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Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

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Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#211

Post by dragonwriter »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #77

The part in the article about finding time to work out hit hard. He's right: there is so little time to work out because it takes 1hr to work out and 1hr to travel/clean up: 2hrs is a big deal when you only have ~4 hours free hours per day to take care of life. That made me pretty depressed, not just for me but for every overweight person who is being shamed about not exercising. You have to exercise a lot to alter y…

> He's right: there is so little time to work out because it takes 1hr to work out and 1hr to travel/clean up:

Then do shorter workouts (a 30 minute workout is still good), kill travel (workout at, or if its by running/biking starting/ending at) home. Merge cleanup: do it before your morning shower.

> $15/month for one TV channel (Disney+)

Disney+ (or other major atreaming service) isn't really comparable to one TV channel; each is more comparable to the whole stable of channels available from a single media megacorp (and often bigger megacorps than a decade ago, because mergers.)

> You have to exercise a lot to alter your physique,

If you are a competitive body builder. For most people that want to transform physique and improve fitness, you need to exercise a bit to maintain muscle mass and tone, and improve (both by reducing excess calories and improving nutrition focus) your diet.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#212

Post by nate_meurer »

cushychicken wrote: post #192
burlesona wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t say “paradise” of freedom. Definitely more flexibility without kids, but kids bring so much joy and meaning to life. For most people it’s a very worthwhile trade.

Yeah I fuggin hate the "just you wait" attitude about kids. I'm excited to have kids, even in spite of the tradeoff involved in my spare time. I don't need endless reminders of the tradeoff. That's just piling on.

@burlesona said it well, and I'll make a stronger statement: my kids gave my life meaning far beyond what it had before. Everything I do, and the way it do it, changed for the better, even though my parenting itself has often come up short.

Be excited, and don't worry about the tradeoffs. For me, they weren't tradeoffs at all given the magnitude of the reward.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#213

Post by nautilius »

postoak wrote: post #176
nautilius wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comments like this always remind me of the interview with some kids dumpster diving behind some grocery store that I read many years ago: “Look at all those suckers going into the store to buy stuff with money, when you can just pick it up for free behind the store. Idiots!”

That is a funny quote, but I don't think it's the same as questioning the idea that everyone needs to have kids. Going to the dumpster is a bad idea if you value your health for everyone, but not having kids isn't clearly bad unless you only think of having kids in economic/religious terms (need to produce more workers/believers, or having support in old age).

I think you’re missing the point of the funny quote: both decisions don’t work if everyone acts like that, both rely on everyone else (or a vast majority) to do the ‘right thing’.

If no one buys in the grocery store, there will soon be no grocery store to dumpster dive behind. If no one has kids, there will be no one to pay into health insurance, social security or take care of you when you’re old. Would you be willing from now on to only accept services from people and technology older than you are? This isn’t an economic decision, this is survival of the species.

Both decisions are, of course, personal, and I don’t judge. But I think a personal choice that relies on externalities and someone else footing the bill could maybe dial down the smugness a notch.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#214

Post by criddell »

InitialLastName wrote: post #201
criddell wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How isn't it a bargain?

The marginal cost for the provider of you seeing the movie when streamed into your house is ~$0.

Marginal costs determine profitability, but don't have a lot to do with the price of anything other than commodities.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#215

Post by slewis »

coldtea wrote: post #172
deltron3030 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fashion is basically part of a real world interface for the social groups you interact with, a way to tweak the first impression. It's only junk for you as an outsider not understanding the social groups of insiders dressing a certain way. It's valuable and sells because social ladders are everywhere, we're all apes to a degree. It's not a suprise that the epic centers are urban melting pots with a higher population…

> Fashion is basically part of a real world interface for the social groups you interact with, a way to tweak the first impression. Yes. But it's a shallow real world interface, for shallow groups and facile identities, mostly used to associate with teenagers and juvenile group forming. I dont say it's not a thing, or don't have a use. I say the use is bad.

