I was thinking about what [MENTION=1009]mf[/MENTION] said before, about how modern education is targeted towards giving people one right answer, rather than encouraging a range of responses, and thought perhaps, since education is driven by the need to increase the number of workers in a particular field and sustain the industry for the next X number of years, that this must reflect society's continued demand for certain products/services. But from where exactly do these demands arise? Why ARE people pulled to desire certain products over others - why do they want what they want?
You could say that for certain things without which we couldn't survive (food, clothes, drugs?) that there is a natural, intrinsically generated demand for these products, and that industries are built around and in response to these demands. But is this actually true? Is wanting food actually a real NEED, or a pseudo belief? Cells obviously could not sustain themselves without a regular input of food, so by not eating you will die, but why, exactly, does this make food a need? What you're really saying is that surviving is the need, and that eating is a means to that end - but again, why is it important to survive? Because it's painful to die? Why does the human body want to sustain and propagate itself, why does life continue to breed? If it's because it's painful to die, then the fundamental need in life is not food, it's not to survive, it's to AVOID PAIN. And if you think about it in that context, then whatever external messages we get that encourage us to believe that this route will lead us to less pain compared to that one (and that itself would depend on what you're exposed to - or marketed to?), then that's what you're going to accept and follow, and a consistent history of following this ideal over that one will eventually precipitate into the fundamental principles by which you navigate through life (which might explain why older folks are more resistant to change), rather than some overall, overriding sense of better or worse, or right or wrong. The heart of the matter would be to avoid pain, and morality would be an overlay ONTOP of that fundamental driving force. But that's only one possibility.
Uh, getting back to the original question, what do you think drives people to want certain things over others? Would love to hear your thoughts (and feel free to ignore my above nonsense, lol).
You could say that for certain things without which we couldn't survive (food, clothes, drugs?) that there is a natural, intrinsically generated demand for these products, and that industries are built around and in response to these demands. But is this actually true? Is wanting food actually a real NEED, or a pseudo belief? Cells obviously could not sustain themselves without a regular input of food, so by not eating you will die, but why, exactly, does this make food a need? What you're really saying is that surviving is the need, and that eating is a means to that end - but again, why is it important to survive? Because it's painful to die? Why does the human body want to sustain and propagate itself, why does life continue to breed? If it's because it's painful to die, then the fundamental need in life is not food, it's not to survive, it's to AVOID PAIN. And if you think about it in that context, then whatever external messages we get that encourage us to believe that this route will lead us to less pain compared to that one (and that itself would depend on what you're exposed to - or marketed to?), then that's what you're going to accept and follow, and a consistent history of following this ideal over that one will eventually precipitate into the fundamental principles by which you navigate through life (which might explain why older folks are more resistant to change), rather than some overall, overriding sense of better or worse, or right or wrong. The heart of the matter would be to avoid pain, and morality would be an overlay ONTOP of that fundamental driving force. But that's only one possibility.
Uh, getting back to the original question, what do you think drives people to want certain things over others? Would love to hear your thoughts (and feel free to ignore my above nonsense, lol).
