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Ordinary Abundance

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Re: Ordinary Abundance

#161

Post by tonyedgecombe »

xnx wrote: post #3
carlgreene wrote: post #2

Hedonic adaptation really is something. I have been deeply trying to appreciate these modern marvels more and more, but it's hard. A hot shower, air almost 50 degrees cooler than the outside air coming out of my vents, communicating instantly thousands of miles away, it's all so easy to just forget and take for granted

We need a Netflix Chaos Monkey tool for modern life. Each week one modern convenience stops working for a day: indoor plumbing, air conditioning, electricity, wifi, automobile, air travel etc. after one day without, you will again appreciate those things for the next few years

I think it’s quite healthy to do that yourself now and then. Probably the most eye opening for me was fasting for a day.

Even small things are enlightening, when my slippers disintegrated I didn’t replace them for a month. It gave me a whole new appreciation for something I otherwise considered insignificant.

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#162

Post by watwut »

techblueberry wrote: post #21
carlgreene wrote: post #2

Hedonic adaptation really is something. I have been deeply trying to appreciate these modern marvels more and more, but it's hard. A hot shower, air almost 50 degrees cooler than the outside air coming out of my vents, communicating instantly thousands of miles away, it's all so easy to just forget and take for granted

I feel like in discussions about nostalgia, there can be this default presentish reaction which talks about all of the things that are better But in the hedonic adaptation sense like - and comparisons are complicated - people aren’t by and large happier now (because of the hedonism this is sidestepping the argument of how well distributed it is, and I’m talking the past 50-100 years not compared to subsistence farmin…

> people aren’t by and large happier now (because of the hedonism this is sidestepping the argument of how well distributed it is, and I’m talking the past 50-100 years not compared to subsistence farming and the like early Industrial Revolution etc et al

Funnily, this range contains WWII, great depression, run up to them and falldown from them. It all involved a lot of royally unhappy desperate people. It is also shortly after WWI and ex soldiers were in fact unhappy, traumatized and causing further traumatization to others around.

Also, at least in rural areas I know more history about, it involved society with high alcoholism rates, high domestic violence rates, prostitution by young teenagers (14-17) as a genuine social problem. A lot of us are happier then them. Trully. Not a wife of violent gambler and alcoholic today, but we have less wife's of violent gamblers and alcoholics today.

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#163

Post by olelele »

My 87 year old grandma drives her Suzuki Alto from 2000 to her cottage on a hill in the forest. It's a log cabin, 200+ years old. No running water, no electricity except a gas driven generator that powers a pump, and sometimes power tools. There is a lake down the hill for washing oneself and candlelight. Since a few years there is a gas powered tiny fridge, before we only had a cool concrete food storage basement. Now the sandwiches taste normal, storing butter in summer would give a light sourness to them. My grandmothers ex boyfriend installed a solar panel, just enough to charge phones.

Being there for a longer time and coming back to normal life makes you really see what is necessary and not. Also how much work life was in the olden times.

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#164

Post by metalman »

evolutionaly, we are living in the "impossible valley", we are programed to be oportunistic, but the oportunitys never stop, and the threats we are designed to cope with never materialise, but humans bieng the omni beast can often do well, but for many it leads to disfunction, but evolution has yet to respond to such a fleeting trifling event, that we call "civilisation". And is it's own hint as to the real validity of all that we do, and what we must consider doing if we wish to take some measure of agency in our species fate.

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#165

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

xnx wrote: post #3
carlgreene wrote: post #2

Hedonic adaptation really is something. I have been deeply trying to appreciate these modern marvels more and more, but it's hard. A hot shower, air almost 50 degrees cooler than the outside air coming out of my vents, communicating instantly thousands of miles away, it's all so easy to just forget and take for granted

We need a Netflix Chaos Monkey tool for modern life. Each week one modern convenience stops working for a day: indoor plumbing, air conditioning, electricity, wifi, automobile, air travel etc. after one day without, you will again appreciate those things for the next few years

You're describing the last power cut that we had due to poorly maintained infrastructure. I would not romanticise it too much.

