logoalt Hacker News

potato3732842yesterday at 11:54 AM2 repliesview on HN

I'm really sick of this sort of look down your nose at a huge fraction of consumers type behavior. It's the same sort of stupidity that underpins the famous "surely everyone else is wrong" behavior that is exemplified by principal skinner[1].

I eat garbage by the standards of anyone who gives a crap about food and you don't see me going around looking down on everyone for wasting resources on fancy food ingredients and fancy cookware and whatnot. At the end of the day these unnecessary things bring enough perceived benefit to people's lives that they seem worth it, whether that's you overpriced LeDouchebag brand enameled dutch oven or a financing service for consumer garbage doesn't really matter. It's all a "needless" expenditure at the end of the day that people find worth it.

I've never used these services and probably never will, nor am I saying the prevalence of these things is optimal at scale, it's probably not, but I'm not gonna sit there and act like 1 in N consumers, probably hundreds of millions of people, is wrong or ignorant for using them or that I know better for not.

-shitposted from my 8yo phone while driving my $500 car through traffic on bald tires

[1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/am-i-so-out-of-touch


Replies

suddenlybananasyesterday at 11:58 AM

Le Creuset pots are genuinely great though

show 1 reply
tristoryesterday at 3:49 PM

> shitposted from my 8yo phone while driving my $500 car through traffic on bald tires

I mostly agree with you, but some of those "needless" expenditures have negative externalities when avoided. Whether that's processed foods causing heart disease and diabetes that strain public health resources, or your bald tires greatly increasing the likelihood of an automobile accident that could kill you or someone else. Your response takes an opposite extreme that none of this matters, when in fact much of it matters, but it's not like treating it like it matters makes you a better person. We need to eliminate moral value judgements from the equation, while still being reasonable.