Do you think people are more money orientated and materialistic than they once were?

[Population: 1]

No. I’ve always felt a fair degree of separation from most of the people around me. I hold my inner integrity as my most valuable possession. It’s intangible and unquantifiable. I live in America and in a yuppie town. I’m surrounded by materialistic phonies that equate material wealth with being worthy of love and acceptance.

It’s the same pit of depravity that it has been for my entire life.

 

[Pioneer]

Probably not, people have always been materialistic, the thing that's different about today is that they don't seek anything beyond the material. Some people are religious, yes, but religion is just an external expression of something deeper, something which has been lost today.

 

[Peter Deadpan]

I think they are more oriented toward instant gratification thanks to technology, which can certainly result in material obsession and competition.

 

[cascadeco]

I think the particulars of what is accumulated/viewed as 'desirable' by the masses, and the accessibility/amount of it available to a much larger % of the world population, has changed and increased with time, but the root human trait of accumulating Stuff and using Stuff to demonstrate wealth and power and social footing, or to try to fill emotional needs/gaps, hasn't really changed over the centuries. It's just a lot more rampant now -- but has always existed. There are more levels of society now vs centuries ago, though, and more levels have the ability to acquire Stuff. Though, there are minority cultures throughout history who as a whole don't really value 'Stuff' -- but usually there's still the leader or spiritual element that have those material trappings that the rest of the folks don't have.

 

[nerdy anthropoid]

"Once were" is vague term. I'm not sure what is the context here. For example, comparing humans today with what they were a 100 years ago is very different from comparing modern humans with our hunter gatherer days.

 

[Drunkstein]

I think they have always been like that, but at least in the past, when it was time for priorities most people understood that. Now it's like everyone is so self centered and at the same time don't know themselves very much that they do everything for money or perceived success trough materialism or whatever random pop thing is going on.

Have noticed lately how many people give value to "likes" or "dislikes" in youtube comments? "oh wow guys, I never received so many likes, thanks" seriously dude it's just a fucking number. I guess many of them are just kids though, but still... what have we come to as humanity?

 

[rav3n]

No. The difference is that social media provides people with the opportunity to put it on display. Also, traditional femininity was all about humility while traditional masculinity included a buy for males (boys will be boys). Now both genders are free to do what they will.

 

[The Cat]

It's a notorious saying in the fish community that kois will be kois.

 

[Luminous]

It's a notorious saying in the fish community that kois will be kois.

Don't forget that McCoys will be McCoys.

 

[The Cat]

Don't forget that McCoys will be McCoys.

I would have liked McCoys will be boys playing with toys. A distant Runner up was They Call me Bones: The erotic adventures of Leonard H McCoy.

 

[nerdy anthropoid]

I think that the instinct to accumulate more resources has always been there since the beginning of time. It's just that there weren't as many things to accumulate in the past as there are now. So in actual fact, the instinct hasn't changed but what has changed is the manifestation of it.

 

[FemMecha]

I don't personally have an impression but my primary mentor retired from university a few years ago and said her students had become more money focused over the years. She was disappointed they cared less about the arts and all wanted careers that made big bucks. She was disillusioned by it.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I don't personally have an impression but my primary mentor retired from university a few years ago and said her students had become more money focused over the years. She was disappointed they cared less about the arts and all wanted careers that made big bucks. She was disillusioned by it.

If you want big bucks, why would you study the arts?

 

[FemMecha]

If you want big bucks, why would you study the arts?

Her students were double majoring in medicine, engineering, etc. so that they could make big bucks.

The arts are an oddity in society because they do provide social status - particularly classical music. Very wealthy families like having a successful classical musician to brag about in their social circles. What it has evolved towards is pushing children through the college level to be classical music prodigies to provide the maximum bragging rights, and allowing them to major in music, but then the drive for money supercedes even the social bragging rights of an elite performer. I think some elitist families continue to support a music double major just in case their child can hit the big time. There is a big time to be hit, but it is a very small percentage of world-class level performers who manage it.

 

[Kanra Jest]

I think people have always been materialistic, limited, and flawed. Sometimes more than other times, widely encouraged by consumeristic societies, and sometimes even to a degree, brainwashing. Every so often, there's more corruption than usual, leading to more overt materialistic issues of greed, hatred, god knows what else. Poverty and rich have always been a thing, an imbalanced power dynamic. So shall it always be until there's another Revolution to subsequently stop this.

 

[Earl Grey]

Yes, but not for no reason. It seems that a lot of things that require money, or money itself, has been shoved in the faces of people in place of actual self-improvement. I think social media is an easy example of that- instead of forging authentic and meaningful connections, people's social esteem is more and more defined by something very virtual and fleeting*. I think the same analogy can be made with money and what money can bring you, since a lot of it is also for clout and social signalling and literally buys power (over others), which in itself an inherently social thing. When there is so much at stake and that is how human worth has been defined, people would naturally want to climb right up on it and grab some for themselves.


(*Yes, saying that made me feel like an old man. I don't hate social media but I think it has pushed the possibilities of social competition to its most extreme, and some people fall for it. People are exposed to each other to such a maddening degree these days.)

 

[Jai]

Human nature is flexible, I think that people have fluctuated in their levels of materialism over time but currently we're in one of those phases in which consumerism is touted as the only way to live; as Kanra said, it'd take a revolution or something of equal magnitude to get people into a less materialistic mindset, and we have limited time considering the planet can't sustain this way of living indefinitely.

 

[The Cat]

life imitates art.

 

[Pikaqiu]

I think for the past few decades that is how you survive, being materialistic and money-oriented, that is what you need in order to see the other day. But now if more people are self-sufficient, then the world would shift to the past, where people would try to love and care for each other again.

As we can see for the climate change activism, BLM movement, LGBT movement, these are starting to come up as more and more people are fortunate enough to survive. So yes, for now, it is more money-oriented, but not for long.

 

[junathan]

Do you think people are more money orientated than they once were?

Definitely. The large chunk of money spent nowadays are spent on items and accessories that don't bring real happiness.

Most people are just working for survival, thinking what's the next stage to achieve financial freedom. Which isn't all that bad, but back then we had the time to think and question our livings and actually enjoy doing things that we like without fully focusing on MONEY.

But now, people spent much time on chasing after it. And that's really unfortunate.