Somehow, listening to John Waters reading the liner notes to an album he’s putting out sounds an awful lot like the never-ending thread. I think he’d feel right at home here, someone invite him over for a date.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
300 or so posts ago (exageration but it seems like lt) I asked who “invented” sparkling champagne.
The answer of course is the British – runs small Union Jack up the flagpole by my screen and stands for “Rule Britania” played on my wind-up cylinder gramophone with a white dog listening in the trumpet.
One clever clogs suggested that of course it was the French. That’s what they want you to believe but we British know better (and so do the French, really – it’s one of the googleplex of reasons why they hate us).
The French made wine in the Champagne district, of course. The problem was that it tended to undergo a spontaneous second fermentation in the bottles which burst them and spoilt their profits.
Indeed, Dom Perignon spent much of his life trying to find out how to make sure that Champagne was NOT sparkling. A tragic waste of effort.
The British realised that if you took the rather boring, thin, Champagne wine and put sparkles into it the result was rather good. Where the British suceeded was the glass bottles we made were better – that is, stronger, and hence they could take the pressure.
Some people say it was that we had a different process where coal was used rather than charcoal to heat the glass. I like to think it was simply due to our inherent national brilliance!
Either way – it was the British you have to thank for so much – like sparkling champagne, income tax, George III, tarmac roads, Macintoshes, steam locmotives, the industrial revolution and so many other things.
I’m sure our younger brothers on the far side of the world (USA) are very appreciative. (NOT)
Before anyone can throw anything at me, I’m off to bed and out of range of any
well deservedincomings.I knew that already, AlanB, but I had now idea where to find the evidence! I do like to stick to “the rules.”
Alan:
I did not know that about Champagne.
Not that I like the stuff. Worst hangover ever is a champagne hangover. I still have bad memories of consumption of mimosas.
Want to know something weird? Every time I see your handle, I think of Alan Banks, from the mystery series by Peter Robinson.
Now about this spanking…
AlanB is definitely in big trouble now. Just when the spankings were about to commence, he buggered off!
I’m listening to the show recorded in Antwerp three nights before this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkUULYE-LAA
Doesn’t that part usually come after the spankings, not before?
*runs away*
I’m bookmarking this article for whenever we get idiots claiming that No True Christians actually believe all of that silly literalistic stuff: Pope says hell is a real place.
Walton,
Did you already forget the story Jadehawk told you about having to steal food from hotels? There are many people in the current system who would love to get ration cards.
Anyway, KG was perfectly clear what he was saying by bringing up that case:
Hey, Carlie, i think that bit about the Pope saying Hell is a real place belongs in the “Amazing Gibberish” thread. ;)
…but then (keep reading) is immeditely contradicted by various officials, acolytes, and historians! The Pontiff–he’s a kidder; he was being all metaphorical and talking
downto the simple people, his flock, in language more at their level, is all.Walton,
There’s also a lot of crap produced that no one needs. Remember the singing fish?
We are bombarded with advertisements trying to hammer in the idea that buying these products (many of them useless) will make us happy. However, the joys of materialism are hollow and fleeting. You get bored with the big toy after a few days and then want something new.
If you compare levels of self-reported happiness (by no means a perfect measure, but I don’t think completely useless) country by country happiness does tend to increase with wealth. However, the effect diminishes after about $10,000 (IIRC). Yes, having shelter, food and financial security does tend to make people happy. However, once the needs are met people are just engaging in conspicuous consumption. Despite what all the ads tell us this excessive consumerism doesn’t make us happier. As you mentioned, it’s also bad for the environment and unsustainable.
Feynmaniac:
So true. As someone who was a spendthrift (with what little I had, which I should have been saving) when very young, I look back on the shit I bought and can’t believe it. I think American standards of what constitutes an acceptable quality of life are outrageous, and getting worse.
I bought my first house last year (in Vermont’s overpriced real estate market). It’s a 140-year-old Cape Cod that took a lot of labor (me and friends, no paid help) to re-do. Not to make it a magazine showplace, but just comfy and nice. And it still needs work.
For almost a year, I visited houses within a 45-minute drive of work, looking for something I could afford. Everything in my price range – $140,000 and lower, and only because of the $8,000 tax rebate, record-low interest rates, and buying down my mortgage rate ahead of time from savings – was labeled a “starter home.” I mean, 1,600 – 2,000 sq. foot houses. Houses bigger than the one I grew up with. You know, the ones that used to be considered a “family home?” Now they’re just “starters.”
I drive a 15-year-old Subaru that’s ugly as hell, but runs reliably. I simply don’t care what it looks like. I furnished my house with used furniture, scavenged yard sale pieces, and extras from friends trying to clear out the basement. Everything in here is second-hand, and my house isn’t a hovel; most people would find it comfortable and charming.
Same with clothes – I’ve found the best second-hand stores that sell good quality stuff, and I dress well. I cook most of my own food, and buy in bulk. I live far, far leaner than most people think a middle class 30-something white guy should, but you wouldn’t know it to look at me (OK, maybe if you saw my car!), and I want for nothing. I put almost 25 percent of my net pay into savings every month for emergencies and big items down the road. Lots more satisfaction from that than from frivolous spending.
I have a career I love at a nonprofit, a circle of friends and neighbors who are smart, funny, hospitable, and generous. I benefited from an education at a prestigious college. By any reasonable standard, I live in unimaginable luxury. But according to contemporary standards of upward mobility, I should feel deprived. I honestly don’t get this. Having come from a genuinely poor family (by Western standards), I feel like I’ve won the lottery.
None of this is meant to sound sanctimonious or holier than thou. People have to decide how to live, and how to spend their own money. But my career, my friends, and my frugal budget have made me a much more contented person than I was when I had different priorities, and couldn’t handle my money well enough to pay bills on time.
It would be interesting to hear other Pharyngulites’s perspective on this kind of thing.
Josh, OSG: My perspective on “this kind of thing” is that it is well to be frugal, live modestly and well within your means, stay obsessively out of debt, and enjoy yourself.
Threads about frugality inevitable turn into finger-pointing, critical assholism, and holier-than-thou bitterness. Let’s not, OK?
If you do actually want to talk about this sort of thing, the blog Consumerist.com handles it well enough, but the inevitable rancor seeps in there, too.
Oh, you’re right, they so often do. I certainly don’t mean to start one of those. The topic of what people find to be an acceptable standard of living is interesting to me, especially in light of the “l” word debates on taxes and infrastructure. I didn’t mean to appear to be asking others to comment on my choices, just on the issue generally. But maybe I shouldn’t have. . .eeek. . .
Well, I guess I wouldn’t have said anything if I hadn’t just been jumped on by someone I know for buying an exercise bike. She said, “You’re crazy. You could just go for a walk. Why spend the money when it’s so nice outside?” (It is, in Houston, at the moment.) But the reason I bought it was because I am not a good walker and I am not good at motivating myself to go walking, I hate treadmills, I like recumbent bikes, and it is going to turn murderously hot in Texas before you know it. Also, the thing cost what joining a gym and paying dues for three months would have cost.
Sorry to be so sensitive.
And who could blame you? That’s the kind of obnoxious, none-of-your-business bullshit that rightly pisses anyone off. Just plain bad manners, that is.
I engage in very little conspicuous consumption mostly because I have very little money. With credit card debt that has to be paid, all of my money goes to getting rid of that and covering the basics.
When I have “extra” money I usually spend it on higher quality food.
badgersdaughter,
Why is it any of her business? I’m a member of the university’s gym by virtue of being an enrolled student, and I’m very happy that I don’t have to work out in the freezing cold in winter or the boiling heat in summer if I don’t want to. If I had to exercise outside all year, I wouldn’t get nearly as much exercise as I do.
Heya Pygmy, I have a very frugal tip I think you’d be interested in if you wanna email me at spokesgay at gmail.com. Having been exactly where you are – and recently – I know what it’s like!
Besides the cold, the problem in my area is that not everyone or every business clears the public sidewalk when it snows. (You are better from a liability point leaving the snow in place than doing a half-assed job of snow removal in case somebody falls.) On my block, a couple of us with snowblowers will run up and down the block for the dog walkers (quite a few). But, in other parts of town, people are still walking in the street from a snowfall two weeks ago. And more snow is coming tonight…
personal anecdote time again! (I do have a lot of those)
as y’all may know, I spent the first part of my childhood in Evil Socialist Poland. I did have a small collection of basic children’s toys(and even one or two Barbies, which were extra awesome special, because they came from the special store with special western stuff), but mostly we played a shitload of pretend games which didn’t require anything other than being ignored by our parents.
