SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Phys.org reports:
The idea of a life lived modestly is gaining traction. Ten years ago, Samantha Weinberg, a mother of two young children, spent a year not shopping. Her aim was to reduce her environmental impact. The next year, Mark Boyle, founder of the online Freeconomy community, embarked on a life without money in order to sever his connection with it. Since then, others have joined this "Not Spending" movement.
Frugality has its limitations. Not everyone is able-bodied enough to cycle, and if we all started foraging for wild food it would deprive non-human species of nutrients and disrupt local ecosystems. While minimalism has found new converts, especially in Japan, this extreme approach is unlikely to go mainstream.
Perhaps a more realistic hope is for a steady rise in the number of people who discover that pursuing non-material riches brings greater happiness than the getting and spending of money. In fact, significant numbers of "voluntary simplifiers" have been choosing and enjoying lives of material simplicity for decades.
Have Soylentils found greater happiness through simplification?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by looorg on Saturday April 08 2017, @06:07AM (2 children)
Since I'm not rich nor wealthy I don't really have anything to compare with as far as happiness goes, but I don't think over the years I have become happier due to possession accumulation. But then sure I might at least be temporarily happy when I get new interesting things that I want, it just doesn't last.
"Not spending" movement. Sounds like bullshit to me. Even if I moved out to the farm on a more permanent basis again I wouldn't or couldn't stop shopping. If things really went downhill I gather one could resort to bartering again but still there are some things I like from the store that I just can't get any other way, ok - someone else could buy them and then I trade with them for something but then someone went to the store and bought something I wanted so I might as well do it to begin with.
I don't go out of my way to accumulate things but they just seem to add up over the years, the problem I think is that I rarely go thru them and sort of stuff I don't want or need anymore. It's not like I'm a crazy hoarder or anything but things just pile up eventually over time if you don't sort things out. I'm just really bad at the sorting and tossing thing. Talked to a friend yesterday, he had cleared out his old barn that was used for storage. Things has sort of just been put in there over the years - out of sight out of mind. But he was going to make an effort now to clean it out to use it for other things, all in all he found about 800kg of various metal junk and 84 spare tires for cars among other things. I asked how he got so many tires, his explanation was that when you junk the car you don't usually bring the spare or winter-tires so they are just taken out - if you sell the car you include them. So they pile up over the years.
If we all started to forage in the woods there wouldn't be enough woods to go around for everyone. Take a large city today - million+ people living there. That would have to be one heck of a forest to feed those people on things they could just forage and live on it around the year. Their would be mass-migration from forest to forest as we clean it out like locust. Plus most people would die horribly since they don't have the skills required to forage or hunt. They should just keep living in the big cities and live on sushi and hotdogs. Going back to some hunter-gather life just wouldn't be possible and still keep living like today.
"This man has 3 shirts, 4 pants and 4 pairs of socks. That's all."
Big spender. I only have two pants! Two pair of shoes. 3-4 shirts, 3-4 pair of underwear, two jackets and I'm not exactly sure how many pair of socks I have since the washer-dryer-monsters keep eating them from time to time.
While there might be some sort of simplicity or elegance in living a spartan life I'm not sure it's for me.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Saturday April 08 2017, @07:45AM (1 child)
Yeah, nah... they can go forage into the sewers. May even have alligator roast at dinner from time to time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday April 08 2017, @10:39AM
Yeah, nah... they can go forage into the sewers. May even have alligator roast at dinner from time to time.
Mmmm ... ratburgers for everyone!