Quote:
Originally Posted by sendler
"Instead of a divorce between society and nature, one should rather pursue couple’s therapy to reconcile one with the other, namely figuring out how to ensure the provision of what is required for the “good life” following a principle of prudent stewardship and non-exploitation. The issues we find ourselves in can be solved backward by acting on the elements that created the problem in the first place, namely the choice of countries to pursue economic growth at all social ecological costs. It is the end of the battle of the de-words, and decoupling has lost. Now that the oven is warm, what degrowth thinkers should focus on is finding ingredients (policies) and recipes (transition scenarios) as to make sure the societal project of degrowth results in a delicious cake."
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A plan that doesn't account for human nature is no plan at all.
We're able to have all of our technology and creature comforts rather than live in caves and die at the age of 23 because we're not content to leave things be. Everything has to be explored, and nothing is good enough.
Getting all of humanity to limit exploration is like getting me to purposely not get any better at ping pong. When I play ping pong, I'm always trying to do better. It would be virtually impossible for me to choose a skill level and play at that level, never trying to improve a single thing upon it, not only not trying to improve, but actively making sure I don't.
The one area I think we can/will conserve resources is in reducing overall population. Raising children is a huge burden in modern society, and that's evidenced by reduced birth rates in the most developed nations.
I'm not saying the problem will be entirely solved by a natural shrinking of the population, but I believe it will be the main "solution".
Humanity will never choose "simple" on a large scale, or for long periods of time. Simplification would be a social fad, not something integrated into the DNA of our being.
Of course, we can't consume what doesn't exist. To that end, simplification may not be a choice, but then again I don't think it ever was.