Comment by kypro
7 hours ago
I think the fundamental problem is the conflict between climate, family and live-style vs corporate interest and economic growth.
Ideally, we should want populations that are either not growing or slowly shrinking, but we can't have this because multi-national corporations don't want to invest in countries with a declining consumer base. We must therefore sustain population growth indefinitely.
Similar humans would presumably prefer more space – perhaps a home with a few bedrooms and a decent sized garden where they can grow a little food and the kids and play in the summer. But we can't have this because it's more economically productive if we increase population density such that people increasingly live in small flats within high-rise buildings with no gardens and little natural light.
And I get it, money is nice... People will trade a lot of things for more money, but the government ideally should not encourage this.
Ideally the government should be encouraging people to have a home with a garden. To have a couple of kids. To grow some of their own food. To work in their local community, and therefore obtain an education which will help them to be productive members of their community – rather than say taking a punt at studying journalism at university and hoping they'll get a job in some city 200 miles from home and their family.
Just speaking personally, the city I grew up in in the UK has become hell to live in over the last couple of decades. It's almost impossible to drive around today because of densification which has taken place. All of the local fields that I played on as a kid have been turned into cheap flats which has transformed the semi-rural area I used to live into an ugly anti-human concrete jungle. And because of the number of people now living around here no one seems to know anyone anymore – I walk outside my house and it feels like there's random people everywhere, and I've noticed many people around me don't even seem to speak English anymore.
It's such a strange thing we are doing... It really makes no sense for us to want to live like this.
Makes sense if you want to make money, and have money enough to not have to suffer the worst of it yourself. Of course, nobody voted for it, but those that promised not to do it and did it anyway were democratically elected, so only a fascist would take issue with it surely.