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Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society

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Re: Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society

#81

Post by the_bowme »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #66
jankotek wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine large old shed with some rusting car wrecks around. I think that is minimalists nightmare, but reality of self reliant utilitarian guy. You accumulate stuff carelessly because storage cost is zero. Even old junk can be source of aluminium block for machining, steel bar for welding or copper coil for wires.

> I think that is minimalists nightmare Not at all.

Yes, it is. Unless you have an explanation of why not without getting into no true Scotsman territory.

Re: Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society

#82

Post by burntoutfire »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #4

Two ideas which often I encounter together yet I have grown to find incompatible are self reliance and minimalism. If you wish to become more self reliant i.e. more able to handle for yourself rather than through another's labor the impositions you create in the world, you will find yourself needing to masters, access and eventual own many more tools and material. My father, a man capable of building or repairing alm…

Yep. For me, the hardcore/conspicuous materialism (i.e. "I only have a 100 things.) is largely for well-off people only, who can afford to outsource all their uncommon needs - the kind of needs which require tools and parts to sit idle for years, until the occasion arises when you need them. It's telling that poorer people tend to hoard things - you never know when you're going to need that piece of cooper wire etc.

Re: Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society

#83

Post by smoe »

laurentdc wrote: post #11
DubiousPusher wrote: post #4

Two ideas which often I encounter together yet I have grown to find incompatible are self reliance and minimalism. If you wish to become more self reliant i.e. more able to handle for yourself rather than through another's labor the impositions you create in the world, you will find yourself needing to masters, access and eventual own many more tools and material. My father, a man capable of building or repairing alm…

I've always thought at its extreme minimalism is for those who are rich enough they can buy two/three of everything (including houses and cars). So if anything goes bad you just have a replacement ready. Everyone else better have a soldering iron, a good set of mechanic tools and boxes of spare parts

I guess I'd fall in the category of being minimalist[1].

A good part of the few things I own, are actually tools to fix the other things with or build them in the first place. Also buying fewer things, means I can optimize more easily for quality and longevity, and that there are just fewer things that can break.

Arguably, taken minimalism to the extreme, the basic tools is what you should be left with. In my opinion, the biggest problem with minimalism is, that it should be highly individualistic, whereas most societies have a big group-think component to it about how you should behave, what you should own, etc.

E.g. I don't have any specific tools or spare parts related to fixing a car, because I don't have a car, because it wouldn't add more value than cost to my life. But just because that is true for myself, doesn't make it so for someone else. And on the other hand, I own things that I value highly, but that would just gather dust in another household.

[1] I identify more with the Swedish term "Lagom", which roughly translates to "just the right amount", and is more about appreciation of what you have, not about pushing for reduction.

Re: Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society

#84

Post by username90 »

burntoutfire wrote: post #82
DubiousPusher wrote: post #4

Two ideas which often I encounter together yet I have grown to find incompatible are self reliance and minimalism. If you wish to become more self reliant i.e. more able to handle for yourself rather than through another's labor the impositions you create in the world, you will find yourself needing to masters, access and eventual own many more tools and material. My father, a man capable of building or repairing alm…

Yep. For me, the hardcore/conspicuous materialism (i.e. "I only have a 100 things.) is largely for well-off people only, who can afford to outsource all their uncommon needs - the kind of needs which require tools and parts to sit idle for years, until the occasion arises when you need them. It's telling that poorer people tend to hoard things - you never know when you're going to need that piece of cooper wire etc.

Do you include storage costs? Keeping stuff in your home is the most expensive option most of the time given how expensive homes are.

Re: Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society

#85

Post by jdietrich »

closeparen wrote: post #51
DubiousPusher wrote: post #4

Two ideas which often I encounter together yet I have grown to find incompatible are self reliance and minimalism. If you wish to become more self reliant i.e. more able to handle for yourself rather than through another's labor the impositions you create in the world, you will find yourself needing to masters, access and eventual own many more tools and material. My father, a man capable of building or repairing alm…

If your possessions all have practical utility, you are already a hardcore minimalist. No one should begrudge you a well-stocked and well-used workshop. That’s not what the minimalist message is supposed to be about. It’s the stuff accumulated carelessly, just because you could. Decorative doo-dads, outfits worn once, toys from kids long since grown, furniture retained out of a sense of duty. The suburban middle-clas…

>If your possessions all have practical utility, you are already a hardcore minimalist.

The problem is that "practical utility" isn't always obvious. I have boxes and boxes of components and other oddments that collectively form a useful library, but I have no way of predicting which specific oddments will be useful in future. Any given item is currently useless, but might become extremely useful at some indeterminable point in the future. There's a very fine line between a prepper and a hoarder.

Re: Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society

#86

Post by ooobit2 »

the_bowme wrote: post #81
eeZah7Ux wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think that is minimalists nightmare Not at all.

Yes, it is. Unless you have an explanation of why not without getting into no true Scotsman territory.

