But wait... there's less!

We humans like to think we're smarter than monkeys. But we may be getting caught by a very similar trap. The future we choose The book I'm reading wasn't meant to feature here. It wasn't going to be one of my book reviews . I thought it was unrelated - until the subchapter on consumerism. The author mentioned the monkey trap - a fixed container of food with a hole in the side. The hole is big enough for monkey's hand to enter, but not big enough for a monkey's fist (full of food) to be removed. So many monkeys are caught because they can't bring themselves to let go. They thought they were holding food, but it was really the food (bait) that was holding them. At least monkeys do need food While it's understandable that the monkeys would desire food, our bait seems to be consumerism. It's not even the essentials - it's just things that we are told we need. And we believe it, even if it means we're trapped.  Or in the author's words, "...

Supermarket collectibles. Parents go crazy for them. This time I'm in it. Instead of rolling my eyes at the craziness, I'm purchasing, collecting and even trading. Why? Read on. The dogma of more A big key to happiness is to ignore the dogma that more is good. Instead, to be satisfied with what we have. To have enough, but not too much. To ignore the never-ending quest for more. The Little Treehouse series is a classic example of the culture of more. (To explain for international readers, an Australian supermarket is currently giving away a small kids book with every $30 spent in store.) Each book is about the size of a bank card and maybe 3 times as thick. Manufactured desire The (very) short stories are an extension of the Treehouse series of books, which are popular with Australian kids. If the supermarket had not done this promotion, we would all be blissfully satisfied with the original series of full-length books. But that's not how it is. Instead, swarms of parents, ...

By now we should be working 15-hour weeks thanks to the advances in technology. So what happened?  David Graeber argues that the maths is right. The amount of actual work needed has reduced, so now we invent extra jobs that serve no purpose - what he calls BS jobs. Why does this happen and how can we avoid it in the future? Here is what I got from the book. What are some examples? The guy who has to double-check every computer scanned application form to make sure the computer interprets people's handwriting correctly. (Spoiler alert: It does. Every time. But it's in the contract that each one has to be human-checked.) It would bearable if they were applications for organ transplants, but they are applications for loyalty rewards cards. Ugh! The German military outsourced its IT and logistics. Now when a soldier at a base needs to move his computer two doors down the hall, Kurt has to drive up to 500 km to move it for him - and fill out all the requisite paperwork. The travel c...

One theme of mine is that if we buy less stuff we can work less. But what to do with all the extra free hours? Some people choose to start a business, or more specifically, a social enterprise. These are businesses that have a social outcome as their main goal. If they make some money along the way, that's good - but it's not the main purpose. I recently attended a webinar of social start-ups pitching their enterprise. One of these is  Fruit Butcher . The Fruit Butcher? Elliot Carter calls himself a Fruit Butcher. After an animal safari in Africa, he and his wife decided to go vegetarian for a month but found the options limited. A fruit wholesaler by trade, Elliot realised he could use his fruit knowledge to provide tasty vegetarian options for people who want a great meat alternative. Here's his pitch video: Jackfruit's back, alright While Elliot's got plans for a range of plant-based alternatives the first is a pork-like product that's made from jackfruit. A...