4 ms·
Pure caloric need may be a non-issue but I don't think it's sustainable for every living human to have a first world lifestyle barring many tech improvements.
by hnaccy 6y ago
Pure caloric need may be a non-issue but I don't think it's sustainable for every living human to have a first world lifestyle barring many tech improvements.
It's seems preferable to have a lower stable population where everyone has a very high standard of living and a low aggregate environmental impact.
A flat cap of two children per person would halt and slowly reduce the population without killing anyone or being unfair to specific groups.
- AstralStorm 6y agoWhat is "high standard of living" anyway? How many yachts and airplanes is it? How many cars? Other modes of transportation? Average kilograms of stuff owned and used per person? Living space? How long you have to travel to work or how far? How much do you strictly have to work to live at that level, if linear scaling would be sufficient? How much energy, thermal and electrical is used to sustain and separately embodied in production of your stuff? Etc. Once we define the threshold of high standard of living, we can optimize for it. This is literally when we say "nearly nobody can live as opulent as this" and can condemn waste. Feel free to pick say 90th percentile or something.
- s1artibartfast 6y agoThere isn’t really any reason a first world lifestyle isn’t sustainable for everyone. France emits half the carbon per person and has a great standard. Similarly, higher lifestyle is tied to fewer children, and therefore less carbon emissions. If there was one thing that we could do to increase sustainability, it would be to Increase quality of life as fast as possible