Down With Materialism

Picture this... a picture of a green V8 4WD with biggest engine ever built. With the slogan "lets all go green"

Or perhaps, a man in office with deodorant on his desk and a bevy of scantily dressed female secretaries around him. With the slogan "for men who'd like a bit more sexism in the work place"

Or finally, simply an array of products made out of material (all imported from countries with labour laws far less stricter than ours) all on special with the slogan "down with materialism".

This last scenario is actually a real ad from Ikea. I can only assume that makers of the add were so convinced that the overwhelming majority of readers are so addicted to materialism that no one would complain let alone be offended (unlike the other scenarios). The add is now quite old so the ad makers were right. Our collective desire to to buy and own more and more and more stuff is not even up for debate. In a finite world with a growing population I just can't help that for people like me (in the richest 10% of the world) that's nothing short of insanely selfish to not be thinking about how me might curb our materialism.