Having high standards means that you will have to be more reliant on the machine. When you can get along with little, thats when you are the least dependent on the machine. So yeah, high standard of living is a trap.
Tips for billionaires to avoid the guillotine:
It might be badly worded. I do think that consumerism is at least part of what brought as here. I’ve met people having several unopened louis vuitton bags because they noticed they didn’t need them afterwards after they bought them or a bunch of drop shipped spy gadgets that pretend to make your house smart or renting a nice car instead of buying it with their last money. they were not that well off themselves. we should just buy less (and by extension work less)
If they do mean living standard as in “living standard” and with that social activities, food and housing they can go fuck themselves.
I had 2 pieces of broccoli as a treat.
I mean, I do get it. Some people take on debt as a way to live beyond their means when they could still live a “comfortable” life without the glamour or “keeping up with the Jones”. The $80k+ gas guzzling truck bought on credit - that’s only used for driving to work and grocery trips - is a good example of this.
But a better way of saying this is “live within your means”, but it’s becoming increasingly impossible to do this and have a standard of living that’s just “decent shelter and healthy food” (or even, “enough food”) which should be a bare minimum
It’s a double edged sword in that for some people this is meaningless bullshit, in that they are struggling to pay for groceries, there is nowhere to lower their standards to.
On the other hand I have watched quite a bit of financial audit videos by caleb hammer, and have seen plenty of statistics that shows that simply put lots of people especially Americans are caught up in consumerism and live beyond their means for either status, or because that’s where they get their gratification from.
The solution is to accept that no matter what you buy you will be only happy for a fleeting moment, better to embrace minimalism and fuck consumerism, it’s also better for the planet, not just your wallet.
for some people this is meaningless bullshit, in that they are struggling to pay for groceries
Good point, and I think this runs to the heart of a lot of ragebait meme stuff like this. It wasn’t written for that audience, it was written for people driving an Audi TT on a VW Polo salary.
I have basically rejected this world. I focus only on maintenance. I maintain friendships I have, don’t make new ones. I’m not buying new devices anymore, I will maybe buy accessories or upgrades to keep them going, buy repairs, but the goal is to purchase as little as possible from this unworthy species.
Phase 2 is to create a self-reliance kit, focused on maximizing independence (amount of time you can go without purchasing anything, just relying on yourself, and maybe a small community). Once I perfect that, my goal is to spread it.
Once we eliminate exploitation, once most of the power disbalance is gone, THEN humans will be worthy of living on this planet again. THEN, we can have a real society.
Leaving yourself under another’s power should be a mortal sin.
The entire basis of modern civilization
Leaving yourself under another’s powershould be a mortal sin.👍
Sure, but plenty of people buy things because they want to feel wealthy. I have people in my life who buy fancy cars, holidays, and furniture on loan with bad interest. Instead of saving for an item, they pay too much for instant gratification.
Fuck you for suggesting that nuance exists!
/S if it wasn’t clear.
Your comment in a nutshell is “THIS!!1 ^”
Yes this is true, but in a world where people are struggling more and more to buy basic necessities like groceries and pay their bills it’s a bit tone deaf.
Yes some people overspend frivolously, but many are just broke after inflation and tariffs
Exactly, and it’s a cycle. They buy things on credit, carry a balance on their credit cards, owe a lot of money, and the stress gets to them. Eventually they buy things as a way to feel better and relieve the stress.
Trying to “not look poor” or “keep up with the Joneses” can lead to real misery. But, if instead you make a budget and save just a little bit every month it can be liberating.
Fundamentally, the problem is unequal wealth distribution. But, we should also try to help people live within their means while we attempt to fix that societal issue.
I agree in principle, but the article is worded in possibly the worst way to get this across. It should be more along the lines of “don’t spend beyond your means”.
The problem is many people spending beyond there means consider the way they act, the normal standard of living. They need to reduce there living standard to live within their means.
The problem is many people spending beyond their means? The problem is people consider the way they act?
Ohhh! The problem is people don’t proof read their posts and don’t realize how confusing it is to poorly punctuate.
One source of entertainment for the past three or so years was seeing on social media how terrified USians are of the prospect of living like people in other countries do.
I think we are going to have another decade or two or that, with the way things are looking
And why do you suppose that is?
