Tag Archives: Society

THE BEADY EYE ASKS: IS SOCIETY SET TO COLLAPSE?

19 Sunday Dec 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Climate Change., COVID-19, Dehumanization., Disconnection., Human Collective Stupidity., Life., Pandemic, POST COVID-19., Purpose of life., Society, Speed of technology., Technology v Humanity, The common good., The essence of our humanity., THE NEW NORM., The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., Unanswered Questions., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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(Fifteen-minute read) 

Not quite, but every major social indicator imaginable is either flatlining or declining and unwinding, from longevity, to trust, to happiness, to wealth.

 

History shows us that economic collapse will essentially happen with entrenched elites seeking to maintain the status quo.

You would have to be an ostrich with your head stuck in the sand not to see that in exchange for your Freedom, Liberty, and Independence, governments are printing currency to pay their bills and support the tens of millions on public assistance.

But if you take a look around societies that are failing to anticipate their own impending collapses.

There are political classes, intellectual classes, and capitalist classes, to name a few that can conceive of the possibility that society is in a grave, profound difficulty. With the help of the Pandemic now reaching unprecedented proportions, and the continuing Climate crises all are adding up to a pending collapsing society.

Why?

Because we are all too preoccupied with merely surviving the vicious cycle as the collapse intensifies. On one hand are acting as if we are already living in scientifically-planned societies, immune to collapse on a time scale that any of us have to worry about. On the other is the idea that everyone is entitled to have what others have earned is now permeating society with the help of social media.

It is not our hard-won liberties that are being taken away it is our means to live a life in an attempt to save dying economies.

                                  ____________________

If that is not enough just look at what COP26 achieved. 

As you know COP26 was an opportunity for nations from across the globe to agree on a way to limit the devastating impacts of climate change.

What we got was a deal that does not go far enough and will not limit global warming to 1.5C by the end of the century.

Because of the current Pandemic, carbon emissions will continue for the foreseeable future, combined with Methane, we are set to see more wars.

Climate change is going to result in mass migration with wars over resources with the pandemic affecting not just the cost of living but the ability to earn a living. We’re already seeing (with the most recent example in Cameroon where farmers and fishermen are killing each other for water) both ( Climate/ Pandemic ) escalating resulting in steep recessions in many countries.

Current projections suggest that the worldwide recession of COVID-19 would be the fourth deepest and most extreme since the Second World War during this time.

Surely it’s time we started to look at both the Pandemic and Climate Change through the eyes of human liberty, consensus, and laws, all are becoming more relevant day by day, which is paramount to all of us.

Today we are not immune to anybody’s problems.

A collapse of a society anywhere is a global issue, and conversely, anybody anywhere in the world now has ways of reaching us.

However, there are obvious differences between the environmental problems and pandemics in the past and the ones that we face today. The difference between today and the past is globalization.

In the past, you could get solitary collapses.

                                            ———————-

If elites wish to maintain the status quo, why don’t people…take action against those elites?

Are we able to choose what we will do with our lives?

What is the point of life if we cannot choose our own paths?

Common sense tells us that with the state of our planet, that we’re is no longer at liberty to ignore what is happening. If we really can choose, then these choices we have made must be uncaused — something that cannot be explained within the model of science that many of us rely on.

However from a purely scientific perspective, how is it possible that anything can occur without having been caused by something else? 

A human act is an act that is deliberately performed by one possessed of the use of reason. Branches of psychology and many wisdom traditions, attempt to make sense of human existence and experience and to connect those experiences to the world at large. 

Our current view of human mental evolution is like a jigsaw puzzle where many of the pieces have been taken out of the box.

They have not yet been put together to form a coherent picture.

One of the oldest questions in psychology, and in other fields such as philosophy, is whether humans have free will. The central puzzles about human cognition are its curious combination of flexibility and efficiency.

But is this all that defines us?

We don’t have to live with what we got.

Take, the technology behind a nuclear bomb.

It only exists because of the technology because of a cooperative hive mind: hundreds of scientists and engineers working together on an atom bomb.  

