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Sure, and I agree that people can't afford to consume as much right this second. The question is what it'll look like in 3 months.


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That's exactly the point. Sooner or later, human consumption is going to hit a wall.

Maybe we can just have people consume twice as much.

You are assuming that people are able to consume 10x more to keep economy going. I would say there's a limit to how much a person is capable to consume. If nothing else you have only 24hrs a day to engage in consuming.

One way or the other, people will be doing their part. Might as well get used to consuming less now before contraction forces the issue.

Not really. It's savers. Which is by definition people who could consume more, but choose to postpone or forego some of this consumption.

Absolutely. The reality is, if people actually cared, they could do a lot by not consuming as much. But they do not and we have to act appropriately.

There's too many people that have less than they want for shrinking consumption to actually happen.

I agree but it seems we’re in minority. I don’t see the rate of consumption decreasing willingly

I predict nothing will change until nature forces it, at which point the damage will be irreversible.

A small fraction of people live the high life, but a large fraction has tasted it, and almost everyone has seen it. Effectively no one is going to cut down on their consumption because they’re calculating (correctly, in my opinion) that even if they do, someone else will step in and consume their portion anyway.


That can be changed far more easily than which planet we live on.

Arguably most people are forced to under-consume, but they’d be happy far below the most conspicuous of over-consumption now happening.


There are quite a few billion people looking forward to the convenience of their own vehicle and living in their own detached house and visiting tropical destinations and eating avocados all year. I do not think any leader is going to be able to placate the population by telling them to consume less to maybe help future generations.

People aren't consuming those on a a daily basis; not really a fair comparison.

yes. consume less of it.

No, people won't consume less, as long as they have the same disposable income. Unless you mean that this will hurt the economy and people will become poorer. In that case yes, they will consume less, but not sure how it can be seen as a nice side effect.

On the other hand, any plan that doesn't call for less consumption is simply going to be inadequate.

Given how destructive we are at 20 TW, I don't want to see what will happen when we consume more.

Halting unsustainable hyper consumption is happening slower than we thought.

Physical space is not the only issue. Your average US adult consumes more than 100 times than an adult from a developing country. Doubling that number would have disastrous consequences for the planet.

While not giving up entirely, I feel like many people, if presented with facts, would be willing to greatly reduce their consumption.
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