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Re: "Life in a Degrowthed Country"
Degrowth is not population control. It's about when your clothes get dirty, instead of throwing them out you just get a washing machine. Or when your plates get dirty, instead of throwing them out you just buy a dishwasher.
And if your dishwasher gets hungry, instead of leaving them to die and getting a new one you just feed them. Yes it harms the economy but overall its not that bad.
2023-08-28 · 12 days ago
More seriously, degrowth is about living equitably with the people around you. Capitalism makes it really easy to ignore the labor of others and dehumanize them. Then you get into the crazy rationalisation that everyone should have what you have. An order of magnitude the other way you'll be wishing everyone had a private yacht complete with staff... err... robot staff!
At some point you have to admit it's not just a fantasy which helps people rationalise their own existence, but it is actually a contemptible way to live. It is the fundamental cause of our ills. Leaving the big web for Gemini isn't just less resource intensive, for example, it is actually healing.
@gyaradong thanks for the informative description, but I think what you decribed is more related to sustainability, efficiency, common sense, etc..
As for degrowth, the term is the antonym of growth which webster defines as:
(1) To decrease in size by a natural and organic process; to decrease in bulk by the gradual loss of matter out of a living organism; -- said of animals and vegetables and their organs.
(2) To become smaller and weaker, to wane, to be diminished, to decline, to fail.
It is interesting that such a semantic was chosen for this term you described. Wonder if the plain meaning should be rejected in favour of description you kindly provided?
the people who came up with the term chose a contentious name on purpose. Not everyone agrees with the choice, specifically because a lot of people equate it with decay.
— gemi.dev/cgi-bin/wp.cgi/view?Degrowth
2023-08-28 · 11 days ago
Life in a Degrowthed Country — I am new to Gemini Space, in fact this is my first attempt at writing in this corner of the cyber world. In Gemini space I read many articles about degrowth, and being resident in a depopulated city, I thought I would give my two cents on the topic. The philosophy is not new. In the past they just used to call it Malthusianism, and in my opinion it is a harmful idea, a relic from the colonial past. I am writing now from Damascus, the capital city of Syria, a...