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[-] truthfultemporarily@feddit.org 93 points 3 days ago

Yeah but DLS would be a significant downgrade for many people, who already fight the suggestion to only eat meat six days a week tooth and nail.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6013539/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10537420/

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/suppl/10.1021/acs.est.3c03957/suppl_file/es3c03957_si_001.pdf

Things that count as DLS:

  • 10 m² of personal living space + 20 m² for every 4 ppl as bathroom / kitchen
  • 2100 kcal/day
  • 1400 kWh/year, but this already includes public services (education/healthcare)
  • 1 washing machine per 20 ppl
  • 2.4 kg clothing / year
  • wear tops for three days and bottoms for 15 days without washing
  • 1 laptop per 4 people with a yearly power consumption of 62 kWh. (bizzarely they talk about an 800 MHz computer and seem to confuse HDD and RAM). If your gaming computer used 400 W you could use it for 150 hr/year.
[-] rizzothesmall@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago
  • wear tops for three days and bottoms for 15 days without washing

It is for the good of all people that this is not the case for me...

[-] CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world 63 points 3 days ago

I'm gonna need a lot more than 10 square meters of space if everyone is changing their shirts twice a week. Yuck.

[-] Velypso@sh.itjust.works 9 points 3 days ago

On top of that, sharing 1 washing machine for 20 fucking people?

In what world do the people writing this live? Have they never lived in an apartment building with shared laundry? The machines are never kept clean because people are fucking animals.

What a stupidly naive study lmao.

[-] astutemural@midwest.social 2 points 1 day ago

ITT: people who didn't even glance at the study.

Quoting from the study:

"It is important to understand that the DLS represents a minimum floor for decent living. It does not represent a an aspirational standard and certainly does not represent a ceiling. However, it is also a level of welfare not currently achieved by the vast majority of people. A new paper by Hoffman et al finds that 96.5 percent of people in low- and middle-income countries are deprived of at least one DLS dimension...we can conclude that 6.4 billion people, more than 80% of the world's population, are deprived of DLS."

The authors are not suggesting that everyone be forced on DLS at gunpoint. They are suggesting an absolute bare minimum standard that the overwhelming majority of people on Earth do not yet even have. Quite obviously any excess production could and would be used to increase standard of living.

[-] LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works 36 points 3 days ago

They live in a world where 700 million people are currently starving. Do you think you care about the washing machines if your children have nothing to eat?

[-] Signtist@bookwyr.me 14 points 2 days ago

That's the heart of the issue, though, isn't it? Most people do care about the state of their washing machines even as countless children have nothing to eat. People chastise their kids for not eating their vegetables by saying "kids are starving in Africa," without doing anything to help any kids in Africa. People want more for themselves even while acknowledging that others have so much less. Studies like this assume that human selfishness is negligible, while it's actually one of the largest variables that needs to be factored in. Most people don't actually care about human suffering unless it's happening to someone they personally know - they care much more about their washing machine.

[-] Velypso@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago

The state of my washing machine doesn't have to change if we just tax billionaires.

[-] astutemural@midwest.social 1 points 1 day ago

ITT: people who didn't even glance at the study.

Quoting from the study:

"It is important to understand that the DLS represents a minimum floor for decent living. It does not represent a an aspirational standard and certainly does not represent a ceiling. However, it is also a level of welfare not currently achieved by the vast majority of people. A new paper by Hoffman et al finds that 96.5 percent of people in low- and middle-income countries are deprived of at least one DLS dimension...we can conclude that 6.4 billion people, more than 80% of the world's population, are deprived of DLS."

The authors are not suggesting that everyone be forced on DLS at gunpoint. They are suggesting an absolute bare minimum standard that the overwhelming majority of people on Earth do not yet even have.

[-] arrow74@lemmy.zip 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

You could double everything in this post too and that's only 60% consumption.

  • 20 m² of personal living space + 20 m² for every 2 ppl as bathroom / kitchen
  • 4200 kcal/day
  • 2800 kWh/year, but this already includes public services (education/healthcare)
  • 1 washing machine per 10 ppl
  • 2.4 kg clothing / 6 months
  • wear tops for 1.5 days and bottoms for 7.5 days without washing
  • 1 laptop per 2 people with a yearly power consumption of 62 kWh. (bizzarely they talk about an 800 MHz computer and seem to confuse HDD and RAM). If your gaming computer used 400 W you could use it for 300 hr/year.

