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A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

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Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#152
post #121
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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]

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#153

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

> 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.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#154

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…

>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 par…

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.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there examples of that in groups larger than Dunbar's number?

Indigenous Americans, prior to colonists’ arrival.

[source] Disney

Indigenous Americans practiced warfare, rape, slavery, and cannibalism no different than other peoples around the world.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#156
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.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#157

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…

>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 par…

> 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.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

>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.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#159

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

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 vagabon…

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.

Re: A Victoria man has gone two decades without money

#160

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…

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.

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