This same unique intelligence and cooperation also underlie more positive advances, such as modern medicine and now the vaccines we are using to fight covid. 

Still, as far as we know, we are the only creatures trying to understand where we came from. We also peer further back in time, and further into the future, than any other animal.

What other species would think to ponder the age of the universe, or how it will end?

                                    ———–

Either we put our survival before GDP.

Continue as we are or change by putting our Health before Consumption, putting equality before greed, putting transparency before political power, and sharing our responsibility to future generations. 

We don’t know exactly what led to our brains becoming the size they are today, but we seem to owe our complex reasoning abilities to notice the unexpected, which our world is now experiencing and will continue to experience with less and less critical reflection.  

Critical reflection requires that the thinker examine the underlying assumptions and radically question or doubt the validity of arguments, assertions, and even facts of the case. 

We are now in need of some critical thinking, not reflection to consider the results of having linked our scenario-building minds into larger networks of knowledge that have made us increasingly reliant on each other.

So what if anything will bring us together to act as one or when will we hit peak humanity becoming a singularity basically?

By peak humanity I mean we’ll have the ability to do things we can’t do alone.

If we could all work together as well as the human body can, that’s when I think we individual humans will be “cells” and we as a collective would be called an individual.

Our problem is that the majority of us are incapable of putting anything before our daily needs.

                                       ———————–

Because our rapidly expanding technology has allowed us all to become instant publishers means we can share information at the touch of a button.

This transmission of ideas and technology helps us in our quest to uncover even more about ourselves with an immense capacity for good. At the same time, we risk driving our closest relatives to extinction and destroying the only planet we have ever called home.

The technology that defines us can also destroy the world.

Why?

Because we’re simply trying to advance too much too fast.

Our cultures and mindsets cant keep up with our technology and morality, so chaos ensues.

How do you expect to survive in a world that is based on imaginary delusions of people without basic knowledge about how Earth works in terms of physics and biology.

This tells us something profound about ourselves.

Unfortunately, we don’t know all of the determinants of human behavior, and we may never understand all of these determinants—so the question of whether or not we have free will is likely to remain a philosophical quagmire.

This is why we are unable to act as one.

So we are left pretty much where we started.

Religions, Languages, Nations, and Cultures are what divide humanity today which is just another flaw as a species. 

So of course, we pass on the good and the bad.

Not until we learn to pull together our unparalleled language skills, our ability to infer others’ mental states, and our instinct for cooperation, will we have something unprecedented to fight Climate Change and future pandemics.

We understand what others think based upon our knowledge of the world, but we also understand what others cannot know. 

The answer lies in fundamentally changing social behavior away from the rapidly moving consuming beings that we are.

We are the only society in world history that has the ability to learn from all the experiments being carried out elsewhere in the world today, and all the experiments that have succeeded and failed in the past so at least we have the choice of what we want to do about it or do we. 

Most people realize that 2020 has thrust two game-changing trends upon us that will change the world for years to come.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

THE BEADY EYE CAN’T HELP BUT WEEP WHEN IT LOOKS AT CLIMATE CHANGE. WITH THE STATE THE WORLD IS IN AT THE MOMENT THERE IS ZERO HOPE OF US COMING TOGETHER WITH A REALISTIC SOLUTION.

10 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by in Climate Change., Energy, Evolution, Humanity., Life., Nuclear power., Our Common Values., Paris Climate Change Conference 2015, Sustaniability, Technology, The common good., The Future, THE FUTURE OF OUR OCEANS/SEAS, The world to day., Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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( A SEVEN MINUTE READ)

For the past year, I have been adding to my Flipboard ( # Silent Witness to Climate Change) anything connected to the subject.

In the last few months, the shit really started hitting the fan.

Record heat waves in Pakistan, India, each killing thousands of people, while California burns, Port Rico has little or no water and the Helheim glacier in Greenland lost 10 billion tons of ice.

Countries and communities around the world are already experiencing stepped-up climate change impacts – including droughts, floods, more intense and frequent natural disasters, and sea-level rise – and the most vulnerable are being hit the hardest.  Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of climate change"

It is not difficult nor does it require Artificial intelligence to realize that if the world does not address Co2 emissions we are looking at mass migration, economic collapse, not to mention wars that will threaten the very fabric of civilization.

