Ep 25: Consumerism as an Ethos; Why Can't Money Buy Us Happiness?

1 rich Libsyn https://www.libsyn.com 90 600 Ep 25: Consumerism as an Ethos; Why Can't Money Buy Us Happiness? &nbsp; Welcome one and All to Professor Metal's Irate Debate and Calamitous Commentary with the Philosophical Chain Gang &nbsp; Today's Episode is Consumerism as an Ethos: Why Can't Money Buy Happiness? &nbsp; Sean explains how consumerism could be considered an ethos &nbsp; Ryver talks about the idea of the Loss Leader ideology &nbsp; The Philosophers talk about the replacement of certain societal values with consumerist values &nbsp; Bruce and Sean discuss the difference between improving quality of life and just gathering more possessions to have more possessions &nbsp; Ryver explains Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs &nbsp; Sean brings up the basis of Maslow's Hierarchy and how it does and does not apply to our society &nbsp; Bruce discusses these from a utilitarian perspective &nbsp; Sean and Bruce debate where the line between our needs as humans and our needs as participants in modern society lies &nbsp; Bruce talks about the effects of economic decline on consumerism and the inverse &nbsp; Ryver counters with an explanation of our recent economic decline &nbsp; Sean talks about the effects of increased production without increased consumption, specifically in the wake of economic decline &nbsp; Bruce and Sean discuss economic bubbles and how it effects the economy as a whole &nbsp; The Philosophers talk about the housing bubble and who made it out ahead as a result of this &nbsp; Bruce brings it around to intangible values &nbsp; Sean discusses opportunity costs as they apply to these values &nbsp; Ryver and Bruce talk about status symbols and the role of rational actors in the economy &nbsp; Sean and Ryver explain the effects of badge value in status symbols and ways in which that can be controlled &nbsp; The Philosophers discuss the impacts of badge value on modern marketing &nbsp; Sean talks about the history of marketing, as well as Edward Bernays and his role in the evolution of marketing &nbsp; &nbsp; The Philosophers discuss the importance of both education and introspection to understanding how marketing effects both consumerism and psychology &nbsp; Sean and Ryver talk about the way marketing shows objects that are not significantly better than what we already have as being things we cannot live without &nbsp; Bruce takes the last word to talk about what it means to be an &ldquo;informed consumer&rdquo; and the role of introspection into what actually makes you happy, as well as where you can acquire happiness &nbsp; And as always please give us your honest review on iTunes and Stitcher. It helps us make the show better with every one we get to read. Help keep the show going and the moon safe by supporting us on Patreon https://patreon.com/Philosophy Help keep us from disappearing by engaging us on the social media platform of your choice: http://www.philosophicalchaingang.com http://www.reddit.com/r/professormetal http://www.twitter.com/PChainGang https://www.facebook.com/PChainGang https://www.pinterest.com/PChainGang/ http://pchaingang.tumblr.com/ &nbsp; Professor Metal's Irate Debate and Calamitous Commentary http://www.PhilosophicalChainGang.com <iframe title="Libsyn Player" style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/3987299/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/88AA3C/" height="90" width="600" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe> https://assets.libsyn.com/secure/item/3987299