Just good enough

[doodle]

I'm an idealist and I love thinking about "what ifs".....so don't take me to task for this.

You know, the world might be a much more enjoyable place if human beings were satisfied with just "good enough" with a lot of the mundane products in life. Why are so many people wasting their lives away for example creating laundry soap or toothpaste commercials to steal marketshare from their competitors? Same with razor blades or myriad other products that so many people invest their lives into that really haven't changed in a century and don't make anyone any happier?

It seems to me that there is an awful lot of boring nonsense work that goes on in our system that doesn't really increase anyone's happiness....it kind of seems a bit inefficient to me.

[Pointedstick]

While I agree with you on this, I think it's important to keep in mind how different people's perceptions and preferences can be.

For example, I personally get no pleasure out of automobiles, so I have one plain, utilitarian car that I plan to drive until the wheels fall off. One of my neighbors loves his vehicles and between him and his wife, they have three trucks and a sedan, including a very large surplus military truck that probably gets 5 MPG. Has be surpassed "enough" with all of these vehicles? Or is this simply what "enough" means for him? And when I was much poorer, I bought crap furniture that I worried about collapsing or damaging because it was cheap. It was perfectly functional though. Held my books and all. Now that I have more money, I enjoy having more expensive, better-quality solid wood furniture. Was the crappy stuff "enough?"

If I had to guess, I would say that "enough" is the point at which additional work/achievement/stuff/money/etc fails to increase the happiness you're getting out of it. But  I think it's important to keep in mind that this that point is different for every person. What looks wasteful to me may bring someone else great joy.

[doodle]

Yeah, I'm talking more about commodity or utilitarian type products...like Sheetrock or silverware. I mean, take pots and pans for example. I can't believe how much of that junk we make every year when I'm using my grandmas old cast iron pan and my parents perfectly nice silverware that they bought in the 70s. Somehow the marketplace and advertising convinces us to replace this stuff year after year or that there is an appreciable difference between crest and Colgate. Just seems like a lot of waste of effort for not much increase in marginal happiness. I mean, you can study someone's increase in marginal happiness after a new silverware purchase and you might get a little jump for a couple hours but then it immediately disappears. Yet, someone has to spend their days stamping out new silverware and putting it in boxes which is horribly boring. It's almost like humans need a consumptive outlet that doesn't require much work on the part of other humans to produce. Like, maybe we could create a cultural desire for dirt clods and people would get their jollies by going shopping in a barren field for a new dirt clod to display on their mantle piece.

[Benko]

I'm an idealist and I love thinking about "what ifs".....so don't take me to task for this.

You know, the world might be a much more enjoyable place if human beings were satisfied with just "good enough" with a lot of the mundane products in life. Why are so many people wasting their lives away for example creating laundry soap or toothpaste commercials to steal marketshare from their competitors?

Good and important point.  Most peoples lives would be improved if that followed what you are saying.  WHy don't they?  most people are slaves to the thoughts in their head.  Thus people put energy into e.g. latest this or that, more food, status, sex, money, many times in the mistaken belief it will make them happy.  I beleive I've mentioned Anthony DeMello before:

“I discovered something that revolu­tionized my life.”? He had met a rickshaw driver in Calcutta named Rinsai, who, although he was dying of a painful disease and was so poor that he had to sell his skeleton before he died, still was a man filled with faith and interior joy. “I suddenly realized,”? Tony continued, “I was in the presence of a mystic who had rediscovered life. He was alive; I was dead. He was a man who had reincarnated himself during this life.”?
http://www.amazon.com/The-Way-Love-Medi ... 038524939X

Learning to ignore the mind is non-trivial (hyperbole alert!), but can be done if you want it bad enough, and have the right tools.

[Benko]

I picked an example to illustrate a point i.e. .someone not driven by thoughts to illustrate what that can be like.  The rickshaw driver was either enlightened, or towards that direction.

