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Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

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Re: Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

#521

Post by jpindar »

daxfohl wrote: post #312

This seems to be the antithesis of the lesson taught in Rich Dad Poor Dad. Stuff is a liability. Even in "owning" it you're still beholden to it. You have to maintain it, store it, protect it, make sure nobody injures themselves with it and sues you. You don't own it, it owns you. Rental, in many areas, is an improvement. Own the couple things that matter to you, rent the rest. Perhaps it's not so much that Americans…

I own the hardware of my phone, and it would still be useful to me if I decided not to pay for cell service. I suppose Google could force push an Android update that would brick it, but is it likely that they'd do that? And would that keep me from flashing new firmware?

Re: Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

#522

Post by wilsonnb3 »

seibelj wrote: post #35
ilamont wrote: post #15

Amazon’s Kindle and other methods of online reading have revolutionized how Americans consume text. Fifteen years ago, people typically owned the books and magazines they were reading. Much less so now. The statements about books are not accurate. Ebook sales are still just a fraction of print sales in many genres - NPD data indicates ebooks are less than 20% of total unit sales for nonfiction, children, and young ad…

Anecdotal, but every reader I know (including me) flirted with ebooks and then switched back to paper. For me, it’s less strain on my eyes, it always works even without electricity, I can lend it out to friends easily, and I like to expand the aesthetic of my bookshelf. I’m also more likely to reread all or part of a physical book. Ebooks are simply inferior.

Ebooks are easier to carry.

You can use one to take your entire library on vacation instead of just a few books.

Some of them have lights built in for reading in dark environments.

They're much easier to use one-handed than most paper books.

Some of them are waterproof and will survive being dropped in the bathtub better than a paper book.

You can change the font and text size to suit your preferences.

You can instantly download a new book when you want to read it instead of waiting for it to arrive in the mail or going to a bookstore or library.

They are not "simply inferior" as you put it, even if you happen to prefer paper books.

Re: Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

#523

Post by Kalium »

kennyadam wrote: post #501
Kalium wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That some people prefer them, complete with all the incredibly glaring shortcomings you so correctly identify, might be considered by some to be eloquent commentary on the importance of choice.

I'd say it's incredibly obvious why people would prefer a restricted environment where they can present themselves as their idealised self. I'm sure it's great for some people, but arguing that it's great for everyone, and not damaging for society as a whole, seems shortsighted.

You're right! We should consider carefully that there might not be a universally correct answer here.

Like most things, I suspect it may be best regarded as a tradeoff. Is presenting as your idealized in a restricted environment more or less harmful to society than being unable to present as anything that vaguely resembles yourself in a less restricted environment?

There might not one answer that's right for everyone.

Re: Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

#524

Post by wilsonnb3 »

ashelmire wrote: post #168
vcolano wrote: post #20

I'd agree young Americans are less interested in owning their media and there does seem to be a general trend away from materialism and towards spending any extra income on experiences over objects. However, I reject the notion that the younger generations are less interested in owning property. Young people do want to have a stake in the system, but most places young people are living (especially where they're movin…

Yeah, this is a "blame the millenials" article in disguise. The problem is that we're pretty broke compared to our parents, because the big purchases (housing, education, cars) cost way more relative to our incomes. The elder dev sitting across from me bought his house for 10k around 1989. Now every house in that neighborhood costs ~350-400k (and it's one of the bigger and better ones).

The average price of a house sold in the US in 1989 was around $145,000.

The average price of a house sold in the US in 2018 is around $375,000.

If we adjust the 1989 dollars for inflation, that $145,000 becomes about $295,000.

That means, in 2018 dollars, the average house price has gone up around $80,000 or 27% over the past 29 years.

That's a significant increase and we should be concerned about whether or not Americans can afford to purchase houses, but framing the problem as "houses are now 35-40 times as expensive as they were in the late 80's" is terribly inaccurate as a general metric.

house price data: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ASPUS

inflation calculator: https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

Re: Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

#525

Post by Kalium »

coldtea wrote: post #507
Kalium wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every community is an echo chamber, digital and analog alike.

Not really. You probably have in mind a "community of interest". But the analog world forces you into many communities of proximity without shared interests as well. There are communities where you pick the people who are associated with, and communities where you don't get to do that (or do it as much). The internet gives you huge control over picking communities that think/have interests exactly like yours (and tha…

You're completely correct! Real life analog communities, light neighborhoods and schools, can force a person to live alongside and deal with a wonderful diversity of people.

However, is it perhaps possible that I may have explicitly considered this kind of purely physical analog community? Maybe that I could have even been thinking explicitly about such examples when commenting that all kinds of communities are echo chambers?

One of the common characteristics of communities is that they enforce norms on the people who are their members. Physical neighborhoods and cities and schools are not different in this way. They are echo chambers too, generally reinforcing a distilled version of regional thinking, and the main lesson they teach tends to be how to bite your tongue.

The big difference between these analog communities and most digital ones is that in the case of the latter, a person can generally search for communities with amenable norms.

You're completely right! Communities of interest are very different from non-optional analog communities. It's just worth considering that despite this major difference, it may not significantly affect their echo chamber nature.

