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Extreme Minimalism: this guy owns just 15 things

andrewhy.de

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Re: Extreme Minimalism: this guy owns just 15 things

#171

Post by Duff »

andrewhyde wrote: post #120
jdietrich wrote: post #80

This isn't minimalism in any sense of the word, it's just a consumerist vanity. OP's 'minimalism' is sustained by a reliance upon huge amounts of infrastructure, most of it environmentally unsustainable. He doesn't carry stuff with him, but uses money to access what he needs. It's like claiming to be a minimalist because you own a second house where you keep all your stuff. OP outsources the burden of sustaining his…

OP here. I don't see your point but feel all your anger. Not sure if I'm just catching it from another project, but it is odd to me that you default from a guy owning a few shirts to causing major economic injustices. I don't own much physically. I spend my days volunteering and traveling living a pretty simple life. I write posts and sometimes people like and share them. This post was written in May of last year and…

I wouldn't stress it too much. Sustainability extremists will make you feel guilty for eating a diet of wild berries -- you're pillaging the bird's food.

It sounds like a pretty cool adventure that you're having. My first reaction was "15 possessions and no pan?", but I can understand that in context of the travelling that you're doing.

Re: Extreme Minimalism: this guy owns just 15 things

#172

Post by run4yourlives »

andrewhyde wrote: post #120
jdietrich wrote: post #80

This isn't minimalism in any sense of the word, it's just a consumerist vanity. OP's 'minimalism' is sustained by a reliance upon huge amounts of infrastructure, most of it environmentally unsustainable. He doesn't carry stuff with him, but uses money to access what he needs. It's like claiming to be a minimalist because you own a second house where you keep all your stuff. OP outsources the burden of sustaining his…

OP here. I don't see your point but feel all your anger. Not sure if I'm just catching it from another project, but it is odd to me that you default from a guy owning a few shirts to causing major economic injustices. I don't own much physically. I spend my days volunteering and traveling living a pretty simple life. I write posts and sometimes people like and share them. This post was written in May of last year and…

What's the point of minimalism if not to reduce one's impact on the world? Am I understanding this "movement" incorrectly?

From one perspective, reducing your greater impact on the world by some amount seems to at least be routed in a desire to improve things - to make a nobel idea a reality as much as possible. Whether or not the overall impact is measurable is countered by the nobel gesture of the person at least.

From another perspective however, simply reducing the number of "possessions" one has to a ridiculously small amount by offloading the benefit provided by having said possessions to other segments - in essence, renting everything - doesn't seem to have much of a purpose at all beyond being slightly inconvenient. While I highly doubt anybody can only "own" 15 things - no, underwear cannot be excluded, even if you don't wear them more than once - whether the low bound is 15, 30, 75 or 200 seems rather irrelevant. As such, I'm not sure of the point.

Personally, I'd read deeply into some of the other very intelligent comments here. Ignore any perceived anger, because I don't think it exists.

Re: Extreme Minimalism: this guy owns just 15 things

#173

Post by mrtron »

ck2 wrote: post #32

When you go to starbucks each morning, spending $100 a month there instead of owning your own coffeemaker - it's not minimalism. It's consumerism. Trying living with just what he has in a 3rd world country and it's minimalism.

I think the concept of not owning a coffeemaker and going to a coffee shop daily is both consumerism and minimalism. Why can't it be both?

Wouldn't there be huge efficiency gains (and minimalism) in a coffee shop having one large coffee machine, importing huge bags of coffee instead of tiny packages with loads of waste? Reusing 20 cups for 200 people instead of each person owning 5 cups?

3rd world countries have coffee shops btw...

Re: Extreme Minimalism: this guy owns just 15 things

#174

Post by njharman »

It's really really weird to me that someone who wants to own as few things as possible (i.e. be unmaterialistic) is so focused on brands. (which to me is the height of materialism owning/valuing/recognizing something for it's label rather than substance).

