(no subject)

Oh, HC is totally correct.

And 123 isn't a bad choice except for being a bit unusual; it's clearly a big-ticket task if you take the "as long as you possibly can" to heart.

(Also: I am very much in favor of this task.)

(no subject)

I think 123 might be too small. 200 at least.

ADDENDUM:

all great questions.

Please continue to pay rent, utilities, phone bills, etc. Please continue to be mobile. The goal of this task is to deter the player from buying things, not to completely shut down their life. I conceive of a movie ticket as a thing, and therefore off-limits. As is a movie rental. I like the idea of this task possibly forcing players to become more creative with their modes of entertainment. Kite flying is ok, presuming one already owns a kite. Free concerts in the park may be something a player's never tried before.

Alcohol and candy... are grey areas left to the individual to define/justify.

p.s. please don't go and buy kites beforehand in a sort of pre-meditated Consumer Abstinence.

(no subject)

I agree with you completely (as is usual), but wanted to hear you say it. If following those rules, as soon as I buy my new bike to replace the one that was stolen from me at Burning Man, I will begin this task.

(no subject) +1

you know, i hadn't considered soap, shampoo, and toilet paper, but those types of purchases don't run counter to the spirit in which this task was conceived.

there is the one overarching goal: reducing consumption, thereby reducing the waste generated from throwaway culture and pollution from manufacturing.

the idea here is to achieve that by challenging two ideas central to American culture:

1. that we are what we own. So often people form their identity through their possessions. "I am young (perhaps at heart) and fun-loving" says a new VW Beetle, while a compact hybrid has another message. An SUV has yet another message about the owner's identity and so on. This identity-through-things doesn't stop with status symbols, either. It can be applied to anything. The type of liquor we drink, the styles of clothing we adopt, etc (not that those things can't also function as status symbols). I am not saying that this can or even should be overturned, but one of the ideas behind the constraints of this task is to at least limit the amount that a player can self-identify through purchases. what happens then? in what new ways do we define ourselves if not by our consumer choices?

2. that we need stuff. The fact is that we need very little. Post-war America has convinced us that we need so many things to live- a vacuum cleaner, a hair dryer, a food-processor, and so on. I recently moved from St. Louis to Long Island with my clothes, my shoes, and my books. My mother could not even conceive of how I was able to leave behind all of my things. "But you need _fill_in_the_blank_!" she would say. And my response to her was that those things were not essential to life. So the other idea here is to get the player to rethink what is essential to their life as well, if only by limiting what they are able to purchase, without asking them to forfeit the things they already have. That might be for another task.

So in response to your comment Loki, it is about impacting the world through impacting oneself. I would argue that that is the only way that the former goal could possibly be achieved.

postscript: the reason why movie and concert tickets perhaps fit into this is that our entertainment choices also define our identity. i would urge the player to define their identity by inventing their own entertainment. But if you're the president of the Whitney Houston Official Fanclub and she happens to go on tour while you are working on this task, please, by all means.