A Basic Standard of Living.

[hunter]

1. This thing we call "economic productivity..."

... is a direct measure of the damage we are doing to what's left of the earth's natural environment and our own human spirit. It's not productivity at all.

We ought to be paying people to experiment with lifestyles that have a very low environmental footprint. We ought to be discovering ways we can live happily outside the high energy industrial consumer economy. Everyone ought to have the free time and opportunity to pursue and practice some kind of art.

Sex education and birth control are an essential aspect of any sustainable society. If the human population keeps growing it doesn't matter how lightly any one person is living upon the earth.

I think automation can be good or bad. Automating dangerous and difficult jobs in agriculture is a good thing so long as the workers are not displaced into poverty. Automation in the military is terrifying. Our ability to kill specific people by remote control increases every day.

Sometimes we get lost in the fresh horrors of each day. It's good to step aside and consider what sort of progress we are aiming for. That's why I'm recommending your post.