I’d say it’s because consumerism is a kind of brain rot all its own. The media landscape we’ve been living in for generations has sold us this ridiculous fantasy that happiness means owning (or at least temporarily renting) luxury goods.
The plurality, if not majority, of the population here has never had to adjust their expectations or really sit down and think hard about what’s actually worth acquiring. We treat desires for convenience and novelty as though they are necessities. But they aren’t.
What’s actually a necessity is having something fulfilling to occupy your time, as a counterbalance to keep you sane, and that activity does not HAVE to be of the sort that costs a lot of money. Take up art using cheap supplies–just sketch with standard number two pencils on white lined notebook paper or perhaps play music on improvised instruments made of household objects. It doesn’t have to be good in order to become meaningful and if you do it enough it’ll BECOME good. Walk outside when the weather happens to be nice. Learn to ride a bicycle again. Visit a library. Pretend to sword fight with a friend using a fallen tree branch. You don’t have to drop several grand on a resort vacation. You don’t have to go into debt for a fancy car. You don’t need to buy the latest edition of “triple a” micro transaction slop from so-called “studios” that don’t give one single solitary wet shart about actual creativity and fire all their devs immediately every time a project wraps.
Money can’t buy whimsy.
All it can do is, at best, remove obstacles from between you and being able to enjoy something. If it’s not being used to simplify your life, then it’s COMPLICATING your life: Giving you only empty distraction that does not provide your experience with any fertile ground for meaning. This is but one of the many ways we are socially “poisoned” and then told that conspicuous consumption is the antidote. It’s not. it’s just even more poison.
You know what the most enjoyable experience I had was in the past several months? Just sitting in the living room at a gathering of friends where everyone brought a little home made food and listening to their happy voices. It cost me next to nothing but turned out to be worth more than anything.
My computer is more than ten whole years old now but it handles old games i could find on sale just dandy and doesn’t need some suped-up rtx gpu to let me pirate some shows XD
I stopped mindlessly gorging myself on junk food, and now basically only eat either efficient daily maintenance nutrition OR choose to visit a small locally owned restaurant no more than once per week. I’m never spending upwards of fifteen fucking dollars on a fast food burger “meal” ever again.
Divest of tacky opulence. Defy Wall Street and its siren song of ruin disguised as prosperity. Embrace the elegance of simplicity and spontaneity. If this sprawling parasitic infestation we’ve mistaken for an *economy" can’t survive without sucking the life out of us all then maybe it deserves to collapse.
“Buy more stuff to be happy, more, more, MOOORE! No not like that 😡”
Try replacing the “one other thing” with a half a thing, or maybe even a quarter.
Americans have already done the math
Baby is born
Doctor: How did you like your free 9 month trial of life?
Baby: What do you mean free trial?
Doctor: It costs money to live.
Baby: Frantically tries to climb back into the womb.
That’s pretty much my littlest one. He got forced out into the world and he’s been pissed about it ever since.
To be fair, that isn’t an entirely bad suggestion. I’ve seen so many people who take out loans to travel to like super expensive places. Or people who take one of those borderline scam phone contracts where you get the newest iPhone 213 XLLXQ for “free” but oh wait the phone contract costs 160€/month and 2 year minimum duration. Then you have people who eat out every day, go drink for hundreds of bucks every weekend and so on. You get the drill.
Some people really are bad with money and thing they can live in a world they clearly can’t afford.
Years ago I had a coworker ask how I was able to travel so much because we made the same wage.
I was just like I don’t do drugs or buy drinks at a bar. I don’t own a car and my phone is cheap and paid off. I kept my expenses as low as possible to do what I liked.
Given how expensive renting is now I don’t think my frugality would have helped as much as it used to.
I think you raise a good point. There was a time when frugality seemed to stretch a lot further, like trips instead of just surviving. I toned down my drinking and eating out habits about three years ago, and boy am I glad, because I make pretty much the same amount of money. So I live about the same as I used to, without some extravagance that I was already doing away with.
I just need to choose some more extravagance to get rid of to future-prood myself, like heat in the winter, AC in the summer, and new shoes.
And the funny thing about those phone plans is that once people get close to paying off their iPhone 213 XLLXQ, the carrier would offer you a “free” upgrade to the iPhone 214 XLLXQ Ultra Big-Boy Edition, which then the person paying for it needs to pay for the entire phone again if they take the bait, which tons of people do unfortunately.
