You’re still just a hobbyist. What kind of motorcycles did they ride in 1750? How did they post to the internet? It’s fun to play at living like ye olden days when there is a modern technological society right handy. If your crops fail, you don’t have to starve. If you get an infected tooth or inflamed appendix, you don’t have to die. Most of all though, if you don’ t feel like living that way any more, you can just rejoin the rest of us. Subsistance lifestyle is much less romantic when you actually have to subsist on it.
It’s not completely unrealistic to envision a mixture of tech epochs.
You could have horse-drawn carriages, outdoor privies, hand-pumped water – and a completely modern computerized hospital just down the road (even equipped with medevac helicopters.) We could pick and choose.
In practice, I’m a bit opposed to this, as it requires the virtual enslavement of a laboring class. The modern washing machine liberated a hell of a lot of women who used to do drudge-work as laundresses. Bringing back horses means a hell of a lot of men have to do drudge-work with shovels.
But as an abstract possibility, a society could be built “across” various historical boundaries.
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Huh?
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Actually I did quite well. You just can’t accept that someone would prefer a shorter life in the world past to today’s world. All I can add is my hope you live a long and interesting life.
Doing without the internet would be the least of the issues. And a horse is a lot cooler than a bike; any day of the week. Yes, its a hobby but one I’ve already lived in a manner of speaking for a month or more at a time. And one I’m seriously considering as a future choice. I totally missed the first Gulf War because of it and don’t feel any less of myself for it.
How many people today pick remote areas to live in? Maine, Alaska and other places where medical treatment is beyond reach in an emergency? Where you have to travel miles to mail a letter or find a landline let alone cell reception or good Wifi? What percentage of the worlds population is already living such a lifestyle? Ten percent? Fifty percent? Dialing the clock back to say a population of 300,000,000 would affect most of Africa and most of Asia how?
What part of that percentage is living that way through conscious choice? What part of that percentage is living that way because they were born into in and have no other option? What part of that percentage would, if they could, live a 21st century 1st world lifestyle?
At every level of technology, you will always find a minority who want to romanticize how things were done in the old days.
A bit less than double what we have now will suffice nicely; I’m off the opinion that we’ll top out and stabilise around the 11-12 billion-ish mark and think this would be fully sustainable.
(well, when I say my opinion, I mean that I like the logic of the predictions made by Ted favourite Hans Rosling).
Loving humanity is not the same as wanting to eat them a la Soylent Green.
100% of Africa and Asia is currently living in 2015, not 1715. While some aspects of the modern world are inaccessible to the very poor, it’s not actually some crazy time warp. Things the Cameroonian town I was a Peace Corps volunteer would miss include:
- Food. Apples from South Africa, frozen fish from the South, drink mixes from Malta, canned tomato sauce, Coca-Cola and Guiness.
- Global entertainment. From Argentine telenovelas, American rap music, Ethiopian, Ivorian and Congolese pop and Bollywood movies screened at improvised cinemas.
- Cell phones. Cell phones are massive. Even people who don’t have coverage have them, and know exactly what hill to stand on to get news from distant relatives or prices from local markets.
- Medical care- antibioltics, anti-retrovirals, birth control, skilled birth attendents, and basic but effective surgeries. Medical care was basic and bare bones, but a million times better than nothing.
Very few people these days these days are actually running in bands through the forest with no idea that the modern world exists. The global economy reaches even in to the most remote areas.
It depends on how you definite “primitive”.
I can see a situation where people still have access to things like high-tech medicine, but might do without, say, in sink garbage disposals. Walk or bike more and use motor vehicles less, or opt for mass transit which predates the automobile in cities like London, Paris, New York, and Chicago.
While I have some reservations about the Amish one thing I do find interesting is the way they pick and choose technology. Able-bodied Amish largely do without modern tech, but if injured or ill they will ride in medical helicopters and utilize modern medicine. They’ll use phones in emergencies, but not for social reasons. They are a group of people who have chosen to “go more primitive” in many aspects of their lives without cutting off all access to high tech.
Most people wouldn’t want to go to that extreme, but large segments could opt for something less than cutting-edge tech.
I can’t conceive of anything that, within one lifetime, reduces the population by 75-90% of the current levels that would NOT be absolutely hellish. Doesn’t have to be war - could be a natural disaster of sufficient magnitude, an asteroid strike, for example.
Would prefer not do experience that in my lifetime, thank you very much, even if subsequent generations reap the benefit of a reduced global population.
Please. There are more cell phones in India than people. Which means that almost every single person - even poor people - has at least one and most have more. (Don’t forget, in most civilized countries they don’t pay for incoming calls). That right there is a huge thing, a thing that we just didn’t have even twenty years ago. That means everyone has Internet access at their fingertips.
You are welcome to fantasize about the “good old days”. But I really don’t think you get how hard it is. You should read some books about good old fashioned country life. It was work, from dawn to dusk, and only till dusk, because no electricity!
But all that is well and good, if you really think you can sustain it. Have at it. But rest assured, there is no nebulous “Asia” that is living like that, and definitely not because they want it. Indians want the same things as we do.
I didn’t see “choice” being a big part of the OP - just opinions on population numbers. Asked, answered and beyond.
You brought choice into the conversation. I can see why you want to exclude it now, though. Your ass probably does smart considerable.
It depends on the ecological footprint required to meet basic needs vs. biocapacity. With that and the need to avoid significant environmental damage, probably around a billion or so.