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brin_bellway[arguably cw: poverty, illness, disordered eating]
(previous post)
---
>>Despite its inherent problems of lacking resilience and consilience, salaried work is amazingly popular among employees.
Honestly, I *have* started to feel this (re: problems).
---
>>When the market mainly offers full-time jobs
It does not.
(Though it is an easy mistake to make, if you only look at the job postings and do not check how feasible they are to actually get into.)
---
>>Consequently, any given project doesn't depend very much on other projects, and vice versa. They are also self-supporting and able to contribute to each other without depending on each other. It is resilient, much like the Internet is resilient by design, as it can still function even when individual servers are down, as no single server is critical. Now, can you say the same thing about your life with regards to your job? Or your car?
Yes and yes.
(I expect this to get even more true in the spring, when I have an opportunity to test-ride shopping-carts-that-convert-to-bike-cargo-trailers from Kijiji. I could also take the cart on the bus, of course.)
---
>>The beauty of this from a business perspective is that each model can be turned into a profitable product and sold separately. This is the reason that we now have electric rice cookers, egg cookers, bread-makers, toasters, hamburger cookers, etc. and as a consequence people have forgotten how to fry an egg in a pan,46
(46) If you think this example is farfetched, you're probably older than 30.
I was 16 when this book came out, and I don't think I've ever seen a dedicated egg-cooker in-person.
I have a mini-oven, not a dedicated toaster.
I do have a rice cooker, the kind with one switch and no touchscreens. I learned today (well, "today" at time of drafting) that you can make porridge in it, and I am hopeful that this will let me switch away from processed fibre bars for breakfast. I have heard there are lots of things amenable to rice cookers, and I should probably look into that more.
---
>>In the example of this figure, a whisk will only be a few minutes slower than a hand mixer, not counting the time one must work to earn the money for a hand mixer.
Note that a hand mixer costs 25 minimum-wage-minutes. The thrift-store sticker is still on mine.
(The *real* trouble with a hand mixer (versus a fork) is that it is more annoying to set up and to clean. Also the motor smells bad: maybe that's just mine, but I *think* the previous hand mixer also smelled like that?)
---
>>In particular, are the facilities available nearby already? In this case, there's really no reason to duplicate them at home.
[...]
If you live close to a supermarket, you can simply store your food at the market rather than in your refrigerator.
[...]
With a little planning and consideration, all families will do just fine with one bathroom.
I wonder how many diseases this guy catches each year. There's minimalism, there's appropriate response, and then there's systematically destroying your ability to find sanctuary.
(Though I will acknowledge that sharing a bathroom with my brother when he had COVID is not what got me. It *is* also true that I shared a bathroom with him when he had *salmonella* without catching it, but I note that the doctors expressed *surprise* that we pulled that off.)
---
>>Showers can range from a bucket over a solar shower to more elaborate arrangements.
--ooh, come to think of it, I should test out using a portable bidet as an off-grid showerhead. I should do that right now, actually: my body is informing me that I am due for a shower anyway.
[...]
*Wow*. Using a portable bidet as a showerhead is Good, Actually. Like, there's definitely a learning curve, but it went surprisingly well for a first try, and I think I would get better with practice. And I used maybe ten litres, of which half was flushing the cold water out of the pipe. And the only thing I would have to change if the bathroom pipes break again is to find somewhere else to stand.
I think I will experiment with just using this as my primary showering method for a while and see how it goes. It would be neat to move even further into the alternate universe.
---
>>I cooked once every six days--I did all my own cooking--and ate in my room. Cooking took 30 minutes a week. Therefore, if I had had my own kitchen, my duty cycle would have been 0.5 / (6Ă—24)=0.347%, which is a waste of resources. It therefore made sense to share the kitchen with others--18 others.
you ever think about that study that screened a bunch of college students for colds and found that 1-in-9 of them were infected
---
>>The second method is to buy in bulk. Shop for groceries once a month. This will be similar to provisioning for a cruising boat, and books on cruising will offer detailed instructions for how to do this, even without the need for refrigeration.
[...]
Reading sailing and cruising manuals can be very helpful if you plan to store food for weeks on end. I find it easier just to live close to a supermarket and drop in when I'm out.
đź’
---
>>These days most fans are electric, but you can get a hand fan.
Tip: point your air purifier towards you in summer, away from you in winter.
---
>>How to dress and behave for seasons and weather have been forgotten, and so people own improper clothing which is uncomfortable outside the range of "modern room temperature."
It continues to baffle me how many people think of sweatpants as "casual clothing" and not "cold-weather clothing". If it's below freezing, nothing else will do! Conversely, try to wear sweatpants above ~55F while moving and you'll be miserably overheated!
---
>>To wash a full load of clothes "by hand," put it in a sealed bucket with some water and detergent and drive it down a bumpy road.
Why, in this scenario, do I own a car?
---
>>A clothesline is either a piece of string tied between two points or an expensive contraption available at "green living" outlets.
The electricity regulator paid for our contraption, actually. (Unfortunately, I am not in charge of household laundry and we rarely use it.)