It also fits severe water restrictions due to drought. I would not romanticise that much either.

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#166

Post by xg15 »

Slow_Hand wrote: post #116
smallmancontrov wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> affordable That's the crux, isn't it? You aren't just dependent, you are dependent on a system that relentlessly stalks you with increased demands. You are tasked with keeping ahead of a pack of hunters who want to take you down -- and not only will your companions leave you for dead the moment that happens, the group will punish any suggestion that we might want to do something about this on a systemic level becau…

Today’s ways of living - no matter how challenging or disillusioning or alienating they may be - are largely preferable to literally being hunted and having your livelihood threatened by predators, compared to the figurative hunters and predators you’re describing. It ain’t perfect - and we’ll work to improve it - but it’s way better than the way it used to be for so many people. Civilization aint all bad.

You're aware lots of people are already living on the street again?

> and we’ll work to improve it

Who is "we"? The people in power (or the dominant opinion at HN) don't even see a problem there.

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#167

Post by javier_e06 »

Almost at the bottom of the page the highlight moves towards the window.

I was hopping; oh yes! The biggest invention of my generation.

The mini split.

But nah! It was highlighting a dumb'ol plane.

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#168

Post by xg15 »

nradov wrote: post #120
palmotea wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or his companions need to get better. I interpreted... >> You are tasked with keeping ahead of a pack of hunters who want to take you down -- and not only will your companions leave you for dead the moment that happens, the group will punish any suggestion that we might want to do something about this on a systemic level because they strive to join the hunters themselves. ...as referring to software engineers as a wh…

If you want to be a capitalist instead of a laborer then you can just go do that. There's never been a better time to start a company and be your own boss.

Yeah, just become an Uber driver and you can be your own boss... oh wait, suddenly your only customer - Uber - can dictate exactly how you do your job.

We've had that game before. Ask yourself why a the capitalists are so eager to make everyone else a "capitalist" too: Because the relationship between companies is even more adversarial and bent on domination than a formalized employer-employee relationship.

Every CEO would love to have "independent contractors" instead of employees.

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#169

Post by dspillett »

PaulHoule wrote: post #19
abroadwin wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm. As someone living on well water in an area with semi-frequent power outages in winter I have periodically been given renewed appreciation for the value of power, central heat and running water. Now I have a great standby generator, though, so I'm sure I'll start taking it all for granted again soon.

I live in an 1850s farm house with a spring up the hill and a backup well with a pump for those Augusts where the trees pull all the water out of the ground (not quite this one!) Our main heating system is two wood stoves with a small propane heater as a backup. The power goes out a lot in the winter but at least we are cozy, particularly with today's LED/Lithium lights. Back when I had ADSL from the central office m…

> They're supposed to get FTTH to my house soon but I have no idea how that is going to be affected by outages.

That would depend on the source of the outage and if your power has single points of failure in common with the comms infrastructure. One would hope the exchange has generator backups to cover short complete outages, but I'm not so sure about equipment between there and your residence (does the local cabinet have a power source, perhaps a battery or its power feed being provided by the exchange and its backups, that would survive at least a short area-wide outage?).

I've certainly had full internet access when power has dropped for my (very urban) home and the rest of the local area, so at least in cases like me the exchange and infrastructure between kept running (and my laptop battery & the small UPS protecting the ONT, router, switch, and AP, kept my infrastructure going even though the desktop PC dropped as it isn't on the UPS).

Re: Ordinary Abundance

#170

Post by hacb »

riffraff wrote: post #145

Wonderful, and even misses a lot of things! Glass windows that let light in but not cold and rain. Smokeless cooking. Mattresses that don't need to be fluffed up. We're accustomed to so, so many things. Toilets!

Just the computer on which you're typing this comment! The amount of crazy stuff happening every time you type a key is mindblowing
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