Many people consume so much more than they really need to make themselves ‘happy’. Worse, we all know this and we all just keep on buying more stuff anyway, don’t we? As if somehow our world can be fixed by purchasing something else. The cycle is like watching a depressed alcoholic try to cure his problem with more even more alcohol…
No matter what anyone tells you, half of the bloody reason we are in so much shit in the first place is because we are still conducting business with concepts developed during the industrial revolution.
You hear it all the time, don’t you? Productivity. Return on investment. Nowdays they’ve shortened it to “ROI”. Truth be told, when those three letters are put together, it makes me cringe. If you’ve got a great ROI, it means whatever you’re investing in is ripping off someone somewhere along the supply chain. You could certainly be doing more. You could be giving back even more instead of pocketing so much for yourselves, you greedy bastards. So I personally couldn’t give a toss about return on investment. All I care about is having enough money to pay for my food. If I can do that, I know I’ll be happy in the long run. So I’d like to take that acronym “ROI”, and shove it right up an investor’s arsehole. That’s basically how I feel about that.
It’s a shame that most business people value profit more than anything else. It really is. Why don’t we measure happiness as a measure of net worth I wonder? Make happiness the focus for employees and consumers, and maybe then productivity and –dare I say it– ROI will increase.
Now I’m not saying that I don’t consume or produce anything. And no I’m not a communist either, before someone accuses me of that. I’m just trying to ask humanity about the the really hard questions, like “why do we still do things this way when we know it isn’t going to be good for us in the long run?”.
Gosh we’re making it harder and harder for our future children. Isn’t the purpose of life supposed to be long term survival?
So I have to ask the question: what are we doing?
WHAT ARE WE DOING?
You know, if you’ve read “small is beautiful”, you already know that infinite growth with finite resources means that sooner or later something has to change. The two things are mutually exclusive. And I think the world is changing. You won’t get much ROI if Earth has an atmosphere like Mars or Venus for fucks sake.
So here are some new defintions I have put together of our ‘advanced’ consumer culture that I have put together. Hopefully, it will get some of you buggers to think:
Energy: power the stuff
Logistics: move the stuff.
Manufacturing: make the stuff.
Retail/Sales: a place that sells stuff.
Industrial Design: invent new stuff.
Consulting: help people to sell more stuff.
Defence: defend the people and their stuff.
Crime: steal stuff, or else the money to buy stuff.
Entertainment: distract people from their stuff.
Management: order people to make/sell more stuff.
Recruitment: find the best people to sell or make stuff.
Advertising/Marketing: convince people to buy more stuff.
Transportation: move the people who make or buy the stuff.
Self-Employment: sell stuff –or help others to sell their stuff.
Trades/Services: fix all the broken stuff, or else install new stuff.
Farming/Agriculture: feed all the people that make all the stuff.
Mining/Resources: get the basic ingredients to make all the stuff.
Communication/Information Technology: talk about the stuff.
“Unemployment”: to not contribute towards making or selling stuff.
Customer Service: help people if/when they have a problem with their stuff.
Healthcare/Medical: help people live longer so that they can buy more stuff.
Banking/Finance: lend money to people so that they can make or buy more stuff.
Graphic Design: make stuff appear cooler so that other people can sell more stuff.
Real estate: sell space (aka “empty stuff”) so that they can have a place to put more stuff.
Fashion: frequently change stuffs’ appearance so that people want to buy even more new stuff.
Law: preferentially protect the people who make, steal and sell stuff. Always colludes with government.
Law Enforcement: ensure that everybody can safely make and sell stuff. Always colludes with government.
Science: understand the world, so that other people can eventually take that information and make ‘better’ stuff.
Media: A way to brainwash people to buy more stuff. Messages are usually transmitted indirectly through the stuff.
Architecture/Engineering/Construction: build stuff so that we can be more productive at selling even more stuff.
Cosmetics: use stuff to make people feel more beautiful, ultimately yielding more people who will consume more stuff.
Accounting/Administration: organise things for people, so that they have more free time and money to sell more stuff.
Tourism/Recreation: relax people for a few hours/days/weeks of the year so that they can get back to selling more stuff.
Education: educate people to be able to make and sell more stuff more effectively/efficiently. Always colludes with government.
Sport: encourage people to be more competitive so that one day they can be better than the ‘losers’ at either making or selling stuff.
Human resources: encouraging ‘sick’ and/or unemployed people to become ‘healthy’ and eventually go back into the loop of making & selling stuff.
Government: maintain the status quo (to produce and sell stuff) while secretly opposing anything else that doesn’t produce or sell stuff, calling it ‘unproductive’ or ‘uncooperative’.
Insurance: a highly discriminatory institution that induces unnecessary fear into people about losing their stuff. Make money out of people in case they lose stuff and want to replace their stuff.
Organised crime: steal stuff, or the money to buy stuff. Sometimes colludes with government. Make and sell drugs so that people can feel differently whenever they’re not buying or using real stuff.
Religion: convince people that after they die, there won’t be any need for stuff and that people can live forever without stuff, that they’ll be reunited with everyone the love, but without all the stuff. Sometimes colludes with government.
Rich: invest with people who make more stuff in order to save and potentially buy more stuff.
War: a temporary state of disagreement about stuff. Kill each other with all kinds of stuff.
Conservation: protect nature from the incursion of all this stuff.
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