Comment by __MatrixMan__

I doubt that the reflex to want what we don't have is in our nature. It wouldn't be selected for. That's how you kill off the herd in the spring and starve the following winter.

We work to ensure that others want what they don't have because we've built systems that rely on them continuing to do so. It creates a sort of logic that defines for us what counts as rational behavior. But when that logic meets another one and they each evaluate the other as irrational, there's no reason to expect that the want-what-you-dont-have logic is somehow more valid. If it seems so, it's just that more of us are under its spell than the other.