[doodle]

I think that acceptance is really a key part of happiness. It is sacrilege to say so in our culture where we are always in quest of a way to enlarge, extended, make faster, "improve" etc etc. Out culture is one in which one is never allowed to be content because that has become synonymous with laziness. One can derive a great amount of peace however by just accepting things for what they are.

[Benko]

I think that acceptance is really a key part of happiness. It is sacrilege to say so in our culture where we are always in quest of a way to enlarge, extended, make faster, "improve" etc etc. Out culture is one in which one is never allowed to be content because that has become synonymous with laziness. One can derive a great amount of peace however by just accepting things for what they are.

+1000

HOWEVER it has to be true acceptance i.e. getting to the point that you don't care what your neighbors lawn, or car is, etc etc.  In order words, you can't fake it.  YOu have to have been lucky, or to transform yourself so that this is how you actually feel.  In transforming yourself, lots of other wonderful things will happen as you saw described in the rickshaw driver.

[Jan Van]

I think that acceptance is really a key part of happiness.

Are you guys going all Buddhist on me now? Brad Warner has a nice explanation of the concept of suffering in his book "Hardcore Zen":

Nothing can possibly live up to the ideals and fantasies you’ve created. So we suffer because things are not the way we think they ought to be. Rather than face what really is, we prefer to retreat and compare what we’re living through with the way we think it oughta be. Suffering comes from the comparison between the two.

[doodle]

I think that acceptance is really a key part of happiness.

Are you guys going all Buddhist on me now? Brad Warner has a nice explanation of the concept of suffering in his book "Hardcore Zen":

Nothing can possibly live up to the ideals and fantasies you’ve created. So we suffer because things are not the way we think they ought to be. Rather than face what really is, we prefer to retreat and compare what we’re living through with the way we think it oughta be. Suffering comes from the comparison between the two.

This is exactly why I have become happier as I have gotten older. I have come to accept me for who I am. When I was younger and not fully developed there was so much striving to become something other than what I was. Not only did I not know myself, but I wasn't comfortable being who I was. Now that I'm in my thirties I've stopped comparing who I am with who I think I am. I've stopped comparing my life with what I think my life should be. This has caused a great reduction in my suffering. Of course, our culture would look at this attitude and say I'm a loser....well, I'd rather be a happy and content loser than a miserable overachiever who will never know true satisfaction and peace.

[Jan Van]

Yes, quite so.
Don't you want to be a Go-Getter? Achieve Success And Richess? The American Dream? Climb the Career Ladder? Make Lots of Money and Patriotically Spend It All? That's what some think is needed to be happy...

[WildAboutHarry]

Yeah, I'm talking more about commodity or utilitarian type products...like Sheetrock or silverware. I mean, take pots and pans for example. I can't believe how much of that junk we make every year when I'm using my grandmas old cast iron pan and my parents perfectly nice silverware that they bought in the 70s. Somehow the marketplace and advertising convinces us to replace this stuff year after year or that there is an appreciable difference between crest and Colgate. Just seems like a lot of waste of effort for not much increase in marginal happiness.

Well, first of all there are a bunch more of us than there used to be, and there are just so many of old granny's cast iron pans lying around.  Silverware (I assume you mean stainless, not silver) does wear out (garbage disposals are known to eat silverware).  Toothpaste is way better than it used to be.  Sheetrock has improved dramatically (stronger, lighter, etc.).

I, for one, am glad I no longer have to use MS-DOS 2.1, a 5.25" floppy, and 256K of RAM, although I could probably handle a prodigious portion of my computing needs on such a machine.

One of the costs of progress is a whole bunch of failed ideas (Betamax, 8-track, Commodore 64 et al.) and leftover crap.

[Benko]

I think that acceptance is really a key part of happiness.

Are you guys going all Buddhist on me now? Brad Warner has a nice explanation of the concept of suffering in his book "Hardcore Zen":

We are talking about unnecessary suffering here.

