Most of the 8 billon people are living in the third world and which less resources waste, most recources a wasted by less than 10% of the world population.
BodyBySisyphus@hexbear.net
on 24 Jul 21:15
nextcollapse
Ah hes a degrowther, makes sense. I read through his paper and I really don’t think its realistic or thought provoking. It lacks humanity and applies a utilitarian solution. Its the same as saying we have x humans producing co2 lets reduce the number of humans but instead of humans its goods he deems to be unnecessary.
His entire premise is based on what he thinks a person needs to live a good life. But lifes just not that simple and people all around the world NEED different things this type of strict partitioning fails when applied to the entire world. Part of what makes our current system work is that its dynamic, people create goods they want and those who also want those goods buy them.
Sounds like national chauvinism, the idea that Americans need more luxury goods than everyone else, and that there’s no way no how you’d ever lower your already completely “fair” level of consumption.
You have to understand, people in Africa need clean drinking water, people in the USA need two cars and a lawn. Anything less would be inhumane /s
LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works
on 25 Jul 08:28
nextcollapse
No, his argument is that the average human needs this standard. also, it is a model, it is by definition simplified.
Besides, what is the alternative? First world countries living like they own the place, third world countries starving, and we’re all getting killed in the climate war of 2040?
No, his argument is that the average human needs this standard. also, it is a model, it is by definition simplified.
His argument is the average hmuan needs this standard… so we can cut “unnecessary production” and it will be fine. I’m arguing that he cant label things unnecessary because hes found a standard wealth level he thinks is good enough. It wont work as an approach because humans require a diverse range of inputs to live happy lives and that requires a diverse and dynamic production economy.
astutemural@midwest.social
on 26 Jul 21:33
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What on Earth are you on about?
Quoting from the study:
“It is important to understand that the DLS represents a minimum floor for decent living. It does not represent a an aspirational standard and certainly does not represent a ceiling. However, it is also a level of welfare not currently achieved by the vast majority of people. A new paper by Hoffman et al finds that 96.5 percent of people in low- and middle-income countries are deprived of at least one DLS dimension…we can conclude that 6.4 billion people, more than 80% of the world’s population, are deprived of DLS.”
The authors are not suggesting that everyone be forced on DLS at gunpoint. They are suggesting an absolute bare minimum standard that the overwhelming majority of people on Earth do not yet even have.
How the hell do you get from that to some sort of paranoid fantasy where everyone gets exactly the same thing?
Uh I disagree. The author is suggesting we could cut 70% of the worlds industry because he thinks that represents a good enough standard of living. If he was suggesting that everyone be brought up to the minimum standard then he wouldnt be suggesting large scale degrowth.
Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca
on 25 Jul 01:19
nextcollapse
I was going to say “No one is saying that”, but there are many going down that road.
The preferable approach is degrowth. A lower birthrate leading to a smaller population with no deaths required, just vastly fewer births and lower consumption until human civilization can not only fit with our planetary boundaries, but restore a lot of wildlife and wildlands, then stabilize at a population and consumption that is healthy and comfortable.
This is already happening, but i don’t think it’s fast enough: with the exceeded life expectancy, we are first seeing an increase and aging of population. Only after the wave of now 50-60 year olds will be dead will we see a stable degrowth. Is that soon enough? Sure it’s preferable to extermination?
A_Chilean_Cyborg@feddit.cl
on 25 Jul 06:58
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I’m not keen on a society were seniors are the majority of the population, it would be a disaster.
Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca
on 25 Jul 11:56
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I’m not keen on a society dominated by resource exhaustion, grossly exceeded planetary boundaries leading to ecological overshoot and collapse and billions of early deaths due to climate change, pollution and conflict as everyone fights for whatever is left.
An againg society is a necessary step towards a sustainable population. Anything other than a sustainable population (number of people x consumption amount) will, by definition, not be sustained. A collapse will be chaotic and devastating. A managed descent of degrowth will have difficulties but could save humanity and the biosphere as we know it.
deathgrindfreak@awful.systems
on 26 Jul 14:25
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The number of people basically advocating for this in the comments is honestly depressing
webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
on 24 Jul 21:49
nextcollapse
10 m² of personal living space + 20 m² for every 4 ppl as bathroom / kitchen
2100 kcal/day
1400 kWh/year, but this already includes public services (education/healthcare)
1 washing machine per 20 ppl
2.4 kg clothing / year
wear tops for three days and bottoms for 15 days without washing
1 laptop per 4 people with a yearly power consumption of 62 kWh. (bizzarely they talk about an 800 MHz computer and seem to confuse HDD and RAM). If your gaming computer used 400 W you could use it for 150 hr/year.
CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world
on 24 Jul 22:25
nextcollapse
I’m gonna need a lot more than 10 square meters of space if everyone is changing their shirts twice a week. Yuck.
On top of that, sharing 1 washing machine for 20 fucking people?
In what world do the people writing this live? Have they never lived in an apartment building with shared laundry? The machines are never kept clean because people are fucking animals.
What a stupidly naive study lmao.
LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works
on 25 Jul 08:25
nextcollapse
They live in a world where 700 million people are currently starving. Do you think you care about the washing machines if your children have nothing to eat?
That's the heart of the issue, though, isn't it? Most people do care about the state of their washing machines even as countless children have nothing to eat. People chastise their kids for not eating their vegetables by saying "kids are starving in Africa," without doing anything to help any kids in Africa. People want more for themselves even while acknowledging that others have so much less. Studies like this assume that human selfishness is negligible, while it's actually one of the largest variables that needs to be factored in. Most people don't actually care about human suffering unless it's happening to someone they personally know - they care much more about their washing machine.
You could double everything in this post too and that’s only 60% consumption.
20 m² of personal living space + 20 m² for every 2 ppl as bathroom / kitchen
4200 kcal/day
2800 kWh/year, but this already includes public services (education/healthcare)
1 washing machine per 10 ppl
2.4 kg clothing / 6 months
wear tops for 1.5 days and bottoms for 7.5 days without washing
1 laptop per 2 people with a yearly power consumption of 62 kWh. (bizzarely they talk about an 800 MHz computer and seem to confuse HDD and RAM). If your gaming computer used 400 W you could use it for 300 hr/year.
That seems a lot more reasonable to me and we still come in under carrying capacity
Apart from power, washing bottoms, and laptops that is pretty close to what many people I know have. That certainly doesn’t seem outlandish.
Now who’s going to help with the wealth redistribution and logistics? I volunteer for helping with logistics. Anyone with pew pew experience want to try the wealth redistribution?
You could probably chop 1000 calories and handwash your bottoms more often
astutemural@midwest.social
on 26 Jul 21:17
nextcollapse
ITT: people who didn’t even glance at the study.
Quoting from the study:
“It is important to understand that the DLS represents a minimum floor for decent living. It does not represent a an aspirational standard and certainly does not represent a ceiling. However, it is also a level of welfare not currently achieved by the vast majority of people. A new paper by Hoffman et al finds that 96.5 percent of people in low- and middle-income countries are deprived of at least one DLS dimension…we can conclude that 6.4 billion people, more than 80% of the world’s population, are deprived of DLS.”
The authors are not suggesting that everyone be forced on DLS at gunpoint. They are suggesting an absolute bare minimum standard that the overwhelming majority of people on Earth do not yet even have. Quite obviously any excess production could and would be used to increase standard of living.
ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world
on 24 Jul 22:29
nextcollapse
And kill all the pets I assume.
boomzilla@programming.dev
on 26 Jul 10:46
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Or at least feed the dogs plant based and phase out having cat as pets. IIRC it’s 20% of all livestock in the US that’s killed just for cats and dogs and about 70% of that 20% is for dogs on top of my head. Dog can live fine if not better on a well formulated plant based dog food. Just look at some of the reviews for Purina HA Vegetarian (it’s vegan btw) dog food. A lot of dog owners cured the gastro intestinal and lot of other problems their dogs had with it. I’m not affiliated. There are other well formulated plant based foods like AMI successfully used by many dog owners. Just seen a video on “The Dodo” of a dog who was at the verge of being put down because of weight loss till the veterinary got the idea the dog could have a meat allergy and advised said Purina food. The dog is now healthy and thriving again. That diet change on a global scale would take a huge burden off of the environment.
The catastrophic aspect to cats is the absolutely incomprehensible amounts of birds stray and outdoor cats kill every year (outdoor cats don’t even eat most of their kills often).
I love cats, but cat owners must begin to find ways to let their beloved furry friends experience the outdoors that doesn’t lead to ecocide. Cat leashes, large screened enclosures on a porch, whatever works.
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
on 24 Jul 23:33
nextcollapse
The other question is: where are we living? It takes a lot more resources to live in Canada than it does to live in a warm climate to the south. Does that mean we all have to abandon Canada and crowd ourselves into the hot equatorial regions?
Otherwise those numbers seem like a huge downgrade for even working class Canadians. It goes to show you that Canada is a truly rich country and all but the least fortunate here have far more resources than someone living in the poorest countries in the world.
usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca
on 24 Jul 23:44
nextcollapse
Yeah, that list sounds like literal prison. That’s a hard sell for a good chunk of people.
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
on 25 Jul 00:05
nextcollapse
Prison in a hot climate with no AC. No thanks!
astutemural@midwest.social
on 26 Jul 21:25
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ITT: people who didn’t even glance at the study.
Quoting from the study:
“It is important to understand that the DLS represents a minimum floor for decent living. It does not represent a an aspirational standard and certainly does not represent a ceiling. However, it is also a level of welfare not currently achieved by the vast majority of people. A new paper by Hoffman et al finds that 96.5 percent of people in low- and middle-income countries are deprived of at least one DLS dimension…we can conclude that 6.4 billion people, more than 80% of the world’s population, are deprived of DLS.”
The authors are not suggesting that everyone be forced on DLS at gunpoint. They are suggesting an absolute bare minimum standard that the overwhelming majority of people on Earth do not yet even have. Quite obviously any excess production could and would be used to increase standard of living.
truthfultemporarily@feddit.org
on 25 Jul 00:11
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They talk about it in the PDF. Basically its a weighted average. Some people live in colder climates and need more heating/clothes, others need less. It then averages out to those numbers.
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
on 25 Jul 00:50
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So it’s not really giving everyone in the world an exactly equal share of resources. Not to mention there’s a natural component to inequality that’s independent of resources: location. A 10 m^2 per person shack is a lot more bearable on a beach in Southern California than it is in a desert or an insect-infested swamp.
truthfultemporarily@feddit.org
on 25 Jul 09:34
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Its not about giving people resources, merely estimating what it would take for everyone to meet DLS requirements if they live where they currently live.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
on 24 Jul 23:43
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1400 kWh/year
that seems awfully low, considering that germany uses 37 000 kWh /year per person. But that already factors in things such as energy needed to produce your soda bottle, so it’s not “energy used inside your own house/apartment”.
I’d argue that’s a downgrade for most people. I personally exceed all of those bullet points and the idea of coming close to most of them sounds like Hell to me. If it meant 8.5 billion people met those standards, I could make the sacrifice, but it would be awful.
Can you imagine if everyone you met was wearing a 3 days dirty shirt? Do other not sweat? And 2100 kcal per day is not safe or sustainable for almost anyone that exercises regularly.
idiomaddict@lemmy.world
on 25 Jul 02:43
nextcollapse
And 2100 kcal per day is not safe or sustainable for almost anyone that exercises regularly.
I’m a woman with a relatively large frame (~65kg/180cm) who used to do 14 hours of hard cardio a week. At that time, my recommendation was 2250, the first time in my life it had exceeded 2k. For smaller women, the recommendation is sometimes much lower. My stepsister is about 45kg and 155cm tall and her calculated daily calorie burn is like 1300. My ex boyfriend’s mom was told not to go over 1200, which I thought was the lower limit for humans generally- things are different when you’re a short, post-menopausal woman.
All that is to say, it’s probably an average of 2100 calories, spread between people who need on average 1400-1800 calories and those who need 2000-2400
That’s fair. My take was shallow and I was thinking more from personal experience. I’m ~200lbs and burn over 100 kcal every mile I run, and am a distance athlete. If I jog 6 miles or bike 20+, I have to replace that for proper recovery.
I shouldn’t say most people, but a large amount of people need more than 2100 kcal if they are active.
It’s honestly wild the difference in caloric requirements based on age and sex/gender (I don’t know how much is due to size/hormones, so I don’t know where trans people’s requirements would be) even before factoring in activity level, so it’s entirely reasonable not to realize the difference.
If you’re just starting estrogen-oriented HRT and you’re at a weight considered ideal for your pre-HRT body, then it is helpful to actually gain a few kg of fat, together with weekly hours of intense activity (like running, bicycling, squatting and planks, hip thrusts) coupled with moderate activity (like walking half an hour everyday) Then fat redistribution will be more effectively towards a )( body shape, with breast growth improved during the first year(?). Progesterone may aid in the last as well. This guide may help.
For testosterone-oriented HRT, I’m less certain, though I assume the fat redistribution’s accent is more strongly on fat loss, and exercise for muscle growth. Lifting, bench presses, planking, and the like for \/ bodies. Don’t forget leg day! Here’s a good training scheme.
That said, everyone has their own goals; important imo is that one remains healthy. A good diet is balanced and lowly processed, containing plenty vegetables and some proteins and water. And have a rest day. A nice fist rule is 4 days of exercise anywhere in the week and a day or two of relative rest.
A body fat percent healthy for all people (binary and nonbinary) would be around 14-25%. If you can get pregnant (and seek to do so), it’s better to be a little higher in this range, because during pregnancy, your body will prioritise the embryonic/fetal needs more than yours.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
on 25 Jul 18:27
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I can attest that i definitely eat less than 2000 kcal per day on average. But:
I read a study (done by the CIA, ironically) a while ago that said sth like the average caloric intake for americans is like 3500 kcal/day, while for USSR people it is 3200 kcal/day, and concluded that people in the USSR eat healthier.
JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl
on 25 Jul 19:30
nextcollapse
Well that is more a report than a study, but that is pretty interesting, saving that.
Though 3500 and 3200 seem absolutely fucking wild to me. I am a 184cm, 96kg (not fit anymore but used to work out 6 days a week for 2-3hrs) and if I eat more than 2200 per day not-active (I got used to weighing every gram of food during cuts) I gain weight. I find it hard to believe that 3500 and 3200 was average then as there were significantly less obese people then.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
on 25 Jul 19:45
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Yeah i still can’t really wrap my mind around it. I suspect it might be caused by the fact that there were a lot more manual blue-collar labour back then being done? But i’m not sure.
Coming to that conclusion based purely on amount of calories is incredibly stupid
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
on 26 Jul 21:28
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actually if you read the paper it goes into more detail than just calories
astutemural@midwest.social
on 26 Jul 21:24
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ITT: people who didn’t even glance at the study.
Quoting from the study:
“It is important to understand that the DLS represents a minimum floor for decent living. It does not represent a an aspirational standard and certainly does not represent a ceiling. However, it is also a level of welfare not currently achieved by the vast majority of people. A new paper by Hoffman et al finds that 96.5 percent of people in low- and middle-income countries are deprived of at least one DLS dimension…we can conclude that 6.4 billion people, more than 80% of the world’s population, are deprived of DLS.”
