Virtual reality is not the same as a computer game. We are expected to get up in the morning and go to work to make money for shareholders, anonymous hungry ghosts,and ourselves in later life worrying about our pensions.
The future lives of the present, like a man begging in the street. We give to the beggar, not knowing why we are doing it. Not knowing is sufficient reason.
None of this is for real: we live to make money, we make money to make more money. The richer we are the more we are in debt, our fortune measured in pixels on the screen.
Those richer than us do not know how to spend their money. We do, of course. Those worse off are by definition dumb, not clever at all, victims and spongers.
The rich provide enough evidence that they do not know how to spend their money. Race horses, yachts and ugly houses; for the mega rich, Premier League football clubs and media empires …They caricature the villain in a James Bond movie, confident that there is no James Bond.
The poor are villains, you can see it in their faces.
I suggest that these are underlying assumptions in our personal and collective thinking about austerity, government policies and financial systems.
Rich or poor, we have a tendency to be profligate in our desires. The single most important rule about money is to use it well.