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Comment by DubiousPusher | Hacker News Reader

Two ideas which often I encounter together yet I have grown to find incompatible are self reliance and minimalism. If you wish to become more self reliant i.e. more able to handle for yourself rather than through another's labor the impositions you create in the world, you will find yourself needing to masters, access and eventual own many more tools and material.

My father, a man capable of building or repairing almost anything to his need lives with a shop entirely full of junk. And frequently the scrap iron or 2x4 I have mocked him for retaining has come to the rescue and helped us avoid the 60 mile trip from his home into town.

The reality is, if you wish to combine self reliance and minimalism, you essentially must embrace a life of poverty.

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If your possessions all have practical utility, you are already a hardcore minimalist.

No one should begrudge you a well-stocked and well-used workshop. That’s not what the minimalist message is supposed to be about. It’s the stuff accumulated carelessly, just because you could. Decorative doo-dads, outfits worn once, toys from kids long since grown, furniture retained out of a sense of duty. The suburban middle-class lifestyle I grew up in has a tendency to accumulate a monotonically increasing volume of possessions without much thought. My grandparents have more square footage than my entire apartment dedicated to the storage of useless, meaningless crap. It is, in fact, a necessary and useful message for many people to be more deliberate about what you choose to buy and retain. If the only things you can think to cut are tools, you are not one of those people.

>If your possessions all have practical utility, you are already a hardcore minimalist.

The problem is that "practical utility" isn't always obvious. I have boxes and boxes of components and other oddments that collectively form a useful library, but I have no way of predicting which specific oddments will be useful in future. Any given item is currently useless, but might become extremely useful at some indeterminable point in the future. There's a very fine line between a prepper and a hoarder.

This is why Marie Kondo’s approach is personal and about getting in touch with your feelings. No one is going to deny you your collection. One of my pet peeves is when someone is trying to help you get rid of “stuff you don’t use,” and they pick up an object and say, “When’s the last time you used this? I’ve never seen you use this.” You’re allowed to have things you don’t use very often, if they are the sort of things you want to have around. Yet, this permission doesn’t necessarily prevent getting rid of tons of stuff.

One thing I’ve noticed is that if I can’t find something, its utility is basically zero. If I forget I have it, even more so. Also, things cluttering up a room (visually and in terms of physical space) feel like clutter. So, ideally a collection would be organized enough (which could mean stuff is just piled in boxes, but I’m sufficiently familiar with the boxes), and stored in a suitable place.

I think there’s a lot of power in encouraging people to get rid of stuff that they actually would be happier if they got rid of, by helping them make their own authentic determination.

Earlier this week, I accidentally dropped a box full of old computer parts that hadn't been touched in almost a year. Some old hard drives flew out and crashed on the floor.

I thought "good thing everything on those drives is backed up, and nothing critical was lost."

Yesterday I got a call from one of the former owners of one of these drives. They lost the USB stick I gave them a long time ago with their software license key that I pulled from one of those drives.

The drives I had been hoarding could have saved us $500 on Adelo POS software. One man's trash really can be another's treasure.

Sure, but a realistic possibility of a future need for the item is already a pretty strong reason. There are a great many items in America's basements and self-storage units that don't even have that.

I’ve always thought Guy Clark’s song Stuff that Works captures this ethos perfectly. Here is the first verse and chorus:

I got an old blue shirt and it suits me just fine

I like the way it feels so I wear it all the time

I got an old guitar, won't ever stay in tune

I like the way it sounds in a dark and empty room

I got an old pair of boots and they fit just right

Well I can work all day and I can dance all night

I got an old used car and it runs just like a top

I get the feeling it ain`t ever going to stop

[Chorus]

Stuff that works, stuff that holds up

The kind of stuff you don`t hang on the wall

Stuff that`s real, stuff you feel

The kind of stuff you reach for when you fall

https://genius.com/Guy-clark-stuff-that-works-lyrics#note-85...

Thanks for this fitting music to accompany this conversation. Its a perfect fit and a beautiful song!

Imagine large old shed with some rusting car wrecks around. I think that is minimalists nightmare, but reality of self reliant utilitarian guy.

You accumulate stuff carelessly because storage cost is zero. Even old junk can be source of aluminium block for machining, steel bar for welding or copper coil for wires.

> I think that is minimalists nightmare

Not at all.

Yes, it is. Unless you have an explanation of why not without getting into no true Scotsman territory.

