Comment by softg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by softg | Hacker News Reader

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> This was typical, to be expected a century ago, but with the nature of marketing and social pressure

It might be typical and expected but that doesn't mean it was desirable even then. People lived that way because they had to. It was always considered a difficult way of life. It's more likely that people gave it up as soon as they could when they had the chance.

I think there are two different concepts here. You can be materially minimalist, i.e. you can refuse to buy superfluous consumer products that are pushed by marketing etc. You will still need housing, healthcare and transportation (assuming that you have to drive to work). Those things have very real objective benefits and their widespread adoption can't be explained with marketing or social pressure. And you won't be able to get those for 100 dollars a month (correct me if I'm wrong). If you are foregoing those as well you're not just materially minimalist, you're basically going off-grid and abandoning civilization altogether.

You don’t need to go back that far. Even the quality of life circa 1950 would be very inexpensive to have today. But then you have less electronics, toys, clothes, food variety etc. This would cost more than $100 a month today, but it would be dramatically cheaper than the typical modern lifestyle.

With remote work, I’m not sure you really need transportation. If you do, a bicycle is $50. But again I’m not sure why you’d be commuting to a job daily in a car if the presumed objective is to have less expenses so you can work less.

We could quibble about the exact numbers, but my general point is just that quality of life expectations have increased so much, that if one can somehow "hack" this, living very inexpensively is quite doable – and comparable to how everyone lived not so long ago.

The variety of electronics, toys, clothes or food available to an average person has definitely increased and I agree that one can spend less and maybe even work less (depending on what line of work they are in) by avoiding them. That's true.

The problem is they are not the big expenses that improve someone's quality of life. Decent housing, health insurance/healthcare, education and transportation are the big spending items for most people, not toys or even phones. Most of the things you mentioned are affordable to almost everyone in the developed world, maybe in an inferior form (like a huawei instead of an apple, h&m instead of gap) but still available.

For an average joe who has two kids and has to be at work because most people can't and don't work remotely even today, "hacking" inexpensive living isn't so much about giving up on their huawei phone or h&m clothes. It's more about giving up on having a decent place to live, giving up on their children's education, not being able to commute to work, etc. And that's not quite doable at all.

>I’m not sure why you’d be commuting to a job daily in a car if the presumed objective is to have less expenses so you can work less

Because you need a backup plan for when you lose that job. Or your employer does not increase your wages and you need other employers to sell to to earn income that keeps up with your expenses.

Where could I have a heated, waterproof, space with running water and electricity for $100/month, or even close to that? Lots of people live in houses that were around in 1950, without significant changes, and none of them are paying $100/month for rent, water and electricity.

Nowhere, because that’s not the claim I made. Read my comments again. I said $100 (as a rough estimate) for a QOL comparable to a hundred years ago. Then I said a 1950s QOL would cost more than $100 but still be cheaper than most modern spenders.

The other problem with this argument not noted above is that goods are ordered in many cases.

It would be possible to substantially reduce costs, but only by living among people who are objectively poor by current standards. Without passing any judgement, this brings disadvantages of its own. Where could we live on the reduced income without also forgoing society with educated, liberal, cosmopolitan people? To me that’s the harder part to give up than an iPhone each year or cable tv.

>Even the quality of life circa 1950

Sure, go back to the post war era where countries right after the point we started building massive amounts of infrastructure debt to say 'look how good things are' with absolutely no understanding the situation was untenable. Houses leaked energy like mad, and we were already full bore pulling coal out of the ground to fuel that growth. And, jeesh, the chemicals we were releasing at the time were not pleasant at all.

You are looking for a golden past that didn't exist.

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