The world economy is a myth—or at least that’s the point made by Yuval Harari in his landmark success Sapiens. His broader argument is that our species came to dominate the earth not due to superior intelligence or physical prowess but because of our unique ability to create and share myths, like religion or the economy.

As Hariri points out, there is roughly $10 trillion circulating in the world economy, and yet only $1 trillion of that actually exists. This is sustainable because of credit. Banks and other financial institutions will lend out money that does not yet exist with the calculated understanding that by investing in the future, they will make money, and the economy will grow. Humanity has, consciously or not, created and shared the myth that the economy of tomorrow will be larger—as measured by goods and services consumed within it—than the economy of today. It follows that the health of any economy is measured by its growth.

Since economic growth is measured by an increase in the amount of goods and services consumed, it follows that for an economy to keep growing, more and more resources must be created and consumed within it. Many of these are finite resources, like oil, water, or lumber. Resource finitude is a Catch-22 for the modern economy: In order to sustain itself, it must continue to consume finite resources, but the nature of finite resources is just that—eventually, they run out.

Resource finitude is a Catch-22 for the modern economy.

Harari points out that as the economy has grown, resource finitude has become less of an issue because our economy has found both new, less finite resources as well as more efficient ways of consuming existing finite resources. In the case of energy, an example of the former would be creating solar panels to harness the nearly infinite energy of the sun, while examples of the latter would be fracking (easier access to oil) or hybrid cars (more efficient use of gasoline). Finding these new and more effective ways of harnessing energy has allowed the economy to continue growing. But given that the projected economy is multitudes larger than the actual modern economy, it remains true that the economy will have to keep growing to keep up with the credit myth.

There are two main ways for the the economy to achieve this growth. First, it can optimize existing consumption of finite resources, and second, it can find new, less finite resources to consume. There exists, however, beyond those two options, a third option that for an economy threatened by anything other than growth (measured by consumption) would be a perfect solution—a panacea. This option is simple: offer an infinitely producible and infinitely consumable resource that consumers want. Even better would be for that same resource to create its own demand, requiring consumers to take in more and more of it to derive the same level of satisfaction. Drugs are an example of this, but they have a fundamental flaw: Consume too much of them, and you die. (It’s not hard to see why a resource that eventually kills its consumer is a threat to a consumptive economy.) There is, however, a “resource” already that fits this description. That resource is entertainment.