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

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#31

Post by deltron3030 » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 4:05 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…

>The reality is, the clothing industry decides what to produce at least 6-12 months in advance.

It's more the mainstream you're referring to, late adopters basically. of course they can produce in advance as the styles are already validated on urban streets and within subcultures who really set the trends.

There are inventors, early adopters and late adopters, quite similar to SaaS.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#32

Post by naravara » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 4:06 PM UTC

quesera wrote: post #29

captainmuon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I’d say this is a more nuanced and sophisticated explanation of the same dynamic the person you’re responding to is getting at. Yes there is no “cabal” as in a smoke-filled room where shadowy figures make the decision. But, in practice, the net effect is that of a large genetic algorithm settling on an approved trend that it then uses its market power to push people towards.

And, of course, the more the industry is consolidated the more “directed” it will seem.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#33

Post by throwthere » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

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…

It’s kind of an interesting thought experiment. Think for a second how much many of our incomes depend on ad revenue. Certainly if a large contingent of consumers massively cut their spending we have to work harder and longer for the same pay. And so on across all jobs producing discretionary goods and services.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#34

Post by Invictus0 » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

I am a man and I own 13 pairs of shoes. They're mostly specialized--water shoes, snow boots, steel toe, fancy shoes, flip flops, running shoes, and several pairs of dress shoes. But when I was backpacking in Europe, I only carried one pair of black Timberland boots with me, which took me from the nightclub to the top of the Tatras to the catacombs of Paris. It's amazing how effortlessly I accumulate junk and how every item seems so important and necessary, until I go traveling with only a 30L backpack and I seem to have everything I need.

I have 1 dresser. In my mind, 1 is a nice small number of dressers to have. But in physical spacetime, one dresser takes up a hell of a lot of volume. I wonder if many of our possessions are like this: they occupy little space in our mind, even as they occupy evermore physical volume in our homes.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#35

Post by ProjectArcturis » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 4:17 PM UTC

cushychicken wrote: post #20

As a 30-something tech worker, time is definitely the scarcest and most valuable thing I possess. Even more so now that my wife and I have a dog. This statement gets orders of magnitude truer once you factor in the scarce overlapping time I have with my friends, all of whom are like me: 30-somethings with tech careers and young families. Whether the shortage of time is by corporate design or no, I'm in a phase of my…

Just wait till you have kids. You'll look back on this time as a paradise of freedom.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#36

Post by erwinh » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 4:24 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…

Imo the real fashion trendsetters don’t think about it in terms of what might become trending to surf it like q wave but are focussed on ideas&concepts which are relevant for society in that year/age.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#37

Post by tonyedgecombe » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 4:29 PM UTC

notfromhere wrote: post #23

WhompingWindows wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm not sure about that, even when my wife and I were both working full time we still cooked all our own meals. It's not that much of a burden.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#38

Post by coldtea » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 4:31 PM UTC

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…

>Calculated, like in planned-economy, directive-from-the-top?

Doesn't matter. You don't need to give "directive-from-the-top" is your interests as an industry with the interests of other industries are more or less the same, and you can all push individually in the same direction.

>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.

Some things yes. Most things, people find it pleasurable because they are in a state where they take pleasure from buying shit.

In fact, they only find them pleasurable before they buy them, afterwards there's a small rush for a few days, and they could not care less for them again, they're back into the lookout for buying the next "pleasurable" thing.

This is not accidental, it's the result of many changes, including what the post describes, but also a century of efforts from advertising and industry leads which have been well documented and with the overt intention of bringing up consumption and reducing self-reliance.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#39

Post by tonyedgecombe » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 4:33 PM UTC

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…

Yes, it seems far more likely that it is emergent rather than planned.

That's not to say you shouldn't try and understand and criticise it and opt out where necessary but there is no big conspiracy going on.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#40

Post by postoak » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 4:33 PM UTC

ruined wrote: post #28

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree with you, but in evolution there are also power differentials due to organism size/features or population leading to some organisms/species having an advantage at a certain point in time. I think this could be considered analagous (not exact mapping) to corporation power at a given time.