6 ms·

Hackers on happiness & tiny houses, plus The Story of Stuff

37 points by fogus 17y ago

NathanKP 17y ago
I highly recommend that you watch the film mentioned: "The Story of Stuff". It is a very detailed look at how companies drive consumerism to keep the economy going at the expense of third world countries.
- indiejade 17y ago
  Linkage: http://www.storyofstuff.com/ http://www.storyofstuff.com/ Have not watched the video, but this is a great article. I find downsizing living to be such a relief; it's almost like having a burden lifted. One thing that drives me kinda nuts to have too much "stuff" to worry about. Quantity of possessions grows to accumulate in the space a person lives; smaller space = less room for frivolous items. Makes a lot of sense.
  - quellhorst 17y ago
    It only grows if you have the wrong mindset. I love open spaces with less stuff!
- araneae 17y ago
  I started watching it, but then stopped when she started going through the "corporations are evil" bit. She deliberately chose to paint government as good and corporations as bad even though they are both only composed of people, who are just looking out for their self-interest, trying to get money from other people, who are also just looking out for their self interest. It's a intellectual shortcut to paint corporations OR government as evil, and not accurate or meaningful at all.
  - sleepingbot 17y ago
    Thank you for sharing your experience/opinion.
    - sleepingbot 17y ago
      Or maybe I should say the ideas of Adam Smith and others on the pursuit of the self interest leading to happiness and wealth are an appealing and interesting notion, but difficult to work "out of the box"?
      - sleepingbot 17y ago
        Confirmed. It's personal. Anyway.
  - NathanKP 17y ago
    Actually in my experience she painted government as evil as well. She clearly points out how governments give corporations the power to do what they do. In addition, I see no reason why painting government or corporations as evil is a bad thing because when it comes down to it, what they are doing to third world countries is evil. We execute murderers for killing people. Yet corporations are killing people overseas by poisoning and maiming them in dangerous factories. I see no reason why calling a corporation evil is not accurate or not meaningful.
    - gcheong 17y ago
      If we restrict the freedom of other countries to trade freely with us or each other we would be killing a lot more people.
      - NathanKP 17y ago
        That is a good point. However, trade doesn't have to mean abuse of third world countries.
        gcheong 17y ago
        You're right and my argument is that most of the time it does not - certainly not to the extent of what this video would have you believe anyway. I'll even provide as much evidence for my argument as the video does for her argument by saying "I've researched it and it's true" ;^).
        NathanKP 17y ago
        Okay, fair enough.
    - roqetman 17y ago
      I think the point the OP was making was that both corporations and governments are made up of people. I agree with this; a corporation and a government is not a physical entity, and can therefore not be evil. However, people can act evil in the name of that entity. Personally, I think that as soon as we try to brand a group of people, we lose the argument.
- by 17y ago
  Rather than downloading the multi-megabyte video, which requires much more consumption of stuff, I found the PDF version here and read that instead http://www.storyofstuff.com/pdfs/annie_leonard_footnoted_script.pdf http://www.storyofstuff.com/pdfs/annie_leonard_footnoted_scr... I would have preferred an HTML version because PDF is a newer, more complex, format that forces us to use newer, heavier applications to read. PDF is incompatible with old and lightweight computers so it forces us to buy powerful new computers and throw away our old ones. Given an HTML version I could have consumed even less stuff.
Quarrelsome 17y ago
It's highly recommended that we all watch every single documentry by Adam Curtis, including "The Centuary of Self". His stuff is gold IMO, opinionated, but gold. If you want a taster check out the latest series running on his blog about the history of Afghanistan: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2009/09/kabul_city_number_one.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2009/09/kabul_city_num...
- sleepingbot 17y ago
  Agree. You just defined the heavyweight BBC-type documentaries that led to this series.
- bretthoerner 17y ago
  "The Century of the Self" in 4 parts. http://www.archive.org/details/AdaCurtisCenturyoftheSelf_0 http://www.archive.org/details/AdaCurtisCenturyoftheSelf_0 http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPart2of4 http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPar... http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPart3of4 http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPar... http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPart4of4_0 http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPar...
  - sleepingbot 17y ago
    Also, you can find the same documents on Google Video. I share the search "google video the century on the self" on Google. http://tinyurl.com/yb7kluz http://tinyurl.com/yb7kluz The Google Video link: http://tinyurl.com/yd5ptt6 http://tinyurl.com/yd5ptt6
    - fnid 17y ago
