11–20 of 32 posts
Not having money is horrible. The only benefit of not having money is that it makes all other horrible life conditions and outcomes seem somewhat less horrible comparatively. It dulls the pain and stress receptors.
Centuries ago, home ownership was readily obtainable for anyone willing to endure the hardship of settling “the new world”. Case in point, the early Australian settlers essentially paid nothing for enormous swathes of farm land [1]:
> From about 1815 Sydney began to grow rapidly as free settlers arrived from Britain and Ireland and new lands were opened up for farming. Despite the long and arduous sea voyage, settlers were attracted by the prospect of making a new life on virtually free land. Many settlers occupied land without authority; they were known as squatters and became the basis of a powerful landowning class.
In light of today’s hot housing market, and the increasingly burdensome restrictions on immigration, it’s difficult to fathom how easy it used to be to change your lot in life with just some gumption.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_history_of_Austral...
>Frances McDormand plays the fictional nomad Fern, whom the story follows over the course of about a year of wandering around the American West in a sprinter van sometime after the death of her husband.
Fern does not drive a Sprinter.
Call me picky. Call me a pedantic asshole. It's OK.
> After some months spent living in a shack in town, the Ingalls family claimed a plot of land through the Homestead Act, one of the country’s earliest large-scale social welfare programs, which promised free land to white settlers willing to cultivate it. After five years, if a family could “prove up,” showing they had built a profitable farm, they could keep it. Centuries ago, home ownership was readily obtainable…
> After some months spent living in a shack in town, the Ingalls family claimed a plot of land through the Homestead Act, one of the country’s earliest large-scale social welfare programs, which promised free land to white settlers willing to cultivate it. After five years, if a family could “prove up,” showing they had built a profitable farm, they could keep it. Centuries ago, home ownership was readily obtainable…
I think you are romanticizing both who this was available to and how "easy" being a settler was...
Vagabonding isn’t what it used to be, insofar as there is seemingly not even the remotest chance in modernity of backdooring your way into zero cost homesteading. Societal advancement has come at the cost of those opportunities which have more or less vanished.
> After some months spent living in a shack in town, the Ingalls family claimed a plot of land through the Homestead Act, one of the country’s earliest large-scale social welfare programs, which promised free land to white settlers willing to cultivate it. After five years, if a family could “prove up,” showing they had built a profitable farm, they could keep it. Centuries ago, home ownership was readily obtainable…
> After some months spent living in a shack in town, the Ingalls family claimed a plot of land through the Homestead Act, one of the country’s earliest large-scale social welfare programs, which promised free land to white settlers willing to cultivate it. After five years, if a family could “prove up,” showing they had built a profitable farm, they could keep it. Centuries ago, home ownership was readily obtainable…
Weren't there some locals that had to be ... moved out first before the land was virtually free?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Weren't there some locals that had to be ... moved out first before the land was virtually free?
At some point in antiquity, it was feasible for human adults to settle “unsettled” land. It is a boring and simple fact that this is no longer possible. TFA used an example from the 1800s, so I stuck with that era. This is getting off topic.
But if you want people to be able to settle on truly unsettled land, I hear Mars is opening up soon.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you are romanticizing both who this was available to and how "easy" being a settler was...
These days anywhere desireable to live, and likely all known available farm land, is already owned by someone or some company. Vagabonding isn’t what it used to be, insofar as there is seemingly not even the remotest chance in modernity of backdooring your way into zero cost homesteading. Societal advancement has come at the cost of those opportunities which have more or less vanished.
I really enjoyed reading this article. But ... as the owner of a sprinter van, this sentence leaped out at me: >Frances McDormand plays the fictional nomad Fern, whom the story follows over the course of about a year of wandering around the American West in a sprinter van sometime after the death of her husband. Fern does not drive a Sprinter. Call me picky. Call me a pedantic asshole. It's OK.