I think if we decrease productivity, it will cause problems.

Nothing I said related to capitalism at all as far as I can see, so you’re going to have to connect the dots for me if you want me to understand, sorry.

You are still talking about growth. I am comparing two scenarios: one where the population shrinks (and therefore gets older on average) and one where our doesn’t, and remains the same average age. I am not saying we need to grow the population forever, and never have.

I suggest you reread my comments to see where you’ve misunderstood, but it’s up to you.

No, it’s because people like eating meat. You may have noticed that people ate meat centuries ago before capitalism existed, and favoured it over other foods when it was available.

But I understand what you meant about growing multiples of food, now, so that’s good.

I think it is a problem if we need to have less free time, or work more for the same things that we do in our free time, because a higher proportion of worker time needs to be spent supporting people who are not working. You don’t want to go back 200 years even if humanity could survive in such conditions. (And the present population probably could not survive)

I don’t think this is true. I checked the stats for caloric supply and the highest value worldwide is (unsurprisingly) in North America where about 3,500 calories of food are produced per day. That is less than double what a person needs per day, so “several times” seems unlikely.

But I don’t dispute the idea that we produce enough food to feed the world. But I also didn’t say we didn’t.

Could you comment on what I actually said, which is that an ageing population (or any situation in which there are more non-workers per worker) will result in less production being available for people on average?

This is not just about food; it is also about other necessities (such as healthcare) but also non-essentials like entertainment. The problem of an ageing population is not that we’ll starve to death; it’s that our quality of life will decrease.

I can’t really connect this comment with what you originally said. Maybe this will help clarify my position: I think countries with public health and social care, just like countries with mainly private health and social care, will have severe problems if they can’t arrest the rate at which their populations are ageing. My comment explains in very general terms why I think that is the case.

You are not talking about what I was talking about, my friend.

At the end of 20 years a child becomes an adult, who will (on average) be a net producer. It’s true that children cost more in work put into raising them than older adults take in work to look after them, yet it is a fact of life that one working human is capable of producing more stuff than just that which they themselves needs or makes use of - otherwise it would be impossible to raise children. This should be obvious, and means that the problem of an increasing birth rate, from this perspective, is at most temporary.

But I didn’t say we should have high birth rates, I said that the problems of low birth rates are not due to capitalism.

It’s pretty plausible it’s just exposed for the other lass and background

Yes, daylight tends to come from above!

Not really anything to do with capitalism. If the ratio of workers to non-workers decreases without a proportionate increase in productivity, a higher proportion of workers’ time has to be spent catering to the needs of non-workers. That means less time spent not working and/or less time spent producing unnecessary stuff that improves our lives like chocolate or TV shows.

I think there are a lot of candidates before TLOU, and you are being very charitable I would say.

The first game that I remember having a worthwhile story is probably Max Payne (themes of bereavement, drug addiction, betrayal) or the Thief games (environmental storytelling!)

And how do you know that, without referring to anything except the Bible itself, and pure reason?

I fully agree with your point, but there’s a difference between that and the kind of logic a literalist uses.

This only works if the food girl doesn’t fell liberated from the need to be economical with dishes! It’s safer to make the cook do the dishes… but it can work the other way.

Duh!

Whew!

Pff. You can’t just imply that anyone will understand a story by playing a fromsoft game.

That’s explaining the purpose of the document. It’s not any of its provisions.

Because partisanship in the USA means that you will never be able to change it.