The authors are not suggesting that everyone be forced on DLS at gunpoint. They are suggesting an absolute bare minimum standard that the overwhelming majority of people on Earth do not yet even have. Quite obviously any excess production could and would be used to increase standard of living.
“Averages are reduced by the relatively lower requirements of infants and children.”
yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 25 Jul 02:46
nextcollapse
A simpler solution is to simply abolish wealth hoarding, impose sensible consumption limits (so, no cars or commercial plane travel, no meat, no 800 watt gaming rigs), and continue to encourage population decline. Boom, everyone is healthy, the air is clean, and you can keep your house.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
on 25 Jul 18:23
nextcollapse
that’s how you start a civil war. lots of people will rebel against oppression
yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 25 Jul 20:25
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Any animal that would fight against sensible restrictions like these, which seek to make the earth livable for their children and grandchildren, is rabid and should be extirpated.
Humanity won’t develop altruistic tendencies at the last second, I mean ffs we haven’t yet in all of recorded history, so why in the our final 50 years of climate apocalypse and resource wars, would we?
We deserve to die off and we should, our species is terrible. All fantasies otherwise are illogical.
a_wild_mimic_appears@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 26 Jul 18:51
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our species isn’t more or less terrible like any other species on this planet that was able to utilize ressources better. for example trees: when they came along the absolutely strangled the planet, until their waste product (oxygen) became so concentrated that todays humans would die of it. even their corpses littered the floor in meter thick layers! (that’s what todays coal is). I’m pretty sure that during this change biodiversity took a hard crash until life was able to adapt.
this continued until finally a bacterium developed the ability to degrade cellulose. i’m pretty sure the trees weren’t too happy about that one, it must have been a massacre.
the same story happens in every bottle of juice: bacteria grow inside, exhausting all available ressources, culminating in a mass dieoff with a few scavengers left over. It’s just a question if our intelligence allows us to take a different path or not.
And do you think humanity as a whole is intelligent, organised, and altruistic enough to willingly ‘take a different path’?
Most motherfuckers wouldn’t even wear masks during covid and yet you think they’re going to embrace this? Lmao.
a_wild_mimic_appears@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 26 Jul 20:37
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I didn’t say how optimistic i am, just that we are not special in our interaction with the biosphere - not at all. The tragedy is that we are the first that have enough intellect to reflect about those facts, so we are the first that even have the possibility to escape the cycle. if not, we probably will be reduced to scavengers, just like the bacteria in the juice bottle.
kbobabob@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 26 Jul 10:59
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I wonder if they think the down votes make your statement less true.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
on 26 Jul 14:05
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I always wonder what happens if commercial air travel is banned. Cruise ships are obviously worse for the environment than planes, but are there ships that are fast enough to be feasible for people traveling for less than a month while actually being sustainable or are the americas and Australia just going to be effectively isolated from Eurasia and Africa?
It’s worth it if it’s the only way to survive, obviously, but I wonder what the effects would be. I’m a transatlantic immigrant, and I’d be willing to take a three month trip by ship to visit my family once a decade or so, but I can’t imagine most people wanting or being able to do that.
LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works
on 25 Jul 08:23
nextcollapse
Their idea of decent is a dream for a good chunk of the world population. We’re the privileged ones. People kill to live like us.
astutemural@midwest.social
on 26 Jul 21:26
nextcollapse
ITT: people who didn’t even glance at the study.
Quoting from the study:
“It is important to understand that the DLS represents a minimum floor for decent living. It does not represent a an aspirational standard and certainly does not represent a ceiling. However, it is also a level of welfare not currently achieved by the vast majority of people. A new paper by Hoffman et al finds that 96.5 percent of people in low- and middle-income countries are deprived of at least one DLS dimension…we can conclude that 6.4 billion people, more than 80% of the world’s population, are deprived of DLS.”
The authors are not suggesting that everyone be forced on DLS at gunpoint. They are suggesting an absolute bare minimum standard that the overwhelming majority of people on Earth do not yet even have. Quite obviously any excess production could and would be used to increase standard of living.
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
on 30 Jul 08:59
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well then you’ll enjoy thinking about how most people on earth don’t meet that standard, so maybe it’s time we give up some of our luxuries so the rest of planet earth can stop living in abject suffering?
I won’t be giving up anything so someone in a country I have zero responsibility for can have something they, their people and their government didn’t earn.
Their problem, they can fix it. Or not. I really don’t give a shit.
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
on 30 Jul 12:18
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There’s nothing hateful about putting my family, community and country first.
Maybe more people would enjoy better living standards if they did the same.
LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works
on 25 Jul 09:01
nextcollapse
I am amazed by all the people that, when faced with having to give up some of the first-world luxury they are used to, flip completely in their head. It is the opposite of not-in-my-backyard: Don’t take from my backyard, pls.
Yes, I would rather have the current distribution continue, where hundreds of millions are literally starving, where there are people who would kill to live like this, where people are walking through the desert and taking dinghies over oceans for shit like this, just so I can have my amenities.
Absolutely wild. We’re so doomed.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
on 25 Jul 18:22
nextcollapse
where hundreds of millions are literally starving, […] just so I can have my amenities.
Note that other people’s suffering is not always directly related to our lifestyle.
Explain to me how the sudanese war is caused by our consumption of meat?
Oh come on, that is a pretty flawed argument. “Tell me, how me doing this particular, isolated thing, is directly causing this complicated big thing, otherwise you are wrong”.
But we are not arguing that: We are arguing about, what if I had a magical button that would magically give everyone in the world access to the “decent living standards” and nothing more? Would it be ethical, would you push this button? Even if you are, right now, way above the line?
And to that I say, yes, if it was possible to do this, I believe it would be the right thing to do. And I believe that anyone arguing we should not press the button, because pushing this button is hurting their lifestyle, is arguing that billions of people deserve to live a much worse life for being in the wrong place so that we can have our lifestyle.
Of course I do not have such a button. That is not the point.
Why are you amazed? Have you lived your whole life under a rock? People have always been like this, it’s never been hidden or even remotely pretended otherwise.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
on 25 Jul 18:21
nextcollapse
I’m actually in favor of keeping a lifestyle that wastes a lot of resources simply for the point that it guarantees that in times of crises, of unexpected shortages of products, there will still be enough products going around to sustain us.
The same paper addresses this directly. 86% of human beings live below this standard of living today.
rizzothesmall@sh.itjust.works
on 26 Jul 17:55
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wear tops for three days and bottoms for 15 days without washing
It is for the good of all people that this is not the case for me…
iAvicenna@lemmy.world
on 24 Jul 21:58
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How detailed is this calculation? Does it take into account where these resources are produced and costs of logistics (nvm difficulty of getting every country on board with this, lets assume we did)?
kibiz0r@midwest.social
on 24 Jul 22:21
nextcollapse
It’s disturbing, how many people eagerly embrace eugenics and anti-natalism as long as they can cite a left-wing cause like ecology as their reason
I thought maybe someone was capable of answering a reasonable question to support their position, assuming they had already read the article. Apparently I have to do that work for them?
It looks to me like that same feeling toward any population concerns are the clear sentiment of the op, even if they don’t state it so openly. I guess you didn’t see that? No sense trying to beat this to death, we’re seeing different things.
Gee, I dunno, maybe everyone having 3 or more kids in the long term will lead to overpopulation issues we cannot resolve even with improved technology.
LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 29 Jul 17:12
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No it won’t. Learn 2 Read.
bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml
on 25 Jul 13:34
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Where did you get the idea that this was malthusian? Hickel advocates for a more efficient distribution of resources, not to cut thr world population in half so gringos can keep their 4 cars and lawn.
flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz
on 24 Jul 23:14
nextcollapse
But image if we can provide so much for 8.5 billion, it means we can provid double for 4 billion. There is no reasonable excuse to keep increasing the human population.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
on 24 Jul 23:44
nextcollapse
It shows that we’re using around 50% of all habitable land for agriculture. Most of the land that we aren’t using is either high up in the mountains (where terrain isn’t flat and you can’t use heavy machinery) or in the tropical regions on Earth close to the equator (south america, central africa, indonesia), or in areas where it’s too cold for agriculture (sibiria, canada). so you can’t really use more agricultural land than we’re already using without cutting down the rainforest.
In the diagram it also says that we’re using only 23% of agricultural land for crops which produce 83% of all calories. If we used close to 100% of agricultural land for crops, it would produce approximately 320% of calories currently being produced, so yes, we could feed 3x the population this way.
However, it must be noted that there’s significant fluctuation in food production per km², for example due to volcanic eruptions. So it’s better to leave a certain buffer to the maximum amount of people you could feed in one year, because food shortages in another year would otherwise lead to bad famines.
Top soil is what food grows in. Without top soil, we can’t grow food.
carl_dungeon@lemmy.world
on 25 Jul 00:52
nextcollapse
Why can’t we just have fewer people too? Instead of finding ways to support 50 billion people, how about we have good birth control facilities, education, and economies not based on constant never ending growth? The reality is unending growth WILL end whether people like it or not- wouldn’t it be better to do it on our own terms rather than in a global catastrophe?
Most of the world is far from replacement levels of population and the global trend is a decrease in fertility. Overall, we are at 2.4 kids per woman, the replacement level being estimated between 2.1 and 2.3 (depending how likely you think it is to die from wars). This data has been (mostly) decreasing since the 60s.
Shareni@programming.dev
on 25 Jul 06:25
nextcollapse
wouldn’t it be better to do it on our own terms rather than in a global catastrophe?
The catastrophy is inevitable, it’s just a question of whether any humans will survive.
For example CO2 has a delayed effect of ~40years (if I remember correctly). The effects of global warming are very much obvious now, but the yearly output hasn’t at any point dropped to those levels since.
yogurtwrong@lemmy.world
on 25 Jul 08:51
nextcollapse
Why can’t we just have fewer people too?
Won’t somebody think of the ECONOMY?
A lot of countries around the world are living a so called “underpopulation crisis” even though the population is still growing frighteningly fast. Population going down is only a problem for capitalism, and it’s going to doom us all
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
on 25 Jul 19:01
nextcollapse
Why can’t we just have fewer people too? Instead of finding ways to support 50 billion people
The best way to control population growth is to actually give them a high standard of living and education. One of the most consistent trends in a developing nation is it’s birth rate slowing down as people become more prosperous
And bunch of other sacrifices. One of the points was also about everyone living in a city close by. The study is not applicable to real life, it’s utopia scenario. One of the biggest problems isn’t even resources, but co2 production.
And honestly, I could see this sort of systems being handy - having raillines between the big and mid-sized cities, and bus services for the aforementioned + small cities and towns, and (electric) bicycles for the rest.
BodyBySisyphus@hexbear.net
on 25 Jul 02:35
nextcollapse
I can tell you’re really proud of these replies, but I’m afraid they don’t actually make sense.
You were hoping to prove a logical implication (if P then Q), but you feel it was disproved since the premise didn’t happen. However, “not P” doesn’t actually prove anything about the implication.
Anyway, no one is really accomplishing anything constructive here. Good luck!
BodyBySisyphus@hexbear.net
on 28 Jul 20:52
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The syllogism P (you read something) then Q (you learn something) presumes a) you can process information contained within the written word and b) you have the capability of learning. While not conclusively falsified by these exchange, a postpostivist interpretation suggests that the preponderance of the evidence rests with the counterfactual. No need for P to actually take place. Thanks for playing, best of luck in your future endeavors.
Transportation of goods is mostly a capitalist issue. You don’t need to cover a cucumber with plastic and ship it half way across the world, while selling the local ones to richer countries. The same goes for the vast majority of “goods”. Remove all of that greedy, superfluous shit, and you’re left with minimal shipping needs.
Velypso@sh.itjust.works
on 25 Jul 06:43
nextcollapse
It’s wild that many people on Lemmy dont understand that many things, while completely and absolutely unnecessary, also bring a lot of joy to people.
Cracking a bottle of beaujolais alongside a dish made from Chinese and Korean ingredients while listening to South American vinyl on my Japanese speakers is part of the spice of life.
I get that I could live like a 12th century peasant, only consume things I grow myself and use clothing I can make by hand, but Jesus christ, that’s fucking insane.
Living isnt just about living, its about knowing and enjoying other cultures and the world itself. This study sound like they’d have you live in a cave with no ac while only eating flavorless locally sourced paste.
How boring and repulsive.
valentinesmith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 25 Jul 08:18
nextcollapse
I mean, I get that you don’t like how they talk on Lemmy about it, but the quote from the study even talks about how the surplus could be used for additional consumption and everything.
Study is here
I think we all have different things we want in life and with such a big surplus there is room for most of us to regularly enjoy that. I do not believe that they argue that we will NEVER be able to enjoy different food. That is as you have mentioned not functional or good for people to work together and live together. Disregarding the many people with different cultures that have moved somewhere else.
I think the study more clearly argues that we can afford to take care of everyone on the world if we wanted to. That there is a viable way and that that way is not as you are implying necessarily a deprived space with tight margins. Because living is about more than slaving away like a 12th century peasant to accumulate more wealth for a king somewhere far off.
Most of what the study is proposing would be a modest decrease in living standards in developed countries, for a drastic increase in living standards everywhere else. It’s not asking you to give up luxury, only for the rate of new luxury to decrease slightly as surplus is more evenly distributed.
redchert@lemmygrad.ml
on 25 Jul 19:08
nextcollapse
You know global trade would still exist, a lot of treats would be much more expensive though.
People have an unrealstic expectation of what that would imply. Although most of the typical suburban american lifestyle would be gone and no more labubu dubai chocolate macha crumble cookies.
Edit: Beyond that, have you talked to anyone performative driving one of those child-killing tall pickups? We are a people that lost their shit about straws, and the kind of changes being talked about here are just… [waves arms at all of this]
Remember COVID? When everyone stayed home and quit buying shit, laid low? Remember Venice seeing dolphins in the streets and Asians seeing mountains you couldn’t see before? Remember how quiet it was?
SOCIETY can provide, EARTH cannot. Y’all gonna have to die. But hey, between global warming and tanking birth rates fucking our economies in both holes, win, win! The contraction will be of Biblical proportions. I won’t live it, my kids will. Good luck kids!
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works
on 25 Jul 05:13
nextcollapse
And what makes you think society is suddenly going to change (any moment now?) and your kids would have a better life, would just everyone keep having kids?🤔
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
on 25 Jul 18:15
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I think the thing you have to ask yourself is “would i want to be born today” that will tell you whether you should have kids.
I mean i honestly am quite fine and i think there were always stupid people, but that doesn’t make me wanna have kids? I was also just curious about the argument for kids to save the economy?
HalfSalesman@lemmy.world
on 25 Jul 18:41
nextcollapse
I don’t think really that a majority of the population is going to die. I do think significant numbers of deaths will happen around the equator at some point in the near future and spark a functionally unstoppable wave of immigration towards the earth’s poles. This will result in its own strife but again will only cause a small percentage of more of the population to die.
Thing’s will eventually stabilize as human civilization adapts and green energy and carbon capture take off. Most of the population will survive but almost everyone’s QoL will be NOTABLY worse by various conventional metrics. Though likely better in specific ways due to certain medical and automation advancements.