---
>>Eating six meals a day also makes for a lot of hassle, such as keeping track of calories, planning meals, the problem of missing a meal and the resulting hunger pangs.
This reads like one of those people talking about how waist-length hair is a massive hassle. I eat roughly six times a day and none of these are problems for me.
(Fun fact: eating six times a day makes meal planning *simpler*, because you need only balance nutrients over the course of the day rather than trying to make a Balanced Meal with a careful mix of everything at all times. Balanced Meals for anything other than dinner honestly kind of throw me off, because what am I supposed to eat to counterbalance it later?)
---
>>In fact, studies show that eating every other day, even when eating several meals that day, may increase longevity in the same way that constant caloric restriction does, at least in lab mice.
...let me guess, the lab mice were kept in sterile conditions and *not* sharing facilities with 18 college students?
(the standard advice now--though admittedly not 15 years ago, I think?--is that caloric restriction is likely net-negative for lifespan in most real-world situations because it worsens your immune system)
---
>>The solution is to dial down restaurant visits to the point where they again become special and exciting rather than expected.
Even when I was *rich*, restaurant visits were special and exciting rather than expected! Going from rich to poor means going from monthly to a-couple-times-a-year!
(...though it has not escaped my notice that [people who think getting restaurant food is ordinary and everyday] fund my paycheque)
---
>>Budget $80/person/month for food
Let's see...inflation since 2010...USD to CAD...household size...
...a *bit* less than I spend, but not vastly less. Maybe 15 or 20% less, depending on how much you count Brother? And Mom, being diabetic, eats a lot of meat.
---
>>I'm not a big fan of automatizing personal finances. In my opinion, the only thing worse than automatic control is no control. The former is, however, a large improvement over the latter. The most important reason for this is that automatic procedures eventually fail. A missed automatic transfer due to some institution changing their procedures might result in cascading failure of everything linked to that account. When this happens, companies love to slap you with exorbitant fees.
Agreed, actually. I don't think this applies to *all* neurotypes, but it does to mine.
The ideal is to have autopay on but aim to manually pay things off before the autopay has time to kick in. That way, you're only fucked if *both* you *and* the autopay fail.
---
>>More important, though, is the primary reason that so many complain that they're not "getting ahead," which is apparent from the figure. It's the loss of wage to waste and other people. This constitutes a lot of hard work for nothing, and it's the reason why so many, after decades of work, have so little to show for it.
As I said on Discord once: the hard part isn't *living on* 12k/person, it's *obtaining* 12k/person.
(previous post)
---
>>Despite its inherent problems of lacking resilience and consilience, salaried work is amazingly popular among employees.
Honestly, I *have* started to feel this (re: problems).
---
>>When the market mainly offers full-time jobs
It does not.
(Though it is an easy mistake to make, if you only look at the job postings and do not check how feasible they are to actually get into.)
---
>>Consequently, any given project doesn't depend very much on other projects, and vice versa. They are also self-supporting and able to contribute to each other without depending on each other. It is resilient, much like the Internet is resilient by design, as it can still function even when individual servers are down, as no single server is critical. Now, can you say the same thing about your life with regards to your job? Or your car?
Yes and yes.
(I expect this to get even more true in the spring, when I have an opportunity to test-ride shopping-carts-that-convert-to-bike-cargo-trailers from Kijiji. I could also take the cart on the bus, of course.)
---
>>The beauty of this from a business perspective is that each model can be turned into a profitable product and sold separately. This is the reason that we now have electric rice cookers, egg cookers, bread-makers, toasters, hamburger cookers, etc. and as a consequence people have forgotten how to fry an egg in a pan,46
(46) If you think this example is farfetched, you're probably older than 30.
I was 16 when this book came out, and I don't think I've ever seen a dedicated egg-cooker in-person.
I have a mini-oven, not a dedicated toaster.
I do have a rice cooker, the kind with one switch and no touchscreens. I learned today (well, "today" at time of drafting) that you can make porridge in it, and I am hopeful that this will let me switch away from processed fibre bars for breakfast. I have heard there are lots of things amenable to rice cookers, and I should probably look into that more.
---
>>In the example of this figure, a whisk will only be a few minutes slower than a hand mixer, not counting the time one must work to earn the money for a hand mixer.
Note that a hand mixer costs 25 minimum-wage-minutes. The thrift-store sticker is still on mine.
(The *real* trouble with a hand mixer (versus a fork) is that it is more annoying to set up and to clean. Also the motor smells bad: maybe that's just mine, but I *think* the previous hand mixer also smelled like that?)
---
>>In particular, are the facilities available nearby already? In this case, there's really no reason to duplicate them at home.
[...]
If you live close to a supermarket, you can simply store your food at the market rather than in your refrigerator.
[...]
With a little planning and consideration, all families will do just fine with one bathroom.
I wonder how many diseases this guy catches each year. There's minimalism, there's appropriate response, and then there's systematically destroying your ability to find sanctuary.
