Dangerously Addictive: Why We Are Biologically Ill-Suited to the Riches of the Modern World

But living now in relative abundance, when the whole world is a shopping mall and our appetites are no longer constrained by limited resources, our craving for reward--be that for money, the fat and sugar of fast food, or for the novel gadgetry of modern technology--has become a liability and a hunger that has no bounds. Our nature has no built-in braking system. More is never enough. - Peter C. Whybrow

Plaza Blok M. Mall in Jakarta, Indonesia. Photo: Jonathan McIntosh 

Read the whole chapter from The Post Carbon Reader (pdf): Dangerously Addictive: Why We Are Biologically Ill-Suited to the Riches of Modern America.

Related:

• Hell hath no limits
• The Century of the Self