Expect birthrates to continue to drop globally however and the earth’s eco system will drastically change and become much less healthy. Most of existing humanity will cling to life though.
LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 29 Jul 16:59
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Good riddance, those animals would only get in the way of any future, cyberpunk dystopia or venus cloud city dnb compilation thumbnail luxury space communism.
From what i’ve heard, with the aging population in developed countries and the birthrate getting lower due to longer life expectancy, population should soon stabilise itself around 10 billions. Seems viable.
Recent empirical studies have established the minimum set of specific goods and services that are necessary for people to achieve decent-living standards (DLS), including nutritious food, modern housing, healthcare, education, electricity, clean-cooking stoves, sanitation systems, clothing, washing machines, refrigeration, heating/cooling, computers, mobile phones, internet, transit, etc. This basket of goods and services has been developed through an extensive literature (e.g., Rao and Min, 2017, Rao et al., 2019) and is summarized in Table 1, following Millward-Hopkins (2022).
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
on 25 Jul 13:41
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Looking at Table 1 that’s definitely acceptable. It skips a lot of things but that’s why they say 30% with spare room for luxuries.
House (60 m2, +20 m2 per extra person in household), with electrification, and which can withstand severe weather events (heatwaves, blizzards, heavy rain and wind, etc.).
Clean air and environment without fine dust, microplastics, PFAS, asbestos, etc.
Clean, potable and heatable water available anytime
Healthy and clean food free from animal suffering made available for all
Everyday and affordable clothes available for all
Bodily integrity: only the person themselves can decide over their own body, with the exception of vaccination (because everyone ought to be vaccinated!)
Labour rights, such as automatic unionisation, workplace democracy and self-governance, no vertical hierarchy (so no CEO, overreaching holdings, trusts, etc). And ideally, a wageless gift economy system based on needs. If not that, then this: any company lacking one of the above/being too big, may never get bailed out.
Protection of personal property, with private property becoming communal property instead.
Encouragement of meeting people at sport, hobbies, reading (helps finding friendship)
Bicycle and public transit infrastructure being widely available.
Free and high-quality public education available for all
Same with healthcare. No artificial limit mandating that there be max x amount of doctors or teachers.
astutemural@midwest.social
on 26 Jul 21:09
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The study does, in fact. Or actually, bare minimum living standards:
“It is important to understand that the DLS represents a minimum floor for decent living. It does not represent a an aspirational standard and certainly does not represent a ceiling. However, it is also a level of welfare not currently achieved by the vast majority of people. A new paper by Hoffman et al finds that 96.5 percent of people in low- and middle-income countries are deprived of at least one DLS dimension.”
The design choices of people who make memes out of their political opinions are so random and funny to me sometimes. Like why is one of them a Russian gopnik? Why is the other one a blushing gamer femboy who paints his nails??
I agree that we can support everyone on earth if we change our social, economic, and political systems.
I also think it is good that voluntary population decline is already happening and seems likely to continue in many industrialized nations.
8000gnat@reddthat.com
on 25 Jul 15:30
nextcollapse
what tf kind of game controller is that? three vertical buttons??
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 25 Jul 15:31
nextcollapse
Reading the study I get the following remarks:
Living space, not great. 60m2 for a 4 person family. That’s tight. I live alone in a 90m2 house and I could use more space, do they want me to live in a 15m2 house or do they want to force to share living space? Sorry but I won’t compromise there. I prefer people having less children that me having to live as ants in a colony.
That is just a personal pick with the DLS minimum requirements chosen.
But still forgetting that. The reasoning is extremely faulty.
Most of their argumentation heavy lifting is just relied to Millward-Hopkins (2022) paper establishing that 14.7 GJ per person anually is enough. That paper is just a work of fantasy. For reference, and taking the same paper numbers. Current energy usage (with all the exiting poverty) is 80 GJ/cap. Paleolitic use of energy was 5 GJ. Author is proposing that we could live ok with just triple paleolitic energy. That paper just oversees a lot of what people need to live in a function society to get completely irrational numbers on what energy cap we could assume to produce a good life.
Then on materials used. The paper assumes all the world shifting to vegetarian diet, everyone living on multiresidential buildings, somehow wood as the main building material (I don’t know how they even reconcile that with multiresidential buildings…). And half of cars usage shifting to public transport How to achieve this in rural areas it’s not mentioned at all).
A big notice needs to be done that both papers what are actually doing is basically taking China economy (greatly praised in the introduction) and assuming that all the world should live like that. And yes, probably the world could have 30 billion inhabitants if we accept to be all like China, who would we export to achieve that economic model if we all have a export based economy? who knows, probably the martians. And even then, while a lot of “ticks” on what a decent level of life quality apparently seems to be ticked, many people in western countries would not consider that quality life, but a very restrictive and deprived life standard.
I’m still on the boat the people having less children is a better approach to great lives without destroying the planet. At some point a cap on world population need to be made, it really add that much that the cap is 30 billion instead of maybe 5 billion? It’s certainly not a cap in the number of social iterations a person can have, but numbers give for plenty of friends. And at the end it’s not even a cap on “how many children” can people have, as once the cap is reach the number of children will be needed to cap the same to achieve stability. It’s just a cap on “when people can still be having lots of kids”. Boomer approach to “let’s have children now” and expect that my kids won’t want to have as many children as I have now.
Also another big pick I have with the article is that it blames the current level of inefficiency to private jets, suvs, and industrial meat. But instead of making the rational approach of taking thise appart from the current economy and calculate what the results will be. Parts from zero building the requirements out of their list. Making the previous complaint about those luxury items out of place completely. On a personal note I would reduce or completely eliminate many of those listed “super luxury” items. But I have the feel (just a feel because neither me not the author have studied this) that the results of global energy and material usage won’t drop that much, certainly not at the levels proposed by the authors with their approach.
Yes, to support everyone on what our economy outputs today will involve the quality of life decreasing for a lot of people. And the economy will have to change, to build the things that people need but are currently unable to pay for. This is unsurprising.
Probably the living space is more to show this is feasible over it being the expected/desired solution. It would be very counterproductive to tear down good houses, but small apartments work well for “house single unhoused people”.
Rural transport is a rounding error compared to the number of private cars that could be converted with minimal fuss in cities.
Why would an export economy be a bad model? They literally have a surplus; all you need to do to fix it is… Make less?
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 25 Jul 16:23
nextcollapse
I’m not mad. I will just not allow anyone to reduce my living standards because they don’t want to use a rubber.
A export model is not bad. I just said that’s unreasonable to think that all the world could follow that model. Because then “who would we export to?”. It’s like liberals thinking that the tax rate in a tax heaven are proof that every country could have those tax haven rates. Good for them, that the model worked, but for some country to export other country needs to import, that’s all. Chinese economic growth have been very linked to being the world factory. That’s great, but it could not be assumed that all the world could just do the same.
Cool cool. So how have people taken this lifestyle advice so far? Have they been receptive to it? How many vegans who don’t drive, do you know? Because I only know one, me.
Forcing this behavioral change in people might be the only way… but I think that’s called fascism, no?
Hey ho, anything to save our awful species though. So, who do you have in mind as dictator in your region? I bet cars being confiscated and forced veganism is going to go down a treat with your neighbours.
No, fascism is an ideology based in the myth of palingenetic ultranationalism, characterised by 14 traits including such concepts as “machismo”, “the cult of action”, and “the enemy is strong and weak”.
Forming a vigilante mob to smash rich people’s stuff is perfectly compatible with anarchism. Voting to ban the sale of cars at the federal level is a more moderate option palatable to capitalist liberals, and also not fascism.
So anarchist vigilantes smashing rich people’s stuff is in line with your government?
Your government who you trust to ignore industry lobby money but also vote majorities, is going to ban the sale of cars?
Where the fuck do you live and how is this government of yours even worse than the laughing stock Trump’s is?
And why would rich people not hire armies to protect themselves from these government sanctioned droves of roaming ‘“”“anarchist”“”’ vigilantes out to smash their stuff?
Well obviously we organise into armed militias and overthrow the government in a communist revolution first.
Oh bless, that’s so cute and just utterly fucking hysterical. I’m struggling not to ask if you’re 14 and have just discovered Marx. Wow, I genuinely haven’t laughed this hard in a while, that was a work out.
I’m on slrpnk.net because I’ve been following climate science for probably longer than you’ve been alive.
Good for you Genius, I wish you luck organising your anarcho-communist militias and forming the authoritarian dictatorships of your dreams.
LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 29 Jul 16:57
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The theory understander has logged on I see.
tacosanonymous@mander.xyz
on 25 Jul 16:37
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They’re not mad, they’re just a bad person. Don’t use empathy in argument with someone who has none.
Also, those numbers are like averages. Some places would have high rises to accommodate the sheer numbers of people, working or non-working.
But yeah, I’d tear down my own fucking home right meow if it was for equality on a massive scale.
jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world
on 25 Jul 18:33
nextcollapse
Definitely use empathy on someone who has none. That’s how they practice.
Even seeing somebody else do it neurologically strengthens those circuits in the brain. This is the actual front line, the human brain, and saying not to USE EMPATHY ON PEOPLE WHO HAVE NONE is a command to retreat in the very moment it is your turn to act.
tacosanonymous@mander.xyz
on 27 Jul 03:45
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A bad person? For what? For not wanting to live in a tiny bedsit just so the world can accommodate more theoretical people that don’t exist and need not exist?
untorquer@lemmy.world
on 26 Jul 08:19
nextcollapse
It’s a minimum to bring the impoverished up to. The paper makes no suggestion that the rest are to be brought down to that standard except by changing production practices.
How do you need more than 90m² when living alone?? I live in a 60m² apartment and literally only use like 30-40m² and idk what I’d use the rest for.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 26 Jul 15:04
nextcollapse
I have a kitchen, a living room and two bedrooms. I do remote work so one of the bedrooms have a double purpose as guess room and office.
I would love to have at least, another room dedicated to storage. And second room so I could have a hobby/office room and a guess room separately.
Also I would love to have a garden.
I spent a lot of time at home, between remote work and hobbies, so I would like to have a more spacious living space. The more time you spent on a place the bigger it probably needs to be.
The paper assumes all the world shifting to vegetarian diet, everyone living on multiresidential buildings, somehow wood as the main building material (I don’t know how they even reconcile that with multiresidential buildings…). And half of cars usage shifting to public transport How to achieve this in rural areas it’s not mentioned at all).
Yeah, that’s totally unrealistic. We could get rid of 99% of cars and only keep ambulances and fire trucks, and most people would be happier. Also we should get everyone on a vegan diet. Vegetarian is okay, but still enslaves animals. We can do much better.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 26 Jul 15:26
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What about people not living in cities?
Public transport for low density areas is terrible. So or you are forcing people to live in cities (where public transport can be good) or you are forcing people to endure terrible public transport.
Also forcing dietary changes on people, something as big as preventing people to eat or use animal products…
I just don’t think forcing that on people would be clever. I know how I would react if anyone were to impose that way of living to me, and I can only assume that many people would react the same way. Specially if I would have to endure all that only to accommodate a growing population when we could just try to aim for a lower stable number of total human population (a number that will need to be reached regardless at some point. Infinite growth is unfeasible).
I have some information that’s gonna blow your mind: people lived in rural areas for many thousands of years and cars were only invented a hundred years ago.
They lived self sufficient lives and walked to town once a month for essentials. If they were lucky, they had a mule and a wagon.
I’m guessing you live in a rural area and you think you need your car, because you’ve gotten used to driving into town every few days for fresh groceries and haircuts? Yeah, so that’s arrogant decadence. You live a cosmopolitan lifestyle with inner city conveniences, despite being out in a rural area with plenty of space and low land values, and this is made possible by your poison death machine.
The poison death machines are not sustainable. Go back to living how your ancestors did. Take the mule into town once a month for soap and molasses, or move to the city. You don’t get to have it both ways
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 26 Jul 15:33
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I don’t want to live like people lived two thousands years ago, thanks.
Tough shit. Your poison death machine is killing people on the other side of the world, and the only way to have a clean conscience is to get rid of it
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 26 Jul 15:50
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You lack imagination. Plenty of ways to not kill people without having to recede to Palaeolithic levels of life quality.
Yeah, I’m actually subtly manipulating you. See, you were acting like there’s no way to live rurally but to use cars, so I explained that people can live in rural areas without cars in a way you can’t argue with. But the trick is, I lowballed you to set your expectations low. Now I can explain that the United States was basically built by railroads, and that trains are faster than donkeys. Furthermore, rail technology has advanced massively in the last 100 years, to the point that you genuinely could live rurally without a car and still enjoy those urban conveniences you love, like out of season fruit. It won’t be as convenient as the car, but I’m sure now you’ve realised it would still be a far better quality of life than has ever been possible for your ancestors. And now it’ll look really selfish if you say you’re still not satisfied with that and you want to poison the sky and kill people for even more convenience.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 26 Jul 16:04
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I live in Europe (Spain for reference). I think my country is the second one in the world in ultraspeed train network only behind china (or it used to).
People in rural areas still needs cars. In fact people in rural areas doesn’t even use trains for the most part. Buses work better. Still, living there without a car is a big drop in life quality.
We fund trains with public money to make them cheaper. Some trains are even FREE to the public, free as in you can hop in without paying. Still people don’t use trains in rural areas unless they have not access to a car. Because it’s imposible to have a network with enough frequency and travel time to match people expectations on transport. The infrastructure needed for it would be impossible.
Sorry to break your great manipulation revealing that I do not live in the US.
Next revelation is that I don’t even live in rural areas, but I know plenty of people who does.
Trams would have a lower maintenance cost and higher volumes than buses. Buses are ideal for temporary routes and little else. If the provincial government ran trams instead of buses, they could afford to maintain more routes at the same annual cost, provided a little extra initial money. Then it wouldn’t be so impossible to have a tram route serving you.
What you’re seeing isn’t a physical law. It’s an engineering problem.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 26 Jul 16:32
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We got rid of trams last century because there were better engineering solutions. Buses got more efficient, larger and more comfortable than they used to. Also within a city metro is much better and faster. They are also electric now. No need for investing in tram infrastructure for most cases nowadays.
Also when talking about rural I don’t think if we are talking really about trams, more like low distance trains, at least that’s what we call them here. They use full train infrastructure. Trams are more for cities.
What I don’t get is why some people cannot be happy with a 70% traffic reduction in cities ? That would be a great objective that would get rid of tons of emissions and problems without that much fuss because it’s easy to provide not only the same but better life quality with that objective. But some people feel the need to push to really hard extremes that, imho, only make people to push back over any attempt on traffic reduction. We could do a lot with proper demand control instead of trying to push a lot of restrictions on people and wanting to take away rights and life quality.
First off, the Netherlands brought back their trams, and it’s awesome. Trams are the most accessible form of transportation for people with mobility or financial issues, and they contribute very positively to the local economy by increasing foot traffic around local businesses. And as I said, they’re cheaper to run and maintain than buses.
Second, a 70% traffic reduction in cities would be around a 50% reduction in car usage overall, which was the thing you started this argument by complaining about. My radicalism caused you to push for a compromise that you previously considered too extreme. Get got. Being radical works.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 26 Jul 17:10
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Netherlands has crazy population density. The whole country is like a big city.
