It seems to me Backman and many others confuse *human nature* and *learned behaviour*. Ultimately, having a set of high-consumption material wants is a result of years and years of learned association between sets of ideas, values, attitudes and things with one’s basic needs. I do not want to discount free will so let’s just say that this learned behaviour sets the context within which free will has to operate.

Given that neither governmental, political nor voluntary-participation entities typically promote increased consumption, the culprit is of course the long-term exposure to omnipresent corporate marketing messages. Human social nature that manifests in basic needs such as belonging, appreciation by others, being desirable etc. is what those messages exploit.

I started thinking they also exploit another human characteristic that I guess must be an evolutionary thing: we *are* by nature *reactive* – very good in changing our behaviour according to outside impulses targeted at us, but not very good in changing our behaviour actively on our own. It is hard to change one’s energy, travel and material consumption behaviour on your own, versus quite easy if taxes on those things go way up, making them more expensive. This is of course obvious, but it’s rather interesting that all the tax increase really does, from larger perspective, is make the impulse (environmental crisis) into a more tangible one at a personal level, thus more effectively forcing a response from us.

The only obvious thing about sustainability is the per capita resource usage.

The unquestioned principle behind Backman is that “of course *everyone* wants and will demand a 1990′s style deep fried double wide Walmart-powered lifestyle…it’s just human nature….”

Obviously this is the suicidal principle that must be called into the open and critically evaluated…on a materials economy basis we already need another planet…what happens when India’s savvy consumer class actually makes their demands felt in the manufacturing sector? We will surely need two or three more planets.

Technology may one day deliver these to us, but not before an almighty crash this time around…

So what about the idea of having heaps of kids and living in simple style, wired into a global meditation space where the games are far more seductive and interesting than the simple materials-based status qquests we are currently satisfied with?

What will be the measure of the “right number” of people to live on earth…only 2 billion so we can all live like Gold Coast (Australia) idiots? Or 20 billion living in peaceful resonance with the planet and requiring only the simplest of material inputs??