We live in a community of ~100 people. We have a room full of other people's left over things that we can take (or add to) for free. 90% of the gifts and clothes for our, and other people's children, we source from that room. We are able to give away a lot more and higher quality stuff than if we would have to buy it and the kids are just as happy.

It's incredible how much stuff is produced just to be thrown away. But I guess it keeps the wheels turning? I often wonder wether this is the best system there is. Something tells me it's not.

To add on this, there is a "Buy Nothing" group. There is also a active Facebook groups dedicated to local communities. https://buynothingproject.org

To take away from this, I've found that people who search for free stuff on Facebook tend to be painful to deal with - not turning up, leaving parts of the product they don't want behind for you to dispose of, jumping on products they don't even want just because it's free and just generally being ungrateful arseholes.

You're much better off selling something at a price below market value if you want it gone cheap to someone can use it.

Same experience. Never list for free. You'll only attract the very worst of humanity you didn't know even existed.

A lot of times I'll just list something for 20 bucks just to weed those people out. Then when a buyer shows up just telling them it's free.

At the end of my posting I ask people to write me back with an exact date and time they will come over, a number so I can text them the address, and one of their personal or professional goals. If they don't write all 3 then I don't respond. It works pretty well!

I've had good luck requiring someone to make an appointment and pick up free stuff. No need to deal with money, they still get the stuff for free and seems to cut out the time wasters.

I’ve used BuyNothing many times in my city. I’ve mostly used it to give things away, but have scored some great camping gear too. It’s been a very positive experience compared to listing free items on Facebook or Craigslist. People on BuyNothing have been responsible and grateful.

Can you share more about your community?

The community was created in the 70s. Back then it was more political, today it's more practical. The age demographic is more or less flat (0-85) with a dip around late teens (we're in the countryside to most young adults choose to move to the city). We own the property together and cook and eat together five days a week. We have various shared workshops, depending on what the need/desires are at any given time. While we don't farm the land ourselves (not enough land), we try to buy local and organic produce whenever possible.

Cooking for many people, sharing tools, common areas, etc, saves a lot of money and resources. We are thus able to support a wide range of income levels. With the caveat that we're in a fairly equal country (Northern Europe), the community attracts a wide range of backgrounds, from unskilled workers to teachers and doctors. Everyone gets chores and responsibilities assigned based on personal priorities, skills and the needs at the time.

We have a "rule-book" that defines a democratic voting system for making decisions. We hold meetings every other week. I would lie if I said it was always pleasant or easy, but it does work surprisingly well. I think it helps that the place is around 50 years old, so we've had the chance to learn from mistakes and update the "rule-book" along the way.

I don't think it's for everyone, and I'm not sure how well this scales beyond 50-100 people, but I do think that you can be happier, healthier and wealthier living in suitable small-scale communities, sharing everyday tasks and tools. Instead of everyone owning their own everything.

Yeah it sounds interesting but what are the details on how likely obstacles are overcome? what do you do when the room fills up? Who owns the land? Who manages it? Who stops people from using it as a trash repository?

> the most effective way of recycling is to limit your purchases altogether.

This has always been true. There's just been a lot of "feel good" marketing around this point to beguile the market out of this rather common sense in the past few decades.

> Then turn to the recycling industry and maybe it will find a way back.

Putting my curmudgeon hat on for a second, I remember a time when we used to make products with high enough quality and durability that they would either last nearly a lifetime or get repaired when they didn't.

> Putting my curmudgeon hat on for a second, I remember a time when we used to make products with high enough quality and durability that they would either last nearly a lifetime or get repaired when they didn't.

I don't intend this as a slight, but as an honest question: do you feel like you correctly compensate for survivorship bias when looking back at how products were made?

I ask because, in my experience doing repairs as a hobby, it's just the nicer things that have survived. People don't remember the cheap record players they got as kids, the cheap tools, &c.; they remember the things that are still with them, which are the higher-quality ones.

Edit: In particular, it's pretty hard to repair a lot of consumer goods from the 1930s-1970s: they tend to use plastics that crack very easily and that aren't mendable, or are outright hazardous to repair (like bakelite, which sometimes has asbestos mixed into it).

My experience is that goods from before mass manufacturing are objectively higher-quality and more repairable. That's before cheap consumer goods of 1970, though.

