Humanity has come a long way. We’ve
come so far, in fact, that it has created a market for products that would have
seemed absolutely ludicrous to early humans. Yet, here we are spending all of
our hard-earned money on this stuff without giving it a second thought. What’s
more, is that we are doing so alongside purchases of amazingly engineered products
that would have astounded those same early humans. Let’s look at some examples,
shall we?
Food and Diet
Food has changed a lot under the influence
of mankind. Selective growing has led to crops that are much more durable, flavorful,
and convenient than ever before. And the advent of genetic modification has
only further catalyzed the developments. We have pest resistant corn, seedless
watermelons and grapes, fruits so sweet they may as well be candy. We are able
to can and preserve food for literal years. You can eat food that was made
years ago, and it will still be perfectly safe. Walk down a grocery store aisle
and just remind yourself that starvation is a thing.
You might say we’ve gotten pretty
good at food. Perhaps too good. Last year in the U.S. diet products and
services sold to the tune of 66 billion dollars. We have so much food that we
have to pay people to help us eat it more responsibly. Again, remind yourself
that starvation is a thing.
Exercise Equipment
Along the lines of weight loss, let’s
talk about exercise. It is good for your health in more ways than you could
ever imagine, so of course exercise products are going to be a great market.
Been to a gym lately? The machinery is pretty impressive, isn’t it? We figured
out which actions target which muscles, then we developed precision equipment
for the sole purpose of activating those muscles in the most efficient way
possible.
Now, sophisticated workout equipment
is great, but you can still exercise with minimal equipment. Jogging, pushups,
one armed burpees into a jump lunge, they all work great with no equipment. And
of course, you have good old-fashioned dumbbells. Priced a dumbbell lately?
Those things are expensive. And why shouldn’t they be? After all, it is a heavy
object made for the sole purpose of lifting it up and down. Wait. Couldn’t I
just do that with a rock or something?
Jewelry
Speaking of rocks, we sure do love
them, especially the shiny ones. Now jewelry is decorative, and while superfluous,
it is not unfounded that someone would pay good money for something that looks
nice for the sole purpose of looking nice. At least jewelry is used to decorate
an individual personally, rather than sitting on a shelf just hoping to catch
the eye of a passerby. My point is not in purchasing jewelry, but rather the
valuing of different jewelry. Just like with food and exercise equipment, we
have dissected jewelry down to its components. We learned what made it tick…
especially if said jewelry were a watch. Then we figured out how to make it
ourselves. You can get synthetic gems that look amazing. You can coat
inexpensive metals to make them look like gold. “Wow!” said early human who has
never known nice things, “Everyone must be wearing this stuff then.” Nope. It’s
cheap. We want the real stuff that is expensive. Doesn’t matter if you can’t
tell the difference from the appearance. Hell, white gold is plated over to
make it white. The gold is all on the inside and you can’t even see it. But I’ll
pay good money to make sure I get at least twelve karats of it. At least I’ll
know the difference… deep down.
Yeah,
us modern humans are kind of weird.
-AMS
No comments:
Post a Comment