this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2025
1156 points (99.2% liked)
me_irl
5463 readers
900 users here now
All posts need to have the same title: me_irl it is allowed to use an emoji instead of the underscore _
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Just because it's the most efficient way for all of us to live doesn't mean it's good for us. There are too many humans for this planet to support. We need to reduce the population ethically. Stop having kids.
I agree about the population, however Im not sure living in an apartment building is unhealthy. Or at least it doesn't have to be. I am sure endless suburbs of detached single family housing, surrounded by seas of asphalt and treated lawns is.
If the people who lived in apartment buildings automatically co-owned the building, and landlords were illegal, then I'd be OK with it. Suburbs should be illegal. Everywhere people live should look and operate like downtowns. Healthy small businesses right below attractive apartments and all beautiful architecture.
But I also don't think people should be prevented from living in rural, even isolated areas. Some of us simply are unsuited for it. But it shouldn't be illegal. Only extreme wealth, landlords and owning more than, say, 3 nice houses should be illegal.
I'm with ya on not being a serf in some neo-feudal hellscape we increasingly find ourselves in. Fuck paying rent to never own anything. Fuck landlords who add zero value to anything. I'm all about the denser commercial residential mash up.
But where do you draw the line? Living rurally I mean. We have a tendency to frame these things by what's fair to the individual. I think we ought to be asking what's fair to the earth, the eco system, what's fair to the generations to come? One or two people hanging in the woods isn't a problem, but there's 8 billion of us. In my region the suburbs don't end. They pitter out into ever less dense housing. Everyone with a car, with miles of pavement to drive them on. Innumerable leaky septic tanks, endless lawns that leak pesticides and fertilizer. And everyone feeling it's their inalienable right to do so, a virtue to be lauded even. We're just a fucking disaster.
I'd challenge everyone to look inward and ask what they feel entitled to, and the price in environmental degradation they're willing to inflict on the rest of us and future generations get it.