There are at least two issues at play:

1) If I build something, I can do it again. I won't use ultra-thin metal which is likely to be damaged being welded, injection molding, or similar sorts of processes which require a factory.

2) I'll do a bit of overengineering. Modern consumer goods use the absolute minimum in materials possible. If you take things apart, it's pretty magical.

I'll also take care of it (and know how). If something costs me a week's salary, I'll buy fewer things, and I won't want them to break. If a gizmo costs a few minutes' salary, I'm better off replacing it. Maintenance is a nice hobby for some of us, but far from economically rational.

How would one snap out of being seduced by feel-good marketing?

For the last six months or so, I've been aware that I want to buy an iPhone even though I have a smartphone that fulfills all my needs. The cost for the value proposition of the iPhone is inferior to many smartphones, and for me, it has zero marginal value. I don't care about the iPhone's prestige or "lifestyle" angle. There is no justification for buying it. Still, it appeals to me, and I don't know why. This could be a problem if I did not have the rational faculties of an adult. And now and then, I read about a kid saving up for an iPhone and being very disappointed/regretting the purchase.

It's seriously hazardous that we no longer have a way to opt out of this influence of advertising. I wish we did (on reasonable terms, without completely withdrawing from society). For a while in the 2010s, minimalism and anti-consumerism became more popular. But looking back, they seem to have been more of a fad. Now if a kid doesn't have an iPhone in school, it's "cringe".

There will always be a must-have thing in high school, there always has been. In my day it was a car, and somewhat less importantly, the type of car.

Prior to driving age, it was other things. But there's always something.

Ad blocking helps a lot. I have almost zero exposure to marketing. I do not follow anyone either, so I'm not exposed to their consumption habits.

It helps.

The other part is to ground your identity in a different set of values. There are many circles in which frivolous purchases are a sin. There are many people who find virtue in economy and restraint.

> Still, it appeals to me, and I don't know why

I wouldn't blame yourself. Humans are curious and seek out new things. Humans like things of "beauty" and Apple does an unbelievable job of marketing & product design.

Everything else aside, iPhones are more protected on an OPSEC level.

>it has zero marginal value.

Sounds like it has some marginal value, otherwise, by definition, you would not want it.

I don't think humans are that logical. Feel-good marketing aims to associate buying, owning, or doing something with a pleasant emotion. Whether any pleasant feelings, added value or utility are achieved by actually buying, owning or doing something is beyond the scope of this marketing. And it often is just a false promise.

Maybe it has a social value

I'd bet many of the older things were also disposable but the ones that lasted stick in the mind more. But absolutely we also moved towards less and less repairability in how things are assembled. Adhesives or plastic welding vs rivets and screws. I'm afraid I am not good at thinking about the question well, but is it better to have lighter cars that need less metal but in exchange they are less repairable? I get tied up in defining the bounds of the question so I never have a satisfactory answer.

A lot of the money in tech seems to be tied to the same marketing, convincing people to consume. The greenwashing is a problem as well, although I wish I weren't so cynical when I see a company trying to do better so often it seems to read as "We're making our X more green and efficient, so buy more of them"

I was swimming in a lake this summer with a friend involved in marketing when he made a comment about what happens when they run out of people's attention seconds. Do we make more, fight harder to retain attention, die?, or is there another solution.

Putting my curmudgeon hat on for a minute, no you don't. You imagine a time when things lasted, largely because you were able to ignore all of the byproducts and externalities that went along with them.

My favorite in this vein is furniture. Yes, if you use hardwood that is not legal for very valid reasons, it can possibly last longer. Or if you get a worker to use toxic paints and other hazardous repair techniques, it is amazing what you can restore.

Meanwhile, the true irony is that a household going through several modern appliances probably still uses less electricity and other raw materials than the older ones that supposedly lasted longer. All while not poisoning the users.

Don't get me wrong, early adopters still typically get bad products. But one need only look at modern lighting to see an example of how the old way was borderline garbage. Yes, the first led bulbs were bad. Same with early low flow toilets and high efficiency washers. Modern ones, though, are so much better than the older ones that it is hard to believe.

