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No Stupid Questions

22. Why Do We Buy Things We’ll Never Use?

No Stupid Questions

Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Society & Culture

4.63.7K Ratings

🗓️ 11 October 2020

⏱️ 31 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Also: how is social media like a knife?

Transcript

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0:00.0

You guys are gonna eat steak and mashed potatoes for next three weeks, and you guys are going to eat mung bean stew.

0:05.5

Hi!

0:06.5

I'm Antelope Duckworth.

0:07.6

I'm Stephen Dovner, and you're listening to no stupid questions.

0:12.1

Today on the show, why do we buy exercise equipment that we'll never use, and health food that we'll never eat?

0:18.7

Who am I? I'm like Beyonce! What would Beyonce do?

0:21.5

She would drink the sparkling water. Also, is social media net positive for society?

0:27.0

I personally would much rather have people rant online than punch someone in the face in real life.

0:35.5

So, Angela, I have a habit, and I suspect many other people do as well, of acquiring, often by purchase,

0:43.5

what I've come to think of as aspirational objects, which is to say,

0:49.8

I will buy stuff that I think I want, or maybe more accurately, that I would like to want,

0:55.4

but which in fact, I'll never actually use. So, one tiny example, at home, we probably have

1:01.7

600 boxes of quinoa in our cupboard.

1:04.2

Quinoa?

1:05.0

Yeah, as far as I know, we've never actually eaten quinoa at home.

1:08.2

Hi, protein, grain.

1:09.9

Well, it's not actually a grain per se. It's close to a grain.

1:13.2

Oh, it's a lagoon.

1:15.0

No, it's neither, it's a seed, I believe. But that's beside the point.

1:18.9

Also, similarly, I have, over my lifetime, bought hundreds, perhaps thousands of books that I've never read,

1:27.1

or at least not more than a few pages of.

1:29.5

I know many people who have bought closets and basements full of exercise equipment,

...

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