Do you *want* a simple life?

[JohnB]

I'd like to be composted at the end of my life.

We're probably so full of toxic chemicals that it would poison the vegetables

[emordnilap]

I'd like to be composted at the end of my life.

We're probably so full of toxic chemicals that it would poison the vegetables

Speak for yourself! My diet has been 90 to 95% organic since 1985, so I don't think so.

I mentioned to the wife that's I'd take the neighbours' poo if they shit in a bucket and I'd compost it but she objected on the grounds that they're meat eaters. She's a good 'un.

[Neily at the peak]

I answered no, but somedays it would be yes. If you had asked me before I became po aware, then it would certainly have been no but now i am not so sure.

Neil

[RenewableCandy]

I'd go along with those 2 lists.

The simple life is fine if you're a bloke, and in good health. The 60s had a lot going for them but some of the things that happened "backstage" could be gruesome. Along with "simplicity" there seems to be more pressure for conformity than we have now. To take just one example, on the labour bed, if your name began "Miss" you got no painkillers. Nice, no?

[kenneal - lagger]

I want hydrogen fusion and clean energy to appear!

We can then have our cake AND eat it.

But will you have time to do that? The people who have most of the money will arrange it so that we have to work just as hard so that they can have even more of our money. For what reason I cannot see. Have you not noticed that the more labour saving devices we have the harder we have to work.

I am coming around to thinking that people who accumulate loadsa money have a mental illness and should be relieved of most of it and incarcerated for their and our good until they find out why they have this obsessive compulsive disorder. With them out of the way and others discouraged from following them, perhaps we might be able to work out a way of living happily without keeping our noses to the grindstone of accumulation all the time.

There are a few tribes left who know how to live in balance with their environment, accoding to Jared diamond.

[JohnB]

I remember the Tomorrows World programmes in the 60s when they were talking about all the technology that meant we wouldn't have to work very long hours. And the discussions about how we'd fill our leisure time!

[Andy_K]

But why would we want to have more leisure time when we could instead use all these labour saving devices to 'grow the economy'

[JohnB]

But why would we want to have more leisure time when we could instead use all these labour saving devices to 'grow the economy'

I suppose the theory was that we earn loads of money in a short time, then use our leisure time spending it. Of course even better is working long hours to earn the money that needs to be spent to do the things we can't do ourselves because we're working long hours!

[SunnyJim]

But why would we want to have more leisure time when we could instead use all these labour saving devices to 'grow the economy'

I suppose the theory was that we earn loads of money in a short time, then use our leisure time spending it. Of course even better is working long hours to earn the money that needs to be spent to do the things we can't do ourselves because we're working long hours!

Where was it I read that all excess wealth finds its way into land and property. The harder you work the more you earn, so the more money people have, so up go house prices and land prices.

This is why people will always work so hard that they are close to breaking point. That's what I'm doing. Kids, job, house maintenance, growing food, cultivating land, no holidays, no hobbies, no fun. A perfect model citizen. The green revolution means as well as the above we will all be generating and maintaining our electricity supplies, purifying our own water, growing our own food AND keeping a full time job held down. Nursary's will start taking kids before they're born and will open at night so both parents can till the fields before starting their day job. The goverment will say that we all have more choice and that we're saving the world. <pesimistic mode off>

What we need is a union of humanity, a national agreement that no-one will work more than four days. We'd still have a pretty similar lifestyle, but houses would be cheaper.

[biffvernon]

The French tried it with the 35 hour week but the idea seems to be slipping.

[JohnB]

What we need is a union of humanity, a national agreement that no-one will work more than four days. We'd still have a pretty similar lifestyle, but houses would be cheaper.

But what do you define as work? Getting paid to do things by someone else? Does cutting wood, doing housework, growing food etc count as work, because you are replacing earning money to buy the goods or service from someone else, with doing it yourself. How can you fill 3 days every week purely enjoying yourself, and not doing something that can be classed as work?

[biffvernon]

Over the last century or more, there has been a shift in activity away from the domestic economy where work was done, unpaid and unrecognised by the GDP numbers, in the home, towards more paid work and more activity coming under the section of the economy that involves financial transactions.

It might be nice to reverse that trend.

[JohnB]

Over the last century or more, there has been a shift in activity away from the domestic economy where work was done, unpaid and unrecognised by the GDP numbers, in the home, towards more paid work and more activity coming under the section of the economy that involves financial transactions.

It might be nice to reverse that trend.

My plan is:
1) Work out what money I need to pay for unavoidable costs (council tax, insurance etc)
2) Work out what work I can do for myself
3) Work out what I can do in the alternative economy (LETS, barter etc)
4) Work out the minimum I can do in the mainstream economy to earn the money I need to pay the unavoidable costs

[Ludwig]

I want hydrogen fusion and clean energy to appear!

We can then have our cake AND eat it.

But will you have time to do that? The people who have most of the money will arrange it so that we have to work just as hard so that they can have even more of our money.

I agree about the insanity of the system, but the process is the opposite of what you suggest.

Where does OUR money come from? Our pay packets.

We have to work so that the people who have most of the money - our employers - will give us some of it. That is capitalism's method of wealth redistribution.

And the people with most of the money won't give us some of it unless the end result is them getting more of it. In other words, they make a profit.

And that is why capitalism requires growth. Otherwise, the people with most of the money are basically giving away money to the people with less of it.

When people talk about there being "lots of money in the economy", what's really meant is that there's lots of money moving around.

In a recession or a slump, there's no reduction in the amount of money in the economy, it's just that those who have money aren't sharing it because they can't make a profit from doing so.

[Ludwig]

How can you fill 3 days every week purely enjoying yourself, and not doing something that can be classed as work?

I could do it quite easily. Reading, writing, listening to music, practising the violin. Then, I'm single and childless