The Iron Yuppie

Looking back at my post of yesterday, I do not think I correctly stressed how useless the stuff we are going to be convinced into buying is going to be. I implied that the garment that we will be buying may have some utility of some kind. I strongly believe that when the forces of marketing figure it out, we will be encouraged to buy goods and services which have no utility whatsoever.

In fact, much like we have in the food industry today, we will be convinced to buy the goods which will make us happy (chocolate ice cream) and then the stuff which cures the stuff that we originally bought to make us happy but makes us unhappy in other ways (diet pills). I’m not entirely sure that this will be done in a conspiratorial way where one firm controls all the strings, but that would be the smart way (until the congressional hearings anyway).

I think it’s much more likely to be done through market forces:

• “Our ice cream tastes better than anything you’ve ever experienced in your life”
• “These diet pills will get you back to how you looked before you had the ice cream”
• “Haven’t you been dieting enough… experience true pleasure through our ice cream”
• “We know you’re human, our diet pills will get you back to feeling the way you want”
• … and so on.

Except the examples here have a modicum of usefulness. In the future it will be, “Please buy our red cube of joy, it will make you happier than you’ve ever been.”… “Red cube of joy not doing it for you any more? Try the blue pyramid of sympathy”, etc. We're such tools.

D