Minimalism is about maintaining useful purpose behind the things you own and not retaining unnecessary objects. If you're a DIY person, and you have a good reason for a backyard of junk cars, that's explainable. If you buy a new iPhone every year but you don't actually use the majority of the new features (if ever at all), that's frivolity.

Minimalism isn't the ideology that (less is more)==(less things). That comes from people appropriating philosophies to compete for attention on social media, where everything is at best one-dimensional because the point is to entertain not educate. No, minimalism as a philosophy means (less is more)==(object-essentialism). You initialize solutions among what you have, and factor the time, resource, and opportunity cost into the cost-benefit of acquiring a new object. So, as I mentioned, if acquiring a backyard of junk cars is more cost-benefit savvy than having to acquire a new junk car every time you need a resource from one, it's minimalist. However, if you acquire a junk car that adds what you already have a sufficient amount of, it's frivolity.

So minimalism is just efficiency? Call it that then.

And frivolity isn't a relevant category to minimalism. You could be minimalist in achieving frivolous ends. Clearly you're carrying too much in the term.

It is hard to avoid no true Scotsman territory for a term that in not very well defined and used slightly differently depending on context (what medium, which aspect of life, geographically). Also I haven't read any of the linked books/articles the newrepublic piece links.

Wikipedia has it as: "The term minimalist often colloquially refers to anything that is spare or stripped to its essentials."

Oxford Dictionary as: "a style of art, music or design that uses very simple ideas or a very small number of simple elements"

So in my opinion, having rusting car wrecks around in an old shed with the intent to re-use their essential spare parts later is perfectly compatible with minimalism, and what I would expect someone with the skill set and space to do so.

Contrast that with a large garage where numerous expensive cars are being parked and continuously maintained as well as cost of electricity, cleaning, security etc. for the building, although the cars are pretty much never driven.

That would be much closer to a minimalists nightmare. Not the self reliant utilitarian guy with the old shed.

The comparison is between having a single working car that you pay someone to fix when it breaks vs. owning a car that you can fix by yourself by having lots of tools and parts around.

The first is minimalist because it involves less physical material to store and organize. The second is self reliant because you can do for yourself without needing to draw on outside systems as much.

The example you gave is just moving the goal posts completely. The large many car garage case is both less minimalist and less self reliant, so not to the point.

> If your possessions all have practical utility,

This seems tautological or uselessly subjective. What is a possession without practical value? You seem to have talked yourself out of seeing the value in possessions you own. Perhaps you are simply anxious.

How this attitude began to be associated with the minimalist design movement I have no clue.

If that seems tautological, you're already bought in. For others it is very much not.

> If that seems tautological, you're already bought in.

...bought in to what?

> What is a possession without practical value?

Token gifts that have been gifts for the sake of gifting something.

Most things in a souvenir store.

Well damn I've been living a minimalist lifestyle my whole life without meaning to.

> Token gifts that have been gifts for the sake of gifting something.

There is utility value in sentimental gifts, too, but it's obviously subjective. Why not just say "get rid of items that stress you out", like people have been doing the entirety of human history? That's hardly a social movement or a lifestyle, though.

I have noticed that people pushing minimalism...or at least the idea of "throw it away and buy it if you ever end up needing it" is a luxury that I think many people take for granted. Even if you're not privileged I think there's value in consciously assessing where in your life you want to be minimal and where you don't. I just went through my old tech stuff and recycled cellphones so old they may not even connect to the network, cables and adaptors to hardware I no longer own, and piles of network cables that came free with things. I slimed them down to just a few of each with the recent free time I've had.

As I got more serious about cooking I donated a lot of extra pans and doo-dads. Previously, I would just collect things and as I learned more about what made something good and why, I could narrow down to 1 or 2 higher quality items (knives, pans, etc). As I learned more techniques, I needed fewer specialty items.

To your point, having a lawn service means not needing a mower. Hiring out a painting service means not having old buckets, brushes, tarps, etc, laying around.

I do think (at least Americans) hoard. I know there's been a few times where I know I had something, but I didn't know where and considered just buying another. To me, that's worse than donating or giving it away years before. I know a lot of people pay monthly for self-storage, but probably don't know what's in there or wouldn't take the time to retrieve something. To me, this is what the Marie Kondo book was targeting.

>> As I got more serious about cooking I donated a lot of extra pans and doo-dads. Previously, I would just collect things and as I learned more about what made something good and why, I could narrow down to 1 or 2 higher quality items (knives, pans, etc). As I learned more techniques, I needed fewer specialty items.

