Hoarding

Humans commonly do things that are against their best interests. Humans will do one thing in order to avoid another thing, but their avoidance behavior sometimes brings about the thing they were trying to avoid.

For example, people become afraid that stores will run out of TP, so they rush to the stores to stock up on TP, with the result that the store runs out of TP. Something that was plentiful with no danger of shortage suddenly vanishes from the shelves for the simple reason that people were afraid that it would vanish from the shelves. There is a name for this phenomenon: it’s called a self-fulfilling prophecy. A thing becomes true because we act as if it is already true.

There are numerous kinds of self-fulfilling prophecies. One kind is called the Pygmalion Effect. In this, our beliefs about ourselves influence our actions toward others, which impact others’ beliefs about us and thereby causes their actions to reinforce our beliefs about ourselves.

Hoarding is something that might be good for the individual but is bad for the community. I say “might be good” for the individual, because it’s possible for a hoarder to be impacted by another hoarder who is buying up things the first hoarder hasn’t thought of. It’s a “what goes around comes around” situation.

Hoarding and prepping are things modern people do. There was a time when people lived off the land. They hunted, they fished, they trapped. They carried enough food for a few days. Now it’s modern times and folks “stock up”.

I’ve got a few extra cans of beanie weenies, and a few cans of tuna fish. Other than that, I’m relying on food stores. But if the food stores fail me, well … the woman who lives across the street has way too many cats. I doubt she’ll miss a few.