Comment by blix | Hacker News Reader

Comment by blix | Hacker News Reader

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Humans very quickly realized that food doesn't always come in at a constant rate and learned to hoard[1] in times of plenty to protect against times of scarcity. As you note, current governments still stockpile food, but before power was so heavily centralized this responsiblity fell to smaller communities and family units. The very first proto-states formed around resource stockpiles[2], but food preservation had been a big deal for much longer, some 12k years ago[3], predating agriculture. In contrast, the expectation that I can go to Walmart and buy fresh ground beef at any time is not even a century old.

Neccesity leads to JIT, but also sustained surplus. If the winters are mild and food can grow year round, why bother stockpiling? If any widget can be obtained quickly and cheaply, why spend the extra effort to maintain inventory? If I can always buy ground beef at Walmart, why should I keep a winter's worth supply in my freezer? These practices are fine as long as the underlying assumptions remain valid. If one suddenly finds that they can't reliably buy toilet paper on demand, there is an incentive to hoard it. And that's exactly what happened.

[1] While it has taken on a somewhat different meaning in recent times, the early meaning of the word was 'to store and preserve for future use.' https://www.etymonline.com/word/hoard

[2] https://www.jstor.org/stable/44687105

[3] https://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/nchfp/factsheets/food_pre...

So… what’s your point then?

We agree that humans were not able to hoard (ever, despite changing definitions) at the level we actually currently do. But, obviously, we don’t hoard enough to meet incredibly rare supply chain shortages like these.

It seems to me like we are at a well optimized level; do you feel otherwise, and if so, how do you plan to solve it without resource wastage and price increases?

I don't think this is our last pandemic. Really the modern globalized era is a vanishingly small slice of human history. Ancient societies were often wiped out by unexpected events. I would not bet that nothing unexpected will ever happen again. On the contrary, the relatively consistent climate that has sustained literally all of human civilization is changing at an unprecedented rate. I expect frequent major challenges to existing systems. I think COVID is actually a minor challenge in this space; the economic effect is only so large because of how poorly we were prepared.

I reject your constraints. Optimizing for minimum resource wastage and price is also optimizing for minimim reslience to the unexpected. If you want to experience this first hand try living paycheck-to-paycheck. I'd rather pay more and consume less while relying on more resilient systems; I think we need it now more than ever.

> If you want to experience this first hand try living paycheck-to-paycheck. I'd rather pay more and consume less

I don’t understand how you can have these statements side by side… Price increases by hoarding will affect the poor the most.

So do price increases from supply chain shocks. And if you've ever lived paycheck-to-paycheck, you understand that even minor shocks get balloon out of control very quickly because resources are so tightly allocated.

We are just now living through an era where a relatively minor shock is going to have severe implications last several years (which have and will continue to hit the poorest the hardest). This is what happens when you allocate resources too tightly without sufficient slack.

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