That seems a lot more reasonable to me and we still come in under carrying capacity

[-] Ziglin@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

Apart from power, washing bottoms, and laptops that is pretty close to what many people I know have. That certainly doesn't seem outlandish.

Now who's going to help with the wealth redistribution and logistics? I volunteer for helping with logistics. Anyone with pew pew experience want to try the wealth redistribution?

[-] arrow74@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

You could probably chop 1000 calories and handwash your bottoms more often

[-] yimby@lemmy.ca 9 points 2 days ago

The same paper addresses this directly. 86% of human beings live below this standard of living today.

[-] LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works 14 points 3 days ago

I am amazed by all the people that, when faced with having to give up some of the first-world luxury they are used to, flip completely in their head. It is the opposite of not-in-my-backyard: Don't take from my backyard, pls.

Yes, I would rather have the current distribution continue, where hundreds of millions are literally starving, where there are people who would kill to live like this, where people are walking through the desert and taking dinghies over oceans for shit like this, just so I can have my amenities.

Absolutely wild. We're so doomed.

[-] Iapetus@slrpnk.net 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Why are you amazed? Have you lived your whole life under a rock? People have always been like this, it's never been hidden or even remotely pretended otherwise.

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[-] yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 3 days ago

A simpler solution is to simply abolish wealth hoarding, impose sensible consumption limits (so, no cars or commercial plane travel, no meat, no 800 watt gaming rigs), and continue to encourage population decline. Boom, everyone is healthy, the air is clean, and you can keep your house.

[-] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

I always wonder what happens if commercial air travel is banned. Cruise ships are obviously worse for the environment than planes, but are there ships that are fast enough to be feasible for people traveling for less than a month while actually being sustainable or are the americas and Australia just going to be effectively isolated from Eurasia and Africa?

It’s worth it if it’s the only way to survive, obviously, but I wonder what the effects would be. I’m a transatlantic immigrant, and I’d be willing to take a three month trip by ship to visit my family once a decade or so, but I can’t imagine most people wanting or being able to do that.

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[-] BassTurd@lemmy.world 15 points 3 days ago

I'd argue that's a downgrade for most people. I personally exceed all of those bullet points and the idea of coming close to most of them sounds like Hell to me. If it meant 8.5 billion people met those standards, I could make the sacrifice, but it would be awful.

Can you imagine if everyone you met was wearing a 3 days dirty shirt? Do other not sweat? And 2100 kcal per day is not safe or sustainable for almost anyone that exercises regularly.

[-] astutemural@midwest.social 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

ITT: people who didn't even glance at the study.

Quoting from the study:

"It is important to understand that the DLS represents a minimum floor for decent living. It does not represent a an aspirational standard and certainly does not represent a ceiling. However, it is also a level of welfare not currently achieved by the vast majority of people. A new paper by Hoffman et al finds that 96.5 percent of people in low- and middle-income countries are deprived of at least one DLS dimension...we can conclude that 6.4 billion people, more than 80% of the world's population, are deprived of DLS."

The authors are not suggesting that everyone be forced on DLS at gunpoint. They are suggesting an absolute bare minimum standard that the overwhelming majority of people on Earth do not yet even have. Quite obviously any excess production could and would be used to increase standard of living.

"Averages are reduced by the relatively lower requirements of infants and children."

[-] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 21 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

And 2100 kcal per day is not safe or sustainable for almost anyone that exercises regularly.

I’m a woman with a relatively large frame (~65kg/180cm) who used to do 14 hours of hard cardio a week. At that time, my recommendation was 2250, the first time in my life it had exceeded 2k. For smaller women, the recommendation is sometimes much lower. My stepsister is about 45kg and 155cm tall and her calculated daily calorie burn is like 1300. My ex boyfriend’s mom was told not to go over 1200, which I thought was the lower limit for humans generally- things are different when you’re a short, post-menopausal woman.

