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Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

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Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

#21

Post by fmx »

legitster wrote: post #8

Its a fun thought exercise, but I've found the opposite to be true in most cases. More expensive clothes are usually less durable (depending on the brand). The same goes for appliances, and cars, and phones, and etc. The cheap designs are simple and robust and the expensive designs add complexity and features. In reality I think there are more forces extracting money from the wealthy and their effete needs. My exampl…

> The first class passengers are effectively paying 3x as much

3x? If only! If we're talking international first class (not US domestic "first"), it's typically 10-12x the price of economy.

Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

#22

Post by Planktonne »

try-working wrote: post #4
namanyayg wrote: post #2

I love when this comes up and also I see it play out in my life, where my GF prefers fast fashion whereas I buy something from brands I like and I wear it for long (some of the clothes in my wardrobe have been there for 12+ years.. I feel old.) Also Sir Terry Pratchett is a gem of an author and you should read all of his books. I have read through maybe 25% of Discworld and it's the funniest fantasy series ever.

I wanted to like Discworld and read a couple of the books but they're frankly not funny.

He definitely grew significantly as a writer over time, and I would agree that some of his early work isn't particularly strong (The Light Fantastic, for example, is relatively bog-standard comic fantasy without any of the depth his later work showed).

If you start reading at the very beginning of the Discworld, you're slogging through the weaker stuff, and it's easy to get discouraged. A smoother path is to pick one of the defined sub-series (the guards are very popular, but my vote goes to the witches) and start along just that track; you'll get to the strong stuff much faster.

Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

#23

Post by _fat_santa »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #3

Man, part of me wishes the theory were still true. So many products you spent good coin on and then later find out are in fact no better than the cheap stuff (or worse, literally just rebadged Alibaba products!).

I would say this still holds true but not for singular products. Take Costco for example, long term you save money and you get high quality products. But that comes at the cost of having to spend quite a bit up front to buy in bulk.

Not to mention it also assumes you have the space to store those products.

Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

#24

Post by opinion3k »

legitster wrote: post #8

Its a fun thought exercise, but I've found the opposite to be true in most cases. More expensive clothes are usually less durable (depending on the brand). The same goes for appliances, and cars, and phones, and etc. The cheap designs are simple and robust and the expensive designs add complexity and features. In reality I think there are more forces extracting money from the wealthy and their effete needs. My exampl…

It depends on what brands.

If you're chasing after the ones that are most well known on Instagram, then you're paying for the logo and getting quality that is not that much better than much cheaper stuff.

If you look for lesser known brands that are more expensive but that expense is because of the materials and craftmanship, then it's often worth the money.

Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

#25

Post by abstractbill »

simonw wrote: post #18

Re-reading Discworld books today demonstrates how timeless they are. Stories Terry wrote in the 1980s still feel like biting satire against the modern world today. The books also get better as I get older - I read them first as a teenager and many of the deeper ideas about the human condition went straight over my head. The way the cult leader in Guards! Guards! manipulates his followers, to give just one example.

I read them as a teenager, and now my teenaged daughter has started reading them. They are every bit as good as I remember them being.

Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

#26

Post by entuno »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #3

Man, part of me wishes the theory were still true. So many products you spent good coin on and then later find out are in fact no better than the cheap stuff (or worse, literally just rebadged Alibaba products!).

Expensive doesn't guarantee high quality, but very cheap almost always means low quality. A £200 pair of boots might be great and last for a decade, or might be overpriced and fall apart after six months. But a £5 pair are definitely going to be crap.

Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

#27

Post by MengerSponge »

legitster wrote: post #8

Its a fun thought exercise, but I've found the opposite to be true in most cases. More expensive clothes are usually less durable (depending on the brand). The same goes for appliances, and cars, and phones, and etc. The cheap designs are simple and robust and the expensive designs add complexity and features. In reality I think there are more forces extracting money from the wealthy and their effete needs. My exampl…

Don't be obtuse. Of course you can spend more money without buying better craftsmanship. Some trainers from Prada or Balenciaga will wear out faster than a pair of Aldens.

Consider school backpacks. If you can, you should probably buy a Tom Bihn backpack. It's $400 and will last for decades. Spending more money will buy something fancier, but it won't be better at being a backpack. If you don't have that much cash to drop? Jansport, Eastpak, North Face? They're all the same mediocre product made by the same PE group. And they're still not cheap.

Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

#28

Post by tyrust »

ITT: an allegory is read literally

Consumer goods have dropped in price, which is good for offsetting inequality. I think the allegory still holds in some other areas (off the top of my head: healthcare spending and renting versus owning your primary residence).

That said, income inequality is probably the much bigger source of unfairness these days.

Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

#29

Post by entuno »

CodeBytes wrote: post #12

This feels like it's becoming less and less true, good quality items are becoming so expensive now or very hard to find. I do think it is still very true for tools though. It's nearly always worth getting decent ones, they nearly give better results or are easier to use and last so much longer.

> The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

The "boots" item feels less true, because expensive doesn't seem to be as correlated with "good quality" as it used to. But the general statement still very much stands.

Things like financial products that charge higher interest rates to poorer people, or services that offer discounts for paying annually rather than monthly are great examples of this. And less direct things, like being able to drive to cheaper shops and buy in bulk, or being able to do preventative maintenance to avoid a cheap fix turning into an expensive one.

It can still apply to individual items, as long as you're careful about what you buy and do your research to make sure you're actually buying high quality boots, and not just cheap ones with an expensive logo on the side.

Re: Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness (2022)

#30

Post by jnwatson »

vannevar wrote: post #11

The boots theory is a concrete way of expressing the risk of ruin, which is the principle advantage of wealth (though our society has layered on many others): the rich can afford to take more risk, and consequently enjoy more reward. A poor person who buys the $50 boots has a much higher risk of coming up short for something else, and that lapse may have disproportionate consequences. So they go for the cheap boots,…

There's another important aspect of being wealthy that I've noticed myself. The less money you have, the more of your brainpower is spent in conserving it. Figuring out how to make rent this month, balancing your checkbook so you don't overdraft, keeping track of when payday is, looking through the newspaper to see what is on sale at the grocery store, is all time that could instead be spent thinking "how could I invest my money?", and "what are my longterm goals?".
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