Buy Nothing Day 2006
polycounter lvl 18
Its that time of year to participate in change by not participating in the unsustainable global consumer machines most popular shopping days.
November 24th for US. November 25th everywhere else.
Buy Nothing Day 2006
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8A3uErlJ7k
Replies
Sorry, but I like the idea of 1 gig flash drives for 4 bucks.
yes, brilliant! let's buy nothing on the days when items are cheapest, and continue to buy items on days when the companies make the most money! damn, you sure are smart.
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Do you know why it's called "Black" Friday? In accounting, losses were traditionally recorded in red ink, and profits in black ink. Black Friday is the beginning of the period (i.e. the holiday shopping season) when a lot of retailers start actually making profits after having operated at a loss for the previous months. The discounts on Black Friday are just to stoke the fires of the consumer-whorism that ensues in the following weeks.
I don't think it's about hurting companies profits so much as it is an attempt to cut back on the obscene amounts of consumption in the western world. If you want to cut back consumption, of course it makes sense to do it on the day in which the most consumption happens.
And most of all, don't buy game industry related products on black friday, because the consumer season is the DEVIL!
(wouldn't be odd to protest the consumer-driven holiday season when most of us work in a consumer-driven entertainment industry??)
The economy doesn't work if you don't use your money. We all get paid to do something that helps shorten the interval between wanting to something and being entertained, momentarily happy, and/or fed.
Don't get in the way of people getting paid so that they can buy something so that they can be happy even if only for a short time. We get pissy.
Buy lots of cheap stuff Friday, so that you can feel happy. Don't feel bad about it, your helping make someone else happy to by doing it.
its a good initative tho. Only i dont get why its on different days in US and rest of world?
Buy lots of cheap stuff Friday, so that you can feel happy. Don't feel bad about it, your helping make someone else happy to by doing it.
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Yes, helping make someone else happy... namely the Chinese, since that's where a majority of our goods are now manufactured
But beyond the economic implications, there's also the environmental impact. We tend to think on an individual basis: "What difference does it make if I buy another DVD player? It's on sale, and I could use it with the TV in the bathroom." But if 10 million other people have that same mentality, then that's hundreds of thousands of gallons of petroleum used to make the plastics for the DVD player, hundreds of tons of coal burned to run the factory that manufactures the DVD player, thousands of gallons of diesel to ship the DVD players, and then tons of waste left in landfills 10 years later when those DVD players no longer work. It really adds up.
This doesn't mean you should burn all your material possesions and go live under a bridge. My only point is that this movement has a legitimate message, and eventhough this "buy nothing day" may not directly change anything, it could be successful in making more people conscientious of these issues. I don't think it should be dismissed offhand.
i think the buy nothing day is an empty gesture really. not that i like capitalism that much. but i think these types of things only really hit it home with those who already have an anti establishment mentality. its not something that really converts the non believers, just those who are already trying to bring down the man. these people dont really amount to a force that is going to bring any significant detriment to retailers on black friday. whatever happened to the good ol firebombing anarchist? i think the main problem with any revolution brought about from the hippies that read adbusters is that they are all pussies. they need to stop hating on guns and bombs and start packing some heat then people might listen to them. or at least take them seriously. until then, go eat a vegan wrap from whole foods and quit spamming my art forums.
Whats the point of this other than 'its what teh man wants you to do so DONT!"
Honestly, if they want to change things, then they should encourage people to buy ONLY the reduced items. That's the only way to stop the insanity. The reason the companies go into the black is because people go in for the deals, then buy other full priced items. Half the time, the deals are sold out, and people still shop the store, allowing the company to earn full profit.
My point: Buy the deals and nothing else. If they are sold out, buy NOTHING... just leave.
Let me look at this from my perspective. I make games for a small game company. The games that I work on are in turn published by a multi-national corporation. Yep, that would be the publisher, and most of them have offices on several continents. Then in turn, these games are sold to retail vendors such as WalMart, EB Games, etc. (Those would be multi-national retail corporations.) Then the game is bought by some person who doesn't really need it. This purchase keeps the whole system going. I'm employed, the people working for the publisher are employed, the people working for the companies involved in packaging and shipping are kept employed, and the people working at the retail outlet are kept employed. Oh, and the consumer at the end gets to play a fun game.
Hmmmm... Besides a bit of packaging which can be recycled, and the plastic of the game DVD itself, who exactly is getting hurt by this whole Evil multi-national corporation controlled, consumer sheep scenerio? Maybe the environment, a slight bit. But which people?
It seems to me that if Buy Nothing Day were actually effective, and actually struck a blow against capitalism, it should actually be renamed to:
Let's try to starve Ryno day.
Because in reality, it would be me and the other people along the game development chain that would be hurt and in worst-case scenerio unemployed.
