Opposite of “live small” usually means “each year bigger and better”, which kind of means geometric growth, which almost by definition seems unsustainable.
We were told 1 billion people was unsustainable a century ago, look where technology brought us. Not only we manage almost 10x more without mass starvation, but at the same time everyone is much, much richer than their great-grand-parents
Really? We're going towards mass extinction right now. And I think it's pretty safe to say that the growth that allowed us to get here is what's killing us. I don't think we can say we managed, we just haven't paid for it yet.