The Untouchable Economy: Why Americans Are Turning Against 'Stuff'
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Re: The Untouchable Economy: Why Americans Are Turning Against 'Stuff'
#2Compare this to pg's essay "Stuff": http://paulgraham.com/stuff.html:
I have too much stuff. Most people in America do. In fact, the poorer people are, the more stuff they seem to have. Hardly anyone is so poor that they can't afford a front yard full of old cars.
Re: The Untouchable Economy: Why Americans Are Turning Against 'Stuff'
#3This blurb (relative to TheAtlantic's other articles) sounds like a response to The Cheapest Generation
(Discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4421897)
Re: The Untouchable Economy: Why Americans Are Turning Against 'Stuff'
#4This blurb (relative to TheAtlantic's other articles) sounds like a response to The Cheapest Generation (Discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4421897 )
The first three words of the article are a link to that article.
Re: The Untouchable Economy: Why Americans Are Turning Against 'Stuff'
#5Compare this to pg's essay "Stuff": http://paulgraham.com/stuff.html : I have too much stuff. Most people in America do. In fact, the poorer people are, the more stuff they seem to have. Hardly anyone is so poor that they can't afford a front yard full of old cars.
PG should look at a city sometime.
People with junk cars can't afford to ditch them, not can afford to have more cars than rick people.
Re: The Untouchable Economy: Why Americans Are Turning Against 'Stuff'
#6Compare this to pg's essay "Stuff": http://paulgraham.com/stuff.html : I have too much stuff. Most people in America do. In fact, the poorer people are, the more stuff they seem to have. Hardly anyone is so poor that they can't afford a front yard full of old cars.
I've now stopped accumulating stuff. Except books—but books are different. Books are more like a fluid than individual objects. It's not especially inconvenient to own several thousand books, whereas if you owned several thousand random possessions you'd be a local celebrity. But except for books, I now actively avoid stuff.
I don't know... I own on the order of thousands of books (don't have an exact number, can't be bothered to count / catalog them all), and it can be fairly inconvenient, depending on the circumstances. In my own case, I own more books than can comfortably fit in my apartment, which means one of the biggest motivations I have to rent a bigger apartment, or buy a house, is to suit my books. And since my books have long since overflowed the amount of shelf space I have available, they wind up stacked up around the place, which gives my place a cluttered feel.
Moving is also a bitch with all these books. Books can be friggin' heavy.
That said, I still mostly agree with pg that books are different from random "stuff." I treasure my books (well, ok, maybe not that copy of "OLE DB Programming in C++") and figure having too many books is far less severe a sin than, say, a crack cocaine addiction.
Re: The Untouchable Economy: Why Americans Are Turning Against 'Stuff'
#7Compare this to pg's essay "Stuff": http://paulgraham.com/stuff.html : I have too much stuff. Most people in America do. In fact, the poorer people are, the more stuff they seem to have. Hardly anyone is so poor that they can't afford a front yard full of old cars.
I've now stopped accumulating stuff. Except books—but books are different. Books are more like a fluid than individual objects. It's not especially inconvenient to own several thousand books, whereas if you owned several thousand random possessions you'd be a local celebrity. But except for books, I now actively avoid stuff. I don't know... I own on the order of thousands of books (don't have an exact number, can't b…
I own more books than can comfortably fit in my apartment, which means one of the biggest motivations I have to rent a bigger apartment
I know the feeling, but a friend showed me the Container Store's "Elfa" shelving, which is pretty easy to install and provides seven to eight individual shelves in a particular space.
You can see a picture of my setup midway down this page: https://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/january-2012-links...
Re: The Untouchable Economy: Why Americans Are Turning Against 'Stuff'
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've now stopped accumulating stuff. Except books—but books are different. Books are more like a fluid than individual objects. It's not especially inconvenient to own several thousand books, whereas if you owned several thousand random possessions you'd be a local celebrity. But except for books, I now actively avoid stuff. I don't know... I own on the order of thousands of books (don't have an exact number, can't b…
I own more books than can comfortably fit in my apartment, which means one of the biggest motivations I have to rent a bigger apartment I know the feeling, but a friend showed me the Container Store's "Elfa" shelving, which is pretty easy to install and provides seven to eight individual shelves in a particular space. You can see a picture of my setup midway down this page: https://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/j…
Cool stuff. My problem is, I don't really have more wall space for shelves. The two remaining walls that would make good candidates for shelving, I use for hanging whiteboards. :-)
That said, I could get rid of some of these books... especially older tech books that aren't relevant, either because they're plain out of date, or because I've made a conscious decision to move away from that technology, or both. For example, I have a lot of older books on various Microsoft / Windows technologies like COM, DCOM, ADO, OLE, etc. Frankly, it's very unlikely I'll ever use that stuff again.
Re: The Untouchable Economy: Why Americans Are Turning Against 'Stuff'
#9For fifteen years, I've been at a point in my belongings that I can pack and move out of a place in hours. Why hang onto all this stuff? Why spend on all these things we don't need? Why not be flexible?
At this point everything I own fits into my car. Everything. I've moved from city to city while telecommuting because I could and in fact, on average I move to a new city every two years if not quicker. Stuff just glues you into place and most of it is rubbish anyway, it won't make you feel any more fulfilled or complete.
I'd rather have experiences.
Re: The Untouchable Economy: Why Americans Are Turning Against 'Stuff'
#10This resonates with me. Frankly I'm tired of owning "stuff". All I really need is a place to sleep, a laptop, a tablet, a phone and clothes. I'll get limited furniture but it'll be cheap Ikea stuff that I'll simply dispose of when I move.
I don't own a TV. In fact I doubt I'll ever own a TV again. Nor do I own a big sound system. I do own a table and chairs, a sofa and a desk. All but the desk I regret.
One thing that frustrates me no end is the one-dimensional nature of the housing and construction markets.
It seems that inner cities are (generally) expensive. Places are smaller, typically older and definitely more expensive per square meter. The further you go out, the places don't tend to get much cheaper (until you're really far out). They generally just get bigger.
Take Manhattan. I live downtown in a walkup. I could live across the Hudson in Jersey City. I'd pay slightly less but I'd have a much bigger and nicer place. But what if I just want a small place? Doesn't seem to exist.
Whenever this issue comes up I'm always reminded of the line from Fight Club:
The things you own end up owning you. [1]
It's totally true. I see a lot of posts (on mailing lists) from people moving to NYC. It typically starts out "I/we need a 2 bedroom apartment". Reasons vary. Sometimes it's for their "stuff". Sometimes they "need" an office. Sometimes they've simply never had smaller.
You can have that in the city but you'll be paying a fortune or living further out. The tradeoff is more apparent here than most places and it really forces people to make choices. Some cling to their stuff. Some don't.