> Who's going to be the one to tell all the people in developing economies, "Sorry, but you can't have those things that we have."
Who is going to be so brave to tell poor third world countries they cannot have nice things? We do all the time, by complicity in geopolitics which consist in things such as propping up dictators elsewhere so "our" corporations can get bigger slices of pies and resources rather than the local population. Not to mention war. So who is going to tell the actual centers of power that this can not be tolerated any longer? That is the real question IMO.
The problem is taking out resources and exploiting people at a level that cannot be sustained; not that others want to do it too, but that anyone does.
I mean, what is "a Western lifestyle"? For me it's stuff like basic sanitation, freedom of speech, high literacy rates, having medicine and clothes and shelter. Living and letting live, and last but not least work, preferably meaningful. Yes, some prosperity is a requirement to even have the possibility of those things. But buying new things all the time, ordering screws individually at Amazon, and throwing away a lot of plastic, those things and others seem not strictly needed to me.
We need the scientific method, human rights and rule of law, not so much a constant stream of trinkets. People should be free to strive for trinkets, sure, but without too much pollution (which is essentially a way of restricting the freedom of others; indirectly, but very powerfully). As many things in life, it's not really a complex issue, it's not wanting to step on the toes of powerful people or peers that makes it complicated and contorted I think.
Who is going to be so brave to tell poor third world countries they cannot have nice things? We do all the time, by complicity in geopolitics which consist in things such as propping up dictators elsewhere so "our" corporations can get bigger slices of pies and resources rather than the local population. Not to mention war. So who is going to tell the actual centers of power that this can not be tolerated any longer? That is the real question IMO.
The problem is taking out resources and exploiting people at a level that cannot be sustained; not that others want to do it too, but that anyone does.
I mean, what is "a Western lifestyle"? For me it's stuff like basic sanitation, freedom of speech, high literacy rates, having medicine and clothes and shelter. Living and letting live, and last but not least work, preferably meaningful. Yes, some prosperity is a requirement to even have the possibility of those things. But buying new things all the time, ordering screws individually at Amazon, and throwing away a lot of plastic, those things and others seem not strictly needed to me.
We need the scientific method, human rights and rule of law, not so much a constant stream of trinkets. People should be free to strive for trinkets, sure, but without too much pollution (which is essentially a way of restricting the freedom of others; indirectly, but very powerfully). As many things in life, it's not really a complex issue, it's not wanting to step on the toes of powerful people or peers that makes it complicated and contorted I think.