There is probably a moral to this story: We are too much dependent on centralized systems because of perceived efficiency, but how true is that anymore? How hard is it to be i.e. energetically autonomous though? In sunny places, a house could probably be affordably autonomous, however these solutions have not been explored at scale and are not cheap yet. (I already know it's possible to have food-autarky, a garden and a few chicken will do).
We can't support 7 billion people if each one of them has a house with garden and grows it's own food. That's what the middle ages were, look at the population then.
The truth is probably somewhere between the two of you. We shouldn't be entirely dependant on centralized systems, nor should we attempt to be 100% self-sufficient. I'm sure there's a best of both worlds approach.
