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> their standard of living will decline I'm vegan ... my quality of life isn't lower because of it. When people switch, they realize they've been taking somet

• ETH_start 3y ago
  >When people switch, they realize they've been taking something that wasn't theirs in the first place. If you're making a reference to the life of the farm animal: that's an entirely different argument. Right now we're debating whether natural habitats can be protected while current consumption patterns are maintained and ramped up. >High consumption != more enjoyable lives 1. High consumption means less death. Per capita production/consumption is strongly correlated with life expectancy. 2. People consistently choose high consumption when given a choice, so even if you want to use a definitin of happiness that is not aligned with the way of life people choose, the fact remains that high consumption is the preferred way of life, as expressed by people's choices. >High levels of production = more destruction (mining), more pollution (almost always), more exploitation There is asteroid mining and recycling as alternatives to mining the Earth's crust. The damage of mining can also be reduced with precision techniques and through rehabilitation of old mines. Another possibility is to compensate for the damage done by a mine by artificially enhancing other habitats to make them more vital, e.g. use some of the revenue generated by a mine to create an artificial lake to create more wetlands, to make up for the environmental damage done by the mine. >Degrowth, basic income, free housing & healthcare. Problem solved. The world doesn't produce enough to provide every one with a basic income that provides a high quality of life and good housing. We need far more production for that. And you can see that for yourself by just looking at the global per capita GDP and seeing that it's ~$18,000, and then looking up to see what goods/services that level of income can afford each person. And innovation to invent new healthcare technologies that can end the scourge of cancer, heart disease and other major illness is proportional to the productivity of human civilization. Raising productivity is a moral imperative. The degrowth ideological narrative is utterly baseless in its economic rationale.
  • myshpa 3y ago
    > that's an entirely different argument That's not an argument, that's just a remark. > Right now we're debating whether natural habitats can be protected while current consumption patterns are maintained and ramped up Not with animal agriculture in the world we have (population growth, developing regions, overshoot, existing levels of deforestation and biodiversity loss etc.). > high consumption is the preferred way of life, as expressed by people's choices I don't think people have much choice to live how they'd like. Their choices are being forced by the system. Many would choose something else if it was possible. > The world doesn't produce enough to provide every one with a basic income that provides a high quality of life and good housing > per capita GDP and seeing that it's ~$18,000 If we're discussing UBI and degrowth, we must consider abolishing money as we know it now for various reasons. Firstly, economics is not what most people think it is; it's a pseudoscience with imprecise models that often ignore negative externalities, such as environmental impacts, GDP is a meaningless metric, and the entire financial system is rigged. Why is it rigged? A significant portion of the money in the economy is credit/debt, created by banks when someone takes out a loan. There is a premium on this money that must be paid, usually a few percent every year, and this leads to exponential growth. However, exponential growth is unsustainable in a finite environment like ours. While space and other planets might be options in the future, currently, this planet is all we have. Around 40-70% of people are employed in bullshit jobs. These jobs are unnecessary or even harmful, consuming resources for commuting and job-related needs. People are forced to pretend they contribute just to secure a place to live and food in their fridge. > to provide every one with a basic income that provides a high quality of life and good housing Yet (almost) nobody dies of hunger (in our countries, anyway, nor should they) and (almost) everyone has a roof over his head, when the day ends. It's all a matter of distribution. We already produce enough food for 10B people, and e.g. US has enough free flats for every homeless person (and then some). The problem is distribution, nothing else. Money doesn't work well in this regard. > innovation to invent new healthcare technologies that can end the scourge of cancer, heart disease and other major illness is proportional to the productivity Scientists would still work even with UBI. Doctors would too, as well as teachers and artists. They are all motivated by factors other than money. And they would be compensated too. Currently, only 2% of people are employed in agriculture (and provide food for the 98%). However, even if we needed 6% for a more sustainable plant-based agricultural food production, under UBI, we could find individuals who would be happy to move from meaningless jobs to work in nature. People are not doing this now because they need to sustain themselves, and the current system doesn't allow for it. Money is not an accurate measure of value; we learned this when the COVID-19 pandemic began, and we realized that some sectors are more valuable than their compensation suggests. Other sectors would also require people to work, and there would be different incentives, such as societal appreciation, travel credits, or the opportunity to switch from an apartment to a house with a bigger garden. We would find suitable motivations for individuals to contribute to these sectors. > Raising productivity is a moral imperative Degrowth is a moral imperative. Wait. You've been talking about production/consumption earlier, now about productivity. Those are not the same things. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_overshoot#/media/File:Global_Overshoot_in_Earths_from_GFN_data.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_overshoot#/media/Fi... This is how we're utilizing earth resources now. We're currently consuming 1.7 earth resources every year (overshootday.org). And you'd like to step on the gas? > The degrowth ideological narrative is utterly baseless in its economic rationale No, it's the current system that is broken and wrong. https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist... Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist https://libcom.org/article/phenomenon-bullshit-jobs-david-graeber https://libcom.org/article/phenomenon-bullshit-jobs-david-gr... On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs - David Graeber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth https://www.growthbusters.org/economic-growth/ https://www.growthbusters.org/economic-growth/
• dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Degrowth, basic income Those (if you want the latter at a survivable level, without some kind of coercion for the able to work with UBI removing the normal financial coercion of capitalist economy) are mutually incompatible. If you want a viable strong safety net, especially with UBI, you can’t have degrowth.
  • myshpa 3y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37020069 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37020069