Minimalism is about maintaining useful purpose behind the things you own and not retaining unnecessary objects. If you're a DIY person, and you have a good reason for a backyard of junk cars, that's explainable. If you buy a new iPhone every year but you don't actually use the majority of the new features (if ever at all), that's frivolity.

Minimalism isn't the ideology that (less is more)==(less things). That comes from people appropriating philosophies to compete for attention on social media, where everything is at best one-dimensional because the point is to entertain not educate. No, minimalism as a philosophy means (less is more)==(object-essentialism). You initialize solutions among what you have, and factor the time, resource, and opportunity cost into the cost-benefit of acquiring a new object. So, as I mentioned, if acquiring a backyard of junk cars is more cost-benefit savvy than having to acquire a new junk car every time you need a resource from one, it's minimalist. However, if you acquire a junk car that adds what you already have a sufficient amount of, it's frivolity.

Re: Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society

#87

Post by matthewmcg »

closeparen wrote: post #51
DubiousPusher wrote: post #4

Two ideas which often I encounter together yet I have grown to find incompatible are self reliance and minimalism. If you wish to become more self reliant i.e. more able to handle for yourself rather than through another's labor the impositions you create in the world, you will find yourself needing to masters, access and eventual own many more tools and material. My father, a man capable of building or repairing alm…

If your possessions all have practical utility, you are already a hardcore minimalist. No one should begrudge you a well-stocked and well-used workshop. That’s not what the minimalist message is supposed to be about. It’s the stuff accumulated carelessly, just because you could. Decorative doo-dads, outfits worn once, toys from kids long since grown, furniture retained out of a sense of duty. The suburban middle-clas…

I’ve always thought Guy Clark’s song Stuff that Works captures this ethos perfectly. Here is the first verse and chorus:

I got an old blue shirt and it suits me just fine

I like the way it feels so I wear it all the time

I got an old guitar, won't ever stay in tune

I like the way it sounds in a dark and empty room

I got an old pair of boots and they fit just right

Well I can work all day and I can dance all night

I got an old used car and it runs just like a top

I get the feeling it ain`t ever going to stop

[Chorus]

Stuff that works, stuff that holds up

The kind of stuff you don`t hang on the wall

Stuff that`s real, stuff you feel

The kind of stuff you reach for when you fall

https://genius.com/Guy-clark-stuff-that-works-lyrics#note-85...

Re: Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society

#88

Post by kasey_junk »

friendlybus wrote: post #78
DubiousPusher wrote: post #4

Two ideas which often I encounter together yet I have grown to find incompatible are self reliance and minimalism. If you wish to become more self reliant i.e. more able to handle for yourself rather than through another's labor the impositions you create in the world, you will find yourself needing to masters, access and eventual own many more tools and material. My father, a man capable of building or repairing alm…

He didn’t make that 2x4 or the scrap iron, they came from hardware shops long ago. Your dad is capable of repairing anything because he has the mindset, creativity and skills. Were he rich he could take that same self reliance down to the local hardware store and buy what he needs to repair anything. Though arguably if he were richer he wouldn’t be repairing so much, he’d be doing something else successfully as a sel…

In OPs story, the trip to the local hardware store was hours away...

Re: Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society

#89

Post by _0w8t »

wiz21c wrote: post #56
pfranz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have noticed that people pushing minimalism...or at least the idea of "throw it away and buy it if you ever end up needing it" is a luxury that I think many people take for granted. Even if you're not privileged I think there's value in consciously assessing where in your life you want to be minimal and where you don't. I just went through my old tech stuff and recycled cellphones so old they may not even connect t…

>> As I got more serious about cooking I donated a lot of extra pans and doo-dads. Previously, I would just collect things and as I learned more about what made something good and why, I could narrow down to 1 or 2 higher quality items (knives, pans, etc). As I learned more techniques, I needed fewer specialty items. Same experience here. Conclusion : if we'd educate people better on how to cook rather than showing t…

That is a very nice summary! By then I recently discovered utility of a special bag to bake potatoes in the microwave . It does work even if takes longer than promised 5 minutes, but the result is very tasty and I have no idea how I would reproduce it in an owen.

Re: Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society

#90

Post by smoe »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #4

Two ideas which often I encounter together yet I have grown to find incompatible are self reliance and minimalism. If you wish to become more self reliant i.e. more able to handle for yourself rather than through another's labor the impositions you create in the world, you will find yourself needing to masters, access and eventual own many more tools and material. My father, a man capable of building or repairing alm…

> The reality is, if you wish to combine self reliance and minimalism, you essentially must embrace a life of poverty.

Why?

If you take minimalism to the extreme, and keep stripping away until reaching the bare essentials of living, then the basic tools and materials are what you left with.

It would be "against" minimalism (which is not well defined anyway) to buy say a chain saw because you think you might need it one day or need it for a one off job, instead of borrowing it from a neighbor or yes, paying (monetary or through favors) someone to do it.

Nothing wrong with relying on society to a degree.

If you want to be self reliant without having a lot of money to waste, you'll have to practice minimalism. Not the inner city hipster version of it, but being mindful of what the utility and value of all the things you have is.

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