Seems like it's just a gimmick, something to fill blog posts with.

Re: Extreme Minimalism: this guy owns just 15 things

#175

Post by kahawe »

drumdance wrote: post #107
kahawe wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazing how offended some people seem to be by him omitting a few thing - who really cares If I promise to give you 50 bucks for some software you wrote and then I only give you 10, you wouldn't be offended or complain, right?

Seriously? Clicking on a link with a vaguely misleading headline is the same as giving someone $50? Really?

I was promised something by the (outrageously) surprising claim in the headline and the article could not remotely keep up... and this was the first analogy that came to my mind - in both cases something was promised but then not fulfilled.

Re: Extreme Minimalism: this guy owns just 15 things

#176

Post by prodigal_erik »

drumdance wrote: post #108
technoslut wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree somewhat. >Bill Gates is extremely charitable. This is following two decades of Bill Gates being extremely selfish. >Einstein was extremely intelligent. This is something different. Einstein was extremely intelligent in some areas but not all of them. It's been said that for anyone to become great at anything that it requires 10,000 hours of practice. This does take dedication and there is nothing wrong wi…

Please. You think Bill Gates made $50 billion by stealing it? Yeah, he was agressive, but not any more so than Steve Jobs, Scott McNealy or Larry Ellison would have been in the same position.

Gates and his lieutenants are guilty of extortion rather than theft. "Nice OEM you got, a pity if something were to … happen to it." That wealth is an enormous market failure that the others were not sociopathic enough to cause.

Re: Extreme Minimalism: this guy owns just 15 things

#178

Post by eru »

georgieporgie wrote: post #100
Alexx wrote: post #27

Minimalism and 'getting rid of your possessions' has been one of those hot internet topics for as long as I can remember. The trend I notice is that the articles preaching the extreme end of this are almost always written by 20-something bloggers who are so much happier now they're couch surfing the world care free rather than 'working 9-5 to pay for that TV'. Obviously, there is a large truth in there. We all take o…

I suspect if you came back in 10 years you'll see a different picture. If you want to think about having children or living a generally western lifestyle as opposed to a '3rd world' or really homeless lifestyle then there's a sensible balance point. There's no reason he couldn't continue to live a substantially minimalist lifestyle while adding a family. He could migrate into living on a sailboat, RV, or in a home co…

> or in a home considered tiny by Western (American, particularly) standards.

You mean a British home?

Re: Extreme Minimalism: this guy owns just 15 things

#179

Post by aneth »

angrycoder wrote: post #158
jdietrich wrote: post #80

This isn't minimalism in any sense of the word, it's just a consumerist vanity. OP's 'minimalism' is sustained by a reliance upon huge amounts of infrastructure, most of it environmentally unsustainable. He doesn't carry stuff with him, but uses money to access what he needs. It's like claiming to be a minimalist because you own a second house where you keep all your stuff. OP outsources the burden of sustaining his…

You make the guy sound like Pol Pot rather than a dude who just lives out of a suit case. Your post is at least keeping with the theme that has been prevalent over the past few days, HN is just mean now.

Indeed. Self-righteous, ill-humored, unconsidered, and mean.

Hopefully it's just a phase.

Re: Extreme Minimalism: this guy owns just 15 things

#180

Post by aneth »

ck2 wrote: post #32

When you go to starbucks each morning, spending $100 a month there instead of owning your own coffeemaker - it's not minimalism. It's consumerism. Trying living with just what he has in a 3rd world country and it's minimalism.

Minimalism is a just a word which could have many contexts. Having a minimal number of possessions is minimalism. Having a sparsely decorated penthouse overlooking Central Park is minimalism. A black canvas on a white wall is minimalism. Living the life of a Buddhist monk is minimalist, although they too depend on an infrastructure to support them.

The guy is just writing about his choice to minimize possessions, not to live an empty life devoid of the benefits of modern society.

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