It's interesting to consider Star Trek. I mean in our society today you can easily blame capitalism for our woes. But I think more aptly, you should blame us. C

It's interesting to consider Star Trek. I mean in our society today you can easily blame capitalism for our woes. But I think more aptly, you should blame us. Consumerism is something you personally have to choose to become involved in. People buy overpriced phones offering marginal benefits over vastly more affordable alternatives, fancy cars that in the end do nothing but get from point A to point B, pay a massive markup on a Unix based PC so they can have a fruity label and a slightly thinner screen, etc, etc. And they do this all of their own will. In Star Trek people always look to us as the humans, because we are humans. But the biggest gag in Star Trek is that we're not the humans - we're the the Ferengi. Seriously, that was the intent. [1] The first paragraph there is irrelevant, the second is from the actual screenwriters and producers for the show. Society is a product of its people. The Ferengi live as they do because of the Ferengi. And the humans too live as they do because of the humans. If you thrust the Ferengi into the society of the humans it's not like they'd suddenly become as the humans. In short order it'd revert to Ferengi standards. And so too for us. Our society is a reflection of us. You need not change society - you need to change the people that makeup society. So long as there is somebody willing to buy something far outside their means for whatever reason, there will be people lining up to sell it to them. Something that is actually also still reflected in the show, even among humanity. Society is not something in isolation. Society is little more than the product of the people that comprise it. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferengi#Interpretation_as_a_parody_of_Judaism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferengi#Interpretation_as_a_pa...