(Though I will acknowledge that sharing a bathroom with my brother when he had COVID is not what got me. It *is* also true that I shared a bathroom with him when he had *salmonella* without catching it, but I note that the doctors expressed *surprise* that we pulled that off.)
---
>>Showers can range from a bucket over a solar shower to more elaborate arrangements.
--ooh, come to think of it, I should test out using a portable bidet as an off-grid showerhead. I should do that right now, actually: my body is informing me that I am due for a shower anyway.
[...]
*Wow*. Using a portable bidet as a showerhead is Good, Actually. Like, there's definitely a learning curve, but it went surprisingly well for a first try, and I think I would get better with practice. And I used maybe ten litres, of which half was flushing the cold water out of the pipe. And the only thing I would have to change if the bathroom pipes break again is to find somewhere else to stand.
I think I will experiment with just using this as my primary showering method for a while and see how it goes. It would be neat to move even further into the alternate universe.
---
>>I cooked once every six days--I did all my own cooking--and ate in my room. Cooking took 30 minutes a week. Therefore, if I had had my own kitchen, my duty cycle would have been 0.5 / (6Ă—24)=0.347%, which is a waste of resources. It therefore made sense to share the kitchen with others--18 others.
you ever think about that study that screened a bunch of college students for colds and found that 1-in-9 of them were infected
---
>>The second method is to buy in bulk. Shop for groceries once a month. This will be similar to provisioning for a cruising boat, and books on cruising will offer detailed instructions for how to do this, even without the need for refrigeration.
[...]
Reading sailing and cruising manuals can be very helpful if you plan to store food for weeks on end. I find it easier just to live close to a supermarket and drop in when I'm out.
đź’
---
>>These days most fans are electric, but you can get a hand fan.
Tip: point your air purifier towards you in summer, away from you in winter.
---
>>How to dress and behave for seasons and weather have been forgotten, and so people own improper clothing which is uncomfortable outside the range of "modern room temperature."
It continues to baffle me how many people think of sweatpants as "casual clothing" and not "cold-weather clothing". If it's below freezing, nothing else will do! Conversely, try to wear sweatpants above ~55F while moving and you'll be miserably overheated!
---
>>To wash a full load of clothes "by hand," put it in a sealed bucket with some water and detergent and drive it down a bumpy road.
Why, in this scenario, do I own a car?
---
>>A clothesline is either a piece of string tied between two points or an expensive contraption available at "green living" outlets.
The electricity regulator paid for our contraption, actually. (Unfortunately, I am not in charge of household laundry and we rarely use it.)
---
>>Eating six meals a day also makes for a lot of hassle, such as keeping track of calories, planning meals, the problem of missing a meal and the resulting hunger pangs.
This reads like one of those people talking about how waist-length hair is a massive hassle. I eat roughly six times a day and none of these are problems for me.
(Fun fact: eating six times a day makes meal planning *simpler*, because you need only balance nutrients over the course of the day rather than trying to make a Balanced Meal with a careful mix of everything at all times. Balanced Meals for anything other than dinner honestly kind of throw me off, because what am I supposed to eat to counterbalance it later?)
---
>>In fact, studies show that eating every other day, even when eating several meals that day, may increase longevity in the same way that constant caloric restriction does, at least in lab mice.
...let me guess, the lab mice were kept in sterile conditions and *not* sharing facilities with 18 college students?
(the standard advice now--though admittedly not 15 years ago, I think?--is that caloric restriction is likely net-negative for lifespan in most real-world situations because it worsens your immune system)
---
>>The solution is to dial down restaurant visits to the point where they again become special and exciting rather than expected.
Even when I was *rich*, restaurant visits were special and exciting rather than expected! Going from rich to poor means going from monthly to a-couple-times-a-year!
(...though it has not escaped my notice that [people who think getting restaurant food is ordinary and everyday] fund my paycheque)
---
>>Budget $80/person/month for food
Let's see...inflation since 2010...USD to CAD...household size...
...a *bit* less than I spend, but not vastly less. Maybe 15 or 20% less, depending on how much you count Brother? And Mom, being diabetic, eats a lot of meat.
---
>>I'm not a big fan of automatizing personal finances. In my opinion, the only thing worse than automatic control is no control. The former is, however, a large improvement over the latter. The most important reason for this is that automatic procedures eventually fail. A missed automatic transfer due to some institution changing their procedures might result in cascading failure of everything linked to that account. When this happens, companies love to slap you with exorbitant fees.
Agreed, actually. I don't think this applies to *all* neurotypes, but it does to mine.
The ideal is to have autopay on but aim to manually pay things off before the autopay has time to kick in. That way, you're only fucked if *both* you *and* the autopay fail.
---
>>More important, though, is the primary reason that so many complain that they're not "getting ahead," which is apparent from the figure. It's the loss of wage to waste and other people. This constitutes a lot of hard work for nothing, and it's the reason why so many, after decades of work, have so little to show for it.
As I said on Discord once: the hard part isn't *living on* 12k/person, it's *obtaining* 12k/person.
