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by titzer
1645 days ago
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> which means any "degrowth" rhetoric is just outright misanthropical Sorry, I will absolutely challenge "misanthropic" being used here. To suggest that we modern humans could not live as our ancestors did--that is, fulfilling, local, simpler lives with less technology and vastly less energy usage is a subtle assertion that the modern way of living is the only moral one. Which is just, anthropologically, vapid elitism and completely ignorant of human existence over millenia. (I challenge you to live a decade as an ancient philosopher in ancient Greece's height and come back to your 9-to-5 job). This "misanthropic" word comes laden with an implicit accusation that we'd force disease and poverty on people when in fact the only thing that forces disease and poverty on people is exactly overpopulation and broken political and economic systems which are ironically exactly the thing supposedly producing this great wealth. Oh, we moderns have figured out exactly the right way to hold the world, alright. Rampant consumerism and overconsumption. Yep, the most moral system. To argue that we need degrowth is not to argue that we need be sick and poor. Hell, the richest person 200 years ago was neither sick nor poor, but was incapable of living a high-carbon lifestyle despite utter luxury. Our entire modern system runs on unsustainable levels of energy consumption and is inextricably wedded to fossil fuels. We live like little kings because we burn the Earth's hidden energy reserves to do it. So yeah, de-grow it. |
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That's a fallacy. What's more, you personally can have it right now (bar slaves, which I'll come back to in a sec), yet you somehow choose to have hot and/or potable water, electricity, AC, heating, Internet, vaccines, mass produced food and so on. There is nothing stopping you from emigrating to Albania and moving to a small village there, cutting your electricity supply.
> completely ignorant of human existence over millenia
> an ancient philosopher in ancient Greece's height
I can't believe you chose an example of 1% elite in a society built on slavery in the most hospitable place on this planet as an example of "how our ancestors lived". A tiny society that was constantly threatened by wars, diseases, and starvation, is morally repugnant for modern people, and had stable periods shorter than modern states'. If anything, you are making an argument for me with that comparison.
> the only thing that forces disease and poverty on people is exactly overpopulation and broken political and economic systems
Here, the real misanthropy of your views rears its head where you mention "overpopulation". There will be 10 billion people on this planet unless you kill literally billions of people and sterilise billions more. The natural barriers for population growth back in BC times were famine, war, and disease; why do you think there is "overpopulation" now if not for the lack of those three? And it seems that you'd prefer for those three to return, which is definitely misanthropical.
> Rampant consumerism and overconsumption
Again, you're focusing on your own little bubble of 1 person in 7. Go to Bangladesh or rural India and talk about "overconsumption" and "fulfilling simpler life" there. There are lots of reasons why people run into crowded cities and sweatshops from their "simple" rural lives. I imagine it can be quite hard to understand those reasons when you only see life in the US.
> Our entire modern system runs on unsustainable levels of energy consumption
And this is the main premise of this entire worldview. It's also objectively false, we already have countries on this planet taking most of their electricity from non-fossil sources, i.e. France or Norway. Besides, you seem to forget that those "simple" societies deforested most of Europe to burn the wood as an energy source, and we transitioned from that to fossils which is arguably an improvement. I don't see any fundamental, unsurmountable reason why we can't transition again, now from fossils to nuclear and renewables.