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Sustainable means different things to different people. In a simulator, could you have 12 billion people with their needs met, living fulfilled lives and conti

Sustainable means different things to different people. In a simulator, could you have 12 billion people with their needs met, living fulfilled lives and continuing into the far future? Yes. Is there a political and practical way to reach that state? No. "One study estimates it would take just over 5 Earths to support the human population if everyone’s consumption patterns were similar to the average American." Any US government that tried to bring America's environmental footprint down to a sustainable or fair level would be voted out. It doesn't matter whether it would be gas taxes, meat taxes, per mile taxes, flight taxes, carbon tax and dividend, building renewable energy in less developed countries, or any other scheme. It doesn't matter if it was targeted at the ultra rich or the middle class. The sheer scale of it would cause Americans to vote out the government. And the same is true for any democracy and plenty of the non-democracies too.

acidioxide 3y ago
We don't need another tax to make another commodity available only to the richest, but a change in culture that above all prioritizes consumption.
graphe 3y ago
I'm not sure why they think Americans are a good standard of living. If we want people to be 30+ percent obese, unhappy with dating and the stuff we ordered to have shipped yesterday. There's programs to give efficient LEDs from comed to people for changing it slowly.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  People can get a good standard of living by exercising more but habit forming is hard and people can be very short termist and sheep like. Sheep like can be a positive thing too though (in a more health obsessed city you might encourage others).
timschmidt 3y ago
Earth receives more solar energy in an hour than human civilization uses in a year. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy We're not even vertically farming at scale yet. There's a lot of room left for densifying human civilization. Seems like 10x should be achievable.
- defrost 3y ago
  > There's a lot of room left for densifying human civilization. Seems like 10x should be achievable. Why? Why isn't 8 billion enough? Is there a plastic ring prize if we hit 80 billion? Or are you talking about squeezing the 8 billion we have now closer together?
  - timschmidt 3y ago
    People have children for lots of reasons. I'm probably not qualified to list them all, but I expect that people will not stop any time soon. Seems that they enjoy the process. Perhaps consider that those 80 billion souls will contain Einsteins and Mozarts.
    - defrost 3y ago
      We had OG Einstein and Mozart and Erdős and many others before we hit 5 billion. People are having fewer children, as living conditions, education, and acces to TV increases the reproduction rate falls. Ideally we'll level out at 6 billion or so. You haven't given any good reason why the earth should squeeze as many upright aquatic apes on it as possible yet.
      - timschmidt 3y ago
        > We had OG Einstein and Mozart and Erdős Oh good, we don't ever need any more then. /s > Ideally we'll level out at 6 billion or so. I doubt there's any single ideal population size, because the impact of each individual varies so widely. In the future, when we're all living 100% solar powered regenerative net-carbon-negative lives, the problem will be that there aren't enough people to offset warming caused by volcanic eruptions, meteor impacts, and overpopulated wildlife.
        defrost 3y ago
        > Oh good, we don't ever need any more then. /s Always handy, the point (lean back, look up) is we don't need 80 billion as a prerequisite to have more - that's a weak (to be generous) argument. > I doubt there's any single ideal population size, .. It's bounded by an upper limit of humans living like turkeys in a turkey farm and tossing the weak in the chipper to blend back in with the feed . . . is that your ideal mode of life? The Earth is nice example of a complex system with many interconnect parts maintaining a relatively stable for millenia feedback regulated environment. What is the argument for pushing human population to 80 billion, and at what cost does that come in terms of human living standards and the other non human life we share the planet with?

acidioxide 3y ago

We don't need another tax to make another commodity available only to the richest, but a change in culture that above all prioritizes consumption.

graphe 3y ago

I'm not sure why they think Americans are a good standard of living. If we want people to be 30+ percent obese, unhappy with dating and the stuff we ordered to have shipped yesterday. There's programs to give efficient LEDs from comed to people for changing it slowly.

quickthrower2 3y ago
People can get a good standard of living by exercising more but habit forming is hard and people can be very short termist and sheep like. Sheep like can be a positive thing too though (in a more health obsessed city you might encourage others).

timschmidt 3y ago

Earth receives more solar energy in an hour than human civilization uses in a year. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy We're not even vertically farming at scale yet. There's a lot of room left for densifying human civilization. Seems like 10x should be achievable.

defrost 3y ago
> There's a lot of room left for densifying human civilization. Seems like 10x should be achievable. Why? Why isn't 8 billion enough? Is there a plastic ring prize if we hit 80 billion? Or are you talking about squeezing the 8 billion we have now closer together?
- timschmidt 3y ago
  People have children for lots of reasons. I'm probably not qualified to list them all, but I expect that people will not stop any time soon. Seems that they enjoy the process. Perhaps consider that those 80 billion souls will contain Einsteins and Mozarts.
  - defrost 3y ago
    We had OG Einstein and Mozart and Erdős and many others before we hit 5 billion. People are having fewer children, as living conditions, education, and acces to TV increases the reproduction rate falls. Ideally we'll level out at 6 billion or so. You haven't given any good reason why the earth should squeeze as many upright aquatic apes on it as possible yet.
    - timschmidt 3y ago
      > We had OG Einstein and Mozart and Erdős Oh good, we don't ever need any more then. /s > Ideally we'll level out at 6 billion or so. I doubt there's any single ideal population size, because the impact of each individual varies so widely. In the future, when we're all living 100% solar powered regenerative net-carbon-negative lives, the problem will be that there aren't enough people to offset warming caused by volcanic eruptions, meteor impacts, and overpopulated wildlife.
      - defrost 3y ago
        > Oh good, we don't ever need any more then. /s Always handy, the point (lean back, look up) is we don't need 80 billion as a prerequisite to have more - that's a weak (to be generous) argument. > I doubt there's any single ideal population size, .. It's bounded by an upper limit of humans living like turkeys in a turkey farm and tossing the weak in the chipper to blend back in with the feed . . . is that your ideal mode of life? The Earth is nice example of a complex system with many interconnect parts maintaining a relatively stable for millenia feedback regulated environment. What is the argument for pushing human population to 80 billion, and at what cost does that come in terms of human living standards and the other non human life we share the planet with?