But humans can clearly survive on a local diet pretty much everywhere
That’s subsistence living. No one wants to go back to that. Nor is anyone stopping you from living that way. Land is cheap in the middle of nowhere. Communes exist everywhere.
People already love to eat or order out. You could have a cafeteria
A communal cafeteria isn’t what people do when “going out”. If it was what people wanted, there would be more cafeterias and fewer restaurants.
A major driver of this is advertising or “brainwashing” people to buy garbage they don’t need.
It’s easy to think that everyone is sheep except for yourself. I’ve now come to believe that consumerism is fundamental to human nature, not advertising changing humans. The proof is thousands of years of pre capitalism artifacts from archeology sites. People have always liked unnecessary “stuff”. People have always liked fashion and trends. People are going to be rampant consumers even if advertising and marketing were stopped tomorrow. It’s their nature.
I don’t disagree. Like Nietche said: “I shop, therefor I am” haha. Also:
Any argument you make that increases the risk of genocide is wrong.
I agree that hedonism is a fundamental part of human nature, but not exclusively or in this extreme. Lets agree “Extreme Consumerism” on the current level is destructive, genocidal and not healthy for us. People also need a planet to live on, and want a world where their children can grow up without being consumed by advertising, self-marketing or endlessly distracted by tasty nonsense.
Advertising is the primary “infection vector” that makes people think that what they shop is their identity. It also doesn’t require full on socialism to prevent the genocidal effects of unbridled consumerism.
I do believe we can achieve a modest level of hedonism where this “DLS” becomes something more luxurious than our current living standards. Working only 20 hours a week, having a luxury apartment with an awesome look on nature or on a green city. With the current technology, the “one mobile phone and one laptop per person on earth” isn’t more sustainable than a gaming PC.
There are many destructive or abhorrent things that are part of human nature that we as rational individuals want to control in a society. I believe video games or virtual worlds with full “deep dive VR” is where we could explore and satisfy our less savory natures. But we can’t let it influence us like the toxic male teenage gamer culture has by now. The “sheepism” is real, unless you think MAGA is fine. But it’s mostly driven by dire outlook on material conditions.
Fundamentally, we can’t keep going as we have. It doesn’t matter if nobody “wants” the party to stop. It has to. And the study in OP gives us strong evidence that it is possible to achieve at least a decent living standard without exterminating ourselves.
Humans only really need 7 or so fundamental: Food / water, shelter / housing, safety, community, healthcare, communication, education / news. If we can get those with working only very little, living mostly a life of leisure, that’s already luxury. Everything on top of that advanced technology can give us is gravy.
Like building tons of greenhouses to grow food beyond “subsistence farming” locally and using simple farming robots that are not harder to assemble than 3D printers, or genetically engineering food.
What technology can’t give us is a culture where greed and politics doesn’t lead to irrational, undesirable and unequal outcomes. Or maybe our new savior ChatGPT can haha.
That’s subsistence living. No one wants to go back to that. Nor is anyone stopping you from living that way. Land is cheap in the middle of nowhere. Communes exist everywhere.
A communal cafeteria isn’t what people do when “going out”. If it was what people wanted, there would be more cafeterias and fewer restaurants.
It’s easy to think that everyone is sheep except for yourself. I’ve now come to believe that consumerism is fundamental to human nature, not advertising changing humans. The proof is thousands of years of pre capitalism artifacts from archeology sites. People have always liked unnecessary “stuff”. People have always liked fashion and trends. People are going to be rampant consumers even if advertising and marketing were stopped tomorrow. It’s their nature.
I don’t disagree. Like Nietche said: “I shop, therefor I am” haha. Also:
Any argument you make that increases the risk of genocide is wrong.
I agree that hedonism is a fundamental part of human nature, but not exclusively or in this extreme. Lets agree “Extreme Consumerism” on the current level is destructive, genocidal and not healthy for us. People also need a planet to live on, and want a world where their children can grow up without being consumed by advertising, self-marketing or endlessly distracted by tasty nonsense.
Advertising is the primary “infection vector” that makes people think that what they shop is their identity. It also doesn’t require full on socialism to prevent the genocidal effects of unbridled consumerism.
I do believe we can achieve a modest level of hedonism where this “DLS” becomes something more luxurious than our current living standards. Working only 20 hours a week, having a luxury apartment with an awesome look on nature or on a green city. With the current technology, the “one mobile phone and one laptop per person on earth” isn’t more sustainable than a gaming PC.
There are many destructive or abhorrent things that are part of human nature that we as rational individuals want to control in a society. I believe video games or virtual worlds with full “deep dive VR” is where we could explore and satisfy our less savory natures. But we can’t let it influence us like the toxic male teenage gamer culture has by now. The “sheepism” is real, unless you think MAGA is fine. But it’s mostly driven by dire outlook on material conditions.
Fundamentally, we can’t keep going as we have. It doesn’t matter if nobody “wants” the party to stop. It has to. And the study in OP gives us strong evidence that it is possible to achieve at least a decent living standard without exterminating ourselves.
Humans only really need 7 or so fundamental: Food / water, shelter / housing, safety, community, healthcare, communication, education / news. If we can get those with working only very little, living mostly a life of leisure, that’s already luxury. Everything on top of that advanced technology can give us is gravy.
Like building tons of greenhouses to grow food beyond “subsistence farming” locally and using simple farming robots that are not harder to assemble than 3D printers, or genetically engineering food.
What technology can’t give us is a culture where greed and politics doesn’t lead to irrational, undesirable and unequal outcomes. Or maybe our new savior ChatGPT can haha.