And then we moved to Germany. Now, this was awesome in some aspects, like the existence of a cartoon channel on TV and orange juice; however, a short while after moving I was infected with the worst case of “WANT!!!” I can remember: there was a particular set of toys all the girls had, and I didn’t, and I begun to want them, too. Now, usually it seems no one takes children’s tantrums seriously, but I have to say that that time was absolutely awful. The wanting was physically, viscerally painful*, and it made it hard for me to sleep and I even started hallucinating.
Eventually my mom caught on and I did get one of those toys. I was relieved and the pain stopped, but I pretty much demanded more and more of those toys to keep up with the other kids, pretty much up until I grew out of the age for kids toys. And pretty much every time my mom didn’t deliver in a timely manner, the “WANT!” started creeping back in (though it never got as bad as at the beginning). I think I never really enjoyed them quite as much as the barbies I had before moving to Germany, either.
It didn’t occur to me until much much later that this sounds suspiciously like getting addicted to drugs, but it does, doesn’t it?
——-
*as a matter of fact, the only time I remember feeling worse than that was shortly after moving to the States; and that actually led to hospitalization. so… yeah.
ditto. I spend an absolutely indecent amount of money on good tea, but almost all my clothes are doubly and triply patched and resown and ancient by American standards :-p
Josh,
I sent an email. The name on it will be Pygmy Loris, FYI.
What made me happiest when I was just a tadpole was building tree houses and forts and islands. I was lucky enough to have the best childhood ever though, a hundred acres and a river.
At the age of 50, I pine away for that stuff…Retirement is coming and it will be awesome!
Oh. My. FSM. The Russian pair is doing their “aboriginal dance” and I’m embarrassed for them. Those outfits are horrible and the music/dance wasn’t very good either.
Pygmy,
Just replied, my adorable little pocket primate.
I’m a senior executive for a largish company. I make <mumblety-mumble> thousand dollars a year. I live in a three bedroom house with my wife and daughter. I drive an eight year old car. I wear slacks, dress shirts and ties at work and jeans and t-shirts around the house. My two extravagances are books and sailing. I’ve got a couple of thousand books stashed in various bookcases around the house. I don’t own a sailboat but I split dockage fees and repair bills with the owner of the boat I go sailing in.*
As a civil servant living in a very high cost area I learned to be frugal. Now that I’m making more money and living in a lower cost town I’m still frugal.
*sailing boat, n. A hole in the water into which is poured immense amounts of money.
In the vain hope I will one day be able to work at something I enjoy rather than be limited by that which pays me enough, mine goes to paying off the mortgage.
Well, that and tickets to gigs and theatre. At Fringe time being a reviewer gets me to quite a few shows gratis, but there are a whole bunch I have to pay for and it adds up.
I saw 7 shows over the weekend; I’m a fifth of the way (in number of shows) in.
Oh, that sounds like my house. Or, the Dodge Dart slant six I’m determined to buy, once again. Everyone needs an obsession that costs some discretionary money, and causes other, sensible people to poke fun.
I like bacon.
But enough about me!
Josh,
Thanks! Awesome advice.
Glad to be of help, Pygmy.
zoom in to see
What are we zooming in to see, Sven?
Refers to link in post #528.
I was just thinking about frugality, and how I lived on $600.00/mo. in undergrad. That included rent, utilities, food, gas, etc. I was thinking about how I couldn’t live on that anymore, but then I remembered that gas was about $1.00/gal., electricity has nearly doubled in cost, food is more expensive, rent has gone up. This wasn’t that long ago, either. People living on fixed incomes have had an awful 21st century. The little discretionary income they may have had has been eaten up by rather dramatic increases in the cost of the basics.
I remember reading a few years ago in Newsweek about how if you don’t consider food and fuel, prices haven’t gone up that much in the last few years and it made me want to scream! If you’re living on the edge anyway, the prices of food and fuel are really all that matter.
Tiptoeing gently around this one, I have to say that i understand what you’re saying about living well but not extravagantly very well, JoshOSG.
My husband and I are working class stiffs, and live in a little house that didn’t cost an arm and a leg. We go out to eat a few times a month, but otherwise at home and take leftovers for lunch at work. We’re not into parties and clubs, keeping to ourselves for the most part. We live quietly, casually, and what some people would consider frugally, even though we don’t feel like we do without anything.
My life is kind of odd in that my early childhood was basically spent in poverty, and after that my family’s fortunes increased slowly to a very comfortable upper-middle-class lifestyle of private school, country club, big house, and monthly shopping trips to Neiman’s. My mother getting critically ill and being out of work for several months put a dent in things for a few months, but we were soon right back to the good life.
So I’ve lived have and have not. It’s hard for me sometimes that I can’t buy the $2000 Chanel purse I’m totally in love with, but WTF would I do with one in my current lifestyle? I’m not high society, and I’m not the kind who has the need to force everyone to be impressed with what I can buy. Anyway, a life where Chanel purses and Valentino evening gowns are normal is way too busy and public and plain beholden to others for me. I like my peace and quiet and independence too much for that kind of life. I’ve been there. I hated it.
So, yeah, I’m comfortable where I am. If I won the lottery somehow without playing it, the only thing different would be that I’d travel. It’s the one thing Mom never had time for when I lived at home.
@249
Weeell, I didn’t say one should start reading tea leaves – just to make sure that the results provide an answer to the questions that you explicitly set out to test. The broader implications should be left to the Discussion, but throwing a little “as predicted:” in Results may be appropriate too, IMO.
Yes.
I spend an absolutely indecent amount of money on good tea,
Me too! Y.E.S. International Green Tea. I by it by the case at the my fave oriental market.
but almost all my clothes are doubly and triply patched and resown and ancient by American standards :-p
We’re not all fashionistas. I mean, I can be, when I have the $$$$ and lifestyle for it, but since 1999? Forget it.
I bought a bunch of casual clothes suitable for work or play in spring 2006. I made them last until fall 2009.
I spend maybe $200-$300 on clothes every 2 or 3 years.
I worship you, my Frugal Goddess. And I must know your secret*.
*Yes, this makes me a bad SpokesGay, as we’re all supposed to be frivolous gigglers in thrall to the latest fashion trends. As usual, take it up with my associate, Locutus of Gay. He has no time for individual consumption.
I don’t get into green tea, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE smoke-tinged Russian Caravan (Lapsang Souchoung). My other favorite is a black tea with rose petals. I’m enough of a stickler for MY FAVORITE TEA that I actually pack tea in my suitcase when I travel, along with an adequate supply of erythritol (I can’t stand Splenda).
So far neither the fragrant herb nor the sparking white powder have been mistaken for anything… um, more potent.
“sparkling.” And off to bed. :)
my boyfriend the 30-year-old redneck punk still wears the same clothes he had in high-school (and do I ever hate him for the fact that he fits into his clothes from high-school… but that’s another subject entirely), and his workshoes are held together by gorilla glue and spiderwire. this is a level of frugality that I’m not ever likely to achieve, no matter what, if only because my mother would never let me :-p
You’re making me feel extravagant. I spend maybe that much a year; my work ‘uniform’ is business shirt and trousers – of which I have plenty of as a result of my slightly more enthusiastic pre-mortgage period* and the rest of the time I’m in t-shirts and shorts/jeans which I get a lot of wear out of.
*It’s also a good incentive to stay in shape so I still fit everything I’ve got.
I have spent an extravagant amount of money on my education (including what my parents have sacrificed). I also spend kind of wildly on books, although with the interwebs, it is pretty easy to get good books in pretty good shape for cheap. An I admit, I blew waaaaaayy to much dinero on plants last year…I bought a house and had to plant cool stuff.
I always buy Heinz Ketchup, regardless of cheaper alternatives.
Otherwise I live like a hobo, because I just don’t like shopping.
Wonderful column by Leonard Pitts Jr. today (February 21, 2010): “Sorry, but you aren’t entitled to your own facts.”
My favorite quote from the column:
Let’s wait for the results of the autopsy.
Then, we can start work on determining whether it was murder, or suicide.
Oh, it was murder all right. Murder in my stockpot. With onions, carrots, and . . . .bacon. Oh, how I love split pea soup.
There is no excuse to buy anything other than Heinz ketchup. I don’t care if you are living in the gutter, surviving off of soggy cigarette butts and discarded chewing gum with nothing but the clothes on your back.
You do not lower yourself to buy Hunt’s ketchup or any “Store Brand” ketchup.