Same experience here. Conclusion : if we'd educate people better on how to cook rather than showing them hours of advertising on the latest magical tool to cook a steak, we'd make their life easier and so much more minimalist.

So, in my experience, if you learn to cook and accept that cooking takes a bit more time you mainly need (for french cuisine) :

- 1 or 2 frying pan (buy a large one, multi-ply, heavy stuff, it's expensive : around 150 euro each, but will outlast you) - a cast iron casserole (for long cook) - just one teflon-like pan for frying fish (frying fish without that is possible but requires a lot of fat) - a few cooking pots (buy inox) - a short knife (buy expensive, around 60€, make sure the blade goes to the end of the handle) - a chef knife (ditto) - a big wooden cutting board (it allows you to use your chef knife efficiently) - 2 or three large bowls (inox or earthenware, no plastic) - a hand blender - a whisker - learn to use your oven if you have one, it's very useful - baking paper is very useful and cheap the rest just comes from regular stuff (glasses, regular knife, spoons, etc)

with that material you can go a loooooong way.

(forget about KitchenAid, Cookeo, and many other things)

etc.

Some people just don't like cooking. I guess the magical kitchen gadgets may appeal to them in the sense of "this might make me like cooking" because it looks easy.

That is a very nice summary! By then I recently discovered utility of a special bag to bake potatoes in the microwave . It does work even if takes longer than promised 5 minutes, but the result is very tasty and I have no idea how I would reproduce it in an owen.

Wrap potatoes individually in foil, bake until you like the texture (definitely more than five minutes).

There is another side to this where "stuff" becomes a liability. If I know I'm going to be moving frequently, having stuff is expensive, minimalism becomes a frugal option.

To this point, there is a certain luxury in being able to keep stuff around, to even have the space for it to begin with. If I own a studio apartment I don't have room for random 2x4's to come save the metaphorical day.

Absolutely. Self reliance is also a kind of luxury, that I wouldn't necessarily call better than minimalism only that the two are in contention.

Those 2x4s saved the literal day for us as the time away would've cost us a day's work ;)

> I have noticed that people pushing minimalism...or at least the idea of "throw it away and buy it if you ever end up needing it" is a luxury that I think many people take for granted.

I am inclined to disagree here and will say you're not making the full calculation.

One of the biggest costs that most people have in their life is paying for a place to live (be it rent or buying and maybe paying back for that). If you have fewer things this allows you to have a smaller space to live in. The reduced costs from that will more than make up for the occasional "I have to buy something that I might still have if I hadn't gotten rid of it a few years ago".

I do think there's multiple reasons for hoarding or minimalism. I'm just saying that I've noticed more well off people in my life advocating for minimalism over the years. I do agree with your sentiment.

In general, the poorer people I know aren't almost-homeless poor. Maybe they're just bad at managing everything (money, time, assets). They tend to be paying for those storage spaces. I see those storage spaces everywhere. I'm kind of curious what the average demographic is--like you say, space is expensive. I have used them, but only during transitions for a few months at a time. The terms of the contract made me think I wasn't the norm.

Your comment reminded me that my brother travels significantly more than I do, but travels with so much. I travel a few times a year, but absolutely hate having extra stuff. For me it's not about the cost of having an extra bag. It's about not wanting to wait for checked luggage, slinging around another extra bag (or just one heavier one), and not carrying it around. I'm sure he has his reasons for over-packing (perhaps being prepared, having appropriate attire means more to him), but for neither it's about the money. I'm sure for some people is is, though.

I think this poster is generally making the argument for stocking yourself with multipurpose tools and discarding single task or infrequent task items. As a contrived example, a funnel is a tool which will come in handy in many situations. But an old baby toy will likely only come in handy when a nephew is over once per year. Heck a funnel is even a decent baby toy.

Some may even say a funnel is pointless since you can create one with paper or foil lined paper for that once a year time you might use it.

You could be a hoarder in a tiny apartment, too.

Or you could be a minimalist who prefers the mostly empty feeling of a large home filled with few things, just like web designers who place huge margins everywhere.

'Huge' does not leave an impression of minimalism.

If what's huge, is blank space. maybe it does?

having a lawn service means not needing a mower. Hiring out a painting service means not having old buckets, brushes, tarps, etc, laying around.