Nothing can possibly live up to the ideals and fantasies you’ve created. So we suffer because things are not the way we think they ought to be. Rather than face what really is, we prefer to retreat and compare what we’re living through with the way we think it oughta be. Suffering comes from the comparison between the two.

"we suffer because things are not the way we think they ought to be."
This is common/usual but does not have to be.  We suffer because our mind produces thoughts (about e.g. how things should be), and we believe/listen to those thoughts.  The mind is a wonderful tool and a horrific master. 

[Mountaineer]

I think that acceptance is really a key part of happiness. It is sacrilege to say so in our culture where we are always in quest of a way to enlarge, extended, make faster, "improve" etc etc. Out culture is one in which one is never allowed to be content because that has become synonymous with laziness. One can derive a great amount of peace however by just accepting things for what they are.

+1000

HOWEVER it has to be true acceptance i.e. getting to the point that you don't care what your neighbors lawn, or car is, etc etc.  In order words, you can't fake it.  YOu have to have been lucky, or to transform yourself so that this is how you actually feel.  In transforming yourself, lots of other wonderful things will happen as you saw described in the rickshaw driver.

Excellent discussion of the merits of "The Theology of the Cross" (think Lutheran LCMS) versus "The Theology of Glory" (think Joel Olsteen).  Not trying to divert, carry on.

...  Mountaineer

[Tyler]

I design consumer products for a living, so I've thought about this a lot.

I'm thankful for driven people who looked at the horse & buggy, or the mortality rates of old surgical tools, or even the cost of a bar of hand-made soap and decided they could do better than "good enough".  Innovation (with the implied obsolescence of inferior products) both drives our economy and improves our lives.

On the other hand, there are the "improvements" of marginal real utility that very purposefully prey upon the emotions or the impulsiveness of individuals to make a quick buck. Just browse Kickstarter for a while or spend some time in the Silicon Valley startup scene, and the amount of bright human resources devoting themselves to solving non-problems is staggering and depressing. I've designed my share as well.

But one should not pretend business is the real problem. As has been said already, it comes down to personal choices on the part on the consumer. I agree wholeheartedly that popular consumerist culture clouds the mind and obscures true utility of a product in a fog of comparative luxury and social pressure. What is truly "enough" for any individual is absolutely a personal preference, but the reality is that the true "enough" is usually far less than the perception. Hedonic adaptation is a sneaky mistress.

[moda0306]

I think that acceptance is really a key part of happiness. It is sacrilege to say so in our culture where we are always in quest of a way to enlarge, extended, make faster, "improve" etc etc. Out culture is one in which one is never allowed to be content because that has become synonymous with laziness. One can derive a great amount of peace however by just accepting things for what they are.

+1000

HOWEVER it has to be true acceptance i.e. getting to the point that you don't care what your neighbors lawn, or car is, etc etc.  In order words, you can't fake it.  YOu have to have been lucky, or to transform yourself so that this is how you actually feel.  In transforming yourself, lots of other wonderful things will happen as you saw described in the rickshaw driver.

And let's remember, as soon as you stop seeing these ridiculous consumption patterns as "curious," and start seeing them as "annoying to my happiness," you have just violated the principal of acceptance.  I don't get "angry" at consumerism anywhere near where I used to.  Because I'm now guilty of the same fundamental mistake... letting shit bother me that shouldn't.

Can I really get mad at the guy who feels like he just HAAAS to trade his car in every two years for a bigger, better model (due to his feelings of inadequacy with the older model) if I have the gall to actually get annoyed with how someone else make decisions that 1) have little to no individual, direct impact on my life, and 2) I can't control them?

I find consumerism confusing, but I also understand it to a degree.  We sell our time, energy, and knowledge so companies will pay us the tool (money) necessary to make us happy in certain areas of our life... but people don't see this, recognize it for what it is, and spend money accordingly very well.  The work a job (because that's "what you do"), then they consume like their friends do (because that's "what you do").  There seems to be very little direct connection between the realization that our limited time on this earth is precious, and we should only sell our time, energy and knowledge if we are getting something meaningful out of it.  Not defaulting to our position on a treadmill and then handcuffing ourselves to it.

