Is the consumer lifestyle sustainable?

[sandorski]

The biggest immediate threat to Consumerism is Personal debt. That said, the current level of Consumerism could never be expanded to include all Humans, as long as Earth is the only supply of resources anyway.

 

[StageLeft]

My comment is that due to lack of education, guidance, and general intelligence, most people don't really know what makes them happy. They think that feeding the beast of greed and envy will make them happy, but it won't. Keeping such things ever at the forefront in my own life I consider my life well balanced. I'll never have as much money as plenty of people, and will continue to live happier than them with a less regretful life as well. Family, principles, health, etc. are not at all benefitted by basic objects and the constant winless search of property. Many never figure this out, so their lives are never as fulfilling as they could be.

Oh, and in regards to the earth? Well, the planet has finite resources. Clearly the human race will eat the planet up and spit it out, much as Agent Smith concludes in the Matrix (referring to humanity as a virus). He's quite correct. The question is how long can we go... I mean truly there's just no hope for mankind's longevity. Short of divine intervention, or the timely discovery and execution of interplanetary colonization the human race will kill itself, or at the very least bring itself to its knees eventually - all it's own undoing. The few who can forsee it are just not strong enough to fight the will of the consuming many.

 

[bozack]

but without consumerasm wouldn't there be no ATOT?? or even Anandtech for that matter? where would you all be then? personally I think I would love it if we timewarped back 100 or so years.

 

[WinkOsmosis]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
My comment is that due to lack of education, guidance, and general intelligence, most people don't really know what makes them happy. They think that feeding the beast of greed and envy will make them happy, but it won't. Keeping such things ever at the forefront in my own life I consider my life well balanced. I'll never have as much money as plenty of people, and will continue to live happier than them with a less regretful life as well. Family, principles, health, etc. are not at all benefitted by basic objects and the constant winless search of property. Many never figure this out, so their lives are never as fulfilling as they could be.

Oh, and in regards to the earth? Well, the planet has finite resources. Clearly the human race will eat the planet up and spit it out, much as Agent Smith concludes in the Matrix (referring to humanity as a virus). He's quite correct. The question is how long can we go... I mean truly there's just no hope for mankind's longevity. Short of divine intervention, or the timely discovery and execution of interplanetary colonization the human race will kill itself, or at the very least bring itself to its knees eventually - all it's own undoing. The few who can forsee it are just not strong enough to fight the will of the consuming many.

Yes, good post. Humanity needs to change, but it never will.

 

[Ornery]

"The few who can forsee it are just not strong enough to fight the will of the consuming many."

Much like the early Roman Church, futilily trying to stave off the inevitable Renaissance...

 

[Orsorum]

Educate yourself, those around you, your children, in principle and in a lifestyle that sustains yet does not gorge; be an example, and impart to all with whom you come in contact the latent but urgent necessity of restraint. As an informal student of history, of shifts in societies, nation-states and peoples, it is amazing to see some of the advances we have achieved - yet to see the accompanying squalor and pain in which so many live. The cycles that all bodies enjoy are similar - the Romans had a similar period of decadence, yet in time their civilization was crushed; borne out of that decadence cum devastation was the foundation for an entirely new stage in human society.

The "consumer" lifestyle is not sustainable; it is okay, however, this will be discovered in time. An entire globe of people will find the hard way the dire consequences of their actions. Those who are wise and prepared will survive.

Or maybe not. We'll all die in a nuclear inferno, freeze in the resulting winter or die of starvation and pollution.

Either way, take care of your own, and leave others to their own devices.

Cheers!
Nate