I’d just have to politely disagree. One argument against it is typically, “well, if folks do not like it, they can move.” I tend to agree with this. A common rejoinder might be:
” However, have you consider the consequence of a lot folk currently living in farming communities do the same? Is it net positive for society?”
Yes, and yes. That is precisely what has happened over the last 200 years in the modern world, and I would suggest that we are a little better off today than even in the recent past.
But I really would like to raise a bigger issue. 30 years ago there was no such thing as the internet. Now by some stroke of luck it is common and powerful and fun and cool and … 30 years ago the internet was not available in rural communities, and people chose to live there. Now that something is newly produced does it entitle folks in rural America to have subsidized access to it, paid for by folks in the cities and suburbs? I am not sure I think this is a good idea. Furthermore, as one studies how new products, services and technologies disperse, the continued cost reductions you tend to get from competition and consumption by the relatively better off factions of the consumers, the more these products and services become available to the folks everywhere else. Maybe it makes sense to “help” push this process along, but that is not at all clear to me.
More to come.