GLOBAL WARMING IS ALREADY HAPPING FAR FASTER THAN THE 2 DEGREES CELSIUS LIMITED SET BY THE PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT. THE CURRENT RATE OF EMISSIONS WITHIN THE PRESENT CENTURY WILL EFFECT OUR OCEANS – IRREVERSIBLE.

The appearance of low-oxygen regions is doubling every ten years, spreading from coastal areas into deep and deeper water, forcing fish whales and pretty much every living ocean creatures upwards.  Cold patches in the ocean are slowing warm ocean circulation currents while acidifying continuous unabated with over six percent of the world reefs disappearing before the end of the decade.

SURELY WE DON’T NEED TO BE TOLD THAT HURRICANES ARE GETTING STRONGER AND MORE AND MORE DEVASTATING NATURAL DISASTER ARE OCCURRING WORLDWIDE.  Considering all of the other climate forces surely its time that our world leaders whether in or out of government stand up and take notice.

We are all however through our self-image underestimate climate change.

If you ask me no one can comment on how far in the future these changes will occur but what is happing to the Bearing sea is already providing us with a snapshot of what is to come and it won’t be gradual. (The Bearing sea was once a barrier between the Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean it is now an arm of the Atlantic.)

Rather than seeing lots of regional tipping points, the future will be the sum of all the climatic events and their interaction. It won’t be Florida that is wiped off the map but the whole of the earth ecosystems.

With the Donald Trump promoting America First, fueling trade wars and opting out of the Paris Climate agreement it would be a brave political leader to be advocating that we should cut consumption for obvious economic reasons.

Social media continues to dilute any long-term coordinated political engagement, aiding populous ends, and fragmented partitions.

To reduce Co2 emissions we are left with one option and that NEEDS to engage all of us.

So what if anything can be done?

All TV stations should be legally obliged to provide their viewers with a weather forecast once a month that is dedicated to the effects of climate change in order to bring the subject to the attention of the viewing public.

We are beginning to see small communities developing their own sustainable energy supply.  GOVERNMENTS NEED TO SUPPORT THIS TRANSFORMATION WITH REWARDS AND SUBSIDIES WHETHER ITS TAX BRAKES OR PAYING FOR THE ENERGY GENERATED.

WHAT IF YOU WERE REWARDED FOR CONVERTING TO SOLAR PANELS.

To make a difference worldwide we must make GREED IN THE FORM OF PROFIT CONTRIBUTE.  ( see previous posts on a WORLD AID FUND)

Will any of this happen?

Nuclear power –  Infusion – Technology-  Paris Climate Agreement, you name it, will not stop natures environmental response to our abuses of sustainability.

THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT IF WE ARE TO TURN THE TIDE ON CLIMATE CHANGE GOVERNMENTS AND ALL OF US MUST RESHAPE THE FUTURE OF ENERGY.

TO BENEFIT SOCIALLY AND FINANCIALLY FROM THE ENEGERY WE MUST TRANSITION TO COMMUNITIES MODELS.

While we are all becoming aware that we are at the edge of a new phase of human history. To get there we must act not as machines driven by data and algorithms ungoverned by ethical philosophical norms.

INDIVIDUALS TURNED INTO DATA TO FUEL PARTIES FOR POLITICAL OR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES IS NOT GOING TO TACKLE THE PROBLEMS THAT CLIMATE CHANGE IS BRING TO THE WORLD.

ARTIFICAL INTELLIGENCE ALGORITHMS ARE WEAKENING THE FORTITUDE REQUIRED TO ACT.

POLITICAL LEADERS OVERWHELMED BY NICHE PRESSURES ARE DEPRIVED OF TIME TO THINK OR REFLECT ON CONTEXT, CONTRACTING THE SPACE AVAILABLE FOR THEM TO DEVELOP VISION.

