Nov 24, 2023·edited Nov 24, 2023Liked by Bill Astore
Consumerism serves 2 purposes.
First, it's what drives profits, and in our culture, there's nothing more important than profit.
Second, it is the red herring that distracts us from the threat consumerism poses to humanity. Consumerism is about producing and consuming (and profiting). The former requires the extraction and consumption of raw materials and energy while the latter creates waste that must be disposed of, all of which are destructive of our environment. The more we produce and the more we consume, the more damage we do to our environment. But of course, we cannot be allowed to lower our consumption, because that would reduce profits. So we must encourage everyone to consume more and more until our pocketbooks are empty and our credit cards are maxed out. Typical of the insanity of consumerism is the annual cost of $1000 to have the latest cellphone because it will bring us so much pleasure and will make us the envy of those around us. Perish the thought of using any gizmo beyond the release of it's latest "upgrade".
What I would like to see is some real truth in advertising. Instead of all the bullshit about how the latest gizmo will improve my health and sex life, I would like to see exactly how these products affect our environment from extraction of raw materials to waste management. Then I would like to see how all that environmental impact leads to global warming, sea level rise, desertification, conflagration, invasive species migration and ultimately human migration on a scale unimaginable.
Sadly, I won't see any truth in advertising soon, so I won't hold my breath.
And of course the people on the commercials are mostly young models, male and female. Ah to be young again. If I buy that product will it make me 25 years of age again?
The trouble with capitalism is it works! It produces the goods and in America we live in consumer heaven. I found a brand new $175 wristwatch tossed into electronics recycling! For the most part competition does bring down prices and generics are also available. I am astounded by the quality and features of my EV. There are monopolies that hold prices up, but it's fair to say that almost all in the US have the basics they need (food and clothing and shelter). The trouble is the success is sealing our fate. It's an addiction that puts all others in the shade and the advertising we see knows exactly how best to stimulate it.
I've been reading a good book, "The Imperative of Responsibility" (1980) by Hans Jonas. He makes an excellent case for the need to take responsibility for what we do and to consider the future of our species. It isn't going to happen. Given the choice, I have no doubt we would readily see off most of nature if we could keep the cornucopia spilling stuff out for us. I think of the movie "Silent Running" in which nature has been put in preserves in outer space, and even then the project is abandoned with gusto by all but one person on the crew that oversees the preserve.
As if our desire isn't enough to overwhelm our reason, we here in America have the hatred of authority that would doom any effort headed by even the most qualified experts proposing the best solutions, simply because "nobody is going to tell me what to do!" We have plenty of people who will flagrantly violate common sense just to say "screw you" to the environmental movement, ironically these people often live in rural areas where community is said to be highly valued.
We are our worst enemies in our inability to control our desire for more and capitalism provides everything we want with technology promising more to come. The consequences are clear, but as the McDonald's ads used to say "I'm lovin' it!"
PS - attention all SciFi writers. Please produce a story telling of the rise of a post-collapse anti-technology movement, whose members are called "Earthers", that dives deeply into mythology/religion and punishes any effort to bring back technology with the death penalty.
the answer is so simple, bill: parents should never allow a TV to cross their demesnes' threshold. they should load your bantlings w/ books instead. as w/ our 7 kids, they never moaned their fate of having no access to television b/c they never had one in their familial zeitgeist in the 1st place. of course, that domestic situation was simplified and ameliorated by their being raised in depauperate 'developing' countries where most in their ambit could barely feed their families, never mind carry credit cards that allowed them to shop till exhausted. w/ this neoteric generation addicted to portable electronic devices, who knows where that will lead. i shudder to think....
Jeanie: Your I thought allusion to the Folk /Rock Song I love by the Rock Band Led Zeppelin! "War of Evermore"A true Masterpiece of theirs, and my fave. by them w/ Mandolins-- the music will transport you like few songs do think "Wildfire" too, or " Gimmie Shelter"for example. The song is mystical dealing with the neverending battle between the forces of good and evil plus the timeless themes of love, loss and redemption...!
hmmm, toma, seems quite the verisimilitude of what our species has entertained itself w/ in perpetuity... war, war, and more war, evermore.
my husband has a smartphone; i do not. nor have i learned to manipulate his. nor can i touch-type, unlike him. my flailing fingers still wallow in the hunt'n'peck swamp.
Yes, Jeanie can you believe it? War sells... Who knew?, and now we have Ridley Scotts "Napoleon" I must confess I can't wait to see it. This should be a much better movie than any previous I believe because he's including the element of the love affair with his Empress Josephine.
delighted for you bill... that you found your way to a fiery format, gratis TV, that fired-up your fertile imagination, as it did the imaginations of many young people in your generation. being 82, there was no TV nor star trek, so we relied on books, telescopes, and settling under the star-studded welkin at night to dream our dreams of worlds afar, worlds to which we had no access but in our imaginations. our bantlings' friends overseas had TVs, but no star trek, b/c the program was not aired in the 3rd-/4th-world countries where we lived. were there non-stop battles being fought wherein galactic belligerants bludgeoned and raged against each other?
