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An ecologically harmonious lifestyle is economically cheaper, both for the household (in reduced expenses) and the surrounding economy (via reduced degradation

An ecologically harmonious lifestyle is economically cheaper, both for the household (in reduced expenses) and the surrounding economy (via reduced degradation of "ecosystem services"[1].) This, along with advances in technology, should result in massive reduction of work required to maintain a given quality of life. E.g. a 24-hour work week, and the option to retire after working only a few years. One's leisure time would, presumably, be directed towards things like spending more time with one's children, or participating in local politics via concensus building[2] (the most expensive yet most efficient form of government I suspect.) FWIW, Bucky Fuller calculated that we would have this level of technology by sometime in the 1970's. We did (e.g. transistor, atomic power), but we have yet to engage our technology coherently to make it (a secular utopia) happen. I don't know how to get from here to there. It's mostly a people problem and I'm not a people person. I think you have to get some land, build some ecologically "green" houses and infrastructure, rent it to folks much below market rate on the understanding that they meet certain conditions (like you can't just move out and sublet it on Airbnb or something.) The idea is that the folks renting these eco-flats and apartments at ~70% off market rate use the difference to live well. To close the loop, at least some of them would be working to get more land, build more eco-neighborhoods[3], and rent them out to more people. And a certain amount of the collected rent would go to a fund to support wild land conservation and ecosystem restoration. You could build something like Park Merced[4] in San Francisco but integrated with regenerative farms and a wildlife corridor. [1] "Ecosystem services are the many and varied benefits to humans provided by the natural environment and from healthy ecosystems." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem_service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem_service [2] "Consensus decision-making or consensus politics (often abbreviated to consensus) is group decision-making processes in which participants develop and decide on proposals with the aim, or requirement, of acceptance by all." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making [3] Christopher Alexander of "Pattern Language" fame has a site called "Building Living Neighborhoods": "Our goal is to help everyone make our neighborhoods places of belonging, places of health and well-being, and places where people will want to live and work. This has become possible through the use of Generative Codes, Christopher Alexander's latest work in the effort to make possible conception and construction of living, beautiful communities" https://www.livingneighborhoods.org/ht-0/bln-exp.htm https://www.livingneighborhoods.org/ht-0/bln-exp.htm [4] "a planned neighborhood of high-rise apartment towers and low-rise garden apartments", "It contains 3,221 residences ... and over 9,000 residents..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkmerced,_San_Francisco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkmerced,_San_Francisco

jackcosgrove 6y ago
While "we" had the capability of a high-tech, leisure society in the 1970s, "we" probably refers to a minority of people in developed countries at the time, so maybe 1-2% of people on the planet. Indeed since the 1970s the great economic story has been the spread of this way of life to others rather than an acceleration of technology to greater heights. Although the latter has happened, most effort has been focused on spreading existing technology. We're just now seriously thinking about returning to the moon after a fifty year absence. However during those fifty years about two billion people were lifted out of crushing poverty.
- carapace 6y ago
  Well, FWIW, Bucky considered himself to be working on behalf of all humanity. As an engineer he saw that working at the larger scale gave him the greater efficiency. (I.e. instead of heating and cooling individual buildings he proposed putting domes over entire cities!) In his lifetime he traveled the globe (~80 times around!) and was one of the most famous Americans in the world, in part because he was working on everyone's behalf. - - - - Anyway, you're right that standards of living have been going up globally, often with environmental degradation, but not always. For example, the revival of the Loess Plateu: > the Loess Plateau Watershed Rehabilitation Project was launched in 1994[7] to rehabilitate the land and improve the people's livelihoods. The project guided the people living on the plateau to change animal husbandry practices; encouraged natural regeneration of grasslands, tree and shrub cover on slope-lands previously used for farming; and land restoration through terracing and replanting. These efforts allowed the perennial vegetation cover to increase from 17 to 34 percent, and "[e]ven in the lifetime of the project, the ecological balance was restored in a vast area considered by many to be beyond help"; in addition, more than 2.5 million people were lifted out of poverty by doubled incomes.[6] > Restoration has occurred over an area of about 35,000 square kilometers (about 5% of the plateau's total area).[8] Results have reduced the massive silt loads to the Yellow River by about one percent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loess_Plateau#Agriculture_and_environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loess_Plateau#Agriculture_and_...

jackcosgrove 6y ago

While "we" had the capability of a high-tech, leisure society in the 1970s, "we" probably refers to a minority of people in developed countries at the time, so maybe 1-2% of people on the planet. Indeed since the 1970s the great economic story has been the spread of this way of life to others rather than an acceleration of technology to greater heights. Although the latter has happened, most effort has been focused on spreading existing technology. We're just now seriously thinking about returning to the moon after a fifty year absence. However during those fifty years about two billion people were lifted out of crushing poverty.

carapace 6y ago
Well, FWIW, Bucky considered himself to be working on behalf of all humanity. As an engineer he saw that working at the larger scale gave him the greater efficiency. (I.e. instead of heating and cooling individual buildings he proposed putting domes over entire cities!) In his lifetime he traveled the globe (~80 times around!) and was one of the most famous Americans in the world, in part because he was working on everyone's behalf. - - - - Anyway, you're right that standards of living have been going up globally, often with environmental degradation, but not always. For example, the revival of the Loess Plateu: > the Loess Plateau Watershed Rehabilitation Project was launched in 1994[7] to rehabilitate the land and improve the people's livelihoods. The project guided the people living on the plateau to change animal husbandry practices; encouraged natural regeneration of grasslands, tree and shrub cover on slope-lands previously used for farming; and land restoration through terracing and replanting. These efforts allowed the perennial vegetation cover to increase from 17 to 34 percent, and "[e]ven in the lifetime of the project, the ecological balance was restored in a vast area considered by many to be beyond help"; in addition, more than 2.5 million people were lifted out of poverty by doubled incomes.[6] > Restoration has occurred over an area of about 35,000 square kilometers (about 5% of the plateau's total area).[8] Results have reduced the massive silt loads to the Yellow River by about one percent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loess_Plateau#Agriculture_and_environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loess_Plateau#Agriculture_and_...