Cost is the amount paid or charged for something. The Price of something can be the unpleasant results that you must accept or experience for getting or doing something. The Value is the monetary, material, or assessed worth of an asset, good, or service. An Incentive is a thing that motivates or encourages someone to do something.
Our world is based on these 4 things. We have become a world of Consumers. Continual growth is King. Companies & individuals amass huge wealth. Politics is ruled by powerful & wealthy lobbyists, by consumer focus groups. We have more Stuff than we can possibly need & we waste vast amounts of that Stuff.
Advertising is a huge industry incentivising us to buy more & more Stuff. It can be very clever & insidious, persuading us that we just can't do without whatever the product is. We are faced with an overwhelming amount of choice. Just look at the Yogurt aisle in any big supermarket. We have become indoctrinated to buy.
My generation can remember much simpler times when nowhere near as much Stuff was imported. When choice was limited to what was in season for example. When expectation about what needed to be available to buy was not nearly so high. But we have moved on. This is our reality.
The problem is that this new world has brought a wealth of problems. Not least is waste - pollution - inequality - depletion of finite resources & species - harm to the environment ....
Our expectations have a huge Cost & we will pay an unimaginable Price if we don't Value what we have more & ignore the Incentives to make poor choices. We are at a Tipping Point. We could even have gone over it. Survival of the World is probably not at issue, it will probably recover if the human race sends itself into oblivion.
The Doomsday Clock is at 90 seconds to midnight. That's a precarious position to be in & it isn't just about a nuclear catatstrophe.
No comments:
Post a Comment