#samuel vimes theory of boots

[pelicanoctopus]

This is so real. Y'all. If you have never paid more than $100 USD for a pair of jeans, your jeans are fast fashion. If you have never paid more than $50 USD for a shirt: your shirts are fast fashion. Unless you buy graphic tees from a company that is loud and proud about their non sweatshop textile/garment sourcing? You better believe that's fast fashion too.

For years and years and years the only non fast fashion garments I owned were underwire bras and bathing suits that were hand made in Germany and I paid over $100USD for every single one because there were no other options for the tig ol biddies I was sporting at the time. It took so much of my budget that I bought practically no other new clothing for over a decade.

Most people cannot afford to buy clothes that aren't fast fashion. Like OP, I'm not going to judge anyone for having a fast fashion wardrobe (the majority of mine still is), because it's very much a Samuel Vimes Theory Of Boots type problem. You need clothes to cover your body, so you buy what you can afford. The clothes you can afford aren't as good for the planet or the people who made them and they're not going to last as long as something made both sustainably and well, but you need clothes to cover your body, so you buy them anyway.

And then on top of that, there's also the problem of: having paid $$$ for jeans/shirts is not actually a guarantee that the garments you own are not also fast fashion. The garments might have been made by hand or in an ethical workshop, but with fabric that came from a sweatshop mill. Or they might be straight up sweatshop work from start to finish & cost $$$ because of the brand label on them.

Or they could be "sustainable" and "ethically sourced and produced" and just absolutely garbage quality because the "fair wages" they pay aren't high enough for the garment workers who have actual skills and experience.

Yes, it is better - for the environment, for the people making your stuff, and for your budget (if you're a pleb like me who can't get by without one) - to buy less and take good care of what you own than to buy a bunch of clothes and only wear each garment a single time. But more likely than not, even with your best efforts, even if you spend $$$$, you're going to end up with a wardrobe that is at least partially "fast fashion" because that's 90% of what's available to the average consumer.

So do better if you can, but yeah. Unless you're wealthy enough to have all of your clothes made bespoke with ethically produced fabric? Don't delude yourself into thinking you're not participating in/wearing fast fashion, because there's a 99% chance you are. Like OP said: words mean things.

I love nonfiction that I simply cannot relate to at all. "it's easy to get addicted to buying fast fashion! I used to spend thousands of dollars on it a year!" okay. you're a space alien.

[stackofsnakes]

I find it funny that Sam Vimes, Samuel "Sam Vimes' Boot Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness" Vimes, goes out of his way to get the cheapest and most worn boots imaginable, for the explicit purpose of navigating Ankh-Morpork like Toph from fucking Avatar.

My man's going to catch pneumonia one day but at least he can two-factor-authenticate his wherabouts

[blackboard-monitor]

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”

[i-am-worm]

Inktober 2024 - Day 3 - Boots

"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.” - Terry Pratchett

[queerfables]

This came up in my recent discussion with @indigovigilance, but for my own reference, I wanted to make a dedicated post about it.

Fandom speculation in the wake of season 2 has pointed to the themes of deception, sleight of hand and memory tampering to suggest there's an unsolved mystery woven through the season that we can piece together with the right evidence. I think there's a solid case for this, but I also think it's possible we've been deliberately lead into overthinking things.

Crowley and Aziraphale's conversation about Clues-with-a-captial-C is a reference to Terry Pratchett's iconic Discworld detective, Samuel Vimes. Vimes is skeptical about Clues. He considers assembling a singular, intricate explanation that accounts for every available piece of evidence a great way to end up with a theory that is enormously clever and completely off base.

From Feet of Clay:

Samuel Vimes dreamed about Clues. He had a jaundiced view of Clues. He instinctively distrusted them. They got in the way. And he distrusted the kind of person who’d take one look at another man and say in a lordly voice to his companion, “Ah, my dear sir, I can tell you nothing except that he is a left-handed stonemason who has spent some years in the merchant navy and has recently fallen on hard times,” and then unroll a lot of supercilious commentary about calluses and stance and the state of a man’s boots, when exactly the same comments could apply to a man who was wearing his old clothes because he’d been doing a spot of home bricklaying for a new barbecue pit, and had been tattooed once when he was drunk and seventeen and in fact got seasick on a wet pavement. What arrogance! What an insult to the rich and chaotic variety of the human experience!

From the Fifth Elephant:

Mr. Vimes had told him never to get too excited about clues, because clues could lead you a dismal dance. They could become a habit. You ended up finding a wooden leg, a silk slipper and a feather at the scene of a crime and constructing an elegant theory involving a one-legged ballet dancer and a production of Chicken Lake.

