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Who is the conquered here, me choosing to pay a tiny amount of my American salary for a perfectly adequate product (rather than outfitting a machine shop in my garage) or the Chinese worker earning ten dollars a day to produce it?
I'm not sure what world you are living on when you consider the tat sold by randomly arranged letters on Amazon "perfectly adequate". Living in a home where every day something is breaking in some way big or small wears on the soul. You can feel the decline. The erosion of order in favor of chaos.
Instead of consooming and giving the store away to our strategic foes, maybe try investing in yourself, and creating something beautiful. That was the headline topic. Creating beautiful things. You cannot do it when you are locked into a consoom cycle. And it adds insult to injury when it's to the benefit of an institution which hates you.
I recently bought some suction cups on Amazon for $10 to hang stuff in my shower. They stick well and I'm perfectly satisfied with the product.
Now, I could have bought injection molding equipment (guess where it's made?) and rubber (guess where it's made?) and steel wire (guess where it's made?) and made some suction cups myself to increase my status in the eyes of terminally online right wingers. But why would I spend thousands of dollars just to make a basic household item like that? And anyway I've got my gym in the garage so I can't set up an injection molding shop. You guessed it, Chinese iron which hasn't given me any problems.
I really am not sure what world you are living on when you grouse about things breaking all the time and unbridled consooming. I don't remember when I had to do a repair beyond changing a lightbulb (made in China LEDs are brighter, better, and longer lasting than anything in from the 90s), nor do I remember the last time something I bought on Amazon broke, unless you count the time I washed my wireless earbuds.
Were you seriously consooming Amazon "tat" at a prodigious rate before you decided to RETVRN? Or do you just imagine that this is how the out group lives?
You seem to think I'm telling you to make everything, when I'm actually telling you to make something. Preferably beautiful.
You're railing against Chinese products which, while not beautiful, are perfectly adequate for 90% of use cases. I have nothing against diy (I recently did a bit of restoration on a mirror bound for the dump) but it's foolish to pretend that nothing worthwhile comes out of a Chinese factory.
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I admire your zeal, and I’ve got to admit this made me laugh pretty hard.
When I look around living out here in California, I think there’s nothing out here for me, at least where I'm presently living. Here in the Bay Area leaves me feeling like it’s a me against the world proposition at times and there’s a real contrast between the people here and where I grew up. Here it’s much more fast paced. People are much more mean spirited. They don’t really take the time to get to know other people. They jump to wrong headed conclusions extremely fast, like nobody I've ever seen before and are very rude and judgmental. Many of them are incredibly stuck up and have a superiority complex, etc. Palo Alto is by far the worst I've seen of the Bay Area when it comes to this. Those people deserve to be knocked down a few pegs in their attitude. But depending on what people think you are at a first pass, people treat you differently; so others have different experiences naturally.
Maybe my more provincial attitude just isn't welcome here. I grew up in rich/affluent suburbia as opposed to middle class in a metropolis. Everyone I know outside of the Bay Area who has been there admires the wealth in the city, none of them including myself envy the culture of it. There's a lot of distractions and things to do here, but that's about it. Even the churches aren't the same. I see little hope for “reforming” things, apart from waiting around and watching the whole edifice fall apart completely before things can begin anew.
There's very little value for me to remain out here when I reflect on it. I have a decent situation where am. It’s incredible that people in my shoes get paid as much as we do. Many of the people I work with I’d wager have never seen a hard day of work in their life if they imagine they do any work here. I could continue to do things where I am and make good money doing an extremely easy job; but although you work hard, you work hard to no purpose. But there are two groups of people in my life that have been screaming for me and demand me to join them. Maybe I'll leave when certain things on the back burner pickup; no one needs me here. Who knows.
You don’t think your ideas are a little too romanticized and applicable only in your private family domain?
Maybe. They may be.
However, like you, although to a lesser degree, it feels like the entire fucking world is falling apart around me, and I am but one man. I can waste my life's energy fighting the tide in the public square (and losing), or I can pick a set of principles and try to live them society be damned. If I'm super extra lucky, maybe it will instill a similar set of values in my children. And if I win the metaphorical lottery, maybe it will inspire a few people in proximity to me. I'm not one to hope for much more than that.
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Both of you, for you both labor so that your betters can live off you like a tick.
But for real, it is both of you. Even from a non-socialist perspective, you have given up on 'niceness' in exchange for convenience and cheapness; you live the TV dinner equivalent of a life wherever you choose to do this.
Sometimes that is what it is, you don't have the time or spare attention to not live the takeout McDonalds experience, but you should always be mindful on what exactly you are doing and why. From time to time get yourself some craft instead of some kraft. You would not believe how pleased I am with myself for that last line
Kraft means power, and not having to make every little thing yourself and keep a wood shop and metal shop in your garage is what power is.
I appreciate the pun, but there is no flex in living that prol mdf furniture life.
When you pay IKEA 100 for 10 worth of material and labor, you are getting fleeced. Better to pay 1000 for 500 worth of materials and labor.
I don't have any mdf furniture. Wood furniture is cheap on an American salary (see original point).
Even IKEA sells wooden furniture. Bought a solid wood bed on my first day in college and sold it to someone else four years later no worse for wear.
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Not everything in life has to be bespoke as long as it's not actively abrasive.
If anything, having a baseline of C+ makes one appreciate A+ more when you have an opportunity. Hedonic treadmill and all.
True enough, but most people seem to think that difrent flavors of C+ are A+. They're out there livin that premium mediocre life.
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