Snacks, in my case

Lately, I have lived as some kind of monk would, abstained from consumption, I have been happier and saved 90 percent of my pay a year.

so true

@@michaelbalfour3170 I went from being upset I got booted from transitional housing (still was sober) losing some of my stuff...to living in a hostel downtown with just a computer and some clothes. It was a revelation. I was truly happy. Got back into drugs...lived in the worst apt of my life. Went to detox and transitional housing again. Stayed clean. Moved to a so so apt... And NOW, I'm more at peace than ever before. I don't think pot is so bad but I truly prefer being sober. I'm going to get a job with the amazing social service place that got me clean. And when my grandmother's inheritance money arrives I'm going to build an amazing desktop computer. I buy used laptops. I have a modest clothes supply. I can dress nice but I don't care for fancy stuff. Other than a crazy powerful desktop I won't own a single luxury item. I'm happy with my used 10$ phone. I borrow WiFi from an athletic club nearby, and if I wasn't so embarrassed about bringing a woman back to an apt where we share a bathroom and shower with other tenets....I may never move. I am going to seek that better job and a new desktop. But I'll buy thrift clothes, won't own a car, and I'm happy being somewhat a minimalist. I've found the perfect inbetween that's right for me.

@@Cat_Magic811 Glad your happy, sound like you've had a journey getting there but when the revelation came you noticed it :). All the best and good luck with the job.

Why.

@@saladvolcano3103 shh, i think he is a romantic

dude? DUDE!!! Money is the God of this World. The phrase “god of this world” (or “god of this age”) indicates that Satan is the major influence on the ideals, opinions, goals, hopes and views of the majority of people. His influence also encompasses the world’s philosophies, education, and commerce. The thoughts, ideas, speculations and false religions of the world are under his control and have sprung from his lies and deceptions

the morality of good can be different for different persons and hard to decide. doing good is no more than a Christian idea and you can't find a subjective Good nor evil

you are looking at the wrong side of my argument. I'm saying you can't find a objective Good and evil but that's it depends of the time and society

it's because this channel mostly deals with the western world ergo Christianity or If you wanna stretch that Christianity Judaism and Islam

Amen

That's most, if not every, entrepreneur...

Thank you for revealing the After Effects software tool. I'm looking to train in multimedia. What other software do you think School of Life uses to reduce these splendid pieces?

to "produce" these videos --sorry for the typo

I'm too lazy to play Pokémon Go... waiting for the version where they just come to you...

Just found your response!! Your very much like me in this respect.

Toilet golf is a basic human right and needs to be enforced by law to be taught from birth

yes, but that's escapism

" If people decided to save more and spend less, the economy would not collapse. There would simply be a shift in economic production from consumer goods into capital goods, allowing further wealth creation in the future." Only if you can export the (by then over-)production, if not you will have a collapse 1929 style

ThePreciseMoment There would be no over or underproduction, just a shift in the kinds of goods being produced.

Excuse my ignorance, please, but would you be so kind to tell me what capital goods are?

pennymac16 Goods used for production rather than consumption. E.g. raw materials, factories, infrastructure etc.

sharperguy Ah, how stupid of me, I could and should have known - thanks, anyway. But now I wonder: How would this shift of economic production from consumer goods to capital goods come about if people decrease their consumption (meaning lower demand) and save more? Why would you buy materials, factories and tools when you can't market the products you could produce with them due to low demand? What do I misunderstand here?

To the contrary, this is not at all calling for the status quo. They say several times that a combination of economic activity and virtuous ideals is possible and will likely benefit all through imparting wisdom and worldly comfort. This isn't what we have now at all and is a system to move towards. To slave wages, wealth inequality and exploitation, those will be seen for what they are: horrible crimes against fellow beings who are no better or worse than we are. Those problems will only be solved when we have the collective wisdom to recognize their existence and our responsibility to end it and through the economic power to do so. Either alone won't solve these problems, it needs to be both together.

+Ryan Lacroix Let's just throw more money at the problem; that'll totally work! :-P

da fuq?

Very subjective and false view is what you portray. Wages are a mutual agreement between an employer & an employee. If the employee finds the wage is too low, then he is free to quit if and when he chooses. The environment is always changing, for good or for bad over millions of years. Forests grow and die, land is formed and destroyed, and continents disappear into the ocean. Say you observe the earth at a 1sec=10 000 years speed, you will see many things about it change every second. We humans really can't impact it permanently. You can't control wealth accumulation.

