I’m certainly a big fan of the European lifestyle (which was in some sense foretold by Bertrand Russell’s In Praise of Idleness, where he argued that raw labor

I’m certainly a big fan of the European lifestyle (which was in some sense foretold by Bertrand Russell’s In Praise of Idleness, where he argued that raw labor will become less necessary in the future and people should spend more time indulging in high value creative activities). I do wonder if it’s possible to sustain without some form of labor and innovation however. A lot of what Europe enjoys today was the result of past innovation and labor. Europe doesn’t exist in a vacuum and there are competitive forces at work — even if it doesn’t aspire to grow economically, it will in some sense decline in relative terms if the rest of the world grows faster. Decline can be slow but it can also be quick. Germany for instance has declined significantly in the past few years due to its reliance on Russian gas. It probably doesn’t feel like it on the ground but if you look at the numbers Germany is not currently doing well (though it still has lots of competitive advantages, not least its people). Japan has also declined significantly in relative terms since the 90s despite not appearing like it has, but if you’re a Japanese young person your prospects for career growth is actually fairly limited so most people who were in the lost generation are conditioned to have modest ambitions. Japanese people are still some of the most able people in the world but the cultural proclivity towards making rapid advances has been muted significantly. Its hard to launch startups or to do anything that isn’t incremental there. Some folks are thinking we’d all be happier if we were hobbits living a bucolic self sustaining existence insulated from the rest of the world. But that kind of life is only possible because someone else took care of Mordor. Quality of life is more fragile than we think. Civilizations decline from complacency.