I live in the USA. I'm a citizen, yes, but from an economic perspective, according to what I hear in the news, I am also considered a consumer.

We have been referring to ourselves as consumers for so long that this label now sounds normal.

It has become a neutral descriptor, almost scientific, like we're describing

a person's role in an economy, the way you might describe how the top hat or the little dog pieces

move in a monopoly game. But if you reflect on this word, it's not only kind of weird, but also

quite narrow way to label a person.

Yes, a consumer is also an ecological term, autotrophes, heterotrophes, producers, consumers,

and the like.

But economically, a consumer is explicitly a mouth, an appetite, something to feed.

It's a word that describes a human being primarily as sort of an appetite with a wallet.

And I believe this framing has quietly shaped the last many decades of Western culture.

It turns our lives into some kind of a shopping buffet and then indirectly our vibrant

blue-green planet into a warehouse.

So in this episode, I want to take the word consumption and unpack it into something more precise and perhaps useful ahead of the great simplification.

I plan to explain a simple diagram which I'll label here the consumption pyramid.

It delineates the many different connotations consumption has in our lives, from keeping bodies alive,

to keeping life running, to keeping relationships intact, and sometimes, honestly, just to effectively

numb our stresses in this hell-mell crazy world.

And the reason I think this matters is not only from an ecological perspective, it's also

personal and practical.

I think we're entering a period where the world is going to feel less stable, more volatile,

and for most of us, more expensive in ways that are hard to predict other than

...