If all you have left is your humanity, cling to it.
Wise words, boygenius. Just as never lowers one’s self to buy anything but Hellman’s Mayonnaise (Best Foods, for those of you west of the Rockies).
Josh,OSG,
I like the cut of your jib, sir.
On the issue of frugality, it’s embarassing disclosure time.
In my past life, before converting to rationalism and scepticism, I spent a number of years in a Catholic monastery. Yes – the woo was strong in my youth! But the people who were my “brothers” were a remarkable group for the most part: very idealistic and committed to the very hard work of making a communal life among over 30 men. (Discussion//criticism of that life style can be held for another day.)
But having lived in a structured community where literally everything from your clothes to the pencil on your desk is owned in common, and where the community as whole doesn’t really own much of anything (not every religious group is in it for the money) greatly impacted my attitude towards material possessions.
Even after leaving the monastery, pursuing my education and career and earning a pretty comfortable living for over 30 years now, my lack of attachment to materials goods is still very strong. And it often puts me at odds with so many people around me.
IT’S ONLY STUFF!!!!!!!
I still can’t figure out in my mind whether or not non-theists as a group are more likely to be less “stuff oriented” than theists. There’s a part of me that would dearly love to see such a positive correlation for atheism.
I’m a very frugal person, or downright ascetic to be honest. I’m your typical starving
artistmusician. Believe it or not, that isn’t a profession one enters to make loads of money — ironically that’s because I don’t intentionally write crap, but someone will need to explain that to me again one of these days. I’m sure I understood all of that when I was a stupid kid enrolling in a music program, so it would be nobody’s fault but my own if I felt like blaming anyone. It’s just what I love to do. Even though it’s a crazy and rather depressing life at times, I’m fortunate to have that much.Thanks to a decent education, I’ve got a day job as an administrator for a small office, but honestly that doesn’t pay much either. (This is where I mention to our libertarian friends that government-funded scholarships are good for society, even programs that don’t create a lot of economic growth.)
Anyway, my largest expenses have always been music-related: instruments, computers, software, other equipment, etc. I also buy a lot of books, but happily many older titles are now free or very cheap on the web or at the local library. That’s about it, though. I don’t even have cable. I don’t need any of that stuff to survive or have a reasonable quality of life. I wouldn’t be as happy, but hopefully I could find another way pay the bills.
I suppose I’m feeling some mixed emotions. Even though I’m not spending and wasting nearly as much as most others in the U.S., I’m still much better off than just about everyone in 3rd-world countries. I can’t afford to donate to charities, but I do a little bit here and there anyway. It’s just disturbing that so many either don’t realize how privileged they are, or just don’t care. I don’t think everybody should have to live the way I do, but certainly they could buy less useless crap and help others more.
And I like the way your. . .well, you know.
interesting
Sorry, Josh OSG, you’re fishing in the wrong pond. Didn’t mean to lead you on. Sorry!
As far as being forced to live frugally goes, I have only myself to blame. Perhaps dropping out of college to follow Grateful Dead wasn’t such a good career move after all?!
Who said I’m fishing, you flippant little thing? Besides, every man can be had.
Josh:
I was totally with him all along until this point.
I hate mayonnaise, in all its manifestations.
MarkMyWords:
I’d bet that we materialist heathens aren’t very materialistic, in comparison to the typical believer (for those who haven’t taken a vow of poverty, not including Pope Palpatine, et al). Could this be another one of those Deep Rifts™? I love those.
I am Locutus of Gay. I speak for The Collective. Culinary life as you know it is over. Your irrelevant aversion to mayonnaise) will be added to our own. You will adapt to service us. Condiment-based resistance is futile.
Comply.
I worship you, my Frugal Goddess. And I must know your secret*.
I don’t know how this will help a guy, but I’ll tell you what I can.
I also have to warn all of you that I’m a comfort #1 shopper. If something isn’t comfortable, I won’t buy it because I won’t wear it. I am not a fashion plate, and dresses? Skirts? I haven’t worn either in at least 6 years. I try to find the cutest things I can, but if it’s too expensive, I don’t need it that badly.
My clothes are functional, and easy to care for–wash dry, fold, wear. Ironing? Dudes, if I have one, I don’t know where it is.
With that in mind…
Most of the catalogue houses are online these days, and you can also buy direct from companies like Hanes. When you go on the web, you’ll find exclusive sales on t-shirts in cute colors and matching shorts or trousers of the same material. Look for buy one get one free and that sort of thing–all of them do this. and the savings can really add up.
I dig through clearances all over the web for cute things to vary up the Hanes thing. This time, I splurged a little and bought some really cute tops, and some denim looking capri pants. Just adorable. I like buying pant/capri/short and blouse sets, they’re usually great values.
Apologies. I did not intend to be flippant. Just
tryingfailing to be jocular. And you’re right, any man can be had; you just need to meet my reserve bid.Well, I’m pretty frugal (the above mentioned credit card debt is primarily my car insurance, car repairs, a conference trip, and university fee payments), but I do like stuff. OTOH, the stuff I like is useful. Cookware, cross-stitch, notebooks, magazines and books. On the third hand (crap, I need to buy more hands!), I haven’t bought any things in a long time. All of my purchases in the last six months have been food, toiletries, and other actual necessities.
I find that I don’t miss buying things, but I do need to buy some new clothes due to working out for the last five months.
Hmmph. I shall not have you until you’re on clearance.
/Flounce
My dear SpokesGay, why must you be this way?
I can’t afford to donate to charities, but I do a little bit here and there anyway. It’s just disturbing that so many either don’t realize how privileged they are, or just don’t care.
I just realized that I give more to charity every year than I spend on clothes in 6 or 7!
Aquaria:
So, you’re saying that your way is Hanes Her Way?
(ducking and running)
You know, I’m so cheap that every now and then, I’ll buy store-brand ketchup. I always go back to Heinz.
But mayonnaise? Sorry, I buy HEB’s mayonesa, mayo made with Lime instead of Lemon.
It’s a South Texas thing.
Brave words, Mr. T. I’ve heard them from thousands of Pharyngulites across thousands of threads. Finding your weakness is only a matter of time.
Are you ready?
Sheesh–of course it’s my way.
Anybody who thinks it would be otherwise doesn’t know me well enough–or what’s about to hit them.
Josh OSG, I don’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed that you didn’t inquire what my reserve bid is. Throw a number out there, ya never know.
MarkMyWords @ #551
..if you tell me you all shared underpants I’ll barf.
Be anything you want, or do anything you want, boygenius. Just remember, when I do buy, I buy quality.
Run along now:)
And boygenius (since I’ve gotten myself into trouble earlier in this thread for failed attempts at humor) – I’m just having a laugh for shits and giggles.
Oh, I bet mine’s uglier… ;-)
It seems that a lot of us live (relatively) frugally, but most of us do it within a consumerist culture. I mostly buy things that are used or on clearance, but that stuff would be a lot harder to find if people weren’t consuming so much. It reduces waste to some extent, but it doesn’t fix the underlying issues.
You know what I find that helps me resist the consumer culture: Turning off the damned TV.
That’s not me, Josh. I look and act more like Riker…
/Runs along.
I’m sure you’re not going to bid very high on a washed up 40 year old Dead Head. Oh, well. There’s always the dead.net forums. :(
There’s a lot of shits and giggles there, too!
Ack! my :( was supposed to be a :)
Love ya, Josh!
Don’t you need someone to bid against Josh? Unfortunately I don’t have the poker nerves for that sort of thing. I usually go for the ones that have a “Buy Now” option. :D
unless either of you can beat a door with “motherfucker” keyed into it, I win the ugly-car contest.
but only because this ugly-ass thing, formerly property of the boyfriend, died several years back.
Jadehawk
Enquiring minds want to know- which one of you was the alleged “motherfucker”?
Ladies and Gentlemen; the bidding is now open. Here we have a fine specimen of the male species with very few (physical) defects. Original owner w/papers to prove it. Financing is available for qualified buyers.
neither of us. that was the result of me letting a former roommate take the car to Target, where he promptly managed to get into an argument with some chick who apparently found it appropriate to write her opinion of him onto my car.
however, I’m sure the more recent former roommate who got kicked out of our apartment two years ago and who very unimaginatively merely underlined it was feeling that sentiment towards me.
come to think of it… I do not seem to have much luck with roommates
It’s so ugly, the internet forbids me to look at it!
Jadehawk,
Your “ugly-ass thing link is borked. Nosey minded people want to see!
d’oh! try this: http://inlinethumb24.webshots.com/46871/2601300650075107219S600x600Q85.jpg
“
That is indeed, one ugly-assed car.
