In a message dated 00-07-15 18:44:12 EDT, you write:
> I should have specified consumer goods. It's true, much of what
>we produce is unnecessary, consumer junk with the demand
>fueled by advertising. The fact that you, Michael or I and I
>presume many members of this list can get along without much
>of it doesn't translate out into the world.
Homo sapiens got along for hundreds of thousands of years
before the current age of junk production. Many geniuses
were produced before the age of cell phones, huge video screens.
computer games, and boom cars. Stradivarius, Galileo,
Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi, Marconi, the Wright Brothers,
Thomas Edison, Isaac Newton, Mary Shelly (pausing while train
of thought is interupted by a passing boom car) -- these are just
a few which come to mind.
What will be the legacy of future geniuses? I fear it will be a
docile, obedient, sub-human population of genetically-engineered
clones -- carrying out the will of the ruling class without question.
Mary Shelly was truly a prophetic genius.
>Most people reject good old bohemian or voluntary poverty. They
>want stuff.
>The inability of the Eastern bloc countries to produce such stuff is
>one of the major reasons communism fell so easily -- and most
>people in the eastern block countries celebrated.
Are you sure of the above? Or did you get that idea from the
capitalist press? Were Europeans feeling oppressed because
their neighbors didn't have loud stereos to blast into their
apartments and keep them awake at night? Right now there
is an epidemic of sleep deprivation in the country, and noise
pollution caused by consumer junk is a big reason for it.
>I'm not totally cheerful about that. A lot of good stuff -- free day care,
>schooling, rough economic equality, health care -- good washed down the
>drain with the bath water. But we Americans have the privilege of rejecting
>the excessive affluence. Few people in the world have enough of anything to
>reject.
How I wish I could reject the presence of boom cars in my life.
How those who used to enjoy the serene beauty of quiet lakes
wish they could reject jet skis.
How the citizens of Anchorage wish they could reject the constant
barrage of noise from helicopter tours.
~ Michael Wright
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