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May 24, 2010 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
09:05
1669 The Mall of the Future

What would consumerism look like in an enlightened society?

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Yo, gentle cast time.
I'd like to take you on a journey.
So lie back, listen to the pan flute, and let daddy work his magic oils.
What would the world look like without philosophy?
I was just thinking about this...
Yesterday, I took Izzy to the mall.
And, you know, when you go to the mall, you go into the department store.
And the first thing that's on the department store, it seems like the entire half of the main floor is, you know, cosmetics and makeup and all of this nonsense, frou-frou, perfume and all this kind of stuff.
And that, I think, would be kind of gone in a philosophical world.
Maybe not completely, but I think it would be unusual, to say the least.
And just think how much better that would be for the world, for people's self-esteem, for their happiness.
If this beauty patrol, this beauty paradigm, this beauty dominatrix was not hovering over us with her leather web, I think that would be just fascinating.
I think that would be just great.
And then, coming out of the mall, I saw that it's a window blind store, a Venetian blind store, and they have six million different kinds of blinds and curtains and this and that.
And I was thinking, well, would this store be here?
And I think it would to some degree.
I mean, it's convenient to have something cover your windows when it's bright out, so, you know, we don't get up at dawn, at least we try not to, and so it's better to have light blocked.
Would there be quite as much requirement for ornamentation?
And, you know, when we were looking to replace a very cheap Eiderdown that we had once, and we were given a quote for $3,500 for a custom-made Eiderdown, it's like, oh my God, you must be mad.
I mean, it doesn't even have an i7 chip.
And that stuff to me just seems all kind of nonsense.
So would there be that kind of ostentation or that kind of...
Would we have as much of a need to beautify our space if we ourselves were already beautiful?
Now, I really can see both sides of this argument, so I'm ambivalent about it.
I think that we would want, at least to some degree, our environment to reflect the beauty that we felt in the same way that we would like the arts that we consume to reflect the beauty that we felt or the beauty that we were.
But that would, I think, be a long way from $3,500 Eiderdowns, I think.
I mean, I'm living in a nice house.
I mean, it was cheap.
I mean, it was about the cheapest house that we could get.
And as you all know from my early podcasts, I sure had to commute to prove it.
But would people need quite as much living space?
I don't know. I certainly, yeah, I don't think, I mean, there's one room we don't use in the house, I mean, other than to store stuff and, you know, ironing, and we used to use it when Izzy was younger, because it has a mattress on the floor and she'd play there.
And then we don't really use the front part of the house, a living room, dining room, although Izzy does love to play in there, so it's used, but, I mean, there's no furniture in it other than a 20-year-old table.
So we would need less of a living space.
Would people need less of a living space if they got along better?
Would they need less space?
What would happen to people's hobbies?
And hobbies are pretty expensive in terms of stuff you have to buy, things you have to do, places you have to go.
If people really enjoyed each other's company, would they need hobbies?
As much. I tell you, I used to have a lot of hobbies.
And since I got married, they diminished.
And since Izzy, they're pretty much gone.
I am hobbyless.
And I mean, obviously, my days are full and busy.
But I think, you know, if you really love the people that you're spending time with, and you're really having a great time, do you want to go fishing at seven and more?
I don't know. I mean, I'm just sort of...
I'm posing it as a question.
I don't have any hard and fast.
It's not exactly so logistical.
I was just wondering as I was looking through the mall.
It's an interesting exercise. What stores would be here in a philosophical world?
And there's a...
I can't even remember the name.
It's one of these disco jeans stores that was in the mall that has models who appear to be hyper-sexualized 12-year-olds in the window.
And they had these, before they sort of changed the displays from time to time, before they had this, you know, rich kids on laughing, giggly, pretty holiday in Rome.
And of course, it's just like, oh, that would be great.
It sure beats my freaking teenage years.
Three jobs. Anyway, but I don't know.
I mean, I certainly don't, I barely dress up.
I really barely dress up.
I took Christina and Izzy out for Mother's Day yesterday.
I mean, dressed up for that, but, you know, I'm in shorts and a t-shirt all the time, or jeans and a t-shirt all the time.
I just don't feel any need for ornamentation.
Now, you may say, well, Steph, you're married, you've got a kid, so what the hell does it matter?
You're not going clubbing or anything.
And I would actually pretty much agree with you on that.
My clubbing days are way, way behind me, though I did.
I did go clubbing a lot, particularly starting around 16 to about 19.
I went to clubs at least once or twice a week.
It's just great. Danced all night.
Not to that music. I'm not that old.
Anyway, so that store would be more functional and less ornamentational.
I think that's a word. And so to move on.
Coffee shop. Well, yeah, I think that's still be coffee in a philosophical world.
Would there be hyper-sugary snacks?
Well, I would say that as I've become more comfortable with myself, my eating has improved.
I don't find that I need or even want sugar as much.
I had a tiny granola bar today and one low-fat, well, half a low-fat muffin that I shared.
And that's about it for my major sugar intake.
And so that would be a different kind of store.
Cell phone stores, well, yeah, you still got to talk to people in a philosophical world.
But I think it's an interesting exercise to go through the mall that you're in.
Walk down the street, say, would this store be here?
If there were, you know, I don't think there'd be piercing stores.
I think there'd still be spas, obviously.
People need their massages and so on, but it would all look very different.
I also wonder what advertising would be like in a philosophical world.
Because, I mean, advertising is so basically brain cheap and cheesy.
Like, oh my god, you know?
It's like that old Simpsons episode where there's a woman leaning on a car in the car show and a guy comes up to her and says, do you come with the car?
And she goes, hee hee hee.
And the next guy comes up and says, do you come with the car?
And she goes, hee hee hee. And that goes on and on because everybody thinks they're so original.
You are a snowflake just like all the other snowflakes in the world.
But I think it would be tougher to sell stuff with just sex appeal and physical beauty.
I think that would be very tough to do in a philosophical world.
And advertising, I think, would have to be around more rational calculation, cost-benefit, and maybe some appeals to some emotional nostalgia or something like that.
But it wouldn't be as raw and as primitive as it is at the moment.
I'd love to live long enough to see what advertising looks like in a world where people are raised peacefully and rationally.
I think it would just be fascinating.
Yeah, I was just thinking about, you know, if you look at ads from the 19th century or 18th century, and shockingly, and believe it or not, I actually have.
I was, I did a, when I was doing research for a novel, I read newspapers which were available on microfilm, believe it or not, way back in the day.
I read 18th century, 19th century papers that were available, newspapers, and you could see the ads in them, and they looked fairly crude relative to the ads that are now But they were not sexualized at all, of course, because it was a puritanical time.
This question of sexual openness is one of these real tough questions.
What sex would look like in a philosophical world?
Well, just think of Ayn Rand on a trampoline in slow motion wearing a tutu.
I know I do, but I don't know.
I mean, I don't like the sexual repression stuff.
I think that's enormously unhealthy and leads to very odd perversions.
But at the same time, I think hypersexuality is a significant problem in modern culture.
I mean, you have value for more than your hole and your stick.
And I think that that's sometimes lost.
So I think it's, I mean, we could talk about this a lot if people are interested, make sure that people are interested, but the idea of what would things look like in a philosophical world?
What would school look like in a free world, in a voluntary world, in a philosophical world?
If the vast majority of children are raised peacefully and rationally and calmly and lovingly, what would various institutions look like?
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