[HN Gopher] A Victoria man has gone two decades without money
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A Victoria man has gone two decades without money
Author : 8bitsrule
Score : 148 points
Date : 2021-07-22 05:55 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.capitaldaily.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.capitaldaily.ca)
| peterburkimsher wrote:
| I admire his resolve, though it's not something I'd like to take
| to the extreme. Spending more time with people who have less
| money (e.g. CouchSurfing -> BeWelcome, hitchhiking, dumpster
| diving) has been an immensely rewarding experience.
|
| Last week, I heard a message about investment, which said that
| the 3 ways to store wealth are stocks in companies, bonds in
| governments, and property (owned by banks or rich people). A few
| days later, I read about GitLab making it their policy to help
| people get visas (shouldn't that be a government choice?).
| Privatisation is also taking over police departments, prisons,
| bus services, etc. I don't trust that the shareholders' best
| interests are the same as the needs of the people. War helps
| private companies, at the expense of governments & property. I'm
| not hopeful for peace in the next 50 years.
|
| What about investing in people? Not saving wealth, but giving it
| away!
|
| People will try hard to save their own lives in a war (and if I
| die, I don't need the return on investment anyway). It's a
| personal contact, so I think it's highly resistant to inflation.
| Building community is, in my opinion, more important than storing
| up wealth. I guess this view is similar to Guan Xi guanxi. It's
| democratic: if I do something silly and lose face, then it has
| consequences. I don't think it's authoritarian communism, where
| Dan Wei dictate who you can marry or what kind of job you can
| do, but a community-focussed lifestyle where newcomers are
| welcome, and share freely within the group. I'm still trying to
| figure this concept out though, so other suggestions of
| philosophical readings are welcome :)
| sokoloff wrote:
| > [Company] making it their policy to help people get visas
| (shouldn't that be a government choice?)
|
| Of course it's the government choice to grant the visa or not.
| It's the company choice as to how much support (financial,
| HR/legal advice, other) to extend to their employees [and their
| household].
| muskox2 wrote:
| > stocks in companies, bonds in governments
|
| Being pedantic, but governments aren't the only entities
| which issue bonds. Private bonds exist as well.
| peterburkimsher wrote:
| What about the "hockey-stick" exponential growth that's needed
| for compounding to work?
|
| Companies pretend that it's true for them, but actually are at
| the mercy of business cycles. Governments have linear growth at
| best. Property has had exponential growth because of increasing
| population, but that's plateauing.
|
| Can social connectedness be exponential, for the benefit of
| society? Not just more people, but people who are more
| connected to each other? How can that growth be incentivised?
| (I'm thinking out loud)
| knocte wrote:
| > A few days later, I read about GitLab making it their policy
| to help people get visas
|
| link?
| david_allison wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27899918
| henvic wrote:
| > (shouldn't that be a government choice?).
|
| Why? Just why? Why the hell can't I be free to move freely to a
| place where other people accept me? Why is it that a parasitic
| entity (the state) has to say whether they allow me in or not?
| Why should I be barred to enter a continental region of the
| world without convincing a bunch of bureaucrats that I'll be
| there just for a few days?
|
| > Privatisation is also taking over police departments,
| prisons, bus services, etc. I don't trust that the
| shareholders' best interests are the same as the needs of the
| people.
|
| And you trust state actors responsible for most murders in
| history (example: compare how many hundreds of millions were
| murdered in wars vs. by private actors in the last century),
| how come?
|
| > War helps private companies, at the expense of governments &
| property. I'm not hopeful for peace in the next 50 years.
|
| No. It's not at the expense of governments. This is pure
| brainwash propaganda. Governments, or states, are responsible
| for most of the destructive behavior we see in human history.
| They're not victims but perpetrators of wars. It's silly to
| think otherwise. You're not hopeful "for peace in the next 50
| years" because of your prejudices and misconceptions.
|
| Society has never been so peaceful as today. Thanks to the
| private sector, communication is more and more accessible to
| everyone. Some day (not sure if 50 years or 500), poverty will
| be over, except due to acts of state-sponsored terrorism, and
| people will be able to denounce it whenever it happens and on a
| global scale. This is starting to happen today already.
|
| Most private entities (companies or the third sector) do good
| for the people and benefit nothing from the misery caused by
| state actors and their wars. Just a thin fraction, such as
| defense contractors, does.
| Thorncorona wrote:
| I can't tell if you are trying to be sarcastic so I will
| respond in good faith.
|
| > Why the hell can't I be free to move freely to a place
| where other people accept me? Why is it that a parasitic
| entity (the state) has to say whether they allow me in or
| not?
|
| Because when a community decides to provides services to a
| people it must now have standards to decide who to provide
| services too. There are only 2 possible ways to solve this.
|
| 1: provide services to everyone. naturally this doesn't work.
|
| 2: provide services to nobody.
|
| > Governments, or states, are responsible for most of the
| destructive behavior we see in human history.
|
| This is a consequence of the state's monopoly on violence. By
| joining a society you voluntarily give up power to the
| government in exchange for services and protections.
|
| Wars occur as a consequence of this exchange of power when
| states look out for their own interests, which include the
| interests of its people.
|
| > Society has never been so peaceful as today.
|
| Because the state has a monopoly on violence and has gotten
| more effective at enforcing that monopoly?
|
| > Most private entities (companies or the third sector) do
| good for the people and benefit nothing from the misery
| caused by state actors and their wars.
|
| I'm not sure if you are aware of the other functions that
| states provide but some of the functions you may find
| beneficial are ways to resolve conflict without violence,
| protections to people, and a standard of living. These are
| again, enforced with violence. Seeing as you moved from
| Brazil to the Netherlands I'm sure you are aware of the
| benefits you are granted.
| henvic wrote:
| > Because when a community decides to provides services to
| a people it must now have standards to decide who to
| provide services too. There are only 2 possible ways to
| solve this.
|
| So, if you're a spoiled brat lucky to be born in a
| developed country with socialist tendencies, you're fine.
| However, suppose you're unlucky and were born in a poor
| country and now want to migrate somewhere to improve your
| quality of life. In that case, spoiled brats will do
| everything they can (including kidnapping you if you try)
| to stop you from doing so because you're the wrong
| race|social group|whatever.
|
| You hold such awful vision and wonder if I am being
| sarcastic? What the heck. If you want to provide services
| to people, do it with proper and just means. Not by sacking
| people and pretending you want to give back to them
| whatever you deem essential services.
|
| > This is a consequence of the state's monopoly on
| violence. By joining a society you voluntarily give up
| power to the government in exchange for services and
| protections.
|
| No. I never did so. You were brainwashed with this stupid
| idea.
|
| > Wars occur as a consequence of this exchange of power
| when states look out for their own interests, which include
| the interests of its people.
|
| No. You're being incredibly silly. How come it was in the
| German people's interest to do what they did? How come is
| in North Korea's people's interest to do what they do? How
| come is in US citizens interest to invade other country and
| spend a trillion doing war overseas? Sure, some people will
| benefit from such arrangements. However, most everyone
| loses.
|
| Besides, you demonstrate a lack of knowledge regarding the
| positive aspects foreigners usually bring to a territory.
| For example, most of them come in peace, and the net result
| is positive. I'm sorry you don't get something as basic as
| that.
|
| > I'm not sure if you are aware of the other functions that
| states provide but some of the functions you may find
| beneficial are ways to resolve conflict without violence,
| protections to people, and a standard of living. These are
| again, enforced with violence. Seeing as you moved from
| Brazil to the Netherlands I'm sure you are aware of the
| benefits you are granted.
|
| I'd be a fool if I believed in your stupid idea that I
| benefit from having most of my paycheck extorted from me
| here or most of my consumer power extorted from me back
| when I lived in Brazil.
|
| No, most of my money I (or anyone else for that matter) pay
| doesn't come back as nice services from the public sector
| but go to harmful programs, intrinsically evil agendas, are
| used without any accountability, and so on. If I get back
| 5% in good services that I really need or want, I'd be
| surprised.
|
| The poorest ones are even more negatively impacted than me
| by the state, and you probably believe that they get a lot
| of benefits. Your ideas about what the states do are
| incredibly out of sync with reality.
| [deleted]
| eplanit wrote:
| A clever bum, for sure.
|
| "Johnston's feelings about money are inextricably bound up in his
| certainty that refusing to spend it is the only moral way to
| live."
|
| It's ok for others to spend on his behalf, though. It sounds like
| he is applying an effective story to a nicely vulnerable
| population of marks.
|
| While his philosophy is BS, I cynically admire his hustle.
| Tomminn wrote:
| "The nicer flute arrived the next day. "I'm sitting at the
| harbour. And some guy is sort of dressed like me, I guess casual,
| has this three-foot-long bamboo flute and a cup of coffee, and he
| is walking. And I say, 'Can I have a sip of your coffee?' 'Is
| that a flute?' 'Can I try it?'" The man gave Johnston permission
| for both requests--and then he gave Johnston the flute.
|
| Stuff like that "happens constantly," he tells me."
|
| There's a second interpretation of this interaction. I'd like to
| hear it from the other side.
| advertising wrote:
| Money is but a reflection of what we value.
|
| Money is not evil, but the abstraction of "value" in modern life
| does cause the problems he blames money for.
|
| Perhaps the jungle/forest tribes way of life is the best and
| simple way we can be happy. Yet tent communes like Johnston's
| seem to be setup in the middle of a town square or within close
| proximity of a city, and not in nature somewhere actually
| sustaining themselves.
|
| In the end if we blew it all up we would arrive back to same
| evolution of living we find ourselves in today.
| movedx wrote:
| Money is simply a storage of future labour. You're given it in
| return for the labour you perform today for someone else (or as a
| benefit from society due to not being able to perform laborious
| tasks.)
|
| Money isn't evil. How you utilise it is evil.
|
| > Epiphany Two happened a few months after they met, on June 27,
| 2003, almost six years to the day after Epiphany One. Johnston's
| father had sent him $50 for his birthday. With it, he bought
| beer, pot, and cigarettes, and then threw himself a small party
| at Beacon Hill Park. He overdid it and found himself lying on his
| side behind a bush. "I was just pukey drunk," he says. "It was
| embarrassing. And then it just hit me. Like, I've had enough of
| this. I'm not playing this game anymore. And I was done. I had no
| use for money."
|
| The lesson here hasn't been learned. Simply don't exchange money
| for those things. Exchange them for something else, something
| healthy, and you'll be fine.
|
| I feel like this kind of protest stems from a degree of
| immaturity with money; not knowing how-to utilise it, what its
| reasons for existing are.
| chasing wrote:
| He uses money, it's just other people's.
| lioeters wrote:
| An assortment of quotes from the article..
|
| > ..Refusing to spend money is the only moral way to live.
|
| > ..Not only did money enable what he deemed insane behaviour on
| a grand scale, the dependence on it, the fear of losing it, the
| focus on acquiring it wrecked people's lives and drove them to be
| dishonest with themselves and others.
|
| > ..People are putting themselves through hell, living in
| situations that are just making them nuts to avoid being
| homeless.
|
| > Every taxpayer is an indentured servant until this debt is
| paid.
|
| > Only one solution appears just and good, and that is a society
| without money.
| imtringued wrote:
| >The pandemic has made the idea of economic collapse easier for
| the Average Joes to imagine, he says. As a result, the time could
| be ripe for considering alternatives to the status quo. Ideas
| previously believed too radical for consideration have already
| entered the mainstream, like a universal basic income.
|
| I don't understand this. The idea of economic collapse? Did
| people miss the biggest economic collapse that just happened last
| year? It's already over. What could possibly be worse for an
| economy than a permanent lockdown? It's absurd how people are
| scared of full employment.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Homeless people, indigenous people,disabled and institutionalized
| people, prisoners seem to manage without money, too . nothing
| noteworthy about this.
| giantg2 wrote:
| It's not exactly like he's gone 2 decades without money. He just
| relies on other people who have money to give him things.
| IkmoIkmo wrote:
| I really can't stand these long-form articles that just take ages
| to get anywhere.
|
| For example, at some point the article notes he didn't get to the
| truth until two epiphanies that obliterated his self-image.
|
| Then there's literally 9 paragraphs of other text. Then it
| follows with the 10th paragraph: "Then came the Epiphanies."
|
| Long-form is great, but it feels as if each page is just loaded
| with stuff other than the point of the article. If it's written
| in poetic form, contains beautiful photography, or actually
| interesting anecdotes, sure. But none of it was there and the
| larger point never did arrive, either.
|
| As for the Victoria man... completely misguided. Every street he
| walks on, every piece of cloth he wears, the coffee he drinks,
| the food he eats, the phone he uses, the internet he uses, was
| produced or maintained by someone else. Money is merely a medium
| of exchange to allow people to exchange their contribution to
| society, for other contributions, in a feasible (i.e. not barter-
| based) manner. There's tons of legitimate criticisms on
| capitalism, on our economic structures, on unequal
| opportunity/ability, monopolies, corruption, concentration of
| wealth etc etc, which makes our socioeconomic system imperfect.
| But the idea that money (as an invention/tool) is the root of the
| problem is entirely misguided and frankly, entirely unfounded.
| Nothing in this article really substantiates this wild claim he
| makes, and nowhere does the interviewer even remotely challenge
| him on it. Unfortunate that I had to read the whole thing to find
| that out.
| MrRiddle wrote:
| Why should we care about a story from a homeless person with
| mental health issues?
| cashrules wrote:
| From what disorder do you suspect this man suffers?
| nootropicat wrote:
| Alternative title: a bum glamorizes his parasitic lifestyle.
|
| Money is one of many solutions designed to allocate resources on
| a large scale. Of course, there are others, but he doesn't
| propose any alternative system. He's just a parasite. A pre-
| industrial society most likely wouldn't be able to support his
| existence so easily and he would either starve to death or start
| working.
