On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be • Hacker News Board

Re: On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be

#51

Post by moffkalast » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 9:57 AM UTC

jwr wrote: post #15

> We save even more on heating. For heating we use wood that we get from the surrounding forests more or less for free (just insert physical labor). Someone subsidizes your living, then, by giving you the wood. I mean I hope they are giving you the wood, because otherwise that would be theft. Where I live, most forest is national, and you can't even gather fallen branches. You can buy the wood or a permit to gather a…

Imagine being so hopelessly capitalistic that you label going out into nature to gather some wood as theft. Sweden is like 70% forest.

Re: On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be

#52

Post by throwaway290 » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 10:33 AM UTC

strken wrote: post #26

superchroma wrote: post #2

I strongly disagree with the premise. This isn't proper poverty, this is a borderline agrarian lifestyle utilizing various allowances as well as support structures intended for the poor. The author has a personal safety net, as well as a social one supporting them, and took advantage of lax property enforcement to build a house on state land. If you have means and options like they do, you aren't dirt poor. This isn'…

Yes. The piece from Resident Contrarian hit hard because it was about being trapped in poverty. Choosing to live with low consumption is laudable. I grew up in a thrifty household, though nowhere near so thrifty as the author's, and using less was much better for all of us. However, spending very little money but having a safety net and the opportunity to leave is the opposite of being trapped. It's like a controlled…

Perhaps this article can be actually instructive for a poor person then? Say you used to be trapped in poverty, but making it a choice reduces your psychological overhead and helps long term.

Re: On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be

#53

Post by jwr » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 11:02 AM UTC

paganel wrote: post #25

jwr wrote: post #15

> We save even more on heating. For heating we use wood that we get from the surrounding forests more or less for free (just insert physical labor). Someone subsidizes your living, then, by giving you the wood. I mean I hope they are giving you the wood, because otherwise that would be theft. Where I live, most forest is national, and you can't even gather fallen branches. You can buy the wood or a permit to gather a…

> and you can't even gather fallen branches. And that's stupid as stupid can be, and it's not theft. Around these parts of the world (Eastern Europe) that used to be customary practice for hundreds of years, maybe even more, meaning people taking the falling branches for heating purposes over the winter. Of course, as modernisation set on around these parts of the continent (thanks, Brussels) then all that became hig…

I think the issue is more nuanced than that.

If lots of people start grabbing anything which was traditionally up for grabs, pretty soon we will end up with cleaned-out forests (not good) and people chopping down trees. Also, this is not the only thing that governments lay claim on. You can't dig for coal, extract oil, or do any other mining operations, even if it's your land. It's part of living in a governed society — some thing become shared property.

Not to say I'm against someone picking up a few branches, just pointing out that this isn't as clear-cut as it might seem.

Re: On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be

#54

Post by ehnto » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 11:22 AM UTC

friend_and_foe wrote: post #47

ehnto wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You like diversity because it enables you to pay brown people to cook for you? This comes across as a shallow understanding of food, culture and the makeup of cities. Cities are often very multi-cultural, all over the world, and not just for food. All races can enjoy that diversity and a somewhat fairer playing field (depending on exactly where you live).

Not to insult, but this sounds like cope and rationalization to me. I could be wrong, but I don't think so. I come from a very, very diverse background and have a very diverse family, including my own personal one. There are 5 ethnicities in my immediate family. I've lived in a couple of very diverse cities most of my life. I've had all the food. It's nice, it's good. But when I hear people say they want to stay in a…

The link you are imagining between enjoying varied food and hierarchical racism is an insane leap to make so generally. You must see that. It seems that you think cities only exist to serve white people but as is the point, cities are often diverse, which is why they can support restaurants that serve different cuisines.

This isn't a very productive discussion, we could both be imagining entirely different cities and situations. I live in Australia, so I can't speak for American cities. The diversity in cuisine here comes from our now decades of immigration policies, people tend to immigrate for study or work, both of those things concentrate in cities, voila you have massive mixed communities serving mixed cuisines to that now multi-generational mixed community.