Also I remember using a tram in Netherlands in the 2010s I don’t know if they really got rid of them.
Anyway buses have a lot of advantages in rural areas. They respond better to a variable demand, they need less infrastructure, you can change routes all you want, you can get rotatory routes without going broke with the infrastructure. A tram would most likely need a bigger population density to be justified. Even then. Modern buses are quite good. Don’t get me wrong I love a smooth tram travel and the looks of it, but it is more expensive than a bus.
Here buses are 100% accessible for all people, flat floors, and automatic ramps for people with mobility issues.
I’ve always have been advocating for car reduction. Since forever, I’ve not changed my ming here. And precisely it’s really hard to make people understand that we could achieve better living standards and that they will still be able to use a car when needed when there’s people around telling them that they will not be allowed to use a car at all. It makes the struggle for traffic reduction harder.
I think selling the idea of, “you can have a car but we are going to make it so you will only need to use it a couple times a month, because you won’t need it more” is way friendlier then “we are going to take away your car”.
Also we are talking about countries with massive urban population. In a world context many countries could not adopt this model because they can be 80% rural or more.
Yeah, there’s a bit of a conflict here: People want to live in rural areas with large plots of land and nature everywhere but want to have the comforts and amenities of living in a city center.
Before the car this was a choice that people had to make: move to the city where everything is available or to the countryside where countryside is available and hardly anything else.
The car allowed to bridge this gap to the detriment of the climate and the sustainability of life on this planet.
And now we have another conflict: luxurity for people in rural areas vs survival of the human race.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 26 Jul 19:16
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Surely there’s a way of having people living rural, a totally valid life choice and also must needed for agriculture, having a good life, and not having a planet wide global extinction.
I get that in the US and some other countries one of the biggest divisions in voting is rural/urban, thus some people really feel vindicated on hating people that live rural and wanting to impose some penalties on them.
But if we cannot find an economic system that would lead to every person having a good life, regardless on where they live… Do we really want to have a future as a species?
astutemural@midwest.social
on 26 Jul 20:25
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Whether ‘a good life’ is possible in rural areas depends on your definition.
Is it living like the Amish? In that case, yes.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 26 Jul 20:30
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No. I think humanity should aim for absolutely every single human in every country in every single region, urban or rural could have a level of life quality comparable to what’s consider middle-high income level in USA/Europe.
If we cannot achieve that we’d better give up as an intelligent species and leave room for que squids to try.
The biggest issue with your argumentation is that it takes one extreme (“farmers need to live in rural areas”) and use that as a justification for everyone who is not covered by that rule.
For example, all of suburbia can go. Close to nobody living there is a farmer and people only live in the suburbs because they can use a car to get to city center quickly.
But also in more rural areas there are a lot of people who commute to their office job in the next city.
That is not a totally valid life choice by far. If you want to work in the city, move to the city.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 27 Jul 09:21
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not everyone have to live the way you enjoy living. Diversity is good.
I could say. Because I know international travel is polluting and I don’t like it let’s put a global ban on international traveling. No one is allow to travel. Probably people who enjoy traveling (you might be among them) will be furious against me and it would be dictator like from me trying to take that away from them.
No. Environment should never be a excuse to have a dictator like mindset of just depriving people of their lifestyles. That will be fight against, and people fighting that away would be on the right side of story.
Once again, we are a clever species. Surely we can find a way to make diverse lifestyles work. I completely disagree with your radical posture that that lifestyle is imposible to have without human extinction. You completely disregard that things like remote work or decentralized offices exist. The solutions already exist. It would be matter of expanding them to reduce the amount of people needing daily commute.
Now even you say all suburbia have to go too. That’s type of close-minded extremism should never be the beam that guides the future of humankind. It would be a sad future. Let people be free to live in suburbia if they want, let people to life in a rural area if they want. At this point the only think that’s not a valid life choice here is your intention to oppress everyone into the only lifestyle you consider “valid”.
And I’m pretty sure that the environment is nothing but a excuse here. It would be nice to disclose the true reasons for the hate towards people who doesn’t live in cities.
Sure. The survival of the species can never be an excuse to reduce personal comfort even a little bit.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 27 Jul 10:03
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Once again the survival of the species is not on the line because of that.
That’s just an excuse you are making to justify a hate that has other roots.
Prove is in the complete disregard of proposed solutions: remote work, decentralized offices, traffic reduction instead of complete suppression, population reduction… And apparently disregard for other forms of pollution that could be reduced or eliminated instead, for instance, international traveling, or traveling at all, maybe people living in cities should never visit nature or different places, that travel will destroy the world!
Yep, sure, genocide is of a problem the less drastic option.
You are a clown.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 27 Jul 17:51
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Last reply, after blocking your because your insult.
Population control do not require any violent measure.
It can be as simple as making people lives better, as it has been proven that populations with higher life quality have less children. Then achieving the objective of having a lesser global population .
If we completely stop having children right now, worldwide, the population will not meaningfully decrease for the next 50 years.
The major amount of climate damage will be done within the next 20 years.
The only option to use population control to reduce climate damage would be to kill roughly half of the world’s population within the next 2-3 years.
So if that’s your solution, you are either advocating for the greatest genocide the world has ever seen or are argueing in bad faith because you know that your solution is nonsense.
astutemural@midwest.social
on 26 Jul 20:59
nextcollapse
Gonna quote the study again:
“It is important to understand that the DLS represents a minimum floor for decent living. It does not represent a an aspirational standard and certainly does not represent a ceiling. However, it is also a level of welfare not currently achieved by the vast majority of people. A new paper by Hoffman et al finds that 96.5 percent of people in low- and middle-income countries are deprived of at least one DLS dimension.”
Firstly- Are you so selfish that you refuse to change anything about your lifestyle in order to provide people with an absolute minimum standard of life - a standard that you have identified as abhorently poor by your standards?
Secondly- Change on your part may not even be required. Tax on production (i.e. corporations) would cover the majority of it, and the rerouting of production from useless things like casinos and yachts would cover the rest.
Finally- additional taxes and such would not even be required for many changes, just spending more efficiently. As an example- Very rural places all over the world have train and bus service. It’s a matter of choice that the US doesn’t, not a matter of practicality. We spend all of our money on highways instead, which are far more expensive per person per mile. Investing in rail, like Europe and China have done, provides far more use for far more people.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 26 Jul 21:05
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I said in other comment.
I’m not in the US, I’m in europe we have one of the best train networks of the world. Public transport is funded by the government so is cheaper, even completely free in some cases.
People living in rural areas still chose cars while they have the free will to do so.
If as a species we cannot find the way to make that work there’s no incentive for us to keep trying. Luckily I’m sure it’s possible, that people say it’s not just because propaganda (as I said mostly because the voting split rural/urban). We have achieve harder things as a species. Surely we can have people in rural areas still using cars (electric cars for instance) without dooming humankind to extinction.
BodyBySisyphus@hexbear.net
on 28 Jul 05:12
collapse
You’re not really considering the article in the context of what it’s arguing against, which is the implicit position of the World Bank that someone is not “poor” if they’re living on the equivalent of over $3.00 per day (as of 2025). The standard that Hickel et al. are proposing, while low by Western standards, is still much higher than what billions of people are currently experiencing.
Imposing such a drastic change in living conditions for the the whole population of this planet is impossible. The rich will not allow it and everybody who isn’t worse off than the conditions suggested here will fight it. Most people won’t even consider going vegetarian, for fucks sake.
Using this study as proof that there are enough resources to support billions more people is beyond stupid. Humans are not an altruistic species. We already have the money and resources to adequately support everyone already existing, but just flat out refuse to, and always have.
Adding more people to this hellworld because some naive study assumes that at the last second of the eleventh hour before we hit 3c warming and run out of fresh water and arable land, we will evolve into a species capable of physics defing magic and perfect communism… is really, really, REALLY fucking stupid.
IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
on 25 Jul 18:23
collapse
If we had less people companies would dump twice the amount of plastics in the ocean
Do you think plastic waste ending up in the ocean, is some kind of industry sanctioned punishment for falling birthrate or something? Or were you being sarcastic?
LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 29 Jul 17:10
collapse
No. It would require guillotining all billionaires, dissolution of a shit ton of wasteful industries (AI for example), vast reduction of meat consumption (which also means closing large parts of the meat industry) …
Basically it requires the rich and powerful to not be rich and not be powerful anymore
Asswardbackaddict@lemmy.world
on 25 Jul 21:37
nextcollapse
Genocide normalization
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
on 25 Jul 22:41
nextcollapse
I know the world has more than enough resources and productivity for everyone on it to live comfortably without overworking, but 30% is the lowest figure I’ve ever seen. Would like to know where that came from. I’ve seen so many widely varying estimates of everything.
ji59@hilariouschaos.com
on 26 Jul 14:10
nextcollapse
There is a soudce where the text was taken from at the bottom.
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
on 26 Jul 21:30
collapse
Thank you, dumb me missed it. Their paper talks a lot about measuring poverty. Earlier research showed poverty in China being high in the 80s under socialism and decreasing in the 90s when they became more capitalist. But the formulas for calculating that involved the prices of all consumer goods, including things like airline tickets, cars, big TVs, etc. But If you take these authors’ approach and ignore the prices of things poor people never buy, the math shows poverty being very low in the 80s and rising dramatically in the 90s, because introducing more capitalism brought down the cost of middle-class and luxury goods but increased the cost of the basics.
Someone else posted what it means. It means 10m² living space per person, 4 people share 20m² for bathroom and kitchen, you don’t eat meat, you wash tops every ~3 days and bottoms every ~14 days(laundry is shared with ~20 people). Something like 4 people are expected to share a laptop with specs that were cutting edge 15 years ago(a “gaming pc” would only be able to be used for ~150 hours per year).
It is a MAJOR downgrade from how most people live, even those in poverty, and is just not appealing to all but the most minimalist of people. It’s more akin to living in an RV or “van life”(except you’re not supposed to have a car in this situation either - public transportation only).
TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today
on 26 Jul 19:17
nextcollapse
It’s also ignoring the fact that we have already surpassed the limitations of what the nitrogen cycle could normally provide. So we would still be relying on fertilizers produced with fossil fuels.
Also, whenever I see “humans only really need X” I always think of Bill Gates saying no one will ever need more than 640kb of RAM. Sure, today no one will, but tomorrow someone who was held back by that previous number will see the new number and be able to complete a new task and suddenly that will be the new “baseline”. A 1.4mb floppy used to store dozens/hundreds of text files. Now a .jpeg takes up more space. You can’t just settle on some number without commiting to becoming left behind as things progress.
astutemural@midwest.social
on 26 Jul 20:56
collapse
Well, thanks for sharing misinformation.
Meanwhile, in the actual study (provided free via any search engine of your choice):
“It is important to understand that the DLS represents a minimum floor for decent living. It does not represent a an aspirational standard and certainly does not represent a ceiling. However, it is also a level of welfare not currently achieved by the vast majority of people. A new paper by Hoffman et al finds that 96.5 percent of people in low- and middle-income countries are deprived of at least one DLS dimension.”
So no, nobody is coming to take your gaming rig, and no, the majority of people on Earth would get an UPGRADE in living conditions, not a downgrade.
Here is a link if you cannot access a search engine.
So you’re a condescending asshole. That’s all. I’m not gonna engage with you further. Have a day as wonderful as yourself. I will note that everything is said was in your picture. Douche.
buddascrayon@lemmy.world
on 26 Jul 00:20
nextcollapse
This is one of the things that pisses me off about the Star Trek “fans” who point to the Replicator tech (which wasn’t introduced until the Next Generation series) as the reason humanity was able to end scarcity. No, it absolutely was not what ended scarcity in the Star Trek universe. What ended scarcity was the absolute end of capitalism. We have now and have had for over a century, the capability to end world hunger and provide housing for every man woman and child on the planet. We don’t do it because it would remove the overinflated value of those things as well as the obscene wealth of the rich.
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
on 26 Jul 18:24
nextcollapse
Capitalism requires scarcity as its engine.
When scarcity is threatened, it is called the capitalist dirty word “commodity”.
It means there is no more profit in that.
Even if that wasn’t true, do you know how much energy it takes to turn energy into mass (unless I don’t understand the tech and it works like a 3D printer or something). If a society has this much (free or at least affordable) energy, even without a replicator there is so much abundance.
Replacing all forms of power generation with nuclear would protect a lot of land but war exists and blowing up a nuclear plant causes longer lasting damage than a solar farm
theTarrasque@lemmy.world
on 26 Jul 18:07
nextcollapse
Decent living conditions… meaning what, exactly? 250 square feet with no windows, shared shower and bathroom with 11 other people?
The depressed goth gamer in that cartoon would have to wear the same unwashed clothes for a week between hand washings, and in any case, that’s all the clothes they have.
It’s sad, but without the tremendous fossil inputs we’ve been gobbling for over a century, poof, we’re back to an agrarian 19th century life style. At best. With the concomitant 1-2 billion world population. And hand made clothes from natural fibers. Bye bye synthetics, bye bye engineered detergents, bye bye dyes, bye bye individual front loading washing machines.
We are already over capacity on fresh water demand for the amount of humans alive on this planet.
Top soil is what food grows in. Without top soil we can’t grow food.
Billions of people will die this century. The planet cannot support any more people. Don’t have kids.
LoreleiSankTheShip@lemmy.ml
on 27 Jul 23:04
collapse
No, we are not over capacity for survival. We waste a ton of water on stuff we don’t need, like having lawns in the desert or choosing to grow almonds during droughts when people have to ration water usage at home. . Top soil is the same, we could, collectively, switch from beef and to a lesser extent pork to focus on much more efficient chicken, thus freeing a lot of land used to feed livestock.
Stop this Malthusian nonsense, we have enough resources for everyone. They are just severely mismanaged to the point of killing us all. We could live sustainably if we wanted to, we just choose not to.
So you agree that as things are, there aren’t enough resources for the current population, let alone billions more people.
This complete overhaul of the structure of society that keeps being mentioned here is an impossible pipe dream fantasy that is flat out just not ever going to ever happen as it fundamentally goes against human nature.
Human beings aren’t capable of altruism. What about the world around you ever gave you the idea that we were?
Most people won’t even go vegetarian (let alone vegan!), and yet you expect the rich and powerful to just roll over and give up all their money and power for this imaginary ‘greater good’ scenario that will save the world?
Stop believing in stupid fairytales, they won’t save you from the world that is falling apart right in front of you.
Lmao, good luck with your revolution. I’m sure you won’t need it though, not if you just believe hard enough in the power of goodness and altruism. Lol.
One last point I’d like you to consider though, if we’re ignoring resource depletion and just how unsuitable humans are for perfect communism, as you so far have been; how do you plan on defying physics and turning the clock back on the catastrophic climate collapse we’re now in the end game for?
You telling people to keep having kids, and that the world can sustain billions more people than it currently does, is literally only making things worse for everyone. Or do you not understand that each new person born, adds massively to our carbon footprint?