      down modded for the short urls. Please use the full urls here. HN shortens them automatically.
      - sleepingbot 17y ago
gcheong 17y ago
I highly recommend everyone watch Penn and Teller's "Bullshit" series.
stcredzero 17y ago
I intend to build my own. http://www.shelter-kit.com/kits.php?kit=barnhouse http://www.shelter-kit.com/kits.php?kit=barnhouse
DanielBMarkham 17y ago
I started reading the PDF, and I found several errors on just the first couple of pages. I also found information that was sourced to warresisters.org, greenpeace, commenweal.org, etc. I'm not trying to be harsh -- I'm sure the video is of high quality -- but when you say things like "In 2003, humanity’s Footprint exceeded the Earth’s biological capacity by over 25 percent" or "In the past three decades, one-third of the planet’s resources, its ‘natural wealth,’ has been consumed" there is certainly room for debate about these things. Debate which probably doesn't belong here. Flagged.
- sleepingbot 17y ago
  A very scientific approach.
- nkurz 17y ago
  Which PDF? The URL I followed brought me to a interesting blog post with good but speculative discussion about the perspective of 'hackers' vs 'greenies' on mass consumption. Did you really flag this link because somewhere within it there is a link to a PDF that includes unreliable sources? That's a pretty tough standard! :)
  - sleepingbot 17y ago
    Reading all the comments, I came to the conclusion he probably refers to this coment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=940369 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=940369 It would be great if he can confirm so.
    - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
      Yes. I didn't have bandwidth for the video, so downloaded the PDF and scanned it as I had time. If I missed the point of the article, doh! I was relying on the other comment.
      - nkurz 17y ago
        The PDF is a transcript of a video that is linked from 15th paragraph of the article, but is just one of many linked videos. The actual article is a response from the author (approximately) of the recent HN post about the 100 square foot house. The article itself is good, and you might enjoy it. I skipped the video, which is probably flawed in the ways you suggest. But maybe you could unflag the interesting link to the response in the meantime? :)
mattmaroon 17y ago
The problem with tiny houses would seem to be resale value. I personally don't want a large house necessarily, but I want a really nice one. I want top of the line counters, ceramic floors, top-notch appliances, etc. It's not so much that I want more stuff, in fact I probably want less. It's more than I want nicer stuff. I think that's not uncommon. (It's also why if I had an infinite bankroll, my next startup would make a luxury version of the Corolla, but I digress.) The problem is that if I put all that stuff into some tiny house, I'm stuck with it pretty much forever. Nobody else who can afford that stuff wants a 65 square ft house, or at least so few that I have no hope of getting a fair market value. It seems unlikely that will change, especially since by the time you can sanely afford these things you're probably near having a family. One extremely way in which people value homes is $/sq.ft. Compare a 65 sq ft home to a 4,000 sq ft one, both with top of the line everything, and you're probably left with a market value about equal to what your dishwasher cost. If I buy a 4,000 sq ft home and load it up I'll be able to sell it 10 years from now. Barring the very rare bubble bursting (like we're experiencing now) I'll probably be able to sell it for more than I paid for it. If I buy a 65 sq ft home and load it up, I'll be out a bundle. So if money is not a constraint and you just want a smaller home, I think you have to find the happy median. Get a fully loaded 1,500 sq ft house and hell, just leave half of the rooms empty. There's certainly some size below which you're hemorrhaging money on the deal, and I imagine it's at least 1,500 sq ft here in Middle America. If you have so much money that you don't care about resale value and you do care quite a bit about the environment this is probably fine. If you want laminate counters, vinyl floors, and cheap appliances, this solution might also be fine too. But for a large segment of the market this is unfortunately financially untenable, no matter how appealing.
- fortes 17y ago
  I've heard multiple people say something similar to what you just said: "I don't actually want a large house, but that's what I need in order to sell it." Perhaps fashion trends will change, but "Bigger is better" seems pretty ingrained into human thinking. (Not surprisingly, people often find something to do with that space, and then they really do need the space, a sad loop.)
- masomenos 17y ago
balding_n_tired 17y ago
1. Sigmund Freud lectured in the US in 1909, when Bernays was a teenager. 2. Planned obsolence: I see 40-year old cars and pickup trucks here and there. On the one hand, a lot of cars could be run longer before replacement. On the other hand, an older car is vastly less safe, without airbags or crumple zones, and the older car (ignoring manufacturing costs) pollutes more. And how many on HN work on old computers? America was settled during a period when technology rapidly advanced and obsolescence did not have to be planned.
- ams6110 17y ago
  I drive a 26 year old car and my home computer is a six year old Macintosh.

