Comment by Modified3019 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Modified3019 | Hacker News Reader

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If like me you’re someone with no prior idea of what this guy was talking about, the first 1/3rd it going to be hard to get through.

However the latter 2/3rd talking about how to approach what items to remove or retain in your life is pretty solid and worth a browse.

In fact the following is pretty much what I’ve been doing this past month:

>You will need to divide your current possessions into four major categories.

>Beautiful things.

>Emotionally important things.

>Tools, devices, and appliances that efficiently perform a useful function.

>Everything else. "Everything else" will be by far the largest category. Anything you have not touched, or seen, or thought about in a year – this very likely belongs in "everything else."

>You should document these things. Take their pictures, their identifying makers' marks, barcodes, whatever, so that you can get them off eBay or Amazon if, for some weird reason, you ever need them again. Store those digital pictures somewhere safe – along with all your other increasingly valuable, life-central digital data. Back them up both onsite and offsite.

Nothing wrong with organizing your stuff or getting rid of low quality items, but in the era of inflation, offshoring of production, and the cheapening/enshittification of goods, assertions like this:

> Furthermore, many of these objects can damage you personally. The hours you waste stumbling over your piled debris, picking, washing, storing, re-storing, those are hours and spaces that you will never get back in a mortal lifetime. Basically, you have to curate these goods: heat them, cool them, protect them from humidity and vermin. Every moment you devote to them is lost to your children, your friends, your society, yourself.

need reevaluated. Scissors of equivalent quality to the ones you bought in the 90's for $10 will set your grandkids back $200, if they can even find any.

I think you seriously misunderstood what you quoted. He's not saying you should maintain your items, he's saying time spent maintaining items is wasted time (with caveats that you didn't quote).

"Scissors of equivalent quality to the ones you bought in the 90's for $10" isn't the goal here. The goal is that you don't have items that require maintenance unless they fit into the categories mentioned, and IF you judge an item to be in one of the categories, they should require minimal maintenance.

I have three pairs of scissors for different purposes (hair, kitchen, medical) and all of them are under $12 on Amazon (well, the hair scissors are some no-brand from a pharmacy, but similar-looking ones on Amazon are $6-$8). All of them work well for their intended purpose--maybe there's some minor improvement that could be made, but it's not significant. The hair and medical scissors will probably outlive me given how infrequently I use them. The kitchen shears might need replacement at some point (I think they could rust in the joints if I'm careless with leaving them in water) but they've lasted me over a decade and if I buy 2 or 3 more pairs in my lifetime that's not exactly a tragedy. Outside of putting them back where they belong when not in use, I will not maintain these scissors--if they so much as require sharpening, I won't do it, because the cost (both monetary AND environmental) of sharpening is greater than the cost of replacing them.

Are any of these scissors equivalent in quality to $10 scissors from the 90s? I don't know, but I don't particularly care.

It seems like for this to pay off, we need to imagine a rather specific transaction: good scissors are hard to find for theoretical grandkids, so they ask if you have any scissors and you give them your scissors. Maybe, but there are other scenarios where your grandkids don’t live nearby and buy their own scissors at a store without asking you, and later your junk goes carted off to the landfill after you die. So that bet might not pay off, because the transaction didn’t happen.

If scissors turn out to be valuable in the future, maybe you could sell them, but probably to a stranger. It’s not obviously a good investment?

Currently, most people don’t bother to try to buy or sell used scissors. They buy new scissors at a store. It’s pretty easy to end up with scissors scattered throughout the house, so having a hook where you put all the scissors is a first step to figuring out how many you can get rid of. Or at least it avoids buying new scissors because you can’t find them.

On the topic of scissors, I can highly recommend Westcott’s “8" Glide Titanium Bonded Non-Stick Scissors, Straight (14849)” (https://westcottbrand.com/products/westcott-8-straight-titan...)

They are very sharp, and hold their edge very well. In a pinch I’ve literally used them to shave a significant amount of dead wood on tree trunks to expose ambrosia beetle holes for my ag job.

A 4-pack is around $15.

They are corrosion and gunk resistant. Though if you use them to cut packing tape, you’ll eventually need to clean them with some alcohol.

Most importantly, the design doesn’t constantly pinch the base of my middle finger on closing like most other scissors will. They are additionally lightweight and comfortable.

Scissor are like pens to me. Ultimately disposable, but I make an effort and am very willing to spend a little bit more for something I actually want to have around.

Speaking of pens… all of your typical sort of BIC style trash ballpoint pens in the house and office are viscously hunted down, destroyed, and replaced with PaperMate inkjoy gel pens. Why? Because they resist leaking, feel good both holding and writing with, dry fast, age well, come in affordable bulk packs, and the near seemless design avoids triggering a compulsive need on my part to pick at and tear them apart when idle.

It is kind of amazing how much finding these two simple yet specific products provided a noticeable quality of life increase.

Good scissors seem to obviously fit into the "Tools, devices, and appliances that efficiently perform a useful function" category, so I'm not sure what to do with your specific example.

I can't easily come up with examples of items which don't fit the taxonomy that my beneficiaries would nonetheless appreciate receiving in my will, and I think "if I don't want it my grandkids definitely won't" is a pretty good rule of thumb here.

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