And a hungry Ryno is not a happy one.
I don't get it. If you don't buy what you want that day, so you buy it next day instead, what has changed? Seriously all you people who replied to this thread are retarded. Hey, don't look at me that way, I love you all, just stating facts. It's facts to me!
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exactly! this is just like the "dont buy gas on this day" thing. i have "dont buy gas on this day" days all the time... because i don't need any gas! but guess what folks? i usually buy it the next day or the next day. this is the normal cycle for ohhh... about 99.999% of people. eventually you'll need or want the items and have to purchase them anyway why does it matter which day it was on? if someone is total anti-consumer, they probably weren't going to go shopping in the first place, so why even designate a day at all?!
Whats the point of this other than 'its what teh man wants you to do so DONT!"
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*sigh*
You people are completely missing the point. This is not about "bringing down the man" or even being "anticapitalism." This is about the over-consumption that has become part of our culture and its economical, political and environmental impact. Our consumption of resources (and its environmental/political effects) not only effects the rest of the world, but also our future posterity.
This "buy nothing" day isn't supposed to change anything, it's a symbolic gesture to hopefully get people to think about the real-world impact of their consumption.
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Hmmmm... Besides a bit of packaging which can be recycled, and the plastic of the game DVD itself, who exactly is getting hurt by this whole Evil multi-national corporation controlled, consumer sheep scenerio? Maybe the environment, a slight bit. But which people?
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Our nation is getting hurt, for one. It may not be so obvious when you single out a specific industry like video games, but our trade deficit paints a clear picture. The United States became a prosperous nation by being a center of manufacturing; the world would buy American goods, and therefore, the money would be flowing our way. As it stands now, the money is flowing at a huge rate OUT of the country. We are moving in the direction of a third-world country like Mexico, and we can't yet feel the effects of it because at the moment we are running on fumes. But all you need to do is look at our trade deficit and huge national debt... these are SERIOUS problems, and corporations shifting their manufacturing overseas (thanks to NAFTA and other trade policies) is exacerbating the problem.
It's not as if you're going to wake up tomorrow and all of a sudden the United States is going to look like Mexico. This is something that is going to effect your children more than it will effect you.
Keyser: The only issue with the "environmental Impact" idea is that if its on the shelf for you to buy, the petroleum has already been used, the coal has been burned, and it comes down to wether its a usefull and enjoyable product, or a useless waste of resources. The only way to "save the environment" is to not make the thing to begin with, so the issue of buying it would never come up anyway.
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You show an obvious ignorance of how a production line works. Companies don't just produce X number of goods and hope people buy them. Sales are what drive production. If a product stops selling, then the company that produces it will cut production and retailers will drop prices to liquidate the remaining inventory. Then the retailers will stop ordering that product.
I'll give you an example: I live near the Sierra Nevada brewery. They have the capacity to bottle about a million gallons of beer per day. They never run at full capacity. What they do is constantly monitor their sales, and if sales go down, production goes down with it. If they sales plummet by 90%, then they would slow production down by a similar degree.
It's a logical fallacy to say, "well, if you don't buy the products they'll just go to waste anyway." It's like buying 10 pounds of hamburger every day, and then saying, "if I don't eat this 10 pounds of hamburger every day, then it'll just go to waste." STOP BUYING THE HAMBURGERS.
Oh well. I probably won't buy anything, mainly because I'm poor right now.
Hooray for relative poverty!
Yeah, yeah
As far as jobs going to the third world, I thoroughly support that. People in the third world starve to death, and could use better jobs. Contrary to what some nationalists would believe, this might not be such a horrible thing. Sure, the U.S. might eventually slip from being the number one economic power, but this doesn't terrify me as it does some people.
This has happened to numerous European powers who at one point or another held or shared economic dominance. Yet I don't see many Brits, French, Germans, Spaniards, etc. starving in the street. Although their nations' economic power may be reduced when compared to the U.S., Japan, China, etc., it does not mean that their citizens instantly become impoverished. It doesn't even mean that their citizens become poor over a 300 year period for that matter.
As far as the third world citizens go, the more jobs that they have, the better working conditions tend to become. If there are few jobs, and few companies controlling who gets those jobs, the common worker gets screwed. With more jobs, workers have more options, and can avoid the shitty ones. Companies are forced to offer better wages, benefits, and working conditions to attract and keep employees who can just go somewhere else if they don't like it.
Better than Buy Nothing Day, why don't people just raise their kids to be fiscally and environmentally responsible? Personally, I don't think the whole Buy Nothing Day really does a whole hell of a lot to even make people think of these underlying keystones.
As far as jobs going to the third world, I thoroughly support that. People in the third world starve to death, and could use better jobs.
