How true is this to you? \ stacker news ~meta

2263 sats \ 27 comments \ @Peialto 19 Jul 2023 meta

We buy things that we dont need from money that we don't have to impress peple that we dont like. Is this quote relevant to most of us?

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121 sats \ 0 replies \ @orthzar 19 Jul 2023

If you change "money" to "money/time/effort", then you'll find a lot of mundane examples:

Lawncare, which you toil/pay a lot just to get a useless green carpet in front of your overpriced house to impress neighbors whose names you don't know
Houses, which people treat as a trophy and an investment (despite the fact that houses don't provide a cash-flow and require constant maintenance) and which are overpriced by at least 2x
Vehicles whose exhaust/stereo are at least twice as loud as they need to be in order to make the driver feel big and strong, but which only serves to aggravate most other people
Clothing that emphasizes the shape of your body in order to attract people, many of whom are only interested in superficial relationships and will either abuse or neglect you (this applies to men and women)
A job, which provides a paycheck that barely keeps you from becoming homeless, but which absorbs all of your time/effort, pours tons of stress into your soul, and which gradually shortens your lifespan (due to the stress and time wasted)
Arguing with randos when they say something that makes you angry, but which in fact doesn't matter because they're just thinking out loud and aren't going to do anything

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @WeAreAllSatoshi 19 Jul 2023

I’m trying to make it less true every day :)

101 sats \ 1 reply \ @zuspotirko 19 Jul 2023

For me personally not at all. I don't buy stuff I don't need, I do have a credit card but never payed interest for it and don't think I do anything in my life to impress others. Thinking about all my purchases last year I don't think there was a single item where I had anybody but myself in mind.

So no, I don't think any of the 3 applies. I also think there are lots of people out there in the western world where this doesn't apply.

Maybe unhinged consumerism just has more attention than there actually is, that's only my guess at least.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Peialto OP 19 Jul 2023

In my opinion you are as a reasonable person, who knows his/her priorities.

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @beorange 19 Jul 2023

It is true for a huge chunk of the western population. Sad, but true.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Peialto OP 19 Jul 2023

Yes, because the system they live in dictates it and most of its citizens willingly follow it. Later on they realized that they are trapped into the system that they cannot escaped. Very unfortunate indeed.

6 sats \ 3 replies \ @SimpleStacker 19 Jul 2023

Not me. Unless you mean education. Lots of people buy education they don't need (don't use the skills in future career), with money they don't have (loans), to impress people they don't like (their employers)

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Peialto OP 19 Jul 2023

Its a good comparison, but still I consider education an essential achievement of every person for our own sake and protection from this complicated world.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 19 Jul 2023

I agree, education is essential (though I'd argue that some fields are more important to know than others). My post was mostly tongue in cheek because I realized the analogy when pondering your original question

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Peialto OP 19 Jul 2023

I totally agree with you. But even ordinary individuals are a testaments to this quote in real life.

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 19 Jul 2023

Maybe 20 years ago. This definitely isn't me now.

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @l0k18 19 Jul 2023

It would be ironic to say it as someone who is an acolyte of the IKEA nesting instinct.

I love things, especially fast computers and outoor/survival/tactical gear, but instinct, or maybe being more clever than most of my past abusers, and getting cognitive dissonance over their programs, always made me wary of anyone trying to persuade me of anything. Because in my life, that's usually a red flag for "prepare to lose another piece of yourself".

5 sats \ 1 reply \ @mudbloodvonfrei 19 Jul 2023

I rarely buy something I don't need, but "need" is highly subjective and in comparison to the next best alternative. A lot of people buy what seems to others to be useless crap because the alternative is to have your money's value eroded by inflation. Once I learned that I can buy a better form of money, the next best alternative changed. Same thing for when I learned to invest in stocks. If stocks are overpriced I might go for some bitcoin. If bitcoin is hitting all time highs, I might buy stocks that month. The more alternatives you know how to use to your benefit the more resilient you'll be.

Also, sometimes I buy things I might not want to hold because they're capital goods. I need two cars so that my wife and I can get to work. We could get by with one or even zero, but we concluded that two cars is a good investment because it saves us a bunch of time that we can use to gain more utility than we lost from buying the cars.

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @Peialto OP 19 Jul 2023

Things that you bought that has importance on your everyday life to bring comfort to you and your family can be considered necessities.

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @carlosfandango 19 Jul 2023

I buy things I need with money I have sweated for today in the hope I survive to put one foot in front of the other tomorrow. I want to live, not survive, but ain’t there yet…. Not frivolous spends on minimum wage.

5 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 19 Jul 2023

It's not at all relevant to me. The closest we get is occasionally buying baby or little kid stuff that ends up not being that useful, but we did it with money we had and not to impress anyone.

If that is you, stop it. You're making the world a slightly worse place.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Peialto OP 19 Jul 2023

Definitely my attitude, I never spend or buy things that are not essential or necessities to me. I dont want redundancy.

5 sats \ 1 reply \ @0245bdaef2 19 Jul 2023

I buy things that bring my joy with money I’ve already saved to impress myself.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Peialto OP 19 Jul 2023

As long as you think doing the right thing and never regret it in the future, it is justified.

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @nullama 19 Jul 2023

Not really, and I think most bitcoiners won't live a life like that

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @7e6e393a56 14 Oct

This is a topic that demands reflection! Advertising machines do their job well... convince you that you need that product. Yes, they do it in several cunning ways.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Lux 20 Jul 2023

Yes. Because we indentify as legal persons. And persons have personalities and statuses to mantain, personas to play. A living man just lives.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @OC 20 Jul 2023

Definitely relevant to today's society in general, less relevant to people on this board perhaps. Fiat currency demands continual expansion of credit for its survival. Happy people who are content with themselves and their lives do not consume as much and therefore are a danger to the survival of the fiat experiment. Fiat bankers must therefore create a society of unhappy, unfulfilled drones who think that consumption of goods they cannot afford and do not need will fulfil them. It never will, but it will keep the experiment going and enrich the cantillionaires. Theres a good book called 'Affluenza: the all consuming epidemic' that describes it very well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluenza:_The_All-Consuming_Epidemic