| mikem170 wrote:
| > He's just a parasite.
|
| He's less of a parasite than many rich people! I'm thinking of
| those who are nothing better than rentiers and/or running
| cartels, commandeering common resources for their own profits,
| accumulating money for themselves at the expense of society,
| who glamorize materialism and moralize hard work because that's
| what keeps the money rolling in from the plebes, and having the
| support of the government to keep them on top.
|
| They seem to be have done, and are doing, way more harm to our
| society than this guy.
| manmal wrote:
| I agree to some extent, but what's the purpose of using such
| dehumanizing language?
| I_complete_me wrote:
| Here's a link to the same idea
| https://www.moneylessmanifesto.org/ and a link to the book by
| Mark Boyle https://www.amazon.co.uk/Moneyless-Man-Year-
| Freeconomic-Livi.... Mark Boyle went on to write another book
| which I enjoyed called "The Way Home"
| rasengan0 wrote:
| There is a whole community of people with a similar mindset re:
| money, practiced over many years
| https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/ariyesako/laygui...
| k__ wrote:
| Reminds me of some German Youtuber, the "Zirkeldreher".
|
| He talks about living without money, but basically mooches on his
| parents.
| glitchc wrote:
| The monks of old (Eastern and Western philosophies) would live
| off the largesse of others in terms of food, clothing and
| shelter. They gave back in the form of teachings and wisdom or a
| temporary place to stay for travelers, without judgement or
| payment.
|
| This man is just taking, and not giving anything back. That makes
| him a mooch, and little more.
| anm89 wrote:
| This guy isn't living without money. He's just living with other
| people's money.
|
| If he was living off the land that would be cool but that's not
| what's going on here.
| manmal wrote:
| He's trading his attention for other services and goods. Some
| people are paid for talking to other people - he just receives
| food and shelter instead.
| kypro wrote:
| I don't see how taking from everyone and giving very little in
| return is moral. If everyone did this we'd all live in a far
| worse world.
|
| This is basically the antithesis of my own moral code to give
| more than I receive. I relate to him in that I value money very
| little as a medium to facilitate my own happiness, but I still
| want to make a lot of it so I can give more.
|
| He seems sweet though. I think I would get on with him were we to
| ever meet.
| djrobstep wrote:
| > I don't see how taking from everyone and giving very little
| in return is moral. If everyone did this we'd all live in a far
| worse world.
|
| We have a large upper class that does exactly this and not only
| do many people seem not to mind, they find membership of this
| class aspirational. It's how capital income works and what
| capitalism is built on.
| brnt wrote:
| You assume all objects, experiences and behaviours are priced
| accurately. Something I would certainly not assume.
| Proven wrote:
| > behaviours are priced accurately. Something I would
| certainly not assume.
|
| He didn't guess how you value or should value that kind of a
| lifestyle, he merely commented on the morality of it.
|
| If you value parasitism, that fine, you're free to do that.
| But it's still immoral.
|
| > Go back further in time and he'd have been ostracized from
| his hunter-gatherer community for not contributing, and
| would've lived a short life as a hermit.
|
| Because productivity was low, its wasn't much of a choice -
| there was little to give. Today he can make it because the
| moral desire to create more than one takes - contrary to what
| he promotes - has prevailed.
|
| You wouldn't need to go back in time a single second to see
| how long would his life be in a society that consisted of
| only useless eaters such as himself. He wouldn't last past
| next winter.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Not to put too fine a point on it, but he's a leech on society.
| He has two children he could not support (and has no contact
| with), he's constantly mooching off others for his basic needs,
| and there's not a word in the article about him ever doing a
| single thing productive for society. And unlike many other
| homeless people who legitimately are unable to contribute
| productively, this is all his choice.
|
| He's lucky he's in modern society where we at least take some
| care of people like him. Go back further in time and he'd have
| been ostracized from his hunter-gatherer community for not
| contributing, and would've lived a short life as a hermit.
| kangnkodos wrote:
| He is advocating for the homeless in order to help them not
| freeze in the winter. So he's got that going for him, which
| is nice.
| samatman wrote:
| A bit less noble when it's in his direct interest, wouldn't
| you say?
|
| Which isn't to say that self-advocacy is in some way dirty,
| we should all stand up for our self-interest insofar as it
| is otherwise ethical.
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| Funny, he'd fit more in a hunter-gatherer society because
| guess what they also don't have... (to spell it out: money).
|
| I mostly agree with what you write, but "You have to
| contribute productively" is such a capitalist mindset that it
| draws for me the picture of you being a Gordon Gekko type.
|
| I wonder if he'd agree to do some work like cleaning the city
| parks in exchange for some "gifted" groceries and a room.
| Obviously the city doesn't want to enter into customized
| barters with all its employees.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| > Funny, he'd fit more in a hunter-gatherer society because
| guess what they also don't have... (to spell it out:
| money).
|
| His refusal to use money is really a lampshade on a refusal
| to do anything useful period. Plenty of people don't
| interact with money yet still manage to provide useful
| goods and services in exchange for necessities. He's not
| doing any of that either.
|
| > "You have to contribute productively" is such a
| capitalist mindset that it draws for me the picture of you
| being a Gordon Gekko type.
|
| You've got me pegged all wrong. This transcends affront to
| capitalism to affront to all forms of societal
| organization; guy is a mooch, pure and simple, unwilling to
| do anything to help others but perfectly willing to accept
| all help from others for his own benefit. No society would
| put up with him, capitalistic or otherwise. He's a deadbeat
| father who wouldn't even do anything to support his own
| kids.
|
| > I wonder if he'd agree to do some work like cleaning the
| city parks in exchange [...]
|
| Based on what I read in the article it doesn't seem like
| he's willing to do any work at all. No mentions of
| performing any work or services in exchange for essentials;
| it's all freely given to him by charitable people and
| organizations.
| jamincan wrote:
| He could easily volunteer his time and return some of
| what he has received in labour, but he doesn't even do
| that.
| kderbyma wrote:
| I agree with you. there is nothing to be proud of in his
| case except that his life doesn't seem to be affected
| directly by inflation so long as the rest of society
| keeps its status quo.
|
| I like you recognize that capitalism and money are not
| the same as productivity and value add....he doesn't seem
| to do the latter but he benefits still from the former
| because as you said he is a mooch.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > "You have to contribute productively" is such a
| capitalist mindset
|
| No it's not. All socialist/communist societies required all
| able-bodied people to work, described themselves as worker-
| led, and idolized work in their propaganda.
| dghughes wrote:
| Money exists in other forms other names money is effort and
| effort is time, your time.
|
| Hunter-gatherer societies would have an equivalent of money
| not literally notes and coins but trading their effort and
| time. It is literally a society, people gather in a group
| for mutual advantage. The advantage being I don't want to
| personally make, build, do everything to survive so you
| trade skills which is effort and time which is essentially
| money.
| sharikous wrote:
| Really? Why do you assume any society is free of leeches?
| Heck, even Torrent has them. I think he probably would be a
| shaman or something like that and he would still live a
| similar life.
| imtringued wrote:
| >This is basically the antithesis of my own moral code to give
| more than I receive.
|
| Noo! You can't do this. If everyone did this everyone would be
| better off!
| theonlybutlet wrote:
| Agreed don't think this guy really deserves much praise, if he
| were adding value to society and bartering for his needs that
| would be different.
| yboris wrote:
| I wonder if you've heard of _Effective Altruism_ - it 's,
| broadly speaking, about using evidence and our resources to
| help others the most.
|
| It's a great community where I think you'd fit in:
| https://www.effectivealtruism.org/
| mikem170 wrote:
| > I don't see how taking from everyone and giving very little
| in return is moral.
|
| Taking? It seemed pretty clear that he doesn't ask anyone for
| anything. People give him things of their own free will.
|
| > This is basically the antithesis of my own moral code to give
| more than I receive.
|
| Give more money than you receive? There are other things that
| can be given, like time, companionship, love, etc.
|
| The guy from the article is striving to make the world better
| for those who can't afford a home in Canada (Vancouver being
| ridiculously expensive, a separate conversation), and prompting
| an interesting conversation about how focused we are on money.
| I think those are valuable contributions to society.
|
| Or should society force everyone onto the same page, and
| moralize against those who can't or don't want to keep up?
|
| (These are questions that I think of, just throwing them out
| there...)
| kangnkodos wrote:
| I agree. His heart is in the right place. And he's fighting the
| good fight. There is something wrong with a system which won't
| allow a spot somewhere in the city to put up tents. He's right
| about that.
|
| But I don't think everyone has to go as far as you, and give
| more than they take. I think we can find win-win situations
| where we both benefit. I cut your your hair and you paint me a
| picture. We both win. But it's hard to find good one to one
| barter like this. Money is the way to find more win-win
| situations. In a system with no money, you're back to only one
| to one, so there are less win-win exchanges, and everyone is
| poorer.
| totony wrote:
| >This is basically the antithesis of my own moral code to give
| more than I receive.
|
| This is mathematically impossible to apply universally. Can it
| be a moral code if it can't be universal?
|
| Although this might be applicable if you live in a wealthy
| circle and there are poor circles.
| samatman wrote:
| It well and truly is not.
|
| The Sun provides the Earth with enormous amounts of syntropy
| (this is the inverse of entropy), and we can capture this
| through productive labor before it inevitably dissipates off
| into space.
|
| As a toy example, it is certainly mathematically possible for
| everyone to grow more calories than they consume. We wouldn't
| want this, for the obvious reason that we don't _need_ more
| calories than we consume, and this would be labor-intensive
| enough to leave many useful tasks unfilled.
|
| But it proves you wrong: there's nothing preventing "give
| more than you receive" from being a categorical imperative.
| Certainly nothing "mathematical".
| totony wrote:
| It's not about production though. Give/receive is
| interpersonal, one has to receive whatever you give, which
| makes that person have to give more than they got from you,
| to whom?
|
| It's a fruitful way to live but not something you must
| expect of others because it's an unattainable goal.
| jamincan wrote:
| The Golden Rule is a much weaker version of the OPs rule, and
| this guy fails it spectacularly as well.
| imtringued wrote:
| >This is mathematically impossible to apply universally. Can
| it be a moral code if it can't be universal?
|
| It's obviously impossible but it is better than the inverse
| which is also impossible. The difference is that if you are
| below the potential that is actually possible you will
| approach the maximum potential of your society. You're
| failing, but you are failing upwards.
|
| "taking from everyone and giving very little in return is
| moral." is effectively trying to approach the minimum
| potential of your society i.e. zero.
| staticman2 wrote:
| In the anime Haibane Renmei there are angel-like characters who
| are allowed to barter for goods but not allowed to use money-
| presumably because of an association between money and sin.
|
| This reminded me of that- though it doesn't seem that Johnston is
| doing any bartoring.
| aazaa wrote:
| > As we walk through the city, Johnston offers a small
| disclaimer, putting out in the open what he calls his one
| "debatable" act of spending, post-31st birthday. If you count a
| gift card that someone gave him back in 2012, which he used on
| Big Macs and coffee, then, he says, he's been money-free for only
| nine years.
|
| This raises a point that article doesn't address: what is
| "money"?
|
| If Johnson trades those cigarettes he makes from tossed butts for
| food, is he using money? Cigarettes have been used as currency in
| some special situations like war time.
|
| Likewise, if Johnson accepts a product created through the use of
| money, isn't he in fact using money, if only indirectly?
|
| Then there's the big question that never gets asked or answered:
| what happens if every single person on earth lived like Johnson?
| Money is fundamentally a way to fulfill future needs and wants.
| Abandoning money is really abandoning a path to build a future
| deliberately.
|
| Storing grain, smoking meat, or building a shelter serve exactly
| the same purpose as money in this context. They are ways to make
| the future more predictable. They also have the interesting
| property that they can be traded for other ways to make the
| future more predictable. And that leads to the main problem that
| Johnson seems to be trying to solve: how to stop focusing on
| optimizing one's future through the accumulation of things that
| can make the future more certain.
|
| What does a world of people who have abandoned the idea of making
| a future for themselves actually look like?
| cbanek wrote:
| > Epiphany Two happened a few months after they met, on June 27,
| 2003, almost six years to the day after Epiphany One. Johnston's
| father had sent him $50 for his birthday. With it, he bought
| beer, pot, and cigarettes, and then threw himself a small party
| at Beacon Hill Park. He overdid it and found himself lying on his
| side behind a bush. "I was just pukey drunk," he says. "It was
| embarrassing. And then it just hit me. Like, I've had enough of
| this. I'm not playing this game anymore. And I was done. I had no
| use for money."
|
| Uh, I'm not sure that's what I would have taken away from this.
| AutumnCurtain wrote:
| And ironically he did not choose to abstain from drugs
| (cigarettes at a minimum) afterwards which seems like the much
| more direct lesson
| zests wrote:
| Of course it would be impossible for modern society to stop using
| money altogether despite what this man might hope. Its easy to
| see this person as someone who just doesn't want to work. At the
| same time, I read a historical religious fiction book that
| describes monks going from town to town offering enlightenment in
| exchange for food and presumably shelter. Is this any different?
|
| All of modern society joining a monastery or becoming enlightened
| is perhaps an even bigger ask.
| mjfl wrote:
| he still uses money. Just indirectly, spent by others. He lives
| off the charity of other people.
| pacifika wrote:
| He would live just as well if the people around him didn't
| spend money and lives like him, so that's not his choice
| CydeWeys wrote:
| If everyone else around him lived like this he'd starve
| pretty quickly, as no one would be doing the actual work
| required to keep society running.
| paulcole wrote:
| sounds like he should apply for the next YC batch
| raverbashing wrote:
| "We want $10Mi to get rid of money (as in, monetary tokens)"
| INTPenis wrote:
| >He claims he hasn't spent any money since. It's true, his
| friends have told me. No money at all.
|
| This quote was kinda funny to me, because the online text
| doesn't convey any sarcasm or tone.
|
| But considering he's actually just a mooch I sort of implied
| the tone of that comment to be quite snarky. "Yeah, no money at
| all, he won't spend a dime" - this guy's poor friend.
