It's something I always notice going back to Germany. Here in Ecuador, there's a lot less of everything. The most of "the same" you have at the market, with 15 booths offering the same products for the same price - and probably all go to the same owner.
It's an illusion of choice, like so many things today. Freedom, they call it. But it's all the same, just in a different color.
Thank you for this post, I enjoyed it.
It's a problem everywhere, humans are wasteful, only that each location has more or less than others. In Australia we have plenty of everything, more than we need, in Finland where my brother @tarazkp lives as well for instsnce -vastly different economies - but in Venezuela, Cuba and so many other countries there's much less. It's interesting to see how each group of people deal with it and I feel those in first world countries like my own have some hard lessons coming down the track.
Time will tell how this all shakes out but I don't believe humans can continue in such wasteful ways, but in their hubris most probably don't give what will come in the future much thought - they just keep consuming, overusing resources, destroying the environment and other such self-destructive things.
It does depend on what people see as "having more or less". Ecuador is a very rich country in many ways, and a lot of people here are fine with what they have. Which, of course, is not okay for the world economy, so they're step by step taught how to consume more, and how to take economic advantage of their riches.
One theory for the people here being so "relaxed" and not worrying too much, working inefficiently and not caring too much is actually one of abundance - why care about the papaya that is getting spoiled, when you can just pick the next one, as there's fruit all year long? In a longer time context, of course. Doesn't work today anymore, as everything is owned by someone. But how fast do values change?