this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2023
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I'm all for an individual decreasing their own consumption for the environment. I try to do that. But decreasing someone else's quality of life is where it gets dicy. You can very easily get discrimination.
Put a high upper limit only. Don't touch the bottomline.
For example, no more than 4 cars per person: Average Joe won't even know this rule exists but it will still reduce mineral mining due to people who collect cars.
Possible problems with my shitty example: Now a car is a controlled substance. Who decides the limit and how? What if there is a mental disease (with a better example this would make more sense) which requires a person to have 20 cars?
I believe that's called Clarkson's Disease and mostly affects lovable assholes.
I think a better solution is to give everyone less reasons to need and use cars, that a ban becomes unnecessary. But if we're putting limits on things to reduce their consumption, that's what excise taxes are for, most places already do it for fuel.
And of course there could always be taxation relative to a person or company's environmental impact. People get angry at this one.
Hell yeah, 100% tax over certain net worth.
NO JAY LENO NOOOOO WE CAN'T SEND JAY LENO TO THE GULAG NOOOO
Cars already have defined limits. You already have to have insurance, for example. They are already registered in a person's name. This could be actually easily implemented.
degrowth doesn't mean worse quality of life, in many instances it very much increases quality of life.
would you not prefer to work half as much as you do? we can have that with degrowth.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding degrowth. Is it trying to decrease GDP? How does it do that? Or is it moreso increased worker rights and protections with decreased GDP growth as a byproduct? Because I'm all for the second version.
IMO Degrowth would have to start with finding better, less destructive metrics than GDP to measure and plan economic prosperity with
There is an abundance of other methods and actual economists use those other methods.
I believe that the intent is to shift focus away from material goods, since we have long passed the point of diminishing returns on increasing material wealth increasing individual well-being, and focusing on things that actually do improve it, which our system overall neglects. That would be things like meaningful work, community, art, leisure, et cetera. In short, the things that make us happy, but which GDP doesn’t measure.
That makes sense. Those activities are still adding value, but not usually taken into account in economic metrics.
at least to my understanding degrowth is about not doing things that are ultimately not actually productive for our quality of life, the prime example being the clothing industry which churns out more clothes than we would ever need every year and literally just throws it in the garbage, going so far as cutting things up just so people won't fish it out of the container and wear it without paying.
There are a ton of things like that, which basically only serve to enrich the already wealthy, and if we stop doing that shit and just give people what they need to live regardless of if they have an employment, we can all enjoy life more while also being more sustainable.
The solarpunk movement shows one take on what degrowth can look like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarpunk
Yeah, but if everyone decreases work, you get less production and less stuff, and then increased poverty. It's easy to say more stuff isn't always better from the comfort of the Internet, but the truth is that abundance of material production is responsible for the relative extreme wealth we do have today.
Not really.
You mean the poverty we already have thanks to capitalism?
Yes, really.
And poverty is many many times lower today than it was a few hundred years ago before capitalism. Even entertaining the idea that it's not is completely insane. Capitalism correlates extremely strongly with low poverty country to country within a single time period, as well. 2023, for example.
No. Not really.
Did you come up with this galaxy-brained tripe before or after considering the crushing 3rd world poverty that sustains global capitalism?
According to whom, Clyde? Capitalists?
If your argument is basically just conspiracy theory, than I don't know what to tell you.
You're not proving anything, just stating vague and baseless claims, and concluding they mean what you want them to mean.
They're responding to such meaningless bullshit in an entirely appropriate way. If you want a discussion, you need to have something to discuss.
Capitalism is a conspiracy theory now?
Hold on... I need to fetch the popcorn. Your little right-wing logic pretzel is about to go full Chernobyl.
Who said anything about decreasing quality of life?
Decreasing someones consumption will likely decrease their quality of life. Assuming they wanted to maximize their quality of life, they would consume what would do that. Though there are exceptions, like limiting addiction or short range fights.
Lemme give you a very small concrete example where reduced consumption will not alter the quality of life.
Take a small neighbourhood, maybe 10ish families there. Everybody in that neighbourhood has basic tools that they use maybe once a month or less. Hammers, screwdrivers, spanners, etc. Instead of each family having those tools, have a tool library where you have 2-3 of each tool. Anyone in the neighbourhood can borrow the tools they need when they need them and give them back when done. Congratulations, you've reduced tool consumption by 70-80% with no downsides.
This is just one small example, but there are methods for more efficiently allocating resources within communities.
Nothing about capitalism prevents you from doing this. I just looked online and there are multiple apps that let you do this. It’s just a hammer is a relatively inconsequential purchase and fairly cheap. It might take $5 in gas and $20 in lost wages just to save the materials in a $10 tool. Not too mention the administration required to maintain this system. Car sharing though and parking share have become popular though.