THE DIGITAL WORLD WITH ITS INCENTIVES IS EMPOWERING THE RADICAL OVER THE THOUGHTFUL TO SUCH AN EXTENT THAT WE MUST EXPECT AI TO MAKE MISTAKES FASTER- AND OF GREATER MAGNITUDE THAT HUMANS DO.

AI may well in the future reach its intended goals, but it will be unable to explain the rationale for its conclusions.

THE TERM ARTIFICAL INTELLIGENCE IS A MISNOMER.

THE TECHNOLOGICAL WORLD  IS PREOCCUPIED WITH COMMERCIAL VISTAS RATHER THAN EXPLORING THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE HUMAN CONDITION THAT IT HAS BEGUN TO PRODUCE.

THERE IS ONE THING FOR CERTAIN IF WE DO NOT START TO ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGES  SOON  WITH A GLOBAL EFFORT TO CLEAN UP OUR ACT WE SHALL DISCOVER THAT WE STARTED TOO LATE.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of climate change"

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Constantly Connected Impacts Our Lives. After humans , the Smartphone

12 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by in Technology, Uncategorized

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Right, this is the last post on the subject of what is shaping our technology driven Society.

We are living in a world that relies on data communications.

It is hard to think of any tool, any instrument, any object in history with which so many developed so close a relationship so quickly as we have with our phones.

The Mobil Phone/Cell phone/I phone what ever you wish to call it has evolved into the Smart Phone. > voice and text services, cameras, alarm clock, and radio, access to the internet> all of which will be on your wrist shortly > Apple Smart Watch.

1 in 4 people check it every 30 minutes, 1 in 5 every 10 minutes.

There are almost as many mobile subscriptions (6.8 billion) as there are people in the world (7.1 billion)

I start this post by saying there is no argument when it comes to positive benefits to Society, that the mobile phone has contributed more to the individual than the Internet or Big Data has done to date.

On the other hand I believe it has also contributed to : The mess we have on our hands, to spreading the inequalities of the world, to fueling terrorist Organisations, to spreading non-thrusts, to making today, now it’s tomorrow, and to leading us to expect more from Technology and Less from Each Other.   

The Mobil Phone has become an indispensable feature of technology that is rapidly changing the face of communication not only in the most remote areas of the world but also the family structures of the world.

Returning to an Individual and an overall view:

Mobile phones are helping under served populations access the critical skills and empowering information they need to make informed decisions for themselves and their families, and move toward economic self-sufficiency.

They have done more than all the Aid given to Africa and beyond. In fact they are being used to facilitate and promote economic development and growth.

They reduce search costs and increase information availability, which makes markets function more efficiently.

In terms of the diffusion of ideas and knowledge, mobile phones make available information about market prices and employment.

The people who are growing your food, making your clothes, and assembling your electronic devices are often poor, low-wage workers around the world who don’t have Internet access. The way we are able to connect with them is through mobile,” it provides workers with a voice — individually and collectively — by having an anonymous tool to provide feedback.

But we’re also learning that organizations — large, for-profit corporations and small, nonprofit social enterprises alike — are using mobile technology to operate better and smarter. Organizations are using mobile phones to gather real-time data that help them make informed business decisions and that yield social impacts.

But what effect are they having on Society as a whole.

Smart phones have brought a whole new meaning to the term multitasking.

Smart phones are changing the way that people interact with each other, allowing the users to be in a conversation without showing their personal expressions. As a result, we are beginning to lose the face-to-face contact that was such an important part of our lives in the past. The need to belong.

They provide farmers with information on market prices and weather reports, and they link micro and small entrepreneurs to markets and potential buyers. And, they provide mothers with important information to keep themselves and their children healthy.

Just look at

Taro Works, a mobile enabled tool with a cloud-based back-end. In non-tech lingo, this means field-based workers can gather and submit data through a mobile phone, providing real-time intelligence to their home offices. One organization using Taro Works is Honey Care Africa, a social enterprise that promotes sustainable beekeeping and economic development by providing micro finance, training, and other services to bee farmers.

