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I just read Thomas Friedmans new column in the New York Times where he declares that the earth is full and we all need to change to a new model of living based on having “more time to enjoy life, with less stuff.” That last is from Paul Gilding, described as a veteran Australian environmentalist-entrepreneur. I want to know what an environmentalist-entrepreneur is? Does that mean he grows and smokes his own hemp and makes his own Tofu also? That whole term just sounds like an oxymoron to me, especially when you have a guy talking about enjoying more with less of that icky “stuff” people want to have. I just don't get the modern environmental movement, if people are so bad why don't they sterilize themselves or even better go ahead and remove themselves from the food chain.
Indirectly, this is the scariest part of the article:
We will realize, he predicts, that the consumer-driven growth model is broken and we have to move to a more happiness-driven growth model, based on people working less and owning less. ?How many people,? Gilding asks, ?lie on their death bed and say, ?I wish I had worked harder or built more shareholder value,? and how many say, ?I wish I had gone to more ballgames, read more books to my kids, taken more walks?? To do that, you need a growth model based on giving people more time to enjoy life, but with less stuff.?
Who here does not think this "happiness-driven growth model" would look a lot like socialism? The Gilding guy basically wants to tell people how they should live - i.e. that they would be "happier" - if only they would follow his value system. While I personally happen to agree with the general statement that he makes about the quality of life, I would not be one to turn it into a policy since it would require the government to enforce it.
The whole premise behind Gilding's statements is kind of scary I think. I do not understand people that have the urge to control others that seems so prevalent on the ideological left. His ideas remind me somewhat of Huxley's Brave New World.
It seems that the world is effectively full, at least in Central park, New-York, USA New York's Central Park gives musicians the boot http://ca.news.yahoo.com/yorks-central-park-gives-musicians-boot-051347904.html Let's get rid of that musical annoyance ! (harpist Meta Epstein is a public disturbance as well) Who's next ? smokers about to be annihilated, French would-be-president forbidden to fornicate maids, ... (I guess the list is a long one) 😀
