Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 493 posts

Re: Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

#51

Post by imtringued »

mopenstein wrote: post #30
defrost wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'It' ? What exactly is immoral and why?

It's the coercive nature by which wealth is redistributed to other people that brings upon the questions of morality. If I'm forced at the end of a barrel of a gun to give up any portion of the fruits of my labor to support others, it is immoral.

I don't know what to tell you, but according to that standard the only solution to avoiding your kind of coercion is to kill yourself or end the universe.

1. Your parents gave birth to you, so they are the source of you feeling that something is just or unjust. Go complain to them that they brought you into this universe.

2. Take away the guns of the government. End result: other people still have guns. Organized violence by the government turns into non organized violence and you don't even get to vote. What if this results in more coercion?

3. Take away the guns of everyone. Guns aren't the only thing that can kill you. You are embedded in the laws of nature and are mortal. Therefore, the origin of that mortality must be erased, either by ending the laws of physics or by going to an afterlife.

Oh, by the way, if you eat meat or animal products, then you are worse than the thing you complain about, because we are literally stealing the fruits of their labor, including their body.

Re: Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

#52

Post by keiferski »

softg wrote: post #47
keiferski wrote: post #15

It's interesting how quality of life baselines have increased so much in the last century. If you wanted to have the QOL of someone that lived in the American West a hundred years ago, it could be done today for probably $100 a month all-inclusive of food, clothing, and shelter. But you'd be eating the same 5-10 things repeatedly, wearing the same clothes, have a few books for entertainment, minimal or no electronics…

> This was typical, to be expected a century ago, but with the nature of marketing and social pressure It might be typical and expected but that doesn't mean it was desirable even then. People lived that way because they had to. It was always considered a difficult way of life. It's more likely that people gave it up as soon as they could when they had the chance. I think there are two different concepts here. You ca…

You don’t need to go back that far. Even the quality of life circa 1950 would be very inexpensive to have today. But then you have less electronics, toys, clothes, food variety etc. This would cost more than $100 a month today, but it would be dramatically cheaper than the typical modern lifestyle.

With remote work, I’m not sure you really need transportation. If you do, a bicycle is $50. But again I’m not sure why you’d be commuting to a job daily in a car if the presumed objective is to have less expenses so you can work less.

We could quibble about the exact numbers, but my general point is just that quality of life expectations have increased so much, that if one can somehow "hack" this, living very inexpensively is quite doable – and comparable to how everyone lived not so long ago.

Re: Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

#53

Post by hkt »

keiferski wrote: post #15

It's interesting how quality of life baselines have increased so much in the last century. If you wanted to have the QOL of someone that lived in the American West a hundred years ago, it could be done today for probably $100 a month all-inclusive of food, clothing, and shelter. But you'd be eating the same 5-10 things repeatedly, wearing the same clothes, have a few books for entertainment, minimal or no electronics…

Interesting that you say that about books - libraries were common (in the UK at least) even before the 1870 education act. It would be a cheap subscription and the subscribers would choose what filled the shelves, often with direction from newspaper reviews or publications from intellectuals of various stripes, eg, the Harvard classics bookshelf.

Re: communes, this is a great observation. Again in the UK, there was a lot of growth with these things in the 1970s and they often involved lots of labour saving arrangements like doing work in groups, for the group. Meals are a good example of this, likewise laundry, cleaning etc. Anecdotally I've always found it easier to do most work when others are doing it too. It seems like a nice way to live.

Re: Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

#54

Post by Podgajski »

coolThingsFirst wrote: post #45
Podgajski wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a very low material quantity of life, but my spiritual quality of life is pretty good even as I live homeless with a disability in a minivan in the United States. Americans are way too materialistic and there needs to be a reckoning of this if anything is going to change. Even people I meet that live in other minivans or RVs want to have every single creature comfort they had when they were living in a house.…

What's the hardest thing about your life?

Thanks! I would say the loneliness because of the stigma of both how I live, and my mental illness. Even when I am out on the BLM land with people with other campers the fact that I live in a minivan is looked down upon.

And since I have to drive around so much to follow the weather It’s very hard to have long-term meaningful friendships.

The other thing is lack of stable healthcare but I am slowly weaning myself off of Western medicine so that has becoming less of a concern.

It’s not that I want to live this way, it’s the only solution I have right now unfortunately.

Re: Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

#55

Post by danbruc »

pavlov wrote: post #46
danbruc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would the aim of such programs not be to have a working society in those less populated areas instead of just filling it with non-working people completely dependent on others?

