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The Shut-In Economy

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Re: The Shut-In Economy

#111

Post by jedmeyers »

pokoleo wrote: post #99
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…

> service that sends you 3 ready-to-prepare meals (for two or four people) per week Which service?

Blue Apron maybe?

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#112

Post by JohnBooty »

femto wrote: post #26

> Many services promote themselves as life-expanding — there > to free up your time so you can spend it connecting with > the people you care about, not standing at the post > office with strangers. Rinse’s ad shows a couple chilling > at a park, their laundry being washed by someone, > somewhere beyond the picture’s frame. A case of letting the destination (free time for socialising) overrule the journey (social int…

  > For example, if you go to a laundromat regularly or   
  > catch a bus regularly, you eventually end up seeing the
  > same people and might even end up making friends with 
  > them. Maybe even good enough friends that you coordinate 
  > your journeys/tasks in order to catch up?
You can make friends anywhere. Even in stores! My mother met one of her best friends when she was a customer at the supermarket where her friend worked.

And that's cool when it happens, but come on. It's pretty rare. Even in a small town, everybody-knows-each-other kind of place. Stuff like that has got to be one of the worst ways to make friends ever.

Compare that with the amount of friends one makes by doing volunteer work, joining a book club, going to local meetups, going to a dog park, etc.

You want to make friends, do volunteer work. The sort of people who do volunteer work are (duh) generally great people. The worst thing that can happen is that you don't make any friends but you still do some good stuff for the world.

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#113

Post by ars »

gfosco wrote: post #102
maloney wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's an actual chemical imbalance" It's actually a hypothesis that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance.

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.

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#114

Post by jaza »

It's an eye-opener to me, seeing the extremes at which this way of life has apparently arrived... for one group of people in one place in the whole world. Seriously, this article pretends all of humanity in 2015 lives this way. It doesn't! There are approx. 7 billion people outside the Bay Area bubble universe! (Perhaps the author, a resident of the bubble herself, has forgotten this?).

Sure makes me feel old-fashioned, that I and everyone I know still make 95% of purchases offline, still buy groceries at a physical supermarket, still go to the park for a walk every day, still meet new people offline every day, still do household chores, etc. And I live in Sydney (also mentioned in the article - and incidentally, also SF's sister city), not a backward or a disconnected place either.

SF, like Sydney, has good weather and a beautiful outdoors. Pity that so many SF'ers don't seem to be making the most of it.

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#115

Post by JohnBooty »

jedmeyers wrote: post #111
pokoleo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> service that sends you 3 ready-to-prepare meals (for two or four people) per week Which service?

Blue Apron maybe?

That's the one! $60/week for three meals for two. More expensive than groceries but cheaper than dining out! The meals take about 20-30 minutes to prepare and cook. It's been working for us.

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#116

Post by bfrog »

How sick Capitalism can be in twisting what we think we need away from what's actually good for us. The Rat Race is so very very real.

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#117

Post by Terr_ »

bkjelden wrote: post #72
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 think we're afraid of being wrong. We live in a society where access to information is greater than it ever has been in history, and everything we may take an interest in doing has been done before, and someone has already pointed out all of the flaws and how it's wrong. We see that first and focus in on it, and we let it destroy something that a previous generation would've seen as imperfect yet beautiful.

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.

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#118

Post by ars »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #110
hoboon wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>cool friends, lovely girlfriend. I don't have any of those.

I don't quite know what to say... although I nearly wouldn't have, either. My girlfriend fell in love just as I was slipping into this new shut-in life. She had to adjust to me not really wanting to go to a cafe, movie, restaurant, park, museum, party, friends etc. It's the reason I wanted to break up and told her it's not going to work out like this. But she refused and stayed with me, we moved in together and it's…

Does she see these messages you are writing?

It's a bit of an odd suggestions, but consider having kids. Kids have a way of needing things, that just transcends all the meaningless excuses you have for not getting anything done.

Make it a point that it's YOU that takes them to school, or shopping or whatever. Or if shopping is too confusing to do alone make a point that the whole family goes. That it's you that makes lunches, and checks if they did homework. As infants make it a point that you dress them for bed, even if your SO picks the clothing.

The instinct to take care of kids is wired really really deep in your brain, way below any surface problems. It will easily override them if you let it.

Re: The Shut-In Economy

#119

Post by JohnBooty »

mooreds wrote: post #83
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 what exactly you've tried, and back seat driving on HN about such a tough topic is probably a bad idea, but... Have you tried joining a volunteer organization? I'm a member of a couple, and it's hard to overstate how much it has helped me get out. Helping other people is such a rush. It's not all roses and sunshine, but might be worth a try if you haven't gone down that path. Either a dedicated non profi…

Yes! Volunteering is great. You meet really good people doing it. Because people who volunteer tend to be people with big hearts, of course.
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