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The Shut-In Economy

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Re: The Shut-In Economy

#211

Post by Kiro »

hoboon wrote: post #24

This is how I feel. I don't watch TV for hours like I did as a child. What I do now is worse; stay in doors programming, browsing the web aimlessly, or staring at the ceiling. I don't blame my internet lifestyle for this really, but I literally don't know what else to do and the internet is so accommodating to me being a shut-in. I know I'm wasting my life but I don't know how to stop. San Francisco is a beautiful ci…

I am the same but my view on it is the complete opposite - I love my life! Staying home programming and surfing the web is the most stimulating, fun and rewarding thing I know so why would I bother doing anything else?

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#212

Post by mseebach »

relate wrote: post #201
venomsnake wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not trolling - cooking has never been less skill demanding than now. If you spend time anyway in the kitchen why bother with subscriptions.

The annoying thing about sous vide is that you need to be home at least 1-2h before dinner. If you're a lot at home, it's great though.

The point of the sous vide is that you can pop it over in the morning with no loss of quality. You can do a roast or a whole chicken (generally better quality for less money than smaller cuts) which is usually no-go for weekday cooking unless you work from home or like to eat at 10pm. The leftovers then make lunch and/or dinner on day two which further saves money and time.

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#214

Post by onion2k »

JohnBooty wrote: post #91

I don't feel like ordering things online makes me a shut-in at all - just the opposite. I work a lot, and by spending less time on the drudgery of brick-and-mortar shopping, I have more time to spend on the things that matter to me. Including socializing. Yeah, maybe I leave the house less, but are those trips to the store really "quality time?" Making a run to Wal-Mart or the supermarket to buy toilet paper is time…

If you use the extra time to do those quality things like playing with your dog or reading then you're benefiting from the on-demand economy. You've figured out how to make it work for you. That's great.

But... Lots of other people don't use that time well. They 'save' lots of time by having things brought to them, and spend that time watching TV or browsing the net despite not really enjoying those things. They're exchanging money for time to do passive activities they don't like and don't make them feel good. That is not a benefit. People apparently forget that saving time is a two-fold activity. There is the act of doing something to save the time, but there is also the act of using the time you saved to do something that doesn't make you feel awful. Unless you can do both things spending money to save time actually makes your situation worse.

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#215

Post by mrec »

wutbrodo wrote: post #184
eigenvector wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Retail shopping is usually freaking depressing - the employees and customers are often rude, and you're bombarded from all angles with sights and sounds designed to entice (or scare) you into buying things you don't need. No thank you. That's not about retail, that's about urban life. I live in a town of less than 2,000 people. There's one grocery store, and when you go there you recognize at least half the people…

> In 2015, there is less need than ever for us to all live in the same few places. That's an interesting perspective. I've heard (and believe) the exact opposite. In 2015, there's no need to incur the (well-studied) economic, environmental, and cultural costs of low population density. Not to mention it's kind of bizarre to assume that it's clearly _better_ that having a population of only 2,000 people from which to…

> Your environment is what you make of it.

Alternatively, maybe different people genuinely prefer different environments. You appear to be an extreme extrovert, so it's no great surprise that you enjoy living in a metropolis. Other people aren't, and don't.

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#216

Post by UK-AL »

ars wrote: post #113
gfosco wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish more people knew this. The entire "chemical imbalance" shtick is a myth. If you are ever told this, your response should be, "What chemical? What level am I at? What level should I be at?".. But, alas, there is no blood test, or any other kind of test, which can yet determine this. That's not science.

I agree with you, but you are also losing the message. They are trying to say it's not a matter of willpower that you can just make it go away. It's something real and outside your control. The chemical imbalance part is nonsense, the message it implies is not.

If depression caused by terrible things happening, or loneliness, that is not also outside of your control?

I've had depressed periods, but it was completely understandable given the situation I was in.

I think the whole "chemical imbalance" is an easy fix, rather than trying to fix society, or the situation they are in. It's quick and easy to give pills rather than fix a life.

Now i'm sure they're are actual medical causes for depression, but I think its overused.

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#217

Post by tomp »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #148
Terr_ wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Information overload can be worse than none at all. I recall someone did a study of employee 401K participation, and above a certain point, the more choices they were given the fewer people ever signed up. Our limited capacity for "decision-making" is at least as real a limitation as time or money.