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| Exactly. If you want to live without money, that should be
| doable, but this isn't it. You can live on a homestead in the
| middle of nowhere, grow your own crops, raise your own cattle,
| barter with neighbours and be completely self-sufficient
| without money. This guy just lets other spend money for him.
| MajorBee wrote:
| Wouldn't you still have to pay property taxes (in money) on
| that homestead?
| mikem170 wrote:
| I assume so. I was curious how modern society deals with
| quakers and the amish in this regard, and found this:
|
| > The Amish are subject to sales and property taxes. As
| they seldom own motor vehicles, they rarely have occasion
| to pay motor vehicle registration fees or spend money in
| the purchase of fuel for vehicles.[114] Under their beliefs
| and traditions, generally the Amish do not agree with the
| idea of Social Security benefits and have a religious
| objection to insurance.[115][116] On this basis, the United
| States Internal Revenue Service agreed in 1961 that they
| did not need to pay Social Security-related taxes. In 1965,
| this policy was codified into law.[117] Self-employed
| individuals in certain sects do not pay into or receive
| benefits from the United States Social Security system.
| This exemption applies to a religious group that is
| conscientiously opposed to accepting benefits of any
| private or public insurance, provides a reasonable level of
| living for its dependent members, and has existed
| continuously since December 31, 1950.[118] The U.S. Supreme
| Court clarified in 1982 that Amish employers are not
| exempt, but only those Amish individuals who are self-
| employed. [0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish#Life_in_the_modern_
| world
| kylec wrote:
| Yeah, I'm much more impressed with Scott & Helen Nearing, who
| did basically that: http://goodlife.org
| kangnkodos wrote:
| Is it basically a commune? If so, who washes the dishes?
| What are the incentives? What is the punishment for
| skipping dishwasher duty?
|
| Every time I read about communes, I get so excited. I
| always get inspired by the ideals they are trying to live
| by.
|
| But then when I hear the details about the day to day
| logistics and governance, it always ends up sounding like a
| terrible place to live.
|
| ---
|
| I can't tell. It looks more like an organic farm with a few
| caretakers living on the farm, and financially supported by
| the community. I like that.
| kylec wrote:
| Not a commune, they were a couple that lived off the land
| in Maine, and built everything there themselves. Nowadays
| their home is staffed by volunteers and open to visitors
| to see how they lived.
| pipingdog wrote:
| A man with sufficient free cash flow but no capital.
| chmod775 wrote:
| He won't be living on much then.
|
| And that is only if you consider throwing food in the trash
| charity.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| He's not just living off trash. People give him food too, his
| friend has spent money on him for things like printing his
| book. He's indirectly using cash.
| kangnkodos wrote:
| He wants everyone to suddenly stop using money. If that happened,
| who would wash the dishes?
|
| Many communes have failed over this exact issue. They go on for
| several years with several people, usually women, making the
| sacrifice and doing what needs to be done. But eventually, the
| people who do the dishes get fed up and stop, or leave. And then
| the whole thing collapses.
|
| The alternative is for the leaders to have some type of power to
| compel people to do the dishes, and some type of punishment to
| mete out.
|
| There are certain tasks in society that no one wants to do. In
| order to get them done, you have to choose the carrot or the
| stick. Money or punishment.
|
| If the society has no money, there's going to be a whole lot of
| punishment going on. It can work in theory, but in practice, a
| society based on punishment tends to snowball out of control,
| with the people in charge of punishment going too far. The people
| in charge make a small mistake in the size of punishment relative
| to the transgression. With money, small mistakes like this happen
| constantly, and they are constantly being adjusted by changing
| prices and salaries. The garbage man makes a higher salary than
| other manual laborers. But without money, the process has more
| steps, and is harder to get right. People protest, the leaders
| listen to the protests, go through the rule changing process, and
| eventually adjust the punishment to fit the transgression.
| Without money, more people are involved in the process. Some are
| removed from the actual issue. It takes longer for the adjustment
| to be made. With only the tool of punishment available, it's more
| difficult to fine tune every mismatch. In practice, it's really,
| really hard to get a punishment based society just right.
| [deleted]
| boomlinde wrote:
| Haven't you ever done your own dishes? I use something so that
| it gets dirty, so I'll wash it off.
|
| The jobs "no one wants to do" is usually work people are happy
| to do for themselves or occasionally their friends and family.
| The idea that "no one wants to do them" embeds the presumption
| that you spend eight hours a day doing just that. Of course no
| one wants to do that!
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > Haven't you ever done your own dishes? I use something so
| that it gets dirty, so I'll wash it off.
|
| Dishes is just one example. You may wash your own dishes, but
| did you buy those dishes from someone who was selling them as
| their job?
|
| Do you grow all of your own food? Do you also sew your own
| clothes? Build your own shelter? Engineer your own
| transportation and manufacture your own iPhone?
|
| The truth is that a society in which everyone is self-
| sufficient can't look anything like modern society. Most of
| the advancements we take for granted are made possible by
| monetary exchange and people working in specialized roles in
| focused industries.
|
| And for what it's worth, back in college I had several
| roommates who clearly demonstrated that not everyone is
| willing to do their own dishes.
| bserge wrote:
| In the case of a small community, it can be left to
| volunteers (optionally offer them a meal/beer) or simply
| rotation so everyone does the unwanted jobs. It's a fair
| system and people will do it.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| Practically, that doesn't work. Some people will do a
| half-arsed, terrible job and it's better for the
| community that they stay out of the way and contribute
| otherwise.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Every office, multi-tenant household and often times
| families themselves fight over this.
|
| People will not do tasks merely because it's "fair".
| Otherwise crime would have evaporated, life would be
| harmonious, and judges would be bored.
| bserge wrote:
| Well, then it's back to violence. Truly the ultimate
| force.
| danenania wrote:
| Exactly. And because we don't usually see all this work
| happening firsthand, we tend to severely underestimate the
| difficulty involved in meeting our many needs and desires.
|
| Modern society makes it look easy, but it's _extremely_
| challenging for a 'Dunbar's number' sized tribe to meet
| all its members' needs at anything resembling the quality
| of life we're all used to. The healthcare/pharmaceutical
| needs alone would be borderline impossible. You'd have to
| be willing to tolerate much lower life expectancy, much
| higher mortality for infants and mothers, etc. etc.
| tunap wrote:
| >They go on for several years with several people... making the
| sacrifice and doing what needs to be done.
|
| That sounds like modern retail workers who have spouses to
| supplement earnings to house & feed themselves.
| kangnkodos wrote:
| Yeah. With money, there are lots of problems such as this
| too. I agree that money is evil. But I think a system with
| money is slightly less evil than a system with no money.
| balfirevic wrote:
| > I agree that money is evil. But I think a system with
| money is slightly less evil than a system with no money.
|
| Sounds quite not-evil to me.
| igorkraw wrote:
| I feel you are presenting a false dichotomy. If this was true,
| why are the most boring jobs not paid the best? It seems that
| capitalist money is just hidden punishment: do something you
| don't want to do for a pittance, because you have no leverage.
| In a family, in a community there are also ways to incentivise
| prosocial behaviour just by culture, which is why e.g. most of
| German emergency operations are volunteer based. And in most
| associations, people are if not happy then perfectly willing to
| do the boring job if that's the way they become a part of the
| association. Social norms and customs and their establishment
| are a whole lot more complicated than "punishment from leaders"
| [deleted]
| sokoloff wrote:
| > If this was true, why are the most boring jobs not paid the
| best?
|
| Likely because many of those boring jobs have many more
| people qualified/capable to do them than there are spots to
| be filled. Even though we seem to need a lot of people to
| take goods out of totes and put them into cardboard boxes,
| there are a lot more people who are able to do that work than
| spots needed.
| igorkraw wrote:
| So what's motivating them? The post is responded to implied
| it's something else than punishment.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Maybe a sense of accomplishment, a feeling that they've
| done something with their day, some structure, a place to
| be that isn't their house, something to do besides watch
| TV all day, some interaction with their co-workers, a bit
| of exercise?
|
| Do you not feel any sense of accomplishment from mundane
| things that you do well once they're done? It doesn't
| have to solely be that they prefer food with their meals.
| igorkraw wrote:
| ...but the post claimed it's either money or punishment,
| and I pointed out a false dichotomy in that. I'm with
| you, but GP isn't
| knocte wrote:
| > why are the most boring jobs not paid the best?
|
| Because most boring jobs require skills that everyone has.
| Specialization makes the other jobs have higher salaries, not
| because they are less boring, but because they can only be
| done by a smaller amount of people.
| kangnkodos wrote:
| I agree that in small situations you can bring social
| pressure to solve this problem. Sometimes. Some families
| break up over issues like this.
|
| As you scale up, it gets harder and harder. You get a few
| people who are intentional free riders. The hard workers see
| the free riders sitting right next to them stop. Then more
| and more hard workers defect.
|
| That system of emergency operations is a great counter
| example. You correctly point out that it's good to have a
| system with more than just monetary incentives. You have to
| have a mix of monetary incentives, punishments and other
| incentives such as just the feeling that you're helping out,
| or perhaps prestige.
|
| I'm not arguing to get rid of all incentives except money.
| Those other levers are vital. I'm arguing against a system
| with no money.
| redsummer wrote:
| Hundreds of communes have been started in the US, and the only
| ones that survive are the religious ones. The people who join
| political ones often just want to pontificate on the sofa while
| someone else does the dishes. That's not sustainable. What
| makes the religious ones survive? Perhaps they have in their
| mind a higher being, which gives them the strength to continue.
| VictorPath wrote:
| > If the society has no money, there's going to be a whole lot
| of punishment going on
|
| The mostly uncontacted hunter-gatherer bands in the Amazon
| jungle have no money, and not much punishment. Men all go out
| and hunt. If they are old or young or sick, the hunters give
| them food. If they are fine and refuse to go out on a hunt,
| they tend not to eat.
|
| There is not much coercion. The women gather berries and the
| men hunt. If you don't go out and get food, you don't eat,
| unless you are gifted food as the young, old and infirm are.
| There's no coercion other than a hungry stomach.
|
| Of course in civilized society, there are a class of rentier
| heirs who do not work, who have a relationship with those who
| do work, of expropriating their surplus labor time. Obviously
| this is done with coercion and punishment.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "There's no coercion other than a hungry stomach."
|
| This sounds like the classic punishment of being sent to your
| room without dinner, right? Removing the basic necessity of
| food is about as coercive as it gets. Even in civilized
| society we feed prisoners, give food to the hungry, etc.
| missedthecue wrote:
| A better way to phrase it would be "compelled by reality".
| mikem170 wrote:
| Reality being land owners backed by the state who don't
| allow people to wander off and grow their own food?
| giantg2 wrote:
| Maybe there's an even better way to phrase it... Other
| types of coercion are also part of reality.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >There is not much coercion. The women gather berries and the
| men hunt.
|
| Are you sure about this, or are you treating a "noble savage"
| fantasy as if it were fact?
|
| I've read some early settler accounts of Australian
| Aboriginals, and they would beat the living shit out of the
| lower-status members of their society (especially women) on a
| regular basis.
|
| Sometimes the beatings would be followed up with rape, and
| the perpetrators would get away with it Scot free because
| they were high-status.
| VictorPath wrote:
| > Australian Aboriginals, and they would beat the living
| shit out of the lower-status members of their society
|
| As I said, there are societies where women gather berries
| and men hunt. There aren't really "lower status members" of
| those societies. Including the Aboriginal Australians who
| lived this way. As the book Dark Emu shows, some
| Aboriginals lived as hunter-gatherers, some as farmers. The
| aboriginal farmers did not live this way, and certainly may
| have had lower status members who were mistreated.
|
| I should point out some people have qualms over portions of
| Dark Emu, but generally not over this. Even a critic of
| this point like Ian Keen admits there was some form of
| farming by some Aboriginals.
| mikem170 wrote:
| Modern society has problems with violence and sex crimes
| against women, too.
| chmod600 wrote:
| _The Better Angels of our Nature_ by Steven Pinker makes
| a compelling case that violence (including rape) are
| dramatically lower in modern societies all around the
| world.
| will4274 wrote:
| Citation needed. This would certainly be atypical.
| Uncontacted tribes in other parts of the world (e.g. the
| Sentinelese) are famously violent.
|
| It's easy to imagine paradise in cultures we don't understand
| but reality is rarely that pretty.
| VictorPath wrote:
| > Uncontacted tribes in other parts of the world (e.g. the
| Sentinelese) are famously violent.
|
| In the Amazon loggers and miners, often illegally, encroach
| on indigenous areas and kill members of the hunter-gatherer
| bands. Yes, the bands sometimes react in a "famously
| violent" response to these massacres.
|
| I don't really see the connection in how these 50 person
| bands act together with their "famously violent" response
| to outsiders who are killing them.
|
| Also the people I am speaking if are living in bands, not
| tribes.
| samatman wrote:
| I highly encourage you to read some ethnography of the
| Yanomani, to purge this ludicrous and incorrect vision of
| noble savagery from your mind.
| seriousquestion wrote:
| Are there examples of that in groups larger than Dunbar's
| number?
| VictorPath wrote:
| It depends how groups are defined. Agriculture is a
| precondition for a society divided into classes (for
| social, not practical reasons). Groups from the beginning
| of human behavioral modernity to the rise of agricultural
| slave empires in Sumeria etc. 10,000 years back worked this
| way.
