Those sceptical about eating out/take away culture as a social change. Many towns in Australia are raising…

Those sceptical about eating out/take away culture as a social change. Many towns in Australia are raising council rates to meet increasing costs. it’s creating a lot of social anger. But when you look at the numbers for these towns, something jumps out at you. /1

About 25% of weekly income goes to discretionary spending on eating out, take away food, and recreation. That’s enormous, and reflects a real social shift. The one I Tweet about often, the extension of adolescent culture to the entire adult lifespan. /2

Adolescents prioritise these areas because historically that’s their lives, they don’t own homes, they don’t pay rates or raise children. But now that’s all of adult life too, in the numbers. And those adults increasingly don’t own homes either, or have children. /3

By comparison, and here we see the power of social media to transform the world into a US libertarian fantasy, their expenditure on local PUBLIC services? About 3% of weekly income. SM-mobilised groups, hitched to libertarians in the US, are going to war on local councils. /4

Over that 3%. Never mind the 25% on ‘lifestyle’ lives. The 3% is the problem, apparently. Many won’t believe social media is dissolving our societies from the inside out. They love it too much. /5

But social media is a model of society. Not a source of information. An adolescent model of society. A high school. Which we now never leave. High school culture is now all of our culture. Popularity-driven status. /6

No past - no custom or tradition is allowed to survive. No future, no planning for critical emerging threats. Just eternal lifestyle presents. ‘Living our best lives’. Fighting a pandemic? Where can we get good coffee! Fighting climate change? What about my trip to Italy! /end