Oh, but we can, and we have. That's why we're in the anthropocene. Humans have become so powerful that they are a geological force, and one to be reckoned with if we continue on our path of infinite growth and increasing resource extraction. It is almost certain at this point that we will even cause our own extinction as a result of our voluntarily suicidal societal behavior.

Learn the tatics and subvert them.

Adverts try to appeal to our most complex and ethereal needs. They're an invitation to challenge your rational mind. What's primitive is the most interesting part of intellectualism. Happiness is primitive.

Sponsored by lootcrate! A source for geeky nerdy merch delivered right to your doorstep!!!!

Abhishek Balaji after all we are just "rational actors"

But can be attained through non-primitive ways.

Michael Luciano You’re fortunate to have friends who are interested in such matters, discussion over drinks an extra plus.

The problem with poverty and virtue is that they hardly ever coexist.

Yes i agree, you are fortunate to have such friends..

@@mikitz yeah poverty often leads to desperate acts which harm others.

@@mikitz Right. There is no inherent virtue in poverty per se. On the other hand a truly virtuous person usually choose a lifestyle that correspond well with the naturally reduced needs that comes with having a virtuous mind. Not as a show-off but as a natural effect of reduced needs.

H. Anthony Ribadeneira permanent oppression time😎

The low classes will ge more desperate for pleasure that the system will crash once they cannot afford to live.

wars, theft, crisis, pandemics, death, you name it. When it balances itself (just enough people) it will be remember as another tragic event in the development of the human being like it has happened many times in the past.

@Ma Rk population control

@Ma Rk While it is very possible it will result in a great depression the other possibility is that the freed up labour will go into supplying services which cater to higher needs such as arts, self understanding and entertainment. Things that robots won't be able to provide........yet

Extremely well thought and put.

No, we should shop for things we actually want

😊sharing is powerful !

There is however definately an inverse correlation between virtue and puberty!

Can't virtue and perberty coexist?

That's exactly the conclusion of the video.

Jeffrey KRUPA ups! hahaha Sorry for the typo :P

Not exactly.

Yes😊😊😊😅

👌🏼

Well there are different relationships between slavery and consumerism. Perhabs the consumer becomes a slave to the product, by planned obsoletence. This means that a product is designed in such a way that it breaks donw, so you the consumer will (have to) buy a new product. For example the Iphone that went buggy and slow due to an update, just as a new Iphone hit the marker. Or the fact that you (no longer) can (easiliy) replace the battery of your phone by yourself and thus are a slave to others who will replace it for you or buy a new one. Another form of slavery is the litteral version. Meaning humans being owned by other humans. This predates consumerism as it was (is) common in many cultures and civilisations. It was formally ended by the British empire (they payed a huuuggge number for it in terms of gold). The Arabic slave trade was far more deadly and bigger than western slavery. But the weird thing is, because slavery was abolished, the wages increased,. You could no longer ''pay'' your slave with a bed and meal. No they needed / deserved, real payment. This caused of product to rise. This aided the industrial revolution. Because companies who created new ways of producing goods with few man / few working hours were ahead of the competition. They could sell their product cheaper. If the wages were low (slave wages so a bed and a meal) than it makes no sense to invest $$$ in a machine which will not turn a profit. But because slavery ended, it was wise to tinvest $$$ in a machine. because the machine, relatively, became cheaper. Just my two cents. Lemme know what you think of it @Damilare Oyefeso.

Exactly consumerism has not ended Poverty it made it worst. For sure now when people don't have their own grown food to feed themselves or houses to live in.

They didn't really go into any depth about the reasons for why this consumerism started. Besides, slavery existed for thousands of years before consumerism. It was not the cause.

@@oscarstenberg2745 agreed but they are linked.

Marie-Pierre Renaud a growing economy doesn’t need infinite resources, it relies on the subjectivity of value and trade surplus(if we trade something we each value what we got more than what we gave, so we both won).

What about replacing money for favors and credit to address wants and needs?

I really agree, this is the first time I have been so deeply disappointed by a School of Life video.

Then you make a video you idiot. This video is exactly what it claims to be you loser critic fail

I thought the video was trying to pull us towards the opinion of schools and universities being privatised being a good thing.

