PhronesisThe capacity to replace failing tools is a basic human competence. In its healthy form, the decision to upgrade a material possession is governed by genuine functional need: the current object no longer performs what the situation requires, or professional demands have changed to make continued use genuinely inadequate. Chronic upgrade-compulsion is here reconceptualised within the Displacement Framework as a wrong attractor W_CUC in the landscape of material sufficiency: a stable, self-sustaining configuration of the consumption-identity system that systematically displaces the individual from S^0, the healthy ground state of calibrated material sufficiency.
S^0 is characterised by the capacity to assess possessions against actual functional need rather than against the best currently available version, and to experience adequate objects as adequate regardless of what newer versions exist. Three interlocking mechanisms sustain W_CUC: (1) current-as-inadequate encoding—the existence of a better version causes the current object to be experienced as deficient even when it functions well and meets actual need; (2) upgrade-as-self-investment—new versions are experienced not as consumption but as investments in capability or identity, making upgrade-resistance feel like self-neglect or falling behind; and (3) technological-progress-as-urgency—the pace of technological change generates artificial urgency to upgrade before the current version becomes “too old,” transforming a preference into a perceived necessity.
The central paradox of W_CUC—the Upgrade Paradox—is formalised: each upgrade temporarily restores the sense of adequacy but simultaneously advances the reference standard, so the newly acquired object begins depreciating relative to the comparison set immediately after acquisition. Adequacy is perpetually just one upgrade away. Nine propositions formalise the mechanisms, developmental roots, economic dynamics, and return paths of W_CUC.
The return to S^0 requires the recovery of absolute adequacy assessment: evaluation of current possessions against actual need, not against the best available version.