Minimalism means not having a lawn which needs mowing, nor walls in need of painting.

so you live in a cardbox box near a creek for running water?

Minimalism means living under the bridge instead of in a cardboard box.

Aspiring to unpainted log cabin, surrounded by un-maintained forest or field, water filtered from steam or lake.

That's a point that keeps coming back in minimalist and travel communities.

People brag about how little they own, and it looks perfect until you ask about the logistics of it. You quickly find out that their minimalist existence is often propped by cheap third-world labour, or by a complete lack of financial planning. They don't own any of the tooks they need to fend for themselves.

In a sense, their lifestyle is only possible as other people are there to support it. Someone else has to provide the tools, and usually the expertise.

All of modern society operates this way. It's called division of labor. In order for there to be a software engineer, there have to be people working to feed him, clothe him, build his house, produce his computers, extract energy to power everything, etc.

I often wonder what these folks do with their time. It certainly isn't, say, painting canvases of artwork - these sorts of hobbies require stuff.

You can paint canvases if you find that fulfilling, you'd just be deliberate about what painting stuff you treated as a possession. Either you'd rent access to a stocked studio, or you'd buy paints and brushes but treat them as ephemeral, or you'd cherish them enough to count them towards your number, and use them frequently. What you wouldn't do is have a pile of painting stuff in your closet that you used five years ago, because that's how you end up lying to yourself - if you were ever going to use it again you'd be using it now, so either you keep using it, or you dispose of it without regret.

I think you might be missing something. Making art -some sorts more than others - simply requires equipment and stuff. I know this. I make art. I probably have more than some people because I work with different media: Watercolors, acrylics, ink, and so on. I'm prolific, and it all gets used. Just not all at once, you see.

This doesn't jive with the folks that brag about minimizing possessions - because it requires such. They might do digital art... maybe.

And rent a stocked studio? Most folks on earth aren't near such a thing nor is it something most folks can do. The few times I've seen any of this, you can't simply rent (and none have been near me). You have to apply to make sure you are good enough and do the right sort of art. At that point, you are representing the studio.

This goes for a lot of hobbies that requires a number of tools, supplies, and space, though. Simpy doing active work requires space and stuff - and some of it might go for months without use because you use different tools in different stages of work. (A woodworker might use a planer, but not every day and rarely if a piece takes a few months).

Actual, truthful minimalism accounts for this, but that wasn't what the topic in this thread was: It was the unobtainable minimalism that creates those that brag about having few possessions... and wind up having to rely on the labors of others to do sometimes basic things.

I think there's something even more than requiring equipment. Making art requires waste. You cannot be minimalist in creating, you have to be free with paper, paint and ink. The style can be minimalist, but over time you will end up with a library of sketchbooks and have probably burned through tons of supplies.

I do have all of that stuff myself. I figured that was covered by 'having supplies one uses'. It is hard to use up all the paint one makes: Watercolor and gouache lend themselves to not wasting paint, though, as you can reuse dried paint.

I suppose folks can give away their pictures, but I'd quickly run out of folks to give away to - hence my corner of finished art :)

That's actually fine though. You don't regard consumable supplies as possessions any more than you count the food you're about to eat as a possession. Minimalism is very compatible with waste - indeed I'd say it's probably more wasteful than not.

>You quickly find out that their minimalist existence is often propped by cheap third-world labour, or by a complete lack of financial planning

I don't get it. What are you talking about?

I 100% agree with you. My grandparents were farmers, and they could basically fix anything that was broken. My dad is the same. But he is already in the generation where scarcity made way for abundance.

In these times, we are drowning, not starving. It's crazy how much toys my kids have and it keeps coming. They can't even find their fun toys amongst all the junk.

You can buy anything at any given moment, and people keep giving you junk on top of it, because all holidays are now commercialised and you have to give and receive junk from everyone.

For myself, I have both the "maybe I'll need it one day" and "I have too much junk".

Yep. For me, the hardcore/conspicuous materialism (i.e. "I only have a 100 things.) is largely for well-off people only, who can afford to outsource all their uncommon needs - the kind of needs which require tools and parts to sit idle for years, until the occasion arises when you need them. It's telling that poorer people tend to hoard things - you never know when you're going to need that piece of cooper wire etc.

Do you include storage costs? Keeping stuff in your home is the most expensive option most of the time given how expensive homes are.