You’re expressing your opinion as if it’s a cold hard truth.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#216

Post by jarkhen »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #206
coldtea wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the party line, but it's just some sub-cultures, teens and troubled personalities that "express themselves" through fashion (the most shallow thing you can do, a juvenile thing in any case), the "early adopters", and then a huge industry copying them at various levels and with various delays. On top of that, there are also top-level mandates "this year let's push yellow strayjackets" or whatever. This results…

> it's just some sub-cultures, teens and troubled personalities that "express themselves" through fashion (the most shallow thing you can do, a juvenile thing in any case) Are you claiming that dressing to express yourself is shallow and juvenile? Do you just...buy the first thing you see at Goodwill that fits you? I'm not sure how one could avoid dressing to express oneself, to at least some degree, unless you exclu…

> I'm not sure how one could avoid dressing to express oneself, to at least some degree, unless you exclusively wear work uniforms or hand-me-downs.

Exclusively wearing work uniforms (outside of work) or hand-me-downs is still, in its own way, expressing oneself. One way or another you make a personal decision on how to dress and whether to follow a particular style, trend, price point, etc. and that reflects something about you.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#217

Post by criddell »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #205
criddell wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I mentioned $100, that was for food and the movie. Second, we can all go to the movies for $20 and even less if we are willing to wait. There are "dollar" theaters where tickets are less than $5. But, if we want to see a new movie and want to go to the modern theater with a full menu, comfy seats, and a great sound system, then it costs more. $12 / ticket for 90+ minutes of entertainment doesn't seem out of line…

> if we want to watch the new thing tonight Which is what 1/2 of the article we are discussing is about: The way we are herded into spending our hard-earned money on the need for "the new thing" by marketing and manipulation. Your position is "I need to entertain myself and my kids and they want the new shiny thing", my position is, "You're being conned out of your money for shit you don't need." I'm being wildly jud…

> Your position is "I need to entertain myself and my kids and they want the new shiny thing"

No it isn't. It has nothing to do with need.

> we miss out interesting/engaging cinematography

When was a better time for movies and television?

2021 was a bad year, but before that there were more than two movies released every day in the US. You couldn't find anything interesting in those 800 titles?

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#218

Post by SavantIdiot »

criddell wrote: post #217
SavantIdiot wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if we want to watch the new thing tonight Which is what 1/2 of the article we are discussing is about: The way we are herded into spending our hard-earned money on the need for "the new thing" by marketing and manipulation. Your position is "I need to entertain myself and my kids and they want the new shiny thing", my position is, "You're being conned out of your money for shit you don't need." I'm being wildly jud…

> Your position is "I need to entertain myself and my kids and they want the new shiny thing" No it isn't. It has nothing to do with need. > we miss out interesting/engaging cinematography When was a better time for movies and television? 2021 was a bad year, but before that there were more than two movies released every day in the US. You couldn't find anything interesting in those 800 titles?

Huh? Well, since you replied: I'm not the one spending $30 on top of my monthly fee to rent some cheesy remake of the same bland film and calling it a bargain. I prefer my fun a little less canned and a little more engaging. But I don't have kids so I don't know how to entertain them, and perhaps I'd feel the same way if for some reason I found myself with four kids. Although I'd probably be like my friends who make board games with their kids and have banned TV (good luck to them when the kids hit 13).

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#219

Post by sharadov »

The author exactly captured my experience - when I moved from an in person job to a remote job 4 years back I realized that I had more time to indulge in hobbies that I enjoyed in the past - reading, working out, cooking. I gradually lost interest in eating out as much, drinking at bars. During Covid, it accelerated more as the one indulgence I had of eating out once a week, also disappeared. I rather get fresh ingredients, make a nice meal, fix a nice cocktail or open a nice bottle of wine for me and the wife.

Re: Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010)

#220

Post by lurgburg »

namdnay wrote: post #135
anemoiac wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh lord, being “forced” to provide work in order to receive the work of others I didn't write the comment you responded to, but I don't think its author was advocating for the mythical "free lunch." I read their comment as a statement decrying the seemingly artificial constraints built into modern (American, I presume) society that force workers to make an essentially binary choice between a stable, secure life and…

But how is that binary choice artificial? You’d have exactly the same choice 10000 years ago. Either go and hunt and forage for food, or starve

Perhaps the world has changed somewhat in the last 10000 years.
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