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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?

#401

Post by grecy »

pnut wrote: post #179
grecy wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, mayb…

I've driven from Alaska to Argentina, right around the coastline of Africa and right around Australia.

On the Pan-American Highway for two years I spent an average of $1,200 per month, for all expenses including SCUBA diving, shipping the Jeep (and flying myself) around the Darien Gap and everything else. That was 40,000 miles

In Africa I spent an average of $1,650 for all expenses including all National parks, visas, and all the rest. That was 54,000 miles.

I find it very difficult to believe sailing a boat with free wind power, free sleeping when at wild places and better access to free food costs more per day than driving a Jeep tens of thousands of miles that gets ~16mpg.

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

#402

Post by zx8080 »

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #392
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…

> I don't get to refuse work at a job or in general... Living is work no matter where. The monestary, for example, is no different than having a job to generate tradeable value to live. The article might really be interested in places where you can live entirely self-sufficiently, without relying on inputs that society voluntarily grants. For example, the Into the Wild guy in Alaska. He "lived" for "free", for a shor…

> just taking things from society without trade or agreement

Isn't it what some arostocratic and monarchy families do?

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

#403

Post by zx8080 »

It's possible to do nothing once there're some amount of property at hands. Such as land or real estate. A lease pays out not only its management and legal expenses, but also some profits.

Which means that "rich enough" owners can refuse to work (as in doing something meaningful to pertain a status quo or improve it) at all.

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

#405

Post by listenallyall »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #398
listenallyall wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fed up with crazy government spending = "not a big believer in society or community"? Have you actually thought this through? Government spending, especially without oversight, is an extremely inefficient method for "building community". The vast majority of taxes go to enormous, bureaucratic departments or programs with virtually no connection to individual people within one's local sphere. Donating to, and actively…

Churches by and large are institutionalized mental illness. Do not recommend. And while local institutions can be more responsive and flexible, they also cannot exist without a larger entity helping maintain their sovereignty. (Otherwise larger and stronger forces would overthrow them.) Local only can also be a hassle for things like commerce or civil rights. Imagine every city having their own currency or rules abou…

Of course local & regional groups and establishments can be flawed, you are correct that most are, some greatly so.

However the OP's point was that someone who is anti-tax (or just wants some accountability and transparency) is "obviously" both anti-community and anti-society. I'm simply saying that being deeply invested in one's community via direct participation in, and/or contributing to, any of a number of local outlets and groups, is not incompatible with frustration regarding the lack of control over the use of one's tax payments.

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

#406

Post by oska »

shrubble wrote: post #73
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.

Yrvind.com - this guy built some interesting and inexpensive boats and has sailed all over.

Really appreciate that link, thanks. Hadn't heard of the guy before.

Only started to explore his blog. I watched this video [1] to get an idea about the man and his boat design philosophy and it's very cool.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bca5_uyH9E4

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

#407

Post by BurningFrog »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #381
BurningFrog wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're arguing about the definition of a word. I don't find that interesting.

"we've reinvented capitalism" .. ok, so i'll substitute "capitalism" with "phrenology". Who cares about the definition? It's just a word, right? Claiming that A, B & C is the same as D surely needs to imply some concern about the actual meaning of D, no?

Words mean different things for different people and in different contexts. That there is only one universally correct meaning is true in Python, but just not how human language works.

Pretty sure what I wrote was understandable for most. You probably also understood it, but felt the need to complain about the vocabulary.

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

#408

Post by Ancapistani »

xnyan wrote: post #384
Ancapistani wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do those jobs still exist? Yes, albeit in a slightly different form. There are still lots of family farms out there, and they need workers of several stripes. Migrant labor for harvesting produce is commonly known, but there’s also a class of jobs out there where you basically act as an “apprentice farmer”. A family we’re close to has a poultry operation. They have around 15 houses (as in “chicken houses”), probabl…

>They’re having a lot of trouble finding people who they can trust to take that job Let's be generous and say room and board in a rural farmhouse and use of an old farm truck is worth an additional $1500, you would still make more money working 40 hours a week at my town's McDonalds, and if it's like any farm I've ever worked at you'll be working at least twice as hard and twice as long. That's not a job, it's exploi…

The economics of it are very different here. The per capita income is under $40k per annum, and housing costs are quite high relative to that. I don’t have a median income figure handy, but I’m confident it’s much lower than the per capita. I’d have to check, but as of last year our McDonalds was paying $14 / hour.

The pay is on par with other entry-level/unskilled positions here, and the figures above are what they were advertising - I’m certain someone who was a good fit could easily negotiate upward. I know they also offer guaranteed raises at six months and a year, though to be fair, I’m not sure how much those would be.

> if it's like any farm I've ever worked at you'll be working at least twice as hard and twice as long

I called it a “farm”, but it’s definitely not what you’d normally think of when you hear the word. It’s some poultry houses and a couple of hay fields. The majority of the responsibilities for the job would be centered around making yourself available to check the birds multiple times per day.

Honestly… if I were single, I’d probably make a pitch to take the job while working remotely as a “day job.”

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

#409

Post by Ancapistani »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #389
pixl97 wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be too snippy here, but I'm not sure you could possibly imagine anyone elses view but your own at this point... Start iterating over dozens of possible positions and you'll see yours is really a more extreme outlier. And while not Amish myself, I was born in the middle of Amish country and have quite a bit of experience with populations that choose to analyze technologies before they accept them into their liv…

I dont think that anyone denies the difficulty of self sufficiency in the middle of a dense urban city. I think the Ancapistani was providing context that this is not a universal truth. There are plenty of areas, outside of cities, where people live much more self reliant lives, and they are not third world hellscapes.

Exactly my point.

I’m definitely not saying municipal utilities are a bad thing - I’m sharing my experiences that show that they aren’t always necessary.

The comment I originally replied to said:

> Maybe people prefer having pressurized clean tap water and sewer systems due to something other than marketing and social pressure

I’ve lived in rural areas, small towns, and the “big city”. It’s not as binary a proposition as the original commenter was making it out to be. That’s all I’m trying to share.

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

#410

Post by dragonwriter »

Ancapistani wrote: post #326
stetrain wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it comes down to the same reasons people pay insane housing costs to live in major cities rather than buying a $50k house in the rustbelt. The former is often more net profitable due to job prospects, despite the higher cost of living. In addition to non-work amenities like social circles and dating pools. Maybe you can live for $100/mo somewhere, if you can solve the part of actually getting the deed to some…

> Do those jobs still exist? Yes, albeit in a slightly different form. There are still lots of family farms out there, and they need workers of several stripes. Migrant labor for harvesting produce is commonly known, but there’s also a class of jobs out there where you basically act as an “apprentice farmer”. A family we’re close to has a poultry operation. They have around 15 houses (as in “chicken houses”), probabl…

> The house isn’t a shack or something either - it’s an older farm house, but it’s a three bedroom, two bath home that was remodeled not long ago and has a half acre or so of yard. It would be a great place to raise a family.

For raising a family on $18K/yr + free rent?

It's basically, everything considered, the equivalent of entry -level fast-food pay, but worse because its mostly in non-monetary form, for a job with much greater skill and responsibility demands.

Yeah, I bet its hard to fill.

> All of that said - farmers like that don’t see their long-term help as just “employees”. They feel responsible for their welfare, and end up seeing them as part of the family.

Even if its true, what that ultimately means is that, as employers, they expect employees to sacrifice obligated, contractual compensation for the hope of future non-obligatory generosity in am a patron-client relationship rather than a bargained-for-exchange market relationship.

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