I think that's overly simplistic. At least where I live people usually buy one house (if they buy one) and keep it for the rest of their lives, so the size is already determined by the amount of things they own, or how much space they need. Just that I've never seen this as a factor, you usually buy what you can afford, not as large as needed to fit your stuff. Stuff just happens to amass and even a small house can be unimaginably full of things without looking like it's full. When my parents sold their house we filled up 2 vans just with tools from the shed. yes, it was a big shed, but it wasn't cramped.

I wonder if self-reliance is really incompatible with most things, not just minimalism. At some level you rely on others, whether to farm your food or forge your steel or make your antibiotics.

Basically, what you are saying is that the idea of minimalism is incompatible with minimalism. Personally I think that there's some sort of conservation law at work here (or even entropy-like growth rather than conservation): the more you try to minimize one thing, the more expense you incur elsewhere - even if only at a psychological level (because, to confuse things even more, it looks like that at a psychological level minimalism is, in fact, a form of maximalism - similarly to, say, perfectionism being, in fact, a sign of feeling insecure and of distrust in one's ability to do a good job).

I've always thought at its extreme minimalism is for those who are rich enough they can buy two/three of everything (including houses and cars). So if anything goes bad you just have a replacement ready. Everyone else better have a soldering iron, a good set of mechanic tools and boxes of spare parts

I guess I'd fall in the category of being minimalist[1].

A good part of the few things I own, are actually tools to fix the other things with or build them in the first place. Also buying fewer things, means I can optimize more easily for quality and longevity, and that there are just fewer things that can break.

Arguably, taken minimalism to the extreme, the basic tools is what you should be left with. In my opinion, the biggest problem with minimalism is, that it should be highly individualistic, whereas most societies have a big group-think component to it about how you should behave, what you should own, etc.

E.g. I don't have any specific tools or spare parts related to fixing a car, because I don't have a car, because it wouldn't add more value than cost to my life. But just because that is true for myself, doesn't make it so for someone else. And on the other hand, I own things that I value highly, but that would just gather dust in another household.

[1] I identify more with the Swedish term "Lagom", which roughly translates to "just the right amount", and is more about appreciation of what you have, not about pushing for reduction.

There's plenty you can get done with a basic variety of tools. There's also different levels of minimalism, but yes at it's extreme I'd agree.

I'd say there a lot you can get by with using a basic variety of tools. The minute you delve into really fixing modern equipment back to factory standards the need absolutely explodes.

Yes, that or a high amount of liquid wealth that you can use to pay for other people to use their tools for you.

I’m processing your comment because i think i agree. The problem is that ‘minimalist’ is a little squishy. It would be hard to argue that the Amish aren’t self-reliant. I’m just trying to figure out if they would be considered minimalist. They are low on consumerism, but they have sprawl. Relatively large farms with lots of animals and barns and equipment. Dunno.

In my own little vision for a self reliant future i see room for lots of stuff...buildings, equipment, many tools, small ag, etc. Definitely in line with your comment.

The amish absolutely are not self reliant.

They have people drive them to Costco and the court. They take buses and it is not uncommon in an Amish Community for one of them to have a phone line in a barn for emergencies.I have seen them use farm equipment that they technically shouldn't use and plenty of them just farm out the labor to someone who will use the equipment. They usually have "go to" people outside of the Amish sect that does shit for them that technically goes against their beliefs.

I have lived around Amish people my entire life. I am in a county that is famous for them. They are in no way self reliant. They are a cult that at this point, only half asses their own ideology.

Amish are definitely not minimalist. The array of tools Amish carpenters have and are skilled with is very impressive.

I wonder if minimalism is better understood as 'enough' rather than 'less'. A carpenter can have no more tools than the they need, even though that may be hundreds of tools.

It's a contentious debate. Minimalism is a large umbrella. Some people are aiming to fit everything in a backpack, and others are just trying to watch their consumption.

They might have many tools but they probably make them themselves or know by name the person who makes them. Out of close to raw material. (I’m assuming the Amish don’t mine and smelt their own metals). One modern power tool could replace many of those Amish tools but it brings with it so many more dependencies.

From what I understand, many Amish carpenters use plenty of modern battery-powered tools. There are different groups of Amish peoples, and some may be more conservative than others. It's not that they're against technology per se, but rather that they are very careful with introducing new things into their society that may be harmful.

