3. Living Larger Lives - Building Paradise over Injustice

Building a society takes people, a LOT of people. And with people, come people problems. Housing, feeding, and clothing all these people can be an ecological nightmare! - Ugh. Have you ever heard these people that say the planet can't support the number of people living on it? Ridiculous!

I feel for them, I mean, if they think about it from their, perhaps "boxy" view of "how some humans are & live", then yes, not everyone can have a lifestyle that the average person thinks is "good" by today's standards. But maybe the average person's lifestyle today is both unsustainable and inferior to newer, more innovative & fulfilling lifestyles. This is what I think the average person (at the very basic level) thinks they need:

1. A house with a garden, i.e. land (maybe 200sqm per family of 4). This land is, of course, limited, and that garden requires weekly/daily manual labour & resources. And, at best, it's only really enjoyed, maybe, 5% of the time?

2. A fossil fuel-powered, privately-owned car, i.e. a depreciating asset that burns expensive, limited resources (most of which is burned just moving the weight of the car itself!) in a way that damages the environment and our bodies (inefficiently wasting energy). It also requires regular (expensive) maintenance from people who always have an incentive ("dat money"), to be "extra thorough" when servicing & charging for it.

OK, I get it, I can really see how the planet doesn't have enough resources for everyone to have all those things. But...(Red Pill Moment coming up, brace yourself) what if I told you that none of that was actually necessary?! For 15 years, I lived in Hong Kong, basically a cube-shaped area of "space" positioned at least 100m above the earth's surface, without thinking of ever needing to buy a car.

I mean, I did think about owning one (because I was a South African that thought a family car is a MUST) but when I realised how much more it cost (not just in money, but time and mental space) to run/own a car, compared to reliable public transport and car-calling apps, it just didn't make sense to get a car - I saw through The Matrix! (Or my bubble/filter/limitations, or whatever, of my cultural horizon, blah blah). Anyway, I think the FREEconomy can offer a much better (more fulfilling) deal than the one above, with much lower costs/requirements, thanks to a simply more innovative way of living. What do you think of this:

1. A home with a view you've probably never dreamt of, thousands of neighbours who've all proven their determination towards being, and creating, good by virtually volunteering to do whatever is good for the community you all live in. Instead of 10,000 gardens (i.e. land) being so under-used it makes me sad, you, and all your neighbours, get (in an area smaller than the actual size of 10,000 private gardens):

Access to fully-equipped/facilitated schools, sports stadiums, swimming pool arenas, world-class sports and recreation facilities and opportunities

In this "chapter/episode" I try to show how adopting (and actually improving upon) a way of life that's been well-established in other countries, we can solve many problems, just by asking ourselves, "Do we really need this?"

I also talk about the superior solution to private car ownership, but not in this episode. It's in 5.1 Free Resources, but I do talk about it. I haven't written about it there. Hopefully you'll get a chance to see me talk about it in front of an audience, soon!

Finally, coming back to this "Free World" chapter, I talk about how South Africa can save the World by turning plastic pollution into man-made gold! So to speak ;-)