Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free? • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by bell-cot » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 2:58 PM UTC

giraffe_lady wrote: post #155

gniv wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually there are many orthodox monasteries (including in the US) where you can live for free and are open to women too. You have work whatever they give you, and of course obey the (pretty strict) rules.

You can live for free indefinitely as a non-monastic? I'm aware of these but only in that you can live at them for a few weeks or maybe months. Or indefinitely as you discern monastic life. But if you're determined to be ineligible due to worldly ties (debts, being a parent or eldest child) or incompatibility with the demands and lifestyles of being a monk you're supposed to leave.

With the plummeting popularity of becoming a monk or nun over the past half-century or so, I suspect that quite a few such communities would relax their requirements.

OTOH, any "you can stay indefinitely" offers would be given on an individual basis, contingent on both your behavior and their own situation (including the financial viability of their organization), and rather unlikely to include substantial medical care as you got older.

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

#172

Post by unflxw » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 2:58 PM UTC

caskstrength wrote: post #126

danbruc wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also immoral. EDIT: As this is collecting downvotes quite quickly, would any of the downvoters care to explain their stance?

> EDIT: As this is collecting downvotes quite quickly, would any of the downvoters care to explain their stance? Any discussion of social and/or economic issues on HN always attracts hordes of Tesla-driving SV champagne socialists.

I see this sentiment expressed often, but I don't quite get it.

Is the implication that if you personally enjoy a high standard of living through capitalism, it is therefore hypocritical to advocate for everyone to enjoy a high standard of living through socialism? How come?

(I am asking this question in good faith. Note that at no point I am stating that socialism would or could actually achieve a high standard of living for everyone. I am neither interested in having that discussion or claiming that position. Please don't reply with a Wikipedia copy-paste about the great famine)

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

#173

Post by jlmorton » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 3:00 PM UTC

aBioGuy wrote: post #68

No has mentioned that the initial assertion is incorrect? The US Government sent troops to remove native inhabitants. Then they gave the land away. Having an army clear the land ahead of time makes a lot of homesteading possible.

I agree the assertion with regard to America is incorrect. However, there were several truly inhabitable-yet-uninhabited territories discovered during the Age of Discovery.

http://www.radicalcartography.net/discoveries.png

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

#174

Post by tsss » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

btbuildem wrote: post #157

OP's premise of "living for free" seems to mean "not pay taxes" and "use what resources are available". I wonder what the motivation is here, I've heard this sentiment expressed many times. It usually seems to imply "away from others". Looking back at the millennia of human history, we've always formed communities, always assumed more-or-less specialized roles, and always used some form of debt to manage the social f…

If you're always the one who has to pay for everyone else you start asking yourself: why even take part in the community?

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

#175

Post by shyn3 » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 3:04 PM UTC

Podgajski wrote: post #39

bell-cot wrote: post #3

Summary: Yes...so long as your expectations for the quality and quantity of your life there are sufficiently low.

It’s not a low quality of life, it’s a normal human quality life.

If you are in America look up the laws. You may find a gem in the income tax "act" notice the quotations around act.

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

#176

Post by ethanbond » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 3:04 PM UTC

beedeebeedee wrote: post #169

btbuildem wrote: post #157

OP's premise of "living for free" seems to mean "not pay taxes" and "use what resources are available". I wonder what the motivation is here, I've heard this sentiment expressed many times. It usually seems to imply "away from others". Looking back at the millennia of human history, we've always formed communities, always assumed more-or-less specialized roles, and always used some form of debt to manage the social f…

> Looking back at the millennia of human history, we've always formed communities, always assumed more-or-less specialized roles, and always used some form of debt to manage the social fabric and facilitate the exchange of goods and services. I would say it is the opposite. Looking back at the millenia of human history, it is people migrating. Successive waves out of Africa and across the continents, and everywhere e…

1) a community that moves is still a community. A loner that moves around, by contrast, is usually dead within a week or two.

2) we didn’t stop moving around because there’s nowhere else to go. There is a huge amount of totally unpopulated (by humans) land in nearly every region. We don’t choose to live out there because it sucks. We stopped moving around because we discovered that instead of chasing food down all over the place, you can grow food right near you, then you can pick your favorite little bend in the river to shack up and live out your days with your buddies.

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

#177

Post by tsss » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 3:06 PM UTC

alwa wrote: post #148

aBioGuy wrote: post #68

No has mentioned that the initial assertion is incorrect? The US Government sent troops to remove native inhabitants. Then they gave the land away. Having an army clear the land ahead of time makes a lot of homesteading possible.

And for that matter, the clearance job wasn’t always exactly complete: part of the price of admission to your “free homestead” was fending off the occasional raid by its armed and rightfully furious former occupants. I suppose a similar sense of menace applies to some of the options on the linked inventory, but my first interpretation of the task was to think of places sufficiently remote/economically-irrelevant as t…

Rightfully? What right do they have to the fruit of the earth more than any other person? They only have the right to take it by force, if they can, as they did before from other people and animals.

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

#178

Post by bombcar » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 3:06 PM UTC

dharma1 wrote: post #37

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…

It’s called living on the dole, most western countries have social security like this. It’s not really meant for long term living but as a safety net for periods when you might find yourself unemployed. Also, most countries have very cheap housing in the countryside/remote areas, in northern countries you have to factor in heating costs which can be several hundred euros/month during the (long) winter.

You can find people doing something similar in the US in trailers (mobile homes) in the south, where the weather never gets horribly bad.

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

#179

Post by pnut » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 3:07 PM UTC

grecy wrote: post #130

em500 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obtaining a vessel that can reach international waters (let alone one that enables you to survive there for a long time) is quite expensive.

It's not hard to get a decent sail boat that would do the trick for well under $50k. For under $100k you're living large (literally). While that is not nothing, it's a heck of a lot less than we're all going to spent on rent (or mortgage) plus gas, car insurance, car payments, parking, house insurance, electricity, water and all the rest. "Cheap" is relative I guess.

There are plenty of people who have documented the actual cost of doing this over decades, to the penny.

A couple catching their food, doing their own boat maintenance. $300k over ten years is the line below which you are arguably living homeless like transient vanlife, but on water - that is, living on the margins of society, on borrowed time.

So buying a boat ($$), getting it fitted initially ($$), after that, maybe $2,500/month.

On my bucket list :D

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

#180

Post by beedeebeedee » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 3:08 PM UTC

ethanbond wrote: post #176

beedeebeedee wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Looking back at the millennia of human history, we've always formed communities, always assumed more-or-less specialized roles, and always used some form of debt to manage the social fabric and facilitate the exchange of goods and services. I would say it is the opposite. Looking back at the millenia of human history, it is people migrating. Successive waves out of Africa and across the continents, and everywhere e…

1) a community that moves is still a community. A loner that moves around, by contrast, is usually dead within a week or two. 2) we didn’t stop moving around because there’s nowhere else to go. There is a huge amount of totally unpopulated (by humans) land in nearly every region. We don’t choose to live out there because it sucks. We stopped moving around because we discovered that instead of chasing food down all ov…

> We stopped moving around because we discovered that instead of chasing food down all over the place, you can grow foor right near you...

If that was all there was to it, why did we keep migrating after the agricultural revolution?