That's not true at all. In another comment of mine I discussed this. They generally get their equipment outside of the community. They are no longer self sufficient in the sense that you think they are. They might make some shit but for sure go to Costco and stuff like that. The costco close to where I live even has a place for their horse and buggies(which should be outlawed IMO. The cruelty to horses is undeniable and the Amish don't even pay road taxes).

You have a big misconception about Amish. They are not minimalists in any sense of the word. Don't let the button thing fool you. They're just a shitty cult at this point.

What are "road taxes"? Where I'm from, highway infrastructure is funded with general taxes (property or development taxes in municipalities, or federal/provincial income and sales taxes). There are additional taxes on fuel, but that covers only a small part of roaid maintenance.

And the Amish definitely pay taxes, even for schools which they don't use. (An exception is social security in the US because they were exempted from the very start, but they can't collect it either.)

Also, how is having horses pull buggies cruelty to animals? Horses are working animals, and it's no great hardship for them to pull a buggy or a plough. They can be overworked or treated roughly, but so can any animal.

> how is having horses pull buggies cruelty to animals? horses are working animals

pretty sure that horses would disagree ;)

I've always taken it for granted that self-reliance and minimalism are contradictions in terms. The reason we have things like factories in society is because it's not practical or efficient for everyone to manufacture everything they need for themselves. By collaborating, be it from borrowing a saw from a neighbor or by building a multi-national logging corporation, this "cooperation" makes things more efficient. It's this "societal" efficiency that makes minimalism possible in the first place.

Every description I have seen of minimalism has not been centered around self-reliance, but around anti-materialism. Since we live in a society where our collective production output and efficiency is higher than it has ever been throughout human history, it's easier than ever to collect property that has limited or no real use, and consume without being mindful of the effect it has on our environment or at the very least on your own economy.

So, in my mind, "minimalism", whatever that means, is not a means to self-reliance, it's a questioning of modern consumerism and whether we are perhaps over-spending on things that do not improve our lives. Whoever is trying to combine minimalism with "prepping", "self-reliance", call it what you will, is at the very least confused in my book.

Self reliance is probably more of an ideal than minimalism.

It didn't take much for man to realize he could do more by trusting another than figuring out how to do everything on his own.

Any labour you pay is paid with your post-tax income, with sales tax on top. You'd need to work two hours to buy an hour of your own labour. You usually get paid for a fixed number of hours, so the time you save by hiring an expert can't be spent at work paying for it.

There's usually some overhead involved too: finding labour, scheduling appointments, bringing your car to the dealership etc. Doing your own oil change takes less time than driving to the garage.

You don't have to do everything on your own, but I'd save the experts for the important challenges.

Sure! But a day only has 24h and you need to work, rest&relax, eat and shop somewhere in there. If a repair job costs me 1h of time or 2h's worth of labour in money, it's not clear that I can afford the 1h of literal time.

Not to mention that a job that it might take a service 1h's worth of labour to do may take me 2-3h, amortized with the learning curve (say, 4-5h first time I try, and eventually down to 1.5-2h after I've done it a few times).

You're right. In the end, it comes down to picking your battles. There's no hard rule for which battles are worth it.

I do my own motorcycle repairs, because I sometimes stray far from the nearest mechanic, and field repairs can be necessary. I also cook a lot, because I have to eat every day and restaurants are expensive.

However, I paid someone to rebuild my forks, and I buy pre-made pie shells. Those things are not worth doing myself. My father rebuilds engines in his garage, but won't change the oil on a slush-covered car. He'll pay someone else to do it.

I guess it depends on how pleasant the job is to you, how often you need it done, and how much it costs to get it done relative to your own salary.

> I guess it depends on how pleasant the job is to you, how often you need it done, and how much it costs to get it done relative to your own salary.

Yes, this is the most important point I think.

> You usually get paid for a fixed number of hours, so the time you save by hiring an expert can't be spent at work paying for it.

That cuts both ways though. I'd rather work 28 hours/week and spend more time fixing stuff myself. But jobs largely come as 40 hours/week (there are exceptions, but they would mean compromising on field, location or both, at least for me); if I could work 70% of the time for 50% of the pay I probably would.

Oh I agree. I have saved a lot of money by learning to do many things and handling them myself but I depend on the same supply chains for tool parts that others do for razor cartridges.

The more I've read about the lives of 19th century pioneers the more I've realized that even they depended on something more akin to modern supply chains than on real self sufficiency.

Truly self reliant peoples live in poverty. I know no counter example.

