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Comment by ntoskrnl | Hacker News Reader

I'd give anything to get rid of my phone, but almost everyone you do business with (DMV, electric/gas/water company, etc) expects you to have one. Same thing with USPS and their paper spam. At this point they're little more than government-mandated spam delivery channels. Private companies are handling the spam situation infinitely better.

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I don't think I agree with that. I rarely get scams via USPS, never get explicit or potentially damaging content, the senders are all in my legal jurisdiction, and the spam arrives once per day in a manageable format. Almost all of the content is from businesses in my local area, businesses that I have previously shopped at, or political ads.

Electronically from private companies I frequently get a larger volume of spam, malware, scams, explicit content, and most of them originate outside of my legal jurisdiction to evade the law. And it's a steady stream all day, on multiple mediums.

I'd take 10x the amount of spam in my mailbox if I could get rid of all of the rest of the garbage I'm bombarded with. I obviously would rather not have any of it, but the hoops you have to jump through to send snail-mail inherently filters out most of the worst garbage.

> I'd take 10x the amount of spam in my mailbox if I could get rid of all of the rest of the garbage I'm bombarded with

I for one would not. Digital spam is easy to deal with. There are automated filters, easy ways to block them, and the few that slip through are simple to deal with. Mailbox spam is physically painful to deal with and it's a massive waste of paper.

Email is the least of my problems. If you know of any good filters for SMS, phone calls, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Instagram, etc, I'd be very interested. I have to mute all of them because it is a constant stream of garbage from all of them.

For Snapchat/LinkedIn/Instagram: just close your account and put email filters?

In that case, the problem is just as easy to solve with snail mail. Remove your mailbox and your mail will be returned as undeliverable.

You are legally required to be reachable by mail by the US government. Unless you're planning on being an undocumented citizen living on US land off the grid, you will need a mail box.

Paper is a renewable resource, and also a carbon sink. Throw it in the garbage and consider it carbon sequestration.

Unfortunately I'd bet that the paper production and delivery to your mailbox emits much more carbon than the paper itself sequesters.

Exclude that as a sunk cost: the paper is coming to your mailbox either way. The only difference is, does the carbon get sequestered in the dump, or does it prevent another artificially-fast-growing pine from being processed into paper? Which of those options is less damaging? I don’t have the data, but I feel like it’s probably pretty close.

Long term, the paper will decompose while sitting in the landfill and then release the carbon back into the atmosphere. Even temporary sequestration is beneficial, but I don’t know whether it is still a net positive once you factor in the resources spent growing the wood, mailing the paper, and transporting it to a landfill.

Many landfills in the US capture carbon emissions. My local landfill sells their methane to the local gas utility.

Many US landfills capture methane, since they can then profitably sell/burn it. I haven't seen anything about them capturing all the CO2 emitted, which would be much trickier.

And then people burn the methane in their stove, thus producing CO2.

It is without a doubt a shameful waste, but how is it physically painful? Did you get a paper cut

Personally I find it emotionally painful and depressing to deal with. It sucks to be physically confronted with the reality that my personal contact information is being passed around like a bitch in prison.

I have the idea (maybe wrongly) that people don't often use the USPS for scams because committing fraud by mail is a federal crime, and the postal service actually has inspectors with police powers who don't fool around once they get on the scent.

>I have the idea (maybe wrongly) that people don't often use the USPS for scams because committing fraud by mail is a federal crime, and the postal service actually has inspectors with police powers who don't fool around once they get on the scent.

Apparently, mail fraud[0] (via USPS) and wire fraud[1] (electronic communications) are both Federal felonies punishable by a fine and up to 20 years imprisonment.

Perhaps the difference would be FBI investigating instead of the postal inspectors?

More detail here[2].

N.B.: IANAL

[0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1341

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1343

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_and_wire_fraud

It’s illegal to scam people electronically too. People often scam internationally to evade capture. Email is just considerably cheaper to send internationally and easier to spoof the source.

How many letters do you have to send before you find someone stupid enough to believe that they have to pay the IRS via gift card and that the IRS return address is in Russia? If anyone has tried, they went bankrupt on postage.

You aren't mandated to have mail or phone.

Edit: Noting a lot of downvotes on this comment, which is odd. I can only conclude one thing- don't be Amish on HN.

Perhaps this could be an opportunity to explore a different way of life, and a different community structure. It is not all horse buggies and barns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6SlJZk5guI&list=PLEyPgwIPkH...

Sure, I could move to the woods and live off wild berries for the rest of my days. But if you want to be part of modern society, your bank will mail you your credit card, and your water company will text you a code to login and pay. Realistically, what choice do you have?

> Sure, I could move to the woods and live off wild berries for the rest of my days

You'd probably just be removed from someones property eventually.

Do you not encounter Amish people where you live?

I wasn't offended and didn't downvote you. But the Amish do receive mail and use phones.

First article I found: https://amishamerica.com/do-amish-use-telephones/

> But the Amish do receive mail and use phones.

I am assuming you don't mean to generalize to the degree that is being conveyed at first glance in your explainer comment.

Amish people are not a monolith. As a culture it is quite a spectrum, from Beachy to Swartzentruber.

My experience is based on visits to an Amish town in Ohio when I was growing up in the 2000s. I distinctly remember being surprised to see they used phones and rode in cars. But that was a long time ago and only one town of many. I didn't mean to generalize all Amish communities.

No worries. It takes all kinds. Who knows, maybe you re-examine the culture and find some things you'd like to take home to your community.

Every community decides for itself what technologies to adapt. The nearest to me have a single phone booth in the front yard of one member's house. Anyone wants to use the phone, they go there to make a call, and most only use it if they need to make an appointment at a hospital for serious illnesses.

Others not quite as close are a fair degree more liberal in what they adopt, while I imagine there's probably a few that are more strict.

I'm pretty sure you are mandated to have mail in the US, or rather the mails are mandated to deliver to you. IIRC it's constitutional.

> I'm pretty sure you are mandated to have mail in the US, or rather the mails are mandated to deliver to you. IIRC it's constitutional.

You'd be incorrect. Ask your postmaster.

They are correct. The USPS has a universal service obligation. If you send a letter or parcel to any address in the US, the post office must deliver it.

I respectfully disagree. The postal service is held to a standard of service by a USO - Universal Service Obligation. [0]

This means it is an org mandated to accept your request for service at a reasonable price regardless of your location of residence. There is an important distinction between that, and being mandated to receive mail service. That is not a stipulation of being alive in USA.

[0] - https://www.uspsoig.gov/blog/postal-service-and-its-obligati...

Just imagine, every drifter, nomad and homeless person were required to set up a mailbox. It's just silly.

>Just imagine, every drifter, nomad and homeless person were required to set up a mailbox. It's just silly.

They don't have to. Just have mail sent to:

  Joe/Jane Drifter
  General Delivery
  TownNearWhereYouSquat, <State> <ZipCode of post office>

Or at least that's how it's been done for decades.

Yeah but they never have to come in and pick it up and I doubt the post office retains that mail in perpetuity until it’s picked up.

https://www.usglobalmail.com/usps-general-delivery/

I can understand the concept of Amish communities not having telephones or mailboxes, but that lifestyle seems inconsistent with the behavior of arguing for the merits of that lifestyle on Hacker News.

Beachy Amish, it's fine.

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