Needs are limited, but not greed. Science has developed no cure for envy, so our wealth boosts our happiness only briefly while shrinking that of our neighbors. Thus the outlook for the future is gloomy in Easterlin’s view. "The future, then, to which the epoch of modem economic growth is leading, is one of never ending economic growth, a world in which ever growing abundance is matched by ever rising aspirations, a world in which cultural difference is leveled in the constant race to achieve the good life of material plenty, a world which is founded on belief in science and the power of rational inquiry and in the ultimate capacity of humanity to shape its own destiny. The irony is that in this last respect the lesson of history appears to be otherwise: that there is no choice. In the end, the triumph of economic growth is not a triumph of humanity over material wants; rather, it is the triumph of material wants over humanity.\