People change. Especially for young people, I personally think it’s valuable to give them opportunities that are not immediately productive. If you could get a 21-year-old to move into the countryside, it might have significant long-term upside even if the person appears like a slacker right now. They could find a spouse and have kids. They could come up with an online business (which might still look like “slacking…

Sure, but that is for the people that finance the basic subsidence to deside, they decide what they expect in return. If they want to give the money unconditionally, fine, then it would of course not be immoral to take them up on the offer. I do not know what the Norwegian rules say, so maybe it is like that. On the other if you structure it like that, you open yourself up for exploitation by people who could work but prefer not to. And this could very well make them reconsider the conditions or make the entire thing unsustainable.

Re: Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

#56

Post by efitz »

Podgajski wrote: post #36
keiferski wrote: post #15

It's interesting how quality of life baselines have increased so much in the last century. If you wanted to have the QOL of someone that lived in the American West a hundred years ago, it could be done today for probably $100 a month all-inclusive of food, clothing, and shelter. But you'd be eating the same 5-10 things repeatedly, wearing the same clothes, have a few books for entertainment, minimal or no electronics…

I have a very low material quantity of life, but my spiritual quality of life is pretty good even as I live homeless with a disability in a minivan in the United States. Americans are way too materialistic and there needs to be a reckoning of this if anything is going to change. Even people I meet that live in other minivans or RVs want to have every single creature comfort they had when they were living in a house.…

Americans are way too materialistic and there needs to be a reckoning of this if anything is going to change.

If this lifestyle works for you, then good for you.

Try raising children that way.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to live a comfortable life; the vast majority of humans forever have wanted this.

In the USA we have a problem with cost of living, but at the end of the day the reason for this is almost always misguided government intervention.

For example, in the housing market, many cities have made it prohibitively expensive to build high density housing (which is what is needed when you have high population density).

If you wanted to make medical care unaffordable then you’d design a system like the US system, with artificial limits everywhere on increasing supply, and (well I am well off topic but could go on forever on this).

I can completely sympathize with young people today who look at the ridiculous cost of living today and come to the (incorrect) conclusion that the problem is consumerism.

But it’s not. It’s a century of well-intentioned but ultimately harmful government policies.

Re: Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

#57

Post by pavlov »

exDM69 wrote: post #49
pavlov wrote: post #7

If you’re a citizen or legal resident of a Nordic country, you’ll get paid basic subsistence when you have no other income. In Finland this is around 500 euros / month. There are lots of empty houses in the remote countryside in Finland (and I presume the same is true for parts of Sweden and Norway). You can probably rent something for next to nothing, or even make a deal with the owner to stay for free in exchange f…

Owning a property comes with property taxes. And will make you ineligible for a lot of the benefits. And speaking of said benefits, it's a part time job keeping up with the paperwork. And the Nordics are a cold place, you either need to own some forest or pay for firewood and/or electricity or heating oil. Forest property is quite expensive. There's no way you could live in a cheap house in the Nordic countryside for…

Finland is full of cottages and remote houses where the property tax is on the order of 100 € / year. The owners are mostly living far away, having inherited the remote house which perhaps has some sentimental family value but barely any resale value. I don’t think it would be terribly hard to find a place like this to rent for a bit of money and upkeep work.

Re: Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

#58

Post by mo_42 »

I think it's not possible in general.

Humans seem to be part of superorganisms like ants. Basically, we need some form of social group to survive. Those who escape the superorganism tend to take resources with them (physical like tools or intellectual like skills).

But even if the former wouldn't be true, it is becoming increasingly hard. Humans have become the dominating species of the planet. In proportion to land, oxygen in the atmosphere, and other resources we're so large that the tragedy of the commons happens in all corners.

In my view that's at least part of the reason why we're getting so much regulation. A side effect of the regulation is that it limits the freedom for other ways of life than the default of superorganism. Or simply put, I cannot just move to the forest because it's owned by someone. I cannot fish because these animals are endangered and thus protected by law etc.

Re: Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

#59

Post by yuppie_scum »

mopenstein wrote: post #30
defrost wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'It' ? What exactly is immoral and why?

It's the coercive nature by which wealth is redistributed to other people that brings upon the questions of morality. If I'm forced at the end of a barrel of a gun to give up any portion of the fruits of my labor to support others, it is immoral.

You’re selfish.

Re: Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

#60

Post by imtringued »

danbruc wrote: post #14
defrost wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'It' ? What exactly is immoral and why?

Taking money from the state for which others worked to finance your life without making an attempt to finance your life yourself.

The inverse perspective is that you have been forced to not be able to finance yourself and I have both theory and evidence that this is true for a non zero percentage of the population. In that sense, not spending "other people's money" was never an option to begin with.

Instead of using a framing that sees other people as parasites, I prefer to see it as a bribe to people to get them away from me and leave me alone.

Post reply on HN