|
| So from the drawing of cave paintings in El Castillo onward
| through the next 30,000 years, all humans lived like this.
| You could say it is human nature. Then class-divided
| society spread - 2000 years ago the modern Stockholm area
| was a classed society, whereas 200km north were hunter-
| gather bands. By modern day, hunter-gatherer areas have
| dwindled to remote areas.
|
| The urge to have large numbers of people all under one
| grouping seems to be the impetus of a ruling class or
| ruler, from Alexander the Great to modern times. There are
| signs of hunter-gatherer bands in relations of mutual aid
| with other bands, for marriage and other things. One of the
| earliest pieces of literature, instructions of shuruppak,
| instructs rulers to get new slaves from far away lands.
|
| (To reiterate a point from before - there is no evidence of
| class societies before 10,000 years ago. It is possible
| some tried to be a non-working ruling class, but the
| methods of production of migratory hunter gather bands made
| this difficult, and over a span of time impossible. Whereas
| with the rise of agriculture 10000 years ago, we have a
| mass of evidence of class societies.)
| blix wrote:
| > Agriculture is a precondition for a society divided
| into classes (for social, not practical reasons).
|
| I would completely reverse this... a society divided into
| classes is a precondition for agricultural society (for
| practical, not social reasons).
|
| In the period of early civilization, convincing people to
| work 16 hours in the fields or in the mines is very
| difficult if they have any other viable option, including
| migrant hunter/gathering. Therefore, it is necessary to
| create a class of people that have no other viable
| options, either by slavery or other forms of inequality.
| The social structures surrounding inequality evolved as a
| method of maintaining this practical class
| stratification.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| I don't know of any, but does it need to?
| ativzzz wrote:
| Yes, unless you'd like our current society, which is
| astronomically larger than dunbar's number, to collapse,
| in a most likely very violent manner.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| Indigenous Americans, prior to colonists' arrival.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| [source] Disney
|
| Indigenous Americans practiced warfare, rape, slavery,
| and cannibalism no different than other peoples around
| the world.
| qwytw wrote:
| This might had been the case in only low density areas
| (same as in all other continents), the majority of
| indigenous Americans did not live in classless societies.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| Nobody said no classes. There wasn't money like there was
| in Europe. There were by some intellectually honest
| estimates 50m people living in N and S America at the
| time of arrival, a huge number of people were living day
| to day without money.
| erikerikson wrote:
| This is an excellent point. The scaling of social
| accountability is a difficult problem. In my opinion it is
| a root problem of humanity and our current solutions are
| due for disruption.
| iamadog1029 wrote:
| I do my own dishes now, I'll do my own dishes then.
|
| Your thesis is non-sequitur, and speaking frankly, degenerate
| and extraordinarily cynical. Communes are experimental,
| experiments often fail, that's just the way shit works. Out of
| those failures, there are communes that have succeeded - you
| fail to mention them. You don't need gods, or leaders, or
| governance just the instinctual wanting for both community and
| self-preservation. Government is reactionary, not
| preventative,[1] and coercion is endemic to the human
| population it's tit-for-tat, and even more so in the modern era
| the great equalizer is among us and widely proliferated. It's
| not a question of genetic lottery anymore.
|
| Money isn't actually the problem, it is disproportion and,
| duly, the concentration. That concentration equates to
| leverage, which is influence. Influence has been used to commit
| atrocities from times immemorial, it is, if not the foremost
| then among the foremost elements of human oppression.
| Historically this has been aceded to by the mass population
| through various modes of manipulation. It is actually
| exploitative predation which is founded on artifice,
| suppression and innate blind spots in social and economic
| cognition.[2] Worker owned cooperatives, at least
| superficially, seem to be the only structure that isn't human-
| perverse which promote both autonomy and community without
| being disruptively disproportionate in their allotment of power
| - Mondragon Corporation for example.
|
| [1] Think of how often laws are violated despite the possible
| consequences: murder, neglect, speeding, embezzlement,
| bribery... [2] Artifice being the hard work fallacy, which is
| actually predominately luck with lottery ticket odds and
| personal delusions of exceptionalism. Suppression being the
| ceaseless toil the masses necessarily endeavor in to support
| their livelihood. Blind spots in being inherently biased
| towards trust, economic blind spots emerging out of ignorance
| promulgated by that status quo and the nigh-complete opacity
| presented to workers.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| The Victoria man is a radical, he's there to start an
| interesting conversation, he's succeeding.
|
| > power to compel people to do the dishes... and some type of
| punishment to mete out.
|
| Moneyed, Adam Smith style capitalist economies still had
| slaves, colonies, wars of plunder.
|
| It's tough. I see from your other commenters you're rooting for
| the guy. The mainstream opinion that executives should be paid
| less, that the lowest wages should rise, these are freebies and
| could be implemented in an afternoon, with no consequences. All
| the changes in a person's day to day life would be for the
| better. Mainstream people advocate against inequality not the
| elimination of money, but yes, there is a transfer, a
| "handout," as part of those goals.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >If that happened, who would wash the dishes?
|
| I'm genuinely shocked to see so many people disagreeing with
| this premise. Very few people will voluntarily perform shitty,
| low-status jobs unless you motivate them. Everyone wants to
| hand out toys to sick kids and pose for photos, nobody wants to
| clean up their chemo-smelling shit and puke.
|
| It's been a real issue in every single volunteer-run
| organisation I've been a part of, from local churches and clubs
| right up to multi-million-line open source software projects.
|
| Have none of these commenters ever participated in a real-world
| community setting like this?
| Jochim wrote:
| > I'm genuinely shocked to see so many people disagreeing
| with this premise. Very few people will voluntarily perform
| shitty, low-status jobs unless you motivate them.
|
| Motivating them is the key word. Right now we depend on
| people being forced into stressful, precarious or life
| threatening situations in order to coerce them into doing
| jobs those of us in more stable circumstances would never do
| voluntarily. As a result, desperate people are paid far less
| than the work is actually worth. Personally I find the
| approach morally repugnant, we should instead guarantee a
| decent standard of living and allow wages for undesirable
| jobs to rise to their correct price. The crowd that thinks
| they're above cleaning their own toilet might be a bit put
| out but fuck them.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| The really crappy jobs are invisible.
|
| I don't really know anyone who hates their line of work or
| lacks interest in their field (plenty in their job, but not
| their field).
|
| That's probably because I only know salaried
| professionals/soon to be professionals (interns).I suspect
| many others are in the same boat.
| burntoutfire wrote:
| Not really invisible, they're just not in your social
| circle. In other social circles, people (I've spoken to
| such people, it's not a made up example), claim that well-
| paying or non-horrible jobs don't exist, as they've never
| met anyone who has such job.
| mikem170 wrote:
| > Very few people will voluntarily perform shitty, low-status
| jobs unless you motivate them
|
| Is that a bad thing?
|
| One might wonder if our society is all about motivating
| people to do things they don't want. How many of our modern
| conveniences could theoretically be traded away in return for
| a 15 hour work week? Instead we have saddle young adults with
| student loads, the cost of housing has been inflated by
| greedy investors, having a car is just about mandatory, a
| century of very materialistic consumer culture, regulatory
| penalties for being poor, etc. I'm shocked that people don't
| question more of this stuff.
|
| (Speaking of motivating people, governors of many states
| recently cut unemployment benefits to get people back to
| those low status jobs, instead of giving them more money.
| Funny how many people objected to those handouts but are fine
| with all the tax breaks that investors get on empty
| properties.)
| vxNsr wrote:
| > _Have none of these commenters ever participated in a real-
| world community setting like this?_
|
| You've hit the crux of the issue. Most people who push for
| these types of social changes have rarely been involved in
| the hard work.
|
| They're the "ideas" person. Same people who wanna give you 5%
| of their amazing idea so you can implement it.
| lazide wrote:
| A great many people here have not.
| scarmig wrote:
| But we are special, so naturally it'd be we who get the
| interesting exciting jobs in the post-money society. It'd be
| all the non-special people who'd be cleaning shit off the
| sidewalk, though of course they'd enjoy it since they would
| no longer be burdened by money.
| mikem170 wrote:
| Before money people traded favors. You help me butcher my cow,
| I help you rebuild your house (which was more work then the
| cow), so maybe later on your brother helps fix my plow knowing
| he'll eventually get something in return, and now I am trading
| favors with you and your brother, etc. This bonded people. It
| would have been insulting to say "here are two chickens for
| your lamb, we are now even, I owe you nothing evermore!"
|
| Money originated as a way for kings to pay troops, who operated
| outside these village economies.
|
| Money has made it possible for us to build impersonal systems
| at gigantic scale. It seems to have paved the way for more
| stuff, but it does come with some downsides.
|
| Debt, The First 5,000 Years [0] by David Graeber talks about
| this stuff.
|
| [0] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-debt
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Before money, people traded services and power. In this
| sense, money is just an accounting tool to track the same
| mikem170 wrote:
| Not exactly the same. Money changed a lot of things, much
| more than just an accounting tool.
|
| The use of money drastically changed the scale in which
| goods and services could be traded.
|
| Before money people kept track of who owed who a favor
| amongst the people they dealt with. Family, friends, and
| others learned who they could trust not to be a mooch.
|
| Money made possible much larger scale projects, enabling
| the industrial revolution to proceed at breakneck speed,
| the ability to wage world wars, and a modern global finance
| system treating everyone and everything as fungible, with
| credit scores replacing personal bonds of trust,
| billionaire leveraged buyouts and market manipulations,
| consumer/debt culture, sanctions, etc.
| FabiansMustDie wrote:
| Do you have a blog? Or a library?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think we agree that the accounting tool changed the
| possible scale, but we are still trading the same thing.
| For example, I use currency to track and buy favors from
| some laborer in China I have never met.
| mattm wrote:
| It's been a while since I read that book but I believe the
| message was also that money allowed groups to grow larger
| than the Dunbar number. In a small community, you can keep
| track of the favours with everyone. It's also highly likely
| that you'll see someone you help out with again so there is a
| good chance you'll get paid back.
| sjg007 wrote:
| It's amazing how money actually came to be:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money
| xondono wrote:
| > Money originated as a way for kings to pay troops, who
| operated outside these village economies.
|
| That's one theory, and it's not even the one Graeber
| preferred. According to him (and supporting evidence) money
| originated as a way to "keep score" of debts.
|
| The question of the origin of money is an interesting one,
| but that will be probably be unsolvable, since some of the
| alternative theories (like barter) would leave little to no
| evidence.
| imtringued wrote:
| Yes, money is just a token to keep track of your balance
| sheet intuitively. Given a secure enough institution we
| could do it entirely on paper.
| belugacat wrote:
| _"No example of a barter economy, pure and simple, has ever
| been described, let alone the emergence from it of money,"
| wrote the Cambridge anthropology professor Caroline Humphrey
| in a 1985 paper. "All available ethnography suggests that
| there never has been such a thing."_
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-.
| ..
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| I can't tell if you're disagreeing or adding context to the
| parent with this quote.
|
| 2 chickens for a lamb would be bartering, but that doesn't
| happen.
| mikem170 wrote:
| The source I quoted agrees, saying favors, not barter.
|
| People did something before money was invented, right?
| Parent's raised kids, kids helped parent's when they were
| older, families banded together, items were traded between
| villages, across continents, etc.
| robocat wrote:
| https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ian-
| Keen-2/publication/...
|
| Has some information relating to Australian Aborigines.
|
| 13 Distribution and consumption
|
| Fundamentals of distribution were also quite similar in
| the seven regions, especially in the contrast between the
| distribution of women's product to their immediate camp
| and to certain other relatives such as sons and mothers,
| and of men's product to the wider residence group and to
| wives' and potential wives' parents. Specific obligations
| to certain relatives, processes of 'demand sharing'
| (Peterson 1993), and generalised reciprocity combined to
| determine patterns of distri- bution (see Keen, in press,
| chapter 11). In spite of the similarities, the study has
| revealed some variation in patterns of distribution.
| Kunai and Ngarinyin men had specific obligations to
| provide meat to their parents as well as wife's kin.
| Yuwaaliyaay and Pitjantjatjara men provided food to the
| prospective wife to 'grow her up'. Obligations on the
| part of sister's son to mother's brother have been
| recorded in only in two cases (Kunai and Yolngu); among
| Sandbeach people the senior of a MB-ZS pair did the
| giving (including senior sister's son to junior mother's
| brother). Kunai and Pitjantjatjara husbands gave food to
| their wives indirectly through the wife's parent.
| Consumption prohibitions according to age, gender,
| initiation and reproductive status were wide- spread,
| although the uneven data make comparisons difficult.
| Senior Yolngu men could impose ad hoc pro- hibitions by
| making production implements (such as canoes) or food
| itself sacred, and to make certain resources available
| only to them.
|
| 14 Exchange
|
| People were able to produce various kinds of valued items
| which they exchanged for other valued items, according to
| gender, age, and structural position (such as birth
| order). In all regions 'inalienable pos- sessions'
| (Weiner 1992; Godelier 1999) included land, waters and
| related sacra. Inalienable posses- sions had a 'sacred'
| character which enhances their value, making them immune
| from exchange. In at least some regions inalienable
| possessions were related to 'inalienable gifts' in the
| forms of sacred objects and ceremonies. These are gifts
| that retain a connection with the donor such that the
| gift creates a relationship between donor and recipient
| (Gregory 1982; Godelier 1999). People exchange
| inalienable gifts for everyday objects, and in marriage
| exchange. Movement through the field of exchange
| relations varied between kinds of society and between
| individ- uals. Older brothers in the highly polygynous
| soci- eties had greater opportunities than their younger
| brothers to accrue control of resources associated with
| marriage. (see Keen, in press, chapter 12). Marriage
| exchange articulated both with produc- tion and
| distribution through marriage gifts and the reproduction
| of kin networks, and highlights the most obvious
| contrasts in exchange networks among the seven regions.
