
Please Buy Less - anilshanbhag
http://pleasebuyless.com/
======
reubens
Wow, getting some negative responses here. Personally, I'm rapt to see a
message like this (especially on front page of HN)

------
4ntonius8lock
I like the message, but it seems to complain more than it actually provides
solutions.

The term 'retail therapy' is a very real thing.

I think a lot of our consumerism is connected to our disconnection and
lifestyle, and this is related to how we set up our cities and communities.
From population density, to walk-ability of cities, etc.

When I lived in the third world, in an area with pretty high population
density, mixed use zoning, and high walk-ability I would consume less 'stuff'
and more experiences. For instance, instead of driving to TJ max to buy some
new clothes as I would here, I might take a walk and buy some pastry... which
I'd be hungry for from walking. It was from a small producer, who used less
materials for packaging than a large one would. I'd also get to know people
who I'd regularly see, and that also reduced consumption of good I think as I
would stop and connect with other people. We are pleasure seekers, and if
consumerism is the easiest way to satiate that desire, it will be done in a
consumerist way.

I'm not saying our consumerism is ONLY about lifestyle, but I think going into
what causes consumption is more effective at reducing it than simply saying
'hey you, don't do that'. I think it's why in some parts of Europe people seem
to buy less junk and more quality, artisanal made items.

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mirimir
FYI: [https://www.history.com/news/whats-the-real-history-of-
black...](https://www.history.com/news/whats-the-real-history-of-black-friday)

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ChuckMcM
I would, I use it all the time, but it's open source[1].

:-)

[1]
[http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/](http://www.greenwoodsoftware.com/less/)

------
economyballoon
We must enable and provide technology to countries that are on there way to
western worlds living standard to get there with low co2 emission. Because
they want it with or without co2 emission.

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Bizarro
Political bullshit that has no place on Hacker News.

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anilshanbhag
I was not sure about posting this. The world is weird in that you are a single
person in a sea of 7+ billion people, it is very hard to get your message
across and even harder to make a change that will actually make a dent. Hope
you think twice before buying and save some money too - have a nice extended
weekend :)

~~~
abvdasker
I'm glad you did. It's an important message and Americans -- at least the ones
on the internet -- seem now to be more receptive to critiques of capitalism
than they have been at any time in the last 50 years.

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behringer
Demanding politely to a command I'm going to obviously say no to is rude and
obnoxious.

~~~
BLKNSLVR
That's possibly the least "rude and obnoxious" message about rampant
consumerism I've ever come across. Your response speaks volumes about yourself
as opposed to the message on the site.

~~~
behringer
After deciding to read the message at all after being put upon by an author
who doesn't know me, I found the message to be a bit of a cliche nowadays.
Who's his audience? Hungry consumers aren't busy reading and following
commandments handed down by domain names.

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closeparen
Please do not travel, either. Togetherness and family are idols at least as
wasteful and environmentally damaging as consumerism.

~~~
prepend
Certainly electric night at light are a waste, right?

Running lightbulbs in an average home for a year uses more resources than
travel.

Lighting is 17% of global carbon emissions, I think [0]. And air travel is
2.5% or so.

Many people don’t even have the option not to travel, but everyone can choose
not to use electric lights.

[0] [https://www.ledonecorp.com/using-led-lighting-to-reduce-
your...](https://www.ledonecorp.com/using-led-lighting-to-reduce-your-carbon-
footprint/)

[1] [https://www.npr.org/2019/11/27/778692814/choosing-not-to-
fly...](https://www.npr.org/2019/11/27/778692814/choosing-not-to-fly-home-for-
the-holidays-for-the-climates-sake)

~~~
NeedMoreTea
I simply do not believe LED One's claim lighting is 17%, apparently based on
an all tungsten world, nor that electricity is 50% of emissions.

Electricity comes out at 50% only when the category is "Electricity and
heating" [1], usually it comes in at 20-30% depending on country. A lobby
group promoting adoption of LED lighting in 2006 while all domestic use was
still tungsten claims 6% is lighting[2]. Post LED adoption, perhaps 0.5-1%.
Does anyone still use tungsten aside from some specialised use given LED bulbs
are down to tungsten prices?

It appears to be a small enough percentage I can't find anywhere picking out
lighting individually.

[1] [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-dioxide-
co2-emissi...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-dioxide-
co2-emissions-by-sector-or-source)

[2] [https://www.theclimategroup.org/project/led-
scale](https://www.theclimategroup.org/project/led-scale)

------
account73466
"have one fewer child" is the most efficient way to decrease your carbon
footprint (see [https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/best-way-reduce-
your...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/best-way-reduce-your-carbon-
footprint-one-government-isn-t-telling-you-about) )

Easy, right? However, I am not sure it is correct. For instance, if you
produce less than 2 kids (e.g., 0) AND it was your decision, would not it mean
that all the carbon footprint went to adapt/improve your genetic material
(including your grand-grand-parents) is a waste in some sense? You are the
last one of your branch. Wasn't you fooled to believe you should have no kids?
Makes a lot of sense for other branches to fool you and gain a greater ratio
of the entire genetic material (this is basically the definition of fitness
function in evolutionary biology - to have more offspring / a greater ratio of
genetic material). Evolutionary processes at play.