Yes Jeanie - The Klingons and the Romulans as well as a few more unnamed who Capt Kirk valiantly defeated time and time again. But then in Star Trek The Next Generation all was well. Until the Borg invasion and all hell broke loose again.
By the way, I spent two semesters in highschool learning to touch type and now with modern advances I get to hunt and pec with one finger. Isn't high tech wonderful! 100 wpm to 1 wpm! And it even changes the words for me to mistakes! Good smartphone, nice smartphone, Smart smartphone......
The problem with our Materialistic Consumer System in the "developed" nominally Christian Societies, is there are so many things to WANT, People have lost sight of what they NEED.
The Consumer Society is consuming us!
Since 1969 when the Rolling Stones released 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' but if you try, you'll find you get what you need, became the automatic governor controlling my excessive wants.
At the end of the video below you will see John Lennon in the audience
so why push consumerism here in the states if 90% of the purchases come form China???? Maybe cause middle men markup margins our rediculously profitable.
tnx toma. a wee corrigendum here: the 3rd sentence should read: "they should load THEIR [not your] bantlings w/ books instead." my brain becomes increasingly mepheliginous [fog-bound and fuzzy] w/ every eye-blink! and a proleptic tnx for your sympathies re. my antediluvian infirmities. i spend more time correcting my erroneous key-presses then i do writing the original script.
tnx dennis. i suspect you and i share many of the same raster scans, but perhaps not including the raster-scanning of that frightful television intrusion into most households. or perhaps you have proscribed TVs as well.
BRAVO---telling it like it is, Bill. All the new gizmos and fashions are effective distractions from the things that are so horribly wrong in our world.
Consumerism serves 2 purposes.
First, it's what drives profits, and in our culture, there's nothing more important than profit.
Second, it is the red herring that distracts us from the threat consumerism poses to humanity. Consumerism is about producing and consuming (and profiting). The former requires the extraction and consumption of raw materials and energy while the latter creates waste that must be disposed of, all of which are destructive of our environment. The more we produce and the more we consume, the more damage we do to our environment. But of course, we cannot be allowed to lower our consumption, because that would reduce profits. So we must encourage everyone to consume more and more until our pocketbooks are empty and our credit cards are maxed out. Typical of the insanity of consumerism is the annual cost of $1000 to have the latest cellphone because it will bring us so much pleasure and will make us the envy of those around us. Perish the thought of using any gizmo beyond the release of it's latest "upgrade".
What I would like to see is some real truth in advertising. Instead of all the bullshit about how the latest gizmo will improve my health and sex life, I would like to see exactly how these products affect our environment from extraction of raw materials to waste management. Then I would like to see how all that environmental impact leads to global warming, sea level rise, desertification, conflagration, invasive species migration and ultimately human migration on a scale unimaginable.
Sadly, I won't see any truth in advertising soon, so I won't hold my breath.
Well said.
And of course the people on the commercials are mostly young models, male and female. Ah to be young again. If I buy that product will it make me 25 years of age again?
The trouble with capitalism is it works! It produces the goods and in America we live in consumer heaven. I found a brand new $175 wristwatch tossed into electronics recycling! For the most part competition does bring down prices and generics are also available. I am astounded by the quality and features of my EV. There are monopolies that hold prices up, but it's fair to say that almost all in the US have the basics they need (food and clothing and shelter). The trouble is the success is sealing our fate. It's an addiction that puts all others in the shade and the advertising we see knows exactly how best to stimulate it.
I've been reading a good book, "The Imperative of Responsibility" (1980) by Hans Jonas. He makes an excellent case for the need to take responsibility for what we do and to consider the future of our species. It isn't going to happen. Given the choice, I have no doubt we would readily see off most of nature if we could keep the cornucopia spilling stuff out for us. I think of the movie "Silent Running" in which nature has been put in preserves in outer space, and even then the project is abandoned with gusto by all but one person on the crew that oversees the preserve.
As if our desire isn't enough to overwhelm our reason, we here in America have the hatred of authority that would doom any effort headed by even the most qualified experts proposing the best solutions, simply because "nobody is going to tell me what to do!" We have plenty of people who will flagrantly violate common sense just to say "screw you" to the environmental movement, ironically these people often live in rural areas where community is said to be highly valued.
We are our worst enemies in our inability to control our desire for more and capitalism provides everything we want with technology promising more to come. The consequences are clear, but as the McDonald's ads used to say "I'm lovin' it!"
