[samarthr1]

The definition of prosperity, atleast to me is that even if something as natural as there being a bit less wind, or a few more clouds, or a small riot in the next town, my life can go on unchanged.

Just knowing that you don't need to plan and budget for scarcity is something that takes an incredible load off my mind.

I come from a place which has seen wide spread blackouts during hot summers, and know that I do not want my children to face that.

Maybe I am being naive here, but to me, the whole point of doing more with less is so that we can bring up the billions of people less fortunate than us, to have the same or better standards of living as usual, not making our standards worse!

The aim should be to grow the pie, not shrink our shares.

[Earw0rm]

Two related but often confused concepts. Standards of living, quality of life.

We definitely need more of the latter, and for it to be distributed more evenly across the globe. The former, however, hits an asymptote. The upper middle classes are, in general, a lot happier than the desperately poor, having perhaps 10x their wealth. Billionaires, who have 1000x more again, aren't much happier.

So the question becomes, if we want to avoid scarcity, how much do we overbuild - such that scarcity is a physical and mathematical impossibility - and how much do we make society a bit more adaptive? A simple example - do we build enough electricity that people are guaranteed to always have enough to charge their heavy EVs, or do we overbuild a bit less, and encourage some percent of the population to work remotely or use light transport at times when energy availability is a little compromised.

I'm here for a prosperity that gives everyone on the planet four weeks' paid vacation each year, hell, why not eight weeks if we can. I'm not so much here for all those vacations being long-haul aviation - it's enormously more impact on the planet for a tiny gain in quality of life.

[samarthr1]

> Two related but often confused concepts. Standards of living, quality of life. > > We definitely need more of the latter, and for it to be distributed more evenly across the globe. The former, however, hits an asymptote. The upper middle classes are, in general, a lot happier than the desperately poor, having perhaps 10x their wealth. Billionaires, who have 1000x more again, aren't much happier. > > So the question becomes, if we want to avoid scarcity, how much do we overbuild - such that scarcity is a physical and mathematical impossibility - and how much do we make society a bit more adaptive? A simple example - do we build enough electricity that people are guaranteed to always have enough to charge their heavy EVs, or do we overbuild a bit less, and encourage some percent of the population to work remotely or use light transport at times when energy availability is a little compromised. > > I'm here for a prosperity that gives everyone on the planet four weeks' paid vacation each year, hell, why not eight weeks if we can. I'm not so much here for all those vacations being long-haul aviation - it's enormously more impact on the planet for a tiny gain in quality of life.

Growing up, I have always wanted to go and spend time in Italy. I am sure that there are countless other folks, from places emerging from the shadows of war, pestilence and suffering with similar dreams.

Who are we to say that no, you should instead go tour only places nearby?

Whenever there is scarcity of anything, the rich rarely suffer, but the farmer in rural rayalseema will go without. I fear that if we bake in this "encouragement" into costs of electricity (say), it is not a software engineer who will go drive in a moped, but a day labourer.

The issue with mopeds is not just that you consume less electricity, but that you put your life at risk!

At the risk of digressing, I am all for getting rid of two wheelers for non recreational use. They are bloody death traps (A person dying on a moped or bike does not even make local news in india). In my family alone, we have lost 3 cousins from my father's side to two wheele accidents) So no, not overbuilding only means that poor suffer more, for no good reason.