• masquenox@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      What standard of living do you consider “all things being equal”?

      I don’t consider “standards of living” - period.

      I consider this.

      • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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        1 year ago

        That’s literally an article about how they don’t have enough water. Yes, the rich are using twice as much as the poor and it would go further if it was distributed more evenly but the fact remains that there’s a finite amount that is not sustainable beyond a certain population.

        • masquenox@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          This…

          All things being equal (and that’s the important factor) there is next-to-no chance of us ever reaching such a bizarre amount of people

          …just went completely over your head, didn’t it?

          • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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            1 year ago

            No? The article says rich people are using 2x as much water as poor people - 50% vs 23% and they are already having water problems. Assuming the water consumption was evened out this leaves the population room to go up no more than 4x what it is now even with equal consumption. That’s hardly out of the realm of possibility considering the population already has gone up 8x since 1950

            • masquenox@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              The article says rich people are using 2x as much water as poor people domestically.

              FTFY. That’s just household use, Clyde. We haven’t even started with the water usage that makes the rich rich - ie, the private ownership of industry and commerce (which, of course, externalizes the destruction of water resources).

              That’s hardly out of the realm of possibility considering the population already has gone up 8x since 1950

              That kind of population growth is a thing of the past. The only way to successfully reverse that would be by design - such as the measures taken by certain aspects of the US political establishment to enforce patriarchal norms through institutionalized violence (ie, the criminalization of women’s healthcare).

              • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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                1 year ago

                Water used for industry is still going to be used regardless of who controls that industry. Poor people can be just as greedy as rich ones, they just don’t have a means to act on it.

                Population growth has slowed but it has not stopped. Even at 1 or 2 % per year it will be only a few generations before it becomes an issue. 1% of 6,000,000 people is a lot more than 1% of 600,000.

                • masquenox@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Water used for industry is still going to be used regardless of who controls that industry.

                  Absolutely not. Pretending that capitalism doesn’t work the way capitalism works is a certain dead-end for your argument.

                  they just don’t have a means to act on it.

                  That is one piss-poor justification for the status quo.

                  Population growth has slowed but it has not stopped.

                  The people at the top aren’t worried about population growth these days, Clyde - they are worried about population reversal. You wanna know why?

                  • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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                    1 year ago

                    Absolutely not. Pretending that capitalism doesn’t work the way capitalism works is a certain dead-end for your argument.

                    Wtf does that even mean?. The point is there will still be a demand for goods whether it’s produced by a farm/factory owned by one individual or a collective of workers. They’ll still be consuming the water.

                    That is one piss-poor justification for the status quo.

                    I’m not justifying anything. All I’m trying to do is explain to you that resources are finite and too many people will burn through them. If you don’t think poor people can be greedy and wasteful then I encourage you to get out more.

                    The people at the top aren’t worried about population growth these days, Clyde - they are worried about population reversal. You wanna know why?

                    The only reason I ever hear for that is from racists because it’s the white people that slowed down the most. Population projections for the world do not show a decline. Unless of course you take the lack of resources into account…