Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society • Hacker News Board

Re: Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society

#91

Post by coverup » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 12:46 PM UTC

nixpulvis wrote: post #3

grawprog wrote: post #2

Minimalism's an odd thing. I find it really depends on context. Minimalistic story telling in a video game or some such thing, is awesome, the same thing in a book, not so great and in movies can be hit or miss. From a ui design standpoint, I can't stand minimalism most of the time. The lack of immediately apparent information and context can be infuriating. Whereas a minimalistic design in some kind of manual tool w…

Minimalistic dance music (MDM) sounds like exactly what I'm missing in my life. I mean I have a bit already, but sometimes it gets to poppy. Just gotta tug on the right notes, ignore the rest. Mix it up, but only when you need to. Don't overthink it, yet spend the time needed to make it juuuust right. As Mark Twain famously said: “I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” P.S. `less`…

Minimal techno had a big moment in EDM circles in the '00s as the bombastic productions of the '90s started to be seen as cheesy and overcooked.

See for example: https://youtu.be/daSid6Lh9Vs

Re: Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society

#92

Post by ctdonath » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 12:46 PM UTC

pfranz wrote: post #22

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 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…

having a lawn service means not needing a mower. Hiring out a painting service means not having old buckets, brushes, tarps, etc, laying around.

Minimalism means not having a lawn which needs mowing, nor walls in need of painting.

Re: Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society

#93

Post by samirillian » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 12:55 PM UTC

There's another way of looking at this, which is minimalism as symptom rather than cause.

Most millenials, even the upper-middle class ones, see a future with less material prospects than their parents had. I do not believe that minimalism is fundamentally a cultural phenomenon driven by the wealthy, but by the impoverished.

You can say that Marie Kondo and Bauhaus have some subterranean aesthetic connection, but I think Marie Kondo and the 40 year old guy living alone in his "tiny home," watching Netflix, have a much deeper cultural connection.

Re: Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society

#94

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 12:55 PM UTC

drobert wrote: post #64

Bad article, clearly written by someone with left wing views. Minimalism can help you lead a more focused life. Of course it’s relevant for people who have accumulated a lot, but even poor people can hoard things. > I caught one mention of “inequality.” Instead of digging into systemic problems like poverty or exploring ideas of wealth redistribution, the film frames having less as an individual, moral choice with no…

[deleted]

Re: Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society

#95

Post by lmm » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 12:57 PM UTC

smoe wrote: post #90

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 o…

> 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.

No you don't. A big pile of junk is no drain on your self-reliance; if you're living in the kind of place where you can even begin to hope to produce your own food then space is not going to be an issue.

Re: Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society

#96

Post by chii » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 12:59 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #92

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…

having a lawn service means not needing a mower. Hiring out a painting service means not having old buckets, brushes, tarps, etc, laying around. Minimalism means not having a lawn which needs mowing, nor walls in need of painting.

so you live in a cardbox box near a creek for running water?

Re: Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society

#97

Post by zrello87 » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 12:59 PM UTC

drobert wrote: post #64

Bad article, clearly written by someone with left wing views. Minimalism can help you lead a more focused life. Of course it’s relevant for people who have accumulated a lot, but even poor people can hoard things. > I caught one mention of “inequality.” Instead of digging into systemic problems like poverty or exploring ideas of wealth redistribution, the film frames having less as an individual, moral choice with no…

The author is yet another member of pronoun-twitter who blames everything on capitalism and white men, not leaving their privileged New York late-capitalist bubble to realise all these things still exist in non-white, non-capitalist spaces and always will.

Re: Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society

#98

Post by ses1984 » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 1:01 PM UTC

dageshi wrote: post #73

wiz21c wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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…

Some people just don't like cooking. I guess the magical kitchen gadgets may appeal to them in the sense of "this might make me like cooking" because it looks easy.

So what if you just don't like cooking, do it anyway, ya dongus.

Re: Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society

#99

Post by lmm » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 1:02 PM UTC

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #62

nicbou wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a point that keeps coming back in minimalist and travel communities. People brag about how little they own, and it looks perfect until you ask about the logistics of it. You quickly find out that their minimalist existence is often propped by cheap third-world labour, or by a complete lack of financial planning. They don't own any of the tooks they need to fend for themselves. In a sense, their lifestyle is on…

I often wonder what these folks do with their time. It certainly isn't, say, painting canvases of artwork - these sorts of hobbies require stuff.

You can paint canvases if you find that fulfilling, you'd just be deliberate about what painting stuff you treated as a possession. Either you'd rent access to a stocked studio, or you'd buy paints and brushes but treat them as ephemeral, or you'd cherish them enough to count them towards your number, and use them frequently. What you wouldn't do is have a pile of painting stuff in your closet that you used five years ago, because that's how you end up lying to yourself - if you were ever going to use it again you'd be using it now, so either you keep using it, or you dispose of it without regret.

Re: Minimalism conceals the messy realities of society

#100

Post by lmm » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 1:07 PM UTC

nicbou wrote: post #49

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self reliance is probably more of an ideal than minimalism. It didn't take much for man to realize he could do more by trusting another than figuring out how to do everything on his own.

Any labour you pay is paid with your post-tax income, with sales tax on top. You'd need to work two hours to buy an hour of your own labour. You usually get paid for a fixed number of hours, so the time you save by hiring an expert can't be spent at work paying for it. There's usually some overhead involved too: finding labour, scheduling appointments, bringing your car to the dealership etc. Doing your own oil chang…

> You usually get paid for a fixed number of hours, so the time you save by hiring an expert can't be spent at work paying for it.

That cuts both ways though. I'd rather work 28 hours/week and spend more time fixing stuff myself. But jobs largely come as 40 hours/week (there are exceptions, but they would mean compromising on field, location or both, at least for me); if I could work 70% of the time for 50% of the pay I probably would.