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free_agent's avatar

The reality is that food preparation is done more and more in mass-production facilities, but those facilities are the suppliers to retailers, the kitchens of fast-food places, etc. (Who now knows how to cut up a whole chicken? (the workers in the chicken factory) But my "Joy of Cooking" has that information in the early pages.) But the final steps, the consumer-visible steps, from purchase decision to consumption, are highly decentralized, small-scale, and have lots of personal choice, even if it's only choosing one of the four fast-food places on a busy intersection.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

What counts is not the material standard of living, but the subjective standard of living. You can be abundantly rich and feel miserable. You can, hypothetically at least, be materially poor in absolute numbers (e.g. energy input, net worth in $), while all your needs are fulfilled efficiently and you are subjectively happy.

I am not claiming that above replacement fertility is a good idea under current circumstances.

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