Maybe Capitalism is only capable of delivering the unimportant, silly and vain things. Every time Capitalism tries to move into the the realm of the important things like education, healthcare, justice-system and infrastructure, it doesn't go so well.

I used to be an anti-capitalist but not anymore completely. I don't support capitalism as it has many flaws but it also has allowed many people to lift themselves out of poverty. The issue with capitalism is that it's not effective at creating equity. It's a system that provides opportunity but not equally to all. And you're right about the profit motive being inappropriate for things like health care, education (higher and elementary), and criminal reform but when purchasing small consumer items it has driven economies to larger sizes enabling more wealth for more people. But this can be very vicious and destructive as we've seen in modernity since the industrial revolution and post-WWII American economic and foreign policy. Modern capitalism with its huge output and waste for the generations that came after its inception just seems to be that way things have always been and that's where the issue comes from: the fish don't know their in water until they're taken out of it.

I used to be an anti-capitalist but not anymore completely. I don't support capitalism as it has many flaws but it also has allowed many people to lift themselves out of poverty. The issue with capitalism is that it's not effective at creating equity. It's a system that provides opportunity but not equally to all. And you're right about the profit motive being inappropriate for things like health care, education (higher and elementary), and criminal reform but when purchasing small consumer items it has driven economies to larger sizes enabling more wealth for more people. But this can be very vicious and destructive as we've seen in modernity since the industrial revolution and post-WWII American economic and foreign policy. Modern capitalism with its huge output and waste for the generations that came after its inception just seems to be that way things have always been and that's where the issue comes from: the fish don't know their in water until they're taken out of it.

source?

***** You're welcome 😸 had a giggle writing it too. appreciate and recommend your exemplary work, keep it up ❣ thanks

Dutch economist Angus Maddison provides a dataset to show how slow the GDP was growing since 1AD to late 1600s. In the 18th century, during the Age of Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, global economy experienced a spike in terms of GDP.

Jacob Lund Fisker might be more correlative to what you're looking for? He wrote "Early Retirement Extreme" and it's his sort of manifesto for reducing consumption in a modern society. There's also the History of Finance documentary floating around youtube somewhere

Alejandro Betancourt the type of wealth disparity we see in the US today is not a difficult concept to explain. To put it simply the wealthy had more wealth before the financial crisis, allowing them to weather it better then those with less (due in part to exponential growth and capital accumulation). In post recession eras (like today) there is a lag on wage rises as businesses need to reaccumulate capital and their strength. Plus especially after 2008 most consumers are still very pessimistic about the market, leading to lower consumption and lower wages/profits accordingly. This phenomenon is especially true in larger countries like the US, smaller ones don't have to accumulate the same about of capital before their GDP/Cap or PPP indexes rise to higher levels (more people more time). Hopefully this helps a little, if you wish to further look into it the Solow growth model is the crux of this argument.

Have u also noticed how it claims that making a profitable market out of Higher Education will help the poor, haha. Those same poor of course whom under the capitalist society of America can sweep their dreams of higher education forever under the rug!

TheAlmostbob Look i understand what is going on economically. I was looking for Mr. DeBotton's insight on the matter in a philosophical light. I disagree with your analysis though. It implies that the rich have every intention of raising wages on their own as soon as a certain level of capital has been recollected. The stock market is better than ever and 99 percent of new income created since the great recession is in the hands of the top 1 percent of income earners. Only a strong government action has any hope of increasing wages and let us not even begin to talk about reappropriating money that has been sheltered in foreign tax havens. I saw a report yesterday saying that the total amount of money held in these tax havens exceeds total US GDP. These problems are way older than the recession. The VOODOO economics of Reagan; the Trickle down economics of the 80s and the trade deals of the 90s are the main culprits. Information is power and the average person in the US hasn't even heard the TPP be mentioned in print or speech ONCE according to a recent poll. Also the term trade deal is misleading. The average person says TRADE? Trade is GOOD. Whatever. Almost half of my country believes that if you cut a rich man's taxes he will hire more people. When in fact these multinationals have a fiduciary responsibility to NOT hire someone if they can get away with it. I could go on all fucking day. This video failed. Perhaps Alain is not a politiphile as I am.

Your argument ignores the fact that benefits have been rising for the worker, which adds to the total cost of labor. From a producer standpoint the cost of employment has been rising. However the impact on the labor side is a expansion of benefits, not a rise in wages. Also, if you look at the data you will see an expansion of wages. Also, your argument ignores the business cycle, which has fluctuated since the 80's and 90's.

