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?

#301

Post by keiferski » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 5:37 PM UTC

chongli wrote: post #280

keiferski wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they claim to be truly independent? Or just to operate in the way they want to inside the same system as everyone else? The relevant comparison here is to other citizens, not to other states.

I don't think it matters what they claim or don't claim. The way to evaluate the position is to imagine what the US would be like if 100% of its population lived in Amish communities, with an Amish lifestyle and religion+ideology. Yes, this hypothetical country would be peaceful and immune to the (justified) criticism the US receives over its intervention in foreign wars. However, think of all it (and the world) woul…

The way to evaluate the position is to imagine what the US would be like if 100% of its population lived in Amish communities, with an Amish lifestyle and religion+ideology.

No, it isn't, and that's not how game theory works. No one is suggesting that everyone be Amish, and it seems fairly obvious that the Amish would act differently (e.g., invest in self defense) if that were the case.

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

#302

Post by tigroferoce » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 5:37 PM UTC

scoofy wrote: post #249

safety1st wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean have you not read Walden? This idea of being more self-reliant and independent is popular with a lot of people, it's a central precept of certain schools of philosophy and ethics as well. No, they weren't all miserable hermits who died young. If you don't like that lifestyle it's fine, but you don't need to pee in everyone else's Wheaties.

Thoreau literally went home on the weekends.

Also, this dream ends the very moment you need an hospital. Hospitals are complex structures that require immense amount of resources to operate. Not not mention the resources needed to develop drugs, train doctors and so on.

Maybe you could live a solitary life, on your own, using only what your land provides you, but there's no way you could access modern health care, then.

Same goes for Internet access (all those subway cables were laid by somebody, probably subsidised by some government, at least partially).

Same goes for roads, and so on.

This is a myth very few people could live because the others don't and one way or another support them.

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

#303

Post by fragmede » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 5:40 PM UTC

pj_mukh wrote: post #283

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…

Maybe I'm being overly-simplistic, but what a lot of these folks are actually aiming for is closest approximated to being "Trust fund kids". Digging even deeper based on some conversations I've had with friends, a lot of these folks are running away from a string of bad bosses or toxic management. Every means of making a living requires putting up with a bad boss, so its not surprising they start looking for alternat…

> Every means of making a living requires putting up with a bad boss,

With a traditional job, if you have a bad boss, you've got up deal with that non-stop. If you're driving for Uber/Lyft, the platform as your "boss" is an app, for better or worse. More importantly though, if you get an unruly passenger, they're kinda your boss, but only for the duration of the ride (except for extreme cases), so you don't have to put up with them as a bad boss forever.

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

#304

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 5:41 PM UTC

foogazi wrote: post #299

brnaftr361 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more nuanced than that. As it's currently ordered society is a forced participation regime. I don't get the option to say "no." to a great many things. This is due to a loss of security, I don't get to refuse work at a job or in general, and in the case that I do it becomes a compromise, and this compromise is largely arbitrary because there are really very few actual social distinctions in the world cur…

> As it's currently ordered society is a forced participation regime Yes, as long as an entity owns the land they want to get paid for it - either to live on it, game, cross I’d say the free life doesn’t scale but maybe it doesn’t have to for those that can find their own corner of Earth Do Bedouin tribes pay taxes or tariff ?

[deleted]

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

#305

Post by pj_mukh » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 5:43 PM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #303

pj_mukh wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm being overly-simplistic, but what a lot of these folks are actually aiming for is closest approximated to being "Trust fund kids". Digging even deeper based on some conversations I've had with friends, a lot of these folks are running away from a string of bad bosses or toxic management. Every means of making a living requires putting up with a bad boss, so its not surprising they start looking for alternat…

> Every means of making a living requires putting up with a bad boss, With a traditional job, if you have a bad boss, you've got up deal with that non-stop. If you're driving for Uber/Lyft, the platform as your "boss" is an app, for better or worse. More importantly though, if you get an unruly passenger, they're kinda your boss, but only for the duration of the ride (except for extreme cases), so you don't have to p…

Exactly, which explains why app based platforms that underpay are so popular.