Vision Spring is another social enterprise that uses Taro Works for better business and social impact. Vision Spring fights poverty by selling affordable eyeglasses to the poor, enabling them to work and learn. Why reading glasses? Studies of the economic impact of reading glasses in India showed a 35% increase in individual productivity and 20 percent increase in individual monthly income.

We knew there is great potential for mobile phones. But how to approach the issue of development using mobile technologies, remains contentious. In conjunction with Big Data, the Internet, their impact on economic development and growth are numerous.

There is no doubting their ability of time-saving capabilities/conveyance or getting assistance in an emergency. Therefore, smart phone is an important device which people cannot leave home without it.  A social necessity that we teens and adults, cannot be without, an addiction.

It would make uninteresting reading to list all the possibility of Mobil usages.

There are a few to high light how they are changing our world and could be used to change it further.

Before the appearance of the smart phone; it was impossible to shop online during lunch time without a PC or laptop. However, with the support of smart phones, shopping online in these days is as easy as making a phone call.

Services to transfer money can also help counter human trafficking, crime.

Services/Apps have changed the way healthcare is delivered globally, with the potential to provide individuals with an unprecedented amount of access to health resources.

Mobile phones eliminates the need for clients to spend time traveling to the physical banks, enabling greater access to capital, which facilitates investment and productivity.

Services to conduct Surveys, to Petition government. To impose Western ideals and culture upon other nations, resulting in a “practical elitism, but smart phones also emit radiation which some believe may be harmful to human health.

The growth of the cell phone industry itself, adding more jobs and creating more demand for products and services is another way in which mobile phones have contributed to economic growth.

Recent studies show that radiation from mobile phones are interfering with navigation system of bees and causing them to lose their way back to their hive.  As a result of this their colonies are collapsing.

Cell phones have led to social evils such as ‘sexting’, harassment and bullying of teens, in addition to creating less unity with families and friends.

Social interaction does not lead to greater concern for others, and in fact may have the opposite effect of reducing concern for others, leading to decreased pro social behavior. Eroding people’s ability to write sentences that communicate real meaning and inhibit the art of dialogue resulting in a negative impact on people’s interpersonal skills. The next generation (or so) is not going to ever be able to connect with another person, confront someone, or talk to someone face to face.

Trans formative tool for Science, Research, Surveys.

And how much about our lives and work and relationships is left to be completely transformed as a result? is anyone’s guess.

Conclusion: 

For me all three ( Internet, Big Data, Smart Phones) are all connected to each other.

You will see from previous posts that I advocate that the power of Mobil phones as a lobbing force is untapped.  It could be used to force the United nations to pass a people’s resolution to place a 0.05% aid commission on all electronic trading on the world stock exchanges. ( See previous posts.)

We hear more and more communication, but less and less to communicate.

Half human, half machine almost god, this new link in the evolution will continue its exploration beyond the enclosure of time and space. Fortunately there are, not that our smartphones are intelligent.

R. Laing  already wrote in 1967: “The machines have become more and more able to communicate with each other as humans.

If we want a world that is more equal, access to information should be universal – it should not be limited to the privileged groups in a society, but available to all of us including the impoverished.

So what will be their future applications.  Feel free to add to my list.

Brain training.

iPod Finger, Smart Phone Finger, insurance will become big business.

Increase literacy.

 

Suddenly my smartphone vibrates mystique.

“The digital revolution is over, the digital won!  Because the more you consume, the more it abounds. The more stores, the more it circulates. The more you distribute, the more it flows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cell phones can also be used to deliver important information about health and to

 

 

 

Is Black Friday our worst example of unchecked consumerism.

30 Sunday Nov 2014

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This year, the shopping orgy called Black Friday became untethered from Thanksgiving and floated across to the U.K., where it most assuredly did not increase happiness and gratitude. It did however exposed a society that is encouraged by its Government since Maggie Thatcher day to treat   shopping as a sport.

We were all treated to woman fighting over leggings, people stampeding to get the latest TV/Smart phone/i Pad till the police had to be summoned to stop them from biting or killing each other. An extremely shameful, embarrassing thing to watch.

Many of the more extreme political movements in the world today claim that they are a response to the power and force of the modern global economy and its accompanying set of values. We should not be surprised when Social Media carries such pictures.

