Amazon did not "invent" home delivery

[lostnfound]

10. Invented needs. Bad for the planet, bad for community.

The US government did a lot of things to encourage consumer spending. This included telling families that it was “psychologically better.” for children to grow up with their own bedrooms, rather than sharing beds and dressers in a room with siblings. Advertising and mass marketing became like steroids for the economy.

I’ve often wondered if advertising for nonessential stuff were to be banned, how much of a benefit would that be to the planet. Ordinary people are pushed to buy more and more stuff, while making less and less money, which causes stress, financial hardship, conflicts, and environmental pollution.

If people had actually decided they wanted something on their own, and seek it out without prompting from commercials, how much would consumption fall?

The resources spent on fans, pet rocks constantly changing fashions, and the sense that you have to remodel the kitchen and bathroom of every house you ever move into, and paint in the latest trendy colors – those resources could be used to help people in the community who don’t have food or housing at all.

When I was young, I also wondered why society didn’t plant fruit trees and nut trees In public spaces to help alleviate hunger. I just saw about a program the other day, I talked about Polin and how we have an abundance of pollen because some government publication back in the late 1950s recommended that all city planners only plant male trees. They decided that female trees were too messy. I can’t help but think maybe there was another reason. Maybe somebody decided the fruit and nuts collected from a tree on public land was fruit and nuts that would not be purchased.