8 hours ago, Gorilla said:Our biology drives us to survive and reproduce. And our brains try to rationalize ways to keep doing so.
To restrict consumption is ultimately to restrict population growth.
Those of us alive, of course can see that the growth can't continue perpetually, and we may impose restrictions on our standards of living. Yet, with growing population, the limit will be hit sooner or later. Whether it will be with 11 billion with current consumerism, or 32 billion with radically rationalized consumerism, or 64 billion with extremely restricted consumerism.
The growth will eventually hit a hard cap. And until it does, there is no motivation to try and expand mankind beyond our relatively limited earth.
We must focus on widening our horizons, instead of artificially curbing our appetites. The cap will be hit sooner or later. The only variable here is the quality of life of those currently living.
We must hit the "rock bottom", before there is any real incentive to change.
Change has always occurred from bottom up, rarely if ever, from top down.
Whether it was the migration period after the fall of Rome, or the restless outreach of the puritan pilgrims, there were always pressing circumstances that forced the outreach, and the eventual change.
In words of Donald Knuth: "Premature Optimization Is the Root of All Evil".
Only fix things once they become an actual problem, a potential, or even eventual problem may not materialize within any given timespan. ( Any given finite span versus a limit tending to infninity ).
I follow the Moskva
Down to Dorney Park