Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010) • Hacker News Board

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#21

Post by sokoloff » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 3:28 PM UTC

cntrl wrote: post #17

sokoloff wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If “we could all” is constrained to households earning 6-figures, I tend to agree. I doubt a household making $30K/yr could realistically live on $10K/yr. (Further, if everyone FIRE’d, growth would slow to the point where you’d need to save more to generate the same income from investments. We’re so far from that being any kind of practical worry, that it can be safely ignored I think, but would be a concern if it be…

Isn't the FIRE person just delaying it's consumption? At some point the saved up money will be spent, therefore I wouldn't expect it to have a huge negative impact on economic growth

I think generally no: FIRE adherents are planning to retire early (the “RE” in FIRE) and expect to spend less over their lifetime than a standard American working that same level of job/income for 40 years instead of 10 or 15.

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si...

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#22

Post by kktkti9 » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 3:30 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #15

kktkti9 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capital being money, the flow of which is managed by Fed policy and laws. So, yeah, calculated from the top. Handed to those closest to the tap. Look into our transfer payment system, our system of political budgets, and apportionment. Before it gets to workers, how money is carved up is very much monitored and managed. Just because one is ignorant of how the system functions does not mean there is a free market.

So disappointingly predictable that you're being downvoted. It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it, and all that. If interest rates were up at 8%, there would be a lot fewer bets of the type of "litter the sidewalk with scooters and hope some money falls into them". The entirety of Surveillance Valley is basically a play to parlay overabundant moneta…

Pseudoscientific is the default state of the mind.

Propaganda research became behavioral economics, advertising, marketing, and various psychology programs, but surely that’s not been used socially to titillate biology and insert desired talking points in that excited state from childhood forward.

It can’t simply be we were easily mesmerized by what are really banal statistics extrapolated from speculating on the movement of political scrip in an era of imperialism that’s now faded. Humans have never succumb to nonsense group think before!

Believing one has transcended their biology is not limited to kooks who think they can live on light alone.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#23

Post by notfromhere » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 3:31 PM UTC

WhompingWindows wrote: post #19

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #2

I've noticed an interesting congruity - people in the FIRE community tend to target saving two-thirds of a modern western income, with most finding that living on less than one-third begins to have serious impacts on quality of life. From some studies I came across while studying sustainable energy it also seems as though a well-designed community in which residents make certain lifestyle choices can reduce resource…

Objectively, a lot of the consumption of modern Western life is unnecessary. We don't have to drive out to dinner, there's edible food at home. We could skip those bucket-list vacation trips, purchasing new items instead of making-do with old, we could live in more modest housing for our income levels. It's kind of trippy to imagine what the large-scale effects would be. If everyone cut their consumption by 1/3, our…

Probably an argument that a forty hour workweek makes that kind of unnecessary consumption possible. People with time and groceries would probably make dinner rather than go out

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#24

Post by tresil » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

Sebb767 wrote: post #18

> The ultimate tool for corporations to sustain a culture of this sort is to develop the 40-hour workweek as the normal lifestyle. Under these working conditions people have to build a life in the evenings and on weekends. I slightly disagree with this point. The 40 hour work week is a rather recent development; in the past, people had to work a lot longer with no or only one day of. The trend actually goes in the di…

Agreed. There’s quite a bit of evidence that the 40hr work week has a lot to do with our human tendency to compete.

Here’s a relevant 3min podcast on the topic (also transcribed).

https://www.npr.org/2015/08/13/432122637/keynes-predicted-we...

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#25

Post by noir_lord » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 3:39 PM UTC

Sebb767 wrote: post #18

> The ultimate tool for corporations to sustain a culture of this sort is to develop the 40-hour workweek as the normal lifestyle. Under these working conditions people have to build a life in the evenings and on weekends. I slightly disagree with this point. The 40 hour work week is a rather recent development; in the past, people had to work a lot longer with no or only one day of. The trend actually goes in the di…

> The 40 hour work week is a rather recent development; in the past, people had to work a lot longer with no or only one day of.

At a point in time, hours worked where often lower in pre-industrial times.

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_w...

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#26

Post by blablabla123 » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 3:45 PM UTC

captainmuon wrote: post #13

ilamont wrote: post #5

Western economies, particularly that of the United States, have been built in a very calculated manner on gratification, addiction, and unnecessary spending. Calculated, like in planned-economy, directive-from-the-top? I disagree. A lot of the "fluff," as the author describes it, is excess capital finding its way to things people find pleasurable, whether it be dope, travel, beauty, or rock and roll. Purveyors of suc…

Counterpoint: What do you think "fashion" is? I used to think there were some very cool, fashion-adept people, who have the ability to predict what will considered modern next year. The reality is, the clothing industry decides what to produce at least 6-12 months in advance. It's not like they produce everything and public opinion decides in the end what is "cool". Granted, the industry tries to predict what will be…

More subtly a smaller but far more interested proportion of the population tries more experimental things and the big shops just copy that. That's both cheaper for the buyer and the producer.