But to let any of this bother me would be fruitless.  I just share my HB gospel and get all-the-more reaffirmed when I see the people most resistant to his philosophy are the most incurably miserable people I see.  There's always a problem worth ripping yourself apart over, they feel.

[doodle]

I design consumer products for a living, so I've thought about this a lot.

I'm thankful for driven people who looked at the horse & buggy, or the mortality rates of old surgical tools, or even the cost of a bar of hand-made soap and decided they could do better than "good enough".  Innovation (with the implied obsolescence of inferior products) both drives our economy and improves our lives.

On the other hand, there are the "improvements" of marginal real utility that very purposefully prey upon the emotions or the impulsiveness of individuals to make a quick buck. Just browse Kickstarter for a while or spend some time in the Silicon Valley startup scene, and the amount of bright human resources devoting themselves to solving non-problems is staggering and depressing. I've designed my share as well.

But one should not pretend business is the real problem. As has been said already, it comes down to personal choices on the part on the consumer. I agree wholeheartedly that popular consumerist culture clouds the mind and obscures true utility of a product in a fog of comparative luxury and social pressure. What is truly "enough" for any individual is absolutely a personal preference, but the reality is that the true "enough" is usually far less than the perception. Hedonic adaptation is a sneaky mistress.

I actually perceive most modern products to be inferior in many ways to older ones.

Shaving: I use the same type of single blade safety razor that my grandpa did 60 years ago. I have tried the fancy 4 blade razors that cost almost 5 bucks a pop.....no appreciable difference and they unlike my safety razor they probably won't last 20 years.

Cooking: I have a cast iron pan from my grandma and a couple pots and pans that I inherited from my parents that all made well enough to probably pass on to my future children. In comparison, the stuff I used to cook in college would barely last a year before I had to throw it out and the materials it was made out of probably we're poisoning me anyways.

I also use an old steel canteen for water that my dad gave me as opposed to these cheap plastic bottles that make my water taste like chemical after an hour.

Furniture: my parents have stuff from the Victorian age in their house. My ikea stuff already starts warping and fraying after a year.

Houses: I live in a 100 year old building that is rock solid and has beautiful architecture. Most of the stuff out up today looks like crap in a decade and has poor architectural design.

I could go on and on.....

What we have today is a system which produces a lot of flashy junk that doesn't stand the test of time. Planned obsolescence is creating a culture where we work to produce the same thing over and over and over again when just once would suffice if it is built right, I feel like with a lot of products companies are continually trying to redesign the wheel and make insignificant tweaks or gimmicky so called improvements in order to produce sales. And we spend our precious time on earth slaving away in jobs so we can fill our lives with this trash.

[doodle]

I think that acceptance is really a key part of happiness. It is sacrilege to say so in our culture where we are always in quest of a way to enlarge, extended, make faster, "improve" etc etc. Out culture is one in which one is never allowed to be content because that has become synonymous with laziness. One can derive a great amount of peace however by just accepting things for what they are.

+1000

HOWEVER it has to be true acceptance i.e. getting to the point that you don't care what your neighbors lawn, or car is, etc etc.  In order words, you can't fake it.  YOu have to have been lucky, or to transform yourself so that this is how you actually feel.  In transforming yourself, lots of other wonderful things will happen as you saw described in the rickshaw driver.

And let's remember, as soon as you stop seeing these ridiculous consumption patterns as "curious," and start seeing them as "annoying to my happiness," you have just violated the principal of acceptance.  I don't get "angry" at consumerism anywhere near where I used to.  Because I'm now guilty of the same fundamental mistake... letting shit bother me that shouldn't.

