Re:Hype is a weaponized form of optimism
by 11235813213455 on Sunday July 10, 2022 @02:20PM
(#32047342)
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
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)
Re:Hype is a weaponized form of optimism
by kwatsonafter on Sunday July 10, 2022 @10:26PM
(#32051492)
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/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Clas...
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.