Having a Porsche has always been a priority of mine. Now, I have yet another reason to add it to my "list."
You guys have to give this a read. Definitely an interesting piece on our more animalistic tendencies...
AOL Autos reports:
"When I was a grad student at the alma mater of 30 Rock's Jack Donaghy, I suffered the ignominy of a ride that paled in comparison with those of my classmates. While their parking spots boasted Range Bruiser Nantucketmobiles, a Ford Taurus with dead paint and a broken radio sullied mine. A decade later, I still remember the sour sense of deflation I felt as I hurried from that garage to class, pondering not my upcoming case discussion, but rather how crappy my whip looked next to that tasty Aston Martin DB5...
Shallow? Perhaps. But, as it turns out, my response was not just the result of social conditioning – it was driven by a hard-wired biological mechanism. And so in biology, I reckon, lies the future of automotive design.??
Consuming conspicuously?
Scientists have spent over a hundred years formulating theories to explain the existence of Aston Martins. In 1899, the economist Thorstein Veblen published his seminal work The Theory of the Leisure Class, in which he postulated that we buy expensive things not so much for their inherent qualities, but for the attention we receive as we experience said object. He predicted the rise of modern image-driven marketing, which accords value to things exactly because they are expensive and seemingly exclusive – the reason why people pay a premium for a Lexus RX over its mechanical twin the Toyota Highlander. In Veblen's worldview, Aston Martins exist because of how they make other people feel, ejector seats or no..."
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