Hackers on happiness & tiny houses, plus The Story of Stuff

http://faircompanies.com/blogs/view/hackers-on-happiness-tiny-houses-plus-story-stuff/

by fogus • 17 years ago

37 45 17 years ago

NathanKP5• 17 years ago

I highly recommend that you watch the film mentioned: "The Story of Stuff".

It is a very detailed look at how companies drive consumerism to keep the economy going at the expense of third world countries.

indiejade• 17 years ago

Linkage: http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Have not watched the video, but this is a great article. I find downsizing living to be such a relief; it's almost like having a burden lifted. One thing that drives me kinda nuts to have too much "stuff" to worry about. Quantity of possessions grows to accumulate in the space a person lives; smaller space = less room for frivolous items. Makes a lot of sense.

quellhorst• 17 years ago

It only grows if you have the wrong mindset. I love open spaces with less stuff!

araneae• 17 years ago

I started watching it, but then stopped when she started going through the "corporations are evil" bit.

She deliberately chose to paint government as good and corporations as bad even though they are both only composed of people, who are just looking out for their self-interest, trying to get money from other people, who are also just looking out for their self interest.

It's a intellectual shortcut to paint corporations OR government as evil, and not accurate or meaningful at all.

sleepingbot8• 17 years ago

Thank you for sharing your experience/opinion.

NathanKP5• 17 years ago

Actually in my experience she painted government as evil as well. She clearly points out how governments give corporations the power to do what they do.

In addition, I see no reason why painting government or corporations as evil is a bad thing because when it comes down to it, what they are doing to third world countries is evil.

We execute murderers for killing people. Yet corporations are killing people overseas by poisoning and maiming them in dangerous factories.

I see no reason why calling a corporation evil is not accurate or not meaningful.

by• 17 years ago

Rather than downloading the multi-megabyte video, which requires much more consumption of stuff, I found the PDF version here and read that instead

http://www.storyofstuff.com/pdfs/annie_leonard_footnoted_scr...

I would have preferred an HTML version because PDF is a newer, more complex, format that forces us to use newer, heavier applications to read. PDF is incompatible with old and lightweight computers so it forces us to buy powerful new computers and throw away our old ones. Given an HTML version I could have consumed even less stuff.

Quarrelsome2• 17 years ago

It's highly recommended that we all watch every single documentry by Adam Curtis, including "The Centuary of Self". His stuff is gold IMO, opinionated, but gold.

If you want a taster check out the latest series running on his blog about the history of Afghanistan:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2009/09/kabul_city_num...

sleepingbot8• 17 years ago

Agree. You just defined the heavyweight BBC-type documentaries that led to this series.

bretthoerner• 17 years ago

"The Century of the Self" in 4 parts.

http://www.archive.org/details/AdaCurtisCenturyoftheSelf_0

http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPar...

sleepingbot8• 17 years ago

Also, you can find the same documents on Google Video. I share the search "google video the century on the self" on Google. http://tinyurl.com/yb7kluz

The Google Video link: http://tinyurl.com/yd5ptt6

idleworx• 17 years ago

The Century of the Self is an amazing documentary. Everyone in this country, and the western world should see it. That and the Power of Nightmares also by Adam Curtis.

Quarrelsome2• 17 years ago

The Trap is the killer one. Part 3 just hits all nails ever on all heads.

gcheong3• 17 years ago

I highly recommend everyone watch Penn and Teller's "Bullshit" series.

stcredzero• 17 years ago

I intend to build my own.

http://www.shelter-kit.com/kits.php?kit=barnhouse

DanielBMarkham3• 17 years ago

I started reading the PDF, and I found several errors on just the first couple of pages. I also found information that was sourced to warresisters.org, greenpeace, commenweal.org, etc.

I'm not trying to be harsh -- I'm sure the video is of high quality -- but when you say things like "In 2003, humanity’s Footprint exceeded the Earth’s biological capacity by over 25 percent" or "In the past three decades, one-third of the planet’s resources, its ‘natural wealth,’ has been consumed" there is certainly room for debate about these things.

Debate which probably doesn't belong here.

Flagged.

sleepingbot8• 17 years ago

A very scientific approach.

nkurz2• 17 years ago

Which PDF?

The URL I followed brought me to a interesting blog post with good but speculative discussion about the perspective of 'hackers' vs 'greenies' on mass consumption.

Did you really flag this link because somewhere within it there is a link to a PDF that includes unreliable sources? That's a pretty tough standard! :)

sleepingbot8• 17 years ago

Reading all the comments, I came to the conclusion he probably refers to this coment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=940369

It would be great if he can confirm so.

simon_• 17 years ago

I agree that there are serious problems with this article. Consider the statement:

"Our personal consumption in the U.S. is already in overdrive. It's now equal to 70% of our GDP (about double that of China and nearly a third more than that of Canada)."

