Secondly, you make a lot of assumptions on which you base you reasoning. What if the changes are not that progressive ? What is there is a tipping point ?

Then you also assume thzt we couldn't have done overwise, that our lifestyle and how we achieved it was not only inevitable but the only way it is worth it.

Your part about self starving is espacially revealling of a narrow view deeply rooted, not only in materialism, but also in rejection of the idea anything else would be good for the human specie.

Now i do appreciate the confort of our modern life, but ignoring the price of it, denying the usefulness or even the possibilities of alternatives and promoting the statu quo is very limiting.

Maybe there is maybe there is not. His point is that there is no hope, and that is false.

> Then you also assume thzt we couldn't have done overwise

Please tell me all the cases in human history where large amounts of people voluntary restricted their energy use?

Carbon growth comes from the developing world, and we can do nothing to restrict that.

> Your part about self starving is espacially revealling of a narrow view deeply rooted, not only in materialism, but also in rejection of the idea anything else would be good for the human specie.

If you want to voluntarily starve yourself of energy, go ahead have fun. However suggesting it as a solution for a global problem is a non-starter. Even a western person starving himself of energy will still use many X more then most Indians. An most Indians would like to use as much energy as westerners.

> Now i do appreciate the confort of our modern life, but ignoring the price of it, denying the usefulness or even the possibilities of alternatives and promoting the statu quo is very limiting.

I have never denieded the usefulness of alternatives. All I have said about the status quo is that it is actually saving millions of peoples lives and giving them a higher standard of living. That is often ignored and it should not be, because it misses literally the biggest improvement in human welfare in world history.

The man spent his life in metrics indicating that trend, which made him pessimistic. It's fair. If you see somebody drinking, smoking, and eating burger all life, your wouldn't have much hope either, but to somebody who have just heard about it, not watching it, it seems a "severe" judgment.

> Please tell me all the cases in human history where large amounts of people voluntary restricted their energy use?

> Carbon growth comes from the developing world, and we can do nothing to restrict that.

You could have used the same argument about slavery not so long ago.

"Humanity always've done it. All our achievements used slaves. Our lifestyle is based on slaves. Please tell me all the cases in human history where large amounts of people voluntary restricted their use of slaves ?"

Then we did it this one time.

> If you want to voluntarily starve yourself of energy, go ahead have fun. However suggesting it as a solution for a global problem is a non-starter. Even a western person starving himself of energy will still use many X more then most Indians. An most Indians would like to use as much energy as westerners.

"If you want to voluntarily starve yourself" are such strong worlds. There is a lot of margin between eating meat every day + running all oil engines + changing phones each years + everybody having children... and living in a cave.

Beside, if you have 10 men in a cabin in Artic, and everybody must either poop on the floor or get terrible cold and poop outside, people may poop on the floor for a while. But it's not sustainable. Sooner or later somebody will have to say that they should all go outside. Or find an alternative. And your argument is pretty much "you go first".

> All I have said about the status quo is that it is actually saving millions of peoples lives and giving them a higher standard of living. That is often ignored and it should not be, because it misses literally the biggest improvement in human welfare in world history.

Yes. And now that we've done it this way, we know the price of it. We have the feedback and the scientific knowledge to understand the system we live in, the consequences of exponential growth in a finite system and what our needs are as a specie.

Some very intelligent yet with nothing to gain from it are saying that we are doing very badly. They said it clearly, loudly, respectfully, repeatedly, with strong arguments.

There is nothing more they can do.

It's now our job to act on that.

Well then he was looking at the wrong metrics. Because during that time we observed the largest expansion of human prosperity.

It seems that he deliberately wants to pick these metrics to fit his Anti-Humanist agenda.

> You could have used the same argument about slavery not so long ago.

There are many ways this is a different case. But I don't want to get into a side argument.

> Yes. And now that we've done it this way, we know the price of it. We have the feedback and the scientific knowledge to understand the system we live in, the consequences of exponential growth in a finite system and what our needs are as a specie.

Yes, and what we have learned is that people who don't have energy are very unhappy and die young. So when we think about the future of the species we should not simply think of some abstract species that we need to save globally, rather we should realize the real world constraints such as the benefits of the current system provides for all humans.

So if your solution means depriving lots of people of energy, then first of all that's just cruel. Second it is politically infeasible. Third, reducing human population is a terrible way of making the future better.

I think there are lots solutions out there but HIS point is that he does not believe in these solution because he believes the ONLY way we can solve the problem is by restricting consumption. That is the same 'finite resources' zero sum thinking that has plagued the world for such a long time.