sigh

Well, yes. But that'd require fair, sensible distribution and use of available resources, and then how would we be able to support the ability of a handful of billionaires to subvert our democracies for their own gain? /s

How does that quote go? Something like: the future is here, it's just unevenly distributed.

We wanted Star Trek, but we got Shadowrun.
- Where's me cyberdeck

I've seen this before. Last time I looked, it required that everyone live in cities with good public transportation. It also didn't factor in modern necessities like air conditioning (which will be actually necessary in many more parts of the world due to global warming).

Basically, for this to work, everyone needs to live in 2-bedroom apartments... Without air conditioning or anything like a desktop PC. You'd have a small refrigerator and heat your food with a microwave (and nothing else because stovetop and ovens use up too much energy).

It also makes huge assumptions about the availability of food, where it can be grown, and that all the necessary nutrients/fertilizer are already present in the soil and that transporting/processing things like grain is super short distance/cheap.

Also, communism. It requires functioning communism. That everyone will be ok with it and there will be no wars over resources/land.

It requires strict rationing. Everyone gets their fair share, and no one gets multiples of what other people get.
- Not only that, but all 8.5 billion would also need to be willing to stop any "lifestyle inflation". It's not just about accepting it for a day, it's about adjusting to that being the norm for themselves and for their kids into the foreseeable future.
Kind of what I was getting at with my comments. The median standard of living doesn't have to be bad or even particularly uncomfortable, but it would require everyone who lives above that median to be knocked down to it and be okay with that. Which they won't. Meaning it will require force.
Thats the part that sucks. For super poor people this is great. For those of us already in a decent house, it would be a lot worse. I For one cant live in apartments, unless I was absolutely close to homeless.
Although, if we took the billionaires down a notch I bet a lot more people could also have houses.
- would you not accept going from a house to something less decent if it came with the likelihood that everyone in the world would have housing, food, and security?
Yes this lowest-common-denominator life we’d all be living would save billions suffering through abject poverty but none of those people are here, reading this right now. Everyone reading this would probably see a lifestyle decline. I always have to laugh when anyone in Europe or the US blab as if they are part of the 90%. We are 10%ers every one of us.
The only problem is really consent and the propaganda against these goals. E.g. Air conditioning or cooking is rather nitpicking, those are not real issues, technological advances and passive house design would easily solve that. With Kite Power you already have unlimited energy.
And you could build a huge apartment block surrounded by nature, growing food directly around you and sharing infrastructure. Everyone could get a luxurious apartment with high ceilings and a killer view for everyone. If drastically less people need to commute to work, we wouldn't need to live in a city. You could also have communal kitchens or diners or cafeteria.
The greatest luxury of all would be to have free time. To enjoy life, to study and learn for free, to raise your children in peace. Not consumerism. Let the masses produce VR games if they have too much free time.
I also disagree that it requires full on communism, a UBI or expanded bill of rights for the human necessities to reach a decent living standard (DLS) could work too. You'd just heavily regulate, ban industrial meat production, bad advertising to avoid consumerism etc.
- Air conditioning or cooking is rather nitpicking, those are not real issues, technological advances and passive house design would easily solve that.
  The entire world doesn't have the climate of Japan where it's possible to live in an apartment without AC and heat. No amount of design can ameliorate 38C high humidity.
  growing food directly around you
  Only a subset of food can be grown locally and that local food is only available seasonally. It's the system we already have.
  You could also have communal kitchens or diners or cafeteria.
  That's not a technological solution to cooking. That's social which is far harder if not impossible to overcome.
  The greatest luxury of all would be to have free time.
  That doesn't follow. The same work needs to be done, if not more because reducing energy means reducing automation so people have to work to make up the difference.
or anything like a desktop PC
gulp
- This doesn't mean we wouldn't have access to computers. We just wouldn't individually have personal computers all to ourselves unless you were someone who actually worked in the tech industry and needed constant access to perform your job duties.
A planned economy that functions at optimum efficiency is a communists wet dream of course.

We are living in a false-scarcity society when we could be living in a post-scarcity one.

This a thousand times. The world is throwing away resources at an astounding rate while people are sick, homeless and starving because of numbers on digital ledgers. We need to drop the whole idea of money. It's served its purpose, run its course and has since turned into a life on this planet threatening perversion.
- I think money existed well before false-scarcity. It is the wrong enemy. I know close to nothing about economy so I would trust economists like Varoufakis and the like.

What are "Decent Living Standards?"

I'd bet that they're at least one step down from what the usual Westerner is accustomed to.

