Re:Extreme Minimalism: this guy owns just 15 things
by j4kzejfd on Monday January 16, 2012 @02:02PM
(#3471933)
To be fair, the parent commenter is the one who introduced the "[reliance] on an army of [poor, brown] immigrant workers" straw-man argument.
Re:Extreme Minimalism: this guy owns just 15 things
by jessedhillon on Monday January 16, 2012 @02:12PM
(#3471986)
No. The straw man is not the claim that OP is reliant on such people. The straw man is the response, which distorts the argument from one of
There are certain people upon whom you rely and are not acknowledging
to
You must have an army of personal slaves
so that he can conveniently dismiss it with a laugh.
The parent comment made some really good points. You papered over them with a straw man argument about the "immigrant army," then you shrugged your shoulders and said "meh", and there's also a hint of New Age silliness in there (Questioning a person's sense of "what is possible" is a silly way to claim the moral high ground. It's the New Age way to say "oh, you must not understand art".)
The original comment was that you are able to maintain a footprint of the same magnitude as you had before by simply living life "on demand" as it were, instead of storing stuff. If you really want to tout this lifestyle as minimalist, post your credit card statement so someone can fairly consider the actual cost of living this way.
In fact, parent alluded to another point that I would enunciate here: from the definition of Minimalism that says you actually have to reduce your impact -- a person who owns all of those things you don't, but doesn't eat meat, is more of a Minimalist than what you've laid out here.
Sorry to be harsh, I often don't take the time to clean up my comments after I've written them, to filter the wrath.