*on a needs-based analysis.

Now I don't know the specifics of the study and it's nearly 4am so I'm not looking it up, but... Humanity has advanced both scientifically and in other, important areas, by having not just needs, but wants too.

But let's stick to just food. Sure, you could grow a handful of core crops to sustain the caloric and macro needs of everyone at 30% of the current production rate. But would that be enjoyable? You could eat the same gray processed slop every day to fulfill your dietary needs, because the "central intelligence" decided it's all you need. What if you wanted a slice of chocolate cake? Some carne asada, or murgh makhani, or deep fried mozzarella balls?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should ditch the entire study and not reduce resource wastage or not provide for the basic needs of everyone. We should do that, 100%.

What I am saying is that if we reduce everything to bare necessities, people lose the will to live. We don't live just to fulfill those basic needs. We live - or should live - to enjoy life. The small things like, say, having a nice (but not really healthy) pastry in a beautiful park on a sunny autumn morning. Or a cocktail on the sunny beach. These are the things worth living for.

You can't just say "oh we can drop all production by 2/3 and still be fine" because we wouldn't be fine. Is entertainment a basic need? Is having a home you like living in, a basic need? Is having nice shoes, or clothes, a need? Is makeup, nicely done nails, a need? I could go on.

Serving just the needs of people would also stifle innovation. Most of our advances are thanks to people wanting more and having the ability to achieve that. And that's why capitalism is such a poison - it pushes you down, forces you to sell yourself, with the promise of having the opportunity to get not just what you need, but what you want.

And herein lies the problem: wanting more is like drinking water. Not having enough of it kills you, but having too much want also leads to ruin. The latter is much like an addiction - but it can't be treated the same way, i.e. abstinence. Take away all the wants of a person, all the ways to get what they want, and all you are left with is a husk, a shadow of the person. A brain-dead patient kept alive by machines. Alive, sure, but can you call it a life?

What we need is sane limits between healthy wants and greed, and a framework that prevents the latter from gaining foothold. What we need is not dropping production of everything by 2/3, but ensuirng that most of that production/surplus benefits everyone, not just a handful few. You can still be a successful leader of a company (in the original sense of the word, a group of people with a shared goal/task, companions of a mission), without the requirement of owning a sizeable percentage of the world. Once we've ensured that no person goes hungry, no person goes without a roof over their head, is too cold or is too hot, the remaining surplus then can be utilised for wants.

That 30% simply shows just how much greed fucks this world up.