> On the other hand, do you consider an end-of-the-19th-century lifestyle an acceptable target to aim at? In some regards, yes. In others, not. I'm not saying

> On the other hand, do you consider an end-of-the-19th-century lifestyle an acceptable target to aim at? In some regards, yes. In others, not. I'm not saying we should throw away all medical progress from the last century if that's what you're wondering. Or that we should have factories in city centers spilling toxic byproducts directly into the street as was common back then. I'm arguing our modern comfort standards are not correlated with how much work takes place, because most of what we consider work today does not produce anything meaningful/useful. I believe a 10h work week is a high estimate for how much we need to work to maintain our lifestyle [0], accounting for the dismantling of slave labor in poorer countries which produce everything we consume. The amount of work necessary to produce food over a century has been cut by at least two orders of magnitude, and although there's a lot to learn from some mistakes (monoculture destroys soil and exposes plants to sickness, and fertilizers make the land sterile) we can benefit from scientific discoveries applied to traditional techniques, such as permaculture in the field of growing stuff. Also, you can take into account how much infrastructure has been individualized, which also accounts for resource/energy waste. Do we really need one oven/fridge per person? Mutualizing infrastructure saves resources. Overall, i'm convinced a decent modern life is possible [1] if we as a society decide to investigate the topic, instead of planning the next great scheme to steal money from the public for the already-insanely-rich known as "Green New Deal" which will certainly not do anything to save the environment. Only a global revolution can save us from doom. The people in power and the people who own the industry are precisely the classes of people who put us in this situation. They are both incapable and unwilling to address issues. I'm not exactly saying we need to chop their heads (though that is tempting) but we as humans must do our best without expecting anything from these psychopaths running the show. [0] Though it requires other measures such as fighting planned obsolescence and resource waste. [1] Not exactly as we know it. We would probably use different materials, build less tall buildings and live in overall less-urban cities (etc). But we could still enjoy what we consider modern comfort (abundant medicine/food/heat).