Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous

Re:Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous by dionidium on Tuesday August 14, 2018 @02:40PM (#17760676)

> Americans confuse control with love

Ownership culture has always exhibited this sort of pathological tendency. People who live next to a park with a basketball court insist on an inferior hoop in their driveway. The suburbs are littered with garden sheds full of identical, mostly-idle tools. We insist on a car for every member of the household.

Similar examples are readily conjured.

To the extent that any of these involve practical advantages, they're far outweighed, it seems to me, by the bizarre psychological impulses that are really driving all this compulsive behavior.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous by Someguywhatever on Tuesday August 14, 2018 @03:47PM (#17761237)

If you want to share tools with your neighbor you have to know them and be on and maintain a good relationship with them. There are numerous downsides to borrowing and sharing, so much so that people would rather not do it. Nobody wants to pester their neighbor over and over to use some tool X. It's annoying for them and annoying for you. Ideally the tools would exist off both of your properties in some neutral place that either of you could just go and get the tools out of without pestering one another but for most people this just isn't practical. It's so much easier to just buy your own tools, or pay a contractor.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous by dionidium on Tuesday August 14, 2018 @04:19PM (#17761517)

Fine, but that doesn't explain the installation of crappy Wal-Mart-special basketball hoops adjacent to the public park's pristine full-courts. Nor does it explain the U.S.'s intense aversion to public transit, which burns far hotter than any practical consideration could possibly explain. Neither does it shed any light on the sad way in which suburban dads build rickety basement bars, never stopping to consider that the point of the bar is that it is, in fact, located at the bar and not your basement.

There's pretty clearly something deeper here.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous by Someguywhatever on Tuesday August 14, 2018 @05:35PM (#17762133)

>There's pretty clearly something deeper here.

IDK why there has to be something deeper.

>public park's pristine full-courts

I mean there's only so many courts maybe you don't want to play with other people you just want to take shots, and it's convenient.

>Neither does it shed any light on the sad way in which suburban dads build rickety basement bars

They do it to hang out with their friends. Same way you order a pizza and eat it at home instead of at the restaurant. What are you after the pizza or "being at a restaurant". For most people it's the pizza. The phenomenon of rickety basement bars as you call them is just people hanging out at home drinking cheaper beer at a home built bar. They get some of that "I'm out of the house" vibe while getting all the "hanging out with my friends" that they really want.

I don't know what else you are implying could be operating here. So I'll have to assume you just hate improvised home bars.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous by dionidium on Tuesday August 14, 2018 @06:21PM (#17762431)

Perhaps you think it’s a silly objection, but, yes, I think shoddy simulacrums in private basements miss the point of the “third place” entirely, and the desire to pull every aspect of the public sphere under one’s own roof betrays an impoverished worldview.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous by Someguywhatever on Wednesday August 15, 2018 @08:53AM (#17765623)

I don't think it's a silly objection, but I feel it's too abstract, ignoring certain practical realities that aren't really attempting to do what you say "pull the public sphere under one's own roof". This feels like some kind of "plato's world of forms" type analysis of something that's more simple and practical than anything else and is motivated more by convenience and thrift more than something like an "impoverished world-view". Your comments feel to me a bit like you are looking down on the parochial plebs for their simple pleasures.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous by dionidium on Wednesday August 15, 2018 @08:57AM (#17765648)

> Your comments feel to me a bit like you are looking down on the parochial plebs for their simple pleasures.

No, no, no! The plebs will live happier and more fulfilling lives if they meet their friends at the bar for a pint (and stop pursuing the illusory control of their very-own basement bar). [0] This is about looking up, not down!

[0] By the way, I'm just the kind of guy to want to build his own basement bar. These are message-board musings, not cultural edicts.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous by c22 on Wednesday August 15, 2018 @11:18AM (#17766680)

When I meet my friends at a public bar it is always very loud and I have trouble hearing them. Some of my friends zone out watching the sports on the tvs. Some of my friends are always trying to pick up a date. A couple of my friends completely detest the experience and wont even show up. At the end of the night I'm out $40-$50 and I have to figure out a way to get home.

When I hang out with the same friends at their rickety basement bars more of them show up and we're all very engaged, we talk or play games and I drink more moderately. I'm only out $14 for a 12 pack and if I overdo myself I can just crash on the couch for a bit.

Personally I find the basement bar more fulfilling.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous by dionidium on Wednesday August 15, 2018 @12:15PM (#17767193)

We're way off in the weeds now, but you've described a bad bar. There are more than 60 thousand of them in the U.S.

Go to a better one.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Americans Own Less Stuff, and That’s Reason to Be Nervous by c22 on Friday August 17, 2018 @01:23AM (#17780464)

I was generalizing for rhetorical effect. I've been to hundreds of bars and it's true that they don't all have sports on TV, or TVs at all, but they all have some feature that impacts my ability to enjoy myself in the company of my friends. I have had some enjoyable solo bar experiences, as well as visits with a singular friend.

[ Parent | on HN ]