Or we become convinced that there is something we still need; something we cannot live without; something that will complete us. Consumerism depends on our Primitive Operating System. Whether we hoard or panic buy, the roots are not desire but fear and scarcity. The two 21st-century archetypes of these emotions are doomsday preppers — people that, even when surrounded by abundance, continually imagine the end of the world — and middle-class families or people of privilege who retreat into closed communities. Wall-building belongs to this mindset, as do borders. Fear entrenches.
Predictably, our experience of fear and our projection of scarcity now have a new target: AI and AGI; and where there is fear, there is also aggression. This means that the complaints might soon become shouts.