Re: Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

#526

Post by wilsonnb3 »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #363
TangoTrotFox wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first point is untrue. The OECD measures hours worked per member nation. You can see the results here [1]. The United States is just about square in the middle. We work 1,789 hours per year. The OECD average is 1,763. That's 26 hours less per year, or 30 minutes a week, or less than 5 minutes a day. These hours are also way down from the past and contributing to income inequality. In the 60s most men, regardless…

The US is one of the hardest working highly-developed countries. According to [1] for 2015, the US #13/35 (in the top 37%, so not the middle) on the list on the OECD ranking of average hours worked per worker. In 2015, the US had a Human Development Index (HDI) of 0.920 tied for #10/188 in the ranking of HDI [2]. The only 2 countries with a higher HDI than the US that works more hours in 2015 than the US is Ireland a…

> the US #13/35 (in the top 37%, so not the middle)

At the very tail end of the top 37%, which makes it part of the middle third and part of the middle two quarters.

Re: Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

#527

Post by c22 »

buck4roo wrote: post #508
Alex3917 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's pretty obvious to me that a deliberate and intentional effort has been made to ensure that only people who own a lot of property have any voice in the system; to flip that relationship around and make it a moral statement is frankly a little scary. That's not true. The reason why property ownership was required to vote is because in a democracy, the founders knew that if the majority of voters didn't have prop…

> the founders knew that if the majority of voters didn't have property then they would eventually just vote to take away the property of others. That argument seems to fly in the face of the 5th Amendment: "... nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

I don't get it, by my reading that amendment supports the argument.

Re: Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

#528

Post by c22 »

dionidium wrote: post #513
Someguywhatever wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's a silly objection, but I feel it's too abstract, ignoring certain practical realities that aren't really attempting to do what you say "pull the public sphere under one's own roof". This feels like some kind of "plato's world of forms" type analysis of something that's more simple and practical than anything else and is motivated more by convenience and thrift more than something like an "impoveris…

> Your comments feel to me a bit like you are looking down on the parochial plebs for their simple pleasures. No, no, no! The plebs will live happier and more fulfilling lives if they meet their friends at the bar for a pint (and stop pursuing the illusory control of their very-own basement bar). [0] This is about looking up, not down! [0] By the way, I'm just the kind of guy to want to build his own basement bar. Th…

When I meet my friends at a public bar it is always very loud and I have trouble hearing them. Some of my friends zone out watching the sports on the tvs. Some of my friends are always trying to pick up a date. A couple of my friends completely detest the experience and wont even show up. At the end of the night I'm out $40-$50 and I have to figure out a way to get home.

When I hang out with the same friends at their rickety basement bars more of them show up and we're all very engaged, we talk or play games and I drink more moderately. I'm only out $14 for a 12 pack and if I overdo myself I can just crash on the couch for a bit.

Personally I find the basement bar more fulfilling.

Re: Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

#529

Post by mercutio2 »

jonknee wrote: post #437
nigelcleland wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a huge network cost towards doing this. The centralised platforms by definition will push us closer towards the mean (as the mean is most profitable) at the expense of the outlier. This means that you'll have a higher quality median (note, not mean) experience at the cost of experiencing any true outliers. The best way it's been put to me is the follows: * (AI/ML/Algorithmic Recommendation) = 8/10 products y…

I guess what I'm saying is I am OK with this and vastly prefer it to collecting things in my home. I could put a ton more effort/money in and clutter my house and get some marginal more enjoyment from movies, but for me that is a losing proposition. I'd rather not buy anything or put in the time and enjoy the content less. I can definitely understand if movies are a passion this would be undesirable, but they're not…

I think these friendly disagreements often come down to “how otaku are you about a given area of human expression.”

You and I (but not various other folks on this thread) place a lot of value on not avoiding hassle, and a pleasantly low albeit non-zero price for a reasonable subset of the output of Hollywood.

People who are deeply invested in being able to apply their own personal filter on what media is available seem less satisfied.

I know other people who play out the same disagreement for comedy and music.

For some reason not for dance. Where’s the cheap version of Netflix for the ballet?

Maybe somewhere on YouTube; I refuse to use YouTube so I wouldn’t know.

Re: Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

#530

Post by nybble41 »

chii wrote: post #471
nybble41 wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Stop falling into the trap of believing that the people actually doing the labor are not contributing, or do not have value." That is not what pathseeker said. You said (and pathseeker agreed) that the network is only valuable because there are people in it to do the labor. Pathseeker also said that having people willing and able to do the work is only valuable with a network to organize them and connect them to the…

> Neither would be valuable on its own. but often the network gets a disproportionaly large share of the reward (i.e., the extraction of value is higher on the network side vs the labour side). This is the same as the capital vs labour argument - one without the other isn't going to produce value, but the capital side is able to extract a higher value than the labour side.

"Larger share"? Maybe. "Disproportionately"? I think not. The correct proportion is not necessarily 1:1. If the capital / network gets a larger share, it's because it contributes more by multiplying the productivity of the labor. Also, in a culture where everyone wants to consume and live in the moment rather than save and plan for the future, capital is relatively scarce compared to labor, which gives capital owners an advantageous position in any negotiation.
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