4 ms·
The amount of stuff you have is the difference between the amount of stuff you acquire and the amount of stuff you sell or discard. This essay does a pretty goo
by kylec 14y ago
The amount of stuff you have is the difference between the amount of stuff you acquire and the amount of stuff you sell or discard. This essay does a pretty good job of covering the former, but the only mention of the latter is the following:
And yet when I got back I didn't discard so much as a box of it.
Throw away a perfectly good rotary telephone? I might need that
one day.
I wish this idea was expanded upon more. One of the contributing factors as to why poorer people tend to have more stuff is because the cost of discarding or selling and subsequently replacing stuff is higher than simply storing it. If you have a well-paying job or are otherwise independently wealthy, it's easy to throw away a $20 rotary phone because you know you can just go out and buy a new one without inconvenience.
There's also the compunction against discarding something that still works or is still useful. For example, I know quite a few people that have old computers gathering dust because their owner has subsequently replaced them with faster machines, but hasn't discarded the old ones because they're still operable and might be useful for a side project or something.
I'm not really sure what the solution to either of those things is. Perhaps we need some sort of market where stuff is more of a liquid commodity than it is now - if there's less of a financial penalty to selling and repurchasing, and if it's easier for perfectly good items to be sold for another's use, it might enable people to have the option to have less stuff.
- nlawalker 14y ago> some sort of market Garage sales! Seriously, though, garage sales exist because most stuff is so cheap and disposable to begin with that if you tried to sell it for what someone would actually pay for it, you'd be lucky to break even after any shipping, transaction fees and the value of any personal time/effort you put into the process. So, you have a garage sale: you sell it (or at least show it) in all bulk, all at once to minimize effort, with zero transaction or shipping fees. Of course, making the effort to visit a garage sale has a non-negligible cost for the (potential) buyer. There are already thriving markets for stuff that's not cheap and disposable - electronics/phones, recreational/sports equipment, furniture, cars, etc. As for the compunction against discarding something that still works, my solution is to donate it to Goodwill (whatever you do, don't throw it away if it's "perfectly good") and take it as a lesson learned - think harder before buying this item, or an item like it, again.
- ChuckMcM 14y agoFor stuff that is hard to characterize (like the aforementioned "vintage" computers) garage sales don't really cut it. At my previous garage sale I had a VAXStation 4000/VLC with a VT-220 terminal on it running VMS for sale ($25 or make offer). A lot of "Oh I remember those!" but no actual interest in acquiring it. Whereas EBay used to be a good venue for that, because there was a critical mass of people you could often find at least one person who would buy something. That said, I bought my HeNe laser at a garage sale nearby for $15. It is of course much less convienient than a laser pointer and at 2mW not very bright, but scores for me on the coolness factor. I always wanted a laser as a kid and being able to acquire one scratched that itch.
- minikomi 14y agoI distinctly remember offloading a standalone midi recorder on eBay (pretty much useless with the advent of cheap computing) to an ecstatic older man with crazy white hair who would use it to create DIY automated church organs. Felt very good having it find a home!
- dennisgorelik 14y agoIsn't it cheaper to throw old stuff away than sell it on eBay/garage sale/etc.?
- TeMPOraL 14y agoUnfortunately yes, and that is rapidly making our world a worse place to live. We keep throwing away stuff and making more, instead of reusing the old, thus wasting resources and unnecessarily polluting.
- lmm 14y agoWaste of resources is self-correcting. If we were ever to run short of e.g. aluminium, scrap prices would go up and it would become worth selling old things rather than throwing them away.