| In contrast to the shifting webs of Kunai,
| Pitjantjatjara, and Sandbeach people, and reciprocal
| exchange among Yuwaaliyaay and Wiil/Minong people, the
| asymmetrical forms of mar- riage among Ngarinyin and
| their neighbours, and to an extent Yolngu people,
| reproduced very structured regional systems of exchange.
| In the wurnan exchange system of Ngarinyin people and
| their neighbours, marriage exchanges joined the exchange
| of foods, raw materials and sacred objects along 'paths'
| linking patri-groups in established sequences. Yolngu
| probably did not have quite such a neat and tidy system,
| but they did think in terms of paths of exchange, and
| items moved in customary directions. The high and very
| high levels of polygyny among Ngarinyin people and their
| neighbours and Yolngu people placed certain men at the
| nodes of exchange networks where they received gifts from
| intending and actual daughters' and sisters' husbands,
| and made gifts to intended and actual wives' relatives.
| These same men (or some of them) led powerful and growing
| patri-groups, and controlled patri-group sacra.
| samatman wrote:
| Money in a broad sense is as old as anatomically modern
| humans, so, no.
|
| 80,000 year old grave goods have been discovered,
| consisting of shells of a consistent size, with holes
| drilled in them, a few hundred kilometers from the ocean.
| We know from ethnography of societies which existed until
| very recently that these collectibles served the same
| purpose as money.
|
| A good complement to Graeber's book is the work of Nick
| Szabo, I would start here:
|
| https://fermatslibrary.com/s/shelling-out-the-origins-of-
| mon...
|
| You can find most of the rest of his writing on the
| subject on his blog: http://unenumerated.blogspot.com
| mikem170 wrote:
| But the first source you quoted, the Atlantic article
| [0], quotes Graeber describing economies which don't
| depend on money or barter:
|
| > Communities of Iroquois Native Americans, for instance,
| stockpiled their goods in longhouses. Female councils
| then allocated the goods, explains Graeber. Other
| indigenous communities relied on "gift economies," which
| went something like this: If you were a baker who needed
| meat, you didn't offer your bagels for the butcher's
| steaks. Instead, you got your wife to hint to the
| butcher's wife that you two were low on iron, and she'd
| say something like "Oh really? Have a hamburger, we've
| got plenty!" Down the line, the butcher might want a
| birthday cake, or help moving to a new apartment, and
| you'd help him out.
|
| > On paper, this sounds a bit like delayed barter, but it
| bears some significant differences. For one thing, it's
| much more efficient than Smith's idea of a barter system,
| since it doesn't depend on each person simultaneously
| having what the other wants. It's also not tit for tat:
| No one ever assigns a specific value to the meat or cake
| or house-building labor, meaning debts can't be
| transferred.
|
| > And, in a gift economy, exchange isn't impersonal.
|
| My original reply in this thread was to mention that
| there have been functioning societies that don't use
| money. I was replying to a post that couldn't imagine
| such things. Maybe I'm misunderstanding why you brought
| up barter economies?
|
| I'll have to get back to your first Nick Szabo reference,
| it doesn't format readable in the browser I'm in front of
| at the moment (overlapping text). The second link, the
| blog post, seems to discuss the history of money as
| opposed to alternatives (like the Iroquois and gift
| economies mentioned above).
|
| [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/
| barter-...
| zizee wrote:
| This "gift economy" sounds someone trying to put a nobel
| spin on a debt based economy.
|
| I bet in many cases if someone got a reputation for not
| reciprocating "gifts" they'd soon find themselves not
| receiving anything. Hardly a gift.
|
| And why are people "hinting" at things in this economy,
| and why this is presented as something different from a
| direct request. How often have you come across people
| "hinting" at what they really want, when really they are
| demanding. Sounds like something out of a cliche mobster
| scene, "lovely tanks you have there Colonel, it would be
| a shame for anything to happen to them".
|
| > No one ever assigns a specific value to the meat or
| cake or house-building labor, meaning debts can't be
| transferred.
|
| If the bakers wife were to "hint" to the butcher that
| their friend could do with some extra "iron", whilst
| simultaneously saying "did you enjoy those scones i gave
| you" (wink), then the debt is transferred. We can pretend
| that it wouldn't have happened, but people are people the
| world over. Some would be nice and help others because
| they like to help, others would use what leverage they
| have to get ahead in life.
|
| This gift based economy just sounds like a passive
| aggressive debt based economy, and it doesn't sound real.
| samatman wrote:
| > _Communities of Iroquois Native Americans_
|
| Had wampum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wampum
|
| Which was absolutely used as trade goods between Iroquois
| bands, between the Iroquois and other natives, and
| between the Iroquois and settler colonialists.
| Standardized trade goods, portable and of a broadly
| recognized value: in other words, money.
|
| Money which was good enough that the English, being kept
| short of coin by the Crown, adopted it for their own
| internal trade. Leading to the expression "shelling out",
| and the slang term "clams" for the dollar.
|
| Single Iroquois bands may not have done much if any
| internal trade, but the same is true of my nuclear
| family. I would expect some wampum changed hands for
| things like marriages, though I don't have a source on
| that and it might not be true in this specific case.
| indigochill wrote:
| I don't understand why the dishwashers leaving needs to cause
| societal breakdown, though. After they leave, surely someone
| thinks "Hm, we have no clean dishes any more and nobody's
| volunteering, so I guess I'll need to clean some dishes, if
| only for myself, but then once I'm in dishwashing mode it's
| efficient to clean more dishes than I personally need, and even
| better if someone decides to reward me for cleaning their
| dishes by doing my laundry since they realized someone needs to
| do that".
|
| I mean, isn't this "the invisible hand of the market" at play,
| just without the intermediate medium of exchange?
|
| It is true, though, as the end of the article points out,
| living this way defies pretty much any kind of planning, and
| that can be scary for people.
| guerrilla wrote:
| I hate arguments like this. People who want clean dishes will
| do dishes. And no there's no free-rider problem because they
| don't have to do dishes for anyone else.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > People who want clean dishes will do dishes.
|
| And people who want to eat will farm their own food? And
| people who want medicine will craft their own medications?
|
| Self-sufficiency and moneyless societies are pure fantasy,
| unless they include giving up all modern amenities. I don't
| think these people really want to return to the days of
| hunter gatherer lifestyles or even the days of homesteading.
|
| It's an extreme amount of work to be self-sufficient.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| To add to that it isn't even legal to be self sufficient. I
| know how to make several prescription drugs but the moment
| I provide them to anyone else or anyone finds out I make
| them I will be put in a cage.
| [deleted]
| guerrilla wrote:
| You're moving the goalpost while also adding the artificial
| restriction that people can't cooperate.
| mikem170 wrote:
| > I don't think these people really want to return to the
| days of hunter gatherer lifestyles or even the days of
| homesteading.
|
| Some people do, but we pretty much made it illegal.
| jamincan wrote:
| It also almost always requires a lot of land. You could not
| feed the globe if everyone was self-sufficient.
| knighthack wrote:
| > They go on for several years with several people, usually
| women, making the sacrifice and doing what needs to be done.
|
| While I agree with most of what's said above, the proposition
| about "usually women, making the sacrifice" is dubious at best,
| if not untrue.
|
| In any society or commune few will lead - the rest will be
| workers or followers. These will be both men and women, and
| they will both suffer from necessary sacrifices. Women are not
| a special class of people in those societies, and to claim that
| they suffer more prejudice is the usual sort of feminist-speak
| that has nothing to do with the reality of such communes.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| I've never lived in or studied commune living but do you or
| the GP have nonfiction sources? I'm hesitant to take either
| of your claims as truth without them given my own lack of
| knowledge. Thank you!
| mikem170 wrote:
| I wondered about that, also. I'm pretty sure that some
| societies and communes are democratic, where the people
| make choices as a group, not having specific leaders that
| they are obligated to follow. I think that Quakers would be
| an example of one such society, they govern by what some
| call consensus based decision making.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I'm the last person to be charged with "feminist-speak" and I
| actually agree that it's usually women who end up in these
| undesired jobs.
|
| Most communes and cults that give up money end up using some
| other form of control. NXIVM is a recent example, but most of
| these fringe movements discover women are more useful and
| less trouble than men.
| exolymph wrote:
| Have you ever been a dinner party? Perhaps several? Observe
| who clears away the dishes.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| I know it's anecdata, but from my experience cooking at a
| local church it was almost always the women who would come
| and help clean up after service. Not just women, of course,
| but they were definitely over-represented on that front.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Especially given that men have taken on tasks far more
| dangerous and difficult than doing the dishes and have always
| died sooner.
|
| https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/why-men-often-die-
| earlie...
| Ekaros wrote:
| And the same is still true. Something that I hear no
| feminist talking about is the gap in occupational injury
| deaths, which is massive. We should really start working on
| it for more equal society.
| watwut wrote:
| I have seen feminists to push for women to be allowed in
| combat roles. I have seen them also promoting less
| gendered toys and occupations in child stories. Meaning
| also more cars for girls. Meaning driving, being cop as
| occupation for women too.
|
| More equality here would mean exactly that - women
| driving and being on the streets more, women working in
| late money handling shifts, women in combat positions.
|
| Then there are hazards in occupations where physical
| force is an actual factor - construction and some farming
| jobs. Hazard here is mostly from overextending people.
| There, I dont see employers running for someone
| physically weaker. But then again, there is feminist push
| to promote technological/construction interests to girls.
|
| Tho in the latter category of jobs, unionization and
| regulation would do a lot for safety on itself. Then
| again, same can be said about driving. Driving jobs often
| push people toward a lot of hours and risk, whether you
| are tired or not. More regulation about how much you can
| drive would do a lot.
| pbourke wrote:
| > More regulation about how much you can drive would do a
| lot.
|
| Isn't there already a ton of quite stringent regulation
| around how long you can drive? Or do you mean outside of
| the context of activities regulated by the FMCSA in the
| US?
| samatman wrote:
| I know you're joking-- but I wish you wouldn't.
|
| Encouraging women to become, say, crab fisherwomen, would
| just result in more humans being maimed and killed. For
| the same reason that female soccer players tear their ACL
| at shockingly higher rates than male ones.
| watwut wrote:
| This is kind of complicated, because men die sooner even if
| they don't do dangerous tasks. And in contemporary
| communes, there pretty often are not all that many super
| dangerous tasks to do. These communes dont have soldiers
| going into wars nor miners spending days in dust and dark.
|
| There used to be difference in terms of men drinking and
| smoking much more then women, but that is equalizing too.
|
| Basically, even if men dont do anything dangerous, dont
| drink nor smoke more, they still tend to die sooner.
|
| And if we are talking about past, it gets complicated too
| due to huge amount of childbirth deaths and poverty
| affecting women and men differently (in some periods,
| prostitution being only realistic employment for single
| women basically which comes with its own risks). Meaning,
| it was not always the idylic family situation people tend
| to imagine when making these comparisons.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| My source is https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/why-men-
| often-die-earlie...
|
| What is yours?
| watwut wrote:
| The article you sent literally confirms what I said. It
| lists multiple reasons, more dangerous jobs being only
| one. The rest are mix of lifestyle and genetics.
|
| As for smoking and alcohol, those statistics are easy to
| find too. Both contemporary and past ones.
|
| Also, article starts with premise that author expects to
| live shorter then his wife - but he has extraordinary
| safe job.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| The smoking and alcohol are copes for stress that they
| wouldn't have without the added risk to their health and
| emotional well being.
| chmod600 wrote:
| "nor miners spending days in dust and dark"
|
| Then how do they get metal?
| sumnole wrote:
| Devil's advocate here. Failing sufficient encouragement to do
| tasks (psychological/sociological rewards as got through
| volunteering), most of those tasks can be automated or replaced
| by an alternative.
| lotu wrote:
| Not in a reasonable time frame. Do you really believe we
| could fully automate all dishwashing over the next decade?
| ben_w wrote:
| Plausible it could be automated. No idea how much it would
| cost, and while electric dishwashers have been a thing for
| longer than I've been alive, there's not enough room in my
| current place to install one, and a humanoid cleaning robot
| would also have nowhere to stow itself.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| Who's going to do it until it's automated?
|
| Who's going to pay to automate it?
| lrdswrk00 wrote:
| > Who would wash the dishes?
|
| Presumably the person who dirtied them. So they can use clean
| dishes and not get sick from mold growing from the old food?
|
| Science has given us plenty of evidence to do as we do in a
| number of contexts.
|
| Deferring to the politically empowered is an unscientific basis
| for economic activity.
|
| We need not rely on the superstitions of dead men who were less
| educated than us.
| pmichaud wrote:
| Is it "usually women" who do the unglamorous jobs that no one
| else wants to do? This doesn't really seem true, but maybe you
| have a source that shows it?
| iamacyborg wrote:
| > From cooking and cleaning, to fetching water and firewood
| or taking care of children and the elderly, women carry out
| at least two and a half times more unpaid household and care
| work than men.
|
| https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-
| focus/csw61/redistribute-...
| bbarnett wrote:
| If one is in a commune, all work is unpaid, so how is this
| relatable?
|
| If referencing modern society in the west, who is fetching
| wood and water?!
|
| Is this stat from 1870?
| iamacyborg wrote:
| > If referencing modern society in the west, who is
| fetching wood and water?!
|
| There's more to unpaid labour than fetching wood and
| water. Women still do significantly more housework than
| men, even if both hold full time employment.
| bbarnett wrote:
| That may be true, or untrue.
|
| However, citing a stat from before anyone was born, isn't
| helpful in a modern context.