This is a nonsense claim. GDP is defined as consumption + government spending + net exports. It doesn't seem obvious that increasing the relative share of government or exports would do anything for the environment.

mattmaroon• 17 years ago

The problem with tiny houses would seem to be resale value. I personally don't want a large house necessarily, but I want a really nice one. I want top of the line counters, ceramic floors, top-notch appliances, etc. It's not so much that I want more stuff, in fact I probably want less. It's more than I want nicer stuff. I think that's not uncommon. (It's also why if I had an infinite bankroll, my next startup would make a luxury version of the Corolla, but I digress.)

The problem is that if I put all that stuff into some tiny house, I'm stuck with it pretty much forever. Nobody else who can afford that stuff wants a 65 square ft house, or at least so few that I have no hope of getting a fair market value. It seems unlikely that will change, especially since by the time you can sanely afford these things you're probably near having a family.

One extremely way in which people value homes is $/sq.ft. Compare a 65 sq ft home to a 4,000 sq ft one, both with top of the line everything, and you're probably left with a market value about equal to what your dishwasher cost.

If I buy a 4,000 sq ft home and load it up I'll be able to sell it 10 years from now. Barring the very rare bubble bursting (like we're experiencing now) I'll probably be able to sell it for more than I paid for it. If I buy a 65 sq ft home and load it up, I'll be out a bundle.

So if money is not a constraint and you just want a smaller home, I think you have to find the happy median. Get a fully loaded 1,500 sq ft house and hell, just leave half of the rooms empty. There's certainly some size below which you're hemorrhaging money on the deal, and I imagine it's at least 1,500 sq ft here in Middle America.

If you have so much money that you don't care about resale value and you do care quite a bit about the environment this is probably fine. If you want laminate counters, vinyl floors, and cheap appliances, this solution might also be fine too. But for a large segment of the market this is unfortunately financially untenable, no matter how appealing.

fortes• 17 years ago

I've heard multiple people say something similar to what you just said: "I don't actually want a large house, but that's what I need in order to sell it." Perhaps fashion trends will change, but "Bigger is better" seems pretty ingrained into human thinking.

(Not surprisingly, people often find something to do with that space, and then they really do need the space, a sad loop.)

masomenos• 17 years ago

I've been reading a bit about small houses, and one point people make over & over is that going small makes it much easier to afford doing things nicely.

Sure, if you're planning on flipping the house in a few years it'll be harder to get the price you think is right, but otherwise, there's a lot to be said for looking at a house as a place to live vs. just as a financial instrument.

duh2• 17 years ago

> luxury version of the Corolla

That's called a Lexus IS250.

iigs• 17 years ago

The ISx50 is actually not anything like the Corolla -- it's rear wheel drive (or rear biased AWD) and has a different chassis.

Interestingly, there is a luxury version of the Civic in Canada, it's called the Acura 1.6EL. Other than the fact that it shares sheet metal with the Civic, I'm not sure why it's not sold here.

HeyLaughingBoy• 17 years ago

Exactly.

I'm the "programmer in Michigan" (actually Minnesota) she mentioned in the article. I live in a 3,000+ sq ft house. We moved from an 1,800 sq ft house that we only used half of, so we obviously didn't need all that space. So why is my house so frickin' large? We needed at least 10 acres of land with less than a 50-minute commute to work and wasn't 100 years old (Minnesota's climate is very harsh on houses). Every place on the market that met the basic requirements we set was close to, or more than 3,000 sq. ft. Many were much larger. Around here builders simply don't build small houses on large lots and I suspect they won't anywhere else in the US for much the same reasons you give.

Personally if I could sell my house tomorrow and buy a 1,200 sq. ft. home on 20-30 acres I'd be thrilled to death.

cagey• 17 years ago

I too had to buy a comparatively giant house to get a parcel of land the size I was looking for within sane commuting-time of my job. We were living in a house almost half the size, but have figured out ways to take advantage of the extra space, but clearly could live without it.

I think a big driver of this phenomenon is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest_and_best_use

balding_n_tired• 17 years ago

1. Sigmund Freud lectured in the US in 1909, when Bernays was a teenager.

2. Planned obsolence: I see 40-year old cars and pickup trucks here and there. On the one hand, a lot of cars could be run longer before replacement. On the other hand, an older car is vastly less safe, without airbags or crumple zones, and the older car (ignoring manufacturing costs) pollutes more. And how many on HN work on old computers? America was settled during a period when technology rapidly advanced and obsolescence did not have to be planned.

ams61102• 17 years ago

I drive a 26 year old car and my home computer is a six year old Macintosh.

Hackers on happiness & tiny houses, plus The Story of Stuff

Related Stories