Personally, I’d rather just buy some old flagship phone used, since the features of phones don’t really change much over the years, and I don’t even need a whole lot since I barely use phones anyway unless they’re apart of my kde connect “mesh” of devices
Kind of agreeing with you here, although there are people who literally can’t make end meet
I have a step sister, married with 4 kids, and they don’t make much money and live on assistance. One year they sent out a fucking Santa’s gift list to everyone asking for liked $1000 from everyone because they wanted to go to Germany for Xmas.
“Acceptance. Gratitude. Mindfulness. These are the things you can do instead of rising up and tearing down the tyranny of capitalism.”
These are things you can do WHILE rising up
You spend too much money on electricity. Have you thought about just freezing to death?
Legitimately, keep having to set the heat lower and lower
Blankets are great because you only have to pay for them once, and now that you have them, they can keep you warm basically forever.
Now, when it’s HOT weather, fuck it I’m using electricity for air conditioning; it’s getting legitimately dangerously hot these past few years and THAT SHIT is what will kill me if I don’t pay up x.x
Air conditioning companies: 🤑🤑
I get what they’re trying to say though. So many people think they need to keep up with other by having a constant supply of new clothes and a modern luxury car, etc. People will take credit to breaking point just to keep up with other people who are doing the same thing. I’ve done it myself and it took years to dig myself out. Now I take comfort in knowing that I’m not scared to open the mail because I have enough saved to handle any surprise bills. Some things keep me awake at night but it’s not bills, and I don’t care that phone’s 5 years old and my car’s 15 years old.
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When I was growing up I was told capitalism was great because we all get a high standard of living and had lots of inexpensive stuff to buy. Look at how poor Russians were during the Soviet era!
Now I’m being told that to sustain capitalism I need to live like a Soviet era Russian.
A soviet era russian also had access to free healthcare, free childcare, free higher education, cheap (sometimes free) housing, excellent (for the time) public transit, and a safety net for unemployment or old age. Oh and there was ample opportunities to build community ties so that if something did go horribly wrong and you needed that help. Capitalism in decline will give you none of that.
It didn’t last. Surely there’s something in the middle that can both lift up the potential floor for standard of living through social safety net and also be sustained long term.
It didn’t last because the will of bureaucracy was placed before the will of the people, it was a long decline of democratic rights of the working class started under Stalin and continued by all following leaders. It was not due to socialism per se, more due to the specifics of CPSU politics. China seems to have figured out a better way to do democratic dictatorship of proletariat and is successfully combining aspects of capitalism and socialism, to both make the country appealing to capitalist investors and also build up a socialist economy to bring the living standards up. It’s not perfect (and is definitely not “the end of history” by any means), but it is doing fine as an interim solution.
China’s ten-year presidential terms worked well for their people for a long time. That Xi has gone the dictator for life route is IMO a significant threat to their future direction.
Many countries also seem to be on a fine interim path to building up a combination capitalist/socialist economy and bringing up their median and minimum living standards. China is big and influential, but doesn’t have a lock on that.
Tbf you need to live like a Soviet era Russian to break free of the shackles of capitalism (as much as you can as a salaried person, anyway - we’ll never be completely free). If you want to sustain capitalism, buy as much as you can, and the capitalists are being sustained lol
I’ve been losing weight, which has been good for me. But someday … I’m going to run out of stored calories. For the very first time in my life, it has crossed my mind to wonder if I might starve someday ._.
“Finally he steeled himself to read the final rule again. He had been trained since earliest childhood, since his earliest learning of language, never to lie. It was an integral part of the learning of precise speech. Once, when he had been a Four, he had said, just prior to the midday meal at school, “I’m starving.” Immediately he had been taken aside for a brief private lesson in language precision. He was not starving, it was pointed out. He was hungry. No one in the community was starving, had ever been starving, would ever be starving. To say “starving” was to speak a lie. An unintentioned lie, of course. But the reason for precision of language was to ensure that unintentional lies were never uttered. Did he understand that? they asked him. And he had.”
“Once he had yearned for choice. Then, when he had had a choice, he had made the wrong one: the choice to leave. And now he was starving. But if he had stayed… His thoughts continued. If he had stayed, he would have starved in other ways. He would have lived a life hungry for feelings, for color, for love. And Gabriel? For Gabriel there would have been no life at all. So there had not really been a choice.”
— Lois Lowry, The Giver