All that is to say, it’s probably an average of 2100 calories, spread between people who need on average 1400-1800 calories and those who need 2000-2400

[-] BassTurd@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago

That's fair. My take was shallow and I was thinking more from personal experience. I'm ~200lbs and burn over 100 kcal every mile I run, and am a distance athlete. If I jog 6 miles or bike 20+, I have to replace that for proper recovery.

I shouldn't say most people, but a large amount of people need more than 2100 kcal if they are active.

[-] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 12 points 3 days ago

It’s honestly wild the difference in caloric requirements based on age and sex/gender (I don’t know how much is due to size/hormones, so I don’t know where trans people’s requirements would be) even before factoring in activity level, so it’s entirely reasonable not to realize the difference.

[-] Taalnazi@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

For trans people it depends.

If you're just starting estrogen-oriented HRT and you're at a weight considered ideal for your pre-HRT body, then it is helpful to actually gain a few kg of fat, together with weekly hours of intense activity (like running, bicycling, squatting and planks, hip thrusts) coupled with moderate activity (like walking half an hour everyday) Then fat redistribution will be more effectively towards a )( body shape, with breast growth improved. This guide may help.

For testosterone-oriented HRT, I'm less certain, though I assume the fat redistribution's accent is more on weight loss and exercise for muscle growth. Lifting, bench presses, planking, and the like for \/ bodies. Here's a good training scheme.

That said, everyone has their own goals; important is that one remains healthy. A good diet is balanced and lowly processed.

A body fat percent healthy for all people (binary and nonbinary) would be around 14-25%. If you can get pregnant (and seek to do so), it's better to be a little higher in this range, because during pregnancy, your body will prioritise the embryonic/fetal needs more than yours.

[-] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I can attest that i definitely eat less than 2000 kcal per day on average. But:

I read a study (done by the CIA, ironically) a while ago that said sth like the average caloric intake for americans is like 3500 kcal/day, while for USSR people it is 3200 kcal/day, and concluded that people in the USSR eat healthier.

The study was done in the time of the USSR.

I'm gonna look for it now.

Edit: it's here

[-] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago

Coming to that conclusion based purely on amount of calories is incredibly stupid

actually if you read the paper it goes into more detail than just calories

[-] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Well that is more a report than a study, but that is pretty interesting, saving that.

Though 3500 and 3200 seem absolutely fucking wild to me. I am a 184cm, 96kg (not fit anymore but used to work out 6 days a week for 2-3hrs) and if I eat more than 2200 per day not-active (I got used to weighing every gram of food during cuts) I gain weight. I find it hard to believe that 3500 and 3200 was average then as there were significantly less obese people then.

Yeah i still can't really wrap my mind around it. I suspect it might be caused by the fact that there were a lot more manual blue-collar labour back then being done? But i'm not sure.

1400 kWh/year

that seems awfully low, considering that germany uses 37 000 kWh /year per person. But that already factors in things such as energy needed to produce your soda bottle, so it's not "energy used inside your own house/apartment".

[-] ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago

And kill all the pets I assume.

[-] boomzilla@programming.dev 2 points 2 days ago

Or at least feed the dogs plant based and phase out having cat as pets. IIRC it's 20% of all livestock in the US that's killed just for cats and dogs and about 70% of that 20% is for dogs on top of my head. Dog can live fine if not better on a well formulated plant based dog food. Just look at some of the reviews for Purina HA Vegetarian (it's vegan btw) dog food. A lot of dog owners cured the gastro intestinal and lot of other problems their dogs had with it. I'm not affiliated. There are other well formulated plant based foods like AMI successfully used by many dog owners. Just seen a video on "The Dodo" of a dog who was at the verge of being put down because of weight loss till the veterinary got the idea the dog could have a meat allergy and advised said Purina food. The dog is now healthy and thriving again. That diet change on a global scale would take a huge burden off of the environment.

[-] commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago

no livestock is slaughtered as cat food. pet food is a byproduct of human food production.

[-] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 day ago

The catastrophic aspect to cats is the absolutely incomprehensible amounts of birds stray and outdoor cats kill every year (outdoor cats don't even eat most of their kills often).

I love cats, but cat owners must begin to find ways to let their beloved furry friends experience the outdoors that doesn't lead to ecocide. Cat leashes, large screened enclosures on a porch, whatever works.

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this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2025
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