A mile is not far. "don't run distances" is an excuse for most people (people with immutable disabilities notwithstanding) and gatekeeping in this case is not only valid, but necessary to maintain an objective idea of what bare minimum physical activity should be for a human body.
I'll take the 10k acres, wherever it may be: meadow, forest, desert, wherever, and enjoy not only the ability to sustain myself, but the beauty and meaning that one can only find in nature. The same beauty and meaning that every artist from the first ape to feel artistry to now has tried, and failed, to fully capture.
It's almost entirely "used." The places that look "empty" are pasture, fields, private timberland and national parks, and the few remaining pockets of actual nature should probably be left the hell alone.
I wonder which would realistically be worse... full blown war with China or a real, Black Plague/Spanish Flu (I know, not Spanish) level pandemic? Not disagreeing with you, genuinely just interested in the thought experiment. I guess maybe there's a line after which the level of "bad" is kind of irrelevant anyways.
The worst (best?) possible odds of someone landing in the middle of the "socially isolated/sociopath + suicidal" and "smart enough to use newly simplified genetic technology" venn diagram is 1 in 8 billion-ish. I'd put money on there being more than that if I thought I would survive to collect.
I'll try: we have absolutely no idea to what degree any given living thing can feel pain, in the subjective sense. We know that mice, for example, react in a way that looks like pain to painful stimulus, but we don't know if there is anything that it feels like to be a mouse in pain. We care when humans feel pain, in a large part because we know, almost for certain (although not quite), that they are feeling pain... why should the same not extend to a creature that may be having a similar experience?
Just off the top of my head, I currently have TV from 2008, a microwave from the early 2000s, cookware from the 80s, dishes from the 80s, most of my furniture is from the 90s and earlier, my gym equipment is from the 70s and 80s, my bass amp is from the late 70s, and my extremely stylish windbreaker is my dad's from the 80s.
No, I'm sure it's disgusting. My point is there's a lot of daylight between "some people abuse public bathrooms" and "those people are garbage humans."
It's not a false dichotomy, there's just some slack in the current system. Eventually, no matter how hard you try, you hit a point where population and conservation are incompatible. We just don't know what that point is.
I'll take your word for it (I'm in the lack of knowledge camp), but I don't see this as an argument for not raising the marginal (and if we do it right, effective) tax rate on the very wealthy.
What alternative is there to utopian ideas? Status quo? It's not working for most people anymore. I'm not saying we should radically change society, but if Jeff Bezos and Amazon aren't paying taxes, there is something wrong and it should be fixed.
It implies that there's way, way too much wealth in the top 10% if the bottom 90% is only supplying 29% of the tax revenue.
I don't think too many people, at least in other developed countries, are looking at the United States and thinking "wow, I wish my country was more like the United States." Usually such comparisons are made to the Scandinavian countries.
That seems like it lands in the distribution ballpark the comment above was referring to, yes. The poorest 10% not paying very much in taxes is a feature of the system. And assuming your figures are correct, that 71% might look like a lot until you consider that the marginal tax rate for the very rich is very, very low in the United States compared to other developed countries, or even the United States prior to the Reagan administration.
The entire US economy is built around materialistic consumerism. To be fair, pretty much every developed economy is like this, but the US is kinda the poster child of waste and excess.
A street in my town (in Canada) already has 4 gas stations and there are 3 new ones being built. Granted, it is close to a major highway... but 7 gas stations in a 2km stretch seems crazy to me, especially given the (seemingly) inevitable shift to EVs.
Soil is an ecosystem of insects and arthropods and fungi and bacteria. Soil that has been subjected to intensive agriculture is a dead ecosystem, little more than a substrate to hold NPK.
Both lifestyles require monocultures. One more than the other actually, and that same one also requires more water and land, and creates more pollution. I'm not a vegan, or even a vegetarian, but I think it's objectively true that those diets are morally superior even with animal rights aside.