|
| Replying to this with "it is still true, because", now
| that your citation fell flat on its face, may not be the
| best strategy.
| unpolloloco wrote:
| Unpaid doesn't always mean that it's the least glamorous
| (in the absence of compensation for anyone). Take anything
| on Dirty Jobs, for example. If you're talking the
| difference between washing laundry and cleaning out septic
| tanks most people would prefer one over the other in the
| absence of other pay.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| From what I've seen, men get stuck with the jobs women don't
| want to do. Just look at our current society. Who are the
| miners, the garbage workers, the delivery people?
|
| You'll notice there's a push to get women into comfy office
| jobs like programmer and not strenuous jobs like oil rig
| worker.
|
| Someone can reply to me and cherry pick to show counter
| examples but for the most part it's men doing these jobs.
| elliekelly wrote:
| Didn't groups of people live without money just fine for most
| of human existence? We worked together. Money only entered the
| equation when the groups we lived and interacted with started
| getting too big and impersonal. Generosity is easier when you
| know the people benefiting from your work. Greed and
| freeloading are easier when you don't.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I would argue that we are living in a all time high of human
| generosity, on a scale previously unimaginable. It just isn't
| carried out on a personal and emotional level.
| elliekelly wrote:
| Does human generosity scale though? I'm not so sure.
| Because we're also living in a time of human hunger, human
| thirst, and human displacement previously unimaginable. The
| generosity doesn't seem able to keep pace.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >we're also living in a time of human hunger, human
| thirst, and human displacement previously unimaginable.
|
| I fundamentally disagree. I think the percent of humans
| suffering from hunger, thirst, sickness, and displacement
| is also at an all time low.
| suifbwish wrote:
| Maybe if it was only the people who did the jobs that no one
| wants to do who get paid then people wouldn't be trying to get
| rid of the money system. How many thousands of years would a
| dishwasher need to work in order to earn what someone does in
| one year from making 100 million in a year as a corporate fat
| cat, a sports player, movie star or a business owner
| okr wrote:
| If you can wash dishes for a billion people in the world,
| freeing everyone from the burden of taking, sorting, drying,
| washing dishes, putting all dish washers out of work, i
| guess, you can become pretty rich too. People will have time
| to do something else.
| ben_w wrote:
| How much money should the modern inventor of the electric
| dishwasher receive, given the labour saved by the invention?
|
| And as much as I utterly fail to get spectator sports in
| general, footballers get their money specifically because
| people pay to watch their teams and the teams are more
| popular when they win and therefore the teams directly bid
| against each other for the best players. Similar logic for
| movies and their stars, and in both cases there are a lot of
| people at the bottom who do similar things for approximately
| nothing as it's fun -- but they're not the best in the world
| at what they do, and only the best can compete with the best.
|
| The connection in sports and media is a lot more direct than
| asking if (and how much) a corporation's overall performance
| can be attributed to the skills of given fat cat acting as a
| multiplier on the work done by those under them.
|
| And then you have the last question: what is the stuff which
| must be done? Most individuals could live a hunter-gatherer
| lifestyle, yet no city (UK definition rather than USA) can
| survive everyone trying that at the same time, let alone the
| whole world. Is shipping in the "must have" list? If _just_
| shipping stopped, much of the UK would starve even if
| everyone turned their gardens into personal farms like in
| WW2. Who makes the ships? Who digs up the raw materials for
| the ship?
| paganel wrote:
| Societies can work without money, or without using them that
| often, there used to be many self-sufficient peasant
| communities (villages and even entire mountain valleys) that
| used to manage just fine without actually using (much) money.
| Of course that modernity and the industrial revolution put a
| stop to that but it can be done.
| dghughes wrote:
| >For all Johnston's proselytizing, he lacks a pushiness. Instead,
| he exudes--and has worked on cultivating--patience and calm
|
| He's a con man and a mooch. Nothing special. He just mooches off
| other people's effort.
| okareaman wrote:
| Money is only one kind of power as I learned from going from
| working stiff to millionaire (thanks software biz!) to homeless
| broke person (cursed alcohol.) There is the shamanic-like power
| of a deeply spiritual person. There is the leadership power of a
| good manufacturing supervisor or ship captain. There is the moral
| power of Martin Luther King or Solzhenitsyn. I've come to the
| conclusion that accumulating money is how people who otherwise
| wouldn't have any power to purchase it. There's a easy test I do
| in this industry when a rich person publishes a thought piece
| that doesn't move me: Would this person have any power if they
| weren't rich? A lot of times the answer is no.
|
| This Victoria man has another kind of power: The power that gets
| other people to take care of his needs for him without objecting
| or rejecting him.
| kevmo wrote:
| > Would this person have any power if they weren't rich? A lot
| of times the answer is no.
|
| In my experience, the answer is no like a solid 90-99% of the
| time. At least in America, the wealthy buy their kids into
| elite high schools, which feed into elite colleges, which feed
| into jobs at elite, increasingly monolithic
| institutions/corporations.
|
| Junior gets to fail again and again until they succeed, and
| then the return on capital further institutionalizes their
| family's power.
|
| It's just aristocracy, but with more steps.
| okareaman wrote:
| I feel a bit sorry for them, because with money you can build
| yourself a really nice gilded cage (or be born in one), which
| is extremely difficult to escape from because it would take
| giving up the money. This makes it hard to develop the other
| kinds of powers I mentioned. I believe these thoughts are not
| my own, but are the basis of ideas like "The love of money is
| the root of all evil" and "Again I tell you, it is easier for
| a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone
| who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." (I am not a
| Christian but I am familiar with it - I'm sure I could find
| similar thoughts in other religions)
| imtringued wrote:
| >In my experience, the answer is no like a solid 90-99% of
| the time. At least in America, the wealthy buy their kids
| into elite high schools, which feed into elite colleges,
| which feed into jobs at elite, increasingly monolithic
| institutions/corporations.
|
| Well, this may be bad but what is the alternative? It's not
| like the life of an average citizen is any different other
| than in degree. They also use money to go to a good school
| and good college to get good jobs at good companies. I don't
| see the injustice here as substantial. I see bigger flaws in
| the money system than our society maintaining itself.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Usually those "rich people's" thoughts are interesting not
| because they're worth millions or billions, but because they've
| built something impressive over their lifetime and probably
| have gained valuable insight as a result.
|
| Most people wouldn't be very interested in an interview with a
| Walton heir for instance, but Sam Walton himself would have no
| problem drawing an audience.
| okareaman wrote:
| He cultivated those other powers before he became rich, or he
| most likely wouldn't have been able to build what he did. I
| think a good example is Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Jobs went
| to India, practiced Zen and experimented with psychedelics
| before he built Apple. He found his power and used it. Bill
| Gates was born rich and is having a tough time inspiring
| people at the moment.
| L-four wrote:
| Why doesn't the audio player have volume controls???
| tills13 wrote:
| He's not living off _his_ money. He's living off my money --
| literally, being a tax-payer in Victoria.
|
| Additionally, he's actively using resources designed to help
| people who are in situations where they cannot work or cannot
| find stable income.
|
| What a jerk.
| mikem170 wrote:
| Are you sure he's asking for any of your tax money? I didn't
| notice in the article any mention of him collecting benefits.
| He dumpster dives for food if nothing else. People give him
| some things, of their own free will.
|
| And don't forget about all the rich people that your tax monies
| subsidize [0]. Those are people who have money, and are being
| given more from your taxes.
|
| How much different is this guy than those rich people getting
| tax breaks? Which begs the question why there is such a
| visceral reaction against this poor guy, but not all the rich
| who get propped up by the government. I guess we aspire to be
| one of those rich people who do nothing, and resent the people
| who choose not to play the game that most of us aren't winning.
|
| [0] https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/02/24/tax-loopholes-
| canad...
| motohagiography wrote:
| This makes sense if you have ever been to Victoria. It's the
| closest thing to a real life hobbit village you will ever see
| from a culture perspective.
| wk_end wrote:
| ...have _you_ been to Victoria? In the past twenty years?
|
| Forgive me for getting defensive, but as someone who lives
| here, you don't know what you're talking about. The days of the
| "home of the newlywed and nearly-dead" stereotype are over
| (maybe except for in Oak Bay). We're a solidly medium-sized
| city, the capital of BC, with multiple universities,
| significant naval presence, a booming population, and strong
| tourism industry. And also one of the most expensive and
| desirable housing markets in the country.
|
| And FWIW, I'm not sure how going for decades without money is
| more feasible in a cultural hobbit village, whatever that
| means, than anywhere else. No, it makes sense that he can do
| this in Victoria because we have the best year-round weather in
| the country and lots of support available for the homeless.
| srvmshr wrote:
| * Intentional destruction of currency tenders is a criminal
| offense in most countries. There is nothing worthy of hero-
| worship here.
|
| * The guy leeches off the goodwill of others. He doesn't
| internalize that the amenities offered to him as charity, are
| being bought with someone's money. Food & coffee doesn't grow on
| trees. Heaters in winters don't work on magic spells. He doesn't
| spend his money. It is someone else's. Public money mostly, and
| the charity of sympathetic Samaritans
|
| The glamorous-pious/moral-homeless trope is BS. If he wants to do
| better, then live in one of the BC forests. Into the wild, all
| the way in. Seriously, if you take out these nutcase
| views/agenda, he is no different from garden variety homeless.
| Most people I have seen are destitute by their bad luck or lack
| of opportunity & education. This guy is a wreck by his parasitic
| fetishes.
| carl_sandland wrote:
| Really interesting discussion here; it's heartening to feel the
| underlying desire by commentators to find effective moral
| principles. It strikes me that what we have now has evolved into
| an economic/money system that is complex, dynamic and probably
| the "least worst" we can achieve. We do live together in a
| miracle. I'm happy we still have space for monastic energies to
| survive.
|
| I do fear the coming resource scarcity and slowing tech adaption
| rate.
| inawarminister wrote:
| This guy is a monk. So that's how they got invented the first
| time, huh.
|
| Well, if he teaches others what he know and they emulate him,
| while the general populace tolerate and support them, a new
| ascetic movement would be made easily.
|
| Still, my heart is with his estranged SO and their children.
| Ascetics can't support others that well after all.
| nsb1 wrote:
| Just so long as he doesn't teach too many others - this sort of
| thing doesn't scale well.
| guerrilla wrote:
| It scaled fine in India and China. That's exactly what
| Buddhism was. They worked though, just not in lay jobs.
| peterburkimsher wrote:
| I agree. Even though money is bad, I believe that it's
| excusable to help others.
|
| (No, the ends don't always justify the means. In the case of
| community and the greater good, my moral expectations on others
| are much lower than the strictness with which I judge myself,
| and I will break my own rules if it means being a better
| guest/host).
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| I'm not sure living in the city off handouts, charity, and free
| tax payer provided facilities exactly promotes his no money
| philosophy. His life relies on the things he despises, if the
| economic collapse he predicts comes he will be among the first to
| starve to death.
|
| Go into the wild and grow/hunt food or trade some skill - the
| post money society doesn't need philosopher poets scavenging
| cigarettes from trash cans
| bserge wrote:
| Haha, I was expecting a story about living off grid, not this.
|
| In my home country we actually still have people living off
| their land and animals, off hand dug wells and cut down trees,
| using no money.
|
| That's rather extreme, though, most villages have electricity
| at least.
| vxNsr wrote:
| > _Go into the wild and grow /hunt food or trade some skill_
|
| This is what I thought the article would be about. Instead it's
| glorifying living on handouts and other people's largesse.
| iamadog1029 wrote:
| That's far more complicated than you'd suspect, at least in
| the US. There are a litany of policies that criminalize self-
| sustainment. Granted I suppose one could consume pests
| without being harangued for poaching, but that doesn't
| mitigate property laws, and all property is owned if not
| privately then publicly and in either case most often
| requires license to be there, whether explicit or implicit.
| Certainly doing any _reasonable_ amount of cultivation is
| seriously complicated by this. So you 're legally barred from
| hunting, barred from cultivation, and you're left with
| scavenging or gathering and that's highly dependent on a
| number of factors. Granted the probability of being found out
| in the depths of the wild are minute, it is nonetheless a
| serious existential threat. Let's just say we're at the mercy
| of our captors.
|
| Having addressed the question of legality of rogue
| individuals... And if an individual exploiting the wild is
| illegal, so is the group. Humans are social animals. Going it
| alone at length in the arboreal breast of mother nature would
| be extraordinarily taxing mentally for most people. That
| alone is a crucial disincentive, and with the legal
| disincentive it atomizes people and forces even the highest
| aspirants to dissolution of the ideal. And that's before the
| process is even allowed to occur. The impacts of each added
| person to a group of rogues would compound, and I'd posit
| exponentially. And with that impact the footprint naturally
| grows, and with the footprint the risk of detection. At the
| end of the day the risk assessment points to certain failure.
|
| So the next best thing is urbanized scavenging, not because
| it's the idyllic means, but because it's the only certainty.
| If you offered these people license to fuck off, I suspect
| they would do just that, perhaps not all, but most. I know if
| I was given license, alongside my friends, to get out of
| dodge we might just take up that offer. But the whole concept
| of _real_ liberty, _real_ autonomy, _real_ independence -
| that 's an existential threat to the status quo, to the
| system, and to the policy makers and corporations that own
| them, and to the very few of those who pull the strings.
| ratsforhorses wrote:
| Reminds me to recommend "Grapes of wrath" as a wonderful
| book to read, surprisingly relevant today, off my head
| there is the description about apples being too expensive
| to buy fresh so being sold to be canned... and the old guy
| having worked and suddenly having money in his pocket, not
| knowing what touse it for so buying some useless
| trinket....but maybe someone has a link for an online
| version so I could copy paste the relevant excerpts...