You decrease quality of life by increasing travel time and resistance to getting the tools, plus rarely not being able to use a tool because it's in use. But it is an efficiency improvement. Same idea with gymns, everyone can share one place instead of duplicating resources. But then you need to make sure everything gets put away and you need to keep the lights on, so you need to charge for it. All that works under normal markets. It's just not as good as ideal because people take advantage of each other. We need more oversight to minimize that, but I don't think it means throwing out the system.
I don't think walking 1 minute to a library inside your immediate vicinity qualifies as a reduction in QoL. Fair point on the potential very unlikely case of 5 people all needing a screwdriver at the same time, but that can be solved by buying 1-2 extra screwdrivers.
I went to this example specifically because I thought it was not controversial and low-hanging fruit. Nobody is talking about throwing out the system. Book libraries exist, and they haven't caused the downfall of modern civilization. All I'm trying to say here is that even in the context of our modern capitalist reality, there are ways of reducing consumption without any aggreived parties that we're just not doing.
I have seen what other people do to communal tools. I bought my own tools because I know they will function and actually exist every time I need them.
I will not stop you from sharing tools, don’t stop me from using the fruits of my labor to buy my own tools.
Could you elaborate a bit on that? I used to be part of a maker space and the tools were generally well cared for, and members normally donated anything we were missing
The biggest thing is tools just going missing. Joe brings it home to work on whatever and never brings it back. It's pretty common with hand tools if people are allowed to bring them to their homes.
Other common problems are people not caring for stuff properly. Not changing the oil on lawn mowers, for example.
All that means is that you need a robust maintenance and tracking / checkout system.
I already have a robust maintenance and tracking system. The tools live on a specific shelf and they return to that shelf when unused. When spring rolls around, the lawn mower is getting its oil changed too.
As I said, I won't prevent you from using communal tools, don't prevent me from using the fruits of my labor to purchase my own tools. One would think we could agree that is a fair system to all.
Could you link?
Or not going into store to buy a new knife every time previous one dulls and just sharpening it instead somehow decreases quality of life. TIL.
What a dumb oversimplification disguised as a gotcha
Riiight... because the sugary sewage water sold by Coke and Pepsi is so vital for life, eh?
So you're going to ban products that you personally don't like? Or anything that isn't strictly utilitarian? No flavour in our drinks, no snacks, no smoking, no anything else...
You barely have any flavor in your drinks right now. Do you even know what real orange juice tastes like?
Tell you what... after we get rid of all the class-enemies and collectivised everyone's toothbrushes we'll decriminalize cocaine, okay?
It won't be communism... but everyone will be too high to care - which is close enough.
Are you suggesting I've never had oranges squeezed then drunk the juice? What an absolutely bizarre assumption.
I'm fascinated to be honest, like at some point you've had fresh orange juice and it was such a magical experience you can't imagine anyone else living through it? Or you found a dusty shack in the woods where a wizened old man let you use the juicer hes been hiding ever since whatever dystopian hell you're from banned them.
Fresh orange is pretty good, I very much recommend spending a day in a spanish orange grove, smoking weed, listening to miles Davis and drinking fresh orange over ice. The stuff in bottles is pretty much as good, in the US they do frozen concentrate which is really good because it's frozen when fresh so you still get all the nutrition and taste plus it takes up less volume so easier to transport and better for the environment.
By almost as good I mean like good stuff is a tier, fresh off the tree on a sunny day is a tier
Not really - but it's merely one example of many.
FTFY.
That's not how that works, btw.
I would argue that a lot of consumption, at least in "developed" nations, is driven by artificial demand. Some examples: the tobacco industry, the invention of "halitosis," bottled water, planned obsolescence. So much of what we produce doesn't raise, and often lowers, quality of life. Having to meet these levels of demand is deleterious directly and indirectly; being overworked and living in a polluted environment also lowers quality of life.
But that's not really the point. Viewing quality of life as identical to consumption is pathological and borderline offensive. If you want to increase your quality of life, spend more time with your friends, family, and neighbors. Create in ways that inspire you. Rest and relax. Spend more time in the moment. Go outside and visit nature. Volunteer and give back to others. There is so much more to being human than having the latest phone.
I absolutely agree about artificial demand, especially in situations of addiction or mental trickery. So I think those should be regulated.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, when you reduce someone else's consumption, you're saying you know better than them what is good for them. That can often be the case, like in gambling, scams, addiction, and a lot of marketing. But it can be dangerous if you don't actually know better than them what's best for them, but think you do.
I guess consumption is a bad word for it. Those activities you mention still have an opportunity cost associated with them, but you're right, they shouldn't really be called consumption. Let's say allocating your effort? People usually know themselves better than someone else how they can allocate their effort for their own good. Limiting how they can do that should only be done when you're pretty sure you know better than them what's good for them.
So if I consume 0 bullets with my body instead of 4 bullets will somehow decrease my quality of life?
bet you thought you wrote something smart
Yeah, those billionaires will have a hard time to be only allowed millions instead. /s
https://youtu.be/ikJVTrrRnLs