~~~
UnFleshedOne
1) This is a sunk cost fallacy. Think of all the fossil fuel infrastructure,
wouldn't it be a waste to stop using it? 2) Your goals and goals of your genes
are not the same. You should care about as much about your genes as your genes
care for you (not at all)

~~~
account73466
To truly answer such questions you should have a (set of) metrics to measure
what is better and run parallel universes for a significant amount of time to
check which version is better according to your metrics.

>> Think of all the fossil fuel infrastructure, wouldn't it be a waste to stop
using it?

Most likely, it would be a waste to stop using it right now.

>> Your goals and goals of your genes are not the same. You should care about
as much about your genes as your genes care for you (not at all)

Living organisms are genetically wired to care about their genes, e.g., to
express them (e.g., to write posts on HN and publish scientific papers) and
spread them (to have kids).

~~~
UnFleshedOne
Wired, but not directly. We don't have an explicit urge to have as many kids
as possible, we just like having sex. It kinda leads to the same outcome. Or
it did, before we invented contraceptives.

Writing posts on HN is not expressing your genes, it is an entirely accidental
effect of intelligence, which is another mechanism we have solely to better
propagate our genes, but it kinda runaway.

~~~
account73466
>> Writing posts on HN is not expressing your genes, it is an entirely
accidental effect of intelligence

Your opinion is a function of your genes (sex, race, physical conditions,
etc). Your HN post does not have to be imprinted in your genes but our genes
affect our opinion whether we want it or not. It is rarely about which sorting
procedure you will peak but when discussing things relevant to genes (again,
racial and sexual stuff) they will inject their biases.

------
kingbirdy
We've been advocating "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" for over 40 years, and yet
emissions and consumption have gone up every year. You will never be able to
convince enough people to voluntarily reduce their lifestyle. To cut waste &
emissions we need legislation, not shaming of consumers.

~~~
r00fus
Yes, proper incentives need to be in place. Taxes & regulation (and in some
cases simply staffing up to enforce existing laws) are what are needed.

That said, I have personally stopped profligate purchases on Amazon/Express -
promised the wife we'd clean out the garage before buying new non-essentials
and have reduced online spending to 1/5th of last year (YMMV our garage was
chock full of stuff).

~~~
themdonuts
Most of the times when people realize what you realized and go for a change of
habits - less buying and doing the same with less/minimal lifestyle - the
first step they take is to throw stuff away. I've done it myself. Now I really
stress the reuse and the repurpose before throwing anything away. Otherwise
sell. At the end of the day is one crap less that ends up in some landfill.

------
eduren
The easiest way to get people to buy less is to raise prices.

If we had a carbon tax that correctly priced the environmental impact of
goods, it would decrease consumption. Without having to shame people into
removing themselves from the economy.

~~~
lukifer
Yes. I've become convinced that Pigovian taxes [0] (connected to a basic
dividend) are the answer to climate change, and to ecological externalities in
general. (In addition to greasing the wheels of political viability, a
dividend ensures that paying the true cost of carbon is not a de-facto
regressive tax, as that cost hits the working class the hardest.)

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax)

~~~
eduren
I agree that we will definitely want to do it in a way that minimizes how
regressive the outcome is.

------
ydb
I think this is some serious Marxist agitprop. It is absolutely appalling that
people think we _ought to buy less_ as if that's what the problem is. The
problem is not unethical consumption! The difficulty is not in alienating
labor from capital! These posadist fools think we will be saved by aliens.

Look fellas, buy your girl that Gucci bag if she wants it. The gal may as well
looks fashionable while we descent into collapse.

~~~
paganel
> your girl

This is so wrong on so many levels. I pity your female work colleagues. Unless
you were talking about a dad purchasing some luxury stuff for his daughter,
but I guess you didn't have that in mind.

~~~
dang
Would you please not take HN threads further into ideological flamewar? It
leads to nasty and stupid discussions that we neither need nor want.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
paganel
That’s nothing ideological about telling someone that their way of seeing
other human beings as inferior is wrong, as talking about a different person
as belonging to someone else (the “your” part) means seeing the other person
as being inferior. Yeah, as members of this community we could maybe ignore
when other users talk about such views out loud, but that won’t really solve
anything, would it?, it would just mean hiding everything under the rug, even
empowering said user in his/her views.

~~~
dang
That's vastly overinterpreting what the commenter wrote. Please follow the
site guidelines when commenting here. They include:

" _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone
says, not a weaker one that 's easier to criticize. Assume good faith._"