Coupled with the conspicuous barrel of red herrings in the opening credits, I have to wonder if the show, while teasing the possibility of a mystery, is explicitly telling us not to look too hard. I'm not ruling out some kind of twist, but I'm inclined to think that for this story, theories are strongest when they rely on only a few pieces of evidence and follow a clear, straightforward narrative. If there is something still hidden in season 2, maybe it's not an elaborate puzzle but a simple misdirect.

[syl-stormblessed]

I JUST GOT TO THE CAPTAIN SAMUEL VIMES "BOOTS" THEORY OF SOCIOECONOMIC UNFAIRNESS. THAT FELT LIKE A RIGHT OF PASSAGE.

[wot-tidbits]

Rincewind and Mat could make for a fantastic team-up adventure. Both of them super ta'veren, both unfairly lucky, both desperately want out of the "this is going to kill me" story.

Hello!

This sounds great. I would love to read such team-up. It would be hilarious.

While we are on the Discworld I would like also to read about Samuel Vimes and Matrim Cauthon meeting to discuss their “Boot vis-à-vis Rich People” theories.

Pratchett and RJ really had a lot in common.

Let the Light keep you safe.

LightOne

[mary-the-cryptofascist]

Food $200

Data $150

Rent $800

Bottle of Water $4391

Utility $150

someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my neofamily is dying

buy two bottles of water

no.

shoutout to neopets economics

[elfgrove]

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socio-economic unfairness.

Terry Pratchett, "Men at Arms"

[mjschryver]

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness. Terry Pratchett Men at Arms (1993)

[melissentee]

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was, because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of okay for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socio-economic unfairness.

Men At Arms by Terry Pratchett

[oracle-of-moon]

The Socio-Economical Vimes's Boots Theory.

This makes me so sad and also I'm trying to remember if any of the Discworld books dealt with late stage capitalism

[pratchettquotes]

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. [...] The thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

Terry Pratchett, Men At Arms

[travellinghopefully]

[chaoticoctopi]

It's so much easier to make money if you already have money.

My bank sent around a message about a gaurenteed return bond thing. You can put money in for 8 or 15 months. You get a gaurenteed 5% return.

(Except it's not actually 5%, it's either 4.88% for the 8 month and 4.16 for the 15 month, and the number of days in the months matter somehow? IDK. Whatever.)

Anyway, all you need is a minimum of $500. "I can do that!" I think. "I got my tax returns, i have money I've been squirreling away in savings, I could switch some of that low-interest savings money to this for a while!"

And then I think about the math, and I look at the handy supplied chart of returns.

The lowest figure on the chart they give as an example is *$10,000*. At that sum, in 8 months you will earn... $330.

Yes, it's "free money" but it's still somehow so underwhelming. 10k is such a huge chunk of change to me, and while an extra $330 in any given month would be be huge difference, over 8 months?

So, like, if I was to take the entirety of my savings I've painstakingly put away over the course of *eight years*, and tied it up in this account for eight whole months - meaning it would not be available for me to draw from if I had a sudden emergency, which is THE POINT of savings for me - I'd get a whole whopping $165??

That seemingly "reasonable minimum" of $500 would earn you $16.50

Now, if I could put away 100k, which the chart so helpfully shows, I could earn $3,300. That's getting to the point where it seems worth it. But to earn that, I have to have 100k just sitting around that I *won't need for at least eight months*.

Of course they don't put the $500 minimum or even $1000 on the chart. Who'd be excited to see a return of $16.50 or $33 listed?

But if I have huge stacks of cash laying around already, that cash could make me a reasonable amount *by just sitting there*

The trick is you have to not NEED the huge stack of money in the first place.

[triflesandparsnips]

And there have been results-- the UK's Office of National Statistics put together a report using VBI-style data/reporting, highlighted in this twitter thread:

""The index, Monroe said, is named in honour of Pratchett’s creation Sam Vimes, who in the Discworld novel Men at Arms lays out the “Sam Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socio-economic unfairness”.

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money,” wrote Pratchett. “Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of okay for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.”

The Pratchett estate has authorised the use of the name, tweeting its own Pratchett quote in support of Monroe’s campaign. “Sometimes it’s better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness,” wrote the late Discworld author in Men at Arms.

Rhianna Pratchett said: “My father used his anger about inequality, classism, xenophobia and bigotry to help power the moral core of his work. One of his most famous lightning-rods for this was Commander Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch - a cynical, but likable, man who attempts to better himself whilst railing against the injustices around him. Some of which he’s had a hand in perpetrating in the past.

“Vimes’s musing on how expensive it is to be poor via the cost of boots was a razor-sharp evaluation of socio-economic unfairness. And one that’s all too pertinent today, where our most vulnerable so often bear the brunt of austerity measures and are cast adrift from protection and empathy. Whilst we don’t have Vimes any more, we do have Jack and Dad would be proud to see his work used in such a way.”