jrobles76's review against another edition
3.0
I liked the insights from Evolutionary Psychology that Miller uses to show us our consumer behavior and why that behavior exists. He is a bit too anti-consumerist though and sometimes his message gets lost because of it. Though I do have to agree that we don't really need most of the the things we buy. I like my flat-screen TV, but did I really NEED it. No, my old 27" tube television was fine, worked great. I just like my 36" flat panel, or do I? The premise of the book is that most of our consumer behavior is to try to signal our traits to others. We buy things so others will be our friends or have sex with us. I bought a flat panel to impress others, and so did you.
As a person who subscribes to Evolutionary Psychology, I agree with the conclusions as to why consumer behavior exists, I just don't agree with his suggestions for getting rid of it. Peppered throughout the book, and making up the last two chapters, are Miller's suggestions for how we can break the bonds of Consumer Behavior and live better more fruitful lives. When he goes off on essentially creating a Utopian society where people live in close knit communities and talk to show each other their traits as opposed to spend money to try to impress people, he loses me. If I had a dime for every Utopian society that people had proposed...
Overall it's a great read, with great insights into the human psyche. Miller writes in a humorous engaging style that makes the science an accessible read. Though if you have strong political viewpoints that differ from his, he may rub you the wrong way at times.
As a person who subscribes to Evolutionary Psychology, I agree with the conclusions as to why consumer behavior exists, I just don't agree with his suggestions for getting rid of it. Peppered throughout the book, and making up the last two chapters, are Miller's suggestions for how we can break the bonds of Consumer Behavior and live better more fruitful lives. When he goes off on essentially creating a Utopian society where people live in close knit communities and talk to show each other their traits as opposed to spend money to try to impress people, he loses me. If I had a dime for every Utopian society that people had proposed...
Overall it's a great read, with great insights into the human psyche. Miller writes in a humorous engaging style that makes the science an accessible read. Though if you have strong political viewpoints that differ from his, he may rub you the wrong way at times.
alphabetzel's review against another edition
3.0
Intriguing, but I wish the author had backed up his theories with more scientific studies and hard facts and hadn't thrown in so many tired stereotypes and examples from his own life. The best part of the book was the list of books for "further reading" at the end.
matthew_p's review against another edition
2.0
A couple of author biases' peek through occasionally, and the writing was sometimes inconsistent, but the content was interesting and informative.
thekarpuk's review against another edition
3.0
So apparently in the broad scheme of things most of what we're doing works towards getting laid.
Or at least provides the deep-seeded reason for it. I doubt most presidents, on their high-level thinking, do so in pursuit of getting a whole lot of ladies.
Geoffrey Miller's book makes plenty of interesting arguments from the evolutionary psychologist standpoint about how the human drive to display our traits gets filtered far too readily through conspicuous consumption. He makes plenty of interesting arguments about how advertising could be more effective if it harness the six traits that all human beings can be broken down into.
It's compelling stuff, though in practice I fear its use would turn advertising into even more of a manipulative nightmare than it already is.
The strangeness comes in the latter part of the book, where Miller tries to address how we can fix our culture of conspicuous consumption both on an individual level and a cultural level.
On an individual level his advice has a more sensible lean to it, with suggestions on how to purchase more intelligently and with greater responsibility, noting how trait displays can work better on a budget.
However, on the macro level his advice comes off as unrealistic or outright ridiculous. Suggesting a consumption tax based on the responsibility of the purchased good sounds nice in theory, but it would require a massive effort, which he admits, but he does not seem concerned about who would do the deciding, how often it would be revised, and seems not at all concerned about the interests who might corrupt this method. So many corporations with heavy interests in Washington would find a thousand ways to game that system.
His other suggestion I found to border on irresponsible. He suggests we remove most of the laws that prevent discrimination and provide equal housing prevent groups from forming living environments based around a specific culture. While it sounds nice in theory, in practice it would just mean anyone not favored by a society would have the worst options in where to live. It's one of those odd libertarian notions that doesn't account for the corrupt or the petty. It's like saying we don't need handicap accessibility laws because good stores would do it anyway. If that was true, they wouldn't have needed a law in the first place. When businesses didn't have to, they didn't.
Fun reading, but his bright future doesn't seem to acknowledge some ugly realities.
Or at least provides the deep-seeded reason for it. I doubt most presidents, on their high-level thinking, do so in pursuit of getting a whole lot of ladies.
Geoffrey Miller's book makes plenty of interesting arguments from the evolutionary psychologist standpoint about how the human drive to display our traits gets filtered far too readily through conspicuous consumption. He makes plenty of interesting arguments about how advertising could be more effective if it harness the six traits that all human beings can be broken down into.
It's compelling stuff, though in practice I fear its use would turn advertising into even more of a manipulative nightmare than it already is.
The strangeness comes in the latter part of the book, where Miller tries to address how we can fix our culture of conspicuous consumption both on an individual level and a cultural level.
On an individual level his advice has a more sensible lean to it, with suggestions on how to purchase more intelligently and with greater responsibility, noting how trait displays can work better on a budget.
However, on the macro level his advice comes off as unrealistic or outright ridiculous. Suggesting a consumption tax based on the responsibility of the purchased good sounds nice in theory, but it would require a massive effort, which he admits, but he does not seem concerned about who would do the deciding, how often it would be revised, and seems not at all concerned about the interests who might corrupt this method. So many corporations with heavy interests in Washington would find a thousand ways to game that system.
His other suggestion I found to border on irresponsible. He suggests we remove most of the laws that prevent discrimination and provide equal housing prevent groups from forming living environments based around a specific culture. While it sounds nice in theory, in practice it would just mean anyone not favored by a society would have the worst options in where to live. It's one of those odd libertarian notions that doesn't account for the corrupt or the petty. It's like saying we don't need handicap accessibility laws because good stores would do it anyway. If that was true, they wouldn't have needed a law in the first place. When businesses didn't have to, they didn't.
Fun reading, but his bright future doesn't seem to acknowledge some ugly realities.
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