Today, young people are building a shared understanding of how the world works through social and other web-based media..

In 2008, a Walmart employee was killed when a mob of deal-desperate Black Friday shoppers tore the store’s doors from their hinges and stormed inside, trampling him to death. The chain was eventually fined $7000 for their role in the employee’s death — but six years and $2 million later, the world’s largest retailer has yet to pay up. I am sure the poor brighter did not collect his Loyalty points either.

The shape of the global economy, media, and world-wide society now being born is difficult to predict. On the one hand, the logic of economic growth can lead to the pursuit of short-term economic gain to the exclusion of other values.

On the other hand, a sustainable growth strategy could help ensure that the pursuit of economic growth factors in long-term considerations such as environmental impacts and human well-being.

Consumerism has is part to play in this well-being but because humans are like wildebeests the advertising industry spends $12 billion per year on ads targeted to children, bombarding young audiences with persuasive messages through media such as television and the Internet.

The average child is exposed to more than 40,000 TV commercials a year and ads are reaching children through new media technologies.

Some researchers say that consumerism is baked into our DNA, nestled in our neurons. They say our consumptive tendencies will forever evolve in response to marketing, culture, policy and changing needs on our one and only, tiny blue planet.

In light of Black Friday let’s rediscover the full meaning of the word consume.

Is it a modern American tradition gone wrong or just one more bizarre piece in the backbone of our wobbly world economy?

Now days to consume has become a negative word, but there are other meanings.

The verb to consume can also mean to enjoy avidly and to engage fully.

More and more people are coming to the realization they much prefer to consume experiences than stuff — they prefer doing over owning.

Nature has massive value that we may never be able to put a value on. This is truth, not a fad or a trend. For example if you love the ocean, share it, and don’t be afraid to consume it in the very best sense of the word. But also, fight for it. Protect it.

Black Friday has its roots in shopping frenzies. Online retailers such as Apple and Amazon have facilitated the spread of Black Friday far beyond its american frameworks, to any would-be consumer with an internet connection.

While it is easy to brush of all this behavior off as dystopian present-day phenomena, consumerism and taste-makers set the course of this nations culture, with purchasing power playing a huge role in the nationalistic negativism of or nations.

The technologies of information, stimulation, and comfort are seductive and addictive. People and their needs remain constant. Little else seems to be very stable. We are literally drowning in information. Still, the great difficulty with the empirical base of the information age is that much of the data we rely on to understand the world we live in is unverified.

So much so that the reality behind all that glam and glitter is that joy of engaging in the natural world might be forgotten.

As Pope Francis succinctly wrote: “Today’s economic mechanisms promote inordinate consumption, yet it is evident that unbridled consumerism combined with inequality proves doubly damaging to the social fabric.”

So what can we do to slow or even work against the hordes of mindless buyers?

We could and should promote a Buy Nothing Day (BND)

A global day of exercised purchasing power, where social activists or other concerned people work to counteract the rampant avarice and shopping orgy of Black Friday with a day dedicated to purchasing… nothing.

Let’s call it neoconsumerism.

Our economies are being artificially kept afloat, and despite all the signs (shuttered businesses, monetary easing, disastrous world politics and energy issues looming), businesses are now pulling out what appears to be the “final act” for the phrase BLACK FRIDAY.

Thank god there are some gnus that are still evolving.

Black Friday Shoppers

These are rich experiences worthy of consumption. Think of the parts of your life that give you immeasurable joy, yet cost nothing taking time to eat good local food and to consume nature, together, is perceived as valuable, because it is valuable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many of us worry about the addiction to the information streaming out of smart phones as people walk the street, oblivious to vehicular and even pedestrian traffic.

 

 

 

 

 

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The market revolution was a boom-period in american culture derivative of advancements in technology, infrastructure, and communications, as well as the shift in public attitudes after the Great Awakenings.

The mirrors, furs, furniture, hats, and fine clothes allowed for consumers to express their individuality, not only as sovereign beings with varied tastes, but as citizens who were beginning to desire a sovereign nation.