So it’s now up to you. Are you an accelerationist who wants to make shit worse for everyone in the limited time we have left? Or are you just really, really, REALLY fucking stupid?
lol: me, an intellectual, gets into Internet arguments
You: a mouthbreather, not taking time out of your day to disprove tired arguments
100+ years of socialist and communist philosophy and nobody considered that actually human capitalist by nature though
LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 30 Jul 18:01
collapse
Nah that wasn’t his point, I don’t think at least. I’m Def with you there, mr.communism himself Marx addressed this dumbass argument before communism entered the vernacular again in the 1900s.
By the principle of charity we can go with your interpretation.
Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid directly covers this topic as well. Altruism is natural and occurs throughout our history, arguably cooperation is the basis of our civilization.
Dominating aggressive cultures have attacked and eradicated more peaceful cultures, sure, but you can’t call one human nature and the other not.
I guess I don’t see what the point is besides defeatism and playing in to the hands of those that want us to continue doing nothing?
LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 31 Jul 09:16
collapse
I took read Mutual Aid by Kropotkin.
As he puts it in the very title: “Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution”.
Key being a factor
Not the factor
At the time, most of research into evolution revolved around the idea of competition as the driving force in an arms race for resources between organisms. Obviously this is still true, though like Kropotkin observed, we also understand that there is harmony and cooperation both between organisms for each others benefit and in the broader sense of ecosystem equilibrium.
I think it’s important to have such discussions anyway because any doubts must be addressed not via faith, but via critical examination, so that we find the more correct reason to maintain revolutionary optimism, it is precisely to defeat defeatism with a resolve forged in fire of the scrutiny. That said, I think this is too heated and came across as an attack, I also don’t want to play into anyone’s hands, I was being needlessly pedantic, I retract my statement.
threaded - newest
Most of the 8 billon people are living in the third world and which less resources waste, most recources a wasted by less than 10% of the world population.
The bulk of labor under capitalism goes toward maintaining conditions of artificial scarcity, not supporting wellbeing.
How did they calculate that? I don’t believe it.
…lse.ac.uk/…/Hinckel_how-much-growth-is-required-…
Hickel serves on the Climate and Macroeconomics Roundtable of the US National Academy of Sciences. He is legit: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Hickel
Ah hes a degrowther, makes sense. I read through his paper and I really don’t think its realistic or thought provoking. It lacks humanity and applies a utilitarian solution. Its the same as saying we have x humans producing co2 lets reduce the number of humans but instead of humans its goods he deems to be unnecessary.
His entire premise is based on what he thinks a person needs to live a good life. But lifes just not that simple and people all around the world NEED different things this type of strict partitioning fails when applied to the entire world. Part of what makes our current system work is that its dynamic, people create goods they want and those who also want those goods buy them.
Sounds like national chauvinism, the idea that Americans need more luxury goods than everyone else, and that there’s no way no how you’d ever lower your already completely “fair” level of consumption.
You have to understand, people in Africa need clean drinking water, people in the USA need two cars and a lawn. Anything less would be inhumane /s
No, his argument is that the average human needs this standard. also, it is a model, it is by definition simplified.
Besides, what is the alternative? First world countries living like they own the place, third world countries starving, and we’re all getting killed in the climate war of 2040?
His argument is the average hmuan needs this standard… so we can cut “unnecessary production” and it will be fine. I’m arguing that he cant label things unnecessary because hes found a standard wealth level he thinks is good enough. It wont work as an approach because humans require a diverse range of inputs to live happy lives and that requires a diverse and dynamic production economy.
What on Earth are you on about?
Quoting from the study:
The authors are not suggesting that everyone be forced on DLS at gunpoint. They are suggesting an absolute bare minimum standard that the overwhelming majority of people on Earth do not yet even have.
How the hell do you get from that to some sort of paranoid fantasy where everyone gets exactly the same thing?
Uh I disagree. The author is suggesting we could cut 70% of the worlds industry because he thinks that represents a good enough standard of living. If he was suggesting that everyone be brought up to the minimum standard then he wouldnt be suggesting large scale degrowth.
Which paper are you getting this from?
Oh, I know!
wE sHoULd KiLl HalF oF ThEm
I was going to say “No one is saying that”, but there are many going down that road.
The preferable approach is degrowth. A lower birthrate leading to a smaller population with no deaths required, just vastly fewer births and lower consumption until human civilization can not only fit with our planetary boundaries, but restore a lot of wildlife and wildlands, then stabilize at a population and consumption that is healthy and comfortable.
This is already happening, but i don’t think it’s fast enough: with the exceeded life expectancy, we are first seeing an increase and aging of population. Only after the wave of now 50-60 year olds will be dead will we see a stable degrowth. Is that soon enough? Sure it’s preferable to extermination?
I’m not keen on a society were seniors are the majority of the population, it would be a disaster.
I’m not keen on a society dominated by resource exhaustion, grossly exceeded planetary boundaries leading to ecological overshoot and collapse and billions of early deaths due to climate change, pollution and conflict as everyone fights for whatever is left.
An againg society is a necessary step towards a sustainable population. Anything other than a sustainable population (number of people x consumption amount) will, by definition, not be sustained. A collapse will be chaotic and devastating. A managed descent of degrowth will have difficulties but could save humanity and the biosphere as we know it.
The number of people basically advocating for this in the comments is honestly depressing
Anyone have a good pdf source on this research?
…lse.ac.uk/…/Hinckel_how-much-growth-is-required-…
More from the based Hickel: www.jasonhickel.org/research
Yeah but DLS would be a significant downgrade for many people, who already fight the suggestion to only eat meat six days a week tooth and nail.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6013539/
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10537420/
pubs.acs.org/doi/suppl/…/es3c03957_si_001.pdf
Things that count as DLS:
I’m gonna need a lot more than 10 square meters of space if everyone is changing their shirts twice a week. Yuck.
On top of that, sharing 1 washing machine for 20 fucking people?
In what world do the people writing this live? Have they never lived in an apartment building with shared laundry? The machines are never kept clean because people are fucking animals.
What a stupidly naive study lmao.
They live in a world where 700 million people are currently starving. Do you think you care about the washing machines if your children have nothing to eat?
That's the heart of the issue, though, isn't it? Most people do care about the state of their washing machines even as countless children have nothing to eat. People chastise their kids for not eating their vegetables by saying "kids are starving in Africa," without doing anything to help any kids in Africa. People want more for themselves even while acknowledging that others have so much less. Studies like this assume that human selfishness is negligible, while it's actually one of the largest variables that needs to be factored in. Most people don't actually care about human suffering unless it's happening to someone they personally know - they care much more about their washing machine.
The state of my washing machine doesn’t have to change if we just tax billionaires.
You could double everything in this post too and that’s only 60% consumption.
That seems a lot more reasonable to me and we still come in under carrying capacity
Apart from power, washing bottoms, and laptops that is pretty close to what many people I know have. That certainly doesn’t seem outlandish.
Now who’s going to help with the wealth redistribution and logistics? I volunteer for helping with logistics. Anyone with pew pew experience want to try the wealth redistribution?
You could probably chop 1000 calories and handwash your bottoms more often
ITT: people who didn’t even glance at the study.
Quoting from the study:
The authors are not suggesting that everyone be forced on DLS at gunpoint. They are suggesting an absolute bare minimum standard that the overwhelming majority of people on Earth do not yet even have. Quite obviously any excess production could and would be used to increase standard of living.
.
And kill all the pets I assume.
Or at least feed the dogs plant based and phase out having cat as pets. IIRC it’s 20% of all livestock in the US that’s killed just for cats and dogs and about 70% of that 20% is for dogs on top of my head. Dog can live fine if not better on a well formulated plant based dog food. Just look at some of the reviews for Purina HA Vegetarian (it’s vegan btw) dog food. A lot of dog owners cured the gastro intestinal and lot of other problems their dogs had with it. I’m not affiliated. There are other well formulated plant based foods like AMI successfully used by many dog owners. Just seen a video on “The Dodo” of a dog who was at the verge of being put down because of weight loss till the veterinary got the idea the dog could have a meat allergy and advised said Purina food. The dog is now healthy and thriving again. That diet change on a global scale would take a huge burden off of the environment.
no livestock is slaughtered as cat food. pet food is a byproduct of human food production.
The catastrophic aspect to cats is the absolutely incomprehensible amounts of birds stray and outdoor cats kill every year (outdoor cats don’t even eat most of their kills often).
I love cats, but cat owners must begin to find ways to let their beloved furry friends experience the outdoors that doesn’t lead to ecocide. Cat leashes, large screened enclosures on a porch, whatever works.
The other question is: where are we living? It takes a lot more resources to live in Canada than it does to live in a warm climate to the south. Does that mean we all have to abandon Canada and crowd ourselves into the hot equatorial regions?
Otherwise those numbers seem like a huge downgrade for even working class Canadians. It goes to show you that Canada is a truly rich country and all but the least fortunate here have far more resources than someone living in the poorest countries in the world.
Yeah, that list sounds like literal prison. That’s a hard sell for a good chunk of people.
Prison in a hot climate with no AC. No thanks!
ITT: people who didn’t even glance at the study.
Quoting from the study:
The authors are not suggesting that everyone be forced on DLS at gunpoint. They are suggesting an absolute bare minimum standard that the overwhelming majority of people on Earth do not yet even have. Quite obviously any excess production could and would be used to increase standard of living.
They talk about it in the PDF. Basically its a weighted average. Some people live in colder climates and need more heating/clothes, others need less. It then averages out to those numbers.
So it’s not really giving everyone in the world an exactly equal share of resources. Not to mention there’s a natural component to inequality that’s independent of resources: location. A 10 m^2 per person shack is a lot more bearable on a beach in Southern California than it is in a desert or an insect-infested swamp.
Its not about giving people resources, merely estimating what it would take for everyone to meet DLS requirements if they live where they currently live.
that seems awfully low, considering that germany uses 37 000 kWh /year per person. But that already factors in things such as energy needed to produce your soda bottle, so it’s not “energy used inside your own house/apartment”.
I’d argue that’s a downgrade for most people. I personally exceed all of those bullet points and the idea of coming close to most of them sounds like Hell to me. If it meant 8.5 billion people met those standards, I could make the sacrifice, but it would be awful.
Can you imagine if everyone you met was wearing a 3 days dirty shirt? Do other not sweat? And 2100 kcal per day is not safe or sustainable for almost anyone that exercises regularly.
I’m a woman with a relatively large frame (~65kg/180cm) who used to do 14 hours of hard cardio a week. At that time, my recommendation was 2250, the first time in my life it had exceeded 2k. For smaller women, the recommendation is sometimes much lower. My stepsister is about 45kg and 155cm tall and her calculated daily calorie burn is like 1300. My ex boyfriend’s mom was told not to go over 1200, which I thought was the lower limit for humans generally- things are different when you’re a short, post-menopausal woman.
All that is to say, it’s probably an average of 2100 calories, spread between people who need on average 1400-1800 calories and those who need 2000-2400
That’s fair. My take was shallow and I was thinking more from personal experience. I’m ~200lbs and burn over 100 kcal every mile I run, and am a distance athlete. If I jog 6 miles or bike 20+, I have to replace that for proper recovery.
I shouldn’t say most people, but a large amount of people need more than 2100 kcal if they are active.
It’s honestly wild the difference in caloric requirements based on age and sex/gender (I don’t know how much is due to size/hormones, so I don’t know where trans people’s requirements would be) even before factoring in activity level, so it’s entirely reasonable not to realize the difference.
For trans people it depends.
If you’re just starting estrogen-oriented HRT and you’re at a weight considered ideal for your pre-HRT body, then it is helpful to actually gain a few kg of fat, together with weekly hours of intense activity (like running, bicycling, squatting and planks, hip thrusts) coupled with moderate activity (like walking half an hour everyday) Then fat redistribution will be more effectively towards a )( body shape, with breast growth improved during the first year(?). Progesterone may aid in the last as well. This guide may help.
For testosterone-oriented HRT, I’m less certain, though I assume the fat redistribution’s accent is more strongly on fat loss, and exercise for muscle growth. Lifting, bench presses, planking, and the like for \/ bodies. Don’t forget leg day! Here’s a good training scheme.
That said, everyone has their own goals; important imo is that one remains healthy. A good diet is balanced and lowly processed, containing plenty vegetables and some proteins and water. And have a rest day. A nice fist rule is 4 days of exercise anywhere in the week and a day or two of relative rest.
A body fat percent healthy for all people (binary and nonbinary) would be around 14-25%. If you can get pregnant (and seek to do so), it’s better to be a little higher in this range, because during pregnancy, your body will prioritise the embryonic/fetal needs more than yours.
I can attest that i definitely eat less than 2000 kcal per day on average. But:
I read a study (done by the CIA, ironically) a while ago that said sth like the average caloric intake for americans is like 3500 kcal/day, while for USSR people it is 3200 kcal/day, and concluded that people in the USSR eat healthier.
The study was done in the time of the USSR.
I’m gonna look for it now.
Edit: it’s here
Well that is more a report than a study, but that is pretty interesting, saving that.
Though 3500 and 3200 seem absolutely fucking wild to me. I am a 184cm, 96kg (not fit anymore but used to work out 6 days a week for 2-3hrs) and if I eat more than 2200 per day not-active (I got used to weighing every gram of food during cuts) I gain weight. I find it hard to believe that 3500 and 3200 was average then as there were significantly less obese people then.
Yeah i still can’t really wrap my mind around it. I suspect it might be caused by the fact that there were a lot more manual blue-collar labour back then being done? But i’m not sure.
Coming to that conclusion based purely on amount of calories is incredibly stupid
actually if you read the paper it goes into more detail than just calories
ITT: people who didn’t even glance at the study.
Quoting from the study:
The authors are not suggesting that everyone be forced on DLS at gunpoint. They are suggesting an absolute bare minimum standard that the overwhelming majority of people on Earth do not yet even have. Quite obviously any excess production could and would be used to increase standard of living.
<img alt="" src="https://midwest.social/pictrs/image/fadf408b-3c33-476b-b1ab-695bc67ca7d9.jpeg">
A simpler solution is to simply abolish wealth hoarding, impose sensible consumption limits (so, no cars or commercial plane travel, no meat, no 800 watt gaming rigs), and continue to encourage population decline. Boom, everyone is healthy, the air is clean, and you can keep your house.
that’s how you start a civil war. lots of people will rebel against oppression
Any animal that would fight against sensible restrictions like these, which seek to make the earth livable for their children and grandchildren, is rabid and should be extirpated.
What a wild take.
And leftists wonder why they have a hard time attracting others to their causes.
What the fuck.
Honest question, are you illiterate?
Define “extirpated” since you like to use it.
My problem isn’t with that half of your strawman. You seem to be having trouble pinpointing the target of my ire.
That’s just an insane anprim moron, ignore him, even amongst extremists that guy is just an idiot.
And that’s why our species will die in the muck after we drain this planet of everything it needs to support our lives
Humanity won’t develop altruistic tendencies at the last second, I mean ffs we haven’t yet in all of recorded history, so why in the our final 50 years of climate apocalypse and resource wars, would we?
