RE: Diminishing Marginal Returns...
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Without a doubt, something has to give. It has to give, in the sense that the infrastructure we have for life as it exists right now must change. Everything is so "more, bigger, better, more expensive, more success" oriented that it is almost impossible to to choose that simpler life without having to overcome a lot of resistance.
Here in the USA, I would love to just give up my car and take the bus to work and to the shops, or walk. But the entire system — the construction of our towns and cities — is such that I can't really choose it. I live in the "residential" part of town, and it is 7km just to buy a loaf of bread, and there IS no bus. I can't NOT have health insurance, because no insurance = no service. Or I have to pay 200 USD to talk to a doctor for 15 minutes.
We we really need is the underlying system that keeps us from effectively choosing "less" to change.
Couldn't agree more. I lived my first 24 years in the USA and that trend has always felt like an unsustainable path. Now that I've lived in Europe for over a decade, every time I return you are immediately confronted with the absurdity of the "size" and Scale of many things stateside - perhaps no better example are the massive flags that fly in random courtyards while on the highway. That "we do it bigger" mentality has been there every since I was born and I think that it has a lot to do with the change from manufacturing mentality to consumption led economics. In many ways, I think that some of what Trump's administration has in mind in terms of the need for a complete economic culture change is likely the zeitgeist of the moment, BUT the way that they are going about it is just callus and chaotic. Ironically perhaps it is what rises from all of this chaos that will allow Americans and many other people world to pivot to a more sustainable path forward. No doubt this is an inflection point reminiscent of the fall of the Berlin wall.