Jazzguy, I agree the people of the U.S., and the people all over the planet in general have gotten spoiled, and gotten lazy, and we are all part of the problem. IMO, the real danger is far more complicated, and has more to do with achieving the next level of advancement.
Mr p1b Consider. Before the advent of electricity on the farm - in the 1930s with the New Deal’s REA - Rural Electrification Administration - life on a farm had not changed much for a millennia. People arise at the crack of dawn, worked all the sunlit day long and retired to bed at dark.
All the farm work was done by hand. Cows must be milked two times a day. Animals must be fed. Barns must be cleaned. Every day. All year long. There is not a lot of free time on a smallish family farm. Water came from wells, springs or cisterns. I have carried water when visiting my poor relatives on the farm. It is sort of an expected thing to do; if you use it, you carry it. If you want to find the eggs any mature chicken will lay, you need a hen house otherwise you are forever looking for eggs in the shrubbery and in any sheltered spot.
Before the days of chemical farming, insects were often picked by hand. I have been present when farmers would pick by hand every tobacco worm in a half acre of tobacco plants. This was a routine performed more frequently as the summer came on and the tobacco was growing fast and tall. Tobacco was a very labor intensive farm product.
I’ve said a lot to point towards my agreement with your closing remark, that we have advanced - technologically speaking - in the past 75 years so rapidly that our culture has not had time to assimilate it and to make the needed adaptions. We are on the front edge of a sea change in culture. We have no real experience to guide us. It is much like the 18th century explorers who went forth boldly but ignorantly. We need a lot of luck to make it work.