Re: On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be

#55

Post by paganel » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 12:16 PM UTC

jwr wrote: post #53

paganel wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and you can't even gather fallen branches. And that's stupid as stupid can be, and it's not theft. Around these parts of the world (Eastern Europe) that used to be customary practice for hundreds of years, maybe even more, meaning people taking the falling branches for heating purposes over the winter. Of course, as modernisation set on around these parts of the continent (thanks, Brussels) then all that became hig…

I think the issue is more nuanced than that. If lots of people start grabbing anything which was traditionally up for grabs, pretty soon we will end up with cleaned-out forests (not good) and people chopping down trees. Also, this is not the only thing that governments lay claim on. You can't dig for coal, extract oil, or do any other mining operations, even if it's your land. It's part of living in a governed societ…

> If lots of people start grabbing anything which was traditionally up for grabs, pretty soon we will end up with cleaned-out forests (not good) and people chopping down trees

That's not how it happened in the past (with exceptions, of course). Because of the sense of community you couldn't have cut all the forrest all for yourself and call it a day, you wouldn't have been allowed to do that, damn the State, your neighbours and the other community members would have gotten to you first. That's why and how that used to be the custom for centuries before.

> You can't dig for coal, extract oil, or do any other mining operations

Industralized societies can do that, but at the (old) community level usually you could not.

> It's part of living in a governed society — some thing become shared property.

I agree, in a way, it's the famous Gemeinschaft vs. Gesellschaft, my comment was trying to explain what happens to the people who get lost along the way during that transition (which is still ongoing in some communities in my country, even though by this point the transition is close to complete). For example if you used to get through the winter by collecting fallen wood from the nearby forest (because the Gemeinschaft was allowing it) you cannot do that anymore (because the Gesellschaft is now forbidding it), you'll most probably have to rely on direct financial help from a State authority (in most of the cases local), move out or die out freezing.

And about shared property, we didn't always need a government to impose that, and I'm not saying that from a libertarian/anarchist point of view or anything like that. Past communities and customary rules were pretty good at imposing some sense of collective ownership (I wouldn't call it "property"). Of course, that is almost gone for good, too.

Re: On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be

#56

Post by cudgy » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 1:10 PM UTC

pizza234 wrote: post #20

letrowekwel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wood is renewable, burning it for heating houses in countryside full of forests is perfectly sustainable. Not caring about social status is only smart, as long as your choices don't hurt others. It should be up to individual to decide what makes them happy within these limits. Instead of hippies I would be worried of consumerist sheep who think buying products/services makes them happy, and who destroy the planet in…

> Not caring about social status is only smart, as long as your choices don't hurt others This is a very interesting topic, which I find counterintuitive. In my view, they actually care about status a lot: they seek their own place at the exact opposite place on the spectrum, as a matter of principle. The author indeed stresses multiple times that both he and his partner are rebels. I get the very strong impression t…

> (for example, they talk about refusing stable jobs, but on the other hand, taking a variety of odd jobs)

Perhaps they prefer different, diverse jobs rather than a single job doing the same thing day after day. Their admitted aversion to authority would also result in more odd jobs due to likely conflict with bosses.

> There are more balanced positions where with more money, parents can give considerably more freedom of choice and experience at least to their children, without falling into a consumeristic lifestyle.

True, but avoiding consumerism is rarely the case in most modern capitalist societies. There are so many forces working against this ideal like peer pressure, advertising, government regulations, community codes, etc. The author consciously chose to live in a remote area where fewer of these forces are at play.

Overall I find the author’s actions to be reasonable and well thought out for their situation. My only quibble might be accepting the money from the government for his children given that there are possibly other families that need it more; the author seems intelligent, healthy, capable, and has some savings. But who am I to judge?

