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Modern Minimalism

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Re: Modern Minimalism

#41

Post by kfk »

Meh. I am in the process of buying a foldable kayak. I plan to kayak in Patagonia in 2015 and I crossed Poland, Austria and Slovakia with a canoe the last 2 years.

Point is: my kayak won't fit in a bag. Then what? I should buy and iPhone and spend my time on fb? He doesn't even have an ebook, does he read?

I do consider myself a minimalist, but in the way I embrace only the minimum to live a full life, not just for the sake of it. You can't seriously think you can spend all your life like that. What will you talk about with your friends if you have nothing going on? What will fulfill your life growing old? You can sit and think only so much.

Re: Modern Minimalism

#42

Post by telephonetemp »

Some of the attitudes in the minimalist movement strike me as cargo-cult. What I mean by that is that they seem aimed at optimizing the how-much-stuff-you-own metric itself rather than what it's supposed to be a proxy for (lack of mental burden, control over your life). This is tantamount to assuming that complexity is inherently unmanageable, which I disagree with.

Venkatesh Rao has a good post on the matter somewhere.

Edit: As for the link posted (whether or not it's genuine), I wonder about

>I don’t have a bed or a pillow. I sleep in a small sleeping bag.

Is this healthy in the long run?

Re: Modern Minimalism

#43

Post by manmal »

NhanH wrote: post #17

As someone who has a pretty simple life (my most valuable possession would probably be ~100kgs of books, stacked in 2 fairly small boxes), I'd love to know a couple of practical details in your life (if it isn't too snooping, that is)! The question will be fairly personal, because pretty much most other stuffs won't be essential. Do you take a bath daily? How do you brush your teeth? You seems pretty young, and thing…

I noticed myself that if I wash daily, I would not need shower gel. I use it nonetheless, but I could go days without soap (or the perfume contained). EXCEPT if I drink coffee - that makes my sweat somewhat smelly (you probably won't notice it though, only I do) :)

Toothpaste: There are people who get cavities while using toothpaste 3x a day, while I haven't gotten any cavities in the last few years although I have limited brushing to 1x per day (evening). I had minor tooth surgery once, but that seems to have stemmed from an overzealous dentist drilling too fast into a minor cavity which he should just have left alone (causing shock within the tooth, leading to inflammation). But, I'm not sure whether I would ever go entirely without toothpaste. I might research into natural substitutes with similar chemical compounds.

Deo: You certainly don't need it if you eat clean and shower every day.

Shampoo: Some people report that omitting shampoo works well, but there's a nasty transition period of a few weeks in which you might look like you dipped your head in grease. Reportedly, skalp skin reduces the amount of fat secreted if you stop constantly washing it away.

Re: Modern Minimalism

#44

Post by spectrum »

phaer wrote: post #36

Out of interest: Where do you stay? Do you rent a flat/house? If so: How do keep it clean? What do you eat? Are you out-sourcing your food production? I am asking because, the smartphone discussion aside, i find it questionable to speak of minimalism if you just trade most of reproductive labor for money. I guess most of (single, childless) readers of HN could just live in an hotel suite without owning anything besid…

I am sure this guy is still living with his parents judging by the stuff he owns. If you live on your own you NEED things like a refrigerator, a stove, pots and pans, cleaning supplies, kitchen knife, lamps, a table, chairs, the list can go on and on.

Re: Modern Minimalism

#45

Post by vibragiel »

adamnemecek wrote: post #6
vibragiel wrote: post #4

> You don’t need any of those soapy substances. It’s all a big lie perpetrated by people who want your money. If you eat/sleep/exercise properly, you will almost never get sick and your body will never smell bad. You won’t need to overcompensate by wasting money on soapy substances. [citation needed]

Citations are a big lie perpetrated by 'big soap' as well.

But, but... then this corporation's reach must date back to thousands of years ago, when we (falsely) discovered that proper hygiene was deeply correlated with improved health. Does it control the World Health Organization too? Oh my...

Re: Modern Minimalism

#46

Post by [deleted] »

theboywho wrote: post #25

It's funny how people who say they are minimalists start listing the things they don't have in the "physical" life arguing they are not needed. But then, they have an iCloud account, a twitter, facebook, flickr, instagram, reddit, gmail, you name it account. How about a minimalist virtual life too, where all you have is an email account? an e-minimalist? I think a minimalist life should be more about "using" less (an…

[deleted]

Re: Modern Minimalism

#47

Post by corobo »

vibragiel wrote: post #4

> You don’t need any of those soapy substances. It’s all a big lie perpetrated by people who want your money. If you eat/sleep/exercise properly, you will almost never get sick and your body will never smell bad. You won’t need to overcompensate by wasting money on soapy substances. [citation needed]

From what I've seen..smelled.. you get accustomed to your own odour, it doesn't go away. You need soap, modern minimalists.

Re: Modern Minimalism

#48

Post by adamnemecek »

vibragiel wrote: post #45
adamnemecek wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citations are a big lie perpetrated by 'big soap' as well.

But, but... then this corporation's reach must date back to thousands of years ago, when we (falsely) discovered that proper hygiene was deeply correlated with improved health. Does it control the World Health Organization too? Oh my...

Everyone is in on it. Even kindergartens. Do you remember how you were taught in kindergarten to exercise proper hygiene? Turns out that they are really just the gov't's tool to brainwash (pun intended) you into using soap.

Re: Modern Minimalism

#49

Post by interstitial »

killwhitey wrote: post #37

I find it a little curious that most commenters here are focusing on his mention of not using soap, but not asking about how his source of income, food, or shelter. That iPhone 5 comes with a monthly bill and requires recharging daily.

Clearly, his soap bills were hundreds of dollars a month. Now that he's quit his soap habit, he's got enough for the iPhone. For shelter, he built a yurt out of soap wrappers and self-esteem.

Re: Modern Minimalism

#50

Post by stiff »

LaGrange wrote: post #30
stiff wrote: post #15

Minimalism or not, I would like to expand on one of the points - most cosmetics in wide circulation today are really terrible. If you look up their ingredients and look at chemical properties of those, it's all about optimizing the technological process to be as cheap as possible and producing short-term pleasant sensations for the customer, health considerations being completely absent. Basically it's an example of…

Actually, I recently tried to verify the claims about horrible consequences of SLS from anything other than semi-conspiracy-theory sites. I might have missed something, but what I've found was boiled down to it being pretty much a non-issue. What it did turn out, though, is that we use too high doses of soaps and shampoos in general, and they are actually intended to be used in minuscule amounts. Also, "byproduct of…

What it did turn out, though, is that we use too high doses of soaps and shampoos in general, and they are actually intended to be used in minuscule amounts

Well, isn't this a confirmation of what I have said? Like producers of cosmetics encourage us on a regular basis to use up as little of their products as possible? I like what Chomsky said on a somewhat similar topic:

If I'm analyzing capitalism and I point out that General Motors tries to maximize profit, that's not a conspiracy theory. That's analysis.

It's not a conspiracy theory that companies try to maximize profit, in fact that's one of the basic assumptions of free market economy. I don't even ascribe any particularly cynical viewpoints to any of the individual people involved, but in any large company responsibility becomes so diluted it's easy for things that are quite bad for society in general to just happen without anyone being left with much remorse. I think it's quite rational to expect that markets that are not regulated to some extent might degrade in those nasty ways.

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