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MazeHatter comments on Low Hanging fruit for buying a better life - Less Wrong Discussion
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Rent a truck, have it haul away everything you have, except a lap top and some musical instruments.
An interesting idea... would not suit me at all, but perhaps it would buy a better life for some kinds of people.
personally - I'd go crazy without having a room full of interesting projects to do (I know - I've lived overseas away from my stuff before).
Doing multiple interesting projects, making things is what gives me joy.and to have multiple projects, you need equipment and supplies... and thus a house full of stuff. Haul it away and I'd just have to buy it all over again (which seems wasteful to me).
How does this fall under that category? Maybe this works if you are heavily other optimizing. For example, I have no desire to have musical instruments, but I like old books and I gain intangible aesthetic enjoyment from antique furniture.
If you don't have any musical instruments, and you don't want one, then don't get one. The point is, keep an old laptop for working out ideas if you have to. Not for NetFlix and the like.
If you meant anything like that, it wasn't at all clear from your initial comment, which makes no statement about the age of a laptop and refers to "everything" not just high-end computers.
Even with your clarified version this seems to be heavily other optimizing. That's low hanging fruit for buying a better highly productive life for certain personality types. Some people like downtime and like watching things (to use your example) and others will not do well without some forms of entertaining distractions.
Ok.. well, if the idea is to buy things... consume..., then you get to a point where you have bought so many things, you think a better life is had by buy more.... what if buying more consumer goods is not the answer?
What if being more productive means getting rid of your tv and netflix and books you've already read and rooms of things you don't need?
False dichotomy. Liking certain things or enjoying certain things is not the same claim is that a better life is had by buying more thing. There are many options between "sell almost everything" and "buy all the things!"
Sure, that's true.
But if someone asks about "buying a better life", then, I'm going to point out what seems obvious to me: maybe a better life lies in other direction.
Maybe it was bit hyperbolic, but the basic intent was to shock someone into appreciating what they already have. That the desire to have "a better life" has nothing to do with material goods. This could be a desire for a nonmaterial fulfillment being expressed that resorts to the materialist method we've been trained to use.
I never said that the things I had to buy were goods... experiences and services work too, and better than many goods :) Also - I never said that it was the only way to a better life...
In fact - it was precisely to fight against the "I'm sad, I'll buy another Thing" idea that I started this process... because I wanted to make sure that if I were buying things that it wasn't "just another thing", but something that would be a strict improvement of my life, rather than just something that I'd discard without much use.
ie - we are in agreement about the problem, just have different solutions. Your solution is "Things are the problem, therefore never buy any Things ever and get rid of all the ones you have now!"* , mine is "i am where I am now and have the Things I have now... but I don't want to keep doing that. What can I do in future that's different to what I've been doing?"