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| > Go into the wild and grow/hunt food
|
| It is easy to radically underestimate how much food a human
| needs every day and how hard it is to acquire, especially when
| living a non-sedentary life as a hunter/gatherer.
|
| Trying to accumulate 2000+ calories per day growing food
| requires a rather significant farm and skill (and weather);
| doing so with meat requires daily hunting, or a permanent
| storage facility with refrigeration (unless you like salt and
| pickled meat).
|
| Doing this while trying not to die from exposure or injury is
| even more challenging.
|
| It is amazingly nontrivial.
| user3939382 wrote:
| If you watch the reality show Alone, these wilderness
| survival experts try to do it to win $500k and most of them
| end up starving and dropping out.
| spodek wrote:
| Yes, he receives handouts, but you left out his values of
| simplicity, community, and such.
|
| Jeff Bezos, the Walton family, and many peers also live off
| taxpayer money and impoverish poor communities by siphoning
| money from them, plenty of regulatory capture.
| grawprog wrote:
| Being in Victoria certainly helps with his lifestyle too. It's
| probably the best city in BC you could hope to be in if you're
| homeless. It's a nice city, there's lots of green space, lots
| of facilities around for the homeless, a relatively small
| actual homeless population then the tourist homeless population
| of young people camping for fun.
|
| I really doubt he'd be able to maintain that lifestyle anywhere
| else. Definitely wouldn.t be able to live like that in
| Vancouver.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| It is incredibly ironic that the very people that claim the
| system is bad, effectively cannot survive on their non-
| conformist lifestyle without the current system. In a way
| though, it's no different than a religion. Priests cannot
| effectively survive without parishioners giving them money.
| Priests likewise preach things about the modern era of morality
| are bad and we must change them. So if you think of these
| vagabonds as "roving priests" then what they are doing is of
| the same concept. Although the difference between a local
| priest and some modern hippie rhetoric is a priest has
| relationships with his congregants. The idealist vagabond does
| not. So it's much harder for them to garner any support.
| ratsforhorses wrote:
| Maybe one could see it as a form of civil disobedience ...
| surely it counts that the person lets another person take the
| job he might have taken and ultimately uses less resources
| than the average worker (commute, buying power, paper trails
| etc) ... also one might argue those opting out help push up
| wages... I personally am in favor of working as little as
| possible, outlawing"big corporations" encouraging artisans
| and entrepreneurs and veggie farmers... I don't know what to
| say to the poster about the druggies.. except maybe have some
| compassion and consider maybe society should reach out and
| help more (maybe he lives in the US where the recent
| oxycodone epidemic was caused by the permissivness of said
| society)
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Arguably a modern priest/minister/whatever is providing a
| service and getting compensated for it, just like any other
| job.
| noduerme wrote:
| Traveling Buddhist monks in Southeast Asia live solely on
| donations. They don't necessarily have an individual
| relationship with "parishioners" any more than this
| particular hippie does (probably less). Whether it's
| beneficial for anyone for too much of society's resources to
| be allocated to the practice is a question. If you view
| spiritual comfort and the pursuit of karma as a kind of
| social glue, then some amount of tolerance for it might be
| positive for society.
| telotortium wrote:
| I have to say, I agree with the traditional Christian
| practice that discourages this sort of monasticism, called
| gyrovagues[0] in the West. The more usual forms of
| monasticism, although they accept donations, are expected
| to me more or less self-sufficient on a daily basis, and
| thus less parasitic on society. Either a monk would live in
| a monastery and work to support the monastery, possibly
| selling some of the products to the outside world, or a
| monk would live on their own in the wilderness, only
| occasionally meeting with a priest and generally actively
| avoiding donors, at least for the first few years. An
| exception is anchorites, who generally spend all their time
| in prayer and do rely on donations, but they generally
| don't move around from place to place.
|
| Even the large monasteries over time became less favored by
| the populace in Europe, since they had acquired enough land
| through donations over the centuries that they often began
| to act more like landlords.
|
| In summary, those who wish to live outside of normal
| society, particularly economically, should strive to avoid
| being parasites, and, failing that, should not move from
| host to host.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrovague
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| The only difference is, at least in my experience, many
| hippies don't actually do the things necessary to create
| change. They are individuals touting a known consensus.
| It's the reason why green measures generally fail in
| politics but stupid things like protecting the second
| amendment are upheld strongly. There is no centralized
| institution to fight for these beliefs. This is why you see
| the Freedom From Religion Foundation actively fighting
| against many religious bills. It has a goal, the ability to
| garner funds, and a means to support people to achieve
| them. Most hippies are just getting by and eventually wake
| up realizing they need a job to survive once the donations
| wear out because they don't have a stable supply of people
| believing in their individual cause.
| iamadog1029 wrote:
| It couldn't possibly be that the inertia of the system at
| large is highly resistant to progressive policy?
| an_opabinia wrote:
| We could probably 10x the number of "handouts" as you call
| them, at least in the US, and nothing would change. We've
| auditioned it already: $4T in stimulus, the $600/wk employment
| checks, etc. What negative negative impact really did that have
| on an average person's day to day life? "Handouts" made pay
| rise for the first time in decades.
|
| Even the landlords. I don't know any landlords who are on the
| street because of the rent forbearance and eviction moratorium
| - and I don't even agree with those policies.
| saltdoo wrote:
| Rising inflation says otherwise. Worst effects may be yet to
| come.
| KittenInABox wrote:
| I don't understand if we can say this inflation isn't just
| the surge of people who didn't spend a lot on travel/eating
| out/etc. now splurging on all the things + constraints on
| goods like cars due to the pandemic causing supply chain
| issues. It seems to me to me a relatively temporary, same
| as how the April 2020 market dip didn't really mean
| anything come April 2021.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| The USA was a fine place to live, many people happily
| gainfully employed, many investment accounts booking gains,
| labor and capital coexisting in harmony, when inflation was
| double what it is now.
| imtringued wrote:
| Inflation is bad for lenders (i.e. people keeping deposits
| in USD). People who work get paid based on their real value
| which means their pay rises if inflation rises. Of course
| it maybe difficult to get a raise for your current job but
| switching jobs will get you a raise that catches up to
| inflation.
|
| Here is a chart: https://imgur.com/a/eOXF0UO
|
| Note that there has been a shift in bargaining power since
| 1980 that is closing. That gap is not the result of
| inflation because inflation alone doesn't give employers
| bargaining power. If anything it increases bargaining power
| of employees vs the old job because the new job always pays
| more in nominal terms.
| jfk13 wrote:
| > switching jobs will get you a raise
|
| If only that option were realistically available to all,
| rather than just an entitled few.
| willhinsa wrote:
| It's also incredibly bad for pensioners, and often
| there's a lag between cost of living increasing and wages
| increasing that can be quite painful until things
| equalize, which sometime never happen.
| pbourke wrote:
| I think pensioners would be covered as "lenders". I
| interpreted lenders to mean those who have savings or are
| the beneficiaries of savings, such as pensioners, in
| addition to the obvious meaning of entities that hold
| fixed-rate debt as an asset.
| shkkmo wrote:
| And a great deal of that inflation is due to supply chain
| issues from the pandemic so it wasn't really an ideal
| experiment.
| carlmr wrote:
| Yes, I don't really get why this often gets dropped. I
| would assume inflation goes down next year if the supply
| chains get better again.
|
| A lot of the inflation I saw in the pandemic was
| perishable products where the supply was cut in some way
| or another. As long as people that want it badly can
| afford more they'll pay more for it. This is inflation,
| but it's not clear whether the money supply or the supply
| chains are the reason. The money supply was high in the
| preceding years as well, not leading to such high
| inflation.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _if the economic collapse he predicts comes he will be among
| the first to starve to death._
|
| Or among the last, being used to it by now. Beggars have
| existed under all regimes and all kinds of economic collapse.
| Cushioned middle class people however, didn't do as well under
| the latter...
| noduerme wrote:
| I've heard the nobility of homelessness and joblessness
| expressed as an ethos countless times by people who wouldn't
| care for the work of living off-grid. I happen to work in a
| town with some of the highest taxes in the country that's also
| one of the most attractive places for indigent campers. The
| park across from where I live has become a tent city. I get the
| pleasure of paying for its "upkeep" while also having to step
| over needles and human waste every day. A natural extension of
| the philosophy that people who work for a living are amoral
| slaves, and that only the indigent are noble is, of course,
| that it's permissible to steal anything any worker drone has.
| When I got to the part in this article about his glee at
| erecting tent cities I really became disgusted. What's
| beautiful about it? It produces nothing of lasting value. It
| erodes the physical and social landscape. At best as a society
| itself, it's a drum circle, getting high, talking about the
| universe without doing anything much, and escaping. What future
| is there for anyone who wants all the parks filled with tent
| cities?
|
| The one thing you can't do without money, without an economy,
| is take care of anyone else. You can give them things that
| other people gave you - castaways of castaways. But you can't
| produce anything new to help anyone. So what claims to be
| cooperative and egalitarian is really just parasitic.
|
| Maybe it's not surprising that the largest effort made on
| behalf of parasitism is its attempt to disguise itself as
| something moral.
| imtringued wrote:
| He also has an unhealthy relationship with money. Withholding
| money from being spent is immoral because that money is
| needed to pay debts and saving money causes unemployment.
| Spending all the money you get is moral. Of course you are
| allowed to spend your money on stocks and bonds to maintain
| real savings.
| jerry1979 wrote:
| Do you have any resources that explain how saving money
| hurts others?
| brailsafe wrote:
| If you accept that living exclusively off the handouts of
| others is immoral, then saving money of course is not
| inherently immoral. It helps you not do that.
| alexanderdmitri wrote:
| > Spending all the money you get is moral.
|
| Extending this logic, I would also like to posit that
| jumping off a cliff is flight.
| [deleted]
| aunty_helen wrote:
| >At best as a society itself, it's a drum circle, getting
| high, talking about the universe without doing anything much,
| and escaping.
|
| People have different values. Long ago we forgot that if it's
| not shown on mtv as something to aspire towards it's not the
| best pursuit of our time.
|
| All the best chasing that lambo you'll never afford whilst
| looking over your shoulder at others smart enough not to get
| into that game.
| noduerme wrote:
| You're talking to someone who lived on the road for 10+
| years and spent plenty of time in music circles on beaches
| discussing the nature of the universe. All of which came to
| very little. I don't work and earn to chase a new car. I do
| it to give my life meaning and to afford a good future for
| myself and my family. And yeah, I have every right to look
| down at the people who think they're being so smart by "not
| getting in that game". Even on the road, I always worked. I
| didn't do drugs regularly. And I never begged. I wasn't a
| parasite, like so many. Often, other travelers would look
| down on me for that. Where are they now? Lying in ditches,
| muttering to themselves.
| aunty_helen wrote:
| >You're talking to someone who lived on the road for 10+
| years
|
| >I have every right
|
| >I always worked. I didn't do drugs regularly. And I
| never begged. I wasn't a parasite, like so many
|
| >Where are they now? Lying in ditches, muttering to
| themselves.
|
| Dude, you're a narcissist. You're free to change your
| values over time but no one else is? Maybe the next
| person squatting in your town square is a former you.
|
| Once again, people have different values. Maybe that
| leads them to your hypothetical ditch, maybe it gives
| them motivation to be like yourself. Or maybe they find
| happyness some other way.
| craftinator wrote:
| > Dude, you're a narcissist. You're free to change your
| values over time but no one else is? Maybe the next
| person squatting in your town square is a former you.
|
| This was exactly what was going through my head while
| reading their post. That, or that they are making up a BS
| backstory to gain some sort of credibility, but there is
| no point in that sort of speculating.
| codebolt wrote:
| If someones choice of values leads them to wilfully and
| proudly become a parasite and a burden to the people
| around them, then they are the ones with the mental
| disorder.
| brudgers wrote:
| Is that logically distinct from sitting at a desk
| muttering to HN?
| Chris2048 wrote:
| Is lying in a ditch distinct to sitting at a desk?
|
| I'd venture yes.
| shkkmo wrote:
| It is realy easy to look down on people for all kinds of
| reasons. It is much harder to empathize with the
| challenges and point of views that are alien to your
| perspective.
|
| Our society needs more people willing to take on that
| challenge instead of allowing their own insecurities to
| drive them into contempt.
| kbenson wrote:
| There's a difference between being empathetic to those
| that have problems and need help and those that choose
| knowingly to opt out of the _surface level_ of the system
| while still receiving its benefits.
|
| While GP comment may be painting groups with an overly
| broad brush, I'm not sure I see any fault with the
| criticism of the specific type of person they describe,
| which does exist, even if it may not be all of that group
| (or even a sizable minority).
|
| Any policy that is followed, such as "help and show
| empathy for those less fortunate" should be actually
| examined and _understood_ , not just blindly applied.
| People that wish to participate in society but have
| fallen on hard times deserve our sympathy and help.
| People that have health problems that cause their
| situation deserve our sympathy and help. People that
| decide to opt out of most of our society and so remove
| themselves from most of the society deserve our respect,
| or at least our ambivalence. People that _say_ they want
| to opt out of society but really just don 't want to give
| anything to society (whether that's time, effort,
| restraint, whatever) but want to get some benefit of
| society deserve our scorn.
|
| Far too many people get stuck following the actions of an
| ideology rather than the precepts. Not everyone that
| appears homeless is "less fortunate" in their own eyes,
| and giving to them is not necessarily helping in a way
| that the precept of helping those less fortunate
| espouses, but instead a way to trick yourself into
| thinking you are doing something good without having to
| put thought into whether you actually are.
|
| In general, we could all do with a lot more introspection
| as to what our actions are actually doing and whether
| they serve the purpose we think they are. As a side
| benefit, a lot of bullshit from both sides of the
| political spectrum wouldn't survive the light of day some
| critical thought brings.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| I have know a lot of homelessness.
