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Notes -
Unironic endorsement of degrowth is something that makes me doubt my own sanity when I read it, because it strikes me as requiring a deeply broken model of the world to not even see how much all of the technology and progress we take for granted is pushed along by an abundance of cheap energy and an ever increasing number of minds who can employ that energy to new tasks.
At least in the case of those who acknowledge the horrors that would result from such activities and then accept them with open eyes, I can see that we simply have fundamental values differences, as much as I think of them irredeemably evil moral mutants from our perspective.
But worse are the OOMs larger number of useful idiots who enable them, the Extinction Rebellion advocates of the world, who think that we can slam the brakes on industry without ruining the QOL of the globe, any hope for a rising tide that raises the boat of the Global South, or even worse, the death of billions from starvation and fighting as the world goes from an iterated positive sum game where, grossly, the average person keeps doing better, to one that's outright negative sum in outlook.
At least the Powers that Be aren't particularly fond of them, for all that they're often bumbling idiots themselves. But you can never rest easy in a democratically run asylum where at any moment the inmates can vote themselves into power.
I wish I could say that the number of people explicitly oriented towards an optimistic vision of the future, like you, me or Kruel, who think that humanity deserves to do better, outnumber the kooks who fervently desire the opposite.
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