I don’t know if it’s ugly, but that car sure looks like it drinks way too much gasoline.
Speaking as one who has spent a significant portion of his adult life with no car, that is a sweet ride. Do you realize how many people can crash out for the night in the back of a rig like that? Cosmetic damage schmosmetic damage, ugly is in the eye of the
beholderarresting officer.Jadehawk,
All that matters is that it runs :)
When I ride in the nicer cars that my friends have I repeat to myself “four hundred dollars a month” so I rarely have any jealousy about it.
I have no car payment and never have, but I do drive a car that’s 13 years old and still running. *keeps fingers crossed*
was, my friend, was. it blew its guts out a few years back and has now been turned into spare parts.
If you were in SoCal, I can probably fix it up for you. Of course, it will take a long while.
Ahh… We can hope for no more than that for ourselves, eh?
I doubt it. The boyfriend’s dad is a mechanic who loves tinkering with old clunkers, and he deemed that thing unfixable*.
not that it mattered, since for some reason some guy traded an almost new Intrepid** for that dead monster; apparently he was in urgent need for some ancient car parts…
——-
*well, they could have put in a new transmission and a new engine, but that would have been sort of pointless.
**which he doesn’t have anymore, either. he sold it for a good lump of money when I quit my McJob, since we really don’t need 2 cars.
well, it has been immortalized by google streetview, so its memory will live on forever ;-)
What’s what we did with my car.*
*Well, it was either replace the frame and engine of my first car since it got totalled, or put in a new engine in an older car with a good frame.
That’s kind of cute, in an ugly sort of way… what model is it, anyway?
—
All I can offer is a trade with a banged-up Subaru and a box of used science fiction books. And the customary spanking.
My comments last night have certainly sparked a lot of response.
Re money and frugal living, I agree that there is a point beyond which one just doesn’t need more stuff. That’s why I’m not particularly fanatical about earning money, and why, unlike a lot of my contemporaries, I’m not looking for a job in “magic circle” commercial law. I’d prefer to earn less money while doing something I believe in.
But at the same time, there is a basic level of amenity which, in the developed world, we virtually all enjoy. All of us on this thread, by definition, have access to a computer for recreational purposes, otherwise we couldn’t be here. Most of us are accessing this through broadband internet connections. And I’m fairly sure that virtually everyone here has a refrigerator, indoor plumbing, heating, and so on. I can say with absolute certainty that if I were deprived of these things, my quality of life would be worse. And without capitalist industries, and their drive to make money, these products would not be manufactured and sold at prices we can afford.
This doesn’t mean capitalism doesn’t have a downside. It has plenty of downsides – environmental damage and waste, the ubiquity of advertising, the sale of unhealthy or harmful products, the incentives for fraud, and the large disparities in wealth capitalism naturally creates. And there is a need for government intervention to address these things. I’m not making a libertarian argument here; I will gladly acknowledge that government regulation and welfare provision are, in a number of contexts, desirable.
But a capitalist-mixed economy has, on the whole, served our society very well as a form of socio-economic organisation. And it isn’t a zero-sum game; it doesn’t require keeping the developing world in poverty. Those formerly poor countries which have embraced capitalism and industrialisation in the last fifty years, such as South Korea and Taiwan, are now relatively rich. Parts of China and India are going the same way (though other parts remain desperately poor).
I’m watching “Django”, a copy of which conveniently fell off a breaking timber truck today.I have David M to thank, a spaghetti western I had totally forgotten about !
Quote from the movie : “They have some kind of religion, they’re all crazy”
:D
I see we’re talking about cars, well my one-year old Golf was rear-ended by a P-plater who was paying more attention to his phone then to the traffic yesterday, and the rear is in a, shall we say, dysfunctional state now.
oh, FFS.
walton, do you know the difference between living off interest, and tapping into your savings?
oh, nevermind. I forgot that you already know the consequences of this, you just don’t care to do anything about it other than not breeding *sigh*
it’s a Bronco, from the early 70’s I think.
Walton,
I used to visit friends in the evil communist DDR in the 80s. I assure yout they could afford all these things (not access to Pharyngula, but neither did I). Main difference is that they couldn’t choose from 150 models of fridges.
Yet you do not answer my questions in comment 488
Are you at least conscious of these limitations ? How shall we deal with them ?
Looking forward to an answer…
Technological advance will hopefully allow more people to access a Western-style standard of living, while consuming fewer resources than the average person in the developed world currently does. This obviously isn’t guaranteed; but technological advance is our only hope, if we don’t want the world to return to squalor and poverty. And under pressure of limited resources and with the drive to make money, human beings tend to be quite innovative.
Walton:
What do you see as the outcome of the game in the medium to long term? You mention some of the downsides of our current capitalist approach. If we foresee (as many do) the sum over all the downsides getting too big to keep the environmental infrastructure we need to survive functioning what do we do?
Complete your extrapolation of the sort of development you approve of in parts of Asia to the whole world and are you certain the sums don’t tell you the games up in the not too distant future?
That’s my very rough assessment. Tell me something I haven’t thought of to make me more optimistic or my solution is still to look to changing the whole system and quickly!
(I get the feeling you have been over this before but humour a new guy!)
*groan*
really?
“technology will save us all”?
really?
this isn’t any more likely or realistic than your old “the free market will save us all” trope, you know….
Technology may well not save us. But if it doesn’t, and we run out of resources, we’re all doomed to end up in poverty, misery and squalor(other than the very wealthy and the politicians, who will take care of themselves as they always do). We cannot enjoy a decent modern standard of living without consuming resources.
Walton:
You got your answer in before my question and I can’t say I was any more surprised than the other commentators.
How about some detail? Are you convinced that technology will be able to answer all the problems fast enough? We are already having difficulties with agriculture and resistance to antibiotics and while new technologies are being brought on line I am not seeing it all happen faster and faster while the problems just seem to increase.
Basically you not only have to hope for the technology but also that it will be discovered and developed in time. A very tall order. It is too easy to use the word hope. I would like to be on firmer ground.
Walton,
I don’t believe technological advances alone will solve this. You can do the math : if we mutltiply by 5 the number of people who have western-style lifestyles over the next few generations, how will technology help to reduce our consumption of resources so to avoid a deadly competition for the same resources ?
We will definitely need a different form of socio-economic organisation, one that favours cooperation rather than competition.
This isn’t going to be easy, and putting all our hopes in technology is much too risky.
Walton @ #598
..welcome my young Luke, the the world in which I inhabit. I tossed over a hundred grand a year off my annual salary when I transferred from private practice in commercial law to the current NGO position I now have. I’m now a criminal defence lawyer spending all day representing the mentally ill, intellectually diabled and those with an aquired brain injury for free and, oddball as my clients may be on occasion, I couldn’t be happier. I LOVE my job, I work flexible hours ( as befits the group-huggy, sandal-wearing, work/life balance attitude of most NGO’s)so I can be a great mum to my kids,I’m helping those that need it and I’m one of the only types of lawyer people actually like.
Money be damned- I want to be someone my children respect.
Turtle bacon
Wowbagger mentioned PZ’s Triple J interview here somewhere, so I will x-post my comment from the radio alert thread here :
“what massaged you into this fury against ID creationists ?”
Didn’t like the question, didnt like that PZ let it pass without objecting to it !
Interesting tidbit about the “Sanitarium” company, have to look into that.
PZ : ” There doesnt have to be a starting point” (to life, the universe, and everything)
Interviewer: ” I can’t get my head around that”
Neither could I when I was 10 years old.
Duh.
The Maguire character is weird, tried to pretend to be light-hearted and funny, but sort of failed.
BoS: That’s heartening, as I think I want to go in a similar direction. I’ve never been attracted by the “magic circle” London law firms (which go out of their way to recruit Oxbridge students, mainly by spamming us with publicity and hosting free dinners and drinks events). By all accounts, associates in those firms work absurdly long hours, and while they earn buckets of money, the work sounds incredibly boring. I just don’t think I could put in 12-hour days doing something I really don’t care about, no matter how good the money is. (In any case, it’s a lot harder than previously to get a training contract with a big law firm, as they’ve been heavily affected by the recession.)
I’m graduating this summer and doing the LPC next year (self-funding, most likely with a bank loan), and I’m hoping to find a job in one of the local high street firms in my area that does legal-aid work. In the long term, I’d like to specialise in immigration and asylum law.