I bet you are basing your concept of the "usual" Westerner on your own experience, and you might be surprised at how the actual average person lives even in the "West".
But to answer your question, the article defines decent living standards as:
nutritious food, modern housing, healthcare, education, electricity, clean-cooking stoves, sanitation systems, clothing, washing machines, refrigeration, heating/cooling, computers, mobile phones, internet, transit, etc.
Nutritious food is unavailable to an alarming number of Americans, transit is a mess and almost exclusively car-centered, healthcare and education are severely stratified along economic conditions, and almost everything on that list is a commodity. The USA has sanitation systems almost everywhere, but that's just because rich poop and poor poop all smells like poop. Wherever the wealthy can isolate their own sanitation, they do.
That's exactly what the article proposed:
'Drawing on recent empirical evidence, we show that ending poverty and ensuring decent living standards (DLS) for all, with a full range of necessary goods and services (a standard that approximately 80% of the world population presently does not achieve) can be provisioned for a projected population of 8.5 billion people in 2050 with around 30% of existing productive capacity, depending on our assumptions about distribution and technological deployment. "
So if you and everyone are willing to live on 30% less "money", worldwide poverty would be eliminated.
- That is definitely not what is presented in what you quoted.
  Out of our current productive capabilities (how much money is "created" if you want), we would only need 30% of it to get 8.5 billion people to a "decent living standard".
  That isnt a 30% reduction, it's only needing to make 30% of what we already are doing.
If we take all the type of living standards into consideration from all over the world
Then I guess the median living standards would be the living standards of the middle class people of countries like Indian, Brazil and all (the developing countries basically)

"I have a magical reality-changing glove. Should I change the nature of beings to want to share for the benefit of all? Nah, I'm gonna remove a random half of them from existence. It's clearly the ONLY thing I could possibly do to solve the problem! I'm so smart and awesome!"

yeah the false dichotomy represented by Thanos is the propaganda.
Changing people to share wouldn't stop environmental collapse caused by overpopulation.
He wanted people to see the improvement and freely choose to not repeat the problem.
- Fine, then he can change it so people only need half the resources. There are innumerable other options that don't involve killing people when you have a reality altering glove.

I'm skeptical. I just skimmed the paper, but most of it seems to be taking a financial/macro-economic perspective without too much analysis on individual resources availability and the damage just current levels of output are causing to our environment/resources. I've seen other research that claim we are already over the carrying capacity of Earth, some say by a large margin (e.g. carrying capacity is 2 billion people). I'm pretty sure humans are already using (and degrading) the majority of Earth's arable land, for instance.

This is a major flaw in science and basic economic comprehension. You could grow enough potatoes to feed the world enough calories with just the area of France. We could build huge apartment blocks surrounded by farmland and connected via tiny mono rails. We could build apartments and appliances and computers that last for a century. We could genetically engineer microalgae to taste like pancake butter. If we half the number of required workers, we'd save a mountain of resources on commute. We could design everything to be recyclable. Wind energy with Kites Power gives us near unlimited energy. Our footprint could be tiny but with the luxury of free time, learning, arts and living in a community and in nature.
We are nowhere near carrying capacity, we're just over because we waste so much on consumerism, planned obsolescence, unsustainable crops and artificial scarcity.
Our civilization is a fucking joke but science treats current conditions as if they were normal and immutable.
- Scientists know we need to change but unfortunately if we don't present our research in terms of how it will benefit the economy, those who actually control if things will change simply ignore it because their power of authority is based on the strength of the economy.
  It really fucking sucks. I have a degree in conservation science, and we were literally taught to always consider the economic perspective because that's literally the only part anyone with any power to affect legislation or industry practices will pay attention to it.
Be a lot less far from carrying capacity if people even tried to be sustainable.):

So farm less cattle and get away from fossil fuels.

We have already enough resources for everyone. It is just that the 1% is hoarding all of it.

Does anybody have sources around this stat? I fully believe it, but I'd like to have references to point to for myself in the future

There's a source in the image. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452292924000493
- Oh good to know i just don't know how to read

I saw this infographic posted a few days ago and it's a bit misleading. The percentages are based on biomass, not population. I also don't remember what the original source is, and it looks like it got cropped off the one you posted here. If you remember the source, could you link it?
- Oh I got it from here but I tracked it down with a Google search.
  I can't say if this is the original source but maybe. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-study
  Biomass VS population makes some sense though. Having a million ants would be sure, lots, but having a million elephants would be WTF wholy shit!
Yes, and combined with the data presented by OP, we can readily see that this absolutely does not need to be the case.
Combine these again with food waste data and you will see that the majority of those animals will be slaughtered only for the products made from them to wind up being thrown away without ever having been used. We (capitalist owners of industry) demand the slaughter of these animals en masse knowing full well that most of what comes from the act won't sell simply because there is a slim chance that it might sell, and we (society as a whole which has the capability of governance) have failed to make it cost prohibitive to do so. It's fucking disgusting.
There is absolutely no justification, other than to chase the profit incentive which I do not consider valid, for our practices in animal husbandry that have led to the overpopulation of certain species.
- Yeah the picture doesn't really present the issue. The 60% livestock isn't comparable to wild life. It's much worse than that.
  I could also say that 100% of bricks are man made and there are no wild bricks.
  Similarly, live stock is a product, that shouldn't and wouldn't exist in the first place. It does not represent animals in a way that is comparable to wild life that have full lives.
  The 60% livestock does not live long happy lives. It's constantly being replaced by new livestock.
  So sure at any given moment there might be 60% mass of animals classified as livestock, but if we were to count the actual number of animals over a year, it would be closer to 100%.