We deserve to die off and we should, our species is terrible. All fantasies otherwise are illogical.
our species isn’t more or less terrible like any other species on this planet that was able to utilize ressources better. for example trees: when they came along the absolutely strangled the planet, until their waste product (oxygen) became so concentrated that todays humans would die of it. even their corpses littered the floor in meter thick layers! (that’s what todays coal is). I’m pretty sure that during this change biodiversity took a hard crash until life was able to adapt.
this continued until finally a bacterium developed the ability to degrade cellulose. i’m pretty sure the trees weren’t too happy about that one, it must have been a massacre.
the same story happens in every bottle of juice: bacteria grow inside, exhausting all available ressources, culminating in a mass dieoff with a few scavengers left over. It’s just a question if our intelligence allows us to take a different path or not.
And do you think humanity as a whole is intelligent, organised, and altruistic enough to willingly ‘take a different path’?
Most motherfuckers wouldn’t even wear masks during covid and yet you think they’re going to embrace this? Lmao.
I didn’t say how optimistic i am, just that we are not special in our interaction with the biosphere - not at all. The tragedy is that we are the first that have enough intellect to reflect about those facts, so we are the first that even have the possibility to escape the cycle. if not, we probably will be reduced to scavengers, just like the bacteria in the juice bottle.
I wonder if they think the down votes make your statement less true.
voting by emotion
I always wonder what happens if commercial air travel is banned. Cruise ships are obviously worse for the environment than planes, but are there ships that are fast enough to be feasible for people traveling for less than a month while actually being sustainable or are the americas and Australia just going to be effectively isolated from Eurasia and Africa?
It’s worth it if it’s the only way to survive, obviously, but I wonder what the effects would be. I’m a transatlantic immigrant, and I’d be willing to take a three month trip by ship to visit my family once a decade or so, but I can’t imagine most people wanting or being able to do that.
Their idea of ‘decent’ is disgusting.
Their idea of decent is a dream for a good chunk of the world population. We’re the privileged ones. People kill to live like us.
ITT: people who didn’t even glance at the study.
Quoting from the study:
The authors are not suggesting that everyone be forced on DLS at gunpoint. They are suggesting an absolute bare minimum standard that the overwhelming majority of people on Earth do not yet even have. Quite obviously any excess production could and would be used to increase standard of living.
well then you’ll enjoy thinking about how most people on earth don’t meet that standard, so maybe it’s time we give up some of our luxuries so the rest of planet earth can stop living in abject suffering?
I won’t be giving up anything so someone in a country I have zero responsibility for can have something they, their people and their government didn’t earn.
Their problem, they can fix it. Or not. I really don’t give a shit.
oh goodie, you’re just a terrible person then
You’re a naive fool.
sure, better that than hateful.
There’s nothing hateful about putting my family, community and country first.
Maybe more people would enjoy better living standards if they did the same.
I am amazed by all the people that, when faced with having to give up some of the first-world luxury they are used to, flip completely in their head. It is the opposite of not-in-my-backyard: Don’t take from my backyard, pls.
Yes, I would rather have the current distribution continue, where hundreds of millions are literally starving, where there are people who would kill to live like this, where people are walking through the desert and taking dinghies over oceans for shit like this, just so I can have my amenities.
Absolutely wild. We’re so doomed.
Note that other people’s suffering is not always directly related to our lifestyle.
Explain to me how the sudanese war is caused by our consumption of meat?
Oh come on, that is a pretty flawed argument. “Tell me, how me doing this particular, isolated thing, is directly causing this complicated big thing, otherwise you are wrong”.
But we are not arguing that: We are arguing about, what if I had a magical button that would magically give everyone in the world access to the “decent living standards” and nothing more? Would it be ethical, would you push this button? Even if you are, right now, way above the line?
And to that I say, yes, if it was possible to do this, I believe it would be the right thing to do. And I believe that anyone arguing we should not press the button, because pushing this button is hurting their lifestyle, is arguing that billions of people deserve to live a much worse life for being in the wrong place so that we can have our lifestyle.
Of course I do not have such a button. That is not the point.
Why are you amazed? Have you lived your whole life under a rock? People have always been like this, it’s never been hidden or even remotely pretended otherwise.
I’m actually in favor of keeping a lifestyle that wastes a lot of resources simply for the point that it guarantees that in times of crises, of unexpected shortages of products, there will still be enough products going around to sustain us.
The same paper addresses this directly. 86% of human beings live below this standard of living today.
It is for the good of all people that this is not the case for me…
How detailed is this calculation? Does it take into account where these resources are produced and costs of logistics (nvm difficulty of getting every country on board with this, lets assume we did)?
It’s disturbing, how many people eagerly embrace eugenics and anti-natalism as long as they can cite a left-wing cause like ecology as their reason
Antinatalism is a strawman slur against anyone that questions the viability of infinite growth.
<img alt="i-love-not-thinking" src="https://hexbear.net/api/v3/image_proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchapo.chat%2Fpictrs%2Fimage%2Fc038ae45-5d92-4bfb-b738-b658174670fa.png">
I thought maybe someone was capable of answering a reasonable question to support their position, assuming they had already read the article. Apparently I have to do that work for them?
.
So what is calling anyone who has a child a breeder?
Why are you asking me?
Because I’m curious what your opinion is, and you’ve made a point of speaking on a very closely related topic.
It’s a diversion to another topic. No thanks.
What does antinatalism being a slur have to do with the topic at hand?
It looks to me like that same feeling toward any population concerns are the clear sentiment of the op, even if they don’t state it so openly. I guess you didn’t see that? No sense trying to beat this to death, we’re seeing different things.
Well, it looks like you’re seeing two side to this topic and I, and possibly the op, see at least 3.
How are the two on the same level?
Gee, I dunno, maybe everyone having 3 or more kids in the long term will lead to overpopulation issues we cannot resolve even with improved technology.
No it won’t. Learn 2 Read.
Where did you get the idea that this was malthusian? Hickel advocates for a more efficient distribution of resources, not to cut thr world population in half so gringos can keep their 4 cars and lawn.
But image if we can provide so much for 8.5 billion, it means we can provid double for 4 billion. There is no reasonable excuse to keep increasing the human population.
numbers must go up
Those 8.5 billion are producing all of that 100%. If you had 4 billion, it would be 45%.
Production is absolutely not the bottleneck, here. We are producing too much, constantly.
Technically, earth’s land area is big enough to sustain around 24 billion people. Consider this diagram:
<img alt="" src="https://discuss.tchncs.de/pictrs/image/0a9430a3-005f-45df-bf47-7708fc6971a0.png">
It shows that we’re using around 50% of all habitable land for agriculture. Most of the land that we aren’t using is either high up in the mountains (where terrain isn’t flat and you can’t use heavy machinery) or in the tropical regions on Earth close to the equator (south america, central africa, indonesia), or in areas where it’s too cold for agriculture (sibiria, canada). so you can’t really use more agricultural land than we’re already using without cutting down the rainforest.
In the diagram it also says that we’re using only 23% of agricultural land for crops which produce 83% of all calories. If we used close to 100% of agricultural land for crops, it would produce approximately 320% of calories currently being produced, so yes, we could feed 3x the population this way.
However, it must be noted that there’s significant fluctuation in food production per km², for example due to volcanic eruptions. So it’s better to leave a certain buffer to the maximum amount of people you could feed in one year, because food shortages in another year would otherwise lead to bad famines.
Did you know 90% of Earth’s topsoil is at risk of depletion by 2050? It might throw a wrench into this perfect utopia being planned here.
what is soil erosion and why is it relevant? i’ve never heard of it
Top soil is what food grows in. Without top soil, we can’t grow food.
Why can’t we just have fewer people too? Instead of finding ways to support 50 billion people, how about we have good birth control facilities, education, and economies not based on constant never ending growth? The reality is unending growth WILL end whether people like it or not- wouldn’t it be better to do it on our own terms rather than in a global catastrophe?
Most of the world is far from replacement levels of population and the global trend is a decrease in fertility. Overall, we are at 2.4 kids per woman, the replacement level being estimated between 2.1 and 2.3 (depending how likely you think it is to die from wars). This data has been (mostly) decreasing since the 60s.
The catastrophy is inevitable, it’s just a question of whether any humans will survive.
For example CO2 has a delayed effect of ~40years (if I remember correctly). The effects of global warming are very much obvious now, but the yearly output hasn’t at any point dropped to those levels since.
Won’t somebody think of the ECONOMY?
A lot of countries around the world are living a so called “underpopulation crisis” even though the population is still growing frighteningly fast. Population going down is only a problem for capitalism, and it’s going to doom us all
line must go up (/s)
The best way to control population growth is to actually give them a high standard of living and education. One of the most consistent trends in a developing nation is it’s birth rate slowing down as people become more prosperous
Does this assume instant, frictionless transportation of goods?
And bunch of other sacrifices. One of the points was also about everyone living in a city close by. The study is not applicable to real life, it’s utopia scenario. One of the biggest problems isn’t even resources, but co2 production.
I dunno, I think it would be perfectly doable with good public transit.
Don’t have many big cities, but have mid-sized cities near-ish, and smaller towns near the mid-sized ones. A sort of ‘web’ of cities, if you will.
what you’re describing is called “multigrid” system.
you have grids of varying size, all overlapping each other.
examples:
<img alt="" src="https://discuss.tchncs.de/pictrs/image/dcc8ae9c-5926-4719-9ab8-9922cde8ba3b.png">
<img alt="" src="https://discuss.tchncs.de/pictrs/image/9cae697f-c7e5-46e1-8365-09a1bc2ebc7c.png">
notice the streets make some kind of “grid” on the landscape
Yes, exactly this was what I was thinking about.
now you also know the name :)
It’s awesome, thanks!
And honestly, I could see this sort of systems being handy - having raillines between the big and mid-sized cities, and bus services for the aforementioned + small cities and towns, and (electric) bicycles for the rest.
Maybe you should read the paper and find out.
Why? I’m not the one using it to justify an argument.
Because it would be a more efficient way to understand their actual methodology than posting random guesses on a comment thread?
It’s not my job to make your point. You don’t get free labor.
It’s not my job to read papers for you. You don’t get free labor
So you didn’t read it either? Interesting.
Nope, guess you’re going to have to read it yourself to find out if they’re assuming instant, frictionless transport of goods.
If it’s not compelling enough for you to read it to support your position, why would I read it?
My position was that you might actually learn something if you read the article, but I think you’ve provided sufficient evidence that I was wrong.
I can tell you’re really proud of these replies, but I’m afraid they don’t actually make sense.
You were hoping to prove a logical implication (if P then Q), but you feel it was disproved since the premise didn’t happen. However, “not P” doesn’t actually prove anything about the implication.
Anyway, no one is really accomplishing anything constructive here. Good luck!
The syllogism P (you read something) then Q (you learn something) presumes a) you can process information contained within the written word and b) you have the capability of learning. While not conclusively falsified by these exchange, a postpostivist interpretation suggests that the preponderance of the evidence rests with the counterfactual. No need for P to actually take place. Thanks for playing, best of luck in your future endeavors.
Transportation of goods is mostly a capitalist issue. You don’t need to cover a cucumber with plastic and ship it half way across the world, while selling the local ones to richer countries. The same goes for the vast majority of “goods”. Remove all of that greedy, superfluous shit, and you’re left with minimal shipping needs.
It’s wild that many people on Lemmy dont understand that many things, while completely and absolutely unnecessary, also bring a lot of joy to people.
Cracking a bottle of beaujolais alongside a dish made from Chinese and Korean ingredients while listening to South American vinyl on my Japanese speakers is part of the spice of life.
I get that I could live like a 12th century peasant, only consume things I grow myself and use clothing I can make by hand, but Jesus christ, that’s fucking insane.
Living isnt just about living, its about knowing and enjoying other cultures and the world itself. This study sound like they’d have you live in a cave with no ac while only eating flavorless locally sourced paste.
How boring and repulsive.
I mean, I get that you don’t like how they talk on Lemmy about it, but the quote from the study even talks about how the surplus could be used for additional consumption and everything. Study is here
I think we all have different things we want in life and with such a big surplus there is room for most of us to regularly enjoy that. I do not believe that they argue that we will NEVER be able to enjoy different food. That is as you have mentioned not functional or good for people to work together and live together. Disregarding the many people with different cultures that have moved somewhere else.
I think the study more clearly argues that we can afford to take care of everyone on the world if we wanted to. That there is a viable way and that that way is not as you are implying necessarily a deprived space with tight margins. Because living is about more than slaving away like a 12th century peasant to accumulate more wealth for a king somewhere far off.
Most of what the study is proposing would be a modest decrease in living standards in developed countries, for a drastic increase in living standards everywhere else. It’s not asking you to give up luxury, only for the rate of new luxury to decrease slightly as surplus is more evenly distributed.
You know global trade would still exist, a lot of treats would be much more expensive though.
People have an unrealstic expectation of what that would imply. Although most of the typical suburban american lifestyle would be gone and no more labubu dubai chocolate macha crumble cookies.
It’s wild how you went from shipping plastic wrapped cucumbers across the world while exporting local ones, to your bougie bs…
We get it, you’re a spoiled first worlder
Not everyone has equally arable land.
Edit: Beyond that, have you talked to anyone performative driving one of those child-killing tall pickups? We are a people that lost their shit about straws, and the kind of changes being talked about here are just… [waves arms at all of this]
There was 3.7 billion people when I was born. Since I’m still alive we can guess that’s within a human lifetime.
Since I was born, 73% of the animals on Earth are gone. Our ecosystems are already crashed, and no one notices.
Remember COVID? When everyone stayed home and quit buying shit, laid low? Remember Venice seeing dolphins in the streets and Asians seeing mountains you couldn’t see before? Remember how quiet it was?
SOCIETY can provide, EARTH cannot. Y’all gonna have to die. But hey, between global warming and tanking birth rates fucking our economies in both holes, win, win! The contraction will be of Biblical proportions. I won’t live it, my kids will. Good luck kids!
One of the many reasons I didn’t have kids.
And what makes you think society is suddenly going to change (any moment now?) and your kids would have a better life, would just everyone keep having kids?🤔
I think the thing you have to ask yourself is “would i want to be born today” that will tell you whether you should have kids.
I mean i honestly am quite fine and i think there were always stupid people, but that doesn’t make me wanna have kids? I was also just curious about the argument for kids to save the economy?
I don’t think really that a majority of the population is going to die. I do think significant numbers of deaths will happen around the equator at some point in the near future and spark a functionally unstoppable wave of immigration towards the earth’s poles. This will result in its own strife but again will only cause a small percentage of more of the population to die.
Thing’s will eventually stabilize as human civilization adapts and green energy and carbon capture take off. Most of the population will survive but almost everyone’s QoL will be NOTABLY worse by various conventional metrics. Though likely better in specific ways due to certain medical and automation advancements.
Expect birthrates to continue to drop globally however and the earth’s eco system will drastically change and become much less healthy. Most of existing humanity will cling to life though.
Good riddance, those animals would only get in the way of any future, cyberpunk dystopia or venus cloud city dnb compilation thumbnail luxury space communism.
From what i’ve heard, with the aging population in developed countries and the birthrate getting lower due to longer life expectancy, population should soon stabilise itself around 10 billions. Seems viable.
Not when a fraction of it “needs” everything. But that’s another problem ofc.
Yeah population growth really follows a sigmoid curve:
<img alt="" src="https://discuss.tchncs.de/pictrs/image/cbf92d17-757d-403a-a37a-607000138371.png">
Define ‘decent living standards’.
