10 Ideas on Minimalism, Fight Club, and Public Policy

1. Minimalists attempt the 100 things challenge, while still renting or borrowing many items they use. Aren’t we renting everything until we die?
2. Idea one presumes that renting is cheaper or easier than owning. There are costs associated with being alive.
3. Humanity has created “money,” an arbitrary measurement that lets us define the fight against entropy.
4. About half the world’s population lives on less than a dollar a day. About half of America’s population has a negative net worth.
5. People are willing to go in to debt for presumed future value (mortgages, student loans, hospital bills to keep them alive).
6. Fight Club is based around wiping the debt slate clean, with no plan for creating future value.
7. People vote for politicians who promise a clean slate with no plan for creating future value.
8. The same people who do 7 also sometimes do 4 (i.e. people have different expectations of politicians than themselves).
9. Politics and policy are governed by real, fallible humans.
10. It’s OK to have national debt, if it intends to create future value.