It's the same for tech, various gadgets or technologies that are hyped right now have been gathering traction since years but have been picked up by the big brands only very recently. Best example is the trend of using non-x86 Computers, a few desktop/laptop projects have been there including Chrome books. Now Apple picked it up and it's a completely normal thing to buy an ARM laptop.

Looks kind of planned but it's not. It's just that some things fall out of fashion for whatever reasons...

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#27

Post by slv77 » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 3:51 PM UTC

Sebb767 wrote: post #18

> The ultimate tool for corporations to sustain a culture of this sort is to develop the 40-hour workweek as the normal lifestyle. Under these working conditions people have to build a life in the evenings and on weekends. I slightly disagree with this point. The 40 hour work week is a rather recent development; in the past, people had to work a lot longer with no or only one day of. The trend actually goes in the di…

Longer work weeks we’re mostly confined to Industrial Age city populations that didn’t have access to land to farm. Few laborers working in early industrial mills was doing so because it was easier then farming.

Agfa, Foraging and hunter-gatherer populations, work about 20 hours per week and transitioning to farming increased working hours.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190520115646.h...

!Kung spend 40 to 45 hours on food gathering and prep between women and men.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/fistfulofscience.wordpress.com/...

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#28

Post by ruined » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 3:51 PM UTC

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #12

markus_zhang wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just a planned economy not by government men but by mega corporations. Then they put up some facade to pretend that you have the freedom of choice.

It's more akin to evolution operating on culture rather than genes. Corporations are trying various things to differentiate themselves and be profitable. The ones that consumers like either due to real interest or due to marketing keep getting made/refined, the rest die off. And the process repeats from there.

That's the ideal conception of it, but practically, power also plays a very large role. Firms don't get to "try things" without lots of resources already, any novel startups may simply be acquired and assimilated or even shut down, large existing organizations are capable of sustaining failures despite market conditions, extra-market rules may be implemented by firms with political access, and if enough of the supply enforces a choice, consumer interest doesn't matter and may even adapt to what is available.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#29

Post by quesera » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 3:53 PM UTC

captainmuon wrote: post #13

ilamont wrote: post #5

Western economies, particularly that of the United States, have been built in a very calculated manner on gratification, addiction, and unnecessary spending. Calculated, like in planned-economy, directive-from-the-top? I disagree. A lot of the "fluff," as the author describes it, is excess capital finding its way to things people find pleasurable, whether it be dope, travel, beauty, or rock and roll. Purveyors of suc…

Counterpoint: What do you think "fashion" is? I used to think there were some very cool, fashion-adept people, who have the ability to predict what will considered modern next year. The reality is, the clothing industry decides what to produce at least 6-12 months in advance. It's not like they produce everything and public opinion decides in the end what is "cool". Granted, the industry tries to predict what will be…

It's really not that simple.

Fashion is an industry where hundreds of individual designers, some with the backing of megacorps and some without, try to meet popular interest (or to lead it), with production times measured in weeks to months, and with seasonal variation.

There is no "fashion cabal" where designers get together for drinks and to anoint "cerulean blue" as the color of 2023 and then pull their customers by the nose ring into purchasing.

(Yes, there is a media-favorite color survey that gets printed every year, and there are some downstream effects of that).

The music industry works similarly. Bands toil for years (or months), doing their thing, and A&R reps from major labels try to predict what they can promote that will be popular enough this year (based on the choices of other promoters in the industry), or next year, to sell in the near term, and yet differentiated enough to have lasting value.

The snack food industry works similarly.

The software industry works similarly.

The political industry works similarly.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#30

Post by pipthepixie » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 4:04 PM UTC

martincmartin wrote: post #4

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #2

I've noticed an interesting congruity - people in the FIRE community tend to target saving two-thirds of a modern western income, with most finding that living on less than one-third begins to have serious impacts on quality of life. From some studies I came across while studying sustainable energy it also seems as though a well-designed community in which residents make certain lifestyle choices can reduce resource…

FIRE = Financial Independence, Retire Early for those who don't know.

I like the concept. There are even young people experimenting with retirement but for typically one year, also known as a 'gap year' where they don't work/study - they just explore.