Interesting in this context is completely divorced from morally good/bad. Could be any group from any area at any time in history. I’ll start with a few, followers of the cult of pythagoras, contemporary black Hebrew Israelites, antiracist skinheads and the Amish (neo-luddites in general). Don’t be racist or a prick to other people discussing.
We’ve yet to poison the earth to the same level as those photosynthesizing microorganisms that caused the first known mass extinction. I mean the O’Neal cylinders would be a tough one but the rest is well within our grasp today, particularly if we were motivated enough. Honestly it’s just that the economy is built for older very inefficient systems so deploying something new at such a large scale just doesn’t have the demand currently or the trust. Factories take decades to replace and so on. With a hot fire under our ass we could retool the system in the matter of a few short years.
I mean yeah everyone switching to a plant based diet that’s grown locally and in season, switching as many jobs to work at home, and so on would be great and we could nearly flip a switch for a lot of optimizations. I guess we could impose a two child policy globally and that would about handle it. I say just let things take the course that it’s already going, just optimize what we can.
For an updated infrastructure and strong urbanization aka decrease suburbs and rural areas and place urban centers in advantageous locations we are no where near the carrying capacity if we were efficient about it. Our current predicament is caused by fractured and poor planning, placing opulent cities in the hottest of desserts is a good example of a dumb thing we’ve done multiple times globally.
Real life though, if we just charged for everything what it actually costs including environmental impact the problem would solve itself. $5 ground beef would be $50, the cost of dumping unrecyclable waste would skyrocket for individuals and companies alike. Sure as shit people would have fewer kids as well.
I mean maybe in a million years I poisons will bear fruit with new lifeforms but I kinda want the earth to be compatible with us. We have a massive divide though is space habitation. I don’t think we even know if it is possible in any sustainable way. In addition the economic solution you have ignores the massive wealth disparity at the core of almost all our modern problems. I don’t see further discourse as worth it as we are too different in our core truths here. I me we can do things better sure but we don’t and our history indicates we likely won’t.
You want to decrease the population by 7.3 billion. That’s not happening quickly and if it is then a lot of awful and unfortunate things will need to happen, namely death, starvation, disease, poverty, war, and the like.
The only real way we are managing this is through technology. Kinda paradoxical that technology gave us the capacity to get into this mess and is our way out but will likely cause other issues we will need to fix with yet again better tech.
yeah it will take time but it is a guaranteed an necessary thing to do while technology is a maybe and will happen regardless to. technology does not advance faster because we have more humans.
I mean more people literally means more technological advancement, more universities, more experimentation, more engineers, more ideas tested and developed.
I’m not sure how you think we would exactly motivate a global depopulation short of something extremely unpleasant aka the example I gave of just charging the actual cost for products and services. Maybe a one child policy and you kill the extra children and one of the parents for breaching the rule. Good luck roping the rich and powerful or developing nations into this. At least developing nations with a high fertility rate will (and do) argue that they should not be punished for the misdeeds of others.
Not from my experience. It means more beuracracy and more competition. I think we would be far advanced if not for the fact that scientists now write a paper for every experiment because that is how the treadmill works. We are literally buring out geniuses in our humanity. We need to get back to where people did not see education as the only way to a decent life and only those actually motivated by obsession with how the natural world works to be going off and doing that stuff. The motivation is already there. People already intentionally do not have kids and kids already are wondering what possesed their parents to have kids with the way the world is. That will continue to grow as things get worse and from what I have observed those wanting things back the way they were doing things that just make it worse for the ordinary person. I hope we get our act together sustainably wise but that won’t change our situation and we still will need to degrow. Maybe some pie in the sky scifi tech could save us but maybe jesus will fix it all to.