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We had hype all the time. It's not recent invention. And in 48 years after 1973, per capita GDP increased 2.18x which, extrapolated to a 103 year interval (as b

We had hype all the time. It's not recent invention. And in 48 years after 1973, per capita GDP increased 2.18x which, extrapolated to a 103 year interval (as between 1870 and 1973) means 5.32x increase which is almost as fast (6.7% slower, which is very easy to explain knowing that U.S. primary energy supply stopped growing in 1973 after skyrocketing in the century before). In the last 50 years, Western civilisation learned how to do more with less. In the century before, we simply invented new and new ways of throwing more and more non-renewable resources onto all problems we had. Which isn't really all that hard to do - for as long as you may come up with sources for those resources. Now we do better.

11235813213455 4y ago
We do better on some things (energy production, automobile, ..) but globally the climate changes remind us that consumerism is way too high, and often hype-driven
- kwatsonafter 4y ago
  Consider though that, "consumerism" is a very important part of modern economies. People tend to buy things that send social signals to other people (conspicuous consumption) which in turn drives demand for high quality items (hopefully) which creates real incentives for innovation and growth. At the same time I can agree that, "keeping up with the Joneses" has created a social nightmare for many. My point here is that even following a big Kuhnian paradigm shift you're still going to have the same human psychologies to deal with and that's precisely where, "consumerism" lives-- in consumers; the idea that, "consumerism" is somehow driven by ideology or how capitalism structures society seems to be naive in my view. Conspicuous consumption still takes place in supposedly, "destratified" societies-- see the Kim family of North Korea or rich Saudis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_thrift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_thrift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Class https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Clas...
- anovikov 4y ago
  That's the thing, we are slowly figuring out how to produce all that shit for consumerists without wasting too much non-renewable resources (which is the same as fixing climate change)

11235813213455 4y ago

We do better on some things (energy production, automobile, ..) but globally the climate changes remind us that consumerism is way too high, and often hype-driven

kwatsonafter 4y ago
Consider though that, "consumerism" is a very important part of modern economies. People tend to buy things that send social signals to other people (conspicuous consumption) which in turn drives demand for high quality items (hopefully) which creates real incentives for innovation and growth. At the same time I can agree that, "keeping up with the Joneses" has created a social nightmare for many. My point here is that even following a big Kuhnian paradigm shift you're still going to have the same human psychologies to deal with and that's precisely where, "consumerism" lives-- in consumers; the idea that, "consumerism" is somehow driven by ideology or how capitalism structures society seems to be naive in my view. Conspicuous consumption still takes place in supposedly, "destratified" societies-- see the Kim family of North Korea or rich Saudis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_thrift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_thrift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Class https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Clas...
anovikov 4y ago
That's the thing, we are slowly figuring out how to produce all that shit for consumerists without wasting too much non-renewable resources (which is the same as fixing climate change)