A breakdown of the history, psychology, and lasting effects of consumerism on humanity
Many people are unaware of just how much the collective psychology of the world has changed since the early 1900's. This change is not a natural thing. We did not evolve to behave the way we do today. Our behavior has been designed for us, crafted by psychologists and implanted in our minds through generations of mass media. I am of course talking about marketing and propaganda.
A documentary on the advent of modern propaganda and consumerism: The Century of Self
With this piece of history in mind, we can see how the psychology of consumers, corporations, and governments has changed since media was weaponized via electronics. The logical result of this shift in thinking was for corporations to maximize profit.
Enter: planned obsolescence. Documentary The Light Bulb Conspiracy
In addition to the theme of planned obsolescence, this documentary briefly covers the waste generated by the system of consumerism. This brief documentary expands on the toxic byproducts of 3rd world scrapping methods.
So when you see articles like This one it might be easy to place all the blame on the countries that surround. But it is the allowances made by 1st world laws designed to perpetuate modern consumerism (lobbied for by mega-corporations) that supply many of these waste materials to the regions in the first place.
A summary of the grand conspiracy at work:
1) Consumers are conditioned to place less value in quality goods.
2) Corporations have now designed their products to fail sooner.
3) Consumers buy more of their products, and sooner.
4) Corporations use their massive profits to lobby for politicians that will blame the consumers for the word's environment, and increase taxes on the consumers (rather than taxing the corporations that cause global pollution).
5) Under the burden of increased taxes, the average consumer can not afford as many well-built products, and are increasingly limited to the purchase of poor products.
6) Go to 1.
And that's how corporations took over the world. Thanks for reading.
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