Should Americans do more with less? - *to an extent, also, not as a necessity but as an innate characteristic - Alternative title: Have Americans become too decadent?

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SOLDIER OF WALES

SOLDIER OF WALES

PRAISE CYMRU, DEATH TO THE KING, REMEMBER 1282
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Aug 14, 2025
I was browsing USPG2 and saw a conversation with @mold and @BigGuyOS 6 : Jovial Janny and other users after they heard a story about Indians owning Subways. They retorted along the lines of "If you didn't get fast food for large family gatherings, you wouldn't have this issue." which got me to thinking:

Couldn't "they" (the beast/da JOOZ/anti-American interests in high places like corporations) be starved if Americans tried to do more with less? Such as never eating out at fast food/maybe even sitdown restaurants, holding onto phones/electronics and repairing them until they break instead of getting the new Iphone/samsung every year, maybe even things like pirating media like videogames/movies/software and generally holding onto things until they break or making their own items at home?

I think most people would agree, but I'd like to hear every bodies specific reasoning/ideas behind this and how effective it would or wouldn't be.

I also would like to say that this shouldn't be from a necessity from tightened wages/higher CoL, but as an innate characteristic/desire of the individual American.
 
Funnily enough, I am taking steps to declutter my living space right now.

And yes, it is a good idea to save money and live below your means. You don't need a new phone every year. You don't need to (and shouldn't) watch TV, streaming, movies, or play video games (literal child's hobby). You should stop buying fast food. Quit buying addictive unhealthy junk at the impulse section at the checkout. Ditch processed junk and try to buy natural stuff as much as possible.

A big problem is Americans by and large have addictions to things outside of illicit substances - see the paragraph above. I don't want a Tesla or some fancy car; I'd just buy a used car in order to just get me from point A to point B and that's it. These sorts of things would be part of living a simple, minimalist life avoiding materialistic trappings - that stuff isn't going with you anyway. You're going to be the only one in that grave; you were born naked and will die naked. Many European countries do not sell American food for more reasons than one - I actually had a Walmart employee personally tell me that every food thing in the store outside of the produce is fake.

Shopping services and streaming encourage people to binge stuff and consume more of the junk. People running these companies make a killing off of exploiting addiction, and don't try to make excuses for Hollyweird with "It's just fiction/a movie". Why would you go and spend money to fund the projects made by people who despise you and what you stand for? Why would you willingly subject yourself to this stuff, just sit there and get pleasure and laughs from watching people engage in behaviors which will send them to Hell?
 
Yes, Americans should be learning to do more with less. There is a real issue of Americans consooming too much cheap and useless crap, more than it was 10 years ago. I agree business are making cheap and single use plastic crap, but it wouldn't be happening if people didn't buy it in the first place. The market is responding to demand. Temu and Shein were peak fast fashion where you paid less than $10 for a shirt that wouldn't last a few cycles in the wash, but it looks cute for a tiktok haul video, so people continue to buy.

A mistake you are making is conflating decadence with consoomerism. Going out for fast food isn't decadent, but consooming slop bowls at chipotle is.

The major hurdle in this is to teach Americans how to cook meals they want to eat instead of going out to eat all the time. There is a bereft of skill in most households of how to do this well. Its mostly about teaching those skills to normies who have no experience pirating or cooking, or learning to upgrade their devices and such. The best ways I have found to nudge people to these behaviors or pass them on has been a family gatherings. It does require restraint however to modify shopping habits. Generally things that are buy-it-for-life or long term have a higher upfront cost.
 
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Start a small garden, even if for only a few basic plants. Beans, peppers, herbs, and cucumbers are easy to grow depending on your climate, and peppers and many herbs are perennials if you live in a warmer climate. These veggies at the very least can form a great additive or seasoning to many dishes, or even just for a small snack.
 
Candlelight Desolation said:
And yes, it is a good idea to save money and live below your means. You don't need a new phone every year. You don't need to (and shouldn't) watch TV, streaming, movies, or play video games (literal child's hobby). You should stop buying fast food. Quit buying addictive unhealthy junk at the impulse section at the checkout. Ditch processed junk and try to buy natural stuff as much as possible.
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Thank you Uncle Ted but I think you might be over-correcting. People can stick with older model phones, home cook their meals and safely pirate as much media as they can get away with (and they probably should do this) but if you enjoy fast food once a week or want to buy a video game sometimes then it's not the end of the world. If you live in the economic center of the planet then you should be allowed a little more economic wiggle room than a Serbian peasant.
 
Many are saying this. said:
Thank you Uncle Ted but I think you might be over-correcting. People can stick with older model phones, home cook their meals and safely pirate as much media as they can get away with (and they probably should do this) but if you enjoy fast food once a week or want to buy a video game sometimes then it's not the end of the world. If you live in the economic center of the planet then you should be allowed a little more economic wiggle room than a Serbian peasant.
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Compromise is how people begin to falter.
 
Candlelight Desolation said:
Compromise is how people begin to falter.
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About food, I don't think of it as doing more with less. If megaloslop is the only possible fuel for your wagiecagie lyfe, you are oppressed. If you can neither cook for yourself, nor be cooked for by a family member, nor exchange currency for a member of your commuity to feed you, that is the less.

All that other stuff, it depends. However the entitlement attititude of I'm a white man living in a first world country so I deserve xyz will end you up in so much debt you're begging to sell your useless organs. Politically, that's a great platform. Individually, it's insanity. You know that 80s diet slogan "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels?" nothing is as fun or as convenient as freedom.

miss me with the whole "you shouldn't play vidya" though, that's not helpful.
 
Playing red dead redemption 2 has opened my eyes with what little people used to survive. Reminds me of my family back in the old country. They make 10% of my income and are happier overall.
 
wtfNeedSignUp said:
It's a catch 22. Americans want to spend less money due to inflation. But they don't trust the currency to save it up by traditional means.
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that's not a catch 22, you just save with the most traditional of means, ammo cache
 
I'm not sure how society as we know it even would function if people stopped being consoomers. I'm going to use restaurants as an example since everyone besides homeless junkies and quadriplegics can cook easily. If society only ate out once a month and during special occasions, I'll be generous and say 75% of restaurants would go out of business; 7.5%(covid as a comparison was 15%) of the working population or 11.25 million people would be on the streets like that. That 7.5% number is not even including the people who aren't even directly employed by the restaurants( construction people who build the buildings, credit card processors that take fees from restaurants, plumbers, electricians, POS system providers, hvac people, health inspectors, etc). And that was just restaurants, think of other industries and services that could be wiped out by people just not consooming at the same rate. Sadly, we need the general population to continue being cattle. It's not all doom and gloom though; coming to this conclusion and finding meaning in life that doesn't revolve around consooming puts you above the majority of the population.
 
Not just Americans. Practically anyone in any first-world country.

The amount of dumb consooming and clout/trend chasing consooming nowadays is insane.
 
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