The one thing that pisses me off is that we still have this archaic “split profession” in England. I’m attracted to advocacy work, but I’ve ruled out the possibility of becoming a barrister, since it’s notoriously competitive to get a pupillage (and becoming ever more so). While I might eventually have the chance to become a “solicitor-advocate” with rights of audience in the higher courts, the prestige of solicitor-advocates is much less than that of barristers. IMO, the approach in the US and Canada, with one unified legal profession, is far more sensible.
IIRC, you work in Australia, yes? I’m aware that some Australian states still have a split profession while others don’t.
As to the debate on capitalism: I want to stress that I’m a law student, not an economist, and that I’ve never formally studied economics at all, even at a low level. I’ve only ever read one book on economics (Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom) and picked up a few things from the Internet and from going to Libertarian Society talks, but I don’t really have a clue. I’m conscious of the fact that my thoughts about economics probably sound clumsy and confused to those who have a background in economics (just as it frustrates me when people pontificate about law and get it entirely wrong).
My opinion on capitalism really doesn’t matter, anyway. I’m not planning on going into politics – at least not for a long time. My broadly libertarian outlook motivates me to want to protect civil liberties, and to help those who are oppressed by government, especially refugees and asylum-seekers and those unjustly detained; this is a goal with which I suspect most people here would agree, and it’s what I intend to spend the next few years of my life doing, if I succeed in my ambitions. The only time I have any opportunity to influence the global economy, by contrast, is when I vote in a general election; and since there isn’t much difference between the major British parties on economic issues, my views on capitalism won’t make a great deal of difference. (I intend to vote Conservative, for solid reasons which I have outlined on other threads, despite disagreeing with several points in the party’s current platform.)
BoSOM,
administrative duties to discuss, just sent you an email !
Walton #613:
I for one was coming at your comments from a more general position than either politics or economics. Trying to check on you view of the bigger picture of where world society is going. At your age, when I was the same university as you, I observed politics from a great distance and it took a fair few years to consider if it would have much affect on my life. So you are way ahead of where I was and could make your views count early.
A lot has changed in those almost 40 years and I keep thinking that there isn’t much time and those starting out, like yourself, need to get thinking a lot earlier! With the terrible decisions you are making ;-) over politics I would encourage you to at least think wider and it isn’t just a matter of economics. You have implied that you see either capitalism (by some miracle of technology) saving the day or a collapse back to some feudal form of society. Wouldn’t it be worth while thinking as early as possible about whether these are the only choices?
I don’t have the answers and, hopefully will be dead before things get really bad but I wouldn’t be too sure that your lifetime won’t see things changing badly for the worse.
Oh, and sorry Canada, but I’m sure you’ll correct this little mishap later in the tournament !
There was a time when Germany was at least a semi-serious Ice Hockey nation, but that was when Reagan was President unfortunately……
The CE,E,E,E,E,E,EO appears to be too ill to fulfill his moderation duties; my comment with the 5 links still isn’t up. So I’ll post again, in two parts, one of them improved.
=======================
Which one do you mean? ~:-| The drink? …Oh, the article for the drink says: “It was initially intended as a breakfast drink, but sales were poor until NASA began using it on Gemini flights in 1965 (researched at Natick Soldier Systems Center), which was heavily advertised. Since that time, it has been associated with the U.S. manned spaceflight program, so much so that an urban legend emerged that Tang was invented for the space program.” :-)
Of course. Sleeping till 11 am once isn’t enough to catch up with a whole week of too little sleep.
:-) :-) :-)
*kisses on both cheeks*
I hope it doesn’t sound cruel when I say I’ve been waiting for your birthday for months. That’s because I planned ahead what to sing…
<sing voice=”choir:heterophonic”>
Stoooo lat,
stoooo lat,
niech żyje, żyje naaaam,
niech żyje naaaam!
</sing>
<sing voice=”choir:childish”>
Hoooch soll sie leeeben,
an der Decke kleeeben,
runterfallen, Popschi knallen,
ja, so ist das Leeeben!
</sing>
<sing voice=”choir:drunk; accent:’12th district of Vienna'”>
Wir singen der Jadehawk ein Lied,
wir singen der Jadehawk ein Lied,
Jaaaadehawk, du Aaaarschloch,
warum lebst du immer noch!!!
</sing>
<sing voice=”choir:aristocratic”>
Bon anniversaireuh,
nos vœux les plus sincèreuh,
et que, l’an fini,
nous soyons tous réunis !
Nous chantons au chœur :
Bon anniversai-ai-reuh!
</sing>
<mouses over link>
WTF! FIAT takes over Chrysler! What is the world coming to! Lenovo taking over IBM is one thing, but… but…
*finally stops blushing, relaxes face, lowers voice*
Oooookay. Here goes:
Fix it again, Tony!
Fehler in allen Teilen (mistakes in all parts)
für Italiener ausreichende Technik (technology sufficient for Italians)
Al Gore invented the Internet, and Ted Stevens invented its tubes.
(That’s right, there’s a Wikipedia article entitled “Series of tubes”.)
Being a year older got you teased in Germany?
What the fuck.
Haven’t those barbarians grasped it that the teacher is the enemy!?!
<knees trembling>
That’s a culture shock. I hope the sheltered academic environment in which I’ll try to apply for postdocs in Germany will be just that – sheltered. :-S
Walton,
It has been my experience that those who understand least about technology are the most likely to think that it will save us from the mathematical certainty that we cannot grow forever.
I am a strong believer in technology. I’ve worked pretty much right in the middle of the electronics revolution much of my career. It is because of this that I realize that technology does not just “happen”. The classic example is of course Moore’s Law–which states that electonic performance (e.g. speed, density, etc.) doubles every 18-24 months. When Gordon Moore first set down his musings on the subject, it was driven by actual physics. There was a recipe for shrinking a particular electronics technology (CMOS), and the transistors would work. That lasted up ’til the mid ’80s. Since that time, Moore’s Law has been more about economics than technology: It represents the performance requirements to remain economically competitive. It is interesting that this has spawned a lot of collaboration between semiconductor companies, the fruits of which can be found in the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors.
http://www.itrs.net/
If you want to understand where electronics is going, this is an interesting read. It also demonsrates the power of directed research and collaboration between governments and publicly traded companies.
While the success over 40 years of Moore’s law is impressive, there are examples of technological development that have an even longer track record of success–and without all the directed research.
Rosenfeld’s Law states that the energy required to generate $1 of economic growth has decreased by 1% every year since 1845:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenfeld's_Law
Note that this has happened without any directed research or government intervention. I wonder what could be achieved with an ITRS-type effort on a global scale.
Rosenfeld’s law has generated a great deal of optimism among some:
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/12871/
I wish I could share their optimism. Unfortunately, a concerted effort to accelerate benefits due to such trends is precisely the sort of thing that will attract the opposition of Libertarian anti-science asshattery.
Part 2 of 2.
How do you manage to sleep more than necessary? ~:-|
Not with C. That would be pronounced this way. :^)
On the first page of YouTube results I found another version.
I’ll go to bed and laugh myself to sleep :-)
[Update: I did, I did.]
I don’t see how there are other choices. If we were all forced to immediately reduce our resource consumption and living standards to a level that is environmentally sustainable in the long term, we would be living in miserable poverty and deprivation. As I see it, therefore, there are three options:
(1) Take extreme measures now to tackle threats to the environment. This will plunge many of us (except the very rich and the political elite, who will take care of themselves as they always do) into poverty and deprivation, and deprive us of most of the amenities which we enjoy, not to mention depriving millions in industrialising countries of the opportunity to escape existing poverty.
(2) Continue living our current lifestyle until the resources run out. This will also plunge most of us into poverty and deprivation, but will do so a bit later than option (1).
(3) Develop technologies that allow us to maintain a decent lifestyle while consuming fewer resources. This may well be impossible or impractical, but it’s the only option that doesn’t result in poverty and deprivation for most of the world’s population, so I would suggest that we have to try.
thats….um….a very impressive song, David. thanks, I think.
and on that note, good night everyone.
Jadehawk
Assuming you’re on North American Central Time (Wikipedia says North Dakota is split between Central and Mountain Time), am I right in saying that it’s about 5.30am where you are?! And I thought my sleeping habits were bad…
police woo.
Ok, bedtime too, not without leaving you guys of the morning shift with something to chew on tho :
An article about Texans, its title is, “Meet the Flintstones”
Enjoy !