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This was one of the promises of NAFTA. The problem is that corporations will just move their manufacturing plants to wherever is cheaper. That's the whole point of it: it's so their manufacturing will be as cheap as possible, it's not to help the third-world countries where they build their plants.
China's economy is hot right now due to the manufacturing industry, but there's already talk of moving manufacturing from China to Vietnam (which is why President Bush was there recently).
Anyway, that's a whole nother discussion that I don't feel like getting into.
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Whats the point of this other than 'its what teh man wants you to do so DONT!"
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*sigh*
You people are completely missing the point.
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Hence the asking of the question...
The site wasn't really explaining it well up front and I didn't see any links off the front page that actually explained why it was so evil. The mission statement on the main page read more like "I'm a hippie I'm going to use the buzz words of "global warming" as an excuse to boycott the holidays. Join me we'll be hippies together!!! WEE"
Coming from a fairly hippish family I had more than enough of this stuff shoveled my way. Most of it was rubber stamped because it smelled of the hippie agenda. The idea of blindly trusting something because it is hippish rubs me raw. Give me facts, give me numbers give me logic, not hippie rhetoric. Typical to counter culture form they have you run 180 degrees in the opposite direction, which actually can cause just as much harm. I think the answer is in finding a balance. But then America isn't good at that, its too manic and polar to ever find a balance. If its not one extreme its another. Running from one end of the teeter todder and back again, won't get it to level out.
Do your shopping thru out the year at your own pace. Buy practical gifts that people will use and enjoy. Balance, its kind of nice in the middle.
I honestly think bigger problems will be the downfall of American society than 6 weeks of sales. At least you made a good jab at making the case the site did not, thanks Keyser.
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=164046&an=0&page=0#Post164046
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eQTh5ITYGg&mode=related&search=
"I believe consumption is at the root of terrorism!" ...because me going out and buying relatives chinsey little presents helped the hijackers of 9/11!
Sorry, I'm not participating in the consumer season this year. I need to save my ammo for lawyer season.
If I buy something on Friday, it is because I need it, and as is the case for 95% of what I buy, it will be food.
I don't think Buy Nothing Day is about buying literally nothing, it's about not buying luxury items. After all it's the luxury items that sell more for Christmas, not the basic food stuff.
"I believe consumption is at the root of terrorism!" ...because me going out and buying relatives chinsey little presents helped the hijackers of 9/11!
No but we express our freedom in consumption and it's our freedom that the terrorists hate!!!111oneone
Alex
Thank you KeyserSoze for trying to explain to people who would choose not understand the issues behind. Who would rather simplify it too just anarchic fist waving versus trying to get people to discuss issues that are uncomfortable. Which unbeknownst to them, happened with this thread.
Vig. You have a valid point.
There are a variety or reasons people celebrate this day and try to inform others. One of my main one deals with the below.
One of the main points is our current economy is broken. It requires a social economy outlook thats based around continued growth, of people and consumption. But the fact is we live in a finite environment.
George Monbiots recent book Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning that discusses how we can reduce our carbon emissions without totally becoming Luddites. He includes your requested facts and figures during his argument.
http://www.turnuptheheat.org/
Arshlevon, your post is funny as always. But if they did that, its a great way to become a terrorist with any message being lost in anger.
A Gameboy Micro for 39.99
6 x 1gb SD cards for 3 dollars each
A 6" Digital Picture Frame for 50 bucks
An 11 band radar detector for 25 bucks
Metroid Prime and a bunch of other good used games for 3 bucks each
A vacuum for 10 bucks
and my girlfriend got a 7.1mp camera for 130 bucks.
Product development is driven by product sales, and very few plants operate at 100% capacity because of basic cost of creation. HOWEVER, any given product must produce a certain number of units to hit a target price because of those same economic concerns.
If you really want to impact the resource use then it requires shutting down entire industrys, not just one or 2 products. Case in points, the Dreamcast, and Tribes: Vengeance. Dreamcast sold well for a while, then people spent their cash elsewhere. Hundreds of thousands of Dreamcast units were simply warehoused, wasted. Tribes Vengeance sold about 47000 units in north america total. I GUARANTEE you they made more disks than that. Again, wasted resources.
However videogames are still being produced by the millions of disks, and we still have 3 big consoles to choose from. Unless everyone decides to stop buying all forms of digital entertainment, the resource use won't stop it will simply be re-appropriated into another profitable sector.
I'll agree that to make any change like this a very large change of mindset is needed across the population base of the USA, and to a degree globally. However, I refuse to believe that the climatelogical changes which may be taking place are unnatural or debilatory. The idea that the climate MUST stay the same as its been for the past oh.. few hundred or thousand years is silly. The climate of this planet oscilates, if our understanding of prehistory is to be believed.