. It is, in a word, irresilient. That's not a good sign when a major shock hits the system, and coronavirus (Covid-19) is exactly the Black Swan which can only be called a major shock.
Maybe things will work out and the shock will be absorbed without leading to collapse on the scale of the last Great Depression, or worse. And you can go ahead and bet your life on that if you like. But I will not. I believe the risk level to the total financial / economic system is such that a more informed perspective suggests we may have just had the hull of our Titanic ripped open. We simply do not -- and cannot -- know if this is the case just yet, but those of us carefully watching are, frankly, VERY worried.
These sources partially explain my perspective on this:
https://www.resilience.org/stories/...y-nate-hagens-on-coronavirus-and-the-economy/
https://www.resilience.org/resilience-author/david-korowicz/
I suggest you connect with your neighbors and collaborate with them to grow family, personal and community gardens and to raise chickens. We're not going to have a "passing blip" here. This is the long haul, this time. If we are unprepared to feed ourselves and our neighbors we MAY be in real trouble in the near future.