|
| In 99.99% of the cases, they weren't homeless by choice,
| or ideology.
|
| But yes--most of them thought they were there by choice.
|
| It must be some ego defense mechanism?
|
| For some reason a disproportionate amount were former
| Programmers? I knew Jim Fox. He was a cocreator of
| Wordstar, but got zero credit. I watched him slip from
| employment to wearing a Penguin outfit playing a ukleee
| begging for change. We used to talk tech, and he would
| notice someone walking towards us. He would jump out, and
| do his dance. He was always positive. He once got a job.
| He went to Goodwill to buy a suit. (He thought he needed
| a suit for a startup.) He was fired a few days in. That
| whole cultural fit. He always used to tell me, I just
| hope I don't die of pneumonia in an alley. Well he didn't
| get his wish. He died homeless.
|
| There is a saying amoung homeless, and it's this,
| "Homeless for a year, homeless for life."
|
| Meaning the mind is gone after living like they do. I
| have watched our local police departments make there guys
| life more miserable for 30 years.
|
| I'm glad you weren't an entrenched homeless person.
|
| The homeless we have need help. Most are not their by
| choice if you get them to let their guard down.
|
| I do have some hope in CA. The government might actually
| do something besides jaw boning about what needs to be
| done.
|
| Besides long term shelter, I hear talk of safe places to
| park, and sleep, without getting a ticket, or worse?
|
| Homeless in Dunphy Park, got tickets for not obeying a
| rule. The ticket was $500. The issuing officer told the
| IJ, fee is high because we know they won't ever pay it.
|
| I just threw up my hands.
|
| How is issuing a ticket that can eventually turn into a
| warrant helping out anyone?
|
| I done. I'm starting to get angry. Homelessness has
| always been a sore spot for myself.
| willhinsa wrote:
| There's a huge difference between "chasing that lambo" and
| working to build and keep a stable environment for your
| family, community, and society.
| aunty_helen wrote:
| Please don't think I meant literally saving money to buy
| a lambo. More a general trend towards unhealthy
| materialism that is seen as only being a positive. ie my
| bank account is bigger than yours beause I'm better than
| you.
| brudgers wrote:
| The people in the park are part of the community and a
| societal element.
| [deleted]
| leephillips wrote:
| "People have different values."
|
| That's for sure. The values of the poster you're replying
| to are better than the values of a professional parasite.
| Retric wrote:
| A parasite he may be, but people can do a lot more harm
| as part of the economy than that.
|
| It's simply a question of leverage, even something as
| seemingly pleasant as Disney World causes significant
| direct and indirect ecological harm in ways a homeless
| person doesn't. And frankly you can find plenty of far
| worse examples than Disney World.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| This is pure whataboutism.
| Retric wrote:
| "you can't produce anything new to help anyone." Suggests
| only economic activity is a benefit, as if talking to
| another person or giving a hug can't enrich their lives.
|
| Pointing out a moral standpoint is more harmful than
| what's being criticized is hardly whataboutism. It's a
| demonstration that taking part in the economy is not
| inherently superior rather than the posters personal
| preference. Which therefore directly counters their
| morality argument.
| noduerme wrote:
| But it's not just about economic benefit. Most people
| don't work to afford toys for themselves, they work to
| support others. At the end of the article, this guy
| expresses sadness that he's estranged from his two
| children as a result of his choices, but then attempts to
| justify it by saying he's not going to let having
| children keep him from making a better world for his
| children - a world in which there is no money. I would
| think his kids would probably prefer having a father who
| was present for them than one who couldn't see them
| because he'd deluded himself into thinking that a
| complete lack of effort was his way of saving the world.
|
| If you can't take part in your children's lives as a
| result of your choice not to take part in the economy,
| then you're sort of failing at both moral standards
| aren't you?
| [deleted]
| Retric wrote:
| > If you can't take part in your children's lives...
|
| That's a question without an objective answer. For
| example some people are better off in the foster system.
| It's an oversimplification to assume some kind of
| standard life for other life choices.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| What moral standpoint does Disneyland represent? You've
| far from proved the net harm of Disneyland, but what has
| that got to do with homelessness in BC?
|
| > It's a demonstration that taking part in the economy is
| not inherently superior
|
| sure, but this is a straw-man. The proposition isn't that
| participating in the economy is automatically of greater
| value, it's that not participating (other than to leech
| off it) produces non.
|
| > directly counters their morality argument
|
| It's possible to oppose this guy _and_ Disneyland.
| Retric wrote:
| > What moral standpoint does Disneyland represent?
|
| The GP listed doing anything _productive_ as a moral
| stance, Disneyland is therefore part of that anything.
|
| > net harm of Disneyland
|
| Promoting millions to take longer trips and regularly
| visit the middle of Florida directly causes travel
| related pollution. Simply developing that land is harmful
| to the local ecosystems. Producing all the merchandising
| is similarly an issue.
|
| > It's possible to oppose this guy _and_ Disneyland.
|
| If you oppose Disneyland for environmental reasons you're
| hard pressed to then support the most of the rest of the
| economy. I would welcome an argument that draws a line
| there without excluding say suburbs.
| Aeolun wrote:
| > the post money society doesn't need philosopher poets
| scavenging cigarettes from trash cans
|
| Supporting the odd philosopher poet is the exact function of
| society, in my opinion.
|
| Some good things come out of having them that do not come out
| of having another corporate drone.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| > Supporting the odd philosopher poet is the exact function
| of society, in my opinion.
|
| Have you considered that society should also be the natural
| predator of the odd philosopher poet so that their numbers do
| not become problematic for their environment?
| code_duck wrote:
| There are civil ways to discourage such behavior short of
| predation.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Look: a "social Darwinist"! I should get a spotter's guide.
|
| If society preys on philosopher poets, we don't get
| philosophy or poetry, our ethics never develops, and the
| fundamental principles of society don't improve, limiting
| how much technological progress can raise the standard of
| living. I personally call that a bad outcome.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| I don't think it's accurate to claim that ethics follows
| moral philosophy, and certainly most philosophers would
| not endorse that viewpoint. Philosophy doesn't tell
| society how to improve or behave. Philosophy helps
| question and understand, it hasn't historically been a
| driver of change.
| craftinator wrote:
| > Philosophy helps question and understand, it hasn't
| historically been a driver of change.
|
| You kind of put your foot in it with this comment.
| Societal change, for the most part, directly follows
| questioning and understanding.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Driver? No. Heck, I hardly know any philosophers. But
| most of our big ideas were written down by a philosopher
| and then, decades later, read by to-be-important people
| at the beginnings of a social movement.
|
| Social philosophy influences societal change, by
| providing ideas. Without philosophers, activists have to
| be _more_ visionary than they already are, making them
| rarer.
|
| (Moral philosophy, not really, I'll agree with you.)
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _Philosophy helps question and understand, it hasn 't
| historically been a driver of change._
|
| Why do you say understanding isn't a driver of change? It
| seems to be pretty important to me.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I mean, to some extend they're self regulating. Few people
| have the stomach for a life like that so the total amount
| of philosopher poets is likely a function of your total
| population.
| nwienert wrote:
| How many crazed homeless drug addicts per philosopher
| poet do you find acceptable? Is it somewhere near the
| current 10k to 1 level? Of course you are willing to
| patronize a cabal of homeless on your block as well.
| mikem170 wrote:
| Our society used to have places for these people, like
| farmhand jobs, cheap poor houses in the city, etc.
| Perhaps it is a failure on our part that we have now have
| nothing better for these people then a desire to push
| them out of sight. It seems they get a lot of blame for
| not being able to keep up with an increasingly demanding
| modern consumerist society.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Why would society need to even _be_ a predator though? The
| whole point of society is that we organized into large
| enough groups that what the "natural order" was no longer
| applies: societies literally rise above the natural order
| by replacing that order with something we as society
| control.
|
| That means things like corporations, and working hard for
| your money, but also means things like "meaningless art",
| and allowing people with permanent disabilities to still
| live a normal life, where the fruits of society get to be
| enjoyed by _everyone_ in society, skewed towards different
| demographics based on your favourite -ism. And it doesn 't
| matter which -ism you subscribe to: the whole point of
| society is that we _don 't_ need this ridiculous "natural"
| nonsense. We beat it. It can stay outside. We replaced it
| with society.
| [deleted]
| henvic wrote:
| There is no such thing as a "corporate drone".
|
| On the other hand there is such a thing as a statist parasite
| (think politicians, bureaucrats, crony capitalists, etc.),
| and hobos with a belief they're superior to others and love
| to do virtue signaling as making a life decision to live
| until the end of their lives supported by others, directly or
| indirectly, is something very, very wise.
| [deleted]
| xondono wrote:
| > Some good things come out of having them that do not come
| out of having another corporate drone.
|
| False dichotomy much?
|
| Name one odd philosopher poet that has brought anything to
| the table
| tejtm wrote:
| Socrates
| xondono wrote:
| Socrates was nothing like what is being talked.
|
| He was wealthy, he participated in society, he even went
| to war.
| alex_young wrote:
| Diogenes
| xondono wrote:
| A guy of whom we have only embellished apocryphal
| stories, and who I have the suspicion either never
| existed or wasn't nothing as portrayed afterwards.
|
| The various "legends" around him like meeting Alexander
| the Great and dying at the same time are also suspect as
| hell.
|
| And for all of that, what we have is what exactly? A
| philosophical justification for being an asshole I guess?
| The world would have been pretty much the same if he had
| not existed.
| miles wrote:
| Buddha
| bouncycastle wrote:
| In countryside Japan, I notice that people get a lot of their
| vegetables and rice from family members who have a plot of
| something. Some have rice, some have carrots, potatoes and so on.
| Giving whatever excess stuff you have from your field and get
| reciprocated with other stuff you don't have, no money needed.
| noduerme wrote:
| > "It would be a lot easier if everyone quit money at the same
| time, make a day of it, and then everyone can co-ordinate and
| start planting."
|
| > He takes a drag on his cigarette. "Yeah, it would be a
| shitshow. But there's certain steps that need to be taken, and
| I'm sort of the disposable one that can't be bought. So I can
| make the horrifying decisions that no one else can make."
|
| The guy says he doesn't believe in evil. The only time in history
| that money has been abolished was under the Khmer Rouge. They
| also had no concept of evil, and made a good many horrifying
| decisions in service of total economic equality through forced
| poverty and mass enslavement. Because of course the people who
| don't want to quit earning, spending, owning and trading their
| goods and services need to be forced to do so, or else be
| eliminated.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| This only works if not everyone in society does it.
|
| It's easy for a lone person to ride on the backs of others, who
| are actually, you know, working for money, but if tomorrow we got
| rid of money society would collapse.
|
| With the way NYC is, I could quit my job tomorrow and mooch off
| others (SO many do).
|
| I'd be uncomfortable, but I'd live. If everyone did this there
| wouldn't be a NYC anymore.
| gimmeThaBeet wrote:
| I agree, if your grand answer to the torments of society is to
| just rely on that exact society to sustain you, it's not a
| sustainable answer. Even just something as simple as the
| cigarettes he scavenges, where does he think those are coming
| from? Like I'm sure you could grow some sort of nicotiana in
| BC, but it's not exactly North Carolina, and he's not exactly
| Thoreau. It's kind of stunning how close this guy is to
| Diogenes. Hates the Athens marketplace, never leaves (until
| captured by pirates).
|
| Tangential, but I tend to feel this way about a segment of van
| life philosophy, it's sort of the next level. People want to
| escape the drudgery of conventional society, so try to be a van
| life influencer, and have your life hinge on a large (van/bus)
| vehicle running on refined petroleum, probably the avatar of
| global industrialization. It relies exclusively on people who
| specifically do what you won't.
| jokoon wrote:
| Sounds like a modern day Diogenes.
|
| Money is the most basic social contract everyone agrees with. The
| problem of money today is that it overrides politics, so it
| shifts problems from one place to another side of the planet. Tax
| evasion or dodging, social darwinism and social inequality, money
| laundering, etc, money have always posed great problems...
|
| People will call money a great and indispensable evolution of
| human civilization, while arguing that socialism leads directly
| to gulags and famine (which is the worst strawman argument of
| people who will defend market essentialism).
|
| Money is a tool, but honestly, it's not very good at what it
| does. Governments and institutions already achieve most of what
| human needs, by allocating resources through political decisions
| and law. Banks are always privatized for some weird reasons and
| never do anything right and never improve the interest of the
| public.
|
| Doomists will say "we don't want to be hunters and gatherers
| again", yet cannot prove that capitalism allowed the apparition
| of science, technology and industry.
| ronyfadel wrote:
| > While meditating down at the ocean--and tripping on acid
| courtesy of the motorbike's new owner--he experienced what would
| become for him unshakable insights having to do with patience,
| fate, and love.
|
| I was waiting for that part since I started reading the article.
| Isn't this what the hippies in the 60's figured out as well?
| bbarnett wrote:
| It's what everyone figured out, always. Christ was a hippie.
| People has preached love, casting off money and such since the
| dawn of time.
|
| Usually youth, who then in their 30s decide they'd rather like
| money.
| ronyfadel wrote:
| I'm sure Christ didn't figure it out on acid though. I was
| referring to that bit specifically.
| bbarnett wrote:
| He probably used shrooms, which is close enough. :P
| joelbondurant wrote:
| Nothing makes communists more angry than tax cattle out of their
| pen.
| miga wrote:
| All of us have to use money, so we make every excuse to say it is
| the only way of life.
|
| Homeless, jobless people prove otherwise. You can live without
| money, but the standard seems quite low.
|
| I hear it is possible to survive without society too. But the
| standard seems even lower.
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