It's indicative of how we humans have made ourselves dependent on increasingly complicated technology for our existence, and how we suffer when there's a hiccup in that technology. A couple examples would be primers and gasoline, both being necessary to "propel" our existence.
Primers are simple devices but require complex chemical compounds and mind boggling manufacturing techniques to ensure consistency and high quantities, something we can't easily do in our basements (and don't bring up "reloading" spent primers with match heads and such - if it really was viable we would all have been doing it since long ago). We depend on them as the very basis for our sport but are essentially powerless to control the technology that makes them, and the marketing and distribution compounds the issue.
Gasoline and all other petroleum-based fuels are products of technology that is basically simple (if chemistry is understood, which isn't me- I damn near flunked that class 50 years ago) but requires massive and complex refining facilities and distribution networks, not to mention getting it out of the ground and to a refinery in the first place. Again not something we can whip up in our kitchens. We are slaves to that technology too, and stocking up on a lifetime supply when it's plentiful and cheap is wildly impractical.
If primers went "poof" and disappeared from existence instantly, if the technology and distribution completely broke down (one or the other), we would all be hanging out on the "Knitting, Crocheting, and Quilting Campfire" next week. And we're pretty much powerless to control/stop that from happening. Stock the hell up the next time they're plentiful.
That's just two examples. I could go on all day citing a gazillion others. We enslaved ourselves by our own free will and unless you're one of the six guys in the country who lives completely 100% off the grid, rides animals 100% of the time, and hunts his meat with a flintlock rifle shooting powder he made in the shed out back and ignited by rocks he picked up off the ground, every manjack one of us is guilty of consigning our very existence to technology instead of our wits.
Am I advocating a return to 16th century living? Of course not. Just something to think about, an observation of how we humans can be our own worst enemy.
He who rules computer chip rules the world!
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