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I like your thinking. As I understand, about 80% of a manufactured product's lifetime energy use is consumed before its end-user turns it on for the first time. I'm not sure how these questions apply to potatoes or other food. I started listing questions: Were the potatoes from a monocropped farm? Were herbicides, pesticides, fungicides involved? How far were they grown from your home? How were they transported to your home? Were farmers paid a living wage? Were GMOs involved? Was A.I. involved in these potatoes production? Yeesh. You've helped me realize that our food, too, has become part of the global super-factory. (I have a crop of potatoes in my garden that volunteers to produce every year. I just water and harvest the crop. This is different from commercial production.) Please check out my list of substances involved in manufacturing ONE smartphone: https://katiesinger.substack.com/p/enlightenment

--while one car can now have 100 computers. Thanks for writing.

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I enjoyed reading 21 questions…. I couldn’t help but think we could substitute solar panels for anything from a potato to the house we live in to the car we drive. Each is farmed , mined ,grown from the land , think 2x4 lumber. We passed the 8,000,000,000 people on the planet about a year ago. We use a lot of resources.

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Thanks for writing. How do we deal with the loss of due diligence and democratic, informed decision-making? As new tech thrives, we absolutely need places wherein questions and discussions are welcome, and liability-carrying experts evaluate tech from cradle to grave. What can we do to secure such stuff????

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