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Comment by dasil003 | Hacker News Reader

It's deeper than that. How long do people tend to stay happy after they get what they long desired (material or otherwise)?

Especially if their neighbor/co-worker/social peer just got the bigger and better version?

Sounds more like a mental than economical problem.

We could end desire with various combination of drugs, brain surgery, or generic engineering.

This seems dystopian to me.

I don’t know which is less dystopian though, that, or a Malthusian crisis in a K3 civilization, or any of the other ways this can go wrong.

I am hopeful for the future in many ways; this may well be solvable.

No need to go dystopian.

There a difference between desire and greed.

If you are never satisfied you are greedy and should seek mental help, it's the same with being hungry no matter how much you eat.

Such people exist, and enough don’t seek help.

Would you choose to force them to get help, or would you choose to let them consume ever more?

>If you are never satisfied

That is the human condition though. No matter how much we have we soon get used to it, take it for granted and start looking for more.

Economics was literally invented by man. It is a social science although economists will deny this even under pain of torture.

And much of economics describes the behavior of psychopaths.

The demonization of Economics is as common amongst the fringe left as the demonization of vaccination is amongst the fringe right.

The fringe of Economics is evil.

Gordon Gekko and Jordan Belfort are the bad guys

Gordon Gekko and Jordan Belfort are not economists..