Reddit mentions of The Knowledge-Value Revolution or a History of the Future

For sure the drive to maintain comfort is quite powerful! But there are lots of people who work hard and sacrifice a lot for various other purposes. There are two components to the project of changing behavior: changing goals, and changing the paths to those goals.

People often work very hard to achieve some goal, but because they're not too clear on what it takes to get there, all that work doesn't prove effective. I think that is a lot of the problem today. We have been more or less brainwashed to believe that we can be happy or comfortable if we just buy into the consumer scene and buy a big truck or a boat or a big TV.

More profound of course is the goal that we are aiming for. I think what is more basic than comfort is status. Our whole society is organized around a common language for recognizing and achieving status. Of course our society is not so unitary nor is that status language. So much of the media is designed around reinforcing that status language.

A big status symbol these days is comfort. A big house, a big car, swimming pool, etc. I think that half the appeal of Trump is that he projects this image of success, of high status. It's pretty much a gangster version of success, something out of a hip hop music video. Or like a soap opera, National Enquirer, People Magazine. But that is the status language of a lot of people - most of his supporters.

We need to restructure our status language. What does it mean to be a leader, to be a highly respected member of the community, to be a success?

Here's a book that goes into this: https://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Value-Revolution-History-Future/dp/0870119427/ The Japanese original came out in the mid 1980s. He predicted many aspects of the smart phone revolution. In some circles, I imagine, it is hipper to have the latest iPhone than to have the latest Ford pick-up truck.