In large part, people want what we are taught to want. A hundred billion humans lived and died without ever knowing about or wanting Coca Cola or a Ford F150s or a McMansion or a photo album of their children or a poster of Marilyn Monroe in primary colours or a Fabergé egg or a KFC bucket or a private jet or a luxury yacht. Such things didn't exist, and nobody suffered a moment for it. The things we want as animals are such things as warmth, shelter, calories, respect. Most everything else is a manufactured desire, and a lot of the remainder is "wanting nothing, seeing someone else have a thing, wanting that thing".
Marketing turned women on to smoking, turned Americans onto sodas, turned Americans onto cars, onto basketball, onto Nike sneakers, onto fast food burgers, onto SUVs and are now turning Americans onto pickup trucks - it's not accidental, it costs billions and takes years. Billionaires don't want luxury yachts because they develop a mysterious desire to go boating, they want luxury yachts because they are useful tax vehicles.
Talking about "what people want" without taking into account that what people want is malleable and flexible, is missing something important.
This argument is overly general, allowing you to dismiss any expressed desires as "not real".
There is, in a sense, genuine suffering from not having a dishwasher or a bike or a basketball or a poster of the horsehead nebula even though we lived without them for millenia.
I'm not saying they aren't real desires, I'm saying that "the future can be whatever we want it to be" is hackable by advertisers and we should want some defense against that.
Marketing turned women on to smoking, turned Americans onto sodas, turned Americans onto cars, onto basketball, onto Nike sneakers, onto fast food burgers, onto SUVs and are now turning Americans onto pickup trucks - it's not accidental, it costs billions and takes years. Billionaires don't want luxury yachts because they develop a mysterious desire to go boating, they want luxury yachts because they are useful tax vehicles.
Talking about "what people want" without taking into account that what people want is malleable and flexible, is missing something important.