;)
@Walton: It’s not nearly as bad as you imagine. Nobody is proposing that we deliberately plunge ourselves and the whole globe into poverty. But there’s no reason not to take a good hard look at what constitutes your “decent lifestyle” and reflect that you can actually live decently right now, with current technology, and consume fewer resources than the average, _while_ we work on the future technologies we need. Buying potatoes in huge sacks instead of tiny plastic bags; growing edibles as well as flowers (we have the tiniest garden and we didn’t buy a bean or a tomato all last summer); insulating your house; getting an efficient boiler; turning down the heating and wearing a sweater and big woolly slippers; low-flow aerated shower head; not buying shiny expensive gadgets you don’t need; cooking your own good food from cheap local ingredients; none of these things constitutes hardship or poverty and all of them _help_.
Problem being that with the current economic system, the fewer shiny expensive gadgets or other useless services we consume, the higher the unemployement. Our society has become so critically dependent on technology and consumption growth that it seems there is no turning back. Not unless we completely rethink the very foundations of our socio-economic model : why do people need to own assets ? We will need to turn the entire system on its head, transition from a property/competition model to a usage/cooperation model.
I don’t see any other alternative. The rest are just small plasters on a sinking ship.
David–I see that the meaning of the “Happy Birthday” song is subtly different auf Deutsch.
negentropyeater #626:
That transition is where I have the greatest difficulty. That old joke about “if you want to get there I wouldn’t start from here” keeps rising in my mind.
Pointers to anyone who has really thought it through would be interesting.
Gluten-free octopus cookies. Just because.
Good night or good morning, to each according to his or her need.
Feynmaniac:
Food stamps as income (via Casaubon’s Book)
There is a lot of discussion of the sustainability of our civilization on that blog, so some of you might want to check it out even if you may not agree with her proposed solutions (something to do with pickled kale?) [if anyone was put off by that atheist-baiting thread a while back, it seems to be atypical]
I don’t know, increasing local food production and storage should be part of the solution, but to me it seems that focusing on that may be skipping a few steps on the way to the coming apocalypse.
OK, planning a longer response, but I just read this and wanted to get in a word. Walton, is it possible for you in the meantime to volunteer with a nonprofit that helps these people? I think by learning about them and getting to know something about the history of their countries, you might be able to appreciate that they haven’t only been oppressed by government, but by capitalism, and how these have worked together. It would help you to get a better grasp of how capitalism has long functioned as a world system (one of whose modern features, of course, is that capital can cross borders significantly more easily than people).
ianmhor,
Honestly, I don’t know. I have been searching the internets for this for a year or so, but it seems there is an intellectual vaccuum here. Many seem conscious about the fact that we are heading for the wall but I haven’t seen anywhere a pragmatic description of an alternate path.
I have read a few vague things, but nothing concrete ready for implementation.
So we just continue as if a technological miracle is going to save us, like Walton says.
Many of my friends say I’m a pessimist because of my bleek outlook about the mide term future. But I think they are the pessimists, because they prefer to close their eyes and dream, whereas I believe we will only find solutions to the number ONE issue of our time when we raise people’s consciousness about where we are heading.
We need to stop with the illusions of half baked GREEN solutions and building fake prosperity based on debt from the future. It’s not going to work.
One way people can help reduce their carbon footprint is to live closer to their work if they drive. A couple of people in my department have 30+ minute commutes each way. I had to slow down this morning due to the slippery roads, and I was at work in 7 minutes.
I work in the semiconductor biz, have a while, sorta figure I know that technology, and a few neighbouring it, at least. And while I can’t comment on any correlation I’ve noticed between understanding of technology and confidence (misplaced, at the higher levels, absolutely) in the potential of technology to solve certain problems it probably isn’t going to address anytime soon–or possibly ever–I can generally say it seems to me there’s a whole class of problems in the tyranny of small decisions/tragedy of the commons category for which the presence, absence, or even potential for even existing of technological fixes becomes almost moot in the real world.
I mean, we have potential technological fixes–or at the very least ameliorating methods–for huge and extremely important areas of difficulty the world is currently facing. To take the most obvious example that occurs to me, we really don’t in any absolute sense need to rely upon fossil fuels to the degree we do now as an energy source. Argue as you like over the relative viability of the alternatives, my point is: we certainly could use them more than we do.
We don’t because of a complex of what you could generally class as political and social factors. Inertia, to some degree, a lack of political will to push as hard as we could toward weaning ourselves off of coal and oil, and all of this in the face of genuine and enormous costs to continuing the way we have.
My larger point being, given most real world problems: research into technological fixes generally doesn’t come along to say ‘Here’s a silver bullet, solves all the problems’, and all we gotta do is collectively say ‘Oh, well, let’s do that, then’. Technology offers you better ways, but generally, yes, there are other costs, there are other complications; we get better at stuff, but nothing comes for free. So sure, wind turbines are nice, but they’re ugly, and they kill birds. Solar is nice, but you can’t just turn it on for your peak periods like you can coal driving steam through a turbine…
And we get so hung up on those, and there’s so much bullshit and FUD spread by vested interests (witness the noise from those still trying to confuse the public perception of the real hazards of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions) trying probably almost entirely in poor faith just to fuck with that kind of progress that it strikes me: that’s the real problem, right there.
(/Shorter: technology, we can do. Getting people together to fucking use it as well as we could, that’s what we really need to get better at.)
Walton says, “Take extreme measures now to tackle threats to the environment. This will plunge many of us (except the very rich and the political elite, who will take care of themselves as they always do) into poverty and deprivation, and deprive us of most of the amenities which we enjoy, not to mention depriving millions in industrialising countries of the opportunity to escape existing poverty.”
What horse puckey! Talk about alarmist, Walton. There is plenty of fat to trim off of our current consumption patterns. Look at the experience of Juneau, AK. When they were cut off from their cheap hydroelectric power by an avalanche and the cost of power tripled, they managed to cut power consumption by nearly 40%!
http://www.lbl.gov/publicinfo/newscenter/features/2008/EETD-alaska.html
Most (75%) of the reductions came within a week. No preparation, no planning. Just necessity, and quality of life did not suffer appreciably. The problem is that people have become “snivelized”. They cry whenever anyone talks about any sort of decrease in consumption whether that decrease would adversely affect their enjoyment of life or not.
Technology will certainly NOT save our asses (collective or fiercely independent as they might be) if we don’t support its development. This is where the free market system really fails. Corporate research and development do not proceed if the profit-risk assessment is uncertain. Long-term, risky projects aren’t ever initiated. On the other hand, the federal government supports all kinds of basic and applied science which can lead to innovation without some a priori marketing model…however, the budgets for some of these agencies has been more or less frozen since Clinton left the white-house, and with this recession on, these budgets are also very likely the first to get slashed.
So when people say technology will save us, I’m not sure how they think that’s going to happen without a substantial investment in education and funding for basic research.
The take home message is please, NSF, give me some goddamned money!
wtf?
I just had the weirdest dream…Walton was apparently arguing with people about economics, and then somebody–a guy, I think–started singing–I think–a song–ditto–in a germanish kind of language, that kept repeating something that sounded like ‘Yodda-howk’…then, this, this cat came leaping through like a portal from a CGI wonderland with…with, like, dancing chickens, and…and um hermit crabs, and shit?
weird.
And so yeah but then so the cat sez “Technology will certainly NOT save our asses,” just as these, like, bacon-wrapped hamburger/hotdog turtles show up and start playing Pig in a Pen on banjos and…um…something about…
hockey?
need coffee
watch portcullis
There’s no doubt we can cut a lot of fat, but the problem with our current socio-economic system is that when you reduce consumption, you increase unemployement :
overall consumption in the US has gone down by about 6% from pre crisis level, savings rate increased ny the same amount, but the consequence is that unemployement went up from 6 to 10%. Imagine we’d cut consumption by another 20%, it’d be an economic catastrophy.
Of course we need to reduce consumption, but we need first to find a way to avoid the systemic consequences of this.
Reducing overall consumption doesn’t have to mean spending less and therefore tanking the economy, though. For example, buying all of your takeout lunch needs from a place like this costs more in the short (and even medium) term than buying disposables, although it is less consumption overall in terms of physical stuff. Shifting the kinds of consumption we do would cost more as people have to be retrained to different jobs, and might not lead to less spending overall (another price example: compact fluorescents v. incandescent bulbs), but would still lessen overall consumption.
Comments like this are creepy, Walton. They make you sound like an ego-troll.
Another phrase I hate. This isn’t teleological. Some countries have more industry and are located, due to a violent history, in a different strategic position in a global system. That’s it. They’re not at a higher stage of “development” or any such nonsense.