If you want to focus on the infrastructure, the amplifiers needed for old communication were ridiculously expensive and actually somewhat justified long distance fees. The repeaters of modern tech are far superior.

It’s small in the grand scheme of things. But when I want something from Amazon that I don’t need immediately I leave it in my cart. I’ll build up my cart for a few days/weeks so that more of the items shop together.

I've always understood "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" to be applied in that order. But commercial consumption propaganda of course emphasizes recycling and de-emphasizes reduction and reuse. Emphasizing recycling encourages guilt-free consumption which is good for profit.

See also, resin code marks which incorporate the recycling symbol, used on plastics which aren't recyclable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resin_identification_code#Tabl...

I've always liked the idea of "Libraries of Things". You join it like a normal library and can borrow things that you don't use often, so you don't even need to buy them in the first place. Here's an example in the UK: https://sharefrome.org/things/

I loved this. There are multiple incarnations of the concept.

Then in my city came the startups, the tech bros and sisters without tech background but marketing-fu and now you have to pay a monthly fee to lend and rent screwdrivers.

Back to getting on a first-name basis with my neighbours then.

If anyone is struggling with this, don't save your payment details in Amazon. It'll make you question if what you're ordering is worth it when it's not a one click thing. Another good thing is leaving it in your cart over night.

I've found that usually, when I get the urge to buy something, if I just wait a few days the desire will subside and I can go on with my life and not miss it. Amazon does its best to enable impulse purchases for that very reason.

I decided to itemize all my possessions and recently built a tool to do so:

https://litemize.com

I'm in the process of itemizing everything,

https://litemize.com/mrtedbear

And my aim is to keep the number below 200 items (excluding books) and 500 items in total, and to minimize purchase and disposal activity.

Can you tell a bit more about the motivation behind itemizing things and how litemize help ?

Passwords like haQ#YuaDC3&j!mm^ are rejected.

BTW: I like the idea behind https://synced.to/, I have entertained the idea of geotagged digital/virtual tag/graffiti for a while without doing anything about it.

Thanks for checking it out, and the helpful feedback. I'll fix it.

There's a few motivations. One was me noticing how I'd somehow just accumulated stuff over time, and I've seen the longer term result of that with my parents. So I wanted to be on top of what I'm getting and why, how long I'm using it for and also how I'm disposing of it.

A second motivation is to use others' lists to make more considered decisions.

And thirdly I'm curious to figure out what might be the minimal set of things one needs to live comfortably.

And cheers, I'm working on an update to Synced which I think will be quite cool! (coming in the next couple of months).

[edit: fixed password issue]

Slightly tangential, but for the past few weeks I've been actively eating less by deciding what I want to eat, and then ordering / making a slightly smaller portion.

I imagine you could apply the same thinking to shopping. Before checking out, pick one or two items to cancel or leave to the next purchase, or choose a smaller size.

Sometimes it costs a little more per unit, but the upside is you consume less.

That's absolutely true but not desired in a world based on mindless consumption and convenience unfortunately.

> Resist > Reuse > Recycle

Ha! I'm always reminding people that the original order was "Reduce > Reuse > Recycle" but it seems as if many people just never learned that or quickly forgot. They jump right to "recycle" as if it's the obvious environmental choice.

But I like your version better and will start using it. Seriously, don't get sucked in to getting your brain Dopamine hits from buying stuff. You'll save money and the environment.

Burning waste correctly is actually a really good way to recycle.

https://youtu.be/Ml0gXre_V-U?t=80

One of the best features on Amazon is the buy later button. You found it, it's awesome. Add it to the shopping cart. Move it to Buy Later. Forget about it.

Yeah, there is very little garbage in my purchase history. Anecdotally it seems like a minority of the people do the bulk of all garbage purchases. I have one friend for example with ADHD who does a ton of impulsive shopping.

Thank you for the data point. From this we can extrapolate that there is no problem.

I don't really buy many things as well.

I have no idea how many things you buy, the average, or what is the general opinion about it. Everyone buys a lot of stuff, I guess? Everyone saying that everyone buys a lot of stuff?

Nevertheless GGP accusing me (and some similar comments) is annoying, probably it annoys GP too for the same reason.

Is accusing the general reader that useful? Is it even true?

If can dismiss what he said because it's one data point then we can dismiss the original argument altogether.