37 points by fogus 17y ago

I highly recommend that you watch the film mentioned: "The Story of Stuff". It is a very detailed look at how companies drive consumerism to keep the economy going at the expense of third world countries.

indiejade 17y ago
Linkage: http://www.storyofstuff.com/ http://www.storyofstuff.com/ Have not watched the video, but this is a great article. I find downsizing living to be such a relief; it's almost like having a burden lifted. One thing that drives me kinda nuts to have too much "stuff" to worry about. Quantity of possessions grows to accumulate in the space a person lives; smaller space = less room for frivolous items. Makes a lot of sense.
- quellhorst 17y ago
  It only grows if you have the wrong mindset. I love open spaces with less stuff!
araneae 17y ago
I started watching it, but then stopped when she started going through the "corporations are evil" bit. She deliberately chose to paint government as good and corporations as bad even though they are both only composed of people, who are just looking out for their self-interest, trying to get money from other people, who are also just looking out for their self interest. It's a intellectual shortcut to paint corporations OR government as evil, and not accurate or meaningful at all.
- sleepingbot 17y ago
  Thank you for sharing your experience/opinion.
  - sleepingbot 17y ago
    Or maybe I should say the ideas of Adam Smith and others on the pursuit of the self interest leading to happiness and wealth are an appealing and interesting notion, but difficult to work "out of the box"?
    - sleepingbot 17y ago
      Confirmed. It's personal. Anyway.
- NathanKP 17y ago
  Actually in my experience she painted government as evil as well. She clearly points out how governments give corporations the power to do what they do. In addition, I see no reason why painting government or corporations as evil is a bad thing because when it comes down to it, what they are doing to third world countries is evil. We execute murderers for killing people. Yet corporations are killing people overseas by poisoning and maiming them in dangerous factories. I see no reason why calling a corporation evil is not accurate or not meaningful.
  - gcheong 17y ago
    If we restrict the freedom of other countries to trade freely with us or each other we would be killing a lot more people.
    - NathanKP 17y ago
      That is a good point. However, trade doesn't have to mean abuse of third world countries.
      - gcheong 17y ago
        You're right and my argument is that most of the time it does not - certainly not to the extent of what this video would have you believe anyway. I'll even provide as much evidence for my argument as the video does for her argument by saying "I've researched it and it's true" ;^).
        NathanKP 17y ago
        Okay, fair enough.
  - roqetman 17y ago
    I think the point the OP was making was that both corporations and governments are made up of people. I agree with this; a corporation and a government is not a physical entity, and can therefore not be evil. However, people can act evil in the name of that entity. Personally, I think that as soon as we try to brand a group of people, we lose the argument.
by 17y ago
Rather than downloading the multi-megabyte video, which requires much more consumption of stuff, I found the PDF version here and read that instead http://www.storyofstuff.com/pdfs/annie_leonard_footnoted_script.pdf http://www.storyofstuff.com/pdfs/annie_leonard_footnoted_scr... I would have preferred an HTML version because PDF is a newer, more complex, format that forces us to use newer, heavier applications to read. PDF is incompatible with old and lightweight computers so it forces us to buy powerful new computers and throw away our old ones. Given an HTML version I could have consumed even less stuff.

Quarrelsome 17y ago

It's highly recommended that we all watch every single documentry by Adam Curtis, including "The Centuary of Self". His stuff is gold IMO, opinionated, but gold. If you want a taster check out the latest series running on his blog about the history of Afghanistan: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2009/09/kabul_city_number_one.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2009/09/kabul_city_num...

sleepingbot 17y ago
Agree. You just defined the heavyweight BBC-type documentaries that led to this series.
bretthoerner 17y ago
"The Century of the Self" in 4 parts. http://www.archive.org/details/AdaCurtisCenturyoftheSelf_0 http://www.archive.org/details/AdaCurtisCenturyoftheSelf_0 http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPart2of4 http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPar... http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPart3of4 http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPar... http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPart4of4_0 http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPar...
- sleepingbot 17y ago
  Also, you can find the same documents on Google Video. I share the search "google video the century on the self" on Google. http://tinyurl.com/yb7kluz http://tinyurl.com/yb7kluz The Google Video link: http://tinyurl.com/yd5ptt6 http://tinyurl.com/yd5ptt6
  - fnid 17y ago
    down modded for the short urls. Please use the full urls here. HN shortens them automatically.
    - sleepingbot 17y ago

gcheong 17y ago

I highly recommend everyone watch Penn and Teller's "Bullshit" series.

