As Charlie Munger pointed out, our economy does not run on greed, it runs on envy. Why? Because advertising discovered insecurity as the most effective crowbar. Advertising is the bedrock of the consumer value system, which has been the basis for the US economy since the end of World War II.

What can we as individuals do about it? Recognize advertising as hostile and banish it. Most of us, instead, are trying to assemble a worldview out of mismatched pieces of advertising, which is not working out very well. When we write and think, we are often thinking in units of advertising, which is a horrifying realization.

Even the fact that this discussion is being framed in terms of Happiness and Satisfaction is downstream of those qualities being centered by the consumer value system. Previous societies might have considered integrity or duty primary.

> When we write and think, we are often thinking in units of advertising

Can you elaborate on what you mean by this?

It's like the whole idea of a company has inverted. Instead of "We'll assemble a team, then use that capability to make things, and solve problems" the idea is "the machine basically runs itself, how much can we get away with minimizing upkeep?"

Default "people have value because human attention solves problems", has become default "existing org structure has value because existing revenue streams are stable."

The idea of a company used to contain an implied optimism. "If we get capable people together, we can accomplish great things!" Now that optimism has been offloaded to the individual, to prove their worth before they can take part.