Editing Food for Thought
Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
The edit can be undone.
Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
Latest revision | Your text | ||
Line 13: | Line 13: | ||
''AgriCorp has a new strain of wheat modified for the desert conditions they're pushing toward. What was it she said? 'Hoping to increase competition for trade.' Competition against whom? For which market? The Core market share? Or the market on the Rim? Are they looking to make life better for everyone? Or to just line their pockets regardless of those suffering?''<br><br> | ''AgriCorp has a new strain of wheat modified for the desert conditions they're pushing toward. What was it she said? 'Hoping to increase competition for trade.' Competition against whom? For which market? The Core market share? Or the market on the Rim? Are they looking to make life better for everyone? Or to just line their pockets regardless of those suffering?''<br><br> | ||
− | The war had shattered supply lines and production infrastructures. Hunger and want crossed Core socioeconomic lines as it had not done before. Those with money suffered less, those with less suffered more, but nevertheless, everyone was hurting. It wasn't hard | + | The war had shattered supply lines and production infrastructures. Hunger and want crossed Core socioeconomic lines as it had not done before. Those with money suffered less, those with less suffered more, but nevertheless, everyone was hurting. It wasn't hard to understand why. After generations of being exploited as a cheap source of food and labor, the Rim and the Border refused to continue the practice after winning their independence. With the depletion of workers due to the war and the plague, possessing the skill to grow food and the land on which to grow it translated into powerful leverage. The math was brutal. The equation favored the Rim and the Border. The advantages the Core had enjoyed—fairly or unfairly—no longer applied.<br><br> |
+ | |||
+ | One need only look to history to predict the outcome. After the Black Death on Old Earth had reduced Europe by half, the surviving peasants suddenly had worth. The scarcity of their skills gave them the leverage to break the grip of Feudalism and pave the way for the modern era that followed. If one multiplied that effect today by the dozens of worlds and scores of moons on the Border and the Rim...<br><br> | ||
I waited at a corner for the light to change, my thoughts coming fast like the snowflakes swirling past the streetlamps. <br><br> | I waited at a corner for the light to change, my thoughts coming fast like the snowflakes swirling past the streetlamps. <br><br> |