Distance to a Dollar Store
3 out of 4 New Yorkers (15.2 million) live within 5 miles of a dollar store.
Consumerism 📍
📽️ Videos
Eco-lifestyle Consumerism
Eco-lifestyle consumerism of dubious values seems to be all the rage these days. Many smart marketers have figured out that it’s easy to sell new products to urban consumers who feel guilty about their consumption and ecological impact.
The newest one is buying into “community solar farms” that are these vast areas of farm land covered by solar panels that sell into the grid. The consumer pays a little extra on his or her bill – or maybe about the same with tax credits – and they subsidize the construction of these urbanized farm fields or former forests. They argue it’s carbon-free energy, although it’s heavily backed up fossil generation of the grid. The fossil plants work “less hard” with “less load” so they burn less fuel when assisted by the solar, but it’s still all supported by our fossil-fuel grid while using up valuable farm land and forest land. If we took land that was going to be a solar farms and put it into traditional non-urban uses, what would be the impact on the climate? It would at least be less ugly solar farms to look at.
Geothermal heat that uses refrigerant to pump or dump heat out of the earth using large quantities of electricity is also a popular thing – it’s a new high-end product that can be sold by well drillers – who traditionally could only market their service to rural dwellers beyond the city water supply. I’m equally cynical about this technology, because it uses incredible amounts of electrical energy to power it – theoretically from renewable sources – but rarely that’s case as intense amount of energy to power a geothermal system comes from the fossil-fuel grid.
I don’t discredit the early pioneers in this green technology, but I think it’s valid to ask questions, even if we shouldn’t be necessarily defending the status quo. Certainly, we should be doing everything to get solar panels on existing buildings, as solar is proven technology that is simple and inexpensive. It doesn’t consume land on existing structures, it is long lasting, even if it’s as toxic as the rest of electronics it powers. I think we should increase efficiency standards on new buildings and furnaces, work to do more to improve energy efficiency on existing buildings. Geothermal should be considered as an alternative to air-source heat pumps both in existing and new buildings, but it should not be promoted as a way to “consume more” with “zero impact”.
It’s stupid to ignore the climate crisis we are all facing. But throwing money at so-called green technologies that do little to actually address the problem of over consumption and over population isn’t necessarily a good answer.
Targeted advertising feeds my anxiety 🤖 🙉
Few things I find more creepy is targeted advertising. It attempts to “target” based on machine learning, which looks at interactions on social media, webpages browsed and search terms to find what is most marketable for the user, not what is most relevant to the user.
The amount of data that feeds into targeted advertising is quite creepy. And often it makes judgements about a person that are quite wrong, as it’s only looking at population averages with a similar profile, and trying to make an educated guess at what products can be sold to that person. Yet, one isn’t defined by what advertisers think they can sell to you, and you shouldn’t take too seriously what people are paid to put in front of you.
Every time I mention my anxiety, I am fed a steady diet of advertisement for Better Help online mental health services, and the free-to-call 988 anti-suicide hotline. Targeted mental health advertising is downright creepy! When I was concerned about my excess peeing and pooping — from all the water and fiber in food — I was fed a steady diets about prostate and stomach cancers. Maybe because of my google searches, but long after my doctor visit and tests confirmed I was mostly clean, it was still creeply messaging to me. And then since I’ve gotten interested in healthy eating, I see constant advertising for services for people with anorexia, and granola bars and other highly-processed “health foods”. Not foods that are actually healthy, but come with good mark-up for the food processors.
Since I’ve mentioned my issues with new landlord and my search for rural property, I’ve now been getting fed a steady diet of advertising about landlord tenant management software and speculative real estate investments. Then there has been a steady batch of advertising I’ve been consuming about moving services, and extended stay places, as if soon I am to become homeless. I don’t think my current living accommodations are sustainable forever, but I really don’t think I’m in immediate risk of homelessness, despite the bit of a game my new landlord played over the rent check. Ironically, no advertising for land or property, despite all the time I spend on Zillow and studying the property tax rolls.
Then there are conflicting advertisements I keep seeing between investing for high-net worth individuals and services directed to the poorest of poorest people, such as those on welfare and section 8 housing. I’m not neither — I don’t have a million in investable assets as much are locked up in retirement accounts, nor do I get welfare benefits. I’m closer to the prior then the later but not there, yet — and I’ll probably blow it on land and livestock. Some of it’s my personal interest in ways of being frugal and a responsible investing, but it’s fascinating to see the conflict. Discount cellphone providers like Mint Mobile still really want my business, and so do discount internet providers for low-income persons. But the real reason I choose not to have internet at home isn’t poverty, but it’s for the sanity of not having all that commercial crap in my apartment and to save a bit of money.
I know I’m not defined by commercial advertising, which exists solely to sell products to me but it creeps me out how much it knows about me and how it tries to sell me things based on things I have searched or explored on the internet.
Expensive Coffee
Did you know a $5 dollar cup of coffee ☕ can actually cost $150?
If you are age 30, and buy a cup off coffee for $5 instead of buying an index fund that has a 9.8 percent return, the average of the S&P 500 over the past 90 years, and let it mature for 35 years, you would end up with about $150, which of course doesn’t include inflation or fees.
The point is every consumer item you buy, is essentially stealing from your future.
We all have to live, spend some money, get enjoyment out of today. But certainly something in a styrofoam or paper cup, that’s going to end up in a landfill or a fire shortly after use should be avoided, especially if you can make due without or find a less expensive option for enjoying today. I drink coffee, but I make it in my percolator pot, using my reusable mug.