No one can predict how large systems of virtually infinite complexity will react to any specific change. Consider how widely predictions differ about what will happen when the Y2K bug comes into play at midnight January 1, 2000. They range from “total system collapse” to “nothing much.”

The changes you describe will have effects equally impossible to predict. But consider this. If all the baggers in your city walked off the job tomorrow and no one cared to take their places, would the supermarkets close? Would the population starve to death? I think the answer to both questions would be no. I don’t know how the problem would be solved, but I’m confident it would be solved.

ID: 424
posted: 08 Jul 1999
updated: 08 Jul 1999