h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Standing in the kitchen lastnight, contemplating wastage and looking at some freshly picked raspberries,had these thoughts.
Why do we consume more than we need?
What would happen if everyone only consumed just the amount required, No More, No Less?

Then I sat down to raspberries and ice cream

Consume calories or just things in general?

There's probably a certain amountr of feel-good stuff involved. Like in that icecream tastes so good, and people get a buzz from getting a £100 pair of shoes or whatever for 50p.

There's lots of emotion involved in buying, owning and possessing material things. i can really see the difference when I go out with my family to do the week's shopping:
First we go to our usual, cheap shop and buy most stuff we usually eat and pay the usual amount we pay. We then go for "a few bits" from the more expensive shop and end up speding the same amount there. It's not like we couldn't live without the extra bits, because we can, but... it's a bit of luxury to us, I think.

Hi Elly & NPI,
Thanks for your comments.
Agree with the point about emotion in buying.
Being of the male gender I tend to shop in what I would call the SAS style (Get In, get what you need, Get Out).
My wife on the other hand takes in the full scope, including special offers, which I believe leaves more scope for being pursuaded to buy extra's on impulse.
I am not saying either style is right (they both have merits) but what would it be like if society did not buy 'extras'.Are we too suceptible to loss leaders, marketing ploys and creation of demand?

For myself I am not sure if I could survive without the treat's or luxuries (like Ice cream) every now and then.

Yeah, think there is a definate impulse thing that supermarkets rely on. Like they put the chocs at the tills, and the special offers on the end of the rows so we see them more.

I've heard people say they find they can cut down by sticking to a list, not shopping when they're hungry and using the same route round the store.

Not shopping when hungry is a really good idea.
Another way of effecting emotions is when the big stores are shut, usually for one day on Christmas, at least it's so in the UK, or they shut early on a Sunday. I'm always amazed at the rush! You'd think a war was coming and these people will now be locked up in air raid shelters for months! You can't move in the shop, you can't get some things as they're sold out and you have to wait at the tills for a long time and all that for a day of being shut... unbelieveable.

I know! It's crazy. I understand that at Christmas, you might have visitors coming,and you don't want to be running to the shops for milk on Boxing Day and you can't neccessarily buy your turkey 3 weeks in advance, but still. You hear about people buying £250 of groceries on Christmas Eve. Bet half of it sits in a cupboard or gets thrown out too.

Hi NPY,
I can realte to that, living by a local Tesco's Extra, we were shopping one crimble and there were queues down each and every isle with laden trolley's waiting for their turn to checkout(They must have taken millions £s)

Contrast that with small island dwellers who catch fish each day or grow thier own veg and you see how grossly excessive our, civilised world, consumption of resources has become.
I understand that supply and demand control the market place, so potentially demand will continue to grow as long as we can afford to pay the market price (except the availability of credit distorts the reality).

Think my real concern is that demand can grow expotentially now and all we do is 'go with the flow' because this is a global issue.
On the flip side, if we slammed the breaks on consumption, how many would be out of work because of the loss of artifical markets.

Middle age seems to be turning me into a rather philiospohical member of our race.Guilty as the next man, of consumption beyond my needs, but doing something about it is quite a different matter.

I think the small island people have something to teach everybody in the 'civilised world' (this phrase always reminds me of Ghandi's response when asked what he thought of Western Civilisation - "It's a good idea", he said).
But also we can look at local history and see what people lived on in the days of WWII, and when allotments where popular, which seems to be on the rise again. If we could channel some consumption towards active pursuits, I think we'd all be much happier.

Hi Elly,

Reading history of Europe 1100-1350 at moment. It shows how open and tolerant, borderless Europe turned into secular religions and societies. Everything seems to work fine until someone appointed themselves to take charge and call it 'civilisation'.It seems the more we strive towards it the further away we have become.

Agree about local changes and allotments. Even though i'm no Gardner I can appreciate that were loosing out on the stimulation and exercise of growing things ourselves.
No wonder more people are obese and depressed these day's We are not even under threat of bombing, subject to rationing and all the other pressures of WWII, yet more people are suffering mental illness.

Caught a film on Friday night, "Grow your Own"(BBC2), on the very subject of allotments (and politics/prejudice).Brilliantly funny and yet sad at the same time, with a core of human decency running through it.
Not sure any current/future generation will invest enough to make the comeback of these uniquely British creations permanent. Though the idea of sharing unused/unmanaged land was a wonderful idea.

We had some runner beans & Potatoes of our own this weekend so we are making a difference to our 'own world' for now

To quote that famous supermarket slogan, I really could, 'Taste the difference'.

R4

Hi R4,
this seems to be a very unpopular thread... maybe we scared everyone away
Try growing carrots yourself, you'd love the difference in flavour.
Allotments are still around where I live in the UK, though they seem to be a pastime for pensioners now.
I don't really want to have rations and sanctions on food consumption, but I think it's absurd, the amount of food people buy and how much money is spent in general. If people could make/grow some of the things they consume, I wonder if they'd consume less?

Hope we haven't scared anyone. Except maybe into going and starting a veg garden!

It's a crazy world we live in. i know people who can't caope if the battery in their mobile phone dies while they're out. I actually saw a thing a couple of weeks ago that scared me a lot - it was a device you put a pound into and plugged your mobile into and got "emergency charge". And to think that 10-15 years ago hardly anyone had a mobile and we all coped fine!

Rant over, even though this might be the best place for it.

The more away from the own real needs the consummation is...The more it remains unsatisfying and demands permanent new short time attractive gimmicks.The more artificial abusive a society gets the more surrogates of the real fulfilments are searched.The brain meta-communication is naturally build on lust&authenticity of emotions...not on control,who only creates more frustration potential and helpless searching for wholeness.The more neurotic mistrust in our senses&intuitions deviates us from our basic needs,like food, shelter, communication, creativity...the less efficient the system works.Remember..cant get satisfaction!...beside you stop the hamster wheel, breath+ feel again...your true needs who are naturally interactive with the needs of the all in all.

By the way..I don't have&need a cell phone! tried something more subtle...like telepathy? or simply...moments of peace on your own?

What we truly need is a planet worth living on and each other aware of our interaction.

Farming my own food feels like liberty!

I won't do away with my mobile phone now, as I have 2 young children and need to be available. However, I think it was Bill Bailey who said that the telephone, more so the mobile kind, is an intrusion on your whole life. "Answer me, answer me, talk to me NOW!" You can't even choose who to talk to and when.
My husband has a talent of calling when I'm in situations where I'm least able to answer the phone. Like getting on a bus holding a child's hand in one hand and 5 shopping bags in the other. HOW can I possibly answer the phone now??

Looks like some "making life more easy" tend to end in new kinds of slavery!

in the 80's and 90's I always made sure I had some change for public phones, if I needed to call home. Talk about freedom to roam on my own!

Well, over here, the public phones can only be used with cards(mostly with complicated pre selection numbers due to multiple providers of "services"),result...you better don't need them for a private emergency, specially as stranger in the night without a card.


Things get´s better and better!

You can't dial emergency services from a public phone? Then what's the point in having them?