@benlockwood
optimising for efficiency could easily make a system far better than the current intentionally destroying the world, but even a well-run billions-of-people world would be ecological disaster
say you eliminate meat from the global diet, shut down all the pointless gpus and asics, consolidate travel and mass-introduce hydrogen as fuel or whatever, what you have left is still an agricultural system using like a quarter of earth's arable land, fed by a non-replenishing water table and fertilisers derived from fossil fuels and giant-mess mining, and still reliant on pesticides and "tech" and power grid (the former greatly diminished, but the latter ramping up to unprecedented levels) that require their own mines to dewater and planet-encircling supply chains (moving away from lithium to less power dense alternatives where that density doesn't matter can help but). eliminating poisonous fertiliser and pesticide runoff at least might be possible by a move to indoor farming, but that does require knowledge and technologies we haven't worked out yet, and it's still not enough to reach what i'd think of as an "ecological society". people are just now talking about steel production without coke, and similar innovations would be necessary in thousands of other places in supply chains (e.g. working without animal byproducts in industry) that might be easy, difficult, or currently impossible but would anyways need time and effort not yet put in
optimising for efficiency could easily make a system far better than the current intentionally destroying the world, but even a well-run billions-of-people world would be ecological disaster
say you eliminate meat from the global diet, shut down all the pointless gpus and asics, consolidate travel and mass-introduce hydrogen as fuel or whatever, what you have left is still an agricultural system using like a quarter of earth's arable land, fed by a non-replenishing water table and fertilisers derived from fossil fuels and giant-mess mining, and still reliant on pesticides and "tech" and power grid (the former greatly diminished, but the latter ramping up to unprecedented levels) that require their own mines to dewater and planet-encircling supply chains (moving away from lithium to less power dense alternatives where that density doesn't matter can help but). eliminating poisonous fertiliser and pesticide runoff at least might be possible by a move to indoor farming, but that does require knowledge and technologies we haven't worked out yet, and it's still not enough to reach what i'd think of as an "ecological society". people are just now talking about steel production without coke, and similar innovations would be necessary in thousands of other places in supply chains (e.g. working without animal byproducts in industry) that might be easy, difficult, or currently impossible but would anyways need time and effort not yet put in