A few years ago I sold all my stuff to explore the world, creating 12 startups in 12 months and building $1M+/y in companies as an indie maker such as Nomad List and Remote OK. I'm also a big pusher of remote work and try to analyze the effects it will have on society. Follow me on Twitter or see my list of posts. My first book MAKE is out now.
May 24, 2014

We have an ideologically broken and personally unfulfilling society

Minimalism, Quotes, Society

A few years back I was completely disillusioned with living and working in a big city, basically just to buy more stuff. It still boggles my mind we all go to work 40 hours a week then come up with more and more creative ways to waste that excess of money, rather than just work less and have more time.

— grecy on Hacker News

So maybe, then, it’s time for you and I to leave this cult…The cheap, plastic junk that surrounds us probably isn’t worth what we paid – not just in cash (or, more likely, credit) to get it, but in freedom, time, and tears..

— Umair Haque on Harvard Business Review

The posts about how “wonderful” it is that everyone has fridges and smartphones make me cringe. These people have satisfied themselves going a few convolutions further than the lowest common denominator- ie: romanticizing the noble savage- so then they go around regurgitating this idiotic reactionary ‘wisdom’ about being happy with what we have.

What we have is an ideologically broken, personally unfulfilling, extremely resource-intensive society, and indoctrination quips like “it’s the best thing other than all the other things that have been tried” and “our luxuries rise other poorer people out of poverty” shouldn’t cut it.

— RodericDay on Hacker News

P.S. I wrote a book on building indie startups called MAKE. And I'm on Twitter too if you'd like to follow more of my stories. I don't use email so tweet me your questions. Or you can see my list of posts. To get an alert when I write a new blog post, you can subscribe below:

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