I agree with this, but I still feel there are too many people. Like we don't need 8.5 billion. We could use so much less stuff if we just stopped fucking so much. We could REDUCE the size of our grid significantly. That seems like a good goal.

Btw genocide is a dumb way to achieve this. Plenty easy to just let people live to death since you can provide for 3x the number of people.

Edit: I thought I made it clear with the above line, but I'm not suggesting fucking eugenics. How do you get that from what I said..? I literally specified the fucking opposite. Unless people view any form of population controls in any sense to be eugenics. Which is just fucking braindead.

Providing people with high standard of living lowers birth rates. It's a well established effect, every single country with high standard of living has low birthrates. Providing people with sexual education and sexual health also lowers birth rates. Educated people that have easy access to birth control will have fewer children.
Provide people with education and things they need and overpopulation is an issue that fixes itself.
- That sounds like a great way to reduce the population. I don't understand why when I say that we should have less people, everyone assumes I mean like next year. Fucking generations away we will have less people. That's good. We don't have to abuse or hurt or even cajole people into it.
- Congratulations, now you are depleting our planet's resources even faster.
You can't just declare that there are too many people and then expect some other faceless masses to go do the dying somewhere else. If you actually want to lower birth rates, you need to invest in public education and healthcare, and you need to have a plan to care for the unbalanced number of elderly retirees.
- Did I say we don't fucking do that? Did I say that I expect some faceless group to be shot in the hills? Or was that your first thought as to the only solution possible?
  Really it just speaks to your own mind.
I think im the only one who agrees with you...we don't need this many people, and no one asks to be born. This doesn't mean we kill off people already here at all. Just stop feeling like kids are a requirement to live, or adopt.
Think about it. One person. Has 4 kids. Each kid wants their own house. Then each of those kids has kids that want their own house. None of that is sustainable. We wouldn't have to all live in 1 bedroom apartments if there were less people.
- I agree. The earth's population has nearly doubled since I was a kid, with no particular planning or preparation, and now that food and housing shortages have gotten unbearably bad, we're told that we can't go back to having less people or everything will collapse, as though the planet is a MLM company.
The most effective way of population control is education, curbing of religious influences and raising of living standards. Just look up "demographic change". In the 1880, German fertility rates were between 5.5 and 5. That's on par with modern day Niger and Mali, some of the most fertile nations in the world. As soon as the mortality rates of German children dropped and a social net was established, rates fell. And this has happened all over the world. Unless we get taken in by abrahamic fertility cults again, a healthier, better educated and equal society will stabilize the world's population at around 9 billion. And we can easily support them, if we work towards it. No need for pseudoeugenics or other population control mechanisms.

Our problem is distribution. It's a hard problem to solve but it's much better than the easy solution.

The problem stopping distribution to where stuff is needed is money, the people who have it, the people who owe it, the funny patterns it makes on stock markets, in hedge funds etc.
Money was ok as a means to allow people to exchange their different trades into things they need to live. But it has moved so far beyond that it has become ridiculous.

It's over, I've made you into the Adidas tracksuit wojak and me into the cute nonbinary vibes wojak

The problem is a combination of intrinsic psychological biases of those with means. Once they reach a certain threshold, they become driven to keep accumulating until they own everything. Gotta catch 'em all.

This threshold is likely different for everyone, and may not be related to other thresholds of accumulation, such as:

When you have everything you want, except to upscale your stuff.
When you make more money than you can spend on personal expenses, including renting Venice for a wedding.
When you make more then you can spend [on large business transactions, unrelated to the] threshold where you can't possibly spend all your income without purchasing billion-dollar companies

Some capitalists are self aware enough to recognize the impulse is not sustainable, (also that profits are better had with happy workers) which often comes from having risen to wealth from more modest means. (But not always).

At any rate, rich dudes who drop billions into massive public improvement projects are rare, and when they do they tend to see it as revenue source, or at least something to exploit to improve their brand image.