*eyeroll* Capitalism brought us indoor plumbing now? And vaccines! And electricity! Look, I’m so tired of this idea that if someone opposes capitalist-driven change she is opposed to science and technology per se, or advocating some “back to the land” scheme. (In fact urban living is environmentally desirable in many ways.) I think science and technology are essential if we’re going to continue to exist on the planet (if it’s not already too late). But they have to be organized differently, in a way that consciously directs them toward solving real human problems in a sustainable manner. Science has been organized like this in many ways (though I would like to see more local programs that involve communities), and with impressive results. But the involvement of corporations turns them toward corporations’ single end: profit. They are not interested in solutions for major problems unless these are profitable, they have no interest in workers’ lives, they are only interested in effective demand, and they have no interest in sustainability.
Empirical science is not capitalism. It is difficult to separate out the capitalist influences, since it’s long been a capitalist world and science is not exempt (funny how you don’t hear people crediting slavery with technological advances under it). People around the world would be living better lives if capitalism had never existed, and if science and technology had developed in a more anarchistic fashion.
Heating and plumbing are not products. Developing sustainable heating and insulation systems is urgently important, but capitalism will not push for them. Finding solutions to these sorts of problems is not what capitalism is about. Creating the problems is what capitalism is about – it’s a model of limitless growth and constantly created wants for the few on a planet where resources are finite and billions of people increasingly can’t fulfill their basic needs.
Look, the fact is that the lifestyle of a small portion of the earth’s population living in a few countries is killing the planet. Even if no one else joined our orgy of consumption this can’t go on if we or other species are to survive.
Speak for yourself.
In practice, though, it has been. They don’t always need to violently repress strikes or uprisings, enslave or exploit workers and when they resist pick up and move somewhere people are even more powerless, support fascism, steal land and other resources through force and fraud, set up mining operations that destroy people’s land and poison them, buy their public services and sell them their water at a profit, steal local water, dump toxic waste in poor countries, support dictatorships, overthrow or kidnap presidents of countries for raising the minimum wage or resisting the IMF or wanting to regain local control of resources,… But they do. And they have for centuries. So I’d conclude that it’s a need of sorts.
Look at the history of poor countries over the past fifty years. Look at the violence and violations of people’s rights required to force them into economic processes many didn’t want any part of. Look at the indices of human well-being in countries that “embraced capitalism” the most. Look at the indices of inequality (Eduardo Galeano once wrote something like, “Who is it that makes this per capita income? I’d like to meet him”). Look at how soil and water and forests have been wasted and poisoned in ways that will take a very long time to recover even if allowed to. Look at how foreign corporations have gained political control over people and the means for satisfying their needs. Look at how people are living.
This sentence makes little sense. No one is arguing against technological advance. What I’m arguing for is for technological advance to organized and directed for solving problems, local to global. “Western-style standard of living” is ill-defined, and you apparently want to conflate consumer crap with clean water, health care, education, etc. And you have no reason whatsoever to think that corporations have any interest in doing anything to reduce consumption of resources. Who the hell do you think funds the Heartland Institute? When corporations are spending billions of dollars to spread lies about AGW, it is disingenuous to express hope that capitalism will advance technologies to reduce resource use.
No kidding.
Science is a major element of our only hope. It must be combined with a large reduction in consumption in our countries. I don’t happen to think this would be a bad thing even for the people who think they are benefiting from the current system. In order to do this, though, the stranglehold of corporations has to be broken. We need as societies to claim the right to determine our priorities and which technologies we want to research and develop. And much of the world is in poverty now.
Fixed.
***
That’s a feature of capitalism. Crises of overproduction can only temporarily be avoided.
Walton:
I consume maybe half the resources of the average U.S. citizen. That’s a rough estimate. Maybe it’s 60% or 40%, but the exact figure doesn’t matter for my point to hold. I’m fairly poor, so this isn’t only a conscious decision but also a financial necessity for me. Still, I don’t live in fucking “squalor”. The only deprivation I experience is from stuff I do not need. I do this right now without the benefit of some magical technology that reduces my consumption of resources. It’s all very low-tech, actually. If more environmentally-friendly technologies were available, it could be reduced even more, but technology alone will not be enough. Individual behavior also has to change, as well as our political and economic systems.
For that, you’ll need to convince your fellow Americans to accept to pay more taxes. Wishing you good luck (says a fellow European who pays 1.2 Euros for a liter of gasoline, that’s 7.5$ for every gallon).
grr… html tag failure. Only “right now” was supposed to be in italics.
Those technology wizards need to update the “text formatting toolbar” so it works with Firefox 3.6. I refuse to live in such squalor. Market forces will surely drive this innovation. Get crackin’, wizards.
Jadehawk @601: My brother, Leland (the photographer), has fond memories of the Broncos he used to own. With their short wheel base and locking differential, plus great skid plates, and great clearance, they were highly desirable as back country rigs.
He now has an older truck that has been completely renovated for rough road work. We cal the truck “The Predator”. Leland has put new engines and new transmissions into it twice. He does all his own repairs, and a good thing too. The newest addition is a roll bar installed in the bed, which I like not because I’m looking forward to rolling the truck, but because when one rides in the back for purposes of scouting terrain, one can hold on to the roll bar. Standing up back there has provided some of my more memorable rides. You need soft knees (like those ice skaters on the Olympics), and quick reflexes.
Riding in the back of pickup trucks is not recommended. We don’t do that on regular roads, just on the super slow parts of expeditions.
I have a lot to do for the next couple of days, so may not be able to comment again till Wednesday.
Happy belated birthday, Jadehawk, and have a nice next few days, all!
It has been updated, but the updated version doesn’t show up on addons.mozilla.org, for some reason. You have to install it from here:
http://codefisher.org/format_toolbar/
Oh, I almost forgot to wish Jadehawk a Happy Birthday. So,
Happy B-Day, and many more!
I once got deposited in the largest cowpat I have ever when thrown off the back of Land Rover when it hit a large rut going across a muddy field.
Thankfully the ground was soft, and I suffered I no damage, other than smelling a bit.
Carlie,
there are many good examples of what you mention. But unfortunately for now, it seems most people would rather buy at Walmart 5 mass produced sweatshirts shipped from indonesia than a single quality handknit from the handycraft next door.
One of the great “benefits” of capitalism is to produce and push down your throat more stuff at a lesser cost and a lesser quality.
There might be an emerging trend towards more quality small scale local prodcution, but the economic crisis is also driving towards even more concentration and the destruction of small entreprise.
That was one reason (the other was Real flash video downloader also broke) that I converted back 3.5. With Dania’s link, time to test it out again. And with TimeMachine, an easy downgrade again if it is necessary.
Now some Islamists want to prohibit non-Muslims from referring to God as Allah. The article is by Christopher Hitchens.
neg – that’s the big flaw; however, that’s where larger scale interventions and serious reorienting of our economic structure could come into play. Look at the compact fluorescent example: incandescents were simply outlawed, period, as of a specific date in the future. That is a pretty draconian way of doing it, and will definitely hurt some people and businesses along the way, but it’s one way to deal with the problem (and already companies have been spurred by that to produce cheaper ones now that there’s a ready-made market for competition). A government could offer more tax breaks to companies producing or using environmentally sound products, or tax wasteful ones more heavily. Individual decisions about “which one will I buy” can only go so far; it does take coordinated large-scale effort for any change that makes a real difference.
Interesting language tidbits (David M. will enjoy this bit of Hitchens riffing on language):
negentropyeater #632:
Thanks. You have obviously had the same lack of success I have had.
I consider myself an optimist but the limited future prospects of the current world society is one thing that gets me in a pessimistic mood. I can and do reduce my use of resources avoiding “stuff” etc but that doesn’t reduce burden on the environment from the resource depletion the government does on my behalf. So it needs change both from individuals and governments and latter’s view of sustainability appears to be very much just tweaking capitalism which so far has failed to convince.
It sounds really scary, and I have to think again about winning the Self-Pity Olympics. :-S I’m too clueless of meatspace to be susceptible to that kind of peer pressure.
We (at that time I actually had meatspace friends) played a lot of pretend games, too – Ghostbusters and Ninja Turtles. Both based on TV series and comics I still haven’t ever seen, while everyone else had.
I still wear some stuff handed down from my uncles. And then my brother gets it, as far as his very different proportions allow.
Some of my summer T-shirts are 10 years old, though it starts to show.
I think I’ve already mentioned the jacket I’ve been wearing for, like, 15 years now, when it probably was 30 years old already – my dad had got it when he lived in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
:-D
[comment 554] Oh yes.
