Zbigniew:

Your remark reminds me of shumpei kumon’s distinction betweeh the Power, the Money, and the Wisdom Game, as respective objects of mimetic desire. In the first premodern model, you need to apply force to gain power, which brings money and reputation/fame; in modernity/capitalism, money becomes the primary object, which brings power and reputation; but in the Wisdom Game, which starts with the era of mass media but becomes a quantitative jumpstep more important in the internet era, it is reputation that becomes the direct vehicle of mimetic desire, and it is that which creates influence, and power, and eventually financial reward. But again right now, this system in incorporated in the money logic still, but we can imagine it becoming dominant, with money being just one of the subsystems to reward reputation.

I believe the actual adoption of what’s technically possible, in terms of an unplugged lifestyle, is likely to increase exponentially when it is perceived as an alternative: i.e., when it reaches an (undefined) threshold at which the mainstream public becomes aware of its existence.

When most people know of a neighbor or relative who’s demonstrating the economic and lifestyle advantages of doing something in the informal/household economy, and put it in contrast to their own increasingly precarious prospects with the housing crash, Peak Oil, the threat of downsizing, etc., I think such ideas will reach the takeoff point.

As Amory Lovins et al argued in regard to the energy-efficient technologies in Natural Capitalism, there’s a threshold to be reached before people start becoming aware of stuff that’s even highly in their economic interest.

Part of the inertia comes from “matrix reality.” Take food production, for example. People hear USDA/agribusiness propaganda their whole lives about the efficiency of corporate farming, division of labor, etc. Once you actually do the math and compare the amount of labor it takes to grow your own tomatoes to the amount of labor to buy them from the supermarket, it’s something of a Damascus Road experience. But people have to reach a certain threshold before they believe their own “lying eyes” instead of the propaganda.