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Comment by jressey | Hacker News Reader

I would go further and state that our entire economy and society are based on the manufacturing of demand. There are so few things we actually need. Food, water, clothing, shelter. Everything else is a luxury you've been convinced to buy (or it was given to you by someone who was convinced).

I'm not talking about ethics here, just straight facts.

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Luxury goods are status symbols, we buy them because we crave status because deep down we crave recognition from others in society. So I wonder if urbanization/the trend towards more loneliness is the problem. If you have a tightly-knit community, you'd have people who appreciate you because of your character, sense of humor or good company; not because you drive a fancy car. And nowadays we don't really have real communities anymore, just polarization through the Internet, where people try to feel better about themselves by putting down others.

This (2+ hours) documentary about status is quite eye opening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1MqJPHxy6g

Status can't be all of luxury goods - although it may be for say fashion. Material comforts and perception of superiority are reasons - those who have a community and any disposible income have their own market "profiles" based on familarity. Even if it is just say preferred sorts of Whiskey by mennonites.

In a capitalist society status is defined entirely by ownership of capital, and low status is defined by very limited capital.

So of course luxury goods are defined primarily by their capital cost, supported by subsidiary markers like cultural capital and social proof. Actual utility (and quality) come second.

Competitive status display is entirely about the careful curation of success tokens - clothes (+ accessories), car, house, sexual and breeding partner(s), and the amount of autonomy, agency, and political and cultural capital at work.

Ads exist to promote competitive status display through curated consumption of success tokens.

It's a sport no one can ever win, but for some people it's enough to be on the leaderboard for a while.

Depends what you refer to when you say "need". Is internet a luxury? I want to video call my parents thousand of kilometers away (webcam). I want to do it without the connection being interrupted every second (good internet connection). I want to be able to distinguish my mother from my father (HD webcam) and hear them without buzzing sounds (good microphone). But wait! There's this thing called a "smartphone" that has good camera and microphone, and you don't have to be sitting in the dark corner where your PC is.

The problem with ads is that most of the times they promote a product for a need that either doesn't exist or does not apply to you, but still, after being spammed a lot you might give in and think you actually need that.

Prison provides food, water, clothing and shelter. We send people there to punish them.

You will notice 'being locked in cages' is not in my original list.

My point is that subsistence allocations of food, water, shelter, and clothing is not enough, and such are part of the punishment of prison.

I wouldn't even consider prison to offer "shelter" since you're locked in there with violent people.

Words work because we agree what they mean in advance. You can't redefine "shelter" to suit your argument. Just make it with the standard definitions of words.

Would you consider that a non-standard usage of "shelter"? I had a quick look online and I'm seeing definitions like:

a position or the state of being covered and protected

a shielded or safe condition; protection

a place giving temporary protection from bad weather or danger

They're certainly enough to survive, which is why they're provided in prison. The argument wasn't that these are the only things you should ever have in life, but rather that these are the only things you need in life, and everything else is a luxury.

The punishment of prison isn't free food and shelter, it's a lack of luxuries. And people survive for decades in prison, so obviously what they're getting is, by definition, enough.

The things that make prison an undesirable place are lack of autonomy and separation from friends and family. You don’t need advertising or corporations to provide these.

Or to put that differently, we provide those essentials to prisoners because they'd die without them?

> food, water, clothing and shelter

Add love to that list and it sounds like a good life.

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