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So, I suppose you agree that all humans should have access to the same living standard?

Yes.

So, we give them the average living standard than average Europeans enjoy

Grief no. Rather better than that if we can manage it.

(from your words I assume that you do not agree that scaling down is needed, neither morally nor environmentally...)

I have no idea what you mean by "morally" here: it appears to be a misanthropic judgement on how other people live.

The question of resource constraints is another matter. To a first approximation it seems that a standard of living more-or-less equivalent to mine (probably not with horses though) isn't unreasonable. We drive one small car (which we'd rather not, really) we travel a little, not a lot, we use public transport when possible, we have a modest house, eat well, buy nice things but not a lot of them. Various calculators claim that if everyone were like us we'd need about double the resources we have.

Here's the thing: the system we live in is terribly wasteful in ways I can't fix directly. It takes huge amounts of water to provide us with our tap water because of underinvestment in infrastructure. We drive more than we would like to because the public transport is inadequate. Our carbon footprint is large because fossil fuel power generation was the expedient choice for decades. Efficiency and changing our practices would probably account for half our footprint. The details would change, I suppose, but the standard of living wouldn't drop.


3 billion cars (and the oil to go with it, plus the metals), Ipads, Playstation 3, flight vacations, ...

None of which is an obvious problem if we weren't grossly wasteful.


I suggest that maintaining the current standard of living is neither possible NOR desirable.

Whatever about possibility, you'll find that 95% of people disagree on the desirability.

I remember playing checkers with my grandfather when I was a kid. I now have a Wii. Interestingly I derived more pleasure from playing checkers.

You're playing the Wii with the wrong people then. And confusing tools with experiences.


And what about learning a simple musical instrument instead of listening to the latest fad (mainstream or alternative)? Play it to your neighbours. Play it to yourself. In case of simple instruments you can even learn to build it yourself.

Romantic nonsense.

A completely different view of the world. On what fullfills life.

Go tell that to the rest of the world. They don't want your view of the world, which is the point.


Less Prozac.

Arguable. It always seems to me that the utopias of the puritan anti-technologists are places I'd hate to live. If they'd even suffer my existence.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed May 11th, 2011 at 10:34:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]

And what about learning a simple musical instrument instead of listening to the latest fad (mainstream or alternative)? Play it to your neighbours. Play it to yourself. In case of simple instruments you can even learn to build it yourself.

Romantic nonsense.

You haven't played much music in the last couple of decades, have you?

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Wed May 11th, 2011 at 10:40:10 AM EST
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No, not what I do. But it's not what I must do either.

The idea that huge numbers of humans ever did it is romantic nonsense. Maybe 20% of people at peak?

The implied vision I get here - and this is the fault of having been exposed to Irish national mythology no doubt - is of lots of lovely little villagers gathered around their fires playing music and lovely lassies dancing reels at the crossroads. We're rapidly heading for Father Ted territory.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed May 11th, 2011 at 10:45:33 AM EST
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Which is to say: feel free to learn a musical instrument. Go play with your friends, if they can bear it. But don't try to claim moral superiority on that basis.

I'll listen to it when it becomes the latest fad.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed May 11th, 2011 at 10:47:55 AM EST
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I think the point wasn't that everyone should go buy a drum, more that everyone should stop considering consumption a valid substitute for a life.

It's the idea that civilisation always means Moar Stuff, and the inalienable right to buy same, that's suspect.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Wed May 11th, 2011 at 12:38:09 PM EST
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Colman:
Here's the thing: the system we live in is terribly wasteful in ways I can't fix directly. It takes huge amounts of water to provide us with our tap water because of underinvestment in infrastructure. We drive more than we would like to because the public transport is inadequate. Our carbon footprint is large because fossil fuel power generation was the expedient choice for decades

like waking up to find you're stuck in amber...or alive in a coffin.

sins of the fathers...

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Wed May 11th, 2011 at 08:11:45 PM EST
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I would like to have more time to answer (silly me of putting up a diary in the middle of a massive workload).

But the short story is:

If liking to play music is "romantic". If people want always "more". If people want to be "consumers". Then we, as a species, are screwed. Maybe we are (in that case, good riddance).

I thought I was the uber-pessimist around, but clear I am not.

I believe most of our current "desires" were invented (See Edward Bernays - There is a Beeb mini-series about this guy, mostly).

The reason we are Over-Prozaced is precisely because this "modern lifestyle" is at odds with our nature.

by cagatacos on Thu May 12th, 2011 at 10:49:10 AM EST
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Most cannot really control how their behaviours develop: that's the main problem. It takes quite an effort to avoid being programmed by a reinforcing environment. Sadly, the tools to avoid being programmed are taught poorly, if at all.

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Thu May 12th, 2011 at 12:03:14 PM EST
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No one can, as far as I can tell.

Tools can help you soften the impact, but I don't think they can negate it entirely - see the effects of being exposed to propaganda even when you know it for what it it.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu May 12th, 2011 at 12:22:51 PM EST
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Certainly to the extent that new behaviours themselves evolve from previous sourcing behaviours. But the cerebellum et al don't always come up with clear cut behavioural responses. There are after-the-fact options that are open to apparently conscious choice.

Of course you can argue that those options are not chosen, but also behaviourally driven.

It's a mindfield out there...

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Thu May 12th, 2011 at 01:50:19 PM EST
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One of the "revolutions" that I think it is needed is one on education. Let me explain.

Education seems to be mostly defined by "enlightenment" values: Humans are capable of full knowledge, society is there to help and so on.

Humans are actually quite limited creatures (from a cognitive perspective). And easily manipulated. There should be massive educational time dedicated to teach people to deal with their shortcomings and how they can be manipulated.

Bias, self-delusion. Use of misleading arguments. Coping with uncertainty. Coping with lack of knowledge (and the possible inability to acquire such knowledge). Falacies. This things can be taught to a large extent.

Spend much time not on knowledge based learning, but the opposite: learn how not to be (self) deceived, learn how to learn. Learn how ones feelings can cloud judgment. And so on.

Teach people on how to deal with their own shortcomings.

It is not perfection, but we can do better.

by cagatacos on Wed May 18th, 2011 at 01:29:40 PM EST
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"None of which is an obvious problem if we weren't grossly wasteful."

Er... really? 3 billion cars? 6 billion flight vacations? I can't see that being manageable. You may try to avoid being wasteful but a plane needs to lift close to a ton per passenger, 10kms high. That alone is a huge energy consumption -and it won't ever be solar...

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi

by Cyrille (cyrillev domain yahoo.fr) on Tue May 17th, 2011 at 06:24:05 AM EST
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Individual cars are wasteful. Why don't we have shared ones and good public transport?  

You don't need to fly for your vacations, in the main. You just need a good train service. (I might need to fly - it may never make economic sense to run a train from the UK to Dublin, but that's another matter.) Not flying wouldn't affect the quality of life.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Tue May 17th, 2011 at 06:26:24 AM EST
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With good boat and train services it would probably be feasible to go about anywhere in the world but Australia in a dozen days, meaning that with labor time reduction allowing long vacations long range travel would still be thinkable...

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
by linca (antonin POINT lucas AROBASE gmail.com) on Tue May 17th, 2011 at 04:40:18 PM EST
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That too.

The point is that the details may need to change, but that doesn't really change the standard of living.

We don't need to kill air travel completely, just stop using it for pointless short-haul and overland stuff.

Anyway, I haven't flown anywhere in two years or so.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed May 18th, 2011 at 03:35:58 AM EST
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