“What ordinary people once made, they buy.” I don’t think folks have lost the skill of making their own cellphones. They never had it in the first place.

Well, maybe; I’ve said similar things because I’m a member of the last generation to make things.

On the other hand, even the cleverest farmer would be hard pressed to whittle himself a cellphone. Knocking together a planetary Internet or an electrical grid with its mines and power plants and distribution systems would seem to be beyond the capabilities of even the most avid do-it-yourselfer… Yet they seem worth having.

This has me thinking about where I live where there’s a fair bit of specialization in the local commune. There’s one dude with a combine, so he ends up doing most of the harvesting work around here. There are a couple with the modern fancy balers so they do most of the baling. I fix their computers, usually by telling them to get rid of that piece of trash and buy something cheap and new.