Quote:
Originally Posted by Galvatron1
Lol, you don’t have to buy anything. Most Americans forget they have the option to buy nothing. Consumerism won’t solve as much problems as anti consumerism will. Save your money, if you don’t believe in something, don’t buy it. Vote with your dollars for what you do believe in. If enough people stopped supporting what they didn’t believe in, those companies would go out of business. It’s a good strategy, if you want to effect change.
Don’t believe in child labor? Great, don’t support it. Etc etc
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That would work if humans were completely different than they are. Perhaps 2% of people are devout enough to drastically reduce their consumer impulses, but as with all religions, most people just sing the songs and then proceed as usual with their life.
Consuming less would somehow need to tap into innate human motivational schemes for the masses to really adopt the behavioral change. It's like teaching abstinence; it totally works, but few will practice it.
I do think online and virtual worlds will increasingly occupy our attention and reduce our appetite for consuming physical goods. If a virtual environment is compelling enough, there's no need to create it in reality.
...not saying this is necessarily something to be desired, but if Stupid Facebook can steal so much time by sucking, just imagine how much time can be stolen by an environment that doesn't suck.