"more, bigger, faster, cheaper" doesn't necessarily add up to or equal "better, wiser, smarter, fitter, closer." Examined closely, relative to GDP, living standards already did collapse: examined closely, measures of gross industrial output decoupled from still deeply flawed but perhaps slightly more meaningful measures of human welfare, like the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare and Genuine Progress Indicator, which have at best sharply lagged, or at worst flatlined, for decades. (And lest you pooh-pooh these updated conceptualizations as the utopian visions of idealists, remember that the Measure of Economic Welfare, for example, was conceived of by no less than Nobel Laureate James Tobin.) Concisely: the opulence bubble says that stuff probably yields sharply diminishing returns in human terms. It means that we can pursue Olympian levels of output, live in skyscraper-sized McMansions, drive Sherman tank-sized SUVs, glued to Jumbotron-sized 3D TVs — but it's at best unclear whether and at worst improbable that doing so will power any lasting marginal boost in our capacity to live meaningfully well, especially when you factor in the hidden costs and unintended consequences of doing so.