Or we become convinced that there is something we still need. Something we cannot live without. 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.
