Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Buy Nothing Day

adbusters.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 81 posts

Re: Buy Nothing Day

#41

Post by creatrixcordis »

rfrey wrote: post #14
bravoyankee wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A culture can stop being capitalistic and consumer-driven without becoming a fear driven dictatorship. Do you equate spending money with freedom and civil liberties? Is that the only way for you and I to be free, is to buy things?

Economic liberty seems to be a precondition for strong civil liberties, although certainly not sufficient. Also, class mobility seems to be most likely in a society with high economic activity, since there is a lot of demand to be filled and therefore the opportunity to fill it.

Haha mommy when i grow up i want to be the perfect consumer, just like you!

Re: Buy Nothing Day

#42

Post by guelo »

pg wrote: post #9

People who think it's bad to want the world economy to grow probably haven't stopped to think about what economic growth consists of. Economic growth isn't just fat Americans buying bigger SUVs. It's also people in poor countries increasing their standard of living, and advances in medical care.

That was an ad hominem response to the question of can we continue using resources at an ever increasing rate. That includes asking if the world can afford to bring the poor up to western living standards. They are ugly questions but it doesn't make sense to burry our heads in the sand about them.

Re: Buy Nothing Day

#43

Post by bravoyankee »

philwelch wrote: post #25
bravoyankee wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A culture can stop being capitalistic and consumer-driven without becoming a fear driven dictatorship. Do you equate spending money with freedom and civil liberties? Is that the only way for you and I to be free, is to buy things?

> A culture can stop being capitalistic and consumer-driven without becoming a fear driven dictatorship. Do you have an empirical example of this?

I'm not an expert on alternative economies (sorry) but I can name a capitalist consumer-driven society that is controlled by fear of their government.

Re: Buy Nothing Day

#44

Post by clobber »

pg wrote: post #34
illuminate wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Criticizing globalism and the externalities of "wanting the world economy to grow" is not an argument against increasing the standards of living worldwide, and I'm not sure why you're conflating the two.

The site specifically says we have to challenge the idea "that the economy must always keep growing."

We should question the idea of "growth" especially if its leaving a net negative on other aspects of humanity.

Re: Buy Nothing Day

#45

Post by bravoyankee »

shuzchen wrote: post #26
fleitz wrote: post #3

“Today, humanity faces a stark choice: save the planet and ditch capitalism, or save capitalism and ditch the planet.” Move to North Korea, everyday is buy nothing day and best of all, none of that horrid capitalism.

The funny thing is that the people in North Korea only survived due to capitalism. Because the government has been incapable of distributing food, people have been forced to obtain it by trading in ad-hoc black markets.

No, that's closer to market socialism than capitalism.

Re: Buy Nothing Day

#46

Post by rfrey »

creatrixcordis wrote: post #41
rfrey wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economic liberty seems to be a precondition for strong civil liberties, although certainly not sufficient. Also, class mobility seems to be most likely in a society with high economic activity, since there is a lot of demand to be filled and therefore the opportunity to fill it.

Haha mommy when i grow up i want to be the perfect consumer, just like you!

I don't understand your criticism.

Re: Buy Nothing Day

#47

Post by illuminate »

alainbryden wrote: post #33
illuminate wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That 5% of purchases makes up the majority of these retailers profits is why.

That is irrelevant to the point at hand - asking everyone to not buy things on one day, even if successful, merely postpones the retailers' revenues by a day or so. A more poignant campaign would revolve around convincing people not to buy certain unnecessary things at all, ever.

"A more poignant campaign would revolve around convincing people not to buy certain unnecessary things at all, ever."

Which is not at odds with Buy Nothing Day and the associated movement. They're not just suggesting you delay purchases, but to buy from independent/local crafters or make your own gifts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_Nothing_Day

I haven't followed the philosophy to a T, but I've avoided the malls and chain stores fully, giving more personal gifts from Etsy sellers, local craft-meetups, handwritten cards, and baked gifts than ever this year. Supporting local/small businesses is always a good idea!

Re: Buy Nothing Day

#48

Post by mseebach »

guelo wrote: post #42
pg wrote: post #9

People who think it's bad to want the world economy to grow probably haven't stopped to think about what economic growth consists of. Economic growth isn't just fat Americans buying bigger SUVs. It's also people in poor countries increasing their standard of living, and advances in medical care.

That was an ad hominem response to the question of can we continue using resources at an ever increasing rate. That includes asking if the world can afford to bring the poor up to western living standards. They are ugly questions but it doesn't make sense to burry our heads in the sand about them.

I don't think anyone is burying their heads over this. The answer is "maybe not", but the followup is that there is absolutely no moral compass on which is would be even remotely acceptable to take even the smallest step to prevent the global poor to become as rich as we are.

Re: Buy Nothing Day

#49

Post by balsam »

orijing wrote: post #31
balsam wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

could there be a case however against economic growth being too fast? an example of too fast would be building a chernobyl before the safety infrastructure was up.

I wouldn't consider that growth, though.

Web.py is arguably an example of shoddy engineering in explosive software startups that did not become a medical experiment.

"The results show that foremost among the causes of growth in U.S., German and Japanese manufacturing value added is electric power consumption."[1] Now I wouldn't pay too much attention to the word "causes" in there, but...

Define your terms too precisely and there would be nothing to think about.

[1]"Engineering and Economic Growth" http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954349X04...

Re: Buy Nothing Day

#50

Post by balsam »

orijing wrote: post #31
balsam wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

could there be a case however against economic growth being too fast? an example of too fast would be building a chernobyl before the safety infrastructure was up.

I wouldn't consider that growth, though.

Web.py is arguably an example of shoddy engineering in explosive software startups that did not become a medical experiment.

"The results show that foremost among the causes of growth in U.S., German and Japanese manufacturing value added is electric power consumption."[1] Now I wouldn't pay too much attention to the word "causes" in there, but...

Define your terms too precisely and there would be nothing to think about.

[1]"Engineering and Economic Growth" http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954349X04...

Post reply on HN