-- It seems that the conspicuous consumption that has homo consumens(man as consumer) interested in shopping for a printer that must be a Hewlett-Packard, a car that must have shiny rims(probably because they are a gear head latino, in Dover at least...), designer clothes that are made in the same slave labor sweat shops as lesser brands, has set the standard for everything else. In human relations this new man can only relate to others as products that must have certain features and must lack other features. Every newspaper or Craigslist personal is ample proof of this predilection to "features" that one expects in products, merely displaced over to the flesh world of living humans.
-- If you tell homo consumens that he or she cannot talk about what they saw on tv, the movies, what they already bought or plan to, what they did at work, they would be left with almost nothing to say! How could it be any different, modern people are invalids totally dependent on the economic market to feed us, clothe us, entertain us, to give us jobs, even for fodder for conversation. Without this we could not survive or have anything to do.
-- A good neighbor is now merely the one that does not call the cops on you, leaving you to wonder who made the anonymous call. The conundrum is that you cannot, however, separate the good from the bad.
-- Rather than save a contemporary American is more likely to go into a debt spiral to prove to his neighbors or peers that he belongs to a certain stature or social class, which however, they don't belong to. If they could afford their consumption levels many would not be in the debt they are in. And for what reason are so many ruining their own finances, to impress fake-ass, shallow, posers who obtain identity and substance from inanimate material products or college degrees that you can never carry to the other side when your short life has blinked over?
-- Erich Fromm, says that most people have a "having orientation" to life, whereupon they focus on acquiring as many material goods and as much wealth as they can. Such people as dealt with previously seek certain qualities in other people, even trying to possess other people. In our epoch such people have the convenient ability to text message and incessantly call others whom they feel that they possess, when this human possession is missed from immediate presence for even the shortest of durations. These types make up the mass of our society, outnumbering the few with the "being orientation," who seek to improve themselves, their conduct, attitude, spirituality and oneness with the world.
-- A startling, obvious, but palpable conclusion is that most parents have no idea what they are doing. Rather than being capable, they are merely people who had sex and through planning or perhaps even indecision, they simply come into the situation of "having kids". This does not however, mean they know what they are doing, because they don't. Anyone can see how most modern brat children behave when they are out and about, especially when it is time for homo consumens to do what he does best -- shop. The brats have no money, but it is as just as well because they can cry, kick, scream, fuss and muss till they get whatever toy or product they saw on television ads. Everyone knows that television serves as a surrogate babysitter, whereupon parents can be home(or not) and relax knowing that the necessary pacification is being dispensed. If the parents knew what they were doing they could have stopped alot of it by not having TV and so much unneeded crap in the house, which can only teach a child that accumulating useless objects is the end goal of life. Another thing that people who have a measure of the "being orientation" would pass on to their young is that buying and having, do not make anyone happier. The more things you have, the more work and time it takes to maintain them, rather than your health and being.
-- Greed was once considered a vice that Descartes(1596–1650) railed against, but in our twisted society this once negative trait is considered the greatest of virtues. If we could all be billionaires we would, if it were possible, which it is not. Contrary to popular opinion, these billionaires are just in a position to accumulate wealth from the labor power of others(in their case thousands or more), who are lower in the economic structure and hierarchy. Thus we all cannot be in such a usurious position. If we could all make six figure salaries, have big houses with rolling, expansive lawns that to maintain we would have to hire landscapers that use Mexican day laborers to douse poison pesticides and fertilizers(while the riding mower sits in the garage...), we would. Rather than worship such people and aspire to their lecherous position, as the Motorhead song goes, we should, "eat the rich."

-- To put it is as simple as possible, almost everything that can be wrong is wrong in our society. Almost everyone you will meet will drag you down like some heavy anchor attached to your ankles into a sea of modern miasma. Vapid heads, often have equally empty mouths that can only say rubbish, and only by accident can they chance at saying something that is sensible.
-- This leads to a sad conclusion, the opposite of what most people hold: don't meet more people, meet less people. Abandon the toxic people or if they are family or otherwise necessary try to see them less or improve their being.

-- Perhaps there were a people worth meeting, that had genuine human connections with each other and fulfilling activities worth doing. That is, other than watching a movie together, passively consuming intense non-stop bombardments of picture and sound which make it difficult to think and reflect because there is so much sensory data to process merely to follow the film that any self originated thoughts are crowded out, or going to a store to buy things or look at things, or going to some club where the music always sounds, "doosh, doosh, doosh," but at different beats and rhythms, or eating out at places that will barely wash the food like substances which are anyway toxic crap that even rats should avoid, but are superbly engineered to taste well in the most modern food labs. If these people ever existed in our area as a group they would be called the Lenape or Delaware Indians and the white colonial settlers killed or drove them off into near total extinction. Since their history was mostly oral, even most their legacy has evaporated to Kishelemukong, where it originated.

Signed: A disgruntled Dover resident born long after the post-Lenape collapse, just watching the American collapse with alternating glee and trepidation
N.A.V.