PS - attention all SciFi writers. Please produce a story telling of the rise of a post-collapse anti-technology movement, whose members are called "Earthers", that dives deeply into mythology/religion and punishes any effort to bring back technology with the death penalty.
"Silent Running" with Bruce Dern is a good film. We might be heading in that direction.
the answer is so simple, bill: parents should never allow a TV to cross their demesnes' threshold. they should load your bantlings w/ books instead. as w/ our 7 kids, they never moaned their fate of having no access to television b/c they never had one in their familial zeitgeist in the 1st place. of course, that domestic situation was simplified and ameliorated by their being raised in depauperate 'developing' countries where most in their ambit could barely feed their families, never mind carry credit cards that allowed them to shop till exhausted. w/ this neoteric generation addicted to portable electronic devices, who knows where that will lead. i shudder to think....
Jeanie, as a kid, "Star Trek" and a few other shows truly enriched my life.
I can't do without those old "Star Trek" episodes with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock! :-)
vide infra' my wee corrigendum to toma on the recent posting re. household TV's. just another of my banausic grammar nits,
Well there you go. This explains the border crisis. They don't have their VISA card.
tnx, fireman. i'll download those songs 2moro. am off to bedlam-in-bed cauchemars now. my bantlings are likely cognizant of the led zep group.
not familiar w/ led zep, so i googled the group. english rock band, eh?
Jeanie: Your I thought allusion to the Folk /Rock Song I love by the Rock Band Led Zeppelin! "War of Evermore"A true Masterpiece of theirs, and my fave. by them w/ Mandolins-- the music will transport you like few songs do think "Wildfire" too, or " Gimmie Shelter"for example. The song is mystical dealing with the neverending battle between the forces of good and evil plus the timeless themes of love, loss and redemption...!
hmmm, toma, seems quite the verisimilitude of what our species has entertained itself w/ in perpetuity... war, war, and more war, evermore.
my husband has a smartphone; i do not. nor have i learned to manipulate his. nor can i touch-type, unlike him. my flailing fingers still wallow in the hunt'n'peck swamp.
Jeanie: Led Zep "The Battle of Evermore"
Yes, Jeanie can you believe it? War sells... Who knew?, and now we have Ridley Scotts "Napoleon" I must confess I can't wait to see it. This should be a much better movie than any previous I believe because he's including the element of the love affair with his Empress Josephine.
delighted for you bill... that you found your way to a fiery format, gratis TV, that fired-up your fertile imagination, as it did the imaginations of many young people in your generation. being 82, there was no TV nor star trek, so we relied on books, telescopes, and settling under the star-studded welkin at night to dream our dreams of worlds afar, worlds to which we had no access but in our imaginations. our bantlings' friends overseas had TVs, but no star trek, b/c the program was not aired in the 3rd-/4th-world countries where we lived. were there non-stop battles being fought wherein galactic belligerants bludgeoned and raged against each other?
Yes Jeanie - The Klingons and the Romulans as well as a few more unnamed who Capt Kirk valiantly defeated time and time again. But then in Star Trek The Next Generation all was well. Until the Borg invasion and all hell broke loose again.
By the way, I spent two semesters in highschool learning to touch type and now with modern advances I get to hunt and pec with one finger. Isn't high tech wonderful! 100 wpm to 1 wpm! And it even changes the words for me to mistakes! Good smartphone, nice smartphone, Smart smartphone......
The problem with our Materialistic Consumer System in the "developed" nominally Christian Societies, is there are so many things to WANT, People have lost sight of what they NEED.
The Consumer Society is consuming us!
Since 1969 when the Rolling Stones released 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' but if you try, you'll find you get what you need, became the automatic governor controlling my excessive wants.
At the end of the video below you will see John Lennon in the audience
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef9QnZVpVd8
so why push consumerism here in the states if 90% of the purchases come form China???? Maybe cause middle men markup margins our rediculously profitable.
got to go and check out some deals on BF.
Happy Holidays
ooops, i mean, "they should load THEIR [not your'] bantlings w/ books instead."
tnx toma. a wee corrigendum here: the 3rd sentence should read: "they should load THEIR [not your] bantlings w/ books instead." my brain becomes increasingly mepheliginous [fog-bound and fuzzy] w/ every eye-blink! and a proleptic tnx for your sympathies re. my antediluvian infirmities. i spend more time correcting my erroneous key-presses then i do writing the original script.
tnx dennis. i suspect you and i share many of the same raster scans, but perhaps not including the raster-scanning of that frightful television intrusion into most households. or perhaps you have proscribed TVs as well.
BRAVO---telling it like it is, Bill. All the new gizmos and fashions are effective distractions from the things that are so horribly wrong in our world.
Man, this is dark!