Every single human that spends a single dollar is directly and demonstrably connected to systems that are rapidly (in historical proportions) destroying almost everything that humans of past eras considered wealth and value.
Mother earth.
Downvote this, but let it sink in.
There are humans on this planet that are not fueling these consumptive mechanisms. I hope.
How can we detach ourselves from these systems as we build out alternative systems?
Fundamentally this is an energy issue, with enough free energy everyone can have a high standard of living ie. BI becomes possible, we can automate away most mundane jobs with cheap robots (BOM goes down with cheap energy).
With a good standard of living, births drop- viz population charts globally except Africa, thus we get into a virtuous cycle.
The only issue is the environmental impact of lots of energy in the ecosystem, I'm not sure how that would pan out.
We are wasting massive amounts of energy.
20 lanes of stop-and-go SUV's all single driver traveling over an hour to jobs that they hate. Terrajules of energy to create a single piece of electronics designed to break in less than 2 years. Massive manufacturing of throw away disposable items. The list goes on.
This is Hacker news. Que's Computer Users Dictionary 5th edition defines hack:
"An inordinately clever rearrangement of existing system resources that results, as if by magic, in a stunning improvement in system performance - or an equally stunning prank."
We need to wisely use what we already have.