Absolutely, abundant choice can paralyze. For me it has to do with opportunity costs. Take a strawberry milkshake instead of banana, no biggie if it tastes bad. Take a career path and end up regretting it, and it's a really big deal, usually. And even if your career path wasn't a bad choice per se, again, opportunity cost, perhaps the alternative had been much better. At the end of the day you just have to choose, tr…

> Not sure what it's like in the US but in the Netherlands at age 11 you get tested and go to a certain level of secondary school.

Wow, that sounds really f*-ed up! I always thought most places were like Slovenia (or UK is similar, if I understand correctly), where the main decision point is only at 18-19, when you're choosing your university! (The earlier is at 14-15, between a "gymnasium" - general-purpose school - and a vocational school (e.g. for a hairdresser, cook, ...), but most reasonably intelligent people go to a gymnasium).

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#218

Post by Amezarak »

zaroth wrote: post #196
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Edit: I just realized that's your per-person figure. Mine is for two. That is quite expensive :( $450 a month is definitely a lot by my standards, where/what do you tend to buy? But comparing it to his $60/w, $240/m, isn't quite fair. His meal plan is for 6 meals at $10 a meal. Considering you'll want a meal everyday, that's $300 a month and that's just for dinner. If you add breakfast and lunch he's either paying…

$1.50 a meal? In what country? Where are you buying your protein for $3 per pound? Ground beef costs more. 100g before cooking is a pretty small serving. My local Safeway wanted $7/dozen (!!) for store brand eggs last week. I walked away shaking my head. Dollar isn't what it used to be. This week it was a "more reasonable" 5.49.

> Where are you buying your protein for $3 per pound?

That's easily doable, at least here in the southern US. I regularly buy $10/3lb of chicken tenderloins. You can do much better if you're prepared to buy in bulk. Of course, venison is cheapest, if you're willing to kill it yourself/eat fresh roadkill/get the excess from hunting friends. ;)

Catfish runs about the same here as chicken, but tilapia can be had for super cheap. Of course, that's another one you can get for almost free after the investment of a fishing rod and a weekend.

Your egg prices are insane. I can buy 60-packs of eggs for $8.72.

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#219

Post by archagon »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #36
hoboon wrote: post #24

This is how I feel. I don't watch TV for hours like I did as a child. What I do now is worse; stay in doors programming, browsing the web aimlessly, or staring at the ceiling. I don't blame my internet lifestyle for this really, but I literally don't know what else to do and the internet is so accommodating to me being a shut-in. I know I'm wasting my life but I don't know how to stop. San Francisco is a beautiful ci…

Same here. Live in a beautiful city, cool friends, lovely girlfriend. Plenty of things exist here of which I can objectively say they're awesome, and in many things I'm genuinely interested, and so I avidly read and follow the news, whether it's social topics, economics, politics, tech etc. Yet I hold very little interest in experiencing anything personally. If I had to describe it succinctly; I've become a dedicated…

I don't know if it's the same as you, but whenever I consider doing some "activity", I immediately fast-forward through it in my mind and think, "OK, so it'll be fun for, like, an hour. Then what?" More than anything, deep down, I feel like I crave the unknown and the unfamiliar; but as I grow older and learn more about the world, the things in my proximity that still have this property have all but disappeared.

For this reason, I've found what I desire in my life — as a fellow "spectator" — is to drastically change my surroundings instead of focusing on specific (and ultimately inconsequential) things to do. Not, "I want to ride a jet ski", but "I want to live on an island", or "I want to take a ship across the ocean". Right now, I've been traveling around Europe for most of a year, and even though I've still been largely living the shut-in life, I appreciate having seen so many new cities, tasted so many new foods, bumbled my way through so many new languages, and gained so much life experience.

The only problem is that you can't really develop a circle of friends when you're moving from place to place every few weeks. I've been thinking that maybe if I could find a nice, tech-minded "shut-in" community in a warm location, I could live like that for a few years. Do some gardening. Raise some chickens. Maybe visit the closest city every few weeks, if I feel like it. I think that would be a pretty good life.

But I guess that's the hardest part: finding that little locus of the unknown in the first place.

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#220

Post by UK-AL »

beachstartup wrote: post #4

> “We’re trying to remove the taboo and the guilt that you should have to do it,” says Alfred’s CEO every time i use one of these services i feel a bit guilty. twofold; guilty that i have someone literally serving me, and that i'm too lazy to do it myself. i still use them occasionally though. laundry every 2 weeks because i don't have in-unit, and occasional food delivery when i'm feeling especially lazy - i try to…

If you have a job, your serving someone to.
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