I’m sure they define that in the study if you read it
Well would you look at that, it sure does.
www.sciencedirect.com/…/S2452292924000493
Looking at Table 1 that’s definitely acceptable. It skips a lot of things but that’s why they say 30% with spare room for luxuries.
I think Maslow’s pyramid of needs would be a good starter. But let’s be more concrete.
House (60 m2, +20 m2 per extra person in household), with electrification, and which can withstand severe weather events (heatwaves, blizzards, heavy rain and wind, etc.).
Clean air and environment without fine dust, microplastics, PFAS, asbestos, etc.
Clean, potable and heatable water available anytime
Healthy and clean food free from animal suffering made available for all
Everyday and affordable clothes available for all
Bodily integrity: only the person themselves can decide over their own body, with the exception of vaccination (because everyone ought to be vaccinated!)
Labour rights, such as automatic unionisation, workplace democracy and self-governance, no vertical hierarchy (so no CEO, overreaching holdings, trusts, etc). And ideally, a wageless gift economy system based on needs. If not that, then this: any company lacking one of the above/being too big, may never get bailed out.
Protection of personal property, with private property becoming communal property instead.
Encouragement of meeting people at sport, hobbies, reading (helps finding friendship)
Bicycle and public transit infrastructure being widely available.
Free and high-quality public education available for all
Same with healthcare. No artificial limit mandating that there be max x amount of doctors or teachers.
The study does, in fact. Or actually, bare minimum living standards:
<img alt="" src="https://midwest.social/pictrs/image/848d25ff-eea2-4b35-85e7-c6e9e084458c.jpeg">
Quoting from the article:
The design choices of people who make memes out of their political opinions are so random and funny to me sometimes. Like why is one of them a Russian gopnik? Why is the other one a blushing gamer femboy who paints his nails??
Engagement.
I agree that we can support everyone on earth if we change our social, economic, and political systems.
I also think it is good that voluntary population decline is already happening and seems likely to continue in many industrialized nations.
what tf kind of game controller is that? three vertical buttons??
Reading the study I get the following remarks:
Living space, not great. 60m2 for a 4 person family. That’s tight. I live alone in a 90m2 house and I could use more space, do they want me to live in a 15m2 house or do they want to force to share living space? Sorry but I won’t compromise there. I prefer people having less children that me having to live as ants in a colony.
That is just a personal pick with the DLS minimum requirements chosen.
But still forgetting that. The reasoning is extremely faulty. Most of their argumentation heavy lifting is just relied to Millward-Hopkins (2022) paper establishing that 14.7 GJ per person anually is enough. That paper is just a work of fantasy. For reference, and taking the same paper numbers. Current energy usage (with all the exiting poverty) is 80 GJ/cap. Paleolitic use of energy was 5 GJ. Author is proposing that we could live ok with just triple paleolitic energy. That paper just oversees a lot of what people need to live in a function society to get completely irrational numbers on what energy cap we could assume to produce a good life.
Then on materials used. The paper assumes all the world shifting to vegetarian diet, everyone living on multiresidential buildings, somehow wood as the main building material (I don’t know how they even reconcile that with multiresidential buildings…). And half of cars usage shifting to public transport How to achieve this in rural areas it’s not mentioned at all).
A big notice needs to be done that both papers what are actually doing is basically taking China economy (greatly praised in the introduction) and assuming that all the world should live like that. And yes, probably the world could have 30 billion inhabitants if we accept to be all like China, who would we export to achieve that economic model if we all have a export based economy? who knows, probably the martians. And even then, while a lot of “ticks” on what a decent level of life quality apparently seems to be ticked, many people in western countries would not consider that quality life, but a very restrictive and deprived life standard.
I’m still on the boat the people having less children is a better approach to great lives without destroying the planet. At some point a cap on world population need to be made, it really add that much that the cap is 30 billion instead of maybe 5 billion? It’s certainly not a cap in the number of social iterations a person can have, but numbers give for plenty of friends. And at the end it’s not even a cap on “how many children” can people have, as once the cap is reach the number of children will be needed to cap the same to achieve stability. It’s just a cap on “when people can still be having lots of kids”. Boomer approach to “let’s have children now” and expect that my kids won’t want to have as many children as I have now.
Also another big pick I have with the article is that it blames the current level of inefficiency to private jets, suvs, and industrial meat. But instead of making the rational approach of taking thise appart from the current economy and calculate what the results will be. Parts from zero building the requirements out of their list. Making the previous complaint about those luxury items out of place completely. On a personal note I would reduce or completely eliminate many of those listed “super luxury” items. But I have the feel (just a feel because neither me not the author have studied this) that the results of global energy and material usage won’t drop that much, certainly not at the levels proposed by the authors with their approach.
You mad?
Yes, to support everyone on what our economy outputs today will involve the quality of life decreasing for a lot of people. And the economy will have to change, to build the things that people need but are currently unable to pay for. This is unsurprising.
Probably the living space is more to show this is feasible over it being the expected/desired solution. It would be very counterproductive to tear down good houses, but small apartments work well for “house single unhoused people”.
Rural transport is a rounding error compared to the number of private cars that could be converted with minimal fuss in cities.
Why would an export economy be a bad model? They literally have a surplus; all you need to do to fix it is… Make less?
I’m not mad. I will just not allow anyone to reduce my living standards because they don’t want to use a rubber.
A export model is not bad. I just said that’s unreasonable to think that all the world could follow that model. Because then “who would we export to?”. It’s like liberals thinking that the tax rate in a tax heaven are proof that every country could have those tax haven rates. Good for them, that the model worked, but for some country to export other country needs to import, that’s all. Chinese economic growth have been very linked to being the world factory. That’s great, but it could not be assumed that all the world could just do the same.
Who said anything about using a rubber? Or not? Let’s properly support the people that exist now.
And do you think that’s likely to happen any time soon in the real world?
It’s all well and good coming up with theories on paper but if your theories only work on paper, then don’t count them as solved.
Well a good first step for helping the people who exist now live decent lives would be to scrap your car and ban your meat.
Cool cool. So how have people taken this lifestyle advice so far? Have they been receptive to it? How many vegans who don’t drive, do you know? Because I only know one, me.
Forcing this behavioral change in people might be the only way… but I think that’s called fascism, no?
Hey ho, anything to save our awful species though. So, who do you have in mind as dictator in your region? I bet cars being confiscated and forced veganism is going to go down a treat with your neighbours.
No, fascism is an ideology based in the myth of palingenetic ultranationalism, characterised by 14 traits including such concepts as “machismo”, “the cult of action”, and “the enemy is strong and weak”.
Forming a vigilante mob to smash rich people’s stuff is perfectly compatible with anarchism. Voting to ban the sale of cars at the federal level is a more moderate option palatable to capitalist liberals, and also not fascism.
So anarchist vigilantes smashing rich people’s stuff is in line with your government?
Your government who you trust to ignore industry lobby money but also vote majorities, is going to ban the sale of cars?
Where the fuck do you live and how is this government of yours even worse than the laughing stock Trump’s is?
And why would rich people not hire armies to protect themselves from these government sanctioned droves of roaming ‘“”“anarchist”“”’ vigilantes out to smash their stuff?
Well obviously we organise into armed militias and overthrow the government in a communist revolution first.
What are you doing on slrpnk.net?
Oh bless, that’s so cute and just utterly fucking hysterical. I’m struggling not to ask if you’re 14 and have just discovered Marx. Wow, I genuinely haven’t laughed this hard in a while, that was a work out.
I’m on slrpnk.net because I’ve been following climate science for probably longer than you’ve been alive.
I’m actually 8 and I already have two PhDs. I also beat Shaq in a game of half court and I helped invent the Pfizer COVID vaccine.
Good for you Genius, I wish you luck organising your anarcho-communist militias and forming the authoritarian dictatorships of your dreams.
The theory understander has logged on I see.
They’re not mad, they’re just a bad person. Don’t use empathy in argument with someone who has none.
Also, those numbers are like averages. Some places would have high rises to accommodate the sheer numbers of people, working or non-working.
But yeah, I’d tear down my own fucking home right meow if it was for equality on a massive scale.
Definitely use empathy on someone who has none. That’s how they practice.
Even seeing somebody else do it neurologically strengthens those circuits in the brain. This is the actual front line, the human brain, and saying not to USE EMPATHY ON PEOPLE WHO HAVE NONE is a command to retreat in the very moment it is your turn to act.
Fair and good points.
A bad person? For what? For not wanting to live in a tiny bedsit just so the world can accommodate more theoretical people that don’t exist and need not exist?
It’s a minimum to bring the impoverished up to. The paper makes no suggestion that the rest are to be brought down to that standard except by changing production practices.
How do you need more than 90m² when living alone?? I live in a 60m² apartment and literally only use like 30-40m² and idk what I’d use the rest for.
I have a kitchen, a living room and two bedrooms. I do remote work so one of the bedrooms have a double purpose as guess room and office.
I would love to have at least, another room dedicated to storage. And second room so I could have a hobby/office room and a guess room separately.
Also I would love to have a garden.
I spent a lot of time at home, between remote work and hobbies, so I would like to have a more spacious living space. The more time you spent on a place the bigger it probably needs to be.
I’m basically living as a hermit but I guess we just have different needs.
Well they need a garage for their car, and since they’re driving to work and don’t get enough exercise they need a home gym
Yeah, that’s totally unrealistic. We could get rid of 99% of cars and only keep ambulances and fire trucks, and most people would be happier. Also we should get everyone on a vegan diet. Vegetarian is okay, but still enslaves animals. We can do much better.
What about people not living in cities?
Public transport for low density areas is terrible. So or you are forcing people to live in cities (where public transport can be good) or you are forcing people to endure terrible public transport.
Also forcing dietary changes on people, something as big as preventing people to eat or use animal products…
I just don’t think forcing that on people would be clever. I know how I would react if anyone were to impose that way of living to me, and I can only assume that many people would react the same way. Specially if I would have to endure all that only to accommodate a growing population when we could just try to aim for a lower stable number of total human population (a number that will need to be reached regardless at some point. Infinite growth is unfeasible).
I have some information that’s gonna blow your mind: people lived in rural areas for many thousands of years and cars were only invented a hundred years ago.
They lived self sufficient lives and walked to town once a month for essentials. If they were lucky, they had a mule and a wagon.
I’m guessing you live in a rural area and you think you need your car, because you’ve gotten used to driving into town every few days for fresh groceries and haircuts? Yeah, so that’s arrogant decadence. You live a cosmopolitan lifestyle with inner city conveniences, despite being out in a rural area with plenty of space and low land values, and this is made possible by your poison death machine.
The poison death machines are not sustainable. Go back to living how your ancestors did. Take the mule into town once a month for soap and molasses, or move to the city. You don’t get to have it both ways
I don’t want to live like people lived two thousands years ago, thanks.
Tough shit. Your poison death machine is killing people on the other side of the world, and the only way to have a clean conscience is to get rid of it
You lack imagination. Plenty of ways to not kill people without having to recede to Palaeolithic levels of life quality.
Yeah, I’m actually subtly manipulating you. See, you were acting like there’s no way to live rurally but to use cars, so I explained that people can live in rural areas without cars in a way you can’t argue with. But the trick is, I lowballed you to set your expectations low. Now I can explain that the United States was basically built by railroads, and that trains are faster than donkeys. Furthermore, rail technology has advanced massively in the last 100 years, to the point that you genuinely could live rurally without a car and still enjoy those urban conveniences you love, like out of season fruit. It won’t be as convenient as the car, but I’m sure now you’ve realised it would still be a far better quality of life than has ever been possible for your ancestors. And now it’ll look really selfish if you say you’re still not satisfied with that and you want to poison the sky and kill people for even more convenience.
I live in Europe (Spain for reference). I think my country is the second one in the world in ultraspeed train network only behind china (or it used to).
People in rural areas still needs cars. In fact people in rural areas doesn’t even use trains for the most part. Buses work better. Still, living there without a car is a big drop in life quality.
We fund trains with public money to make them cheaper. Some trains are even FREE to the public, free as in you can hop in without paying. Still people don’t use trains in rural areas unless they have not access to a car. Because it’s imposible to have a network with enough frequency and travel time to match people expectations on transport. The infrastructure needed for it would be impossible.
Sorry to break your great manipulation revealing that I do not live in the US.
Next revelation is that I don’t even live in rural areas, but I know plenty of people who does.
Trams would have a lower maintenance cost and higher volumes than buses. Buses are ideal for temporary routes and little else. If the provincial government ran trams instead of buses, they could afford to maintain more routes at the same annual cost, provided a little extra initial money. Then it wouldn’t be so impossible to have a tram route serving you.
What you’re seeing isn’t a physical law. It’s an engineering problem.
We got rid of trams last century because there were better engineering solutions. Buses got more efficient, larger and more comfortable than they used to. Also within a city metro is much better and faster. They are also electric now. No need for investing in tram infrastructure for most cases nowadays.
Also when talking about rural I don’t think if we are talking really about trams, more like low distance trains, at least that’s what we call them here. They use full train infrastructure. Trams are more for cities.
What I don’t get is why some people cannot be happy with a 70% traffic reduction in cities ? That would be a great objective that would get rid of tons of emissions and problems without that much fuss because it’s easy to provide not only the same but better life quality with that objective. But some people feel the need to push to really hard extremes that, imho, only make people to push back over any attempt on traffic reduction. We could do a lot with proper demand control instead of trying to push a lot of restrictions on people and wanting to take away rights and life quality.
First off, the Netherlands brought back their trams, and it’s awesome. Trams are the most accessible form of transportation for people with mobility or financial issues, and they contribute very positively to the local economy by increasing foot traffic around local businesses. And as I said, they’re cheaper to run and maintain than buses.
Second, a 70% traffic reduction in cities would be around a 50% reduction in car usage overall, which was the thing you started this argument by complaining about. My radicalism caused you to push for a compromise that you previously considered too extreme. Get got. Being radical works.
Netherlands has crazy population density. The whole country is like a big city. Also I remember using a tram in Netherlands in the 2010s I don’t know if they really got rid of them.
Anyway buses have a lot of advantages in rural areas. They respond better to a variable demand, they need less infrastructure, you can change routes all you want, you can get rotatory routes without going broke with the infrastructure. A tram would most likely need a bigger population density to be justified. Even then. Modern buses are quite good. Don’t get me wrong I love a smooth tram travel and the looks of it, but it is more expensive than a bus. Here buses are 100% accessible for all people, flat floors, and automatic ramps for people with mobility issues.
I’ve always have been advocating for car reduction. Since forever, I’ve not changed my ming here. And precisely it’s really hard to make people understand that we could achieve better living standards and that they will still be able to use a car when needed when there’s people around telling them that they will not be allowed to use a car at all. It makes the struggle for traffic reduction harder.
I think selling the idea of, “you can have a car but we are going to make it so you will only need to use it a couple times a month, because you won’t need it more” is way friendlier then “we are going to take away your car”.
Also we are talking about countries with massive urban population. In a world context many countries could not adopt this model because they can be 80% rural or more.
Yeah, there’s a bit of a conflict here: People want to live in rural areas with large plots of land and nature everywhere but want to have the comforts and amenities of living in a city center.
Before the car this was a choice that people had to make: move to the city where everything is available or to the countryside where countryside is available and hardly anything else.