I would say seventy percent of the average person's discussions and thought processes are complaining, not necessarily about consumer culture.

I think this would be better suited to Banana Republic

Moved from General

I think it's go too many big words for most of the general Craigslist population!

@LaoTzu: I guess an easy way to find out what the average person talks about, or more specifically the ones I know is by writing done what average conversations are about for a period of time with a pocket notepad. But I lack that type of dedication and discipline. I just put forward my estimation that somehow you can pin almost everything we can talk about to the economy somehow because the market must become a metaphysical God in a society where people are helpless infants by themselves.

@scarecrow_76: According to the counter I eventually added to that ad:
http://craigscounter.com/charts/index.php?c=4370
It got 156 unique hints. The real question is how many actually read it, and did they grasp it or not?

My guess is most Craigslisters and average people could not understand or more importantly want to realize it. After I posted that ad, I browsed my local Craigslist's rant&raves and most of what is written is inane garbage, my contribution is definitely out of place comparatively. The average person reads very little, instead spending the great bulk of their time working and then watching tv, browsing frivolous internet sites, consuming products, going to entertainment venues to spend whatever disposable income they have. People make up for the total lack of power they have in this increasingly complex modern society, by exercising the only power they have left, that of buying goods and services or preparing to do so(like by watching tv which is fueled by ad money). They spend more time being manipulated by the underlying tenets of this society and no time trying to understand the type of manipulative processes acting upon them all the time. Overall they think because of media, upbringing, school, propaganda that things are well and improving over time, which is not the case. Dave Mustaine, in his song Peace Sells was alot more correct when he wrote, "If there's a new way I'll be the first in line, But, it better work this time." The only caveat is instead of a new way, rather we should go back to old ways which were more suited to human tempo rather than this machine tempo.

I think the term you're looking for is "egregore."

I have 6 self originated thoughts before breakfast

If it wasn't for consumerism we would still be making a nest of leaves at bed time.

Why does it matter to you what people converse about?

Don't mock EDM. It and bluegrass are the only musical genres showing any significant progress over the past few years.

If you say, "why does this matter," then why would you comment? I am curious.

It is just this:
Everything that should matter least, has come to matter most. And everything that matters most, has come to be least valued.

The fakest, most greedy, selfish people are the most admired, worshiped, imitated and sought after. Magazines like People, US, Stuff, Rolling Stone, and television shows like Entertainment Tonight, etc., see to this. In the hierarchy of things, actors seem to be the most highly elevated of celebrities and this is a curious statement of the times. What do actors, do after all? They just read lines a script writer wrote, and the better they are at portraying that which they are not, the script and its character, the better they are at their craft. But what kind of talent is this after all, is this a talent so honorable so that millions should follow magazines, news and media to learn of their lives? Perhaps they are such a good example because we need their example to learn to self-deceive ourselves that the horrid society we built is actually worthwhile. These rich celebrities do the same things we do, buy every necessity and every entertainment from the market, except they do alot more of it and do it bigger, they are not special. Once actors were considered some of the worst dregs of societies in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Era, despite acting being arguably a more elevated art in say Elizabethan times with Shakespeare's genius.

Now suppose you, or someone you knew, decided to be more fit, healthy and carbon neutral by biking to work and for groceries. Why they would be ridiculed! Everyone knows a hot overly priced and gas guzzling car is the symbol of modern American manhood, and bicyclers are dorks who never grew up. Or if someone went vegan out of compassion to other beings and to consume less resources than his fellow meat-eaters. Again ridicule is the only reward to be encountered from one's fellow man. Or what if instead of eating any piece of unhealthy garbage that the food industry and restaurants sell, one tried to eat healthy? Only more of the same. What if one decided to start meditating inwardly for minutes or hours each day? What would the onlookers, acquaintances and bystanders say of doing nothing, not shopping or working during this period! What if you stopped drinking everytime other adults gathered? Perish the thought, almost everyone hates a non-drunk these days. It has become so that everything you can think of doing to improve yourself, and the environment instead of being rewarded by those around you, only snickers, hostile glances and negative gossip would come your way.

The way our society and ethos has developed every thinking person cannot come to another conclusion beside dread and dismay. A society of zombies that can only work to buy or buy products is all we are. The mere thought of actually breastfeeding, a natural and time honored human tradition has become the greatest object of disgust to many of the modern, greedy, impetuous and selfish Western women. Why they would rather use a pump or artificial baby formula! And thus a whole generation is coming of age that never ever saw mother's breast or tasted her milk. Hopefully science and industry will figure out to bring forth our young into pods, because we are not despicable enough as of yet! But why should I care, as lysergic acid diethylamide, says!

Wow, nikephoros, you have your response to my question very well thought out, and i can see you take this matter very seriously.

They snicker because they truly don't care and they find it humorous that you do. Truly it is the greedy let-my-kids-worry-about-it people of today that will be our downfall.

I try to have fun, live life to the fullest and do what i can to not harm the environment.

Sorry grandkids

This is one of the most enigmatic and thought provoking answers I have had the privalidge of reading......