I would argue self-reliance is mostly playacting these days. More so than minimalism. Sure you can learn to do basic things like cook for yourself or build furniture but the skills required to live a relatively modern lifestyle go way beyond the capabilities of one person. Are you really going to mine your own iron to smelt into steel and drill for your own oil?

It didn't take much for man to realize he could do more by trusting another than figuring out how to do everything on his own.

You cannot help anyone else unless you have some minimal level of self-reliance. That’s why airlines tell you to fit your own oxygen mask before trying to help anyone else.

> The reality is, if you wish to combine self reliance and minimalism, you essentially must embrace a life of poverty.

Some of the happiest days of my life have been when I labored to field dress a moose I had just shot and then canoe with it for days down an isolated river near the arctic. Or helping my brother build his house or working in the vegetable garden.

If you call that poverty, you're missing the point entirely.

I believe your disconnect comes from you thinking "The only kind of minimalism is extreme minimalism" which doesn't have to be true. I have a lot less "stuff" than most people, so I consider my self a minimalist, but I still have possessions I value and enjoy that I'm not capable of making or repairing myself (rifle, laptop). That's OK. Minimalism doesn't mean "Have nothing you didn't make with you own bare hands", it means "Have less things, and only the things that bring you happiness". Like so many things in life, it's not black and white like you're trying to make it out to be.

He didn’t make that 2x4 or the scrap iron, they came from hardware shops long ago.

Your dad is capable of repairing anything because he has the mindset, creativity and skills. Were he rich he could take that same self reliance down to the local hardware store and buy what he needs to repair anything.

Though arguably if he were richer he wouldn’t be repairing so much, he’d be doing something else successfully as a self reliant guy.

The higher you go the more abstract what your self brings to the table becomes. It’s obvious that your dad relies on himself and his possessions. A self reliant guy in a company can easily have his natural ability and organized self reliance hidden under metrics and overlooked by class groupings.

In OPs story, the trip to the local hardware store was hours away...

Then in what sense does self reliance and minimalism demand poverty? That’s self imposed exile.

Wow! This is a super strong and a super solid observation. Come to any small bikeshop, and you will find it packed with all kinds of parts - some of which may be laying there forever. But you will most likely come out of the shop with your very specific make and model of bike fixed. Come to a clean and seemingly well-organised and neat bike shop belonging to a corporation, and expect a turnaround time of two weeks to order your specific parts from the producer and ship them. So, indeed, for an ability to rely on the service - be prepared to stock up on things, which you may never ever need.

From what I've seen, most DIY folks spend far more (and are therefore poorer) all things considered, such as time and expense of storage space for tools and what that capital could be doing otherwise over time.

What is poverty in this respect?

Not necessarily a lack of wealth but a decrease in the material quality of life we take for granted.

For example, most people take having bread for granted. If you wish to become minimalist, the best way to attain bread is to buy it. If you wish to become self reliant then you must possess ingredients and tools for making bread such as flour, yeast, a pan and an oven. To be minimalist and self reliant you must forgo bread and eat instead for grain something like wetted millet.

Why does millet pass but bread doesn't? You dont mean the intersection includes growing millet, do you?

As far as I know millet can be eaten as a whole grain cooked with water or milk over an open flame. This would be akin to eating kernels of wheat without grinding them to flour and baking them with other ingredients.

So you could just eat wheat but IDK how digestible that is. Perhaps someone here does?Cream of Wheat and Malt'O'Meal are the closest I've had.

Quite digestible, but you have to cook it far longer, about 5–8 hours. There is a dish called Haleem that is popular in the middle east, but each country and region has their own version of it [0]. The version I am familiar with is served as breakfast food, similar to porridge. Its main component is wheat cooked overnight over low heat. Although it should be noted that it is made with wheat endosperm, not whole wheat. But buying one is no more difficult than the other.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haleem

But isn't buying millet just as un-minimalist as buying bread or wheat?

In this example eating unbaked grains would be the compromise to remain comparatively minimal and yet become more self reliant.

Another example would be simple car maintenance. A minimalist would pay for an oil change.

One may want to become more self reliant and begin changing one's own oil. In this case you will need a catch basin, a funnel, new oil and filter. You may need a jack, jack stands and a specialty wrench.

You could become both more self reliant and more minimalist by getting rid of your car. If you live in an area with good transportation you will become slightly inconvenienced. If you live in a place with bad transportation you will become significantly impoverished.