Srsly?
WTF.
Ha, I didn’t notice :-)
It absolutely is.
Just probably not by enough of a margin.
Especially so at the current kinds of science budgets. Why aren’t billions thrown at research into how to make some use of solar energy, to name just one little thing?
I had no idea, but I can’t say I’m surprised. Competition is expensive and therefore selected against, in biology as well as in economics. As soon as competition isn’t artificially enforced, companies start cooperating (or merging) so they don’t have to compete (as much) anymore. Nobody in their right mind wants to fight all the way to the bitter end.
Why not try a mixture?
The riskiest adventure I’ve ever consciously embarked on has worked, I think.
Though this is not as bad as it once was! Fewer and fewer people work in industry, automatization has been making more and more of them superfluous for centuries now. More and more people work in, uh, services, worldwide.
That said, the effect of automatization is so great that I don’t think we’ll ever have full employment anymore, barring a population collapse or suchlike. As a society, we’ll need to come to grips with the fact that there aren’t enough jobs for everyone anymore.
(Of course, this is something that things like higher science budgets could ameliorate. But not to its full extent, I bet. … Although … there most obviously is enough science left for everyone. Hmmm. </mad scientist>)
“Happy Birthday” isn’t even in there. The first of the two German songs I posted is a parody of an incredibly insipid birthday song that consists of nothing but repetitions and multiplications of “vivat” – its entire text follows: ||: Hoch soll er/sie leben :||, dreimal hoch!. That just cried for a parody.
The actual “Happy Birthday” has been imported. It, too, has been parodized by making the text less repetitive, though the parody is considerably less imaginative than the one I posted:
Happy birthday to you,
Marmelade im Schuh,
Coca Cola in der Hose/im Pullover,
happy birthday to you!
…so I had forgotten about it, and it’s probably less likely to get someone out of a depression anyway.
It’s from Austria, so Marmelade is jam in general, not just marmelade – the very idea of making that kind of thing of lemons or oranges is scarcely known.
The second German song I posted is just brutal. I hope it’s not what you were talking about. :^)
Incidentally, while I know sto lat from live performances (at the dig) where everyone sings it to a similar but different tune, it has an article in the English Wikipedia.
The French one is not a parody, except I messed with the spelling a bit to show what the tune does to the pronunciation (that’s common in singing in French). It’s not so insipid as to require a parody. :-)
Any requests for translation of any of these? Or of the toilet paper song? B-)
I baked a cheesecake today.
Maybe one day the technolgical advances on which Walton puts so much hope will allow me to share it accross the internets with my fellow Pharyngulites in honour of Jadehawk’s birthday.
For now, here’s to Jadehawk, a piece of internet cheesecake, and a happy birthday.
Amnesty International seems to have gone off track a bit:
Source: http://www.slate.com/id/2244802/
Marmelade! Uh, oh. My addiction to oranges has been triggered. Must plan trip to market to stock up.
A new look at North Korea:
Source: http://www.slate.com/id/2243112/
If you look at the labour statistics, you’ll find that a consequence of this crisis is that (in the West) the service sector has lost proportionately a similar amount of jobs as the other sectors.
People have reduced their spending also means they’ve cut on hairdressers, restaurants, real estate transactions, etc…
And let’s not forget that services also consume critical resources.
And what shall we do about it ? Accept that a significant share of people won’t have a job and compensate them with indefinite unemployement benefits, with the associated loss of dignity, or find ways to share the reduced workload more equitably ?
negentropyeater says “There’s no doubt we can cut a lot of fat, but the problem with our current socio-economic system is that when you reduce consumption, you increase unemployement…”
Tell that to my massage therapist, my dog walker, my financial adviser… The thing about a service/information-based economy is that one can consume without consuming “stuff”.
There is a certain amount of “stuff” we need. There’s a lot of crap we don’t. Maybe, in an economy where the emphasis is less on stuff and more on people providing a service, we can get back to giving a damn about people. It’s one thing to say no to someone asking for spare change on the street. It’s quite another thing when you find that someone who plays an important role in your life is in need.
If you did not live so far away I would send some of the marmalade I made this year. Although I say so myself, it it pretty good. One of the people I gave a jar to finished it in less than a week.
@661
Oh, Matt Penfold, you are a cruel, cruel person.
Because your massage therapist doesn’t consume critical resources ? When you pay for his service, that money goes to buy him food, water shelter, clothing, energy…
It doesn’t matter where in the economic chain you find yourself, with the current capitalist system, when you reduce overall consumption of resources, you reduce overall employement levels. Be it in services or production or transport or government.
As SC says, it’s a feature of capitalism. That’s why capitalism desperately NEEDS consumption and GDP growth. Without them, there is no succesful developement and no social equilibrium.
That’s why the article you linked to above thread about Rosenfeld’s law is an optimist’s joke : capitalism requires a 3.5% global GDP growth not to break down (to yield so called potential employement). So even if there is a 1% efficiency gain on resources (Rosenfeld’s law), you still have a delta of 2.5%. Which means we’ll end up consuming more than 8 times more resources at the end of this century than we do now.
Go Indian style. Cut up spuds smallish, and boil as normal until just cooked. When done, cut into smaller lumps about 1/2 to 2/3 inch across. Heat ghee (or oil) in a frying pan, and add a chili cut up, turmeric, and spices to taste. Salt if you like. I usually use ground fenugreek and garam masala. This is manscooking, so no quantities here. Generous is good. Heat the spices until incorporated into the oil/ghee. Add spuds and turn until coated evenly. Cook until nice and brown. Remove chili bits. Serve immediately,with bacon, natch. Decide that was so nice, cook some more, trying different spice combos. Bloody lovely.
Re communal ovens – seen them in Africa (Mali?). Sensible idea, given scarcity of wood for fuel. In ye olde days, this was done in Europe, too. Baker starts oven on Friday, housewives bring their dough mixtures, and they get baked over the course of a couple of hours. No one’s house burns down. Unless the baker is in Pudding Lane, of course…
Giving religious persons lighter sentences? Holy crap.
The article is by AC Grayling, source: http://www.richarddawkins.net/articles/5070
There is one good thing about Tony and Cherie being married to each. It means no one else has to suffer being married to one of them.
I cannot think of two people in the UK I despise more than those two.
That’s why capitalism desperately NEEDS consumption and GDP growth. Without them, there is no succesful developement and no social equilibrium.
I always thought capitalism was, at its heart, a pyramid scheme.
I hadn’t noticed the first time around – the crocuses are blossoming. They have come out over the weekend.
Sidebar quote:
* * *
That depends. I’ve seen rather beautiful ones.
That(, too,) depends on the exact location.
Then you need an accumulator. Or electrolyse water and send the hydrogen & oxygen through a fuel cell when needed. Or decentralise it all (solar panels on every roof). Or improve the continent-spanning grids to spread the peak periods a bit… or all of the above…
It goes without saying that none of these ideas is new. They’re all at least 10 years old. I don’t need any imagination to rattle off a list of things that should be tried but haven’t been :^)
White LEDs are going to hit the market any year now. They’ll need even less energy and lack the other disadvantages of compact fluorescents.
…I fear they already said that 5 years ago, though. I suggest to throw more money at this problem. The potential of LEDs certainly looks great.
IE will implement it… a year or two after everyone else.
It’s funny when Islamists don’t know that Allah is just the Arabic word for “god” (or more literally “the god”, a contraction of al-‘ilah). It’s not a name.
Well, the left-right axis is a circle… two words: National Socialism.
Xenophobia also developed in East Germany to a considerably greater extent than in West Germany, because there were fewer foreigners in East Germany, and because the education system glossed over old prejudices instead of addressing them.* Even today, with communism and the border gone but the economic disparity remaining, the practically Nazi party NPD is a factor in regional politics there.
* An extreme case of that was Yugoslavia, where it was an article of faith that all nationality problems had been solved in the best possible way; doubt – heresy – was a crime. In other words, a lid was put on the prejudices the peoples had of each other, but the heat wasn’t turned off, so, as soon as the lid broke apart, the blood spilled over.
Both.
And fuck dignity. Honor is for Klingons, not for humans.
Oops, yes, that’s the spelling in English (for, presumably, some reason).
Fascinating how gender stereotypes differ between cultures. Where I come from*, women just know how much of everything they need, and men painstakingly count the grams and milliliters.
* Though, actually, maybe it’s just my sister. ;-)
Sounds good!
PZ blogged about this a week or two ago.
Listen to Bill.