I was just thinking about this the other day. I think it’s the relatively recent concept of “throwing things away”. I don’t think in much of our evolutionary history we’ve had the concept of planned obsolescence. Lots of the physical items I come in contact with are intended to go to the landfill within my lifetime. It would also make sense that any resource scarcity would trigger hoarding behaviors.
When viewing this problem through an evolutionary history lens, I generally arrive at something like: "Well of course hoarding is a problem, people didn't evolve confined to cages where possessions accumulate. We'd just be nomadic and leave a trail of compostable waste in our wake of unkempt stashes and habitats."
