Earlier quoted context omitted.
true. This is a good essay but there’s, as to be expected, not too much of an acknowledgement of the economic and political backdrop of the arena this played out in. A lot of discussions of this essay therefore get diluted into musings about aspects of human nature and its tendency to obsess over status and while missing the broader point about the role these sorts of corpo strategies play in modern societal wellbein…
One of my favorite books about inequality is The Spirit Level (Wilkinson and Pickett). It asks how this country can be so incredibly rich, unprecedented in human history, but still create so much suffering (physical/mental/emotional). https://ibb.co/jZs6NhLt
The Brand Age
401–403 of 403 posts
Re: The Brand Age
#402Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually in many cases it is for social KPI storytelling. I know some wealthy people and at gatherings they love to tell 5-10min long stories of exclusive processes that they followed to gain something exclusive while dropping names and numbers. The processes are easy to understand for the entire social circle (i.e. not technical or business achievements which they can't easily disclose).
Being wealthy solves virtually all problems of consumption, so the invisible hand provides new problems to serve the market need. Beautiful, really.
There is a subreddit called r/r/SelfAwarewolves, where people unknowingly and accidentally basically answer their own questions or suspicions without realizing.
And this is how I feel about recent few pg's essays. There is this new market, political and social reality, that pg decribes well but for some reason just doesn't want to call what it is.
Re: The Brand Age
#403Interesting historical anecdote: the Swiss became the world's best watchmakers because, in Protestant Geneva under the leadership of John Calvin, jewelry was banned as ostentation. But you were allowed to wear a watch - it was important to get to church and work on time - so people starting wearing expensive watches instead of jewelry.
Interesting. It's my understanding that in a similar vein, one of the reasons Belgium got so good at making tasty, stronger beers because wine and spirits were banned in the past. It's not quite 'necessity' being the mother of invention, but perhaps desire.
Not only that! You know the typical image of a witch? With a pointy hat and a giant round-shaped pot?
Those were illegal beer brewers in Belgium! Women would put their pointy hat on their door as a sign that there might be, if you ask nicely, some beer for you to buy there.