The car allowed to bridge this gap to the detriment of the climate and the sustainability of life on this planet.
And now we have another conflict: luxurity for people in rural areas vs survival of the human race.
Surely there’s a way of having people living rural, a totally valid life choice and also must needed for agriculture, having a good life, and not having a planet wide global extinction.
I get that in the US and some other countries one of the biggest divisions in voting is rural/urban, thus some people really feel vindicated on hating people that live rural and wanting to impose some penalties on them.
But if we cannot find an economic system that would lead to every person having a good life, regardless on where they live… Do we really want to have a future as a species?
Whether ‘a good life’ is possible in rural areas depends on your definition.
Is it living like the Amish? In that case, yes.
No. I think humanity should aim for absolutely every single human in every country in every single region, urban or rural could have a level of life quality comparable to what’s consider middle-high income level in USA/Europe.
If we cannot achieve that we’d better give up as an intelligent species and leave room for que squids to try.
You can give up all you want.
The biggest issue with your argumentation is that it takes one extreme (“farmers need to live in rural areas”) and use that as a justification for everyone who is not covered by that rule.
For example, all of suburbia can go. Close to nobody living there is a farmer and people only live in the suburbs because they can use a car to get to city center quickly.
But also in more rural areas there are a lot of people who commute to their office job in the next city.
That is not a totally valid life choice by far. If you want to work in the city, move to the city.
not everyone have to live the way you enjoy living. Diversity is good.
I could say. Because I know international travel is polluting and I don’t like it let’s put a global ban on international traveling. No one is allow to travel. Probably people who enjoy traveling (you might be among them) will be furious against me and it would be dictator like from me trying to take that away from them.
No. Environment should never be a excuse to have a dictator like mindset of just depriving people of their lifestyles. That will be fight against, and people fighting that away would be on the right side of story.
Once again, we are a clever species. Surely we can find a way to make diverse lifestyles work. I completely disagree with your radical posture that that lifestyle is imposible to have without human extinction. You completely disregard that things like remote work or decentralized offices exist. The solutions already exist. It would be matter of expanding them to reduce the amount of people needing daily commute.
Now even you say all suburbia have to go too. That’s type of close-minded extremism should never be the beam that guides the future of humankind. It would be a sad future. Let people be free to live in suburbia if they want, let people to life in a rural area if they want. At this point the only think that’s not a valid life choice here is your intention to oppress everyone into the only lifestyle you consider “valid”.
And I’m pretty sure that the environment is nothing but a excuse here. It would be nice to disclose the true reasons for the hate towards people who doesn’t live in cities.
Sure. The survival of the species can never be an excuse to reduce personal comfort even a little bit.
Once again the survival of the species is not on the line because of that.
That’s just an excuse you are making to justify a hate that has other roots.
Prove is in the complete disregard of proposed solutions: remote work, decentralized offices, traffic reduction instead of complete suppression, population reduction… And apparently disregard for other forms of pollution that could be reduced or eliminated instead, for instance, international traveling, or traveling at all, maybe people living in cities should never visit nature or different places, that travel will destroy the world!
Yep, sure, genocide is of a problem the less drastic option.
You are a clown.
Last reply, after blocking your because your insult.
Population control do not require any violent measure.
It can be as simple as making people lives better, as it has been proven that populations with higher life quality have less children. Then achieving the objective of having a lesser global population .
Discussion ends here as you have been blocked.
If we completely stop having children right now, worldwide, the population will not meaningfully decrease for the next 50 years.
The major amount of climate damage will be done within the next 20 years.
The only option to use population control to reduce climate damage would be to kill roughly half of the world’s population within the next 2-3 years.
So if that’s your solution, you are either advocating for the greatest genocide the world has ever seen or are argueing in bad faith because you know that your solution is nonsense.
could you link us the dls standards and the study itself?
Of course,
www.sciencedirect.com/…/S2452292924000493
Gonna quote the study again:
Firstly- Are you so selfish that you refuse to change anything about your lifestyle in order to provide people with an absolute minimum standard of life - a standard that you have identified as abhorently poor by your standards?
Secondly- Change on your part may not even be required. Tax on production (i.e. corporations) would cover the majority of it, and the rerouting of production from useless things like casinos and yachts would cover the rest.
Finally- additional taxes and such would not even be required for many changes, just spending more efficiently. As an example- Very rural places all over the world have train and bus service. It’s a matter of choice that the US doesn’t, not a matter of practicality. We spend all of our money on highways instead, which are far more expensive per person per mile. Investing in rail, like Europe and China have done, provides far more use for far more people.
I said in other comment. I’m not in the US, I’m in europe we have one of the best train networks of the world. Public transport is funded by the government so is cheaper, even completely free in some cases.
People living in rural areas still chose cars while they have the free will to do so.
If as a species we cannot find the way to make that work there’s no incentive for us to keep trying. Luckily I’m sure it’s possible, that people say it’s not just because propaganda (as I said mostly because the voting split rural/urban). We have achieve harder things as a species. Surely we can have people in rural areas still using cars (electric cars for instance) without dooming humankind to extinction.
You’re not really considering the article in the context of what it’s arguing against, which is the implicit position of the World Bank that someone is not “poor” if they’re living on the equivalent of over $3.00 per day (as of 2025). The standard that Hickel et al. are proposing, while low by Western standards, is still much higher than what billions of people are currently experiencing.
Imposing such a drastic change in living conditions for the the whole population of this planet is impossible. The rich will not allow it and everybody who isn’t worse off than the conditions suggested here will fight it. Most people won’t even consider going vegetarian, for fucks sake.
Using this study as proof that there are enough resources to support billions more people is beyond stupid. Humans are not an altruistic species. We already have the money and resources to adequately support everyone already existing, but just flat out refuse to, and always have.
Adding more people to this hellworld because some naive study assumes that at the last second of the eleventh hour before we hit 3c warming and run out of fresh water and arable land, we will evolve into a species capable of physics defing magic and perfect communism… is really, really, REALLY fucking stupid.
If we had less people companies would dump twice the amount of plastics in the ocean
Do you think plastic waste ending up in the ocean, is some kind of industry sanctioned punishment for falling birthrate or something? Or were you being sarcastic?
Nah you’re just dense
You going to try and explain this then?
Is there a workable plan to get to that point or is it a theoretical idea like communism
No. It would require guillotining all billionaires, dissolution of a shit ton of wasteful industries (AI for example), vast reduction of meat consumption (which also means closing large parts of the meat industry) …
Basically it requires the rich and powerful to not be rich and not be powerful anymore
Genocide normalization
I know the world has more than enough resources and productivity for everyone on it to live comfortably without overworking, but 30% is the lowest figure I’ve ever seen. Would like to know where that came from. I’ve seen so many widely varying estimates of everything.
There is a soudce where the text was taken from at the bottom.
Thank you, dumb me missed it. Their paper talks a lot about measuring poverty. Earlier research showed poverty in China being high in the 80s under socialism and decreasing in the 90s when they became more capitalist. But the formulas for calculating that involved the prices of all consumer goods, including things like airline tickets, cars, big TVs, etc. But If you take these authors’ approach and ignore the prices of things poor people never buy, the math shows poverty being very low in the 80s and rising dramatically in the 90s, because introducing more capitalism brought down the cost of middle-class and luxury goods but increased the cost of the basics.
I recommend reading the image to find the source
Someone else posted what it means. It means 10m² living space per person, 4 people share 20m² for bathroom and kitchen, you don’t eat meat, you wash tops every ~3 days and bottoms every ~14 days(laundry is shared with ~20 people). Something like 4 people are expected to share a laptop with specs that were cutting edge 15 years ago(a “gaming pc” would only be able to be used for ~150 hours per year).
It is a MAJOR downgrade from how most people live, even those in poverty, and is just not appealing to all but the most minimalist of people. It’s more akin to living in an RV or “van life”(except you’re not supposed to have a car in this situation either - public transportation only).
It’s also ignoring the fact that we have already surpassed the limitations of what the nitrogen cycle could normally provide. So we would still be relying on fertilizers produced with fossil fuels.
Absolutely.
Also, whenever I see “humans only really need X” I always think of Bill Gates saying no one will ever need more than 640kb of RAM. Sure, today no one will, but tomorrow someone who was held back by that previous number will see the new number and be able to complete a new task and suddenly that will be the new “baseline”. A 1.4mb floppy used to store dozens/hundreds of text files. Now a .jpeg takes up more space. You can’t just settle on some number without commiting to becoming left behind as things progress.
Well, thanks for sharing misinformation.
Meanwhile, in the actual study (provided free via any search engine of your choice):
<img alt="" src="https://midwest.social/pictrs/image/a8bdb40d-e616-4826-aab7-24e3fc9ec198.jpeg">
Also directly from the study you didn’t read:
So no, nobody is coming to take your gaming rig, and no, the majority of people on Earth would get an UPGRADE in living conditions, not a downgrade.
Here is a link if you cannot access a search engine.
So you’re a condescending asshole. That’s all. I’m not gonna engage with you further. Have a day as wonderful as yourself. I will note that everything is said was in your picture. Douche.
This is one of the things that pisses me off about the Star Trek “fans” who point to the Replicator tech (which wasn’t introduced until the Next Generation series) as the reason humanity was able to end scarcity. No, it absolutely was not what ended scarcity in the Star Trek universe. What ended scarcity was the absolute end of capitalism. We have now and have had for over a century, the capability to end world hunger and provide housing for every man woman and child on the planet. We don’t do it because it would remove the overinflated value of those things as well as the obscene wealth of the rich.
Capitalism requires scarcity as its engine.
When scarcity is threatened, it is called the capitalist dirty word “commodity”.
It means there is no more profit in that.
Even if that wasn’t true, do you know how much energy it takes to turn energy into mass (unless I don’t understand the tech and it works like a 3D printer or something). If a society has this much (free or at least affordable) energy, even without a replicator there is so much abundance.
what about food and place to live? seems to me we are stealing too much land from nature.
Build upwards instead of outwards
Replacing all forms of power generation with nuclear would protect a lot of land but war exists and blowing up a nuclear plant causes longer lasting damage than a solar farm
And where do we put all that radioactive waste?
Under
In my backyard
under the floor, to heat the house
Uh huh, the glorious Urban Monad…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Inside
It is true there are too many billionaires. We can provide everyone, if some of them also need 10 private jets.
Decent living conditions… meaning what, exactly? 250 square feet with no windows, shared shower and bathroom with 11 other people?
The depressed goth gamer in that cartoon would have to wear the same unwashed clothes for a week between hand washings, and in any case, that’s all the clothes they have.
It’s sad, but without the tremendous fossil inputs we’ve been gobbling for over a century, poof, we’re back to an agrarian 19th century life style. At best. With the concomitant 1-2 billion world population. And hand made clothes from natural fibers. Bye bye synthetics, bye bye engineered detergents, bye bye dyes, bye bye individual front loading washing machines.
You really can go on the internet and say anything without sources
Citation?
“You really think someone would do that? Go on the internet… and tell lies?”
This study is dangerously stupid.
We are rapidly running out of resources for survival.
Global fresh water demand will exceed supply by 40% by 2030 and 90% of topsoil is at risk of depletion by 2050.
We are already over capacity on fresh water demand for the amount of humans alive on this planet.
Top soil is what food grows in. Without top soil we can’t grow food.
Billions of people will die this century. The planet cannot support any more people. Don’t have kids.
No, we are not over capacity for survival. We waste a ton of water on stuff we don’t need, like having lawns in the desert or choosing to grow almonds during droughts when people have to ration water usage at home. . Top soil is the same, we could, collectively, switch from beef and to a lesser extent pork to focus on much more efficient chicken, thus freeing a lot of land used to feed livestock.
Stop this Malthusian nonsense, we have enough resources for everyone. They are just severely mismanaged to the point of killing us all. We could live sustainably if we wanted to, we just choose not to.
So you agree that as things are, there aren’t enough resources for the current population, let alone billions more people.
This complete overhaul of the structure of society that keeps being mentioned here is an impossible pipe dream fantasy that is flat out just not ever going to ever happen as it fundamentally goes against human nature.
Human beings aren’t capable of altruism. What about the world around you ever gave you the idea that we were?
Most people won’t even go vegetarian (let alone vegan!), and yet you expect the rich and powerful to just roll over and give up all their money and power for this imaginary ‘greater good’ scenario that will save the world?
Stop believing in stupid fairytales, they won’t save you from the world that is falling apart right in front of you.
Fuck off with your capitalist realism. The same arguments could have been made with feudalism before it.
Maybe you lack the historical knowledge and imagination to imagine a better world but your personal failures aren’t reflective of “human nature.”
Lmao, good luck with your revolution. I’m sure you won’t need it though, not if you just believe hard enough in the power of goodness and altruism. Lol.
One last point I’d like you to consider though, if we’re ignoring resource depletion and just how unsuitable humans are for perfect communism, as you so far have been; how do you plan on defying physics and turning the clock back on the catastrophic climate collapse we’re now in the end game for?
These are the words of world-famous mainstream scientist David Suzuki, and IPCC expert reviewer Peter Carter, telling us it is already too late. We are out of time.
You telling people to keep having kids, and that the world can sustain billions more people than it currently does, is literally only making things worse for everyone. Or do you not understand that each new person born, adds massively to our carbon footprint?
So it’s now up to you. Are you an accelerationist who wants to make shit worse for everyone in the limited time we have left? Or are you just really, really, REALLY fucking stupid?
bro thinks I give a fuck about his opinion and wrote an essay
Stupid it is.
when you grow up you’ll realize that it’s even more stupid to engage with people like you
Have the future you deserve.
I tried to warn you.
Oh so you’re just an anti-intellectual mouthbreather, good, you sounded okay for a bit there
lol: me, an intellectual, gets into Internet arguments
You: a mouthbreather, not taking time out of your day to disprove tired arguments
100+ years of socialist and communist philosophy and nobody considered that actually human capitalist by nature though
Nah that wasn’t his point, I don’t think at least. I’m Def with you there, mr.communism himself Marx addressed this dumbass argument before communism entered the vernacular again in the 1900s.
By the principle of charity we can go with your interpretation.
Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid directly covers this topic as well. Altruism is natural and occurs throughout our history, arguably cooperation is the basis of our civilization.
Dominating aggressive cultures have attacked and eradicated more peaceful cultures, sure, but you can’t call one human nature and the other not.
I guess I don’t see what the point is besides defeatism and playing in to the hands of those that want us to continue doing nothing?
I took read Mutual Aid by Kropotkin.
As he puts it in the very title: “Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution”.
Key being a factor Not the factor
At the time, most of research into evolution revolved around the idea of competition as the driving force in an arms race for resources between organisms. Obviously this is still true, though like Kropotkin observed, we also understand that there is harmony and cooperation both between organisms for each others benefit and in the broader sense of ecosystem equilibrium.
I think it’s important to have such discussions anyway because any doubts must be addressed not via faith, but via critical examination, so that we find the more correct reason to maintain revolutionary optimism, it is precisely to defeat defeatism with a resolve forged in fire of the scrutiny. That said, I think this is too heated and came across as an attack, I also don’t want to play into anyone’s hands, I was being needlessly pedantic, I retract my statement.