Re: On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be

#57

Post by cudgy » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 1:19 PM UTC

jay_kyburz wrote: post #16

letrowekwel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wood is renewable, burning it for heating houses in countryside full of forests is perfectly sustainable. Not caring about social status is only smart, as long as your choices don't hurt others. It should be up to individual to decide what makes them happy within these limits. Instead of hippies I would be worried of consumerist sheep who think buying products/services makes them happy, and who destroy the planet in…

The problem with wood is that if we all burnt it, there would be nowhere near enough, and our cities would be full of smoke and heavily polluted. Every household would need a lot land just to support tree regrowth. You have to be planting a lot of trees every year and letting them grow for a long time too. I don't agree with simple-thoughts on hippies, but I understand why we don't all burn wood for energy.

> The problem with wood is that if we all burnt it, there would be nowhere near enough, and our cities would be full of smoke and heavily polluted.

Isn’t this true of almost every resource, especially in modern societies? Think automobiles, potable water, air conditioners, heaters, food packaging, solvents, cleaners, pets, consumer waste, buildable land, lumber, drywall, pesticides, etc.

Re: On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be

#58

Post by tsukikage » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 1:51 PM UTC

jwr wrote: post #15

> We save even more on heating. For heating we use wood that we get from the surrounding forests more or less for free (just insert physical labor). Someone subsidizes your living, then, by giving you the wood. I mean I hope they are giving you the wood, because otherwise that would be theft. Where I live, most forest is national, and you can't even gather fallen branches. You can buy the wood or a permit to gather a…

Some version of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure happened in a bunch of places, and to a lesser extent or not at all in others. The set of things one can do in woodland vary massively around the world.

Re: On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be

#59

Post by vuln » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

friend_and_foe wrote: post #47

ehnto wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You like diversity because it enables you to pay brown people to cook for you? This comes across as a shallow understanding of food, culture and the makeup of cities. Cities are often very multi-cultural, all over the world, and not just for food. All races can enjoy that diversity and a somewhat fairer playing field (depending on exactly where you live).

Not to insult, but this sounds like cope and rationalization to me. I could be wrong, but I don't think so. I come from a very, very diverse background and have a very diverse family, including my own personal one. There are 5 ethnicities in my immediate family. I've lived in a couple of very diverse cities most of my life. I've had all the food. It's nice, it's good. But when I hear people say they want to stay in a…

> all I hear is a daft white person not realizing they're saying they like cities because the poor immigrants perform services that make their lives better.

Your comments and thought process is racist as fuck.

Do BIPOC not enjoy “ethnic food”? Do you not have any BIPOC friends? These “daft white person” you converse with what’s their educational background look like?

Re: On the experience of being dirt-poorish, for people who want to be

#60

Post by camtarn » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 2:57 PM UTC

moffkalast wrote: post #51

jwr wrote: post #15

> We save even more on heating. For heating we use wood that we get from the surrounding forests more or less for free (just insert physical labor). Someone subsidizes your living, then, by giving you the wood. I mean I hope they are giving you the wood, because otherwise that would be theft. Where I live, most forest is national, and you can't even gather fallen branches. You can buy the wood or a permit to gather a…

Imagine being so hopelessly capitalistic that you label going out into nature to gather some wood as theft. Sweden is like 70% forest.

It's more of a tragedy of the commons. The article's comment about wood really took me aback, because I'm part of a community that is currently having said tragedy.

We live in the UK, where forests are a lot rarer. We like camping in a forest by the sea, but it's become such a popular camping spot that people have completely stripped it of all fallen wood. This forest grows on particularly nutrient-poor land, so the forest rangers are begging people to leave the wood alone, as the rotting wood both feeds the soil and preserves local insect and plant ecosystems.

Of course, this is what happens when you have a lovely small forest near a big city. The author lives out in the back of beyond where there presumably just aren't enough people that such a situation could happen. I think it's a good illustration that our natural attitudes towards public land might vary a lot depending on the population density and circumstances we live in.