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9,000 people in eight countries and ranking more than 370 brands.

On a more systemic and global point of view, humanity has built its economies with a scarce monetary system called “money”. Scarce money provokes an incentive to “hunt” for… money. Such an activity requires the laying of “money traps” everywhere. Many, if not most, products on the market have this unique function of attracting this scarce money. We find no humanistic goal, no spiritual value, no healing function whatsoever, although these products do claim to serve a need. Therefore in many cases the making of a product comes with the making of a need. The products create the need, and not the opposite. To do so, the use of manipulation, temptation and lies to create the need have become a common and accepted practice, regardless the systemic consequences or the moral issues. This mechanism induced by a scarce monetary system leads to consumerist societies and consumption based economies. Supermarkets and TV commercials offer a good observation field. We see in a live way how lie and manipulation principles operate

Enter in any supermarket, observe and ask yourself how many products have a real humanistic, environmental or spiritual function? How many products provoke an immediate stimulus (pleasure), and how many trigger a genuine happiness?  You will likely conclude that humanity could thrive and have its highest needs served without most of the products aligned in the aisles. Also take a look at the packaging… the messages, the flashy colors, the subliminal words and images, the chosen spots in the store… Does it speak to your higher self or does it titillate your reptilian brain?

Watch TV commercials, and count the number of mind-numbing and debilitating messages. Observe how they manipulate, how they trigger the most basic drives in human psyche (hunger, sexual desire, etc) or invoke the highest spiritual values (freedom, self-realization…). This dynamics, now fed with more and more neuromarketing data, institutionalizes a societal practice of lies and manipulation. “This cream will make you look 20 years younger“, “this toothpaste will give you a Hollywood smile“, “this soap will make women happier“, “this shampoo will make you look like a star“, etc. Neither blaming and censoring the big brands, nor doing social activism against them will escape the whole system I just sketched. Only a global, distributed, systemic, innovative response can transcend it. Rather than becoming more terrifying players inside the current rules, why don’t we change the rules themselves and play a much funnier game?

Hence, the way we consider health and well-being can evolve. The way we define wealth can evolve. The way we trade with one another can evolve. The way we create economic ecosystems and currencies can evolve. Entrepreneurship can evolve. Information transparency can evolve. The whole game can evolve. It just takes a handful of committed visionary people who decide to play in another field and to show that they definitely have much more fun there.