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Buy Nothing Day

buynothingday.co.uk

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Re: Buy Nothing Day

#81

Post by immibis »

Spivak wrote: post #54
incrudible wrote: post #52

Consumption is good, actually.

Clearly it's going against the flow of the thread but this is right. All our salaries are paid not by wealthy patrons but by the flow of money through the economy from people buying things. If people actually stopped purchasing goods and services we would find ourselves in a depression and tech jobs are far far from the last to cut. Seems people didn't pay attention to the v in their macroeconomics class. If people d…

Sounds like we have to destroy the earth or else we will destroy the earth.

Re: Buy Nothing Day

#82

Post by drdeca »

immibis wrote: post #80
drdeca wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would at least be significantly less of a problem, if items purchased didn’t have such negative externalities as part of their production. I don’t see why a culture significantly less prone to desiring items that aren’t actually all that beneficial, would be incompatible with capitalism?

Capitalism is competition of the elite class based on their ability to sell things. They are incentivized to make people buy more things. A society where the elite class wants to make the lower classes buy more things will never be a society where the lower classes buy few things.

I guess I should clarify what I mean by capitalism: A combination of relatively free markets (e.g. present day markets) and private ownership of the capital which is used to make goods and services that are then sold. I think this is a relatively standard definition, but I still think it good to say it explicitly.

Now that that has been said:

What, like lower classes have zero agency regarding their desires? Are advertisements mind control or something? I acknowledge that cultural influences can be strong, and can influence desires like this, but I don’t see why it would be necessary within capitalism that those that hold substantial capital must collectively have a stranglehold on the cultural values of the population.

Now, if people with power want to make it so that people in lower classes practically need to buy more things, by making them required for their jobs, that may well be feasible. Like, in a sense this has been nearly done with cell phones, and internet connection. But I don’t think “people buying things because they are needed for their job (or similar)” really counts as the kind of consumerism under discussion.

Re: Buy Nothing Day

#83

Post by immibis »

drdeca wrote: post #82
immibis wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism is competition of the elite class based on their ability to sell things. They are incentivized to make people buy more things. A society where the elite class wants to make the lower classes buy more things will never be a society where the lower classes buy few things.

I guess I should clarify what I mean by capitalism: A combination of relatively free markets (e.g. present day markets) and private ownership of the capital which is used to make goods and services that are then sold. I think this is a relatively standard definition, but I still think it good to say it explicitly. Now that that has been said: What, like lower classes have zero agency regarding their desires? Are adve…

If current forms of advertising stop working, the elite class will find other ways to make you buy things.

Re: Buy Nothing Day

#85

Post by Dansvidania »

immibis wrote: post #78
Dansvidania wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way is the EU doing “less good” in transgender stuff? Genuinely interested

Poland has LGBT-free zones?

an admittedly shallow search for this topic resulted in a wikipedia page[1] that states that the EU witheld funding to regions in Poland that have policies that were summarily characterized as "LGBT-free zones".

In EU language, this is pretty strong distancing from such positions.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ-free_zone

Re: Buy Nothing Day

#86

Post by immibis »

immibis wrote: post #83
drdeca wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I should clarify what I mean by capitalism: A combination of relatively free markets (e.g. present day markets) and private ownership of the capital which is used to make goods and services that are then sold. I think this is a relatively standard definition, but I still think it good to say it explicitly. Now that that has been said: What, like lower classes have zero agency regarding their desires? Are adve…

If current forms of advertising stop working, the elite class will find other ways to make you buy things.

This is "make" in the sense that print(1+1) makes the computer display 2. Nobody is holding a gun to the computer and threatening to destroy it if it doesn't print 2, but it still prints 2.

Re: Buy Nothing Day

#87

Post by drdeca »

immibis wrote: post #83
drdeca wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I should clarify what I mean by capitalism: A combination of relatively free markets (e.g. present day markets) and private ownership of the capital which is used to make goods and services that are then sold. I think this is a relatively standard definition, but I still think it good to say it explicitly. Now that that has been said: What, like lower classes have zero agency regarding their desires? Are adve…

If current forms of advertising stop working, the elite class will find other ways to make you buy things.

How???

I mean, I personally don’t buy things much. And I don’t even block ads (a deliberate choice), so it isn’t like I’m preventing myself from being influenced by ads by limiting my exposure to them.

(I guess mostly it is just that I dislike having to think about whether a clearly-unnecessary purchase would be excessive, so I just strongly default to not getting things?

(Of course, it would be possible for me to be more frugal than I am, in that I buy fast food not that infrequently, when it would be cheaper to prepare food from ingredients from the grocery store, but I am too impatient for that.))

But like, how would they make me want stuff?

Re: Buy Nothing Day

#88

Post by immibis »

drdeca wrote: post #87
immibis wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If current forms of advertising stop working, the elite class will find other ways to make you buy things.

How??? I mean, I personally don’t buy things much. And I don’t even block ads (a deliberate choice), so it isn’t like I’m preventing myself from being influenced by ads by limiting my exposure to them. (I guess mostly it is just that I dislike having to think about whether a clearly-unnecessary purchase would be excessive, so I just strongly default to not getting things? (Of course, it would be possible for me to be…

They don't have to make every outlier buy stuff. Just the majority is already enough.
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