Just had a thought about "weight" stories. Maybe someone can help
out as I can remember neither title nor author (as usual). There are a
series of stories about a world in which a perfect form of power is
invented. The inventor (Amalfi?) is cheated of his profits but dies with
a smile on his face. The rest of the stories are about how the world
adapts to the sudden availability of limitless power. In one story we
see how the poor are forced to consume, living in mansions and
wearing many clothes, eating as much as they can to keep the
economy "growing". Only the rich get to avoid mass consumption. In
the following story after the problem of overproduction is resolved,
we meet a man so traumatised by his childhood poverty and the
pressure to consume that despite the end of this need he cannot stop
himself.
Farah
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