Acharya Prashant highlights the critical failure of the modern economic and human system, noting that carbon dioxide levels have risen from 280 ppm to 400 ppm without being accounted for in corporate balance sheets or national GDP. He argues that while we celebrate economic growth, we completely ignore the environmental cost and material depletion involved in production. The current standard of consumption is unsustainable; if the entire population of India lived like the urban elite, or if the world lived like the average American, multiple Earths would be required to provide the necessary raw materials. He describes the 'human machine' as an entity that consumes everything—forests, minerals, animals, oceans, and rivers—yet fails to produce the desired output of peace or freedom from restlessness. Instead, this massive consumption of the Earth's resources has only resulted in increased ambition and deeper anxiety. He concludes that while peace is attainable, it cannot be achieved through the current path of material consumption and ambition.