Nor can money buy really important things – like love, children, health. Yes, if you are a rich man it may be easier for you to find a young pretty thing if that is what you want. With women it may be the opposite – men often feel threatened by more successful women. But in terms of really finding a soul mate or having a good marriage, money have limited usefulness – they reduce contention but may introduce other problems. Do rich really have a smaller divorce rate? Similarly with health: yes, money can help with finding a good doctor, but no money in the world will buy you good genes. Money can buy fertility treatments, but they wouldn’t guarantee someone a child.

I do agree about your last paragraph though.

The critical point you’re ignoring about the Amish is that they’re a self selecting group. Their young adults are actively encouraged to go explore the rest of the world and see what they’re missing out on, and the ones who realize that they are more happy there than in a technology-free environment don’t return to it.

I think a better conclusion might be that human beings are, on average, just about as good at maximizing their own happiness given limited means as they always have been. Those that find pleasure in expensive things will find a way to get them, and those that value freedom and leisure time over a high income will find a way to sustain themselves as well. It seems quite reasonable that this basic aspect of human nature would remain pretty stable from one decade to the next.

I personally think adapting up is easier… Just worse for you, buying things prematurely that is. Have you seen this skit on … Conan? about this traveler who is pissed that the wifi in AIRPLANES (not airports…) is slow?

On the bright side I’ve yet to buy any new pieces of tech, I get to “play” with them via research (new desktop and laptop!) along w/ raffles for mp3 players (2 ipods =) ).

The most high-tech thing I’ve bought is probably my 3 level floor lamp. Switching over from material goods to digital items?

Don’t care much about other gadgets though. I am a fairly late adapter of technology even thought I work in software R&D…

Yes, humans adapt. It’s more difficult to adapt up than down but after a period of time we just get used to the new state.

Some technology is great. There’s no question about it. Some is a waste of time and money. I think we flatter ourselves to believe that we are sorting through it all and making conscious choices as to which gadgets fall into which category. We use shortcuts. We look to our friends for clues and hints and suggestions.

Marketing of course plays on this. Marketing tries to tell us what our friends will think is cool without us having to check with our friends. The marketers have budgets big enough to be a lot more sophisticated on offense than we can hope to be on defense.

Rob