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

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

#251

Post by mindslight »

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…

IMO the desire comes from a lack of a simple "base case", leaving you unable to truly reduce your level of consumption. You start looking at your monthly budget wondering what you can optimize. You can stop buying new consumer toys, you can cook food very cheaply, you can avoid entertainment/restaurants/drinks, etc. Yet housing rent is staring you in the face as a large unavoidable non-discretionary boat anchor, making the rest of your attempts at savings moot. So then you start asking what it would take to actually pull away from that economic millstone, and when you follow it far enough you get this question.

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

#253

Post by freeAgent »

narrator wrote: post #247
freeAgent wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like SV Delos, but they are very far from living cheaply, much less “for free.”

They had an episode where they talked about how much it cost and it was only a few hundred bucks a month each when there were a couple people on the boat and they were in lower cost parts of the world. That's pretty cheap for the kind of lifestyle they live. Brady is extremely handy and good at everything involved in boat maintenance so that saves a lot of money. The lesson I learned watching that show is sailing aro…

Yeah, for short bursts of time it can be a cheap lifestyle. But then you have times where you need tens of thousands of dollars of boat work (bear in mind their boat is 52’, not some “small” 30-footer like the Pardeys). They get a TON of stuff free or subsidized by followers (free cars, places to dock, places on land to live, TONS of expensive boat equipment…).

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

#254

Post by s1artibartfast »

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 dont think that is a historical take. I think the vast majority expansion was homesteading first, which troops and militias coming in only later and as needed when inevatible resource conflicts arose.

This is is closer to the cycle that expansion has always taken. Groups first expand, develop economic interests, and then fight over those economic interests.

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

#255

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

BurningFrog wrote: post #201
keiferski wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, which is why I don’t think any “post-work” society will ever happen on a mass scale. People will invent jobs if they feed a social need.

"Jobs" exist because division of labor is an enormous generator of human welfare. If I have to grow my own food, compose and perform my own music, build my own housing and vehicles, life will be shit. If we do have division of labor and pay each other for the work, we've reinvented capitalism. If we don't pay each other, the incentives are very strong to be a free-rider.

> If we do have division of labor and pay each other for the work, we've reinvented capitalism

Nope.

Capitalism, at least 21st century western capitalism, consists of 3 things:

1. relatively free markets, in the sense that what can be bought/sold and for how much is only loosely regulated

2. an entrepeneurial culture that supports the idea of "starting a business"

3. the idea that the rewards of any given human venture should go primarily to those who invest capital (rather than, say, labor or IP) in the venture

What you've just described doesn't specifically cover any of these three, and it particularly doesn't cover #3 which is the most pernicious aspect of capitalism (the other two could exist in a system that did not incorporate #3).

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

#256

Post by JohnFen »

beedeebeedee wrote: post #180
ethanbond wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

For a lot of different reasons. But when migrations happen, they don't tend to be individuals. They tend to be entire subgroups. So it's not people leaving community, it's a subcommunity splitting off.

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

#257

Post by dmoy »

Podgajski wrote: post #221
dmoy wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even a mess of a studio costs $800 a month which I can’t afford There are definitely cities in the Midwest where you can get studios for <$500/mo still.

Please name one that one that will not trigger my suicidal ideation. or just name one in general.

> will not trigger

Well I don't know what triggers you, so that's hard to say. If it's cold weather, then... nowhere in the Midwest

> or just name one in general.

Witchita, cedar rapids (Iowa), etc

If you go to a much smaller town, there aren't even many studios, but you can find 1/2br for the same.

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

#258

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #143
keiferski wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, which is why I don’t think any “post-work” society will ever happen on a mass scale. People will invent jobs if they feed a social need.

Why does that follow though? Why not just say: in the absence of labor, people would still like to make and do nice things for people to consume. Like, you know, enjoying life and sharing with others. A "job" is not a spontaneous effect of a desire, its not a natural thing, but simply a formalization step in capitalism for the sake of exchanging labor for pay. "Post-work" generally doesn't mean "nobody can work anymo…

> A "job" is not a spontaneous effect of a desire, its not a natural thing, but simply a formalization step in capitalism for the sake of exchanging labor for pay.

In any system including moderate technological complexity (e.g. roads, sewage disposal systems) there will be tasks that are useful, or even necessary, for a community but that nevertheless have low intrinsic rewards. Providing extrinsic rewards (e.g. money) in exchange for doing these tasks has nothing to do with capitalism.

What may have something to do with capitalism is whether or not people need to exchange their labor for goods or money in order to remain alive. In a system where this is no longer necessary, finding the right kinds of rewards and/or motivational culture to get people to do unpleasant tasks that still need to be done will be a challenge, I suspect.

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

#259

Post by dimal »

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…

> The loners, the hermits, the "self-sufficient" seem to be outliers, doomed for a hard, brief life

In the Pali Canon, the Buddha is often referred to as “the recluse Gautama”. Seems like he found a way to have a pretty good life though. Your generalization doesn’t account for the other path in history where hermits got away from the maddening crowd and found peace of mind and knowledge.

You’d prefer to live in society, and that’s fine, but everyone isn’t wired the same way. They may be outliers, but I would disagree with saying that they’re “doomed”.

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

#260

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

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…

> Personally, I'd much prefer to live in society, and contribute part of my efforts towards sustaining it.

A lot of people are stingy and don't want to contribute unless they're getting the bargain.

If someone else is getting the better end of the stick, they view this as a loss, and it makes them miserable.

Essentially, they view taxation and society as a zero sum game, rather than a positive sum game.

I think political polarization and extremism is making this a more and more common view.

I can't pay any taxes if $1 is used even indirectly for abortions, to fund wars, etc

Society is complex and can't really be reduced like this, but a growing number of people think it can be.

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