It did. It did. Although the intensity was much less.

@@phokrizatmayirnao3346 Indeed, it wasn't until the industrial revolution that shit could be produced in great enough quantities and cheaply that consumerism really took off.

👍🏼

Exactly - in this narrative wealth just appears out of 'nowhere' in the 1800s.

It's amazing how much credit some people want from back when white people had Child Labor and the industrial revolution.

@@irrealislife irrespective of whether the “holy” Adam Smith argued that slavery was less *efficient* than waged labour, the UK / many countries in Europe / US did kidnap, brutalise, murder, rape, terrorise and torture people from Africa on mass in order to force them to work every waking moment for no pay, for hundreds of years. It’s wholly absurd to say that slavery played no part in amassing wealth for slave owners and the nations they payed taxes to / invested in. Even if Adam Smith argued they could have made greater profits by actually paying people, entire industries were still founded upon slavery. It was an industry in itself. It’s a demonstrable fact. It doesn’t really matter how efficient it was, as assessed by Adam Smith’s speculations, it was still very profitable for a long time. I’d also suggest you look into modern slavery and you’ll see that it still exists in most nations on earth in various forms, regardless of how wealthy a nation is. Many nations who are experiencing huge / the fastest growth are utilising slave labour - see Qatar World Cup as an example. In 2021 almost 13000 potential victims of slavery in the UK were referred to the Home Office. Re. Colonial theft - to put it simply, when a country invades another country and extracts valuable resources that it then hoards and / or sells for profit, it makes the invaders more wealthy…

@@irrealislife I don’t quite understand how you can say that every country in the world uses slave labour but then also say that western nations have supposedly eradicated it …? Yes slavery has existed throughout history across the world. The transatlantic slave trade however is a very specific part of modern history that contributed significantly to the current world order. This involved a state sponsored industry in kidnapping and farming slaves from Africa on mass, which is structurally very different from the mostly underground forms of modern slavery in the world today. Slavery is not a huge contributor to any nation’s economy as it once was. You originally made this misleading transhistorical comparison by saying that today ‘poor’ nations use slave labour but they are still poor and supposedly the west is squeaky clean. I only mentioned modern slavery to remind you that slavery still exists EVERYWHERE, not just in developing nations you might wish to demonise. But it is a very different situation to the transatlantic slave trade which took it to a global industrial scale. Why is it so difficult to acknowledge that colonialism and slavery created a huge amount of wealth and power for the west …?

Anogoya Dagaati until you read what everyone writes in comments then (when you don't really understand the subject) you go from thinking they're good to errr or are they? Seems as though everyone has different ideas. My sad conclusion - it would seem people just can't agree and therefore can't really get along!

that being said, he seems pretty biased towards capitalism so I doubt we'd get a fair assessment of anarchism. Watch his dismissal or communism and Karl Marx in the other videos.

it's not the major difference is that socialism believe in a "dictator of the proletariat" that's meant to guide the rest of the workers while anarchist denies this because they believe this dictator only will be come a new higher class

Tespri Disorder and civilriots are not the same as anarchism my friend. Just because these phenomenons have give given the name anarchism dosent mean it have anything to do with the ideology

oh and the ad at the end... feels weird after a video on consumerism 😂

It actually probably does make you happier. Research shows that material goods and wealth increase happiness. Of course, it increases by a logarithmical curve, but it does make an average person happier. Even more, if he has something and others don't.

You should send a large donation so they can keep working on this videos. People gotta eat you know?

***** can you link the research? I've never seen one that claims oposite correlation. Maybe in anxiety, but not overall well being.

From what I know money does make you happier up to a certain point, then it actually goes down, that's cause most billionaires are miserable, and it also depends on how you were raised, poor background and all that influences

No. He never once talked about how anything was made, regardless. That's a side point which does not make nor break his point. Just because there's a specific aspect that touches you personally doesn't mean it's significant to the overall points he was making. It was about poverty/virtue vs lavishness/excess. Nothing more.

@@jasondashney I mean...products are a central part of the consumerist vision, and they don't materialize in thin air you know what I'm saying, so OP's point is valid

FINALLY SOMEONE SAID SOMETHING. STAY WOKE.

