Like all animals, we know what we need. Nourishment, safety, sex. Our needs are limited. Instinctual. Natural. And in today’s world – almost guaranteed.

Our wants, on the other hand, are more complex. Whimsical. Time-consuming. We create them by choosing from a menu of possibilities that changes along with our environment. And boy, has our environment changed. For millennia, we foraged in the wild. Today, we’re being suffocated by abundance.

This abundance makes it fair to expect individual desires within a modern tribe to be totally random. Unique, even.

But they aren’t.

Everywhere you look, you’ll see groups of people who want the same things. The newest iPhone. Gucci handbags. Yeezys. Expensive degrees. And lately ­– pixelated JPEGS.

Like a bunch of neighbouring metronomes that spontaneously synchronize, our desires coalesce with those of our social group...