Yes, and here you are also assuming "people" is a homogenous group, that the western culture you are from (aren't you ?) is hegemonic.
But looking at how geopolitics are evolving lately, the world is increasingly multipolar, with multiple models of civilization competing. I don't know, maybe India will wake the fuck up before us and thrive, while Europe rots and USA goes down the toilet drain?
I see what you mean, but I think it's true up to a certain point. Without growth, wealth concentration converges to a point where one actor owns everything. This is the perfect recipe for political instability and systemic failure.
Hey.
Most degrowth advocates I've seen or read in France are not talking about lifestyle changes for individuals - or at least, not without radical changes in the organization of society.
I agree that blaming poor people for driving shitty cars and living in poorly insulated buildings is stupid and counter-productive. But that's how ecology is concieved by the ruling political class, not degrowth advocates.
Maybe if everyone had access to roughly the same wealth, market economy could be a good method of balancing economy ?
Not sure I agree with everything, let me rephrase this.
The way I see it, capitalism is a way of organizing an economic system that is based on accumulation of wealth (capital). Instead of sitting idle, capital is injected back into the economy through investment, with the promise of a juicy return on investment (and also, it gives power to those who own capital for they decide who gets investment).
For this juicy ROI to be possible, economic growth is a necessity - you can't give back more to your lenders if what you did with the investment didn't generate more value than the investment itself. So economic growth is at the very heart of capitalism.
When the market comes to a saturation point, growth starts to slow down. So you have two options:
In the end, I don't see consumerism as an ideal for a society, but rather the logical consequence of an economic system reified as an ideal. It doesn't mean something similar couldn't exist in another economic model, but I don't think it can be separated from capitalism.
This is wrong on so many levels ... Leaving aside the trollish sociopathic nature of the comment, the billion who will die does not pollute much, so it won't make much difference for those who survive and keep on gulping fossils and materials.
... or maybe switch to a less water intensive form of agriculture ?
Edit : I mean, how sustaining a wasteful practice with a huge wasteful infrastructure is progress ?
Hey there. As a non-architect interested in self-built housing, I found the barefoot architect quite interesting. I see this book as grassroot, community oriented architecture and urban planification (on a small scale). Maybe you'll find some inspiration here?
Also, I don't know where you're from, but in some countries legislation makes it mandatory to have and architect review what you plan to build - maybe with your expertise and your ability to sign construction plans, you could assist self-builders in their projects?
Of course I'm making this shit up, that's the whole point. Because I don't know what tomorrow is made of. And I'm just pointing out that OP doesn't know either.
He is pontificating about how things cannot change, how he got everything figured out, but in the end he is just a random guy on the internet talking out of his ass, like all of us.