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

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#101

Post by Mandelmus » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

scaleng wrote: post #10

I disagree that the authors return to wastefulness/consumption is a result of systemic forces. I think it’s more likely the case that when you have a higher rate of income you spend money to convenience yourself and save time/energy because you value your time/energy at that higher rate of income.

> you spend money to convenience yourself and save time/energy because you value your time/energy at that higher rate of income.

Agreed, but the way I put it is that the higher consumption is done to compensate for the stresses that come with the work life(style). I have a lot less patience and mental energy to do impulse control or to judiciously weigh the pros and cons of this versus that purchase when in a stressful work environment compared to when I'm not. I'd say that counts as "a result of systemic forces".

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#102

Post by fierro » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

I understand this perspective, but I take a different view on life. I don't worry about spending money. I have high leverage skills, so I focus on making more money. Life is more enjoyable to me when I can spend without care knowing I'm always increasing my skills, fulfillment, and by consequence earning potential.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#103

Post by tedjdziuba » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 6:22 PM UTC

fierro wrote: post #102

I understand this perspective, but I take a different view on life. I don't worry about spending money. I have high leverage skills, so I focus on making more money. Life is more enjoyable to me when I can spend without care knowing I'm always increasing my skills, fulfillment, and by consequence earning potential.

> Life is more enjoyable to me when I can spend without care knowing I'm always increasing my skills, fulfillment, and by consequence earning potential.

"Believing" is more accurate than "knowing". There is no certainty that your skills today will be profitable in the future.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#104

Post by flycaliguy » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 6:24 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #98

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…

This isn’t an accurate take. Fashion trends are created in the same way art, architecture, and music trends are. By people who are talented and come to be influential. The fashion “industry” is the very last stop in the process. The trends are determined by the “cool kids” for the most part. If you don’t have exposure to the communities that actually drive trends it might feel the way you describe but if you live in…

Yeah, it’s a complex system like economics. It often has to do with things like immigration and cultural fusion in influential neighbourhoods. Musicians or break out visual artists chasing an career and bringing their style to London or NYC.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#105

Post by mancerayder » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 6:25 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #80

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…

You may be being unrealistic about the role of spontaneous personal choice in this. To a surprising extent, people find things pleasurable because they're told to find them pleasurable. No one sane would inhale burning carcinogenic leaves to damage their own health, but people do - because they're encouraged to. People buy new phones because they're somehow "cool". No one is really sure why, but it's something that h…

> No one sane would inhale burning carcinogenic leaves to damage their own health, but people do - because they're encouraged to.

That's a bit naive. The carcinogenic leaves have mental effects, a buzz, pleasurable even before and despite addiction and carcinogenic qualities.

New phones have new features, speed and sizes / resolution.

None of these things are free of influence, peer pressure, advertising, and 'needing to feel in' the group. Sure. But to remove personal choice too strongly is a False way to look at the world. But this - this, call it systemic, way to look at the world - is popular and trending - ironically.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#106

Post by slibhb » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 6:28 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…

That quote is right out of Herbert Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-Dimensional_Man).

Marcuse argues that we only think we're choosing to pursue certain things (pop music, sex, cars, food, etc). Actually, society has been transformed by certain parties to push these "false desires" on us.

I think there's something creepy about telling people their desires are false. This is an example of what Isaiah Berlin called the abuse of positive liberty: telling people what they should rationally want, which amounts to a kind of paternalism.

I suspect you're right, this stuff isn't top-down. To the extent that taste-makers and corporate boards determine what we want (which I suppose they partially do), they are participating in the same economies as us and are acting for the same reasons as we are. There's no domination going on here as far as I can tell, though there are certainly undesirable outcomes (from my perspective).

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#107

Post by meiraleal » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 6:29 PM UTC

goodpoint wrote: post #73

grumblenum wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Malthusian crisis has been “imminent” since the 19th century. I think that you should try writing down what facts you think support the a priori assumption that our sinful ways are leading us to a future, sudden disaster. I don’t think you will find much evidence that isn’t traceable to popular opinion. Sorry, fam, it’s just Puritanism for the modern age.

Are you saying that climate change, ocean depletion, soil depletion, desertification, plastic pollution and food shortage are not real?

The population growth trend proves OP point.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#108

Post by kwhitefoot » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #76

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In-person shopping for food (including travel to/from the place of purchase), food prep, cooking, and the associated cleanup is an enormous time sink. Perhaps you have free time or are already used to spending a lot of it on these tasks, but let's not pretend that it's "not that much". It's huge.

Shopping for the four of us in this house takes about three man hours a week. Cooking about 15. That is much less than an hour a day per person. If we felt like it we could optimise the shopping even further by only shopping when we were already passing the supermarket on the way to or from work.

If we felt like it we could do the shopping online and cut it down to a few minutes a week.

Cooking Sunday dinner for four today took me less than two hours. Would have been faster if I had not prepared everything from scratch.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#109

Post by NavinF » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 6:33 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

How is that consumption "unnecessary"? I bet 99% of the people here would not save money or time by working less hours and using that time to cook more often. Time spent cooking, cleaning pans, shopping and sorting/storing groceries etc can easily be >$100/day

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#110

Post by throwawayboise » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 6:34 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #57

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…

I've been wearing the exact same jeans cut for 30 years now. When they get holes, I just push a button on Amazon for more. My dress shirts are 20-30 years old. They're not out of style. Of course, I've never been cool, so there's that.

> My dress shirts are 20-30 years old. They're not out of style.

They are, you just don't care. Which is OK.