Can I really get mad at the guy who feels like he just HAAAS to trade his car in every two years for a bigger, better model (due to his feelings of inadequacy with the older model) if I have the gall to actually get annoyed with how someone else make decisions that 1) have little to no individual, direct impact on my life, and 2) I can't control them?

I find consumerism confusing, but I also understand it to a degree.  We sell our time, energy, and knowledge so companies will pay us the tool (money) necessary to make us happy in certain areas of our life... but people don't see this, recognize it for what it is, and spend money accordingly very well.  The work a job (because that's "what you do"), then they consume like their friends do (because that's "what you do").  There seems to be very little direct connection between the realization that our limited time on this earth is precious, and we should only sell our time, energy and knowledge if we are getting something meaningful out of it.  Not defaulting to our position on a treadmill and then handcuffing ourselves to it.

But to let any of this bother me would be fruitless.  I just share my HB gospel and get all-the-more reaffirmed when I see the people most resistant to his philosophy are the most incurably miserable people I see.  There's always a problem worth ripping yourself apart over, they feel.

I agree. Other peoples consumerism doesn't bother me except that I think it has a negative effect on the environment. I am also bothered by how hard it is to find a really well made product nowadays. A lot of research must be done in order to find products that truly are well made....price alone doesn't indicate quality anymore.

[Tyler]

What we have today is a system which produces a lot of flashy junk that doesn't stand the test of time. Planned obsolescence is creating a culture where we work to produce the same thing over and over and over again when just once would suffice if it is built right, I feel like with a lot of products companies are continually trying to redesign the wheel and make insignificant tweaks or gimmicky so called improvements in order to produce sales. And we spend our precious time on earth slaving away in jobs so we can fill our lives with this trash.

There will always be exceptions, but generally speaking you're absolutely right.  However, a wise person with this realization can structure their own lives so that this no longer applies to them.  You only have one life to control -- make the most of it!

[moda0306]

+1000

HOWEVER it has to be true acceptance i.e. getting to the point that you don't care what your neighbors lawn, or car is, etc etc.  In order words, you can't fake it.  YOu have to have been lucky, or to transform yourself so that this is how you actually feel.  In transforming yourself, lots of other wonderful things will happen as you saw described in the rickshaw driver.

And let's remember, as soon as you stop seeing these ridiculous consumption patterns as "curious," and start seeing them as "annoying to my happiness," you have just violated the principal of acceptance.  I don't get "angry" at consumerism anywhere near where I used to.  Because I'm now guilty of the same fundamental mistake... letting shit bother me that shouldn't.

Can I really get mad at the guy who feels like he just HAAAS to trade his car in every two years for a bigger, better model (due to his feelings of inadequacy with the older model) if I have the gall to actually get annoyed with how someone else make decisions that 1) have little to no individual, direct impact on my life, and 2) I can't control them?

I find consumerism confusing, but I also understand it to a degree.  We sell our time, energy, and knowledge so companies will pay us the tool (money) necessary to make us happy in certain areas of our life... but people don't see this, recognize it for what it is, and spend money accordingly very well.  The work a job (because that's "what you do"), then they consume like their friends do (because that's "what you do").  There seems to be very little direct connection between the realization that our limited time on this earth is precious, and we should only sell our time, energy and knowledge if we are getting something meaningful out of it.  Not defaulting to our position on a treadmill and then handcuffing ourselves to it.

But to let any of this bother me would be fruitless.  I just share my HB gospel and get all-the-more reaffirmed when I see the people most resistant to his philosophy are the most incurably miserable people I see.  There's always a problem worth ripping yourself apart over, they feel.

I agree. Other peoples consumerism doesn't bother me except that I think it has a negative effect on the environment. I am also bothered by how hard it is to find a really well made product nowadays. A lot of research must be done in order to find products that truly are well made....price alone doesn't indicate quality anymore.

