half-visible, half-baked, half-naked

In my Environmental Biology class today, we watched a bideo about climate change 'n' stuff. It was kind of America-bashing, because of our culture of excess. We've got ridiculous amounts of wealth in this country--people spend more money watering their lawns than India's government collects in income tax--but all we can think about is getting more. It's as if there was some machine saying "consume...consume..." in our rooms as we sleep, like "remember...remember..." from Flowers for Algernon. Well, maybe we need a new cultural mantra? I thought about it a bit and for some reason, this really struck me. "Hey, people are obsessed with getting more for its own sake. Our world economy more or less depends on it. What if we changed that to innovation for its own sake? Money would still get spent, and stuff would still get made." I guess the reason this hit me so hard is because a)I have never taken an economics class and b)I think a change like that in the national character appeals to me, who favors individualism(which engenders innovation) in most cases over collectivism (which engenders keeping up with the Joneses and blind following of trends and routines).

I haven't really thought this through, but it made me think "I should start doing more innovation. And encourage others to do same."