Reply #13: Overconsumption is as big a problem [View All]

[The2ndWheel]

Lower birth rates in the developed countries, but those countries consume more.

This is where the two problems come together to create what is basically an unsolvable problem. Well, unless we lower the birth rates and lower the living standards across the globe. Yet if you do one, the other will happen, because our system is based on exponential growth. Now, you could change that system, but then billions of people would die.

It's nice to think that giving women the option to work outside the home, fix poverty, have everyone live artificially long and healthy lives, etc, would make everything smell like flowers and candy. But all those things will help the problem grow. And I'm not saying that women shouldn't have the choice, hell I'm saying that men can't really have that option either. Our whole industrial way of life is the problem, and whatever post-industrial crap they're selling us tomorrow isn't going to work either.