So the next step for society is to discover a sociological technique that allows rich guys to think I have enough, to drop their surplus into the hands of the community (say the general fund of the local governing body)

That or accept that we are too simple a species to navigate some very imminent great filters. We may not count as a space-faring civilization that might encounter other space-faring civilizations.

This is not a new idea. Fourth International–Posadism opined that developing communism (or a refinement thereof) would be a prerequisite for space colonization. I'd argue changing from capitalism is a prerequisite for societal sustainability more than a couple of centuries from now.

We have more than enough to make sure everyone has more than enough. Poverty is deliberate and premeditated.

Resources aren't evenly distributed naturally, some area may not have enough resources.

It takes more resources to get more resources, we may be measuring 30% of total resources, but not 30% of resource capacity.

I'm fine with population control, but it should be implemented willingly at an individual level, and pushed via education and community acceptance. I catch a small amount of flak for not having kids, but wife catches a lot more.

Not sure what you're trying to say, but the paper assumes current population trends and means 30% of currently available resources in 2025 would be enough to give everyone a decent living standard (DLS) in 2050. We have everything we need to do this right now.
A replacement birthrate leads to a more stable society. The elderly who are unable to work and ill need to be cared for. If ever fewer young and able people have to take care of ever more elderly, it won’t have a good outcome. Not having children of your own is being a burden on society.
- Not having children of your own is being a burden on society.
  damn, don't replace anti-natalism with forced natalism. Thanks.
- A replacement birthrate leads to a more stable society
  Only if you assume that the amount of production for a hour of labor stays the same. Workers today accomplish much more in a given time period than workers 65 years ago. The problem is that value is horded instead of being made available to the people that created it.
- If ever fewer young and able people have to take care of ever more elderly, it won’t have a good outcome.
  It takes fewer resources to care for elderly than raise children. Not raising a child means there's a surplus to care for the elderly. Then the elderly die leaving more surplus behind. It's not only a theoretical based on money but we have all of history that shows this truth. For example WW2 killed the most productive members of society leaving only the elderly to be cared for. The result was a global economic boom.

No no, there Are too many people... just of a specific social class.

Not once have I cried for a dead fascist. But I'm sure there is one that will bring me to tears, gotta keep trying.
- Fascists, Oligarchs, go through them all and you'll find a reason to shed tears at the end.

How do we know who to give food to of people aren't competing against each other to hoard as much wealth as they can?

Earlobe to bellybutton depth ratio. If the number is odd, you get tacos. If it's even, you get tacos. Other options also available.

Scholars, the real deal, are rare for a reason - few people choose knowledge over wealth and power. There lies the crux of the matter, since anyone who pursues the other two paths would be the antithesis of the system so designed.

It's a nice model, but it runs too counter to human nature to work; and there is precious little (if anything) that can change the nature of a species as expansive as humanity.

You need to read more anthropology studies on how society developed across hundreds of thousands of years. The only thing that is "human nature" is that we will do what we view as best for our interests.
Those interests are entirely dependent upon the systems we live under. Change the overarching systems that dictate our lives and people's behavior will change with it.
If anything, the current society we live in has us far removed from our "natural" behavior and, instead, forces us to go against that nature in order to meet our needs under these oppressive and exploitative systems that have only existed for barely a fraction of humanity's existence.
- We'll agree to disagree I think - unless you are a specialist in anthropology (a doctorate perhaps?), in which case I'm happy to cede my position to your expertise.
there is no such thing as human nature

It is definitely possible a "decent" living standard is lower in their minds then mine or yours or ours. I am very curious

No u don't understand I need to be mean to others it's just how it is I don't make the rules. Wanting the best for everyone and working to achieve that is when it's Not Realistic and the more you are not finding excuses to hurt others the more Not Realistic it is. Hope this helps

There's actually enough liveable land for every adult on earth to have 2 acres worth.

Ok, you can get the stuff near the north pole.

Multiple things can be true at once.

I think that humanity only optimized for quantity of life, not quality of life in the last 200 years. That doesn't really make sense. All of our needs can be fulfilled with 30% of the current workforce.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2024.100612 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452292924000493

I wonder how much of the problem would be avoided if the top personal CO2 emissions per capita were capped at Scandinavian upper middle-class level since 1970 (imported CO2 included). Flying on vacation only occasionally, comfy car yes, SUV just if needed, nice modern house yes, wasteful lack of insulation no, buy what you need and treat yourself to some fashion, electronics etc. yes, mindless consumerism no. Just a comfy standard of living.

I wonder if the mindless consumerism in certain countries with insane emissions per capita makes up a big part of the problem, or if the sheer number of "decent standard of living" would have pushed us over the edge anyway.

That girl is totally cute. Her hair is just like mine (well, mine is 20% longer but still)

is she a character from somewhere? Can i find more from her?