What on earth are y'all talking about?! Buying unbaked grains to eat is to become self reliant? That's just unrealistic and makes no sense.

Why not buy bread (as GP said), cut it, and freeze it? Surely that would be a minimalist approach.

Minimalism is not reinventing how to do everything, but just having what's needed now. If bread is your breakfast, then it's what's needed daily.

FYI: it's possible to be a mechanic and a minimalist. Owning equipment in a garage is not anti-minimalism, it's just common sense. Especially if you have multiple cars (e.g. a family).

Again, buying millet or raw wheat instead of bread is not more minimalist it is more self reliant. You are not using as much of other people's services.

Imagine instead that you grow your own wheat. You can cook the grain for hours over an open fire. And poor people did such with various grains as their daily meal for generations. That's a state that's pretty minimalist, pretty self reliant and pretty impoverished.

But if you want to make bread you must possess a mill to grind it, a source of yeast and all the other implements to make bread. To decrease your poverty you have to decrease you minimalism by owning all these things and now having them as a concern in your life or you must decrease your self reliance and depend on someone else having a mill to grind your flour or bakery to have an oven.

Trust me, as someone who is very DIY. The more self reliant you become, the less minimal your life becomes.

> The reality is, if you wish to combine self reliance and minimalism, you essentially must embrace a life of poverty.

Why?

If you take minimalism to the extreme, and keep stripping away until reaching the bare essentials of living, then the basic tools and materials are what you left with.

It would be "against" minimalism (which is not well defined anyway) to buy say a chain saw because you think you might need it one day or need it for a one off job, instead of borrowing it from a neighbor or yes, paying (monetary or through favors) someone to do it.

Nothing wrong with relying on society to a degree.

If you want to be self reliant without having a lot of money to waste, you'll have to practice minimalism. Not the inner city hipster version of it, but being mindful of what the utility and value of all the things you have is.

The missing pieces of the conversation are "How self reliant?" and "Self-reliant from what?"

Are you trying to be a homesteader, entirely off-grid and not reliant on society? Or are you trying to be financially self-reliant, not relying on a paycheck? Or are you trying to be personally less reliant on things and items? These are all different ideas that get wrapped up into this conversation, and like the OP said, they're not all compatible.

If you want to be an off-grid homesteader, you're going to need a lot of tools, materials and skills. If you want to be less reliant on things, then you are going to have to be content with being able to do less.

None of those things are bad, but the conversation is incomplete if we don't make clear what we're really talking about when we talking about self-reliance and minimalism.

While I agree that pieces are missing for a full conversation, I disagree with the simplification that minimalism is mainly about wanting to be less reliant on things or just having less for the sake of having less.

Minimalism is about having what is essential to a fulfill a certain need or goal. What is essential varies from person to person and of course is vastly different whatever we are talking about a software engineer living in a city apartment vs. a farmer.

So I see minimalism being about prioritization. During "normal" circumstances it is pretty much purely voluntary, but the more self reliant you want to be, the more it becomes a necessity. With limited resources you have to prioritize what tools, skills and materials you acquire in what order, quality and quantity. You end up with good enough, minimal solutions for a lot of the problems.

My farmer grand parents where 10x the minimalists I ever was in my view. But for them, it was just how they grew up, not a lifestyle choice about aesthetics.

> You end up with good enough, minimal solutions for a lot of the problems.

This is what I mean by poverty. Most people who are ingenious live a balance of self reliance, minimalism (usually due to lack of money) and poverty.

By poverty I do not mean that taking one step into self reliance makes you instantly impoverished but it frequently means doing without some luxury or need fullfiled that people are accustomed to. It usually comes in the form of "making do".

> If you want to be self reliant without having a lot of money to waste, you'll have to practice minimalism. Not the inner city hipster version of it, but being mindful of what the utility and value of all the things you have is.

No you don't. A big pile of junk is no drain on your self-reliance; if you're living in the kind of place where you can even begin to hope to produce your own food then space is not going to be an issue.

Its not about whether to have a pile of junk or not, but its utility.

My fathers side of the family is all farmers for generations. They piled up a lot of junk and reused continously around the properties. But those weren't just random piles, but sorted and to a degree inventoried and cleaned so it can be used efficiently.

They could e.g. plan ahead for new projects how much can be build from scrap vs new materials.

Sure just throwing stuff on a pile doesnt cost you anything, but i dont see how you are going to reuse that stuff somewhat efficiently later without upfront assigning some value to different types of junk

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