He left everything of importance out, consumerism serves to keep the monetary/market system alive and this causes damage to human and nature that is comparable to a nuclear apocalypse, the biodiversity shrunk by 78% since 1970's, 78% of all being have been eradicated, every year 18 million people die due to structural violence, climate catastrophe and so on. This is the worst explanation of consumerism I ever heard, it is a little piece of the beginning of capitalism but not consumerism, consumerism began with Edward Bernays and re-education of the needs-society to a desire-society, people knew very well the difference between needs and wants before and wasn't consuming enough so the monetary/market system = capitalism could work and this lead to the great depression, this was when they decided to reprogram societies and breed consumers.

Good reference, but i don't think that's what they meant. Maybe if you show to people rather than force them would be a better solution. Show them why is better to consume products and services focused on our higher needs as they've said, rather than to indulge frivolous and compulsive consumerism. You don't need to "guarantee" that people won't consume frivolous products - that's impossible and maybe pointless. If you instruct, educate and bring enlightenment to people maybe they will choose for themselves, and then maybe the industry of vanity and unnecessary goods will die out due to the gradual lowering of demand.

And it is certainly possible to a degree not to pitch the two against one another but I think in Europe in general people drive in smaller cars, go to restaurants more than to mcdonnalds, spend more money and time on vacation instead of working more for a bigger car,... lots of examples so it can be influenced without direct force

(in comparison to the USA (minus hipsters probably :p))

uk.businessinsider.com/here-are-the-vainest-countries-in-the-world-2015-8?r=US&IR=T GOOD example

In his observations of Germany and the early Soviet Union, they tried more democratically socialist policies, having the people decide what was important. What happened was that nobody agreed and a much more inefficient system resulted. He posited that the only way to make sure people did what was best for the nation, they would have to be told. History so far leans in his favor, but who knows if there's some other way (my take is another historical example. War unifies in one direction. Just look at war bonds, rationing, etc. during WWII)

Where can I possibly see sources on the claims on living conditions pre-Industrial Revolution era?

@@flamethrower883 internet

SuperiorSeven hence without consumption capital and human labour wouldn’t exist. It’s the first perpetuum mobile that has been created.

Coke drinking basic people hahahaha. You were absolutely spot on. Human beings are a product of their environment, and the trend today is that you can feel confident being ignorant and stupid as nobody will challenge you for it, as they are mostly the same. The dumber, sicker, more confused and more desperate you are, the more profitable you are. That's why capitalist society will never experience widespread popular enlightenment, because it isn't in the interests of the economy. It is possible that people could contribute equally to the economy by purchasing products which support the 'higher needs' mentioned in the video. Perhaps some day, we can spend the same amount of money buying locally produced food, sports goods, instruments, art, academic materials and other worthwhile things, and everyone will be happier and wiser, and the 1% content. Most importantly, we could maybe even live in tune with the natural world. But you probably know all of this in the 2 years since your comment. I always turn my replies into essays..

I would actually love to see a video on non consumeristic societies that flourished. By this I do mean non-western/European cultures. Perhaps this is why so many people seem to flourish to non western philosophies. They very upkeep of consumerism is exhausting and at time demeaning and demoralising.

It was a very well done 10 minute ad for their store and think of the origin of their face and producer. Pas de surprise.

To say this video was "a VERY Anglophile and Western video" seems to me a bit absurd and quite funny. What small parts of the real world as it exists here and now does this video ignore ? What parts of the world are truly isolated from the topic of consumerism? I don't know many such isolated countries and i would be glad to be told i simply lack the knowledge and then be pointed to it.Also as a historian i wonder if you could tell me how relying on muscle horse/man mainly can make a culture flourish better than electricity and combustion engines.I don't know the answer.

You seem to be deflecting. I never said anything about only relying on muscle/horse etc, nor does consumerism have a reflection on the invention of electricity-the Minoans had batteries which rang their doorbells after all. My comment if you would care to reread it, simply stated that civilizations grew and flourished before consumerism outside of Europe-hence calling it a Anglophile video. Perhaps further study on world civilization outside of Europe would help your understanding. Beyond saying that, i don't think we are on the same page, as you don't seem to get what I am saying.

I know. I was just about to write this.

i am curious too :O

Slideshows?

Would love to know as well.

Terry Gilliam style!

I don't think it would be terribly hard to do, I think it would take forever though