Update

minimalism.md

@@ -42,6 +42,8 @@ Under [capitalism](capitalism.md) technological minimalism is suppressed in the
 
 Remember, you can't lose if you don't play.
 
+A possible **real life analogy** of the mainstream bloated software vs minimalist software is for example this: the bloated, mainstream computing environment (Windows, Mac, "Linux" distros, mainstream web browsers, virtual machines etc.) is like a skyscraper in a city whereas minimalist software is a small, self-sufficient caravan somewhere in the woods. The skyscraper offers luxury but for an enormous price: it's extremely expensive to just build, just its realization requires tons and tons of bullshit like getting permissions, reviewing environmental and economic impacts, paying architects, planning the building process, ensuring safety, keeping to all regulations, getting enough capital, finding companies to contract and so on -- erecting the building will be an enormously stressful and risky task for many dozens of companies which it will be extremely difficult to just coordinate and once the building stands, it will continue to be extremely expensive to just maintain in habitable state, the rent will be enormous as you're paying for maintenance of the whole building, cleaning the stairs, for energies, clean water pumped to high altitudes, security systems, high speed internet and so on, plus you as someone who even "owns" an apartment in the skyscraper will have practically no control over it besides arranging furniture in the room you "own" while also in the end, for getting this kind of "luxury" of maybe getting a nice view of the city, it will even be inferior in many ways: you'll live in constant noise of the city, in polluted air, bombarded by ads and neons from the streets, you'll have to take the lift to your apartment (good luck if electricity goes out), you can't make much noise to not bother the neighbors, you'll have to work your ass off to just pay the bills, you'll have to be constantly cleaning all the marble and glass, becoming slave to the apartment, while risking conflicts with neighbors and so on. Your "apartment" (or a computer program) isn't even really a thing you own, it's just basically a tiny bit of something trivial (four walls) on top of some gigantic platform (the skyscraper inside the big city, the enormous operating system inside a virtual sandbox running in a [cloud](cloud.md) etc.), expensive just by being at this "privileged" location -- in this case we may substitute the word *platform* for *prison*. On the other hand your off-the-grid caravan will be cheap to get and maintain, you'll have complete control over it, be able to make absolutely any modifications to it, you can repair most things yourself (unlike e.g. with a "smart" apartment), it won't bother you with bullshit, there are no loud or annoying neighbors, [ads](marketing.md), no lifts, no safety regulations (in case of fire it's even much safer than living in skyscraper), you won't even have to pay extra taxes you'd pay for a "real" building, you'll be living in a nice, quiet and relaxing environment, have cleaner air, be more self sufficient, making your own solar electricity (and generally not needing so much electricity), flexible, able to move anywhere at any time. All this for basically giving up having a bathtub made of marble. Anyone with half a brain must see the stupidity of choosing to live in the skyscraper.
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 With increased interest in minimalism the word *minimalism* itself gets misused and abused. Let's be reminded that true minimalism aims to minimize everything that's unnecessary, it starts with good, minimalist design, but ultimately grows outwards and becomes a life philosophy that doesn't stop at the internals of machines, it tries to minimize for example even the desires of the user of the technology. Stopping at minimalist design of internals shouldn't be called minimalism because minimalist design is simply good design -- there is no such thing as a good, non-minimalist internal design. And then there is the shallow capitalist pseudominimalism that bets purely on the looks. The following table sums up the differences:
 
 | what             | internal minimalism | external minimalism |