Those are two very valid quibbles, but on the environmental side, every individuals contribution to the degradation is immaterial, so it's tough for me to. And you still can't control them to any appreciable degree, so it'd be like being "mad" that more people didn't agree with me on (insert public policy issue here).  Regarding quality, it's sort of the same thing... did anyone PROMISE me a super quality product that will last me 20 years?  Do I have a "right" to that?  All I have is a few different product options, a bit of research to do, and a great RoR scenario if I do that research.

And what of that research?  I check Amazon on my phone.  My parents talk about walking through snow storms to the library to do research.  I look it up on Wikipedia.  If the internet were to "break" permanently, I'd probably throw myself off a bridge.  It's spoiled my appetite for quick knowledge to a ridiculous degree.

Sorry to get all rosy positive on you .

BTW, doodle, "Have you found Harry Browne yet?"  JK... but I'd highly recommend reading How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World, and also read his Rule Your World writings.  Not that we don't try to build some of those arguments here, but he's so incredibly logical and objective about things. 

It's not that you seem unhappy... just sort of on edge and very "curious" about what makes others happy and why.  I know you tend to border on nihilism at times.  I think HIFFIAUW would be a very healthy read for ya.

[Pointedstick]

I actually perceive most modern products to be inferior in many ways to older ones.

Shaving: I use the same type of single blade safety razor that my grandpa did 60 years ago. I have tried the fancy 4 blade razors that cost almost 5 bucks a pop.....no appreciable difference and they unlike my safety razor they probably won't last 20 years.

Cooking: I have a cast iron pan from my grandma and a couple pots and pans that I inherited from my parents that all made well enough to probably pass on to my future children. In comparison, the stuff I used to cook in college would barely last a year before I had to throw it out and the materials it was made out of probably we're poisoning me anyways.

I also use an old steel canteen for water that my dad gave me as opposed to these cheap plastic bottles that make my water taste like chemical after an hour.

Furniture: my parents have stuff from the Victorian age in their house. My ikea stuff already starts warping and fraying after a year.

Houses: I live in a 100 year old building that is rock solid and has beautiful architecture. Most of the stuff out up today looks like crap in a decade and has poor architectural design.

I could go on and on.....

What we have today is a system which produces a lot of flashy junk that doesn't stand the test of time. Planned obsolescence is creating a culture where we work to produce the same thing over and over and over again when just once would suffice if it is built right, I feel like with a lot of products companies are continually trying to redesign the wheel and make insignificant tweaks or gimmicky so called improvements in order to produce sales. And we spend our precious time on earth slaving away in jobs so we can fill our lives with this trash.

There's a lot of truth here, but be wary of survivorship bias. There were lots of shitty products in the past too: cookware made out of pot metal; things made of wood that was cheaply dried and split easily; low-quality ceramics that broke when dropped two inches; houses build so poorly that they were easily destroyed in natural disasters. The examples that have survived were the best in their class, and likely not the kinds of things that the average person could easily afford.

Get a copy of a 19th century Sears Roebuck catalog. They sell 'em on Amazon, and many local libraries have them too. These things are fascinating. You see all kinds of interesting trends. Building materials used to be almost universally universally stronger and cheaper, for example, but the buildings made with them were often not, due to shoddier design. You used to be able to buy a revolver for the equivalent of $5… but it looks like the kind of thing that might blow up in your hand. Clocks and watches were unreliable and insanely expensive back then; now, they're trivially cheap and totally accurate.

[WildAboutHarry]

[quote=doodle]I actually perceive most modern products to be inferior in many ways to older ones.

Shaving: I use the same type of single blade safety razor that my grandpa did 60 years ago. I have tried the fancy 4 blade razors that cost almost 5 bucks a pop.....no appreciable difference and they unlike my safety razor they probably won't last 20 years.

Cooking: I have a cast iron pan from my grandma and a couple pots and pans that I inherited from my parents that all made well enough to probably pass on to my future children. In comparison, the stuff I used to cook in college would barely last a year before I had to throw it out and the materials it was made out of probably we're poisoning me anyways.

