What Are You Doing?

Josh Cryer · 2005-08-06 07:19:16

Are you suggesting that by embracing the simplicity movement, i.e., not buying these things, we will somehow improve their lives and situation? I of course was speaking from a western perspective, because fortunetly, it is my perspective.

Nah, not really. I'm saying that the processes can be applied to all cultures, to an extent. Consider the Chinese. Hong Kong was basically a honeypot for corporatism in China. The outlaying towns and cities became assimilated because the people chose to work in the cities rather than continuing their more self sufficient roles in the farm countries. State taxation did not help matters. So the people went from this simple more agrigarian mode of existance to an industrial one.

Let the Chinese wage slave throw in his 2 cents (a yuan?) worth.

I read an article about a girl, aged 16, who, following her peers and friends into Hong Kong to work, died while on the production line. She was literally worked to death. 18 hour days, with pithy pay. Her family could not even afford her funeral and it put them into debt. I wonder what you think that their opinion would be?

The rest of "us"? Dude, you're as American as apple pie.

Yeah, I like to place myself within the class of all humans rather than Alabamans or Californians, or Mexicans or whites, but that's just me.

The Simplicity movement is a result of "excess", and looks to unclutter cluttered lives. It is uniquely a western philopshy because the vast majority of the stinking world doesn't have our problem.

You can take it further, their governments have the problem, and the corporate environments that they must live under have that problem. Consider what would happen if all the wage slaves of a jean factory suddenly decided one day to quit and go start a farm somewhere. They would certainly have achieved a more minimialist and survivable lifestyle. Of course, the government wouldn't quite allow that, but that's another discussion.

If the bulk of humanity is working in sweat shops, then the bulk of humanity is working 6 and a half days a week with 10-14 hour shifts.

Didn't say that. But nice try.

Well, you can always sit naked on a mountain somewhere and let your beard grow out. That is about as simple as you can get. Good luck.

I saw a PBS documentary about a man who did that. He went there for one year, to live in a log cabin, and decided to stay for 30. It was a wonderful little documentary. He lived a lonely life though, and I hate being alone.

clark · 2005-08-06 07:26:54

I saw a PBS documentary about a man who did that. He went there for one year, to live in a log cabin, and decided to stay for 30. It was a wonderful little documentary. He lived a lonely life though, and I hate being alone.

How does one be lonely if there are cameras documenting your lonely lifestyle?

If you hate being alone, go outside. You're bound to meet somebody.

Unless of course you live in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere.

Josh Cryer · 2005-08-06 07:43:06

The documentary was of his first year staying there (mid 70s, fairly grainy, etc). At the end it had a caption stating that the guy lived there for 30 years until he got a bit too old to keep going, he's in a home somewhere (assuming he's still alive, he was when I saw it, which was a few months ago).

It was called Alone In The Wilderness.

clark · 2005-08-06 08:11:13

That reminds me of an ancient zen question: If a bear eats you in the woods, and no one is there to make a documentary about it, will the bear get indigestion?

Grypd · 2005-08-06 09:23:37

The idea that the Chinese are literally being worked to death to produce the goods we in the rest of the world crave does not exactly go with the figures on the goods bought in the Chinese domestic market. These indicate the normal Chinese person has spare cash to purchase goods.

The Chinese are literally buying over 5 million mobile phones a MONTH and the increase in the purchases of other electrical goods etc is just as high. Though tradgedies like that 16 year old girl happen it is the extreme rather than the rule and we have to accept that as the Chinese economy grows so does the Chinese capacity to purchase economic goods. This means they have wages to spare to pay for these. As more and more people leave there peasant condition farms to move to the new economic industrial cities to make there fortunes this indicates the cities pay better.

Mad Grad Student · 2005-08-06 22:48:52

There are no athiests in heaven. It's not punishment. It's their choice.

Now that's interesting. Didn't you just spend a good deal of bandwith telling us that entry to Heaven is about living a good, altruistic life, and not about at who's house you happen to worship? If someone doesn't believe in God but lives the way that God wishes us to live, does he/she gain access to Heaven? It's a valid question. It's entirely possible for an individual to live a good life (or at least, the kind of life advocated by the teachings of the various religious organizations) without believing in God. To me, living well is essential, but blind belief is not. I would prefer to believe in the truth, whatever that happens to be.

