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Comment by pc86 | Hacker News Reader

Then by all means, everyone who lives there can continue living in huts so that the trees aren't disturbed, right?

This entire argument is insane.

In modern economic terms, subsistence living in small communities barely registers as existence at all. However it is the way most of humanity lived for most of history. And generally it seemed to be a satisfying way of life. We evolved to live in this way.

We think of people living in situations of subsistence as being unbearably impoverished and disadvantaged now. We have no evidence that we are really any happier or more fulfilled than them. We have longer life expectancy, and we spend much of it isolated and lonely and sick.

Which is interesting considering you're posting that argument on a forum on the internet, run by a company whose entire existence is based around economic expansion and acquisition of material wealth.

Arguably, Clovis people at the end of the last Ice Age killed off the majority of large mammals in North and South America. Living at a subsistence level is no real remedy against impact on the environment.

What I believe will happen, and really, we are already starting to see this happen in the United States, is that the concentration of humanity into denser populations in the urban and suburban zones means that the more rural zones become abandoned and grow back up. New England is more densely forested now than it has been in 200 years, because the population has concentrated in the cities, and land that was formerly cleared for intensive agriculture has fallen into disuse.

What's wrong with people living in huts? People can be at harmony with nature, there's no need to force them into buildings. There certainly is no indication that living in a brick house makes someone happier than living in a hut.

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