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

#306

Post by JumpCrisscross » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 5:45 PM UTC

DoubleDerper wrote: post #285

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…

> and always used some form of debt to manage the social fabric and facilitate the exchange of goods and services. This is the capitalistic narrative since the agricultural revolution, thousands of years ago, but it's not true of most of human history. During pre-agriculture we coexisted with many species, all living off the fat of the land, resources were plentiful for hundreds of thousands of years. A delightful co…

> resources were plentiful for hundreds of thousands of years

While they were plentiful. We chose agriculture because it means your entire tribe not dying of starvation because of minor variations in the local environment.

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

#307

Post by caskstrength » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 5:45 PM UTC

unflxw wrote: post #277

caskstrength wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am asking this question in good faith. I appreciate and will honestly try express my point of view on this issue in good faith and without being too snarky. > 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 Actually I come from a Ukrainian family that was affected by Holodomor, so I don't need Wikipedia to reason ab…

I appreciate your answer. It's hard to have these conversations online without it quickly devolving into a shouting match, hence my disclaimer. Not that I have any intent to defend this abstract group of people, but I don't generally get the impression that wealthy people who advocate for a greater social security net do so without understanding that it would necessarily be funded by their taxes. If they do, though,…

> Not that I have any intent to defend this abstract group of people, but I don't generally get the impression that wealthy people who advocate for a greater social security net do so without understanding that it would necessarily be funded by their taxes. If they do, though, it's certainly a nonsensical and unrealisable position.

Why would it be nonsensical? There is no wealth tax in US, their property taxes are capped by prop 13, their Roth withdrawal and re-balancing are tax free. Worst case scenario they will pay some long term capital gains tax, which is still somehow much lower than income tax. So what is left? VAT? Try suggesting increasing VAT and those people will lecture you for an hour how it would be "sO ReGreSsiVe!!1".

> That said, I don't get how this eleven-dimensional chess play to have the peasants pay for their healthcare costs during their retirement would be worth the effort.

I don't see how this is some eleven-dimensional plot. They leeched every single dollar they could while everything around them was slowly crumbling and turning into basically a big homeless camp, now they would like someone else to pay from the _income_ for tidying the place up while their _wealth_ is safely tucked away.

> If that's their end goal, wouldn't it be much easier to advocate for less public services and less taxation on the rich, pocket the difference into their investment plans, and use _that_ to fund their private healthcare plans?

Now that would indeed be a "nonsensical and unrealisable position" in California.

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

#308

Post by Podgajski » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 5:48 PM UTC

bhelkey wrote: post #233

Podgajski wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I found this in Pittsburgh. It is sub $500, has flexible dates, and includes all utilities except for electric. https://www.zillow.com/apartments/pittsburgh-pa/hampshire-ha...

Do you notice anything missing from that apartment?

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

#309

Post by FooBarBizBazz » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 5:49 PM UTC

brnaftr361 wrote: post #274

JohnFen wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder what the motivation is here, I've heard this sentiment expressed many times. I think it's the fantasy of having complete autonomy, of being completely free in the sense of never having to do anything that you don't want to do[1]. At least, that's that's the aspect of it that resonates with me. But it's only that -- a fantasy. Much like other things that we fantasize about, it's impossible as conceived beca…

I think it's more nuanced than that. As it's currently ordered society is a forced participation regime. I don't get the option to say "no." to a great many things. This is due to a loss of security, I don't get to refuse work at a job or in general, and in the case that I do it becomes a compromise, and this compromise is largely arbitrary because there are really very few actual social distinctions in the world cur…

> the government would still extract taxes from it, taxes which I would be obliged to pay, and thus I would necessarily require some income.

To solve this, you need to balance your obligations to the government (property taxes), against obligations from the government (bonds of some kind).

I'll use TIPs for my example, because it's harder for the government to inflate away these obligations.

A plot of land might have taxes of $1,000/yr. It looks like TIPs give a fixed real rate of 1.3%. So, $77k in TIPS will balance out your taxes. You need to add that to the true price of the land.

Obviously, there is the question of how you obtain that capital. So in a sense we are generally born "in the red", and need to work our way out of these implicit debts. But it can be done, even within the system.

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

#310

Post by Kye » Sat, Nov 04, 2023, 5:51 PM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #255

BurningFrog wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 ventu…

Capitalism's greatest trick was convincing people markets and capitalism are the same thing.