Life in the '80s in the Soviet Union space was marred by widespread food shortages. Here is a fairly accurate video of how the usual grocery shop looked like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8LtQhIQ2AE When the sporadic food supply truck would show up, people would line up for hours, many only to leave empty handed when the load would inevitably run out.
This is the very tangible result of suboptimal choices.
But I agree, life in the '90s, post collapse, was even worse. I read it as a warning that embarking on a suboptimal choice course may be hard to steer back until reality forces a very harsh collapse.
In 1989 Boris Yeltsin visited Texan grocery store and was positively shocked by the choice and availability. https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When...
This is the very tangible result of suboptimal choices.
But I agree, life in the '90s, post collapse, was even worse. I read it as a warning that embarking on a suboptimal choice course may be hard to steer back until reality forces a very harsh collapse.