What you need. That's the biggest lie. Society radically changed after the mid 20th century, with TV and radio. It turned from demand-supply economics to a ps

What you need. That's the biggest lie. Society radically changed after the mid 20th century, with TV and radio. It turned from demand-supply economics to a psychological push culture following the work of Edward Bernays and others, analaysed and to some extent amplified by Walter Lippmann. Of course we call it advertising. It was never really "honest", of course. But once upon a time advertising was predominantly informational, and also more strongly regulated regarding its accuracy. It's the "Biggest lie", not because there is one extraordinary untruth, but because advertising is a multi-trillion dollar, international, highly specialised, scientific, well researched, systematic framework of lies. The prototypical lie, the class from which all lies are derived, is that you "need" something you don't. Humans are in fact extraordinarily resilient, self-sufficient, adaptable creatures. We need little more than basic food, shelter and exercise, a list laid out by Maslow that includes social and spiritual needs. We don't need much. Some have even said. "All you need is love" - and that's not too far from the truth. Yet, through this lie of "necessity" that leverages our emptiness, we have been made to "consume" billions of automobiles, smartphones, dishwashers, TVs, ridiculous excesses of food, clothing, entertainment. And we still feel inadequate and unhappy. There is no greater lie than "What you need".