I also use an old steel canteen for water that my dad gave me as opposed to these cheap plastic bottles that make my water taste like chemical after an hour.

Furniture: my parents have stuff from the Victorian age in their house. My ikea stuff already starts warping and fraying after a year.

Houses: I live in a 100 year old building that is rock solid and has beautiful architecture. Most of the stuff out up today looks like crap in a decade and has poor architectural design.

I could go on and on.....[/quote]

I shave with an old Gillette Superspeed.  I use very cheap double-edge blades (made in Turkey, I think, probably from old battleships).  I use Mitchell's Wool Fat shaving soap (a block of hard soap in a dish).  I use a badger shaving brush.

When I wear a watch it is a Bulova Accutron tuning fork watch from the 1960s.  But I have relatively new digital clocks lurking about.

Much of the furniture in my house is older than I am.  But some of it is cheap Ikea stuff, bought recently to fulfill a specific need.

I cook primarily in old cast iron.  But what doesn't get cooked in cast iron is cooked in modern clad SS/Aluminum cookware.

PS's point about survivorship bias is a great one.  Try looking at some of the shaving contraptions that preceded King Gillette's stuff.  Horrible. 

I stopped buying the latest shaving technology when they started putting it behind a locked case.

I like Bulova Accutron watches because they are interesting technology.  But modern quartz movement watches are far cheaper and far more accurate.

In addition to the Sears catalog, try Google Books for Popular Mechanics in the 1940s and 1950s.  Tons of crap.

[Tyler]

Very good point, PS, on survivorship bias. Old stuff wasn't always high quality, but the stuff that survived this long certainly is. There are good products made today, and scores of crappy ones from the good old days.

[WildAboutHarry]

I am reminded of Oklahoma!...

Everything's up to date in Kansas City
They gone about as fer as they can go
They went an' built a skyscraper seven stories high
About as high as a buildin' orta grow.
Everything's like a dream in Kansas City
It's better than a magic lantern show.
You can turn the radiator on whenever you want some heat
With every kind of comfort every house is all complete.
You could walk the privees in the rain and never wet your feet!
They've gone about as fer as they can go.
They've gone about as fer as they can go!

[barrett]

This is more in the category of "enough" rather than "just good enough."

I found that spending time in third-world countries largely cured me of the craving to own a lot of crap. I'm happy if I have some books, basic furniture, clothes that are just good enough and whatever I needed to do my work successfully.

Of course I have been mostly unable to win my wife and daughter over to my way of thinking. For myself, whatever is going on inside my head is more important than the stuff I see around me.

[dualstow]

Has the conversation really got to page 2 with no mention of 3D printing?

Doodle, I agree with your original post, BUT:

I think some of this consumerism and competition can be put in the category called The Worst System Except for Everything Else. A race between two cola makers or among several toothpaste or shaver brands might seem inefficient. Was the evolution of the ever increasing plumage on a peacock efficient?

Perhaps toothpaste is not getting better each and every year, but we have quality control. And, if a hazardous product is imported from another country (or made here at home), we find out about it fast. Brand recognition can be a good thing.

The good thing about not using the same pots and pans every year is that you can donate them to someone who has no pots and pans at all. A little bit of trickle down.

Industrial design is a wonderful thing, and I always enjoyed looking at it at the MOMA much more than oil paintings.

Doodle, you live in a rock solid house, but I wonder if we can easily provide such a rock solid house for everyone. I've gushed about the cathedrals on this forum before (literally built of rock), but somehow I don't see a surge in stone mason hiring instead of IT professionals. It's all about economy, unfortunately. Things used to be built of better stuff because we hadn't yet invented the cheaper stuff. You can buy a computer mouse carved out of ash wood instead of plastic, but it will always be a niche market. There's a reason for that.

To an extent we have to succumb to the system, but we don't have to be swallowed up by it. We have to live in a world of Coke and Crest, but we can still create our own reality, for the most part.