I don't think you fully understand where I'm coming from. I'm not seeing the action and grand plan of God in every photon that strikes my cornea. I don't see that and then cover my eyes and try to ignore it, I fundamentally don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about in the first place. Where is this overwhelming evidence of God at work? This is not a question of me seeing the light and then trying my darndest to ignore it, this is a matter of me sitting here with my eyes open looking for the light, wondering if it exists. Please don't tell me that I'm choosing not to understand, I most definately am not.

As for the question of materialism, I frankly don't see what it has to do with religion. Why does religion even need to be brought up when discussing materialism. Why can't we just say "Obviously this is a problem, why don't we all try to avoid it and not be greedy pigs?" There are many very good, logical, secular reasons to follow most of the teachings you'll find in the various Holy Texts. We don't need to fight character flaws with dogma, I personally think that logic is a much more effective tool. Once again, though, I may just be totally wrong.

Dook · 2005-08-07 04:33:10

God wants us to know He exists. I don't know whether or not it's required along with living a life where you have chosen to care about others as much as yourself.

The universe is 99% nothing but still it supports a trillion bodies of matter and intelligent life just happens to form on only one? You want overwhelming evidence? For me it's simple, staring at the Hubble Ultra Deep Space exposure is enough, walking through a forest of Sequoia trees does it too, or seeing children play on a playground.

I believe that God's grand plan for the universe is that life grows good souls that come back to Him. The difficulty is realizing that God does not interfere with anything to make that happen. He made the physical laws to run the universe for Him. It's really smart when you think about it. Also, life has a choice. You can live for yourself, worrying only about your needs, wants, desires, and there is a place for you to go. Don't think of it as an eternity burning in hellfire. What purpose would there be in that? Think of it as an eternity working for others who don't care about you. Ironic, isn't it?

There is no reason to help another unless that person has influence to help you in return. But what about the bum on the street? An orphan? The old lady who has no family and lives by herself? Why do people give a quarter to a dirty, smelly, bum who has no ability to return the favor?

C M Edwards · 2005-08-08 08:37:15

Clark,

The comparisons between the Simplicity movement and a religious movement are abundant, but so are the comparisons between religion and the Mars Society. I am not convinced that this represents a new cult springing up around process flow management. (I'll consider myself warned, though. The Mars Society is starting to look really suspicious lately. )

From what I can tell about the Simplicity movement, it is indeed primarily a "western" (or "northern" or "first world", depending on which pop culture shorthand you prefer for affluent european/american industrially influenced) cultural phenomenon. Most of the earliest proponents lived in North America. I don't consider that much of an indictment - space travel started out under similar circumstances. At this point, any discussion of the Simplicity movement can't cover anything so magnanimous as "Humanity as a Whole." From what I can tell about the earliest groups (those represented by Elaine St. James, et. al), no founding member started with an income less than $50000/yr, so these groups were generally not started by poor people.

They claim to borrow heavily from the lifestyles of the poor, though after some review of their various philosophies I think "the thrifty" or even "the miserly" would be a better description than "the poor". That's not necessarily undesirable. They're advocating a methodology, not a vow of poverty.

Many of the recommendations of these groups center around reducing immediate expenditures. They suggest giving up cable TV, restaurant meals and various other luxuries to reduce expenditures. The really hard core members do things like sell their homes and either buy lower cost housing or move somewhere they can rent for the same cost as their prior mortgage payment (thus saving maintenance costs). Or they join group living arrangements to save money. Far from advocating hedonism, there is a distinct thread of asceticism in their teachings.

They don't typically advocate moving to log cabins in the woods, though. They claim there's far less effort required to live in a city. Average city jobs pay more per hour, more options are available, and commutes are less taxing when you live near your job. Most of the group living arrangements identifying themselves with the Simplicity movement are found in cities, not rural areas.

As for their whole take on reducing work at work:

Say we can do the same work in less time- well, sure, we as individuals might benefit if we could keep the remainder of time, but we have already traded a segment of time to our employer. That extra time belongs to them, and thus they demand more work.

I never said they fundamentally disagreed with that. In addition to recommending that you try to do the same work in less time, they also recommend that once you find a way to do this, you should negotiate with your boss to reduce your hours to a more appropriate figure. This reduces the potential for conflict over "stealing time", and keeps you out of destructive behaviors like milking jobs and soldiering. Failing that, you should go looking for a more suitable part-time job.

To expect otherwise is to achieve efficiency at the expense of productivity.

Near as I can tell, they don't care. Their focus is on the individual benefit, and let the employer worry about his end.

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