stcredzero 17y ago

I intend to build my own. http://www.shelter-kit.com/kits.php?kit=barnhouse http://www.shelter-kit.com/kits.php?kit=barnhouse

DanielBMarkham 17y ago

I started reading the PDF, and I found several errors on just the first couple of pages. I also found information that was sourced to warresisters.org, greenpeace, commenweal.org, etc. I'm not trying to be harsh -- I'm sure the video is of high quality -- but when you say things like "In 2003, humanity’s Footprint exceeded the Earth’s biological capacity by over 25 percent" or "In the past three decades, one-third of the planet’s resources, its ‘natural wealth,’ has been consumed" there is certainly room for debate about these things. Debate which probably doesn't belong here. Flagged.

sleepingbot 17y ago
A very scientific approach.
nkurz 17y ago
Which PDF? The URL I followed brought me to a interesting blog post with good but speculative discussion about the perspective of 'hackers' vs 'greenies' on mass consumption. Did you really flag this link because somewhere within it there is a link to a PDF that includes unreliable sources? That's a pretty tough standard! :)
- sleepingbot 17y ago
  Reading all the comments, I came to the conclusion he probably refers to this coment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=940369 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=940369 It would be great if he can confirm so.
  - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
    Yes. I didn't have bandwidth for the video, so downloaded the PDF and scanned it as I had time. If I missed the point of the article, doh! I was relying on the other comment.
    - nkurz 17y ago
      The PDF is a transcript of a video that is linked from 15th paragraph of the article, but is just one of many linked videos. The actual article is a response from the author (approximately) of the recent HN post about the 100 square foot house. The article itself is good, and you might enjoy it. I skipped the video, which is probably flawed in the ways you suggest. But maybe you could unflag the interesting link to the response in the meantime? :)

mattmaroon 17y ago

The problem with tiny houses would seem to be resale value. I personally don't want a large house necessarily, but I want a really nice one. I want top of the line counters, ceramic floors, top-notch appliances, etc. It's not so much that I want more stuff, in fact I probably want less. It's more than I want nicer stuff. I think that's not uncommon. (It's also why if I had an infinite bankroll, my next startup would make a luxury version of the Corolla, but I digress.) The problem is that if I put all that stuff into some tiny house, I'm stuck with it pretty much forever. Nobody else who can afford that stuff wants a 65 square ft house, or at least so few that I have no hope of getting a fair market value. It seems unlikely that will change, especially since by the time you can sanely afford these things you're probably near having a family. One extremely way in which people value homes is $/sq.ft. Compare a 65 sq ft home to a 4,000 sq ft one, both with top of the line everything, and you're probably left with a market value about equal to what your dishwasher cost. If I buy a 4,000 sq ft home and load it up I'll be able to sell it 10 years from now. Barring the very rare bubble bursting (like we're experiencing now) I'll probably be able to sell it for more than I paid for it. If I buy a 65 sq ft home and load it up, I'll be out a bundle. So if money is not a constraint and you just want a smaller home, I think you have to find the happy median. Get a fully loaded 1,500 sq ft house and hell, just leave half of the rooms empty. There's certainly some size below which you're hemorrhaging money on the deal, and I imagine it's at least 1,500 sq ft here in Middle America. If you have so much money that you don't care about resale value and you do care quite a bit about the environment this is probably fine. If you want laminate counters, vinyl floors, and cheap appliances, this solution might also be fine too. But for a large segment of the market this is unfortunately financially untenable, no matter how appealing.

fortes 17y ago
I've heard multiple people say something similar to what you just said: "I don't actually want a large house, but that's what I need in order to sell it." Perhaps fashion trends will change, but "Bigger is better" seems pretty ingrained into human thinking. (Not surprisingly, people often find something to do with that space, and then they really do need the space, a sad loop.)
masomenos 17y ago

balding_n_tired 17y ago

1. Sigmund Freud lectured in the US in 1909, when Bernays was a teenager. 2. Planned obsolence: I see 40-year old cars and pickup trucks here and there. On the one hand, a lot of cars could be run longer before replacement. On the other hand, an older car is vastly less safe, without airbags or crumple zones, and the older car (ignoring manufacturing costs) pollutes more. And how many on HN work on old computers? America was settled during a period when technology rapidly advanced and obsolescence did not have to be planned.

ams6110 17y ago
I drive a 26 year old car and my home computer is a six year old Macintosh.